Area of Effect (AoE)

[Jenshey]

Main profession that has this? NT. What do they lack? Weapons because of their deck.
A few others can have some effect but not really.

I always visualised NTs as DPS / nano profession tank. (Should be able to just burn nano then HP into absorbing damage.)

Point is, either give every profession a AoE attack or fix the few that have it so they don't anymore. I would rather that AoE was removed and grey mobs ran away from CH and mongo agg.
How could they give AoE to other professions? "Spray of bullets" and "Whirlwind of blades."

Cap AoE nukes at 1 second.

[Shonta]

You post makes no sense to me. It looks like random things put together.
You stated your point, but not why you thought that was needed or necessary.

Point is, either give every profession a AoE attack or fix the few that have it so they don't anymore.

Fix?

I think we need to fix enforcers, they have taunts we should fix them and the few other professions that do so they don't.

We need to give everyone Heals or fix doctors and advs and MA's so they don't have them anymore.

Crats are broken, they have AoE Calms and not every other profession has them, lets fix them too.

Agents can swap sides without losing tokens and can change their profession. We need to fix them so they don't or give everyone the ability to swap professions and switch sides without losing tokens.

[Jenshey]

Compare effect. Somehow and this might be a strange idea, I don't think kiting was a planned "tactic" since it is exploiting the weaknesses in the mechanic of the mobs and their AI. The others you mention are not.

[Saetos]

Why should everyone have AOE attacks? AO professions are not 14 balls of randomly shaped clay, they're like 14 elements in the periodic table: each of them different in their own way and create the structure of the game.


Interestingly though, here's the AOE effects that each profession has:

Adventurer: Pit Lizard nuke, area calms
Agent: ... FP NT?
Bureaucrat: Mass Layoffs, area snares, area roots, area calms
Doctor: [none]
Enforcer: Bring the Pain, Seismic Smash
Engineer: [none]
Fixer: Cluster Bullets, area snares
Keeper: Purify
Martial Artist: Angel of Night
Meta-Physicist: [none]
Nano-Technician: Volcanic Eruption, Kel's Neutronium Plaything, Mastablasta's Cataclysm, Boil Blood
Shade: [none]
Soldier: Clipfever
Trader: area roots


Only Doctors, Engineers, Metas and Shades have no area "attack" to call their own.

[Jenshey]

My question is why should anyone have AoE attacks [sic: and damage]?

Give them AoE mezz or team shielding or something, rather.

[Ayria]

My question is why should anyone have AoE attacks [sic: and damage]?

Because we can.

There. I answered your question. Why does modern military use grenades, or rockets, or bombs? Because it does a **** ton of damage over a large area and is great for taking out people who cluster together.

Strength in numbers, heard that one? Grenades are the counter, AoEs are designed to make it so that you can't just blob 20 people together and roll over everything.

[Jenshey]

Good.

Now why can't a person with two swords stab two targets or slash at more than one when surrounded? Why don't the machine guns make a spread that downs more than one foe? Why do the grenade guns not have AoE damage?

[Ayria]

Good.

Now why can't a person with two swords stab two targets or slash at more than one when surrounded? Why don't the machine guns make a spread that downs more than one foe? Why do the grenade guns not have AoE damage?

*shurg*

Personal preference. Balance maybe. I can think of ways its possible in AO sure, an Enforcer swinging around with a big axe while a self targeting AoE nano blasts out. Stuff like that.

The thing is, is it really needed? Is it balance when everyone has everything the same? Sure. But it's a much more interesting and fun balance when everyone has a unique way to the same result.

[Notcrattey]

Good.

Now why can't a person with two swords stab two targets or slash at more than one when surrounded? Why don't the machine guns make a spread that downs more than one foe? Why do the grenade guns not have AoE damage?

This is a GAME, GET OVER YOURSELF.

[Jenshey]

Hecks, Borgs and AoE damage are broken. This has been a fundamental flaw in the game; either give everyone some sort of AoE damage attack then re-balance the mobs for that mess or fix the game.

... So nothing here is final, everything is malleable, and nothing - nothing - is considered untouchable. We wanna do this and do it right -

[Saetos]

Hecks, Borgs and AoE damage are broken. This has been a fundamental flaw in the game; either give everyone some sort of AoE damage attack then re-balance the mobs for that mess or fix the game.

So you're saying because NTs use them to kite Hecklers, we should give EVERYBODY access to AOE attacks, thereby removing one of the unique factors of NTs, or - even better - completely remove AOE mechanics from the game? Are you high?
AOEs are not broken. The methods that are used with them are.

How about just giving Hecklers a low % chance 1 second stun? 1 second means life-and-death for kiters, and it wouldn't really affect a tank in regular leveling.

[Ayria]

Hecks, Borgs and AoE damage are broken. This has been a fundamental flaw in the game; either give everyone some sort of AoE damage attack then re-balance the mobs for that mess or fix the game.

Just because nothing is considered untouchable doesn't mean everything has to be touched. There's no physical barrier blocking you from touching a pile of crap, but that doesn't change that you shouldn't really touch a pile of crap.

[Omutb]

You post makes no sense to me. It looks like random things put together.

Its because Jen is a bitter old crank with too much time to spare

[Pafpuf]

Engineer: [none]

NSD, snare and blind are all point blank area of effect nanos

[Triskweline]

NSD, snare and blind are all point blank area of effect nanos

And /pet hunt (also for MPs)

[Jenshey]

So you're saying because NTs use them to kite Hecklers, we should give EVERYBODY access to AOE attacks, thereby removing one of the unique factors of NTs, or - even better - completely remove AOE mechanics from the game? Are you high?
AOEs are not broken. The methods that are used with them are.

How about just giving Hecklers a low % chance 1 second stun? 1 second means life-and-death for kiters, and it wouldn't really affect a tank in regular leveling.

What I am questioning is why one character / profession gets a tool to kill more mobs than a team does in the same time. Why not give everyone that ability and just go whole play-field slaughtering crazy?

... as I said earlier, I always felt that NTs were meant to be a nano tank. Burn nano into shields and aggression building nano attacks. That their "mongo" the AoE nuke is so abused is sad. So, I would like to see them with Parry and Riposte, some shields rather than a deck, maybe give them a weapon to help build more damage agg, then a profession like MP can play doctor by recharging their nano pools, traders can boost their "tanking life" because when they run out of nano it should eat their health really fast, too fast unless they kill their tanking shield.

There would be their uniqueness and also give more importance and desire in teams for some other professions.

[Moonbolt]

to fix kiting is pretty simple tbh...
just add a 1 sec cast time cap to the AoE nukes.
to fix pocketing is another issue... but its doable with making all mobs run when mongoed as an example.

[Muckota]

Only Doctors, Engineers, Metas and Shades have no area "attack" to call their own.

Doctors got battle group heal perks (4 perks) which imo is more important than area attack

[Gridpain]

Bureaucrat: Mass Layoffs, area snares, area roots, area calms

care to share info on where to find "Mass Layoffs" ?

[Coffay]

kiting is how you play an NT that is below level 205ish. suuure you can stand still and hit something with your 2k min damage nuke every 4 seconds or like you say, spam absorbs/NS/whatever whilst standing still, but in the first scenario you will most likely not survive and in the last scenario it will take ages to kill something. and you can't compare stuff like aoe roots/calms/attacks with aoe nukes IMO.