NT Testing / Feedback requested for latest patch on Testlive.

[Vinkera]

I played around in IS myself, keeping our discussion here in mind.

I think the reason my NT can do so well in there is due to the fact that her absorbs are actually strong enough to matter against their attacks. Because of that, it would actually be possible for her to solo Hezzak, Inobak, and Dominus at the same time.

But, everywhere else, they really aren't. My 60 can't insta-cast them at full def, even with maxed nano init, and a pretty high level compiler. I could go out of full def, but the absorbs don't take a full hit from the things she would need to spam them to survive anyway. It's a similar story at 220. The bigger baddies punch clean through our absorbs in one hit. Add to that, Looping Service is really nice, in that it casts an absorb for you via proc, but it still overwrites Superior Fleeting Immunity. It can actually be extremely bad, instead of helpful, depending on when it decides to go off.

Absorbs are definitely a weak link, across the board.

[Cratertina]

True, in inferno against dynas I was always not quite sure weather to spam absorb or not... It is however great in pvp...

Maybe if NTs had a long lasting 40-50% reflect...

But not sure what to do, my partial solution was to run healdelta imps. But even that is not enough...

[DigitalBath]

To solo Inf Dynas (up to and including Scary Spider) with reasonable success I go for as close to 3k static def as possible while keeping 2600+ MC, Use blind 'til ~40% hp without refreshing layers, get NS2 up and stim myself back up, refresh layers and blind just before NS2 is down and then try to make it 'til the next NS2 with as little layering as possible.

If RNG is unkind to me I pop Aegis and chain-layer at around 20-25% hp while using stims whenever they're up 'til the next NS2 is up, after which I use Nano heal perks and get ready for the next "round". If I need to pop a 2nd Aegis before nano heal perks are back I use IW, but only after that Aegis is up. Using nano healing things during Aegis generally means I'm going to get rekt. Ymmv.

I love solo'ing things on my NT but I admit that my Shade is far easier, smoother and faster. It also can solo much higher level things, of course.

[Vinkera]

I did a bit more thinking, and this time...

Blinds...

I don't see any reason we can't have dual functioning blinds. What I mean is, PVP and PVM durations are different, using the same concept as UBT does currently. Current durations of blinds are fine for PVP. PVM wise, they're awful short, and casting them cuts down our DPM by around 5%. Changing their durations to 1 minute for PVM would be a small, but effective change. Seeing as this affects no one other than the soloer, I don't think that's asking too much. :P

PVP wise, we had the black screen effect removed, and WE actually asked for it as a majority. I kind of figured that change would affect all blinds, but there are still some capable of blackening the target's screen. I'd really like to see all the black screen effects removed, or ours given back. Personally, I think the black screen stuff is cheese, and needs to just be wiped out across the board.

[Psikie]

If the /assist changes make it to live...I would vote for black screen to be placed back on our blinds since it will make a huge diff in pvp. Without assist we could sit back and blind. As long as we dont ever hit Q to get "auto-target attacker", we might never get targeted! bwahaha

[Vinkera]

If the /assist changes make it to live...I would vote for black screen to be placed back on our blinds since it will make a huge diff in pvp. Without assist we could sit back and blind. As long as we dont ever hit Q to get "auto-target attacker", we might never get targeted! bwahaha

Heh, I admire the humor there, but you do bring up an interesting point I didn't think of. If /assist is removed, it would actually be smart to have it all one way or the other, in terms of the black screen effect.

As a side note, I consider issues like multiboxing and whatnot, to fall under the category of "not my problem". I don't make decisions or suggestions based on or around it. I have the interests of the overall experience of legit single players in mind.

I'm not picking on you, just stating for the record, and to cut off any deviation of the topic, before it starts, in a direction I'd prefer it didn't go.

[mechanuf]

Another option to assist NTs in PvM would be to improve the range debuffs, make them actually matter. They seem useless both for PvP and PvM, as most high level players and mobs have silly long range. Even melee mobs can hit you from a surprising long range. Upping them wouldn't acffect team or group play, but could work miracles for PvM ... especially for leveling NTs that dont have 2500+ evade ratings.

A leveling NT has a huge problem soloing range mobs, especially those that seems to have teleporting fists.
Even roots wont help you.

[Vinkera]

Another option to assist NTs in PvM would be to improve the range debuffs, make them actually matter. They seem useless both for PvP and PvM, as most high level players and mobs have silly long range. Even melee mobs can hit you from a surprising long range. Upping them wouldn't acffect team or group play, but could work miracles for PvM ... especially for leveling NTs that dont have 2500+ evade ratings.

A leveling NT has a huge problem soloing range mobs, especially those that seems to have teleporting fists.
Even roots wont help you.

It would be nice if they were added to, at least, the PVM function of Blinds. If we get the PVM / PVP dual functions, that is.

[fevaxium]

About differentiating delayed nukes and doubles.. maybe make one of them usable without cyberdeck so there is a possibility of using pistols ? our symbs and ofab gear give pistol skill but it can never be used as it is.

Another suggestion: make all current nukes that require cyberdeck usable without cyberdeck but with 30~% damage penalty ?

[DigitalBath]

Another option to assist NTs in PvM would be to improve the range debuffs, make them actually matter. They seem useless both for PvP and PvM, as most high level players and mobs have silly long range. Even melee mobs can hit you from a surprising long range. Upping them wouldn't acffect team or group play, but could work miracles for PvM ... especially for leveling NTs that dont have 2500+ evade ratings.

A leveling NT has a huge problem soloing range mobs, especially those that seems to have teleporting fists.
Even roots wont help you.

As long as the mechanics of this are solid (range in certain areas has always been very glitchy, especially in SL) and the PvP crowd doesn't go insane.. this seems like a good idea. While kiting isn't necessarily the playstyle I'd advocate.. blinding and rooting are core parts of the NT toolset and they could work well together if this was done properly. The only problem would be, again, balance.
NT's could, with enough caution, render many strong mobs helpless and trivialize a lot of content that way for themselves and/or their team.

It would be nice if they were added to, at least, the PVM function of Blinds. If we get the PVM / PVP dual functions, that is.

That and.. probably increasing the values across the board on our Blinds may be an option. It's our main debuff and it's a bit on the low side if we look at, for example, engi blind auras and the way they can be used. I've had VERY interesting results with an opi evade/aad enfo and an engi spamming blinds on many high-end encounters.

About differentiating delayed nukes and doubles.. maybe make one of them usable without cyberdeck so there is a possibility of using pistols ? our symbs and ofab gear give pistol skill but it can never be used as it is.

Another suggestion: make all current nukes that require cyberdeck usable without cyberdeck but with 30~% damage penalty ?

Personally I'd like to keep things separated. It would be good to have a good chunk of our nukes not require the Cyberdeck so there could be alternative playstyles to our profession. The problem is we really could use a unified, playable main style first.
Playing a NT to 215 can be a daunting task given our very low defense and unbelievably low damage in some level ranges.
Fixes for a lot of that are coming as soon as possible though and when that's done I'd be happy to tackle non-Cyberdeck ideas.

--

As for the greater problem in this upcoming patch.. I think we need to understand what Offensive and Defensive Focus should mean. No defense at all in Offensive Focus would require ABSURD amounts of damage to make up for it. Is that something we want? Is that even viable and wanted as the direction of our Profession by FC?

Currently Defensive Focus has good balance in PvM and PvP. We can't solo Mitaar like a Shade does but aren't as crippled as we once were.
Offensive Focus (which is useless on testlive for the time being) should have enough appeal (be it PvP-only or both PvM and PvP) to be used. Since a NT Alpha seems to, VERY SADLY, be something people oppose to, I think our options are:

- Have enough sustained, non-Alpha, DPS that even healing professions would have trouble taking them for too long. This can be achieved by powerful DoTs or lower cast/recharge nukes that would feel like a lot like Stargasp to use. Not a very fun way of playing but...
- Have a stun %chance nano like Electrifying Containment with decent enough damage that we could use together with other nanos to take a well defended target down during Aegis.
- Have "themed" nukes with different effects (sort of like the old Nano Documents had coming). Some could cripple inits or nanoskills/nanopool.. take a specific reflect damage type down.. have a strong healing efficiency/reactivity multiplier.. etc. This would make for fun gameplay but might be a bit more complicated to achieve balance with.

For the time being I'll propose the most simple fix possible to the issues raised by the current Testlive patch:

- Make both Doubles' damage ticks pierce reflects as it was in the previous iteration, with the delay as it was before.
- Change the Pierce Reflect nano to only affect the Radiation damage type. This will make the higher total Pierce Reflect duration a non-issue.
- Keep the current cooldown values for now, changing them only in case one of the two Offensive-only nukes happens to be effectively useless.

Thoughts?

[mechanuf]

Another suggestion: make all current nukes that require cyberdeck usable without cyberdeck but with 30~% damage penalty ?

How about turn it around and let the CD have a simple %nano dmg bonus?
All regular single-target nukes could be cast without the CD. You are free to equip any weapon.
If you instead go CD, you get a %nano damage buff (on the CD itself) and full access to all nanos, including special ones like doubles, delayed, etc

Not too hard to implemennt: if you give CD 30% nano dmg, then knock a similar amount of dmg from base damage on all nukes.
=> CD wielders dont loose a thing. Non-CD wielders get a bone.

[mechanuf]

- Have enough sustained, non-Alpha, DPS that even healing professions would have trouble taking them for too long. This can be achieved by powerful DoTs or lower cast/recharge nukes that would feel like a lot like Stargasp to use. Not a very fun way of playing but...

Dreadful gameplay, I'd say. Most encounters in team favours alpha-ish playstyle. NT is already slow in that department and I'd like to not enhance that even further.
How many times haven't we started casting at a target, only to see it dead half a sec before the nuke lands?
Longer cast times would also make us stand still and effectively tank in solo play. One of our main defenses are to be outside of the mobs range (or at least should be)

- Have a stun %chance nano like Electrifying Containment with decent enough damage that we could use together with other nanos to take a well defended target down during Aegis.

Stun is kind of cheap shot fix to anything. Adds nothing in PvM really.

- Have "themed" nukes with different effects (sort of like the old Nano Documents had coming). Some could cripple inits or nanoskills/nanopool.. take a specific reflect damage type down.. have a strong healing efficiency/reactivity multiplier.. etc. This would make for fun gameplay but might be a bit more complicated to achieve balance with.

Could make some interesting play styles, but very hard to balance and very hard to make combinations actually worth using, instead of just using your biggest nuke and brute force someone/something to death. Especially hard to make the different nukes both scale while leveling AND still stay relevant at end game. For example if you got a nano-drain nuke at 210, it would have to have 210-damage rating ... which would be kind of crappy at 220. Too many different options / combinations would make our set of nukes explode. Shortcut-bar problem deluxe.

Perhaps it instead could be combined with a secondary proc nano instead? Like those that shades use. Stun-proc nano gives all nukes a chance to stun, etc

[DigitalBath]

How about turn it around and let the CD have a simple %nano dmg bonus?
All regular single-target nukes could be cast without the CD. You are free to equip any weapon.
If you instead go CD, you get a %nano damage buff (on the CD itself) and full access to all nanos, including special ones like doubles, delayed, etc

Not too hard to implemennt: if you give CD 30% nano dmg, then knock a similar amount of dmg from base damage on all nukes.
=> CD wielders dont loose a thing. Non-CD wielders get a bone.

Changing the vast majority of our old nukes is not viable at this moment. A lot of NPC's rely on them and the game breaks very easily if they're tampered with in any way. That's why we're mostly going for new nukes / changing certain specific lines that won't affect other things in the game.
It's worth mentioning that Profession changes are taking a secondary role at this point and new content (instances, etc) are the primary focus. This means that small and simple ideas for fixes are more likely to make it in-game.

The idea itself has merit, though.. and our damage does still need a boost in PvM anyway so maybe this could actually fix both issues at once if we just manage to hit a sweet spot between the %dmg applied to the Deck and the DPM of pistol setups (or any other weapon) with the current nuke damage values. Definitely want to see what Vinkera thinks of this

Dreadful gameplay, I'd say. Most encounters in team favours alpha-ish playstyle. NT is already slow in that department and I'd like to not enhance that even further.
How many times haven't we started casting at a target, only to see it dead half a sec before the nuke lands?
Longer cast times would also make us stand still and effectively tank in solo play. One of our main defenses are to be outside of the mobs range (or at least should be)

The idea was actually the opposite. The example of Stargasp was given because it's a very short cast/short recharge nano that, if taken as a template and adjusted to fit the high PvP damage/second requirement would serve essentially as a powerful DoT where you cast every tick by yourself. I agree though, dreadful gameplay.. but I'm just trying to get us somewhere other than "Offensive Focus is dead".

Stun is kind of cheap shot fix to anything. Adds nothing in PvM really.

I mentioned it because we have precedent in Electrifying Containment (chance to stun + nuke) and Neuronal Stunner (very cumbersome and not really useful stun). Again, just getting the ball running here.

Could make some interesting play styles, but very hard to balance and very hard to make combinations actually worth using, instead of just using your biggest nuke and brute force someone/something to death. Especially hard to make the different nukes both scale while leveling AND still stay relevant at end game. For example if you got a nano-drain nuke at 210, it would have to have 210-damage rating ... which would be kind of crappy at 220. Too many different options / combinations would make our set of nukes explode. Shortcut-bar problem deluxe.

Perhaps it instead could be combined with a secondary proc nano instead? Like those that shades use. Stun-proc nano gives all nukes a chance to stun, etc

The proc(s) would be a nice touch. Wouldn't affect our gameplay too much and damage values could be adjusted independently of the proc.
There might be some merit to this. Would love to hear other NT's thoughts on this.

[Vinkera]

Honestly, the easiest solution to PVM and PVP damage problems is to just do a heck of a lot more damage in offensive focus, plain and simple. But, offensive focus should come with the drawbacks I mentioned earlier. Otherwise, we should just scrap offensive focus, completely.

But, it mostly matters what everyone wants. Right now, the biggest problem is we are falling back into the area of a profession without a real defined purpose, other than power-leveling people on Kite Hill. What Funcom wants does play a part in how we develop, but if, as paying customers, you all want X, Y, and Z, you should get it in the most reasonable form it can be delivered. What I need from you all is, what do you, in your own words, think NT's should be capable of and why. The "how" is not really necessary at this point, since I've got my own, state-of-the-art, IdeaFactory (tm), and could probably blurt out a 10-20 page thread myself if I listed them all out individually. The problem is, they're all pretty useless unless we have a direction to push toward.

Vote with your dollars

[drainbamage]

I need from you all is, what do you, in your own words, think NT's should be capable of and why.

Nano shades, more or less. Top tier damage, minimal support, but not made of glass, either. NTs already have a fairly solid defensive framework; just throw in some kind of sustainability (life drain that shares a cooldown with GIVA? maybe weaker or ineffective against players if PVP balance is an issue) and solo PVM will probably be a lot less painful.

[mechanuf]

My view of the NT would be a techno-version the good'ol wizard or sorcerer in fantasy settings. We dish out ranged damage and huge explosions.
We should be fragile as kittens, but have tools to keep enemies out of range. If an enemy got into close combat with us, we should have a big problem.
The damage should be explosive and of short duration. Our fights should not be dragged out into substained combat. Either we win quickly or we do not win at all.

To protect us, we should use wizardy tools like range control, crowd control, teleporting, and mess with enemies senses and vision.
In effect, our toolset should in my opinon primarily be based on "not being somewhere the enemy can hit us". And a small measure of emergency assistance like layers and NS. But mainly, not be close enough to be hit.


Since our defenses would be active, I'd really like cast times and recharge to be short. Durations on debuffs can short, thats not a problem. We dont need a 14 minute root. But we do need a root that lands and no not prevent us from doing anything else for 4-5 sec (=recharge). Or NS where a sizable portion of the duration is lost in recharge
The same goes with cast time. Having capped cast times leads to us being stationary... being stationary AND dependant on being out of range seems a poor match. Perhaps CD nukes that curently have 1 / 1 cast/recharge could be changed to 0 / 2 ... or 0 / 1 with 2 sec cool down...

Today, NT feels so slooooow. Cast-waaaait-Cast-waaaait-cast-waaaait.
No offense to keepers, but the slow grinding pace is their thing.
Perhaps greatly reduce minimum cast times / recharge and instead add small cooldowns. That would encourage us to use more of the different tools that we have.

[Rockdizzle]

Izgimmer's Double
Damage 3000-5500(5100-9350), 2 hits, 1.8s delay
70% nanodmg%

You hit Bartender with nanobots for 3000 points of radiation damage.
You hit Bartender with nanobots for 3430 points of radiation damage.

You hit Bartender with nanobots for 4272 points of radiation damage.
You hit Bartender with nanobots for 3957 points of radiation damage.

Not sure why I didn't even notice that nanodmg% didnt affect doubles before, doesn't really matter as Doubles need a changing anyways but thought I would point this out anyways if no one noticed.

[DigitalBath]

Izgimmer's Double
Damage 3000-5500(5100-9350), 2 hits, 1.8s delay
70% nanodmg%

You hit Bartender with nanobots for 3000 points of radiation damage.
You hit Bartender with nanobots for 3430 points of radiation damage.

You hit Bartender with nanobots for 4272 points of radiation damage.
You hit Bartender with nanobots for 3957 points of radiation damage.

Not sure why I didn't even notice that nanodmg% didnt affect doubles before, doesn't really matter as Doubles need a changing anyways but thought I would point this out anyways if no one noticed.

Nice catch. Most my tests have been in PvP so I haven't actually noticed this.. wonder if it's intended behaviour, though.

[Djiax]

Nice catch. Most my tests have been in PvP so I haven't actually noticed this.. wonder if it's intended behaviour, though.

Hey I m just back in game, running tests to relearn all and noticed the same thing. It s definitly not taking in count nano dmg. So it totally prevents it use as it s not competitive.

But, what you mean you didn t see it in PvP ? Shouldn t pvp takes nanodmg mod in count ?

So, I dunno if I m the only one but I really would like to use these doubles ! Please inform michi about it when you can peeps

[DigitalBath]

Hey I m just back in game, running tests to relearn all and noticed the same thing. It s definitly not taking in count nano dmg. So it totally prevents it use as it s not competitive.

But, what you mean you didn t see it in PvP ? Shouldn t pvp takes nanodmg mod in count ?

So, I dunno if I m the only one but I really would like to use these doubles ! Please inform michi about it when you can peeps

It should but in the heat of PvP and with it's naturally halved damage, I never had noticed it, myself! My bad there.