NT DD technique

[Beornin]

My NT is old, but I've excelled at afk'ing the last few years, so I'm still a noob.

Do you have any hints or tips for DD'ing in teams and raids as NT, or is it just SI, DM, IUx3, DM, rinse and repeat?

Does higher MC skill and AR in general cause nanos to hit for more dmg?

Does lower nanoresist on target cause nanos to do more dmg, or just land easier? Would casting Constant Barrage at the start of a fight make you do more dmg later?

[Tsuniko]

only thing that affects nano damage is:

+% nano damage
+damage
ACs

[Brofist]

M or is it just SI, DM, IUx3, DM, rinse and repeat?

Does higher MC skill and AR in general cause nanos to hit for more dmg?

Pretty much, don't forget perks though.

Also you can bind DM/IU to one button and as long as DM is before IU it will always cast it on cooldown, so bind one button to SI, one to DM/UI/perks and then you got 2 button DD spam. And I guess you could be a nice NT and nr debuff mobs like the best, or spam AoEs in APFs if you want your DD penis to be huge.

[Beornin]

Pretty much, don't forget perks though.

Also you can bind DM/IU to one button and as long as DM is before IU it will always cast it on cooldown, so bind one button to SI, one to DM/UI/perks and then you got 2 button DD spam. And I guess you could be a nice NT and nr debuff mobs like the best, or spam AoEs in APFs if you want your DD penis to be huge.

Will perks execute in the correct order if bound to the same button?

To me it looks like perks pauses casting of regular nanos. Is this just a visual issue, or an issue caused by human lag when pressing different buttons? Perk dmg seems too low to be worth it if I lose out on regular dmg.

[schloops]

Been away for a lil, but if I remember correctly, you activate your perks during nano recharge.

[Seoin]

Perks sure don't interrupt nano casts in any way. Items that have an attack time do tho

[filijokkus]

Will perks execute in the correct order if bound to the same button?

In the order that you map them.

[schloops]

Been away for a lil, but if I remember correctly, you activate your perks during nano recharge.

Well, schloops, they can also be activated during casting... just won't start progressing until casting recharge starts.

[Dogtrauma]

I am pretty sure the perk execution bars are largely cosmetic, if you cue up a bunch of perks and then run around you appear to get a huge burst of nasty once you stop, i think the only way of knowing what the individual perks will do is to look at combat logs.

Also, hi Schloops! this is Bob.

[schloops]

Hey Bob . Are you playing nowadays? Been busy making a 3D game but planning on doing some ao soonisch.

yah, perk bars can go a lil crazy, but I would expect progression times of each would be respected. What I suspect is that due to some lag of the network or some threads of the servers, multiple perk dmg could end up processed in one batch by the client.

In the same spirit, in pvp, you can go from woohoo I'm invincible to laying on the carpet instantly when some delay happens.

[Ansehx]

In the same spirit, in pvp, you can go from woohoo I'm invincible to laying on the carpet instantly when some delay happens.

This is my main gripe with NT pvp and the reason I don't play mine anymore.

Having both defensive nanos and offensive nanos on the same cast bar seems like a fundamental flaw to me.

but meh ^^.

[Beornin]

I made it work now.

After my first runs it seens to me binding perks and actions for pvm works fine and saves effort, but for pvp it's best to micromanage every action.

[Ansehx]

Perks sure don't interrupt nano casts in any way. Items that have an attack time do tho

On the subject of interrupts, if you have have Channeling of Notum perked, that can interrupt casting iirc.

But who perks that? ;D

[schloops]

@ansehx
I was speaking about how latency + batching can make you go from 100% to 0% instantly.
I'm kind of fine with the way our toolset works. Our profession has strengths and weaknesses.

A long time ago, nt was my first toon (and always remained my main... always) and the profession kinda blew, but I loved wandering around trying to find new kite spots, kiting the missions for tokens and so on... but omg was it an awful profession for pvm and pvp.
Also explains all those rantings against the cool-aid "kite stinks" crowd I had in the past .

Nowadays, it's still the profession I have the most fun with and it has become a lot more powerful. It feeds my other toons... even my 220 doc lol, that I started working on and leveling before LE because I was a lil tired of how awful nt was. Now, I have to be threatened to use my doc for anything . Which in turn ends up with me not being good with it . If your team doc is chtulhu, then maybe call your family .


Mmm lol, I think I have channeling level 1 or 2 (somewhat recently perked) , because one LE boss (mid diff) tends to be troublesome on nano when soloed if I stay around it... on the other hand, didn't witness a huge change with those haha.
I thought that had been corrected and didn't witness a problem recently, but maybe I missed it? Is it still happening?

@beornin:
Actually, I wonder, because IU has a small recharge while LE nukes have longer recharges meaning you can queue more of them in one recharge in pvp off focus*. But yah, I wouldn't add dazzle to such a binding, for example.
I don't think we could do that multiple binding thingy when I was pvping ages ago, so didn't investigate that.

* I might be wrong, but I think def focus at 220 has lost a lot of it's value. I always was more efficient in off focus, but def focus was a fun change. But nowadays, with less players in the bs and all unders gsf while nts not (+changes to how speed works), adding long casting (while debuffed) turns nts in def focus into sitting ducks... nt is not suited for that.
Anybody disagrees?
It could be good at tara for example, but raid leaders didn't respond positively to any of my requests to try something different like sending a nt in alone to mess the opponent crowd a lil at the start. Would have loved trying that :\.

[Brofist]

* I might be wrong, but I think def focus at 220 has lost a lot of it's value. I always was more efficient in off focus, but def focus was a fun change. But nowadays, with less players in the bs and all unders gsf while nts not (+changes to how speed works), adding long casting (while debuffed) turns nts in def focus into sitting ducks... nt is not suited for that.
Anybody disagrees?
It could be good at tara for example, but raid leaders didn't respond positively to any of my requests to try something different like sending a nt in alone to mess the opponent crowd a lil at the start. Would have loved trying that :\.

Personally I love defensive focus. I tend to default to that on BS, as long as not too many soldiers around. Evades + CC + blinds + nano mage coon + NBG + NS2 = really hard to kill and annoying NT. While IU + DM still does great damage.

And honestly lets be real here, most people are idiots. I've had 2 shades dump their entire alpha into NS2 at the same time, while I stood their taking no damage, and just killed one of them, then rooted the other one and ran when NS2 wore off and killed him a second later.

And every soldier on earth assumes you are going to double/triple them anyways so they tend not to mess with NTs too much, and if they do you can just root them and there isn't much they can do while you run off or do whatever.

[Towerblock]

Its not that most people on BS are idiots per se. Most of the PVM'rs there don't really care to optimize for PVP when doing dailies and whatnot. It's just not a priority for some of them.

[schloops]

Well, yah, but def focus is only as good as your opponent's tactics are bad.

To elaborate:
- def focus = immoble most of the time
- off focus = running around most of the time
- off focus = more total dmg, provided in bursts, and more reliable
- def focus = more affected by debuffs

Any more elaboration about professions and so on would bring me right back to that first sentence of this post... after a long unnecessary path .

Mind you, I agree def focus is fun.
Still giggling about that trox agent (if I remember right) that sent me a pm congratulating me on my insane evades and warning me that from there on, he would MR before launching his alpha at me . Never crossed his mind it may be ns2.

[Brofist]

Mobility issue it solved by simply canceling NS2, if your target is running away NS2 has already served it's purpose.

You use NS2 to shrug off alphas and land a few key debuffs (mostly CB, but crown of frost vs some professions helps). And with tons of professions running around basically just spamming their alphas all bound to 1 key, easily absorbing all of it and taking 0 damage is insanely useful.

[schloops]

Sometimes (even every time wouldn't) cancelling NS2 really doesn't resolves the problem of immobility coming with def focus.
Doesn't deal with the lack of great dmg or the weakness to debuffs either.

Your opponent doesn't have to have the bad tactic of dumping it's alpha in your ns.
Lots of corners for them to hide nearby. And unless you have dumped DM for gsf, they run quicker.
We are still with examples of opponents acting badly. Hence that first sentence of my last post.

If you like it, you like it and should do it. I did tons of it, and of off focus.
But I see it as really becoming subpar. Mind you, I haven't really pvped for half a decade so might be wrong.

[Pafpuf]

Having both defensive nanos and offensive nanos on the same cast bar seems like a fundamental flaw to me.

Exactly what I thought when I first played mine. Anyone who has problems fighting a NT in this game is just bad, period.

AO is a game where anyone (good) runs around freely using both their offensive and defensive tools simultaneously. The NT is a prof that's forced to choose between offense or defense before every nano execution (I'm not talking about the focuses) while at the same time forced to stand still while either attacking (omg capped cast time on everything) or defending (ns2).
On top of all those crippling mechanics NTs are by far the most affected by init debuffs, nanoskill debuffs/drains and lets not forget GTH which was a retarded band-aid fix to op LE nukes back in the day.

If that's not enough lets add crippling debuffs to the profession's toolset such as the 1 minute nano drain on every nbg use or the chance to be rewarded with a 1 minute nano shutdown because you wanted to use a minor damage buffing perk. How about 2 easy to acquire items that give players 110% (100% wasn't enough) resistance to a whole line of NT debuffs.


I seriously envy people who still think NTs are fun in pvp, to me it feels like trying to run on one leg.