Ok, it seems like we're getting the same results at least. I was 48k, but the difference could easily be the perklines we chose.
I'll switch to the other bag so we can actually compare numbers.
Ok, it seems like we're getting the same results at least. I was 48k, but the difference could easily be the perklines we chose.
I'll switch to the other bag so we can actually compare numbers.
Well, you have to compare the rest of the professions' toolsets. Does anybody at all have lower defenses than Agent, even in a full DD setup? From what I've seen Shades have quite nice evades, health drains and even debuffs which let them handle a lot of punishment at higher levels if set up and played properly. Agent, well, they can run away every few minutes I guess, maybe snare stuff that doesn't either resist snares or just have infinite range. The various FPs afford varying amounts of survivability but the way they're tied to mostly froob nanos and no relevant perks really cripples them in a lot of ways. You also have to consider that an agent going for that particular setup is giving up aimed shot, which has its own set of repercussions, and is likely tied to FP: Trader or maybe Soldier, which means dealing with sub-par drains or a low-level TMS and no base reflects in the Shadowlands.Originally Posted by Saetos
Maybe things would be a bit different if agent had access to acrobat, CiB, bio shielding, or any of the other survivability perklines most of the other professions enjoy. But I imagine quite a few people would have something to say about that!
Last edited by Litestrider; Mar 24th, 2015 at 18:36:52.
^That is why I gave up on agent long ago and try to avoid serious argument when it comes to them.. I don't care what they do to it anymore and it feels so much better not too.
Sorry just a tad confused, are you saying that I'm way off base, or are you agreeing and saying that the problems with agent are pretty sticky and poorly understood?
I'd honestly be happy to be wrong if that meant I could re-do my agent and make him awesome
Well a team of shades can solo beast. What value does a team of agents have? We can answer that very easy..... "None" Considering our first role is basically meant to be a ranged dps prof which we suck at 100%. We should be on equal footing with our melee version being shade instead we are the court jester of ao.
I have super awareness and I detect that you are mildly displeased with agents performance.
Edit: notably, the reason why shades were able to solo beast is because they all perked Freakstrength 3 and chain stunlocked him.
Agents have FS3. How about you lead a team of agents to beast to see how mightily y'all can roar?
Gotta get with the times guys, It's all about Enf/Keep mixed team abusing FS3 + clarion call + Charge now
Displeased? I hope they are removed from the game. I'll gladly lead the mass deletion.
So much hatred for poor Agents, I guess having the current Highest DPM(possibly second behind Engi) and highest Detaunts at the same time isn't good enough for a DD setup or more def and HP than a sold while also having TMS and Escape for a tanking/def setup either.
Comparing Shade DD to my Shotgun agent is a moot point since shades can't even touch the kind of DD my agent can deal anyways, if said shade even wanted to try they would have to sacrifice Limber+ES for dmg perks aswell as be Setup for pure damage meaning no def gear. Not to mention most of my Agents gear can be swapped on the fly for Tanking or Def as my perks don't need changing unlike shades. 400k DPM FP sold Agent > 400k DPM suicide Shade GG
Please share your agent's def setup, because I've never found anything that resembles a real defense for agent. You talk about your shade sacrificing their defenses, but an agent never gets that option in the first place.
"...while also having TMS and Escape for a tanking/def setup" is particularly laughable. You're trying to make it sound like they have Dance of Fools and AMS V. If you aren't FP:Agent the escape nanos have half their effect, so you get 800 AAD for 15 seconds every 2 minutes. On top of what is very nearly nothing in terms of defenses from other stuff, that might let you evade some things if you go all-out and have no damage gear, but I'd honestly be surprised if it were useful in any raid or other hard-hitting situation. Agents are also capped at TMSX and RRFE (i.e. the stuff that a 200 froob soldier uses). Straight off that's no reflects at all while TMS is down if you're in the shadowlands, which is pretty massive. Even while TMS is up, TMSX only has a 75% reflect compared to AMSV's 82%, forgive me if I'm wrong but I believe that's well over double the incoming damage, and that's before you consider all the perks, nanos and gear that soldiers get to boost this damage mitigation. You take a lot of punishment despite that 75% reflect because you have nothing to support it, and then it goes down and squish.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather have pretty much anything tank rather than that guy. And that's pretty much the tankiest FP agent has. Stick a FP: Fixer or FP: Bureaucrat agent out there and see how long they last, even if they have every piece of evades/AAD gear in the game.
Like I said before, you have to consider the full toolset. I'd be perfectly happy with agents having less damage if they were able to mount a real defense, but they really don't have that option. Shades have acrobat, CiB, and various other defense/healing perks on top of their evade gear, they may not be super tanks but if you swap out some gear a shade will make a seriously good showing. Show me what an agent would swap into for tanking, I'm not being facetious, I'm genuinely interested in it if it exists.
If we give shades rifle and maybe pistol support.
We can move forward to deletion and removal of agents once and for all.
I wasn't even comparing Solds to agents nor was I comparing a >tanking< shade with agent but ok I'll bite.
"Straight off that's no reflects at all while TMS is down if you're in the shadowlands, which is pretty massive."
This either assumes said agent is solo in which case very few things could kill an Agent in FP doc/Adv anyways or that the team doesn't have a prof that can give reflects like say Engi or Sold. If I am to assume the later than I would still feel safe using a def agent with 31k HP(OSBd with hp from doc) and FP sold with TMS + Adrenaline Rush + Escape line for a quick boost in evades if needed over a lower hp tank.
"and that's before you consider all the perks, nanos and gear that soldiers get to boost this damage mitigation."
Gonna have to tell me what perks or nanos Solds have to mitigate damage besides reflects and precognition, if you just mean't those 2 than sorry to say but agents get a perkline with evades + RI if they FP for it (nanos will last 4 hours so it's hardly a hassle or time constraint). I'll give you gear mainly because of ofab back and only because of it.
"Stick a FP: Fixer or FP: Bureaucrat agent out there and see how long they last, even if they have every piece of evades/AAD gear in the game."
Either you're insinuating that someone would be dumb enough to use either FP with the intent to survive or that either FP has anything that boosts evades to help survive or hell anything that is even unique that Agents don't have. Not to mention no Agent uses either FP in pvm due to nothing in either line having anything viable to use but that's a separate issue to discuss. A good example of a non-standard FP is engi which gives a 1.2k blind that Agents can use as a perma 1.2k evade buff.
"Shades have acrobat, CiB, and various other defense/healing perks on top of their evade gear" Comparing a prof with the highest total def when accounting for drains to a prof not built for high evade (escape was not a AAD buff before) but instead versatility is not a very constructive comparison tbh. Compare Agent to something like a soldier that doesn't have evade perks and suddenly the difference is not that huge. Granted Solds have access to better nanos buts that's the problem of Agents not having more access to other nanolines and not perks/gear, give agents AMS 2 and Empowered Reactive Reflective Field for example and now agents are a more capable Sold tank solo and in teams with no engis/solds.
"Please share your agent's def setup, because I've never found anything that resembles a real defense for agent."
Not sure what you mean by "real defense" but if you mean something like 3.5k ish evades normal than no agents can't get "real defenses" nor will they in the future.
http://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=199862 Tried to make sure it still had viable DD when paired with taunts. 27.9k HP with lizard selfed using Gankar rifle , 2750-2800 def, prolly somewhere around 240-250k DPM as I've hit 300k DPM with rifle already.
Sure this won't tank Beast, Alb Keepers/PBs or 12Man but no ones expecting an agent to anyways, Use this setup in DB1/2/3 or Mitaar and suddenly it tanks well which is nice considering Agent is not a tanking prof to begin with.
"I'd be perfectly happy with agents having less damage if they were able to mount a real defense, but they really don't have that option"
Agents are actually asking for MORE damage so I'll let them argue with you about that.
"You talk about your shade sacrificing their defenses"
I made this comparison because I was comparing all out DD between Shade and Agent but I guess you decided to gloss over that part of my post.
Basically the main problem that's been talked about for years is Agents lack of usable SL nanos/SL Nanolines/Misc Nanolines with other profs, open up more or all nanolines for agents first and than we can see where agents are afterwards.
Last edited by Rockdizzle; Mar 25th, 2015 at 11:34:58.
Smells of flames here, but seriuslly, agent doing 250-300K dpm??? With a rifle, while tanking better than sold in team, with 30k hp, that soldier cannot get? Right. And then enfo comes to give Ibehe, crat and advy bring auras and MA buffs some evades. Meanwhile Engi and NT cast blinds and Shade goes Q-afk.
No said agents tanked better than Solds in fact:
"Compare Agent to something like a soldier that doesn't have evade perks and suddenly the difference is not that huge. Granted Solds have access to better nanos buts that's the problem of Agents not having more access to other nanolines and not perks/gear, give agents AMS 2 and Empowered Reactive Reflective Field for example and now agents are a more capable Sold tank solo and in teams with no engis/solds."
Says that agents are behind Solds, I think the problem was you misunderstood when I said Agents get more hp and def as being better.
I gotta make a quick Correction, the setup I posted won't hit 300k. What I mean't was I hit 300k with more a dmg gear setup so the setup I linked should do less dmg around 240-250k DPM. Just bad wording by me sorry heh.
Last edited by Rockdizzle; Mar 25th, 2015 at 13:00:52. Reason: possible misunderstanding about DPM
I think the problem here is yes, Agent can be a bad tank, but you don't team or make an Agent for that. You'd much rather have a soldier who has high HP, reflect aura, AMS, and still does really nice DD.
Solds get the same def from precog as Agents do from perking both lines. I think what he's referring to are the HoT perks and nanos, as well as sold-specific reflect equip.
I think ultimately the point is you can have a really tanky soldier who does solid DD, but Agents can't don't either comparably.
Our damage has improved with the new gun, but I'm not sure we're quite where we should be. I think for similar effort/sacrifice, an Agent should be competitive with DD professions (sold, engi, shade) in most team environments. This certainly isn't true on live, and I don't think trashing your toon's IP should be required.
We'll have to see what nanos get opened up. You're quite right about the morph and reflects. If we can get the Lizard morph not to cancel on zoning, as well as FPable reflect, aad, and +damage auras, that would make things much better. I still think we need a better crit mod, probably ~550, and repeatable AS. Combined, I think that'd be ~80k dpm, and your average endgame agent would be only a little behind sold/shade.
What ever happened to that defensive perk line that was mentioned for agents eons ago? I don't like the idea of lizard morph becoming a useful or required part of the toolset. Repeatable AS should have in the game for pvm at least long long ago.
Ok so... little known fact. Rui Manuel Monteiro Casais is now CTO & Managing Director at Funcom for the next 3 years as per the last shareholder meeting (Jan 30 '15). Somehow he got the rights to acquire 300,000 EUR worth of shares of the company (FC was at the time of the meeting worth 3,617,792.92 EUR) so in a single day a man I never heard of got almost 10% of the company and was placed in a very high administrative position in an EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING that from what I read, was pretty much ONLY called to get this one person a high position and a LOT of shares in his pocket (7.5 million shares).
Then in Feb a shocker, the 2014 Fourth Quarter Report (the Presentation is easier to understand) seems to give the impression that not only AO but also TSW actually continue to be PROFITABLE but they actually made more money than EXPECTED!?
Looking at this information, and then looking at (what seems like) a push on development in AO with 18.7 on testlive, I'm wondering if finally someone got the balls to ACTUALLY spend money to get things done so they can make more money off the investment. Maybe this new CTO & Managing Director is behind it all and that is how he ended up with so many shares and his position... if so, there is a pretty good chance the AO community is gonna love/respect this guy...
Now why do I post out of the blue after so long? I've gone through some bad times, still am unfortunately. So today I decided to see how bad FC was doing financially before I decided to even post anything. I expected bad news because 2014 seems to have been a year full of bad news when it came to AO/FC. Surprisingly the result of my research, was the opposite to what I expected.
It doesn't mean a full turnaround and complete recovery of all the crap the community has gone through in the past few years, but it certainly seems to be a turn on the road to a brighter future.
So... thank you Funcom, and all the people that work there. You must be doing something right.
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Ofc, If you have a better tank option in your team go for it. Wasn't really what I was going on about tho, was mostly making a point that Agent are not so nerfed that they require being removed entirely or getting absurd perks like Dof or Bio cocoon because a shade with 4k+ evades without DoF/Limber/ES up has them.
Don't get me wrong Agents could use a boost in pvm(scary enough in pvp as it is already tho) but I'm more than certain that most of what Agent needs can be obtained from updating what they can use with their toolset and some rifle DD.
Welcome back WG. Keep on trucking mate. AO has been Death, Death for ages, but it'll never truly die, not with this community. I can see all the PvP crowd acting out tower wars with sock puppets before AO really lays to rest.
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Tip #743: As noted in Tip #244, tea bags have an infinite variety of uses. However, there's always one jerk who will want to give you crap over drinking tea. Particularly if in a new town, use this as an opportunity to assert yourself. Any drunken idiot can win a bar fight. It takes a real man to win a bar fight while enjoying a cup of Earl Grey.
Reading this instantly made me think of this:
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