Hard counters

[McKnuckleSamwich]

deleting items in protest?

what was the response?

[Manicmouse]

deleting items in protest?

what was the response?

thread win lol

[Gatester]

deleting items in protest?

what was the response?

Response? 1hb and 2hb perks got major improvements and 1hb and 2hb weapons were improved to be superior to 2he were they not? Obviously, my actions resulted in the existing outcome...


In reality I was just annoyed when FC continued to make 2he superior to blunt options when they had a clear opportunity to change that and decided that the only way to avoid being a hypocrit who continued to use 2he anyways was to delete my Xan of Pride. It was not a protest in which I was actually seeking a response, I merely felt compelled to say enough with the bull**** and actually backed it up.


Believe me, if I thought deleting things could get changes made to this game my level 1 trader would have been deleted a long time ago.

[Otansaanpas]

FC has no tools to monitor character balances.
all buffs, nanos, items and profession abilities are pulled out of someones behind without much thinking how they affect game play.
and as far as i know, it is exactly the same with upcoming re-balance that was cleverly renamed to "system changes".
Things are going to change, but balance of any kind will not be achieved.

[Soliartist]

Hi folks!

My apologies if my on-going commentary will probably not bring anything new on the AO PvP operating table discussion but, as a MA player I can certify that when I'd fail to win a duel, I could only blame myself for it. Lack of swiftness mainly, eventually became reluctant to use my toolset to its fullest because God knows my play-style wouldn't allow me to slack PvP wise. That made me lose quite a few rides, depending on my mood and stamina. But it never felt harsh or anything, I neither ever had a good computer nor an awesome mouse nor a brilliant keyboard, the Internet's always been average, I know there is worse but I sure know you could find a lot better!

The key is the player, his will and finest dedication to his character. Believe it or not, anything else is trifle, to a certain extent, at least when it comes to most skilled players. Just like someone who starts to play Poker will find himself bound to randomness, whereas it occupies a very small place in the game of top-notch players. Maybe that one example sucked but I hope y'all get the big idea.

P.S : No offense meant for any of you dear MA fellows, let alone towards you Noobast, but an Enforcer who manages to land Slowdown, has SA/Dimach up as well as MR should not be able to take down a MA. We can live with all that and trust me I even asked good Enforcers to alpha the **** outta me without Limb/DoF and it would NEVER work (as long as you pay attention and have your whole toolset available that is, duel kinda encounter, mass PvP wise most Enforcers are not even good/serious enough to worry about whatsoever). If you don't have anything up and he's like MR/Dimach well yeah, this will happen once every thirty minutes if he's constantly on you, no biggy.

P.P.S : I betcha nowadays, if you perk Disha it becomes hell of a joke, to tank an Enforcer.

[Gatester]

Welcome to the biggest problem with this thread which became a long standing debate that accomplished nothing.

Having the tools to survive and win the encounter determines a hard counter. Having the skills to use the tools to survive and win every encounter determines profession difficulty. Noobas was not incorrect in what he stated, but he spoke from experience and difficulty and not from actual capabilities. My theoretical stand-point was appropriate but fails to be evident in use.


In short, few lack the skills necessary to PVP well with an MA, while many are capable enough to kill with an enforcer.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Welcome to the biggest problem with this thread which became a long standing debate that accomplished nothing.

Having the tools to survive and win the encounter determines a hard counter. Having the skills to use the tools to survive and win every encounter determines profession difficulty. Noobas was not incorrect in what he stated, but he spoke from experience and difficulty and not from actual capabilities. My theoretical stand-point was appropriate but fails to be evident in use.


In short, few lack the skills necessary to PVP well with an MA, while many are capable enough to kill with an enforcer.

Or proximity to servers.

If an enforcer has a 3.5 second head start on any alpha... MA don't stand a chance, no matter what.

If an MA is close to servers, and has a 1s latency, ...yea, probably can make a very significant difference in survival. but, unfortunately, in 3.5 seconds, thats enough time to have slowdown land, launch all perks, have three HARD hitting perks land another in the pipeline thats un-counterable, probably land brawl+Fast attack+1 normal+SA+dimach

based on my experience thats
2k dmg *3 =6k damage
800dmg brawl
1k dmg fast attack
1k damage normal
4k damage SA
4k damage dimach

for a total of 16800 damage in the 3 seconds before my NCU has even registered slowdown.

Given that I've got 17k HP on my MA, if I land one hit on his 400 dmgshield - I lose, and theres no stopping it.

Plus, theres probably another 8k damage coming in perks in the following 8 seconds

That, is, unfortunately not a skill argument, thats a latency argument, and there's no counter.

[Gatester]

Defending has always been the real challenge in PVP, it is why offensive based professions are so popular despite not necessarily being the best.

Best example I can possibly give:

Def focus NT > Off focus NT

Anyone wanna guess how many 165-220 NTs are off focus and how many are def focus most of the time? Now make a list of who we consider the best PVP NT's and how many of those primarily play def focus.


Latency has nothing to do with balance though Counting dimach is no good either, its a stupid special that should just be removed or balanced into a non-duel breaking special.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Defending has always been the real challenge in PVP, it is why offensive based professions are so popular despite not necessarily being the best.

Best example I can possibly give:

Def focus NT > Off focus NT

Anyone wanna guess how many 165-220 NTs are off focus and how many are def focus most of the time? Now make a list of who we consider the best PVP NT's and how many of those primarily play def focus.


Latency has nothing to do with balance though Counting dimach is no good either, its a stupid special that should just be removed or balanced into a non-duel breaking special.

It's also why profs that have ambient defences are also so strong.

Take soldier, for example, once AMS is up, ALL, ALL they need to focus on is offense. A soldiers job is to kill his foe. His job is not management of defences.

Enforcers, with 60-70k HP, for the first half of the fight, ALL they need to do is kill their foe.

Shield MP's with insane defences and reflects, all they need to worry about is killing their opponent.

Fixers, with complete non perkability, do not need to worry about defence (except vs nukers) - they ONLY need to worry about killing their foes. (this is obviously a retarded example becuase of troa'ler, you can now just q123, 123, 123 to kill a fixer in about 2 cycles of DOF.

Anyway, on the other hand, you've got profs that are ultimately defensive as well, like advies. Advies WILL kill you, if you don't kill them first. so advies main job is to manage defences, and never get caught in perkspam.

Doctors similarly, WILL kill you, if you don't kill them first. Docs don't need to worry about perkspam, they need to worry about nano recharge, stuns and nano init debuffs.

Whats weird is how a majorly defensive setup may allow you to play more offensively, becuase of unperkability (like MPs for example)

Whats also interesting is that it's hard to place MA's in the offensive or defensive category. MA's can be played defensively or offensively and do really well in either method. Like, I've been playing my MA with q brawl... brawl... perk... brawl... brawl... brawl.perk.dimach and only focussing on healing and since I've started playing like that, even in non PVP gear, I'm winning a lot of duels becuase people just can't seem to figure out how to beat me. Whereas most MA's play all out uberoffensive, and a lot of people expect that so their chances of getting the surprise kill goes down.

[Contra]

Fixers, with complete non perkability.

hi, I have this magic button called mongo rage that will piss on any fixer's "non perkability".

[McKnuckleSamwich]

hi, I have this magic button called mongo rage that will piss on any fixer's "non perkability".

feast and bot confinement isn't exactly WTFOMGBBQ.

[Contra]

Not just AI perks, every perk.

[Cratertina]

nothing is as hard counter to soldier as engi. Today i played engi gimpy tradeskiller against several soldiers. In a duel soldiers die in about 30 seconds. Its like a fat kid eating candy.

[sultryvoltron]

nothing is as hard counter to soldier as engi. Today i played engi gimpy tradeskiller against several soldiers. In a duel soldiers die in about 30 seconds. Its like a fat kid eating candy.

It is beautiful, beautiful revenge against soldiers spamming RI on my Agent.

[Armus]

nothing is as hard counter to soldier as engi. Today i played engi gimpy tradeskiller against several soldiers. In a duel soldiers die in about 30 seconds. Its like a fat kid eating candy.

That's because engis cancel out pretty much all damage a sol has AND the engi also cancels out all def a soldier has. And both requires no skill or twinking, just cast the nano and kill.

Been said many times but noone at fc listens.

[whitey]

Defending has always been the real challenge in PVP, it is why offensive based professions are so popular despite not necessarily being the best.

Best example I can possibly give:

Def focus NT > Off focus NT

Anyone wanna guess how many 165-220 NTs are off focus and how many are def focus most of the time? Now make a list of who we consider the best PVP NT's and how many of those primarily play def focus.


Latency has nothing to do with balance though Counting dimach is no good either, its a stupid special that should just be removed or balanced into a non-duel breaking special.

Dimach? That's not even in the same ballpark to how bad the NT's NBS is at duel breaking.

I also consider the 'best' PvP NT's (at TL7, at least) to be def focus. Off focus is almost complete noskill.

As for NT hard counters:

Fixer (sort of)
Crat
Shade
Soldier (Off focus only)

Basically anything with little to no defence besides evades. NBS+double/triples are pretty much a hard counter to everything.

Hard counters to NT:

Trader
Doc (sort of)
Agent
MP (Without NSD removal perks)

Enforcer Is an extremely difficult profession to beat but it is beatable. Same with keeper, MA and Advy.

However, the biggest hard counter to NT is obviously the Nano Repulsor perkline.