Biased Profession Opinions (Read the fourth post!)

[crattey]

Since every thread here is biased anyway, how about we start one that's intended to be biased?

Your profession. Describe what you like about it, what you think it's strengths are, and share what you dislike, what you think is broken.

General template could be something like;

Profession

PvM
Likes
Dislikes

PvP
Likes
Dislikes

This is very much intended to be a coloured review of your profession, so we can leave out all the outrage when someone has a different point of view.

The reason for this thread is that I assume you all play your profession because you prefer that profession over the others, which tends to get lost most of the 'i am teh nerfest prof' type posts that every topic descends to after two or three minutes, which is really rather silly

flame on!

[crattey]

Bureaucrat

PvM

Likes
What I love about my crat in PvM is his diversity.
- I can be an awesome DD, putting shades and soldiers to shame. Nothing gave me a bigger e-peen hardon than the ****loads of people who were completely and utterly surprised that I was a mezzer, init debuffer and xp-totem whilst also being on top of the DD-list by a large margin.
- Soloing. I'm good at it, and I like it. It's more complex and fun than it ever was on my doctor. You can see real progress here as you get more experienced and few things are more fun than being the first to manage something people thought was impossible. I think I solo'd my +10 ring at 170 or so. Few professions would manage that. One my fondest memories was leeching in a pen hard team at 190ish or so, having the rest of the team wipe on a bad pull in the Dummy room, and casually finishing everything off by myself.
- Overall complexity. We have a very varied toolset, which takes timing and strategic choices to use. It's not just 'spam everything as it comes available'. You can't do everything at once, and constantly have to prioritize whilst also juggling pet aggro/keep track of charm durations. It shows up in the massive difference between an active, experienced crat and a crat fresh from kite hill. While complexity in AO on the whole is rather limited, crats are in the upper regions in this game atleast. I've played both soldiers and keepers, and both were horribly monotonous after my crat.
- You want me. You know you do. Everyone wants a crat in their team. Never absolutely required for succes but always very desirable due to the buffs and utilities they bring. Having me in your team makes life better <3
- Class. We look good, and nothing is more fun than running around with an enormous Anansi in SL, or a dancing bartender at your side.
- Stability. Crats don't have any real level gaps, where their dps or utility sucks. Though there are dips, there's not one level where you really fall behind very far with other professions. NTs are an extreme example of this, where dps is pretty sucky when your nukes are level locked.

Dislikes
- CC is rather onesided in a lot of situations. A lot of immunities going around. A lot of mobs, SL in particular, go all whacky if you even think or rooting them.
- Lack of charms in many playfields, which can really be annoying and very limiting.
- Somewhat weird templates. Many, many skills that are darkblue, but absolutely required. We require both nano and weapon AR, yet lack the support for it.

PvP

Likes
- High annoyance factor. The sheer amount of hate tells I get from a few BS/OA rounds really shows you make an impact in PvP. It makes me feel warm inside.
- Varied toolset. Roots, snares, charms, mezzes, pets, weapons, nukes, etc. Again, it makes you choose what to use and when to use it. Usually feels that no matter who you're fighting, you can do something to annoy him, slow him down or beat him. Both an annoyance, as I'll describe in the next sessions, and a bliss, as you're never completely without an offense. Sort of the 'jack of all trades', hyrbid'ish feeling.
- Satisfaction. Beating someone on your crat is often due to doing everything at the right time, in the right order, rather than just popping your perks and faceroll someone. Loosing a fight on my crat often felt better than winning on my enforcer.
- Our offense isn't very cooldown related. While this means we haven't a very impressive alpha, it also means you can steamroll newbies all day long, rather than once every few minutes. You're never, ever useless. You can always do something to someone, rather than hiding in a corner, waiting for your perks to recharge.

Dislikes
- Squishy. Just evades as damage mitigation, and no acrobat or very high natural evades to start off with. Very, very onesided defenses that are incredibly easy for many professions to bypass. We're also one of the few professions that are still killable with regular hits alone.
- Pets are wobbly and too easily kited/disabled. They're also the red-headed stephcild when it comes to scaling. Carlo has what, 2150'ish AR? Very, very low with todays AAD ratings.
- Too spread out template, like mentioned before. We need both high weaponskills and nanoskills, as we need high AR in both to overcome evades/NR. Too little support from symbs and gear to make both work at the same time. Always feels you have to leave a large part of your toolset in the closet. If you focus on nuking, you lack pistol AR and AS recharge is pants. If you go for pistols, you have major issues landing nanos. And no matter what, you're always rather mediocre at either. Weak weaponskills and not all to impressive nukes/debuffs.
- CC is just pants, really Innate resistances and tons of ways to remove it.

[Taranide]

Fixer

PvM

Likes
DD is ok and tanking/soloing with decent setup is rather smooth in most level ranges. Nothing special here, fixers are mark of mediocre in PvM.

Dislikes
When mob hits, it really does hurt. Fixers can't afford high reflect/HP setup without taking down damage/evades needed to succeed. This goes mostly for soloing, also kiting has been rendered nearly useless effort lately, so there goes the charm. Lack of "lol halp"-button (not counting meep) might be issue to many.

PvP

Likes
- Evades are totally awesome.
- Lots of damage perks to use on targets.
- Passive healing is handy.
- Offensive/defensive tool set is pretty much balanced.
- Roots/snares there and there can be handy.

Dislikes
- Those great evades don't last forever, just about anyone can blast through them if we keep standing still.
- Perks are doing pretty poor damage. Long time spamming them, rarely having major effect on most professions given evades/HP boost all around these days.
- Lack of direct healing. Yeah, you can spam GPM for ~1k heal and drain your nano to zero on few seconds. Not really that satisfying.
- Mongo rage.
- Those roots/snares we have, don't really pose danger to anyone, just some annoyance from area snare.
- Most fearsome professions do not only hit us hard, but can also outrun us (adventures, enforcers).
- Our CC tool set has some ridicilous NR checks, as if they were only meant for PvM.
- Unreliability on our specials, both AS and FA. Burst is just something extra that you rarely notice, same goes on fling.

Everything else

Likes
Fixers look cool.

Dislikes
We aren't as powerful like some tend to think.

[Kintaii]

Tell you what - I actually kinda like this as an idea for a thread. There's the potential for some useful information to come out of it all. But there's a major-league chance that Teh Dramaz will end up springing out of it, so we're going to institute three rules:

Rule #1: You get one post in this thread. That's it. (and no, rules-lawyers, i'm not counting cratty's OP as his first post)

Rule #2: You do not quote, reply to, or otherwise reference any other post. Period. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

Rule #3: Your post must be on-topic and in the same vein as the two posts above.

Break any of these rules and your post(s) gets edited to the content of my choosing. Keep breaking 'em and you find out why its a bad idea to taunt Happy Fun Ball. Have fun!

[Mastablasta]

Nano Technician

PvM
Likes
- Very high damage output in some situations.
- Can solo in hard locations that others cannot.
- Can be challenging to balance DD with aggro
- Calms and roots are very useful in older content
- Interesting sortiment of nanos

Dislikes
- Very low damage output untill you have two specific items from highend raids and high AI level
- Hard to solo anything that isn't rootable in some way, roots break too easily from damage as NT damage consists of many small hits often
- Not a desired team member after TL5, untill then, not really very desired either, preferably one should stand next to the team and buff them when they need buffs
- Too specific conditions to reach high damage output
- Calms and roots not very useful in modern content
- Interesting sortiment of nanos that are largely useless

PvP
Likes
- Heavy hitter, very dangerous to ignore, can cause all kinds of problems to enemies with the hard hits
- Crowd control makes us dangerous to pet professions, allows escape from danger
- Various tools good for harassing or disorienting the enemy
- Good defensive tools

Dislikes
- Heavy hitter, 2 nukes to kill someone while you stand around is sort of boring
- Too much downtime from hard hitting nukes
- Too vulnerable, death is only a blink of an eye away
- Too situational defenses, must be used in correct moment to survive and even if survival is ensured, they cause such a long downtime that dying is preferable

[MassDebater]

Profession: Engineer

PvM
Likes
-Very High Damage
-Fairly low effort to play. Specials+pet attack+trimmer+isotos+perks, is all I have to do to play, I only have 6 pvm damage perks. (note this changes in pvp)
Dislikes
-Atrocious soloing ability: crappy heals, crappy pet hp, crappy toolset.
-Low personal defence (PVM remember), aside from coon/perk heals, we got nothing.
-Blockers useless in PVM(this is why our pvp def is so much better than pvm



PvP
Likes
-The predictability of our death (not counting multiple people ripping blockers). I get a good feeling about how fast my hp will drop in any encounter, allowing me to react accordingly(not to mention slow game play suits my bad lag)
-Almost no infight casting(this doesn't include mb/ashs/isotos/cps)
Dislikes
-We are soooooooooo slow, there is nothing we can do to stop anyone faster than us from running when we get em to low hp, aside from root grafts, a 150% nr aoe snare nano(which has an ar of around 1900-2000) or (on bs only) 2 mines with a 5 minute lockout.
-Mines are BS only.
-Too much swapping. Every 7 minutes I swap 6 peices of gear and cast 3 nanos, then swap those 6 items out again, one of them does not default to the spot I want it, meaning I have to keep wear window open, and manually drag it on.
-Blocker totem in team pvp.
-Pets so hard to control, people with a clue know how to totally disable our pets. Be it through kiting, rooting/snaring or getting them stuck in geometry
-No way to remove most debuffs, after a fight, minus a tl7 only ring that requires many many apf/12m raids, that has a 5 min lockout.

[Wrangeline]

Trader

PvM
Likes
- Mezz is very handy.
- Roots can come in handy vs melee or short ranged mobs.
- Solo-survivability at endgame is pretty good.
- Nice array of tools to help/assist my team.

Dislikes
- Roots and mezzes are a bit "flimsy" at lower levels.
- Our DPS and means of doing DPS feels very low, slow and boring. Especially at low levels.
- Survivability (toolset) at lower and medium levels is relatively poor.

PvP
Likes
- Wide array of options/tools for every encounter.
- Feels strong and competent in many 1 vs 1 scenarios.
- Feels like an important/wanted profession in a warzone because of our toolset.

Dislikes
- So dependent on constantly and successfully landing nanos to be viable.
- We are so dependent on capped aimed shots in order to do any meaningful damage.
- Feels squishy in any non-1vs1 scenario.

[Autofil]

NT's

PvM

Likes
- Very decent DD, relaxing to play. (Alltho, read lack of diversity in Dislike)

Dislikes
- No diversity at all, you press your 3 buttons and that is it.
- Rather completely useless toolset, noone runs out of nano anymore, no encounters hard enough to actually need to cast blind.
- Too much work doing anything solo, NBG is completely useless in long solo fights.
- No value in having NT's in team pre 215 AI21.
- Lack of instant damage.
- Might fit into the above, casttime caps!

PvP

Likes
- Very good defensive setup.
- Nearly as good damage as advs.
- Damage to nano making me unkillable for 25 seconds.
- LE nukes combined with CB makes me able to kill nearly anyone but good healers.
- Gluing a cocky enf to a spot making him cast a rage nano in RL.

Dislikes
- Alot of downtime after NBG is used, in battlestation it takes about 4-5 mins before I am @ 100% again.
- Perks are slow and got short range compared to nukes.
- GTH Rendering my toon completely useless for about 1min, even if I kill the trader the GTH still sticks for another 10-15 seconds.
- We got no "Alpha", the target is usualy dead before I get to deal any damage to it in team pvp.
- People beeing able to get 110% blind resist.
- No diversity in PvP either, CB+Double is enough to kill most people, layers/roots are rarely used as they lock our damage down for too long.
- Notum repulsor. Noone should ever have complete imunity to another class.


Everything else

Likes
- Unique playstyle
- Can beat nearly anyone as most people got a "mental block" against NT's and don't realy know what to do.

Dislikes
Lack diversity.

Shade

PvM

Likes

- Good damage / Debuff abilities.
- Wanted in teams.
- Can solo nearly anything any other classes can solo.
- High runspeed, low downtime.
- Can kill all inf dynas before a doc can kill a single one.
- Makes a good tank, doc+crat+shade can trio nearly anything ingame.

Dislikes

- Fun and challenging class, but sometimes it gets too much spamming buttons for 1-2 hours straight. (I got acouple of worn out keyboards to prove this.)

PvP

Likes
- Stealthy assasin like playstyle, just like it should be.

Dislikes

- No good escape posibilities after assasination.
- Too many good perks and some essential perks that cant be dropped.
- Symbs either giving AR or Def, a hybrid setup ends up in the shade not beeing able to perk anyone and get perked by everyone.
- Shade needs NR/Anti CC tools that dont require you to sacrifice other perks, we are supposed to be masters of moving in the shadows, hard to spot and catch. Now we get spotted by everyone with iStare and anyone can root us.
- Debuff line is too slow in pvp as the shade is usualy dead by the time it has landed.
- Moving in range as melee in sneak is nearly impossible as noone stands still, sneak speed should be near runspeed.

[Klod9003]

Meta-Physicist

PvM

Likes

- Great soloing ability at lower levels
- Never having a feel that you are alone (pets)
- Fairly complex game play (yeah, we masochists are weird group of people)
- Ordering other beings to do your bidding (now I'm not sure if I'm a sadist as well)
- Ordering 3 pets to do three different things at the same time (+ dealing with your main toon) feels like you have m4d sk3311z
- Passive healing ability via pet
- Great range of (moderately effective) weapon choices
- Excellent nano skill buffs
- Quantum Wings

Dislikes

- Weak support for each and every weapon choice we have (very low AR, weak symbiant support)
- Practically defenseless pets
- Same pet buffs that have to be recasted on each pet separately
- Short duration of some of those buffs
- Pet damage not on par with other pet professions at medium to higher levels
- Time needed to cast/rebuff your pets
- Poor to mediocre soloing ability at higher levels (poor survivability due to outdated pets and toolset)
- Stucked with tl3-4 nukes at end game
- More or less useless debuffs - outdated/not viable for end game
- Lack of CC tools
- Low desirability in teams

PvP

Likes

- Blockers
- Decent AS weapon (even in our hands)
- Nano damage debuffs (ability to deal with high nuke damage)
- Healing debuff
- Passive healing ability via pet
- Nukes at lower levels
- Quantum Wings

Dislikes

- Nano damage debuffs (inability to land them all easy enough and/or in time, inability to deal with perk nano damage)
- eNSD/NSD (easily removable, hard to land)
- Debuffs in general - high level PvP (majority is outdated)
- Outdated nukes - high level PvP
- Shield of Zset ( no comment)
- Weapons - very bad support across whole level range (low AR, weak symbiant support)
- Pets that can be easily killed/disabled
- The ?=%$##!"#$"!/ teleporter step on Battle Station that is making attack pet useless
- Lack of snare/root and/or calm removers at lower levels (1-99)
- Weak passive and unreliable or not easy to use active defense (blockers - recharge, fiddling with selfcasting etc)
- Lack of CC tools.

[ephedrae]

Fixer

PvM
Likes
-Soloing is okay, not as good as some other profs have it, but for basic stuff it's okay. If you can manage a mob it's easy, if you can't, you simply can't no matter how hard you try so no need to blame yourself.
-Fgrid ;D

Dislikes
-A little bit of everything but nothing highly valueable in teams.
-Noone really needs RS since it's just a few steps to the next mob while half the team runs at RS cap anyways
-and there's enough NCU for everyone nowadays.
-Yet DD ain't as high as this slacker-toolset suggests.

PvP

Likes
From best to least:
-Having easily all ranged specials, one of the few things that make us fun to play
-Runspeed
-Access to support symbs
-Strong tools to counter roots/snares/ubt
-Decent weapon-special damage
-Awesome HHaB-Ring effect
-Fast recharging perks (Except the pseudo-oh-****-button - fine that's getting changed tho)

Dislikes
From worst to least:
-Mongo Rage - it's pure overkill
-Triple Nuke - pure overkill aswell
-Lack of a secondary defence... our evades can be pretty easily passed by and then it's just more evades that we'd have with the "oh-****-button"
-Too high nano-skill reqs
-Hard-to-land-root when they break pretty easily
-Thousand perks with little damage
-Unreliability of landing PO

Everything else

Likes
-We're cool
-Our "main" gun has the best mesh of all commonly used weapons and you can click it for correct alignment :>
-Awesommmmee prof-bound back armor
-Backpain is fun to buff in so many cases


Dislikes
-Despite of the clear tendency of being meant to be hackers, we can barely even hack ourself, not to speak of hacking anyone/anything else
-and in addition we're pretty easy to "get hacked"(debuffed); A hacker getting hacked is the uncoolest thing on earth.
-Nothing really defines us anymore
-Evades are heavily overestiminated
-The difference between our def values and those of nonevaders shrinking more and more

[sultryvoltron]

Agent

PvM
Likes
- Almost every soloing encounter is a challenge.
- Concealment. High concealment allows me to do things by myself that others cannot.
- Snare perks. 'Nuff said.
- Versatility to run self-buffed all the time because of FP/TP.
- Above all else, silly FP combonations. Flying Micro-Slayer for example.
Dislikes
- Almost every soloing encounter is a challenge. There are no "easy" things to do as an Agent. If you're not paying attention, you're going to die.
- Laughably low PvM (soloing) damage. It's sickening.
- Aimed Shot fails in PvM. High Perception mobs, social aggro.
- Stuck in a Mimic: Doc rut for soloing. A few other options available for teaming. Most FPs are largely useless outside of buffing.
- Insanely long buff time involving multiple swaps. Nearly impossible to cast the top SL damage buffs, even with drains which are a waste of true profession.
PvP
Likes
- Aimed Shot.
- UBT.
- Very effective at killing based on very situational things. Can put up a strong fight against just about every profession.
- AS based perks.
Dislikes
- Extremely vulnerable to debuffs.
- Far too many professions with effective debuffs against Agents.
- Mimic: Doc is the only viable mimic in most cases. Mimic: Trader, while fun, does not compete on the same level.
- Buff time takes two full decon cycles.
- 7x team blockers.

[Mountaingoat]

PVM

LIKES

Engineer
- Good damage without trying very hard...
- Simple gameplay (good at times)
- Pets with AR for those rare occasions when bosses have lots of evades
- I can do all my own tradeskills
- Beacon warp (lulz)

Bureaucrat
- Complex gameplay (good at times)
- My best solo'er by far
- Evades
- Easy to find teams

Nano-Technician
- Excellent damage with a pretty good workload
- Moderately complex gameplay
- Regular 20k+ nukes are fun

Shade
- Evades n damage
- My second best solo'er
- Moderate-complex gameplay
- High workload
- Easy to find teams
- Tanking is fun

Meta-Physicist
- Simple gameplay (good at times)
- I can make 300 pb crystals
- My third best solo'er
- NSD for doing pocket bosses

DISLIKES

Engineer
- Pets die too easily
- Terrible at solo'ing
- Buffing takes too long
- Swapping to buff

Bureaucrat
- RK CC is kinda hard to land sometimes in SL I guess...
- A lot of work to maintain 5 init debuffs

Nano-Technician
- Tedious after a while. This is only bad sometimes though, at other times it's nice to be busy.
- I get miffed when I don't keep in perfect step with the 3 IU --> Det Matrix routine

Shade
- VERY tedious after a while. Going down chains of sequential perklines every 30s gets kinda old. At least "behind" was removed. This is only bad sometimes though, at other times it's nice to be busy.

Meta-Physicist
- Pets die too easily
- Damage is good but nothing fantastic. Our debuff toolset is 90% of the time unnecessary.
- Getting teams is hard

PVP

LIKES

Engineer
- Hard hitting pets with high AR (a nice change to see pets that actually hurt evaders quickly)
- Blockers
- Being the least alpha-able profession in game (imo)
- Being one of the most desirable professions to team

Bureaucrat
- Crowd Control
- Evades
- CC removal tools
- Wearing tough targets down whilst controlling the fight
- Stopping hit'n'runners and those that flee when they are almost dead
- Popping sneakers out of sneak
- Popping DTB for 7500 def rating

Nano-Technician
- Unique way of fighting
- Taking giant chunks of hp out of people, especially satisfying against adv's that are tanking a few of your comrades
- Helping other debuffers land their stuff easier
- Holding those op'd enfos in place and bringing their NR back down to earth.
- Nuking from the safety of a friendly zerg

Shade
- Stealth and choosing my fights
- Exploding out of sneak with a devastating alpha
- Evades

Meta-Physicist
- Having lots of nanoskills
- Having indefinite survivability (dependent on the heal pet though...)
- De-powering doctors
- Annoying enfos
- Occupying zergs
- NSD when it works

DISLIKES

Engineer
- How easily pets can be disabled by kiting/killing and how easily crippling debuffs like UBT/Decreptitude can land on them
- Being GTH'd and having pets calmed (and being held this way indefinitely/till death)
- The amount of work that goes into buffing and maintaining buffs on the pets
- Pet kiting
- Pet killing
- Pet kiting
- Also pet kiting--we have absolutely no on demand/somewhat reliable way of stopping someone from kiting our pets like MP's and Crats (MP's have teh stun nano which would be an unbelievable luxury to Engineers, Engineers without AS or decent personal damage CANNOT kill a 210 greenie with barely any health left from getting away nearly EVERY SINGLE TIME barring root grafts or a lucky snare mine. The perk alpha professions kite us for as long as they wish till their perks come back and there is practically NOTHING we can do about that unless we have AS/decent personal damage or get lucky with a snare mine or two.
- Pet killing
- Pet kiting
- Pet killing

Bureaucrat
- How easily pets are debuffed
- GTH + pets being calmed
- Having nothing in my varied toolset capable of saving my life against certain opponents, if only to escape
- Being perked by enfo's without MR
- Enforcer's Rage nano
- Being unable to get away from a determined enfo no matter how hard I try
- Enfo's in general
- Ranged adventurers
- Being capped by Full Auto
- Traders in general

Nano-Technician
- GTH
- Having NBG visible in the hostile window
- Either killing professions with an alpha in 25s or dieing myself, or having to run
- Fighting feels like slow motion with brief bits of fast forward
- Taking so long recover 45k nano, and being forced to use sitdown nano kits as the premiere caster in the game
- Being squishy

Shade
- The best epic fails gnaks, though this negative is sometimes amusing. Back when I was trying hotswap alpha's, I came out of sneak too soon, missed the window for AS, swapped to SOFC, did a whopping ~1kish SA, did a nearly equally crappy backstab and the perks were easily healed up by the doctor I was attempting to gnak.
- Being popped from sneak, and by more than just adventurers
- Bad luck with evades
- NR8 no longer being a serious option (the #1 reason my shade was rolled)
- Spirit Phylactery is going to be nerfed soon
- Totemic Rites doesn't work in pvp (as a reliable heal)
- Chronic AR issues, and by extension relying so heavily on perks

Meta-Physicist
- Pet killing/debuffing/kiting
- Largely outdated debuff toolset
- GTH + pets being calmed
- 30s recharge on SS (as a debuffer/caster class)

[Avari]

Doctor

PvM

Likes
- Playing a key role in larger raids.
- Being the difference between succes and failure.
- Having your efforts appreciated.

Dislikes
- PvM has become so easy that doctors are obsolete in many places and thus have a hard time finding teams.
- Unbalanced tool set with too much focus on continuous, active healing and too little focus on other aspects of of our tool set like debuffs, nukes, DoTs.

PvP

Likes
- The ability to survive against all odds every now and then. I guess that happens for everyone though.
- Killing people despite the meagre dmg output - it always feels great beating the odds.
- Staying under the radar and be able to keep your group alive for as long as possible before your red nano effects are spotted and you're killed in an instant.

Dislikes
- Almost complete inability to survive in group situations because opponents always target you first.
- Active healing that is too powerful and thus has been made extremely vulnerable to debuffs and stuns.
- GTH honestly makes me log off and do something else. It's simply not fun playing when you're made entirely useless for more than a minute with the press of a single button.
- Not having a tool set that is more balanced between defense and offense.

[Eseb]

Soldier

PvM
Likes
- Tanking.
- Good dmg.
- Everyone wants a sold on their team.

Dislikes
- "Burst, FA, perk". Lack of variety. Gets very boring very quickly.
- Lack of support tools. We need something like a re-worked "guardian" to ****e teaming up a bit. But really, this isn't easy to fix.
- Difficulty in managing adds.

PvP
Likes
- Enfos.

Dislikes
- Defence that is either on or off. We need something that's a little more reliable, and something that isn't easly disabled or bypassed by so many profs. Maybe lower AMS duration and cooldown and raise passive reflects, plus giving us some heals/hots.
- Pitiful runspeed, having to rely on GSF.
- Unreliable attacks. Burst and FA are too random, they need to be more consistent. Even at 3565 AR it's all about luck. They need to do low but reliable dmg to evaders and consistent higher, maybe capped dmg to high hp non-evaders. Luck =\= fun.
- Roots. We run slow enough already, roots and snares are just adding insult to injury.

[Towerblock]

Current lovechild profession: Metaphysicist. (HUZZAH!)

PVM Likes:
1. I like that MP's have had their ability to hold their pets longer. I'd prefer 4-6 hours, but its a damn sight better than the previous timer. This has resulted in being able to pull out larger pets, for longer durations, without having to rely upon buffing self/begging for wrangles as often.
2. Being the only pet class with high evades + personal healing leaves me feeling a sense of self reliance. As an MP I can go everywhere and not feel like I need X prof to do something that everyone else can do. Solo play feels very well balanced.
3. Diversity in debuffing set. Being able to drain nanoskills on certain mobs is a nice bonus. There are no only 2 profs that can do this, and MP's are one of them. In the event of large raids, I have been complimented on my ability to make sure that certain mobs do not overpower tanks in the event of lighter healing. Being able to debuff large groups of mobs takes time, but over the course of tanking large numbers of mobs, the tank takes waaaaay less damage during that time.
4. "Set and forget healing" as Dancingrage put it eloquently. Since MP's are in constant nano cast time... having a heal pet I can put on myself or someone else, means I can spend less time pressing buttons.
5. One of the few pet classes that gives me the ability to use melee weapons. While not a particular popular choice these days, I get a better visceral sense of enjoyment - beating someone into a pulp.. than firing a pistol.
6. As Klod put it. Quantum Wings

PVM Dislikes:
1. Aside from Bow, there is not much in terms of overall worth in some weapon groups. 1hb and 2hb buffing is light (although creations work off of split skills), and if I would go a duel 1hb setup... i'd have to completely re-do my setup. I'd personally prefer to have a safer middle of the road setup.
2. I have a personal dislike for the Tigress. It offers me decent damage, but for solo play it feels like I am carrying a big sign over my head that screams AMGSQUISHY. This opinion may change after rebalance. Who knows.
3. Currently a Shield/Redfire setup. Shield in PVM i am nearly immortal if I have a crat or a keeper in my team. The irony here is that unless you have the ability to tank in that setup... it ultimately means nothing.
4. Sad sad state of nukes. I could cast MIMQ at level 100, as a trox with creation weapons on. I've used the same nuke for 100 levels, and 20 shadowlevels. In the beginning, MIMQ is DD at breakneck speeds. At 220, i consider it no more useful than a spammable and less powerful Fastattack.
5. Mp's are terribly underpopular for team play. Our toolset is not preferable in certain ways. Why have a mp, when you can get any 1 or 2 of the virtual army of crats that have sprung up, that sat in free kite teams for 90% of their game play experience? After all, its +19% xp, right? Why not a DD engi? Why not an Advy? Or a soldier? We offer limited options in comparison, as most of our toolset while rare, isn't a spectacular means of showing PVM prowess. However, that being said... if you turn the MP into a DD prof i'd be horribly unimpressed.
6. Limited CC ability. I have to make up for this with 2 root grafts and TR root perk. Mezz pet lines are underwhelming at best.
7. Access to melee perks are terribly limited.
8. Lack of meta specific gunnery. (crat and engi have specific pistols, but MP's do not)
9. All MP debuffs could use some updating to reflect current gameplay standards.
10. Landing Curse of Chronos is like trying to hit a fly at a thousand yards with a slingshot. That nano could be damn useful if it wasn't so gimpy.
11. Although I do not like bow, it is because normal and alien bows seem to kinda suck. Bows in general could be looked at and tweaked to reflect MP use.
12. Several minutes to pop and buff pets. Oh god, how it slows us down. Re-buffing pets takes less time, but still has to happen every 10 minutes.

PVP Likes:
1. First off, I have come to actually enjoy PVP on my MP far more than any other prof I have. It really fits what I truly want to bring to combat situations, and that's the potential to make every prof have a moment of pause. I hated fighting meta's in PVP because it was easy to just shut me down. My engi would loose his pets, my enforcer couldn't imongo... all thanks to debuffers. CC might rule in tower wars, but on BS... everyone loves to hate debuffers. I get a perverse sense of pleasure when people send me hate because they couldn't cast something critical.
2. Multiple pets means I can hide in a crowd. After all, the crowd can in fact, takes bullets for you.
3. Although its getting nerfed, sacrificial shielding in its current state is a pretty nice nano. I like the ability to have "defenses when I need them" on top of having decent passive ones. Having blockers on an engi seems kinda meh in comparison. If I cannot get past someone's NR, SS is a great substitute for Ensd.
4. Like traders do, I also feel that Mp's have a potential to go up against any prof, if played well (speaking generally, not towards specific builds)
5. Lack of other options means I can use the same perk setup on PVM for PVP. This is a double edged sword, but so far I do like that I don't need to hotswap everything.
6. If Ensd doesn't apply or work, use SS. If SS doesn't apply, or work, use the damage debuffs. No matter what the outcome, people tend to hate hate hate and omg do they hate.

PVP Dislikes:

1. CC makes ALL of my pets useless 100% of the time. I cannot stress how retardedly easy it is to ignore pets in PVP. It's a sick joke.
2. Mezz pet lines perform even more poorly in PVP than they do in PVM.
3. If lacking CC in PVM is bad, its twenty times worse in PVP. Some melee profs have the ability to keep a stun lock on folks for longer than 15 seconds. In its current state, its my nemesis. Coupled with mongo rage, it can get horribly ugly.
4. Shield of Zset is about as loved as genital herpes. It is often seen as a horrible crutch needed to overcome any "REAL" pvp methods. I am not entirely sure I agree, but if things get more complicated with casting and perk timing... it could ruin any continuity that we currently experience. Part of what I mean by this, is that in our current state - debuffing with current nanos seems a bit balanced right now (to me anyway) if we overcomplicate that, and loose the shield, this means we are overcomplicating ourselves on purpose, due to preference. Doesn't always make sense to do this. Work smarter, not harder.
5. Again, as Klod stated... that stupid step on BS teleport pads makes me wish that it was possible to punch the developer that put it there. Whoever that was, can die in a fire.
6. Uber long cast time on pets!!! If one dies, people say pop the RK ones. But, what difference does popping RK demon mean in PVP? Jack and Squat. Coupled with buffing them up again.. suddenly makes me very unhappy.


Other stuff:

I think MP's in general have a bad rep. Much of it was created because it used to be the number one most often rolled and level prof proliferated by lazy people with the Hit Q and afk on follow, type mentality. I think that because of the lethargic nature surrounding the stereotype, there was no one really wanting to push the bar on it, until much later. Currently, we are experiencing tools that weren't too awfully well thought out. I feel as though MP's uniqueness has fallen by the wayside with "bandaid" fixes. It is my most solid opinion that MP's are meant to be a challenging prof, but over time have not. MP's level today much as they did back in 2004, mostly solo. The overall diversity is lacking, with many fixes coming that will take away from stuff that has been a reliable staple of our play. While in some part I can see why this might be necessary, it opens up a whole new realm of uncertainty of purpose and toolset. This can lead to downward spiral of further band aid fixes and/or neglect.

[NoGoal]

Keeper

PvM/PvP

Likes

• Perk based prof: Less debuffs affect us, reliable, easy access, ..
• Only passive nanos
• Various defensive options

Dislikes

• Perk based prof: Can't buff our perks, they don't scale up with our skill, no improvement added with new content, if you can't land the perk you have no offensive toolset, long timers, ..
• Only passive nanos
• Only 1 working defense option
• No offensive choices
• Melee advantages are easily ignored (kiting, instacast nanos, interrupt mods, ..)
• Reqs on auras
• Limited support role: again we have options but we can't use them or aren't worth it
• 1 hour recharge on Dimach which does nothing impressive
• Lack of a defined role or a speciality

[unback]

Agent(z0id)

PvM
Likes
-going solo.
-potentially great dmg that requires some hardwork.
-fp/tp combo, which with some planning allows to actually kill stuff.
-heals ><
-sneaking around
-potential of fp-filling up missing proff in team

Dislikes
-going solo at some places. challenge fun aside, sometimes its just annoying.
-ubt aura that always lands and makes dead meat if the mob is yellow+
-geting nuked trough maxed NR by mobs that aint red.
-unability to fluent change of fp according to emergency needs ie. go fp:enf when team tank dies and keep his role at least untill team can reorganize.
-instasplats because of no/low defences and rather low self-healing ability.
-farming /lft for 7days before team invite

PvP
Likes
-staying in sneak and ASing the toons who thought they got away and try to heal
-ability to choose fights.
-keepers, enfos and MAs ><
-other agents
Dislikes
-mass pvp, insta deaths, low defences, debuffs, chain stuns, drains, GTH, desneaking by aoe, and blockers and slow conceal speed.

[Kinkstaah]

AGENT

PVM
Likes
- Baton
- Uh?
- We have the ability to solo things at extreme endgame.

Dislikes
- As above, there is no reason to ever have an agent in any team.
- There is also no situations where our endgame ability to solo amounts to anything.
- DPS is bad.
- Surviability is bad.
- We provide no meaningful support, regardless of whatever mimic we choose. Any other class, regardless of how good or bad they are, is more welcome in any team than an Agent.

PVP
Likes
- Aimed Shot can currently provide some damage to practically any Opponent.
- Range

Dislikes
- Too Vulnerable to Bureaucrat Stuns/Init Debuffs. Death will follow seconds later.
- UBT from Doctors and other Agents effectively removes any kind of defence. Death will follow seconds later.
- Stuns and init debuffs from an Enforcer which cannot be avoided will result in death seconds later.
- Cannot do any damage to Engineers.
- Fixers can outheal everything an Agent can do, resulting in doing no damage to Fixers.
- Init debuffs, and stuns effectively removes all defence from an Agent by a Marial Artist (who also cannot be killed by AS). Death follows seconds later.
- No defence against Shade DPS/Stuns. Death follows seconds later.
- RI from Soldiers. Death follows seconds later.
- Anything a trader will cast results in an Agent's death.
- None of the above is resistable.
- None of the above is evadable
- None of the above has any counter, strategy, or equipment configuration to deal with.
- Only ONE of the above criteria needs to be present on a BS to ruin an Agents day.
- There is commonly multiples of the above on a BS, Mass PVP.
- Fights where the above are amazingly not present, are one sided and poorly balanced in the other direction.

ENFORCER

PVM
Likes

- Are part of the core setup that any team or raid requires.
- Performs a critical role in PVM correctly. Played well, a good Enforcer can make or break any Scenario.

Dislikes
- Lacking a little "Emergency" Defence. Would be nice to be able to have a few more abilities to 'hold on' if a raid goes sour, quickly. Bio Cocoon used to fit this bill but it has become rrather irrelevent due to inflation.
- Damage could be a bit better, for any situation where a tank is not required, or one is already present
- Solo ability is pretty average.

PVP
Likes

- Satisfying being Melee'ing people into the ground.
- Ability to resist nanos/abilities long enough to get into range in most situations. One of the few melee classes in this game that has this critical ability.
- Considerable alpha
- The ability to pick and choose fights, based entirely on runspeed and average defence. Ability to escape fights and return when odds are in favour.
- Imposing stature causes many opponents to panic/forget how to play when attacked by an Enforcer.
- Has a chance to kill most classes.

Dislikes

- No real defence. Enforcers are not tanks in PVP.
- No damage outside of an alpha. As a result, enforcer fights only last 10 seconds at absolute max. This seems odd for a tank class.
- Requirement to spec 100% into damage to kill anyone - This seems like bad design. Would be better for all specs of Enforcer to have the ability to take people down, you would think by outlasting them and wearing them down with huge regular hits. It used to be this way. Gives a reason to stay in melee range. However - It would require real defence.
- No tools to enforce melee range of an opponent for the entirety of the fight.
- No tools to close the gap to get into melee range if the opponent has high runspeed.
- Extremely gear dependent
- As perk dependent, crippled by easy-to-land debuffs. No way to remove these.

[Gatester]

I'm going to stick with the two profs I have an adequate amount of experience with, and that actually have dislikes Low level MPs and agents have 0 dislikes for me.

Adventurer-Ranged 170

PVM
Likes
- With AS + concealment support and FA + fast recharge I can push top DD
- Great survival from evades, heals, and bio cocoon.
- Can provide great team support with heals, evades, runspeed, and damage.
- Can solo better than any profession at the same level.
- Easily kites mobs if needed.

Dislikes
- I lose damage if I have to tank or can't AS, but its moderate thanks to onehanders high crit damage.
- Using onehander, would like an AS pistol alternative or burst/fling shot alternative.
- Nano regain in long fights can become an issue, but again very minor.

PVP
Likes
- Aimed Shot is OP, even from the craphander
- Ranged
- Kiting several players
- High Runspeed
- Great healing
- Cocoon for emergencies, Acrobat perks for moderately high evades
- CC resistance, ability to perk NR1
- Ranged advy has so much survival there are few situations that will force me to die

Dislikes
- Reliance on the onehanders AS for damage
- No regular hits worth noting
- No viable fling shot or burst weapon
- No burst support
- No Full Auto support
- Ridiculous amount of dodge def available
- Alpha is based entirely on luck, and most profs can no longer die to ranged advy alphas
- Several professions can perk me through Dance of Fools, and they can also alpha me with easily capped specials if I am not lucky. Forced to kite almost everyone.
- No viable weapon selection when AS and FA lock each other out.
- Debuffs

Enforcer

PVM
Likes

- Almost every raid requires an enforcer, they will always have a role in PVM
- Incredibly easy to level up to title level 5
- Great weapon selection for leveling from level 1 to 220
- Good damage up to title level 5

Dislikes
- Damage is incredibly low endgame, makes soloing far too slow to enjoy or sometimes impossible
- It takes me minutes to heal my health when it should take seconds
- Tanking is too easy anymore, only s42 offers challenge
- Fears do not have enough use or viable targets
- No add management and our heal relies on AOE taunting
- Aggro issues
- Our stuns have very little use in PVM situations, long recharges and cannot effect big mobs that need to be stunned
- Lack of a real title level 6 use or toolset
- Nano based means of damage mitigation on a non-caster profession, no static means of survival worth noting
- Where is my super AC support?
- Horribly high devotion of nanoskill perks and gears to use my toolset
(The likes, although few, outweight these dislikes btw)

PVP
Likes

- AOE stuns
- PVP Fear (Best thing ever)
- I choose my fights, I rarely die if I do not want to
- Support professions massively boost my survival
- High NR
- High runspeed
- CC removal
- 1/3 professions I can perk without challenger, 2/3 professions can usually be perked with challenger and LE proc running (when it fires), and 3/3 professions can be perked with Mongo Rage if you are experienced.

Dislikes

- Melee
- LE proc reliance for boosting Attack Rating to necessary level to perk most profs now.
- Slow defensive perk actions, im usually dead before Bio Rejuv activates
- Everyone kites, I have to kite everyone
- Long recharges on our toolset, we are removed from fighting until our alpha refreshes
- Lack of benefit to teammates in PVP, while having great support to PVM situations
- Mongo Rage levels of AR are limited to trox, other breeds are greatly handicapped in pvp
- Capping hits are ok, but not being able to heal the damage even out of combat is wrong
- Docs and Crats have almost no chance to beat an enforcer, MP's are close behind
- Docs can only be killed by a specific setup, and still need a perfect alpha to kill usually
- Too much of our toolset requires both Attack Rating and Nanoskills making certain debuffs criplling
- Being perked by players I can't perk back while in a defensive setup
- Absorbs do not mitigate damage the way they should
- Again, sacrificing much of my perks and toolset for nanoskills to cast my nanos

[Legion84]

Keeper TL7

PVM/PVP

Likes

-Perk effecient Debuffs are less effective (i.e UBT)
-Team auras
-Decent Damage & surviability, allowing different setups (PVM)
-Nano duration 4hours
-Devour armour reflect perk
-Evade procs

Dislikes

-Dimach Recharge time not dependant on the skill
-slow runspeed (maybe others are to fast)
-no perks leftover for SD or lack of NR been chain rooted
-lack of weapon choices
-lack of specials
-some weapons req riposte, parry (until patch)
-Lack of damage in pvp
-lack of dodge range
-perk debuffs are 100% check? so if you can't perk them in the first place you can't debuff them (inc/exc insght) to enable perking them after
-Similar to enforcer
-Way to high reqs on DB nanos having to hotswap to much it's insane!! (especially trox poor trox)
-cookie cutter setups for PVP mainly with perk choices.
-Not very good until 220 (shadowland character rather than RK character which have more content nano's and weapons)
-boring to level to 220! see above sentence
-Bio cocoon nerf because of NTs??
-recharge on alpha, heal perks
-20 second heal on aura, while nano is 10 second
-been the bottom of the pvp food chain and exagerated defence/surviability.