MP for Beginners Tutorial

[Xtremtech]

Hi All,

I have been asked to write an "MP for Beginners" tutorial for the guild web site. The format in terms of structure was predefined so there's not much I can do about it. I'll be posting sections of it to this thread as I complete them and would be really pleased if you guys could read it through for corrections and additions.

Thanks in advance to all those who take the time to help out with this.

I've now added into this Guide the "How to Choose a Weapon Guide for the MP" guide. You'll find it in its own section in the links below.

Edit: Since writing this guide I've become an MP player representative on the Professionals Team run by FunCom's Community team. For clarity, this guide was not written at the request of FunCom and is written purely as a personal effort to try help out fellow MPs. The guide was posted in draft form for discussion and correction and much useful information is also included in the discussion that follows on from the guide itself in this thread.

Quick Link Index:


MP for Beginners Guide
================


Part 1 - Breed Choices & Weapons - Attack Pets

• 1a - Controlling Pets: Commands, Pet Naming and Scripts.

Part 2 - Weapons - Attack Nanos and Creation Weapons

Part 3 - Weapons - MP Specific and Non-MP specific Weapons

Part 4 - Defense Capabilities - Heal Pet

Part 5 - Defence Capabilities - Mez Pets, Evades and Armour

Part 6 - IP Distribution - Abilities

Part 7 - IP Distribution - Body to Ranged

Part 8 - IP Distribution - Speed and Trade and Repairs

Part 9 - IP Distribution - Nano and Aiding to Navigation

Part 10: Very Basic Guide to Implant Choices for the MP

Part 11 - Strategy and Playstyle - The role of the MP in teams

Part 12 - Strategy and Playstyle - The Key Elements of Teams

Part 13 - Strategy and Playstyle - The Pulling Role

Part 14 - Strategy and Playstyle - The Tank Role

Part 15 - Strategy and Playstyle - The Healing Role

Part 16 - Strategy and Playstyle - The Crowd Control Role

Part 17 - Strategy and Playstyle - The Debuff Role

Part 18 - Strategy and Playstyle - The Damage Dealing and Buffing Roles

Part 19 - Nano Regeneration buffs and implant effectiveness

How to Choose a Weapon Guide for the MP
===============================


1) Reference post

2) Introduction

3) When Should I start using Secondary Weapons?

4) How Weapons Work

5) MP related skills restrictions and Implant Conflicts

6) Damage over Time Vs Crit Vs Alpha damage Choice

7) Playstyle Factors

8) Choosing a Weapon


Quick Links to subsequent posts of interest to this thread:
===========================================


Protoculous' Secret Scripts

Tobaras' Any Pet Scripts

Goremonger's QuickStart Guide

Amis' Token Farming 101 for MPs

TheCovenant's PetNamer Scripting Utilility

DNA's MP Spreadsheet

DNA's Token Farming for level 125 MPs

DNA's Tips on early running Odins/Mocham's

Hitpoints and Nanopoints of the pets

Pet Attack Rating Table by MetaIng

Link to discussion thread on Melee Weapons and the MP

Deacon's Guide to Making Money for new players in the New Arrivals Forum

Shadowlands Related Links within this thread
====================

1) Chrisax's Soothing Spirits Effects Table


Quick Links to Utilities and Other Sites of interest:
===================================


1) MP Creation Weapons Page

2) Antiguardians' Tools page

3) Antiguardians Item Search

4) Antiguardians Weapons evaluator

5) Antiguardians Damage Calculator

6) Antiguardians Implant Designer

7) Anarchy Lore Skills Costs Table

8) Rustot Skills Emulator

9) Nano Nanny Utilitiy

10) Jaydee's Database

11) Jaydees Armour Configuration Tool

12) Kuren's Coloured Text Page

13) Kuren's Guild Script Tool

14) Nepentheia's Excellent Map Page

15) Dovve's Map and Skin page

16) Damage Dump Page

17) Covenant's Pet Namer Utility

18) ShadowGod's MP site

19) Clicksaver

20) DNA's MP Spreadsheet of nanos and pet stats

21) SOG MP Guide to Survival

22) Zylina's Interviews including several MPs well known from these boards

23) Eldars AO scripting Wizard

24) Unity of the Rose Agg/Def Calculator

25) Guild of Meta-Physics Homepage

26) AO Meta Net Homepage

X

[Xtremtech]

Name: XtremTech
Profession: Metaphysicist


Breed: Nanomage

There are several valid choices of breed for the MP. The key ones are:

Nanomage:

• This is the most common MP breed largely due to the fact that it is the recommended breed at character creation time. Much of your strength as an MP will depend entirely upon your ability to cast nanos, since our main weapons and defence are our pets which we cast from nanos, our direct damage nanos (nukes) and our creation weapons and shields which we cast from nano. The nanomage breed has many advantages in terms of getting these skills faster, having more nano in the pool to cast them and having green Intelligence and Psychic skills, which contribute points to most of your important nano casting skills.
  
  The biggest problem that you will have as a nanomage is hit points. The nanomage breed has very few hitpoints and you will find it difficult to raise them. This doesn't necessarily mean though that you will be weak and vulnerable. With the right armour choices and implant choices you can be strong enough to stand up to a great deal. Importantly, you will need to learn how best to use your pets to protect you from danger.
  
  At higher levels though, hit-points do become a limiting factor in PvP and also in some very high level content PvM. Many experienced players starting an MP do not choose Nanomage because of this.

Atrox:

• The Atrox breed has been used for nearly every profession because of the strengths that Atroxes have in their base abilities. Partly as a result of their high stamina Atroxes generally have high hit points, which make them much more able to stand up to a beating when they get into trouble.
  
  The downside with an Atrox MP is that your nano skills will always be somewhat behind. The progress can be slow and you'll often find that other MPs have stronger pets and better nukes. Some Atrox MPs that I know see this as a plus point! Whereas most nanomage MPs have got all that they can get by the mid-130s, the atroxes have goals at higher levels than other breeds.

Solitus:

• Seen by many as being the best MP breed. The solitus works out as a balance between the Nanomage and Atrox breed for an MP. They have strong hitpoints (though not as good as an Atrox) and strong Nano skills (though not as good as a Nanomage). As a result, they are seen by some as being the happy medium. The solitus is probably the most chosen breed by experienced players starting an Alt character.

Opifex:

• The Opifex has slightly better nanoskills than a solitus and slightly worse hitpoints. This breed still lags behind the Nanomage on nanoskills and so will tend to lag behind on pets. However, the opifex can gain very good evade skills which can be very useful and the opifex has a bonus on IP available enabling a broader range of weapons skills at higher levels.

----------------------------------------

WEAPONS
=======
=======

There are 5 categories of weapon for the MP.

• 1) MP attack pets which we cast from nanos
  
  2) MP attack nanos
  
  3) MP Creation Weapons
  
  4) MP specific Weapons
  
  5) Non-MP specific secondary weapon choice (like guns, bows etc)

I'll give a quick rundown in terms of hints and tips and discuss some of the controversy attached to each of these choices.


Attack Pets
===========

The main attack pets are cast from nanos. They require Matter Creation and Time and Space skills and will nearly always be your main damage dealers. These attack pets do Melee damage (even though different sorts of damage are listed in the description).

In patch 14.7.8 a new MP pet was added which is completely different. It is cast using a Nano that creates a packet of energy in your inventory. By combining this energy (shift-Right Click) with a "Crumbling Funeral Urn" you create an "Energised Crumbling Funeral Urn". This energised urn is then 'used' by right clicking on it to spawn a pet "Praetorian Legionnaire". The nano called "Lien's Crystalizer" drops from a mob called Lien in the Temple of the Three Winds Dungeon. The urns drop from Lien and "The reanimator" mob and you will need a new urn each time you wish to cast this pet. The Praetorian Legionnaire pets do cold damage and are strongly resistant to Nanos.

In 14.9 this "Urn pet" range was extended to include a new nano "Saemus Crystaliser" and two new urns. "Revenant" (level 160 pet) using an Iron-Bound Funeral Urn and "Tormented Revenant" (level 202 pet) using a Rusted Iron-Bound Funeral Urn. These drop in the Inner Sanctum dungeon. The Crystaliser drops from Archdeacon Saemus in the first room. The Iron-Bound Funeral Urn drops mostly in the second room and the Rusted Iron-Bound Funeral Urn drops mostly in the third room.

The normal attack pets come in 7 lines: Anger, Fury, Rage, Wrath, Frenzy, Enmity and finally the demon types. With the exception of the demon line, the attack pets come in 7 strengths. With the Anger pets as an example these are:

• 1) Lesser Anger Manifestation
  2) Inferior Anger Manifestation
  3) Anger Manifestation
  4) Superior Anger Manifestation
  5) Greater Anger Manifestation
  6) Supreme Anger Manifestation
  7) Transcendent Anger Manifestation

Each step up gets you a stronger pet that has a few more hitpoints and does a little bit more damage.

The Anger, Fury and Rage Nano lines are available in shops. Generally, it's not worth buying every single one. The differences in damage and hitpoints between each pet is really quite small. As a result, you will often find that you hardly even notice the difference between each attack pet. If you're short on money it is probably best to aim for 2 angers, 3 furies, 2 rages, and 3 wraths. The attack pet nanos up to and including the Wrath line are available in shops.

For the Frenzy line and higher you will have to do missions or buy them from other players.

You can improve your attack pets' performance by buffing the pet. There are five lines of nanos that are MP only and can be used effectively on your pets:

• 1) Instill Line: the Instill line of crystals adds to the damage that your attack pet does with each hit. It's a long lasting effect which lasts 30 minutes.
  
  2) Chant Line: the Chant line of crystals adds to the Init skill of your pet and increases the 'agg def' of the pet. The improved init means that your pet will hit faster. The 'agg def' increase is like sliding your own agg/def bar slider up towards the agg end... except for the pet. It also enables the pet to hit a little faster but also attracts more attention from the mobs. Generally, for an MP, who wants his pets to be taking a beating rather than have the mobs hit the owner, this is a very good thing.
  
  3) Anima Line: The anima line adds to the damage of the pet. It adds quite a lot more than the instill line does... but it only lasts for 24 seconds. You will generally buff the attack pet with the instill line when you create the pet, but the Anima line is cast in battle.
  
  4) Evocation Line: The evocation line adds damage to the attack pet and additionally adds to "Add All Offense" (sometimes called AMS). This stat makes your pet hit a little faster and have a better chance of hitting targets with good evades. It will also increase the chances of a 'crit' - an unusually high damage hit. Like the anima line, the evocation line of buffs lasts for 24 seconds.
  
  5) Anticipation of Retalation: this nano is the only truly defensive buff that an MP has. It modifies the evade skills of the target by +60, thus reducing the chances of the target being hit. It is meant for use on player characters, but many MPs swear that it does work on pets, enabling them to stay alive longer.

Most of these Nanos are not available in the shops and can only be found in missions or as loot on dead mobs. The instill and evocation lines up until QL125 are in the shops. The higher evocations are found from Dyna-Camp boss mobs. All of the lines make a big difference to pets cast from nanos of a similar QL. These buffs are very useful tools in the MPs toolset.

Most attack pets are the flying meatball with tentacles types that you have when you start as an MP. The demon types are different. They are named: Lemur, Fiend, Demon and Cacodemon and are very different to the meatballs. The main difference between the demons and the meatballs is hit points. Demon type attack pets have huge hitpoints. Whereas the meatballs will quite often die in battle with a mob, leaving you with little between yourself and a beating, the demons very rarely die in battle. A slight downside to the demons is that they can only hit with one hand. It may seem odd, but the Transcendent Enmity attack pet will often do a little more damage than the demon types. This is particularly true compared to the Lemur demon type (which is the weakest demon). The reason for this is that the meatballs hit (in terms of game mechanics) with both 'fists' rather like Martial Artists do. As a result, although their damage per hit is lower, they can do more damage over time hitting with both 'fists' at once (or maybe they're hitting with two tentacles at once...). The demon types do more damage per hit, but usually get fewer hits in as they hit with only one hand.

The reason for this is that Demons are meant to be used as 'tanks'. Their AMS is a little higher than the enmity line and as a result they should be able to keep the attention of a mob better. This means that the mob should be hitting the demon instead of hitting you or your team mates. The higher hit-points enable the demon to stand up to the beating better than the enmity line. Unfortunately, in many situations the demons are in reality unable to hold the attention of the mob, so this benefit is less than effective.

The Praetorian Legionnaire pet is also quite a good tank. It has a very high attack rating for its level and has more hitpoints too. However, the Legionnaire is probably at its strongest in group PvP where its High resistance to nanos makes it very hard to calm or root.

The attack pets last longer as the QL of the nano goes up. Your first pet will last only 600 seconds whereas the highest level demons last near 2000 seconds. You can keep track of the pets' time left, health and current position (and fighting target) by using the '/pet report' command. The Praetorian Legionnaire lasts for nearly 2 hours making it the longest lasting of all of the pets.

[Xtremtech]

Attack Nanos
============

There are four types of attack nano for the MP:


1) The Direct Damage nano or 'nuke':

These nanos do direct damage to the target. Each step up in QL Nano does more damage. The nuke is the second main weapon for most MPs. As with all direct damage nanos, when cast, they will attract the attention of the target to you. At lower QLs the direct damage nanos are available in shops, higher QL versions are mission/drop only. There are two lines of direct damage nano:

• - Cold Damage line: Inflicts cold based damage on the target.
  
  - Mind Damage line: Inflicts energy based damage on the target and lowers the nano skills of the target for a few seconds.

2) Damage/init Debuffs.

This range reduces the amount of damage of each hit that the target makes by a fair amount and in addition lowers the melee, ranged and physical init of the target. This means that the mob you cast this at will hit you less often, will hit crit you less often, will not hit as fast and when he does hit will do less damage. This debuff line has one major drawback: if you are casting a good debuff then the mob will almost certainly attack you. Used carefully the dmage/init debuff can be a very powerful tool (covered later in the tactics section) At lower QLs these debuff nanos are available in shops, higher QL versions are mission/drop only.

3) Nano Skill Debuffs:

MPs have two lines of Nano SKill Debuff and one grandaddy of a Nano Skill debuff. These are:

• The Unmake Line: there are six of these, one for each of the Nano Skills. Each one when cast will reduce the particular nano skill by -75 points. The effect lasts for 5 minutes. THe unmake line of nanos is available in shops.
  
  The Dominate Line: there are six of these, one for each of the Nano Skills. Each one when cast will reduces the particular nano skill by -125 points. The effect lasts for 5 minutes. This line of nanos is available only in mission/drop from mobs.
  
  Nano Shutdown: There's only one Nano Shutdown and there only needs to be. Nano Shutdown reduces all six key nano skills of the target by -2000! The effect lasts for 1 minute. This nano is only avaiable from missions/dropped by mobs.
  
  Nano-Cost Increase Debuff: A single debuff called Notum Reduction which will increase the nanocost of every nano that its target tries to cast during the effect by 25%.

4) The Stun Nano: There is only one stun nano in the MPs arsenal and it is called The Curse of Chronos. The effect of this nano is that it roots the target to the spot completely freezing them, so that they are unable to attack in any way. The effect lasts only 5 seconds. This nano is only avaiable from missions/dropped by mobs.

Creation Weapons
================

The creation weapons are MP only nanos, which when cast create a weapon or shield for the MP which will appear in your inventory. The nanos are only available in mission or dropped by mobs. There are two types of weapon and three types of shield. The shields count as 1 Hand Blunt weapons that do no damage and require weapons skills to wield them, so I have included them here too. The different types are:

2 Hand Blunt Staves:

• Glittering blue long staves which require 2 Hand Blunt skill to wield them. They reduce your nano cost when casting nanos by an amount and increase your max nano pool by an amount. They do poison damage when they hit and additionally have a chance of doing a Damage over Time attack which will poison the target repeatedly for a smaller amount of damage for a certain number of hits.

1 Hand Blunt Staves:

• Short Sticks which require 1 Hand Blunt skill to wield them. They too reduce your nano cost when casting nanos and increase your max nano pool by an amount. They also do poison damage when they hit and additionally have a chance of doing a Damage over Time attack.

Red Shield:

• Large black shield with a fire red design (e.g. Solar Guard). Requires 1 Hand Blunt skill to wield. Increases your Armour Class (AC) and increases your "Add All Defence" sometimes called DMS. The "AddAllDef" should allow you to avoid attacks more easily, so making it harder for Mobs to hit you.

Gold Shield:

• Small round golden shield (e.g. Living Shield of Evernan). Requires 1 Hand Blunt skill to wield. Increases your armour Class (AC) and in addition adds points to your parry skill and to our MaxHP. The extra hit points from this type of shield can be quite useful.

Blue Shield:

• Large black shield with a glinting blue design (e.g. Wave Breaker). Requires 1 Hand Blunt skill to wield. Increases you armour class (AC), reduces Nano Cost and increases your nano pool.

It is possible to wield both a 1HB weapon and a shield as long as you satisfy the dual wield requirements of the item in your left hand. This uses the Multi-Melee skill which is also dark blue. Unfortunately, the nano crystal description only tells you that the creation will be cast but tells you none of the details of the weapon or the requirements. For a full listing of the creation weapons and their stats go to http://ao-mp.are-belong-to.us/items/creations.html

When you cast the creation line of nanos, your hit points and nano drop to nearly zero. Never do this in battle! Always cast them in a safe place and have your heal pet healing you before casting them.

The general opinion in the MP community is that the weapons are not really very useful in terms of damage. Certainly, the damage is not particularly high with any of the weapons. The MP has dark blue skills for all of the combat requirements for the summoned weapons, which means that the MP rarely raises the skill higher than is is absolutely necessary in order to wield them. Most MPs choose either 1 hand blunt weapons or 2 hand blunt weapons.... raising both is probably unwise in terms of IPs.

In addition, the 1 Hand Blunt and 2 Hand Blunt skills rely on Strength and Stamina for their base abilities. Strength is dark blue and Stamina is light blue for nanomage MPs, so these are not really the strong suit for most MPs (Atrox MPs have a clear advantage here). Add to this that the speed of attack is governed by Melee Init, which is also dark blue for the MP and never raised by most MPs and you will understand that unless you are an Atrox MP you are very unlikely to ever do much more than the minimum damage with these weapons and you will also hit quite slowly. MPs generally try to avoid melee combat. The attack pet is good at melee and can be sent to battle far away from you, so for most of the time you won't be close enough to hit the mob with your stick. By keeping your distance the mobs will also hit you a lot less.

Still the weapons do in fact do some damage and are better than nothing in those situations when you are up close and personal with a mob, whether by choice or out of desperation!

The weapons are prized though by many low to medium level (up to 125) MPs for their secondary modifiers. The reductions in nano cost and the increase in nano pool make a very real difference to certain play styles for the MP. Most MPs do not spend many IPs in the required combat skills though, preferring often to use implants to gain the required skill to wield the weapons and shields. At higher levels, the relationship between the nano used up in casting the creations and the nano saved by them or extra nano pool becomes less convincing in terms of direct benefit. Your nano pool will often be easily high enough without the creation for casting everything you need (depending to an extent upon your playstyle) and the MPs have a line of buffs that reduce nano cost considerably, so the nano cost reduction becomes less important. As with damage though, the secondary benefits are still there, so many choose to continue wearing them.

Many MPs still wear the creations purely because the 2HB staves and the shields just look cool... which is also a reason to have them I guess!

[Xtremtech]

MP Specific Weapons
===================

Although there are no normal weapons with a specific Meta-Phyicist requirement (though rumours exist that some bloodworm carapaces have an MP requirement) you are started off in life with an energy shield as an MP. There are two lines of energy shield in the game:

• 1) The Metaphysic Energy Shield: it's name even makes it sounds like an MP should have one. It is an oval pink glowing shield that does very little damage at all, although it does do some damage. The requirements on these shields are huge: 1 Hand Blunt, Brawl, Melee Energy, Fast Attack and Dimach!
  
  2) The Round Blue Energy Shields: Meant to do a little more damage, these shields too have huge requirements

In addition to these energy shields there is a range of 'weapons' that are pillows. These 'weapons' do in fact do a very small amount of damage when wielded. The reason MPs use them though, is because of the nano skills modifiers that that they bring. Pillows can add up to +30 to Bio Met, Matter Met and Matter Cre. This can make the difference between a weak pet and a deep red pet. The requirements for wielding pillows are nearly the same as for the energy shields being: 1 Hand Blunt, Brawl, Fast Attack, Sneak Attack and Dimach.

The pillows are particularly useful for non-Nanomage MPs. The additional nanoskills gained can easily offset the breed disadvantages that they have. In particular, Atrox MPs will see benefits, since many Atrox MPs choose to wield melee weapons at higher levels and as a result, the investment of IP in the skills needed for these pillows is unlikely to be wasted.

Non-Specific Secondary Weapon Choice
====================================

Please refer to the Weapons for the MP section of this guide.

[Xtremtech]

DEFENSE CAPABILITIES
====================
====================

There are five main elements to the MPs defense capabilities:

• 1) Heal Pet line
  
  2) Mez Pet line
  
  3) Evades and Nano Resist
  
  4) Armour
  
  5) Root/Snare reducing Pet Buffs
  
  6) Quantum Wings

Heal Pet line
=============

Heal pets are very useful things indeed. The only heal nano an MP can use is the general +25 HP nano which after level 10 is already fairly useless. The heal pet is the MPs' replacement for healing power. The heal pet can be told to heal your attack pet, making it last longer and more able to kill mobs outright. The heal pet can also heal other players' pets including crat bots and engineer bots. Furthermore, the heal pet can be told to heal other players. Used mostly in teams to heal the tank (the person supposed to take most of the damage) and to heal players in trouble who are near death. Once told to heal a target, the heal pet will follow that target around healing them when necessary.

The higher the QL of the heal pet nano, the more healing your pet will do in each hit. The higher QL heal pets also have considerably more hit points than the lower QL ones. The heal pet nanos are all called "Calling of..." and have a Time and Space and Bio Metamorphosis requirement to cast them. All of the heal pets are meatball type pets and last from 1200 seconds to 2800 seconds.

The heal pet can be buffed with:

• 1) Anticipation of Retalation: see description re attack pets above
  
  2) The Nano Cost Reduction Line: these nanos reduce the cost of casting nanos. Heal pets have limited nano and will eventually run out. Using /pet report will display the heal pet's nano status. When the heal pet runs out of nano, it will stop healing until it has enough nano to cast 2 or 3 heals. Using the Nano Cost reducing buffs on the heal pet ensures that it runs out of nano more slowly and that whne it has run out of nano, the healing pause will be shorter. Nano Cost reduction nanos up until QL125 are in the shops.

You may find a few general buffs useful for your heal pets: Regeneration (speeds up healing) and Nano Restoration (speeds up nano recovery). The Nano Restoration buff is particularly useful for the heal pet and will slow down loss of nano and significantly shorten the healing pause when the pet has run out of nano.


Although you can command the heal pet to heal a particular target, you cannot command it to actually make a healing stroke. That is, the pet will say "Commencing healing process" when you tell it to heal a target, but will not necessarily directly raise the target's hitpoints. Heal pets can only do a heal once every so many seconds. For the lower QL heal pets this is around once every 3 seconds. FOr the higher QL heal pets it's around once every 5 seconds. When the heal pet actually does the healing stroke is not controllable by you. It happens when it happens. In order to actually heal its target, the heal pet executes a nano program in the NCU of the target.

The heal pet has few disadvantages. The main one is the difficulty of switching the heal pet from one target to another.

The main difficulty with changing targets is line of sight. Every pet can only attack or heal a target, when the pet itself has line of sight to the target. That is, there must be a path through to the target from the pet's point of view and the target must be close enough to the pet for the pet to 'see' it. It's useful to make a macro (macros are described below) that tells the pet to first get behind you and then heal the target. By doing this, as long as you have line of sight to your target, then you have a better chance that the pet (being behind you) will have line of sight too.

Another difficulty with changing targets is that the heal pet is only as fast as you are. It has a certain runspeed and can only heal from a certain range. As a result, if you switch the heal pet to a target a long way from its present target, then it will take some time to get there. This combined with the pauses the heal pet takes between heals means that when you switch a heal pet it will not be an instant heal. As a result it is important to command the heal pet to switch earlier rather than later as somebody is losing health.

[Xtremtech]

Mez Pet Line
============

The Mez Pet is the third pet that an MP can cast at the same time as the attack pet and the heal pet. As of patch 15.0.1 the Mez Pet now has two different functions for Player vs Mob/pet and Player vs Player.

• Vs Mob - Mez pet Calm: The mez pet effect is to stop the mob from moving and hitting its target. The effect lasts for 12 seconds and the mez pet will continue to try to land the attack on the mob, holding the mob calm for as long as the effect itself continues to land. The effect is shown graphically by a yellow-orange haze around its target.
  
  If the mez pet attack fails to land, then the mob will be free again to move and hit at least until the next successful mez pet attack.
  
  The Mez effect is 100% breakable - that means that any nano cast on the mezzed mob and any weapon hit to the mob will break the effect and free the mob to move and hit again.
  
  The Mez pet effect is different to the calms and mezzes of other professions in that it does not wipe the hatelist of the mob. This means that the mob will still be trying to attack its target and will still be working out which player/pet it should be attacking. As a result, you may still see the "Mob attacking" messages in your chat even while the mez effect is running.
  
  The main function of the mez pet then is to keep a single mob 'mezzed' while you deal with another mob. It is designed to be used on adds that nobody is attacking, just to keep them out of the battle.
  
  Vs Player: Mez Pet Root: In PvP the mez pet is designed to have a rooting effect on the player. When the effect lands on the player, the mez pet will stop the player from moving. The player will be able to continue attacking and hitting their target.
  
  Once again, the mez pet effect is 100% breakable, so unlike the roots that other professions have in the game, every hit or nano cast on the rooted target will break the effect and set the player free.

The mez pets come in three main groups:

• Distracting Spheres: Lesser Distracting Sphere, Distracting Sphere, Greater Distracting Sphere, Supreme Distracting Sphere
  
  Deranged Mindreavers: Lesser Deranged Mindreaver, Deranged Mindreaver, Greater Deranged Mindreaver, Supreme Deranged Mindreaver
  
  Summoning of...: Absuum, Ignatus Mind-Clouder, Duoco, Distral, Confane, Balbuto the Gibberer, Tumulten

All of the Mez pet nanos are mission item or mob loot only.

Evades
======

There are three skills that are generally called "evades". These are:

• 1) Evade Close Combat
  2) Dodge Ranged
  3) Duck Explosions

These skills enable you to avoid being hit and in particular reduce the likelihood of being hit with a critical hit (very high damage hit). The first two skills are light blue for an MP and are also the most useful. The third is dark blue and less useful, being effective only agains Shotguns, Support Beam type weapons and explosion weapons like grenades. As an MP you have a single buff called Anticipation of Retaliation which will buff all three skills by +60. It is a very useful buff and you get it a quite a low level so can be popular with many other players in your team too. At higher levels other professions (MAs and NTs) have better evades buffs which you should seek out.

The Nano Resist skill gives you a chance of 'evading' a nano. Essentially, the higher your nano resist, the less likely it is that an enemy will succeed in casting a hostile nano on you. Nano attacks are ranged attacks and as a result the MP is vulnerable to them even when staying back and letting the pets do the work. MPs are also particularly vulnerable to debuffing nano attacks which may well kill their ability to nuke or debuff mobs at all.

Armour
======

Armour is very important to any profession and any breed. Investing in good armour is never time or money wasted. In particular nanomage breed MPs need to ensure that they have the very best armour they can find and update their armour regularly due to their low hitpoints.

Most armour in the game has a requirement based on two of your abilities. Whichever breed you have chosen will tend to have two very strong abilities. You should choose the armour type that will allow you to get the very best QL of armour on. When working this out, you should keep in mind that buffs are available from other players for Strength, Agility, Sense and Stamina. Only MPs can cast a self-only buff for Intelligence and Psychic (Odin's Missing Eye) at higher levels.

There are some MPs who play a very passive gamestyle who rarely get aggrod by mobs and as a result feel they need to be less worried about armour. Whatever your gamestyle and whatever your level having good armour is a good idea. The type of armour that you wear will depend largely on your breed as the requirements for armour are usually base abilities.

Root and Snare reducing pet buffs:
============================

The Root and Snare reducing pet buffs are cast on the pets when they have been rooted or snared by a player or mob. Every root and snare nano has a duration which is the time that the root or snare will keep working against its target. The three root and snare reducing nanos for the pets will reduce that duration by a certain amount each time they are cast, thus freeing up your pets more quickly than they would normally be free. The top reducer also heals the pet for a small amount.

The three nanos are:

• 1) Fluctuate Manifestation: Reduces the duration of roots and snares on your pets by 6 minutes 57 seconds.
  
  2) Modulate Manifestation: Reduces the duration of roots and snares on your pets by 9 minutes 7 seconds.
  
  3) Succor of Expedium: Reduces the duration of roots and snares on your pets by 12 minutes 36 seconds and also heals the pet for 150 points.

The pet root and snare reducers are available in shops except the top one which is available only as loot from Dynacamp Bosses.

Quantum Wings
=============

Quantum Wings is a single nano that the MP can cast which enables the MP to fly. During flight the normal forward backwards and sideways arrows will control your direction. In order to angle yourself upwards or downwards, you need to right click on the screen and while holding the mouse button down, move your mouse up and down. During flight with quantum wings you will move quite a lot faster than you would if you were running on the ground as flying gives you a speed increase.

Quantum Wings counts as a defensive nano because unlike Yalmahas, you can cast quantum wings and fly even when you are under attack. As a result, casting quantum wings and flying away can often be a good way to escape a situation that has gone wrong. You can get quite quickly out of range of any mob/player who is attacking you.

[Xtremtech]

IP DISTRIBUTION FOR MPS
=======================
=======================


ABILITIES:

Since most MPs are nanomages, the abilities section here focusses on that breed. Be aware that for Atrox/Solitus MPs the choices will be less valid. Still the information regarding skills below is still useful in choosing which abilities to raise.

• 1) Intelligence is the most important ability for the MP to raise. It is the largest element contributing to all of the nano skills and as a result, the higher it is, the better your nano skills. In addition, the key skill of Comp Lit (for getting better NCU which you will need desperately as an MP) is 100% dependent upon Intelligence. Add to this that the best tradeskill that an MP has, Nano Programming is also 100% intelligence based... so all in all the key MP ability has to be intelligence. Always max this ability.
  
  2) Psychic is the primary contributing ability for Nano Pool. In addition, it is the secondary ability contributing to two of the nano skills. In particular Nanomages will find Psychic important as it is a green ability and will help the nanomage with Int/Psy based nano armour.
  
  3) Sense contributes as secondary abilities to some nano skills and to other skills that are useful for an MP. It can also often come up as requirements on some implants that you may want to build.
  
  4) Agility This contributes to some skills that are key to an MP (particularly Time and Space and the evades). It is also a contributor to many weapons skills.
  
  5) Strength. Contributes strongly to some weapons skills.
  
  6) Stamina. 100% contributor to Body Dev which later translates into hitpoints. It also contributes as a secondary to some nanoskills and towards some weapons skills.

It's important to remember that although many abilities count as secondary contributors to important MP skills, one of the most important contributions that abilities make is towards your armour. For nanomage MPs this works well, since the armour of choice of the nano mage is cyber or nano armour, both of which require Intelligence and Psychic which are green abilities for the nano mage and contribute well to MP skills.

For other breeds this is not the case. If you are an MP from another breed, you may find it wiser to max the two abilities that are green for you in order to ensure that you get the best possible armour. This will also mean that you get the best out of your breed specific characteristics. Then in addition to this max Intelligence, which is the most important ability for the nano skills. For other abilities, you can use the information above to decide whether or not you feel that they will be worth raising significantly.


Body Develepment:

• Body Development is directly related to Stamina. The higher your body development the higher your hit points will be. Each point of body development translates into a different number of hit points for different breeds. It's one of the atroxes strong points. For nano mages, body development is not a very good ability to raise. It's dark blue, translates into few hitpoints and costs a lot. It is not usually a high priority for nanomage MPs but for Solitus and Atrox MPs it is much more important. Some nanomage MPs maintain that it is more effective to put the IPs into Stamina, since this raises body dev and also contributes to other skills.

Nano Pool:

• Nano Pool is a middle priority for the MP. It depends to an extent what style of play you use. If you like to nuke a lot, then the more nano pool that you have, the better. If you have this style of play, then you may want to move nano pool up to being a high priority. Otherwise, you will get reasonable rises in Nano Pool simply from consistently maxing your Psychic ability, as this contributes 70% to Nano Pool. It's important not to let it get too low, so pay attention to it every once in a while.

[Xtremtech]

BODY:
=====

• For the average nanomage MP the body section is all dark blue and the only skills you might possibly need are Brawling and Dimach which may be requirements for a pillow or an energy shield. As discussed in the weapons section, you should only raise the required skills just enough to wield the weapons/pillows. Many MPs never pour points into these skills, preferring to use implants to achieve the required skills.

MELEE:
======

• For most MPs the only reason you will ever look at the Melee section is for the creation weapons and for pillows. As discussed in the weapons section, you should only raise the required skills of 1 hand blunt, 2 hand blunt and multi-melee just enough to wield the weapons/pillows. Many MPs never pour points into these skills, preferring to use implants to achieve the required skills.

MISC WEAPONS:
=============

• None of these skills should ever be touched. The only reason might be if you chose to wield a very big gun as a high level MP and needed the heavy weapons skill for it.

RANGED:
=======

• As described in the Weapons section above, the ranged section is where you will most likely spend your points for a weapon as an MP. Ranged weapons are far and away the most popular choice for MPs.
  
  Please refer to the How to Choose A Weapon Guide for the MP section of this guide for more details on weapons skills.

[Xtremtech]

SPEED:
======

NanoC-Init:

• The most important skill in this section is NanoC-Init. It affects your ability to cast nanos faster. The higher the NanoC-Init the faster you can cast. While this is particularly important for MPs who like to use direct damage nanos to attack, it is also key for passive style MPs. Particularly at lower levels where your pets will quite often die before killing a mob(s), the speed at which you can cast new pets can be the difference between life and death. In addition, when you have very high NanoC-Init through implants and NCU hardware (Nanoformula Recompiler) you can cast most nanos instantaneously. This then allows you to pull your aggro bar right down and still cast very fast. As a result, you will find that you hardly ever get attacked by mobs.
  
  Max it.

Evade, Dodge, Duck and Nano Resist:

• See the "Evades and Nano Resist" section above.

TRADE AND REPAIR:
=================

In trade and Repair, there are only two skills that an MP should consider raising:

1) Computer Literacy

• Computer literacy is on of the most important skills outside the Nano Skills section for an MP. In order for an MPs to perform at their best, they must use all of the wonderful nano skills buffs that they have in their nano lines. These take up increasingly large amounts of space as you progress in levels. It is essential that you try to have as much NCU as possible to fit all of the buffs in. The only way to do this is to install NCU belts with as many slots as possible and then fill those slots with the highest QL NCUs you can reach. For all of this, Computer Literacy is the required skill. Also, NCU hardware like recompilers, NCU upgrades etc also require Computer Literacy.
  
  Some MPs prefer to use the points from Computer Literacy elsewhere and build themselves sets of implants to do most of the work. While this works to an extent, you will still find that you are constantly short of space to fit in all of the buffs that you would like to have running. Additionally, as discussed in tactics, having the ability to switch out NCUs and hardware depending upon the conditions and the team make up.
  
  Max it.

2) Nano Programming

• This is the MPs strongest tradeskill. MPs also have a +92 buff for this skill which stacks with experitise to give a +112 buff to themselves. Nano Programming is used mostly for building clusters into implants. Since this skill is green for MPs and we have a possible +112 buff in addidition, we can make a tidy income using this trade. The skill has no other real uses other than being a requirement on a few very rare items that MPs might want to use.
  
  If you have lots of money (from another character, ebay or wherever) then it's probably better to spend the points in one of your medium priority skills like evades or secondary abilities. If you aren't independently wealthy then imp building can be a useful source of income along with buffing people for tips. The higher the skill required for the imp the more moneyyou will be tipped in general.
  
  While MPs are able to solo high QL missions for their level, this takes a long time and can be very hard work. Missioning for items to sell is not going to make an MP much money. Buffing people with the superb range of Nano Skill buffs will make you a decent living if you sell the skill, so you may choose not to raise this skill based on that fact.
  
  Raise this skill depending upon your financial situation and if you want to always build your own imps rather than get somebody else to build them.

[Xtremtech]

NANO AND AIDING:
================

This is the most important section for an MP.

Max all of the following every level:

• 1) Matter Met
  2) Bio Met
  3) Psych Mod
  4) Matter Cre
  5) Time and Space
  6) Sense Imp
  7) Treatment

The first six are the basis for casting your nanos. You are helpless without your nanos and only as good as the best QL nano you can cast. Max them all without question.

Treatment is also a key skill for the MP as it is what allows you to get your implants in and determines the quality of Nano and Health Rechargers you can use (these are the ones that you need to sit down for).

First Aid is a matter of choice. Many MPs put very few points into this skill. Just enough to get a QL60 or QL70 First Aid Healing Stim. These stims give you a quick blast of healing which can save you as you are running for your life, or can fill in one of the heal pet's healing breaks... Other MPs swear by first aid as being a life saver not only for themselves but also for other team members. At high levels, First Aid stims can be very useful indeed for yourself and in teams.

Of less use but not to be ignored are the FIrst Aid Nano Stims. These give you a quick burst of nano and can give you the one extra nuke you need in order to kill a mob that is hitting you. Nano Stims can also be useful in teams to give a burst of nano to a doc in trouble so they can get one more team heal out or to give nano to a tank so that he can get the aggro back from a mob who has decided to hit you.

As a result, you can either put First Aid into or not depending upon your own playstyle. FOr team support playstyle MPs, First Aid should certainly bew raised high enough to get the next stim QL up when the points are available


SPYING:
=======

This section is largely useless for an MP. The only skill here that you might consider raising is Break & Entry. There are two reasons for this:

• 1) Locked doors. In missions, some doors may be locked and need to be opened. This can cause havoc with your pets at times, since the pets think they can go through the doors but just get stuck. Having enough Break & Entry to open doors in the QL of missions that you usually do can be very helpful indeed at times. Having said this, most teams have at least one player who can open these doors and there is often another way around the door through other rooms. It's a very low priority just for this purpose
  
  2) Opening Mission chests. If you solo missions or just like the 'christmas every room' appeal of being able to open locked chests and find the loot in them, then having enough B&E to open mission chests is certainly worthwhile. Often the items in chests are the more valuable ones in the mission and increasingly, you will only find nano crystals (your lifeblood) in chests and rarley on dead mobs as loot.

Break & Entry is a very low priority for most MPs.

NAVIGATION:
===========

There are only two skills in Navigation that will be likely to interest you:

• 1) Vehicle Air: Purist MPs never put any points into Vehicle Air. It is the skill required to use those lovely, sleek, silver Yalmahas that everybody flies around in. Flying is particularly useful at middle to high levels for getting to missions that are in the middle of nowhere with your team. So what does the purist MP do? He casts Quantum Wings and flies under his own steam. Most MPs can cast Quantum Wings by around level 80 which is also around the level that you will begin needing to fly to reach missions. Yalmaha users typically fly a little bit faster than an MP using Quantum Wings but not so much that you'll have problems with it.
  
  If you do decide that you want a Yalmaha anyway, then put enough points into the skill to be able to use your yalmaha once you have already found it. Don't waste points unnecessarily here.
  
  2) Map Navigation should be raised when the points allow it to get the Map Reader Upgrades and to upload maps for playfields where you commonly hunt. You should try to get the Monsters, Players, Arrow and Machines upgrades as soon as you can. This is still a low priority skill though and you should only raise it when you have points to spare.

[Xtremtech]

Strategy and Play-style:

This guide is focussed on team play. The MP is a very good all round profession and finds it quite easy to solo missions by killing all the mobs, that other players of a similar level would never be able to attempt. Soloing may well be added to this guide at a later date.

This section describes the key roles that teams usually need filling and then goes on to describe the ways in which an MP can fill those roles. When choosing your gameplay in a team, it is important to fit yourself to the needs and requirements of the team. One of the great benefits of playing an MP is that the MP has something to offer in nearly all of the key roles in team play. As a result, you can be flexible and fit into many roles and have varied and interesting gameplay.

Many MPs will change their playstyle through their careers, playing one mic of roles most of the time asa a low level player and then changing to a different role selection as a medium level player and finally changing once again as a high level player. There is no 'right' way to play an MP. This section takes some of the elements that MPs can add to a team and gives some hints and tips on how those elements can be played. But each MP can build as many or as few elements into their gameplay as they like.

Some MPs don't do much more than just stand back and let their pets do their talking for them. Other MPs are right up close and personal with mobs. Still others mix the elements up to work mostly as a support for the team and others use everything they can to die with honour!



The role of the MP in teams:

MPs are lucky in many ways. For a large part of our playing career we are one of the most sought after professions to play in teams. At different levels the reasons for this can be very different too. It's important to have an understanding of what may be expected of you by a team in order to have an idea of what your role will be in a given team. This whole section is based on the average Nanomage breed MP. Tactics and team play for MPs of other breeds will differ greatly in some areas.

MPs are blessed with a little of everything:

• - through our attack pets, we have some ability to take the focus of anger from a mob (tanking)
  
  - through our heal pets, we have some ability to heal players in the team and we can increase this if we like through using first aid stims
  
  - through our nukes and our attack pets we can be potent damage dealers in a team
  
  - through our buffs, we can often buff the other players in the team to raise the overall level of damage, healing, calming, rooting... and because we enable other people to reach better buffs, we also indirectly affect the chances of crtting for the team, the defensive buffs that members can give the whole team and so on.
  
  - through our debuffs we can reduce the damage done to the team and sometimes save team members lives
  
  - with Curse of Chronos and our pets we have some ability to help with controlling mobs when there are many of them or when the team needs to escape a bad situation
  
  - with Nano Shutdown we can render many opponents totally harmless long enough to kill them.

On the other hand, the MP is something of a jack of all trades and is Master only of nano skills buffing. So the flipside of the above is:

• - several other professions can tank much better than our attack pet
  
  - several other professions can heal a team better than our heal pets
  
  - several other professions can outdamage our pets and our nukes
  
  - several other professions have better debuffs than ours
  
  - several other professions have better crowd control nanos and techniques

So, why is it that we are so highly prized during the levels up to around level 150? There are 3 key reasons:

• 1) our nano skills buffs are very useful for the whole team. It is one of the great benefits that we bring to any team and should never be underestimated. In order to get to casting the buffs we put in a great deal of work and effort and teams prize the result.
  
  2) when a team is being built there are several elements that they will look for. Because the MP can offer a little of several different elements, they can help fill out a team that is missing some key elements.
  
  3) in a team of people where all of the key elements have been covered, adding an all rounder like the MP is often a very good choice. For example, if the healer is debuffed by a mob and finds they cannot cast any heals, then the MP's heal pet can jump in and save lives. If the tank is rooted to the spot by a mob and can't do his job properly, then the MP attack pet can often reduce the dangers involved. In a sense we can act as the back-up for all of the key elements.

To summarise, the MP is only really good as the sum of all of his tools. No one tool or attribute stands out above those of other professions. Yet when you put all of the pieces together and use them all well, then you will find yourself to be a prized addition to almost any team. This also means that you can put the pieces together in your own way in order to create your own play style. Few other professions have this luxury.

[Xtremtech]

The Key Elements of a Team:
---------------------------

Let's look first at what the key roles are in a team and understand a bit about why the role is important and how people who fill that role can be successful in it.

1) Pulling Power:

When a team hunts whether outdoors or in a mission there are often a lot of mobs around ready to jump on the team and do their best to kill you. The art of pulling (and it is an art) is splitting off one mob at a time for the team to kill at their leisure instead of the team having having to deal with 3 or 4 mobs at a time and struggling to hold their own. Some teams prefer then to stand still and have someone go off and bring one mob at a time back to the team (or sometimes to do this at a distance with special tools). When there is more than one mob attacking the team they are called 'adds'.

Generally speaking, a puller would want to satisfy at least some of the following attributes:

• 1) have a good runspeed. This enables the puller to get out of situations quickly and back to the team quickly for support if things do go wrong. Your runspeed should ideally be high enough to outrun a mob.
  
  2) have high evades, particularly in Dodge Ranged. The mobs that you are pulling will certainly be trying to hit you and shoot at you so it's worth being able to avoid damage as well as possible
  
  3) have strong hitpoints (not exactly a nanomage strong point, but it can be buffed very well). If mobs are shooting at you and you are pulling quite high level mobs there is a chance that they will get in a critical hit or two which can leave you very low on health as a nanomage
  
  4) particularly for outdoor hunting have some method of pulling a mob from a distance. Enforcers do this using an item called Da Taunter, which they can target at a mob. There is also a general nano called "Aggro Prod" which has a lesser though similar effect.
  
  5) to a lesser extent, have a reasonable ability to sneak. The sneaking skill alows you to move near a mob without them noticing you. Some pullers use this in missions to split single mobs from a room that has several mobs in it, by attracting the attention of only one of them.
  
  6) have the map upgrade: Monsters. This allows the puller to see where the mobs are on his map display and can be crucial for working out how best to approach a room in missions and also when to approach the room.

2) Tanking:

In order to know what's going on in a room full of people, pets, bots, mobs, blinding flashes, loud noise and a text window full of chat and cires of congratulations and help!!!! - it's important to have the team focussed on the same goal. Generally, it's better for a team to try to work together to kill one mob at a time. Different people attacking different mobs on their own generally leads to the mobs killing the people. The best tactic 90% of the time is to focus on one mob and kill it, then switch to the next mob and then the next. In the meantime, it's important that the damage being done to the team by the other mobs who may be around is kept to the players with the most Hit Points who will not die too quickly for the healer to keep up.

The Tank role makes sure that all of this works. A tank is usually a player with high hit points who can do high average damage. As a result of the high damage they do, they are seen as being the most threatening member of the team and even additional mobs will often focus on them. The Enforcer and Martial Artist professions can both make very good tanks. Both professions have Nanos and tools that they can use which make mobs even more angry at them. In this way, the tank makes sure that most of the damage from the mobs is focussed on them. At the same time, they focus on killing one mob at a time and their choice of the mob to die is usually followed by the team. Because most of the damage is going on one team member, the healers usually have an easier time of healing. It's easier and costs less nano for a healer to heal one player a lot, than to have to heal the whole team repeatedly because several team members are getting attacked.

3) Healing:

In any situation where a team is fighting, people are going to get hurt. The healers role is to heal them and make sure that they don't die. There are three main types of healing that are important in a team.

• - Firstly, team healing: this is where one team member casts a nano that heals all of the members in a team. There are several professions that can do this to varying degrees. Team healing tends to be wasteful. Each team heal will usually use up a lot of nano and that power is used to heal all of the people in the team, even if only 2 or 3 of them were hurt.
  
  - Secondly, there is singlepoint healing: the healer heals on person by an amount with each heal. It's more complex than team healing because the healer must shoose who to heal by their level of health (shown in the team panel's bars) and by the rate at which they are losing health.
  
  - Thirdly there is HoT healing: this stands for Heal over Time. A nano is usually cast on the team or members of the team which heals a few points every few seconds. Often, the nano increases the overall hit points of the target too. This kind of healing ensures that if a few of the people in the team are getting hit occasionally, but not very badly, then the HoT will heal them bit by bit over time. These are very powerful but often underestimated healing tools

The down side of being the healer in the team is that the mobs aren't entirely stupid and if someone is healing a lot in the team then the mobs will start attacking that person. They know that if the healer dies then they are more likely to be able to kill the rest of the team.

4) Crowd Control:

An apt name for a very important task that makes the job of any team (and tank) a lot easier. Crowd Control usually refers to Nano Technicians and Bureaucrats. These two professions have the ability to make some of the mobs attacking the team suddenly decide that they don't want to fight at all; this is called Calming or Mezzing. Crowd control can also refer to special nanos being cast that slow down the mobs around the team, sometimes by so much that they are rooted to the spot; these are called Roots. Finally crowd control can also refer to nanos which when cast stop the target dead and also make it impossible for them to fight at all; these are called Stuns.

In a situation where there are lots of adds (mobs in addition to the one the team is trying to kill), crowd control can be essential. By making sure that none of the other mobs attack the team or preventing mobs that hit at close quarters from getting close to the team, the crowd control member of the team allows the team to take their time killing each mob one by one.

5) Debuff Roles:

Debuffing members of a team can do a great deal in keeping people alive. There are many debuffs in the game, some make mobs hit much more slowly, others reduce damage, some stop certain mobs from attacking, some reduce the Armour Class of mobs, others steal hitpoints from a mob and give them to a caster, others that reduce the vision of a mob making it harder for them to see what they are attacking... the list goes on.

Each debuff reduces a mob's ability to hurt you and/or increases the team's ability to hurt the mob. Often, you'll find that debuffs from different professions will stack up together. So as an example a doctor may have a debuff that reduces the combat speed and accuracy of a mob by reducing its Inits. A trader debuff cast on the same mob may reduce the inits by some more. An MP debuff cast on the same mob might reduce the inits by even more still. Then the NT may cast a 'blindness' debuff on the mob and what you have left is a mob that hardly ever hits anything and never does much damage when they do hit.

6) Damage Dealing Roles:

All of the above roles are all well and good. But somebody has to actually kill the mob by damaging it! The damage dealers in the team have this role. Damage dealers are usually either weapons specialists or direct damage nano specialists. In particular, critical hits with weapons can do a huge amount of damage. These are usually quite rare hits that do well above the normal damage range for a weapon. Some professions have buffs that increase the chances of these hits. These are called Crit Buffs.

There are two other types of damage that can be very effective too. DoTs, or Damage over Time attacks will take a certain amount of hit points away from the target every few seconds for a certain number of 'ticks'. So a DoT that does 250 damage for 10 ticks, will end up doing 2500 damage overall. The other 'special' type of damage belongs to the martial artist, who doesn't need to use weapons because he can kill with his hands and feet.

7) Buff Roles:

Most professions have some buffs that will improve the overall success of the team. The buffing role is sometimes seen by players as being annoying or unwelcome, but just as a debuff that reduces the abilities of the mobs can be important, so can a buff that increases the abilities of a team be important. Hit point buffs that raise the hitpoints of the team, Armour buffs that make them less vulnerable, Crit buffs that make the damage of the team higher, evade buffs that keep the team from being hit, nano skills buffs that make the power of all nanos better etc etc etc.

[Xtremtech]

How to fill the role of the MP
------------------------------

So, given these key roles in a team, how can an MP play their part. As we said before, the MPs strengths lie in three areas:

• 1) Buffing Role
  
  2) Filling a missing role or a poorly covered role in a team
  
  3) Backing up and reinforcing a filled role

Let's take each of the key roles and look at how the MP can help.


1) Pulling Role

An MP in general doesn't make a good puller. Our runspeed is often not good enough (dark blue skill) and running around with pets following us will make it very difficult to pull just one mob at a time back to our team, so we'd need to leave them behind by using the /pet wait command. We don't have specific tools for pulling aggro from a distance (other than the general aggro prod buff), our evades are a light blue skill, our sneaking skill is dark blue and would be wasted IP for an MP and so on. However, it is an important skill when you are soloing indoor missions and some MPs really enjoy the role; there can be quite an adrenaline rush and good pullers are highly prized in teams.

If you are going to pull for a team (particularly in mission) then you should try to satisfy as many of the attributes mentioned in the description under this heading in the section above.

Many pullers prefer to set their agg/def bar to full def. This helps them avoid hits and also makes them less threatening to a room with several mobs, making it easier to pull a single one away from the room. It also ensures that when you get back to the team, they can easily pull the attention of the mob(s) away from you and onto them. Pullers should always create a macro that tells the team in team chat which mob they are going to pull. This allows the team to prepare for the mob in question. You can also simply target the mob in question and type %t into the team chat. Also, if you think that you may well be about to pull more than one mob because you don't think you will be able to split them, warn the team in advance.

When approaching a mission room as a puller, it is important that you use your map display to assess the room before going into it. Check where the mobs are on your map (with the Monsters map upgrade). If there is only one mob in the room, then approach with care through the doorway until you notice that the mob has seen you and begins its attack. Then begin moving back to the team, with the mob in tow. Keep an eye on the dot on your map too in order to make sure that it is still following you.

When pulling indoors or outdoors, be aware that there are other mobs around too. Outdoors you may well only attract the attention of one mob, but then find that all the other mobs of that type who are nearby will come to your target mob's defence. Try to learn which mobs will defend which others and make sure that the surrounding area doesn't hold too many mobs for your team to deal with. Indoors, you will need to make sure that as you work your way into the mission, deeper and deeper, there are other rooms around you that keep mobs. These may not attack you as you go past the room, but can very well attack you as you're on your way back with another mob! If this happens then you may well end up pulling more mobs than your team can comfortably deal with.

The best way to deal with this is to clear the rooms as you find them. Decide a path that you will want to clear and clear at least the rooms on either side of this path before going deeper along the path. For this reason, it is usually best to clear all the rooms leading directly off the main room in a mission. Also, having a set path in your mind that you want to clear is very useful because it makes it easier for you to remember the way back. You don't want to be running around lost with mobs trying to attack you. You want to get back to the team as soon as possible. In addition, if you don't remember your way back, then you may find yourself stumbling into a room with more mobs in it... which could easily mean your death.

In order to split mobs off from a room where there is more than one mob, you need to attract the attention of one of the mobs without the others noticing you. Before moving close enough to a door to open it you can see the mobs on your map display in the room ahead. Patience is a virtue here. Wait as long as possible for the best positioning of the mobs. This will be when one mob is near to the door and the others are further away. Inch towards the door and dart forward a step and then immediately back. If the mob you wanted turns and begins attacking then move away fropm the door at least far enough to allow the door to close behind the mob that is now after you.

With a deal of practice and a great deal of skill you can even pull a single mob from a tiny room where the two mobs are standing right next to the door.

Once back to your team, it's usually wise to tell the heal pet to heal you and the attack pet to attack the mob as soon as possible.

Pets, generally, don't make good pullers. They are nowhere near as precise as a player puller can be. If there are adds to be had they will pick them up. You can reduce the likelihood with an MP attack pet by not buffing them with instill or chant or anima... but then the attack pet will not hold agg in all likelihood once it has pulled. The only really valid thing you can do is to anima the pet only when they have pulled back to the team room, which won't really help much in most cases. The basic technique for doing this is to get the pet to attack a mob from a distance. Once the pet is hitting on the mob you need to get close enough to the pet to order it to follow, then run back to the team. The pet will follow you and the mob will follow the pet. Once back with the team you need to order the attack pet to start killing the mob again and you have just pulled!

Generally, when asked to pull you should say no. There are all sorts of problems. By sending the pet off from a distance, you have less idea of what other mobs might be around. If your pet attacks one and there is another one nearby, it will like as not come straight for you. You then have to move close enough to the pet to command it to follow and in missions and outdoor hunting, this leaves you exposed and sometimes out of range of the team. This is NOT a good idea for a nanomage. In any team there will almost certainly be one other profession who will make a better puller. Suggest that they pull and failing that, suggest that nobody pulls and that you move through the mission room by room, or run round as a team together to pick your battles with mobs.

With the recent introduction of swarm code which means that mobs will sometimes decide to attack your team from a long way away and without warning, you will sometimes find that your attack pet defends the team and runs off himself to deal with the attacker. This is not a good situation to be in. Your attack pet is off somewhere away from the team not under your control. In this situation, you need to be able to go and pull your attack pet back to the team, bringing the mob with him. Don't just let him go without saying anything to the team. If there was more than one mob wherever the attack pet went, then they will probably kill it. Once he'd dead they will soon turn up and start hitting on your team. If this is a surprise and when the team isn't ready, is resting or worse rebuffing the results can be deadly. Tell the team that the demon is fighting elsewhere and that you will pull it back to the team, then go pull it!

For the sake of completeness here are some more advanced techniques that you can use if you have to pull:

A pet owner with a strong pet can split two mobs in a room quite well, by attacking one at distance with the pet and pulling the other back into the room where the team is. I've used this tactic to great effect in teams where there isn't a very good puller in the team. An MP has an advantage in that he also has the heal to stick to himself as the puller... The downside is that the attack pet may not hold out against the mob while you are killing the pulled add and as a result, the original mob may add in the end anyway (though considerably weakened by then). In addition, the MPs attack pet can sometimes be a fair portion of the overall damage potential of the team. With this method you leave that damage in one room with a mob and the team has to kill the other mob without that help.

It's also possible (but very difficult) to split a three mob room. You stick the heal pet to the attack pet, target them at two mobs close to each other at distance and then pull the third yourself. The attack pet takes one agg, the second one goes for the heal pet and the third goes for the MP. The biggest difficulty is one of timing. The MP needs to get the agg from the third onto himself after the two have gone for the pets but before the third one joins in on the pets.

I've had some success debuffing the third one to make sure it comes after me, but it also often brings a second along with me and away from the pets. Also, the MP needs to dodge out of line of sight before commanding the attack/heal combo away but dodge back out at the right moment to pull the third. I manage it maybe once in every 10 attempts... which isn't a high enough ratio to make it a very good tactic when there are other options. I use it mostly when duetting with one other player.

Either way... the high damage players need to be ready to get agg off the MP very quickly though cos we don't last long on our own against a mob.

[__________starknaked]

I'm not an MP, but I thought the above was a very good tutorial.

I wanted to point out a possible error, though:

"Heal pets can only do a heal once every so many seconds. For the lower QL heal pets this is around once every 3 seconds. FOr the higher QL heal pets it's around once every 5 seconds".

According to the antiguardians database, the MP heal pets' heals actually happen quicker the higher level they are.

For example, Curatem's heal has an attack of 3.5, recharge of 5, meaning it will cast every 8.5 seconds:
http://antiguardians.org/itemdb.php?...no=1&id=125727

On the other hand, the heal of the lowest level heal pet, Medinos, is listed at 5.5 second attack time, 5 second recharge time, which means a heal every 10.5 seconds.

http://antiguardians.org/itemdb.php?...no=1&id=125728


This is assuming that antiguardians is correct about this.

[Xtremtech]

Thanks Starknaked... not quite sure what I did there. Writing this damned thing is addling my brain!

more sections to come

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[Xtremtech]

2) Tank Role

It is quite possible to tank using an attack pet in some situations. As we mentioned above the tank's role is to hold the attention of a mob and to act as a focus of attention for the team through everyone attacking the mob that the tank is attacking. The tank should have enough hit points to be able to absorb the damage being done by the mob and should have good average damage to keep the attention of the mob.

Generally, if your attack pet is going to tank, then it will need to be a high QL pet. It should be strong red to you. If your attack pet is orange or yellow to you, then the likelihood is that the pet will not hold up to acting as tank for the sort of hunting you are likely to be doing in a team. You will also want to be sure that you have a good quality Chant and Instill cast on the attack pet. It is generally best to have a player character pull back to the team and as you see the player returning with a mob, cast your anima on your attack pet and dispatch it to attack. Keep an eye on the health bar of the puller and if he's struggling put the heal on him immediately after commanding the attack pet.

If your pet is tanking, it's best if you focus your attention on the job of tanking. Don't get too involved with any other roles in the team. Toggle between your pet's health bar and that of the mob to judge the progress while counting to 20 and then cast the anima/evocation again. The Evocation line is the best for making your attack pet a tank as it also increases the AddAllOff of the pet which will help the pet to keep aggro. If you have time in between animas/evocations, you can nuke or shoot at the mob. Keep in mind though that you go on the mob's hate list too as the owner of the pet (which is why adds will quite often go straight for the owner in a solo mission) any damage and aggro that you give to the mob will potentially pull him off the attack pet and on to you. Exercise care when doing damage while your pet is tanking. Your role now is as tank and not as damage dealer.

If the mob does switch target away from the attack pet, cast an anima/evocation on the attack pet and get the heal pet to heal the attack pet. The damage add from the anima/evocation plus the addition of the heal pet to the mob's hate list as healing a major threat will sometimes pull the mobs attention back to either the heal pet or the attack pet. Keep in mind of course that the heal pet is then not available for a period of time for the players.

When the mob is down to the last bits of life, then you can usually allow yourself a bit of a free for all with your own danage. Bang away with the nukes, shoot your gun... whatever damage you have, until the mob goes down. If it looks at any time like the mob has more HP than your attack pet, put the heal pet onto the attack pet straight away. Your responsibility in the tank role includes not letting the attack pet die. This would just leave the whole team open to attack by the mob. If the tanking pet does go down before the mob is dead, then all hell tends to break loose. Once calm is restored, discuss new tactics with the team. Generally, in any hunting zone or mission the mobs will be around about the same difficulty and if your attack pet dies as tank in one battle it is likely to happen again.

If your attack pet has been unable to hold the aggro of the mob and the mob switches to hitting/shooting a member of the team, try the heal on attack. If it doesn't work, then when the next mob is there if the mob ends up attacking the same player, make sure you get the heal pet to that player as soon as you can. After the second mob is dead, discuss the possibility of the player that has been getting the agg (being hit) playing a tanking role. You can agree to stick the heal pet to that player in order to maximise his chances. The reason is obvious: if the player is consistently taking aggro away from your attack pet and heal pet combo then he is also likely to be able to keep agg well as a tank.

Once your pet has tanked the mob and it is dead, take the time to make sure that your pet is fully healed by your heal pet and that its buffs are at full strength. Then the puller can go off again to pull the next one. Tanking with an attack pet is usually considerably slower than tanking with a real tank. If the team begins to get impatient waiting for you to prepare the pet, don't rush yourself. Instead, begin discussing other tactics. Allowing the team to rush the process when tanking with a pet will often lead to deaths in the team in the end.

The biggest drawback of tanking with the pets is that they are very much less able to tank multiple mobs. Good tanks can use aggression enhancers, special attacks, special nanos etc in order to keep the attention of more than one mob. Even if they can't get the whole attention of all of the mobs they can be certain to get most of the attention. With the pets it is much more difficult to manage this. The best way without doubt is having good crowd control in the team. They calm the mobs that are not being attacked and once the first mob is dead, take a little time to prepare your pet and then set the pet off. The calms that players use do not last for ever and will time out eventually. Make sure you know how long the player's calms will last before engaging in battle. Your attack macro for the pet (macros are discussed in a separate section) should say the name of the target before ordering the attack. This way, the team is left in little doubt what the target is.

There are two main tactics you can use in add situations without crowd control. One is to put the heal pet onto your attack pet again, in the hopes that the adds will attack the heal pet rather than attack other team members. If this doesn't work, you can use a more risky tactic, being to cast an anima on your attack pet and then cycle quickly between the mobs ordering an attack on each one of them by your attack pet. Make sure you get a confirming response from the attack pet and that the attack pet hits each target at least once. It's a little risky doing this because it means that the teams focus for action isn't focussed! Only do this when one mob is already showing lost health on its bar. This way the team members know which one to hit themselves. In most instances a single hit on the add mobs will not show very much on their health bars, but may grab their attention to the pet.

If the attack pet does die while tanking despite your best efforts, your first job is to watch to see which player the mob turns his attention to. Immediately get the heal pet on that player and then begin casting a new attack pet. As soon as the new attack pet is up, command it to attack the mob. Then begin casting the buffs on the attack pet that will up its damage and aggro setting. When the pet has died during tanking your first priority is to get a new tank up and running that will tank again.

Without a puller, tanking with a pet is possible but much more hazardous to the team. Outdoors and in mission it's possible to command the attack pet to attack a target and then have the team follow the pet into battle. The biggest difficulty with this is that dispensing with a puller and just going from mob to mob (room to room in missions) will often lead you into many more add situations. You are far less likely to be able to deal well with an add situation if you are running into it. Generally, with this type of tanking you want to have he heal pet stuck to the attack pet before commanding the attack. If there are any adds as a result of following the tank, then the heal pet stands a chance of taking the agg thus making the situation a bit less desperate when you arrive.

[Xtremtech]

3) Healing Role

In the section above we identified the thre major healing types

• - team healing
  - singlepoint healing
  - HoT healing (Heal over Time)

You and your heal pet together can take over some of these roles to a lesser or greater extent in a team.

Team Healing:

• As a general rule the heal pet cannot do this. Any team that is relying on the heal pet to heal the team, should be told that this is not possible. You should probably leave the team in order to allow the team to recruit a doctor or good team healer if this is the role that they are expecting you to play.
  
  In extremely strong teams who are hunting well within their range, you can consider continuing with the team. Essentially, you will be singlepoint healing as below but then with responsibility for the whole team. Nevertheless, you are acting in the 'team healer' role in this situation and have a responsibility for the lives of all team members. It is particularly important that the team have a good tank if you are to fill this role. If the tank is excellent and hunting well within his range, then he will hold most of the agg and take most of the damage. You can then simply stick the heal pet to the tank and very rarely have to move the heal pet at all to other players. This is the optimum situation for the heal pet to be in.

Singlepoint Healing:

• Although it is possible to singlepoint heal as a supplement to a team healer, there are restrictions to this. You cannot singlepoint heal if there is no team healer. In any team where there is no team healer then you and your pet are in fact in a team healing role with responsibility for the lives of the whole team. We spoke above of the difficulties of switching a pet from person to person in the team. Generally, the singlepoint healing role is filled by the MP only when there is a good team healer in the team. In difficult situations where several players are being attacked, you can keep an eye on the health bars and switch the pet to the most needy cases. These will be the players whose health is dropping the fastest and the players whose health is well below half health.
  
  You must keep a particularly good eye on the health bars of the team healer though. The moment the team healer's health bar starts dropping, you should switch your heal pet to him. As we mentioned above, team healers will tend to get agg from all of the adds in an add situation. The team healer's life is the most important in the team, because if the team healer dies, then the likelihood is that others will follow. Find out who the team healer is at the beginning of the team. Make a note of which F-key corresponds to him and keep it in mind.
  
  When singlepoint healing, you are supplementing the team heals. You need to take into account that some drops in health will be picked up by the team healer. Don't switch your pet too early, because you will find that you are switching your pet to someone who wasn't in trouble and whose health is restored by the team heal. Keep an eye on the health bars and you will soon get a feel for the rhtyhm with which the team healer is casting. If you see a player's health stay still or go down after a team heal, then keep a close eye on that health bar. It is the most likely candidate for a heal in the near future.
  
  It is essential for singlepoint healing that you have a good understanding of who is where. The best position to be is in the middle of the team with the team loosely in a circle around you. You should have the heal pet stuck to you. Until you have a great deal of practice you should not take part in the battle itself. Put the attack pet on the mob and then focus on the health bars. When you see that one of the team may need a heal soon, select them and turn slowly around until you see their health bar above their head. Make a mental note of where they are and keep pointing in their direction, then go back to scanning the health bars. Remember, keep a particularly close eye on the team healer and check during the battle every onc ein a while to make sure that you know where the team healer is.
  
  When you do need to heal a player, select the player using the F-keys (F1 is yourself F2 is the next person doen in your team panel and so on till F6) and command the heal to heal the player. Then turn to where that player is and try to get a fix on which mob is attacking the player. Make sure that you are pointing towards the player being healed and have your First Aid Stim shortcut ready. If the heal pet is healing but is not keeping up with the damage, use one of your nanos that will probably pull aggro onto yourself. The damage/init debuff is usually very good for this purpose. Then step forward to the player and give him a first aid stim. If you then stay still and do not attack the mob that you pulled onto yourself, someone in the team will shoot at it and get the agg off you again. If this deosn't happen very soon then command your attack pet to switch targets to the mob attacking you. This should finally get the aggro away from you.
  
  Make sure that the person you were healing is reaonsably OK again and then command the heal pet to heal you again. This tactic is hair raising and gets your adrenaline running. You must stand still with a mob attacking you and wait, trusting your team mates or your pet to pull the aggro away from you again.
  
  If you switch the pet and get the message "I am unable to do that master" then one of two things is the likely cause.
  
  - you don't know where the person is and they are either out of line of sight of you with the pet above you, or the person in question may be standing on top of furniture or hiding near shelves. Many players do this to reduce their likelihood of being attacked. Essentially they are getting themselves out of line of site of the mob. Unfortunately, they are also getting themselves out of line of sight of your heal pet. The best thing that you can do in this situation is go as close as you can to the player and then order the heal pet to heal. Often this will get the heal to the player in question, but it brings its own problems. Once the pet is healing a hidden player, it can be very difficult to get the heal back for other players. If the team is relying to any extent upon your heal pet as a supplement to a team healer, then you must explain to them that they need to stay off furniture and try to stay in plain sight of you. If they don't then not only do they risk not getting healed themselves, but the heal pet can get stuck making it impossible to heal anyone in the team.
  
  - The heal pet has run out of nano. It's a good idea to use the /pet report command regularly to keep an eye on the percentage nano status of the heal pet. If the heal pet is running low on nano, the best thing to do is to get the team to pause for a moment, terminate the heal pet and recast a new one.

HoT Healing:

• This is the most common usage of a heal pet. If the heal pet is stuck to a single target and doesn't need to be moved, then in essence the heal pet is acting just like a large, slow HoT on that player. It heals regularly when needed for a certain amount. You will often get the request in teams to "Stick the heal on the tank". In this case you simply command the heal to heal the tank and get on with your role as damage dealer. If the tank is not managing to hold the aggro of the mobs well at all, then you will probably want to switch back to a singlepoint healing role.
  
  Never stick the heal pet to a puller. Firstly, the heal pet will take aggro from possible adds the puller may come across and it makes it much harder for the puller to do his job of pulling a single mob back to the team. If the Tank is also acting in the puller role, then put the pet on yourself while he is pulling and then stick your heal pet to him when he is back in the room. Make sure that you get the heal pet back onto yourself as soon as the mob is dead. Pullers have a tendency to go off quickly to pull the next mob and you don't want your heal pet going after him.
  
  A good candidate for using the heal pet like a hot is (weirdly enough) the doc in the team. If the doc is a good high level doc and the team is fairly balanced meaning several members are regularly getting agg (or when there's no crowd control) then the doc will be doing a lot of team healing. This will undoubtedly get the doc a lot of aggro. Sticking the heal pet to the doc will often help just enough to keep him alive in a bad situation.
  
  Another possible candidate for the heal pet when you are playing the HoT role is any NT in the team. Nts tend to be nanomage breeds and can do enormous damage with their nukes. In addition, nukes have a tendency to pull agg evern when they are not dealing th most damage. As a result, they quite often pull agg away from a tank. As Nanomages, most NTs will not be able to stand up to much of a beating when they get agg, so having the heal pet 'HoT' running on them can keep them going long enough for the tank to get aggro back or for the doc to get the NT targetted and healed. Keep in mind too that you yourself are probably a nanomage with a nuke and agg pulling nanos... In some teams you may want to have the heal pet 'HoT' running on yourself.
  
  When you are moving from mob to mob with the team in a mission it is usually not a good idea to leave the heal pet as a HoT on anybody else other than yourself. The reality of a pet owners life is that pets can get stuck all over the place in missions. It takes a certain skill and understanding of how pets move to get a pet smoothly through a mission. Sticking the pet to someone else when moving through a mission will very often lead to the heal pet getting stuck or lost. Generally, if you are moving through a mission, particularly at speed you should keep the pet with you while moving, put it on the target during combat and get the heal pet back to you (with follow or by commanding it to heal you) as soon as the battle ends and before the team moves off again.

[Raiko]

This is a great guide indeed, I dont think youve missed anything and the detail youve gone into reflects what a complex and interesting profession this is - great job and someone make it sticky!

One minor point, in the attack nano section you might wish to differentiate between the 2 'flavours' of nuke, given that one (ie the mind xxx line) has a debuff element.



The other thing I might pick you up on is the rather contentious issue of breed, whilst I agree with you - many would not

You could argue (and many have) that the cons of being a nanomage (for any profession) far outweigh the pros - which is dissappointing :/

If I had my time again.... Id pick nanomage again, simply because it feels right to me - but in a game where HP is king, solitus wins. Im not sure the advantage the nanomage has over the sol is as significant as you imply

Kudos for a great guide

[Xtremtech]

Corrected and added. I hope to finish it today.

Thanks Urshu

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[Xtremtech]

4) Crowd Control

MPs are not good at crowd control. If there are crowd control members in the team, then the MP is more likely to be the one who will break the crowd control than will make it. It's hard to stop it happening and we need to be careful. This is how it goes:

The heal pet is healing the tank as a HoT. The attack pet and the tank are killing a mob. Then two add mob rush into the room. The first thing they do is attack the heal pet. Your attack pet really doesn't like people attacking the heal pet, so it puts both mobs on its hate list... it wants to kill them both. The crowd controller calms both adds and the original mob is killed. Then the tank starts killing one of the two calmed mobs, but your attack pet doesn't agree and attacks the other one.

The same thing can happen if you're healing the crowd controller with your pet. NTs often make good crowd controllers with their calms, but they tend to fumble and get resisted by the mobs, so the NT quite often takes a hit or two before the mobs are calmed. If you put the heal onto the NT to stop him dying, then the mob he missed the calm on will attack the heal pet. Same again, the attack pet will often decide that the calmed mob is the one it should be attacking, because it was nasty to the heal pet and you have a broken calm again.

If you like nuking hard and fast, your agg/def bar may be up quite high. If this is the case, the pets seem to auto-attack more readily.

It's a hard situation to deal with. The best you can do is

• - if you see mobs coming at you, tell the attack pet again to attack the same mob it is already fighting. This seems to make it less likely that the attack pet will switch mobs
  
  - if you can see that a crowd controller is calming add mobs, try to leave moving the heal to him until you see the yellow stuff around the calmed mobs. This stops the heal pet from getting on the calmed mobs agg list and will give you more control. Unfortunately, it can also mean that if you dont time it just right, the calmer may end up dead in some situations...
  
  - if you see adds coming toward the room pull the heal pet back to healing you until the adds are calmed. This of course leaves the team member who had the heal pet without the HoT for a little while, so you need to be sure that that player can take it. If in doubt, pull the heal pet off and give the player a first aid stim to help him get through until the adds are calmed and the heal pet can go back to him.
  
  - if the situation is happening often in a team (can be affected by the level of the NT/Crats mex not being good enough) then make sure your agg/def bar is set to just below 50%. This will reduce the occurence.

If there are no crowd controllers in the team then you can help out when there are adds:

• - watch which mob the tank chooses to attack, pick another one and put your attack pet onto it. Put your heal pet on the tank and if you have him around, put the mez pet on another mob. With any luck you can delay one add with your attack pet, another will start attacking your heal pet a bit and a third can be delayed with your mez pet.
  
  - it's possible to hold the attention of two adds with the attack pet and heal pet. Attack the weakest add with your attack pet. Put the heal pet on your attack pet. This should give the attack pet time to hit the weaker add at least once, then you switch your attack pet to the stronger add. The attack pet and heal pet are now both on the hate list of both mobs. The attack pet is attacking (and should hold) the stronger mob and the weaker mob will often switch between attacking the heal pet and the attack pet.

So, essentially the tactic is to get your pets on the hate lists of as many mobs as you can from the adds.

If your heal pet needs to stay where it is, because the tank isn't very strong and needs it or because the doc is getting serious agg (as often happens when there are adds), then you shouldn't move it. These things are always a balance. You need to make a judgement call on whether a pet is better where it is or whether it is better being used as crowd control. For example, if the first mob is nearly dead and you get adds, you may leave the attack pet there to kill it quicker and only then switch the attack pet to an add.

The mez pet seems a perfect crowd controller. It should pacify the mob after all. But it only does it for up to 12 seconds and at present this "pacification" isn't working properly (Dec 2002). At best, the mob will pause for a couple of seconds and then continue hitting if its target is at close quarters.

The mez pet is mostly used in soloing for the MP. Those who do use it in teams usually have it guarding them and don't tell it to attack unless there is an add situation.