MA Breed @ 220? Uncompleted Vs Completed?

[Marinegent]

Hey I know this has been discussed to hell and back but with the rebalance and a new wave of MA players (myself included) I think now is a good time to talk about this again. I think it would be good to discuss the breeds briefly and what advantages or disadvantages they have, and possibly even a "best choice" along with why you choose that as your best choice.

For myself..

I see very little value in nanomage as a breed for MA, so I want to get that opinion out of the way. I think the NM 5k absorb has a lot of potential to be a really amazing tool, but on such a long cooldown I see it as more of a duel/pvp item and I don't think a 5k absorb will make or break an MA's pvm on such a long cooldown, either you can do the encounter without this - or you cant. The trickledown to nanoskills might be nice but would it make NR2 reachable? If not then it has basically no bearing, unless you consider ado brain an option. Overall this is my least appealing breed choice for MA right now.

Aatrox is okay but with the low sense.. I think the leveling experience would be very unenjoyable due to difficulty with armor and lower base stats overall in important areas (evades/ma/etc) but of course Mongo Rage is appealing although less than it used to be, and the drawback to mongo rage might not be worth it for the MA profession when our core defense is high static defense only barely supplemented by healing or other alternative minor defenses like through debuffs or chances to stun. Not really feeling aatrox, but the high base HP probably makes this breed the best choice for PvM tanking.




The real discussion is in my opinion between Solitus and Opifex.

Right now I play a solitus, but as i'm approaching 220 i'm thinking of breed changing. I'm weighing all the pro's and con's and i'm just not seeing the value in solitus unless im AI 30 and even then I'm still making a choice. As far as base stats it seems they would have equal gains from body dev and nano pool, they're equal on nano% cap and in terms of breed stats, opifex takes the clear lead in agi/sense while solitus has a very minor lead in intelligence (less than 30 pts) and a somewhat significant lead in stamina but opifex is gifted with the highest base stat cap on any dark blue ability, leading over aatrox by 80 and nanomage by 16.

Opifex has a clear base ability advantage in my opinion, stamina is so plentiful when twinking and the IP costs are far, far lower. Not to mention the green skills scale down on some of our most important combat stats, and at equal levels of HP i'm just not seeing any real downsides to opifex in this area. I'd also like to mention that as a leveling MA gated by Agi/Sense for many cool items - its quite frustrating that we dont have agility on our infantry symbs, notably however we do have stamina, so opifexs high agility/sense would comp for infantrys lack of agi/sense in their symbs while retaining the stamina needed to bring our opifexs up to par.

Truly, the only advantage I can see in solitus is the Sphere breed perk. But I don't think sphere outweighs Xuyun or CoLI, and you would need the full 30 AI points to get access to the sphere perk - so it seems to be the case in my opinion that Opifex is the clear choice of breed for literally an MA experience through 1/0 to 220/29. At 220/30 you are only now granted the ability to make a choice, and that choice is do you forgo CoNC and NR1 in favor of sphere?

I have decided to opt for CoNC and the possibility of NR1, knowing that this will be IP intensive it seems opifex is the only way to go for this build, which leads me to believe that in any non-sphere setup, opifex will always serve as the better breed when compared to solitus, and by an extension the rest of the breeds - unless you have made the choice to setup your character for solitus sphere perk.





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Thinking of buying a breed change for my solitus MA of course. Haha. What does anyone else think? Is there anything introduced in 18.7 that I'm really overlooking? Still new to the profession so don't claim to be an expert. These are just my opinions so far.

[Le-Quack]

solitus is good and i would just stick to it, you wont have more fun playing as opifex of any other breed for that matter before your endgame. soli or opifex makes no diffrence what so ever for levling your way to get endgame.
you shouldnt use your time and energy on thinking about breed changeing before your actualy endgame and ai 30, but i would still playd solitus.
but all breed's is actualy good for a 220 ma, it all depends on your playstyle, so i would just be solitus and learn the ma once its endgame and then you know 100% yourself in the end what breed you like, nobady here can tell you whats the best.

[Paavalniemi]

Atrox: I would only choose this breed for pvm tanking purposes. equip CM, max hp and you should be good (we have decent taunt nano now). Maybe some max hp setup in mass pvp could work if you just want to heal in zazen stance.

Opisex: Just to play with a lil higher AR/evades and some nice breed perks you can use: (opi blind to debuff AAO and nanoskills), (derivate + opening for okish dmg and debuffing AAD - quick perks with low checks) or simply perk CoNC to self top heals

Solitus: pretty much same as opisex. both breed lines are good. Survival for healing or sphere for AR/crit

NM: Imo the best breed for duel/BS. You can actually make that NM coon lock shorter at 220 with good symbs and NM has less problems casting all the top nanos - could actually play NR1 and cast the top heals. Also flower/delirium got lower checks so having a bit lower AR doesnt hurt that much anymore.

[Rockleee]

Well I want to add something to atrox:
As MA you can go unstunnable -> so the drawback isnt anything valuable since you can stunlock your enemy and bump his face. Sure in masspvp its something else but not everybody focuses a MA. The HP is great also.

As opi you have the max dmg output possible to the solitus base stats. I calculated the difference and its only about 20 MA and evades.

I would go for solitus if i would do team stuff since the team aura.

Yes you dont deperk xyun or coli what you consider taking out is CONC.

On trox you cant equipp alpha brain casting stuff is possible but always switching items after you died was painfor me ... so i ran unbuffed

[Marinegent]

thanks for the posts guys some good info so far!

do the breed ip differences matter? how has ip expendatures changed with the addition of X1 sneak attack weapon? No more SoFC i assume? Is bow worth having if you plan to run an x1 setup? do i still want sofc/bow for duels?

[Rockleee]

I can give you my opinion but i know that mcknuckle will say nooo bull****.
To me hotswapp is better. The only weekness of x1 is that you have a little equippdelay. My personal experience is that you need good ar to hit frequently since there are too much def items: So here you need to check what fits you better: a good sa every 44 sec or as + sa ( while beeing able to use alba arrows which have good def check) ...
Honestly you hit hard with as if you active before some dmg buffs like fist of winterflame flurry of blows motr etc.

But anyways you have so much stuns so that you can still use xira while (f.e. duel vs doc) the enemy is stunned and finish him hard off with a nice SA.
Try it out and look what fits you more.
Tipp for hotswapping is keybinding. If you have a good ping and are able to do it fast i think it will fit you more then tripple wielding. Tripplewielding has a nice easy burst and high sustained dmg against non evade profs. While the hotswappbuild is kinda equal to low evade prof but better for high def proffession..

Test it and give some comments after

Enjoy

[Marinegent]

thanks rock good post, i will have to try both styles and will let you know what i think

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I can give you my opinion but i know that mcknuckle will say nooo bull****.
To me hotswapp is better. The only weekness of x1 is that you have a little equippdelay. My personal experience is that you need good ar to hit frequently since there are too much def items: So here you need to check what fits you better: a good sa every 44 sec or as + sa ( while beeing able to use alba arrows which have good def check) ...
Honestly you hit hard with as if you active before some dmg buffs like fist of winterflame flurry of blows motr etc.

But anyways you have so much stuns so that you can still use xira while (f.e. duel vs doc) the enemy is stunned and finish him hard off with a nice SA.
Try it out and look what fits you more.
Tipp for hotswapping is keybinding. If you have a good ping and are able to do it fast i think it will fit you more then tripple wielding. Tripplewielding has a nice easy burst and high sustained dmg against non evade profs. While the hotswappbuild is kinda equal to low evade prof but better for high def proffession..

Test it and give some comments after

Enjoy

The only reason I'm so gung-ho on a non-swapping setup is that there's never been a time in MA history that we've had such great weaponry and healing at our disposal.

If you're really keen on swaps, go for it. Swapping is a tried and true method for MA's to produce kills, but, as rock mentioned, you really need good ping. When I moved to Australia in 2007, my win rate on swapping MA went from about 60% wins to 30% so I gave up.

Now, if my MA wasn't all out ranged, I would (and I kind of am now considering) take him into actually an HP setup with X1R4/tonfa. I actually found that even with 100% checking perks that with good HP you have so much time to recover from alpha attempts that you can actually just focus on solid, steady damage punctuated by fast attacks, AI perks and simply hold on to your SA/dimach until your opponent makes a mistake then just hammer them with both and once and knock em out of the park.

I'm no MA pro... heck I'm not even in game right now... but I would highly recommend trying the X1R4 /tonfa setup before going for a swap one. Well, since you don't need piercing for SOFC anymore, you migt be able to do both setups (i.e. swap setup with enough MM to pop in a QL 240 infantry LW, equip triple wield then stick in foTM again) for the best of both worlds.

The damage on a trip wield setup is pretty decent too.

[Rockleee]

y the dmg on tripple wield is a nice high sustained dmg, but i feel a lack of burst sometimes. What i am missing is the capped as on that build also Alba arrows are worth to mention

[Rockleee]

But anyways i still Hope for some other changes to the MA like an Update to the Fist of DOminator and some other stuff like perks and so on

[Soliartist]

Someone asked me about such things via PM last month, let me share with you what I told him, Marine!
Though that's a pure duel-centered player thinking.

I can already tell you that Sphere, which was changed recently, is a killer. I'd be glad to use it nowadays, as I had it perked most of the time.

That or Survival.

Survival is a proper duel add-on and it's even useful in BS because its recharge is quite short!
I liked to play Solitus either way. It's rather balanced.

Regardless, all Breeds have their own assets when it comes to playing a TL7 PvP MA : NM for absorbs, Opi for blind perk... and plenty of other things like that, like major Abilities/BD & ND differences.

I would suggest you to find your own gameplay while playing a Solitus first.
It may not be the "easiest" way because it's pretty balanced (or used to be) and has no major power-up. But bear in mind that it has no major disadvantage either.
It requires that you play properly while teaching you how to play properly. Your improvement will come from your experience and sharpness, and most importantly, from the path you chose to follow, in order develop your own gameplay.
I say it's a rather fair way to learn how to play a PvP MA properly.

After a few years or at least months of practise and development, if you feel comfortable playing a Solitus, that means :
To have thought of several both armour and perk setups for a sole Breed and try them all out, for whatever time it takes. Against as many samples of duellers as possible, that means to play with and against different Professions of different Breeds using different kind of Setups, be it, for instance :
Melee, Ranged, Bow/Shield, Def/Off focus, MR/non-MR etc...

Then eventually come up with a Ichiban (number one) setup to use against :
X Prof/ of X Breed/ using X setup - and those three are just basic data to incorporate to your own gameplay and setup development. There are indeed many more variables, depending on whom you're facing, because some knowledgeable and older players have their own way of utilizing their Profession's toolset and sometimes end up breaking a few standards regarding the way they play their Profession.

You shall consider as many possibilities as possible to use your toolset wisely and efficiently, even those of isolated experiences and uncommon setup users.

By playing against a wide panel of players, setups and such, you will need to adapt your own toolset and setup. By doing so, you will fully and truly learn how to play a PvP MA. That's when you know you start to feel comfortable with your Breed and Profession, no wonder it can take up to a few years to achieve that.
To each his rhythm, it does not really matter anyway. As long as you have fun and perhaps think of duels and various PvP encounters as a chance to get better and come stronger every single time that follows.

Passed that, you can eventually start pondering over trying out another Breed. But that's optional, there is always something left to master as a PvP MA, especially as a Solitus!

[Marinegent]

snip

Hey ange! thanks a ton for posting. Good to see you again old friend! I tried looking for you on facebook recently but wasnt able to find your profile. I was looking because I had lots of things to ask you!

I know there is no quick and easy route to playing MA, its a very complex profession and at times I find myself a bit overwhelmed (and out of inventory space.. seriously MA attacks are a BURDEN!) but the profession is amazing and I just broke 9k crits on my 213 MA last night, i'm really having a blast!

Thanks for your input, I will probably stick with solitus till 220 and go from there, opifex has the numbers advantage in my opinion and im also thinking of having AI3 perked to be able to swap so im wondering if opifex with conc7/ate3 will be the way to go, but until im AI 30 it wont matter too much so I will take your advice and simply learn the profession until then and maybe make my switch later.

[Rockleee]

Each breed have many advantages. Ask players that you see arround for some tipps. Like For fex Bow of belith

[Occamsrazor]

You all mentioned nm just for absorbs, didnt see any of you mention nm reflect perk 15% reflect at the cost of 5k nano every 10 seconds its running. Its a really fun perk to have in bs vs proffs with hard alphas. Nm reflect combined with rrfe is 40% reflects, with healer cloak and nm absorb there is no prof in the game that will have a remote chance of alphaing you if you use cooldowns correctly. Along with that it allows for spreading cooldown usage, meaning you can survive mr alphas using only a few of your long—recharge cooldowns. In critical situations where i had to use ring during nm reflect i could keep the nm reflect running for 40 seconds. This is however a really defensive setup. I used it pre—rebalance sometimes for bs pvp and city pvp, not so much in duels. Just one of maaaany setups i have tested over the years, the only breed i didnt get to test before i quit playing ao was atrox. This is probably a waaay late post though, you all mentioned all the other stuff, just felt like adding this comment as well.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

ring has no active anymore.

[Occamsrazor]

Really? No more 33%hp and 50% nano? that kinda sucks. Was really a lifesaver, quickest healing cd we got. However i bet you can still keep that reflect running for atleast 20 seconds. Dunno if it its any relevant in the current state of the game.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Not relevant, really, but I calculated you can keep it running full time a long time ago with the right team for some alternative tanking professions, but that's largely irrelevant.