Balanced fights

[Gatester]

There is a trend on the forums to only point out the fights that are lopsided or unfair in one way or another. Have we ever tried to establish which fights are actually fair and balanced? Not just one-on-one either, although they would certainly be the majority, but even groups that can properly counter each other.

Rather than looking for factual accuracy, how about we just discuss our experiences with fair fights, or one's we felt were balanced. Including all levels and not just 220 is good as well, since I would primarily focus on the pre-220 aspects of PVP as well. Assume actual PVP setups or gear, unless you have a specific PVE setup that resulted in a balanced encounter.


168-174 ranged adventurer vs 168-174 fixer.

I had many fights with fixers and more or less they were drawn out fights that relied on timing of what perks could land and a slight reliance on luck with procs and specials. Both could win at any time, but a better player would tend to win more often. NCU crash/PO could offset the fight a bit, but bio cocoon was the typical counter if a fixer actually landed it.


75 MP vs 75 NT/74 MP vs 74 NT

Surprisingly a profession with NSD having an incredibly long fight against a casting reliant profession does occur. NT's have high NR which counters NSD landing quite well. The NT can also debuff the MP to prevent it from being used, meaning the MP would be relying on dominates and mind quake or a lesser nuke instead. Besides resisting much of the overwhelming casting power an MP can produce, NSII allows them to buffer the high damage from nukes and emnity until the NT mezzes the pets.

The result is an MP usually having moderate weapon damage and lower nukes trying to eat through an NT's health and absorbs without running out of nano, which will happen if the MP is not careful. The NTs damage is actually lower, so the fight is determined by the NT's ability to survive until the MP can no longer fight.

[wonderland]

We shouldn't need to do that if everyone that just came to the balance discussion had an understanding of PvP in the first place.

Mistaking numbers in a few places is okay with me, and doesn't mean that you don't understand the general gist, but not having a large, clear understanding of the large picture isn't.

"hurr durr my doctor cant kill a fixer my bureaucrat dies to soldiers and shades then my nanotechnition dies to melee agents all of them need reworking"

"enforcers are just like walking gumbo machines gaining pvp score from everything and they just walk over soldiers"

"my fixer cant root or snare shades it wouldnt work"

"how can i ever land bureaucrat debuffs against an nr2 keeper i mean its just not possible its not okay they wont ever land"

You shouldn't need to come to the balance discussion to teach people PvP, it should be discussion between people who are actually able to exchange useful thoughts and ideas, and Funcom be able to reap some production from it.

[Gatester]

People prefer to make up stats or just ignore them completely rather than admit they fail at PVP, expecting them to be rational and rely on proof at all seems to be unreasonable. Asking for balanced fights felt like a good way for people who actually had that clear understanding of what was happening in the fights to express themselves without those who were clueless disrupting the thread.

Actual imbalances do exist as well, but the causes of those imbalances are often misunderstood as well. I think this thread, if it where to be used, would provide some beneficial testimony about the state of AO's PVP.

[Mostadio]

220 engi vs 220 advy, though in the end the advy can always run away. An advy that kites will destroy the engineer, one that goes toe to toe is a crapshoot.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I did 220 engi+220 fixer vs my 220 advy the other day.

I tanked them both for three cycles of coon while intermittantly putting distance between me and the pets.

I played against same engineer a day later, and he had refined his timing, and tanked very effectively using heal over time perks liberally and conservative usage of coon.

I faced a decent pvp doctor on my ranged advy and tanked him for 8 minutes, after which my daughter started fussing and I had to go afk. I offered a draw, but he declined, and he beat me. I never expected to win that fight, but I lost on grounds out of my control.

Advy vs MA seems quite close lately. MA's with 300 towers and raid buffs are very strong vs ranged advy with no raid buffs and only 150 transfer tower. but witout significant AR towers, advy vs MA is easy win for ranged advy.

advy vs enforcer is a great great fight, with nearly every match coming down to the third DOF/limber cycle and then it's usually a matter of who's perk fires first (advy defensive, or enf offensive).

advy vs fixer is easy win for advy
advy vs soldier is easy win advy
advy vs doc is hard win for doc or easy loss for advy
advy vs crat can go both ways, but on a properly set up crat with low HP and ES up, circumstances favour crat
advy vs shield MP is good fight, but can be favourable to advy provided heal pet is killed 2x before going offensive on the MP himself
advy vs agent FP doc is very very tough fight for advy - realistically almost a 100% to lose unless FA swap is used which can mae it a closer fight
advy vs advy is a great fight, nano no longer seems to be the deciding factor - I have had great defensive fights that have gone for over 10 minutes, with full nano at the end
advy vs non MR shade favours advy, but atrox shade with MR is favoured slightly
advy vs trader favours trader
advy vs keeper favours advy, advy vs MR keeper still favours advy

[Mostadio]

I faced a decent pvp doctor on my ranged advy and tanked him for 8 minutes, after which my daughter started fussing and I had to go afk. I offered a draw, but he declined, and he beat me. I never expected to win that fight, but I lost on grounds out of my control.

This is the kind of crap that always bothered me about AO pvp. Two classes that can heal themselves ad infinitum without every worrying about running out of resources. The fight ends up going to whomever wears the poopsock the longest.

[Genie]

This is the kind of crap that always bothered me about AO pvp. Two classes that can heal themselves ad infinitum without every worrying about running out of resources. The fight ends up going to whomever wears the poopsock the longest.

It wasnt always like that. It used to be so you had to conserve your resources as a casting profession. Im hoping that the balance will make resources a factor again, and that you can no longer just rely on an infinite nano pool.

[Gatester]

Remove nano delta and you can severely nerf the offenses of most professions as well. The question is whether people want that or not, they might but its a lot different in practice.

[Contra]

No thanks on removing nano delta. As I see it, we're playing a sci-fi game in the future, we fight monsters and use nanotechnology and laser weapons. Casting professions should not run out of nano. It should be tricky to keep nano up, but not run out of it mid-fight.

[Gatester]

No thanks on removing nano delta. As I see it, we're playing a sci-fi game in the future, we fight monsters and use nanotechnology and laser weapons. Casting professions should not run out of nano. It should be tricky to keep nano up, but not run out of it mid-fight.

I think a balance between nano dependant casting and non-nano dependant casting would solve this. You should run out of nano if you cast too much or are pressured hard by a strong opponent. The majority of this game's PVP is revolved around the nano toolsets of professions, which means those with the strongest nanos do the best.

Traders massive draining at all levels (that is to say it is effective when it lands).
Enforcer rage+mongo+absorbs endlessly spammed.
Doctor healing, advy healing.
NT nukes.
Crat debuffs and nukes.
Fixers spam CC and HoTs (although they actually run out of nano)
Agents at TL5 and lower having excellent access to many strong nano toolsets.
Engineers with powerful nano-based static defenses.

I'll bring up the weakest casters to support this as well.

MA nano toolset is weak, they rely on perks+items to win and are the hardest profession to use in PVP.

Shade nano toolset is weak, rely entirely on perks, difficult as anything other than atrox in PVP.

Keeper nano toolset is weak, rely entirely on perks and regular damage, very difficult to be successful in PVP.

Soldier has AMS/TMS, on/off switch makes them incredibly easy to kill outside of standing fights.

MP nano toolset is weak. How can I say this? Top nuke is a tl4 nuke, their defensive nano locks out ALL casting for 30 seconds, their debuffs are negligible in PVP, NSD is difficult to land and eNSD does not last long enough to kill most targets who usually just run away.

Agent at 220...still using a TL5 toolset.


Please keep in mind so that no one misunderstands, I did not say these professions were the best, strongest, worst, or weakest. I pointed out that they do the best, that is they are used with the most ease. If people ran out of nano, imagine how much stronger MAs, shades, keepers, and soldiers would be in pvp. If MP's were one of the ones who did not run out, imagine how much better they would do as well being able to actually last until their opponent could no longer cast.

Agents are still screwed

[Ocene]

There's no balance.

[Psikie]

There's no balance.

For balance pvp would need to be reduced to rock-paper-scissors where every prof has weaknesses vs at least 2 or 3 others. Above and beyond 1 nemesis nano.

[Shaguar]

Health and Nano Stims - stupid idea
Endless nano = extremely stupid.

[vitriolic-v]

it should be discussion between people who are actually able to exchange useful thoughts and ideas

Have you considered, perhaps, that there are huge barriers to entry for PVP in this game? A huge learning curve? That newbies literally CAN'T participate except as fodder (unless someone else equips them, and they push exactly the buttons that their mentor tells them to push, without a thought, and then they're TL2 trader twink clones)? Maybe the problem that you have with people posting that don't understand PVP in this game isn't as simple as "*eyeroll* guys that's NOT how PVP WORKS, it's this highly refined art, you're not ALLOWED to have FUN until you've been at it as long as I have!"

BALANCE DISCUSSION FORUM: SERIOUS BUSINESS.

[wonderland]

TL7 health doctor.

Took some time thinking about this, decided to work on putting a a nice amount of text into it.

Nanotechnition.

You will find that their alpha is not very strong. Because you init debuffed them over 4800 with all of your procs together, not including malpractice and now their double takes 12s to cast at full agg. Malpractice II and III should lower their nanodamage, also. They are able to debuff your nanoskills, but, even with that, you should still be able to outheal all of their damage with Cellular Recuperation regardless. A doctor, with even 18000 health should survive fine and well against any nanotechnition. When their shield comes down, you should be able to kill a nanotechnition within about 10 to 15s with just low attack rating pistols, damage over times, and malpractice.

Adventurer

Ranged adventurer could not kill you, but, you should not be able to perk a ranged adventurer unless you have an attack rating setup with pistols. You will not be able to perk any adventurer with dance of fools up.

If you have under 21000 health, you could find yourself being scared from melee adventurer's alphas. A strong melee adventurer can cap you with sneak attack, hit a high dimach, and maybe kill you if you are low on health, get a brawl stun on you, and have no reflects up, and didn't use a free movement stim.

To kill an adventurer, though, you should need your full nano, and a sheffy's micro-coil proc up. If you cap one aimed shot on them, then throw on one damage over time and malpractice them, you should find most adventurers dying. It is a use of all of your nano, though, with adventurers high nano resist, and evades. It is much faster if you have an attack rating setup.

If you do not have aimed shot, you will not find yourself killing any strong adventurers.

Most of the time, you should not find yourself dying to adventurers though.

Engineers

No engineeer could do enough damage to you. No engineer could drain you enough using their grenade perks to kill you. Decreptitude or uncontrollable body tremors their pets, and the engineer themself, and even with an alpha and master's bidding hitting every pet attack, they couldn't do enough damage.

You could take some time to kill an engineer, though, they should not be able to heal off enough of your damage.

Enforcer

You're playing free movement stim to their alpha. If you free movement stim their alpha, and take note of what init debuffs you have on yourself, you should be able to survive. Enforcers could be very scary, though.

If you do not have aimed shot, you will not find yourself killing any strong enforcers. Pistols will take a while, and their high nano resist will cause it to take a while to even get a Malpractice II on them. If they have two speed preservation units, you will not be able to use uncontrollable body tremors on them. You must kill them when they are not alphaing you, and when they alpha, they will heal off a nice part of their health most of the time.

Init debuff procs are useful to killing enforcers, as it causes them take much more time to cast their absorb nanos.

Agent

If they perk PvM perks, and use them on your with a sneak attack swap, unless you have a free movement stim using as they land their first stun on you, you will die, unless their sneak attack was under 3000 and you have more than 27000 health. If they are perked without their capping perks, they will usually be survivable, if you have a free movement stim for their stun. Normal complete heal may be necessary if you have enough init debuffs on you. Either hale and hearty perk should be used to remove their uncontrollable body tremors.

When they have used one alpha, they will usually die. You will usually find that a few damage over times and malpractices will be too much for them to heal with, if you have uncontrollable body tremors on them. If an agent is NR1 or 2, they may get enough time for a second alpha.

Fixer

Does not have a strong enough alpha, or enough stuns. If you free movement stim their stun, you should be able to heal. Only with a capped aimed shot and full auto could it possibly be scary, and even then, one free movement stim could get you a heal before they kill you, as long as you have over 24000 health.

They have high evades and nano resist, and you will want full nano and a sheffy's nano coil up to malpractice them if you have pistols, or with a tiger, ranged energy carbine, or such against a strong fixer. You could place a PvP damage over time on them if they have an init debuff proc on them.

Bureaucrat

They could do a lot of damage, if they get a capped aimed shot on you, and alpha you without init debuffs on them. If you have the pets and the bureaucrat init debuffed, though, they could not do enough damage to kill you if you have more than 22000 health.Their init debuffs, being unremovable (Unless you uncontrollable body tremors or decreptitude yourself and remove it to remove malaise) could cause your cast times to be around 6s, which would keep you healing if you do not have init debuff procs on them.

It is a lot on the bureaucrats setup and nanos, and whether you land init debuff procs on them or not. Would you completely init debuff them, they would do very little damage.

Keeper

I'm sure there's no smart keepers in game that do this, but, swapping an Edge of Tarasque with a Spear of Forbbiden Ceremonies, 181 Sapphistic Bow, capped sneak attacks and aimed shots with purify, pain lance, slice and dice perks could actually kill several doctors. Especially with brawl stuns when they free movement stims. This would be very much on their specials actually capping though, and would brawl actually stun. Which would be pretty much completely on their critical, because of their sneak attack and aimed shots skill being low. If not every special hits high, with their brawl stun landing, they could find themselves not killing any doctor above 23000 health.

Otherwise, though, they could take aimed shots enough to die after a while. They could not have high nano resist without notum repulsor 2 or higher, and could take any damage over time or malpractice pretty well.

Most doctors with pistols, and over 25000 attack rating should be able to perk a keeper, with at least pistol perks.

Martial Artist

Can kill you. Their critical could cause them to get a high aimed shot and sneak attack. With stuns and init debuffs, you could find yourself using a heal perk or using a free movement early to heal off their alpha. If they alpha correctly with red dusk, spending one second too late to free movement could kill you. Keep uncontrollable body tremors on them, and you could find their alpha managable. They could remove it, or it could just not land though.

They do not have really, really high nano resist, and you could malpractice them. Keep uncontrollable body tremors on them, try to keep damage over times on them, and malpractice them, and you could find that you killed a martial artist before their second alpha.

Metaphysicists

Most metaphysicists do not do their nanos correctly. Would they do their nanos correctly, they should find themselves doing a large amount of damage to a doctor in a few seconds, and the doctor doing low healing in return to try to heal it off. Doing a metaphysicist in is mostly on your init debuffs being on him and all of his pets, keeping malpractice II or III on him, and not dying.

If they do their nanos incorrectly and just so happen to land regular nano shutdown on you three times before 1m, you're just going to die or run away. If they land Nanobot Contingency Arrest on you, which is completely on whether their autoattack's 5% change lands on you, you will die. 1 minute of unremovable nanobot shutdown.

If they do nanite enhanced nanobot shutdown, they will do no damage and they will die from your weapon attacks and aimed shots, when you have them and their pets init debuffed.

Soldiers

Needs high special damage to kill you, and you could still heal with a free movement stim on their stun. You could always kill them when their AMS goes down. If they spend too much time to AMS at the start of a duel, you could kill them before they AMS.

Soldiers may work with your nano with high healdelta, but they do not ever have high nano resist. Would a soldier use two speed preservation units, you would not do uncontrollable body tremors on them.

Shade

Shades are completely roulette.

You would be able to heal their alpha with a free movement stim. You would find yourself healing twice, maybe three times, would a shade alpha you.

Sheffy's nano proc would keep you at enough nano from their nanodrains. Would that actually go off. "That" being both their nano drain procs and your sheffy's coil.

Enough high aimed shots, and a shade could die. That is if you have your init debuff procs on them, and it takes them too long to cast their shade's caress. If they do, they should get some nice healing. Of course, if you would still have your sheffy's proc up, you could still stay up enough time.

If your sheffy's proc does not go off, you do not have enough nano to heal, and definitely not enough to get any damage on the shade through nanos to kill them. If their nano drains do not go off fast enough, or your sheffy's proc goes up enough, you could stay alive and most likely kill them.

Trader

You would always be able to use complete heal against a trader. Would both of their procs land, and they have both drains on you, you will still be able to use normal complete heal. You will still be able to use low nano gains to heal yourself, through grand theft humidity and their nano drain line. They would have a lot of nano drains to keep you from using malpractice on them.

Would a trader use his nanos correct, you would be spending a lot of time waiting for all four of the drain removal perks to come up, then using all four of them to try to malpractice, aimed shot, and damage over time the trader when your sheffy's and grand theft humidity nano regain come up. You will be spending a lot of time looking for those windows of opportunity.

Would you encounter a trader, and their first few drains do not land on you, you could find yourself killing a trader very fast if you use enough damage over times, malpractice, and get several nice hits and aimed shots on them before they drain you enough to use all four of your perks.

Doctor

Would they land their init debuff procs, uncontrollable body tremors on you, and you could not have healperks, hale and hearty, or a complete heal casting, you will die. Pistols would be much better to duel other doctors with, from the perks.

Have you considered, perhaps, that there are huge barriers to entry for PVP in this game? A huge learning curve? That newbies literally CAN'T participate except as fodder (unless someone else equips them, and they push exactly the buttons that their mentor tells them to push, without a thought, and then they're TL2 trader twink clones)? Maybe the problem that you have with people posting that don't understand PVP in this game isn't as simple as "*eyeroll* guys that's NOT how PVP WORKS, it's this highly refined art, you're not ALLOWED to have FUN until you've been at it as long as I have!"

BALANCE DISCUSSION FORUM: SERIOUS BUSINESS.

None of this makes any sense, or is nearly coherent.

[Contra]

NT
-stuff-
My NT manages to alpha doctors just fine. And 28-30k HP docs, not 22k. I can zip through 22k HP on my NT like it's not even there

Shade

-stuff-
You won't survive the nanodrain, period, especially if you spam Malpractice. A good shade will drain you dry even with your proc. Also, they could be using stun proc, so you can only FM the first stun, then another comes and you die. Also, you need 28k+ HP to survive the basic un-drained alpha(w/o swap) and the reflect graft is an absolute max.

Agent
-stuff-
Smart agents use swap alpha. Enlighten me how you hope to survive a perfectly timed TS/AS/FA/CS/Fuzz/feast/SA/Dimach.

stuff

[Sromp]

^
Agent:
Missing FA, non-cap booster AS, 800 SA, Healer cloak reflect, MotR, withered flesh, NM coon, fm stim, BI proc up, faceroll BGH, chain heal/teamheal/BGH 2s after AC to fire in stun, time heal to finish as swap completes, etc


Frankly, this thread is probably not going to do what it should do.

[Gatester]

Frankly, this thread is probably not going to do what it should do.

I know

What a shame, I thought it would be a healthy discussion too but it seems to be too difficult I suppose.

[sultryvoltron]

^
Agent:
Missing FA, non-cap booster AS, 800 SA, Healer cloak reflect, MotR, withered flesh, NM coon, fm stim, BI proc up, faceroll BGH, chain heal/teamheal/BGH 2s after AC to fire in stun, time heal to finish as swap completes, etc


Frankly, this thread is probably not going to do what it should do.

And sometime those Trox Docs will just NEVER go down.

[wonderland]

^
Agent:
Missing FA, non-cap booster AS, 800 SA, Healer cloak reflect, MotR, withered flesh, NM coon, fm stim, BI proc up, faceroll BGH, chain heal/teamheal/BGH 2s after AC to fire in stun, time heal to finish as swap completes, etc


Frankly, this thread is probably not going to do what it should do.

No, his delusion that he will control effects based on algoriths that are beyond his character's control will result in him capping every single aimed shot and sneak attack. His shade nanodrains will drain the amount of Grand Theft Humidityx1000, and he will control his shade's stun procs to cause them to specifically when he alphas, and they will refresh when the doctor uses a free movement stim.

and his nanotechnition will have every perk used at once, a triple, detonation matrix, and will swap a 300 ofab silverback mk 6 to do a capping aimed shot within .5s.

But, yes, I could easily imagine this not doing what it should do.