Heh, here is the picture how MP pets look like in PVP.Heals?
Heh, here is the picture how MP pets look like in PVP.Heals?
Molotoff Cocktail
Your nemesis can't even kill you at all, infact you're a nemesis to YOUR nemesis.
MP has some heals, evades, reflect, and range, as well as blockers for emergency situations. They clearly have a lot of defence if they setup for it. Should their offence be better?
No, not considering how good their def is in a def setup.
Don't be lonely anymore.
Look at your post, now back at mine. Now back to your post, now back at mine. Sadly, yours isn't mine, but if you stopped trolling and started posting legitimate comments it could look like mine. Look down, back up, where are you? You're scrolling through posts, reading the posts your posts could look like. Back at mine, it's a reply saying something you want to hear. Look again, my reply is now diamonds. Anything is possible when you think before you post.
Lol ?MP has some heals, evades, reflect, and range,
Only shield MP has evades and reflects.
Only bow MP has range =)
Molotoff Cocktail
Having a nemesis nano against a certain profession is no indicator in reality that you are their nemesis. That may have been the idea, but isn't how things are. On paper MP's should destroy NT's (who our nemesis nano is for too), but in reality NT's destroy MP's. And it's like that for a lot of professions.
Mediocre defense with no emergency safety button combined with a lackluster offence is not a winning combination (talking bow MP here). No, SS is not a emergency button because a lot of professions can still perk through 3300 def rating and specials are only part of an alpha. And if you don't cast it on yourself (I have 2700 NR on my MP...) or someone else other than the person alpha'ing you, it's only +50 def rating. Bow MP's need more defense.
As to Zset MP's, I rather see improvement in debuffing abilities than offense. Looking at the perk docs, a Zset MP will be in really good shape if the perks hit live as they are with aad gone from NR checking perks. The real change needed for a Zset MP's offense is people easily kiting/UBT'ing/killing/draining/chain CC'ing our main source of damage.
Again my suggestion, make Hostility Scourge (nanodamage debuff) work on any and all perk damage.
Only a Zset MP. I swap a few items around on the fly for more nanoskills, but putting everything evade/aad in and with a perfect setup (full 300 xan alphas, igoc, alb stuff, etc.) I have 1135 aad, on top of 1905 dodge, 1895 evadeclsc, and 1855 duck. I use Zset, but that aad is with it unequipped.
My reasoning was all in the post you quoted - which others here have restated. No particular benefits in evades skills maxes or skills costs. Little special buffs in nanos/perks. Little to no special AAD from active perks etc. Using Creations loses too much from offence for relatively little AAD and wielding creation shields with normal weapons is about to be removed. SS has all sorts of attached downsides - not least shutting down casting for 30 secs and FC have already said SS will be super-nerfed in the rebalancing anyway.
If a profession is to be seen as being truly evades based, then we'd expect to see them having higher base skills maxes, lower skills costs, more profession specific buffs for evades/aad, active AAD perks - and we wouldn't expect them to have to sacrifice their offence to access strong AAD values.
You don't see using Grid Armour nerfing fixer's AR or damage... or Stutter Step shutting down MA casting for 30 secs. But the tools that the MP does get for reaching high AAD have exactly those kinds of downsides tied into them.
It's truly questionable whether the MP is designed to rely on evades based defence as their primary design, when all the above is taken into account.
X
Just a funny comment:
MP is the only one who has had the tools to kill Every fricken toon in game. and...few mothns ago, MP did it. reckon why it changed? because the good ones left, or the cry-my-mother ones Tools changed? I think nada changed, apart from the players.
Soosis unfortunately has not noted the changes in other prof toolsets since the days of Tigress Godmode MP's once enjoyed.
You're right. When LE was released and bow MP's were supreme, there were painful 80% def check pistol perks, Troa'lers in every advy's hand, and all profs had their 17.7 and subsequent nanos.
Oh wait, no they didn't.
People aren't complaining about defenses of Zset MP's. I was the first MP on RK1 to actually make a real setup with the Zset. I enjoyed it a lot, but you had to realize that it was made primarily for team situations. The problem FC is dealing with now is they made it impossible to balance bow and shield MP's at the same time given the huge difference in survivablilty between the two.
Last edited by Dushey; Jul 19th, 2010 at 23:59:44.
I said MP HAS HAD the power to do it. not saying he HAS it right now. would be nice to not missquote me.
I said: "who has had", and yes, my englidh is not perfect, but really? was hoping I made it clear.
This is why Forums are crap. full of stupid people who WANT to misinnterpreted every single word you say. ****ing monkeys.
Changes in profs? like wut? MP still has the biggest changes within a yearish. is that bad? no. MP deserved it. well, maybe not the biggest, but good ones atleast.
MP still is good in Duels and awesome in teams. In PvM they are Still Good, problem is the players, not the prof.
Last edited by Soosis; Jul 20th, 2010 at 07:24:59.
HAS HAD is present time man )I said MP HAS HAD the power to do it. not saying he HAS it right now.
I have no idea what MP was designed to be 9,000 years ago.It's truly questionable whether the MP is designed to rely on evades based defence as their primary design,
I just see what we have now and what we are going to get.
It looks like FC doesn't understand at all what MP prof really needed.
Proposed perk changes will only give small benefit to shield MPs, bow MPs will be nerfed a lot.
Molotoff Cocktail
I don't think that this has much to do with my point. I was questioning whether MPs were designed as having evades as their primary defence in the design template... not whether MPs were balanced or imbalanced with their present or past tool-sets. The question in this forum about design for the upcoming rebalance must be: How should we design the MP in that rebalancing?MP is the only one who has had the tools to kill Every fricken toon in game. and...few mothns ago, MP did it. reckon why it changed? because the good ones left, or the cry-my-mother ones Tools changed? I think nada changed, apart from the players.
We already know that a lot of the things that have made one or two very specific MP builds effective in the past are being removed or heavily nerfed in the rebalancing: AS will likely require 3 second standing still, Removal of specials blockers from - and possibly complete removal of - Sacrificial Shielding, Reflect Capping/Reduction, inability to wield normal weapons alongside creations etc. With those changes alone in mind, we need to understand what should be the focus of the redesign of MP defences.
My question is whether the MP should be seen as having their defences coming primarily from evades/AAD? Or should the rebalancing be focussing on improving MP's healing - even if it's primarily improving self-healing? Or should there be a focus on debuffing as defence... in which case there needs to be more effective weapon-hit and specials/perks debuffs available, for example. Or should there be an array of tools to divert damage to pets or nanopool? Or something else entirely new and different?
If we're going to say that the MP is, after all, primarily a profession that relies on evades, then the design needs to reflect that. There need to be improved Def buffs, Def perks, Def procs that fire off nanos rather than requiring high weapon AR etc. And importantly, if defence is to come from creations like the Shield of Zset, then they need to be available across all level ranges and there needs to be strong, reliable, viable offence available from somewhere alongside the shields.
What is most important, is that the choice of what focus MP defences should have in the redesign, must be something that will continue to be designed for and improved as part of the core template. It should be based in the MP strengths of nanoskills, pets, creations and debuffs. It should be something that is viable across different builds and different levels and not be pinned down to a single, high level weapon item.
X
Last edited by XtremTech; Jul 20th, 2010 at 09:21:48.
It is? Im rather sure it isnt. But as said I aint perfect on dem engrish.
"Had" alone in past tence...Has Had is..some big word past tence. init? :P
EDIT: You buggery sanava...no it isnt!
Could you tell us / link here the proposed changes? And for those who are about jump on this: I like it when all info is accessible. Shooo monkeys, Im just asking for it to be here.
Proposed perk changes and MA Nano Changes are in the stickied thread for balance documentation at the top of the forum.
You'll also find a summary of proposed changes that have so far been announced for specific professions in another stickied thread up there.
X
In that case, sorry. I might have gotten carried away. But you must see that MPs arent THAT far away from so called balance? I think most MPs just dont use the tools they got, and increase the infamy they have now.
MP should have all of those, in a moderate manner. as they do now. Almost like a Adv but in a different way.
What really is the prob for a MP? You have the choice of offence or defence. You have extremely good Debuffs (now even stuff that lands), In PvM you can do massive DD and be a massive help to a team.
Increase debuffs? you seen what that did to Crats + PvM.
Increase healing? do we really need another AdvEngi.
Just small fixes here and there (big in the players) and MP is fine.
Yes, atm MP is a "inbetween" prof. but thats the problem. you cant add anything, or its the Above prof, nor can you take away or its the under prof.
With Really small tweaks, a MP can once again be good. Players just tend to ask for the Moon from the sky.
I'd agree that there's an argument for MPs being a 'Jack of All Trades' type profession that needs to balance across a wide range of different approaches. I'd say that this was perhaps the design template way back in the beginning. But this approach hasn't been very successful in the past though. As you sort of say, this can be a very fine balance to get right.
In the first place, the variation across different players and builds is too great. When you have froobs, sloobs and LE and AI expansion owners, that fine balance is often skewed across different players. But also, the variation between a creation MP, Bow MP, Pistol MP or Zset MP is simply too great for a single fine balance to be found.
When you're a designer thinking about introducing a new nanoline, for example, then your balance assessment is wildly different depending upon what build type and level the MP is. So, say a Damage-to-Pet nanoline is to be introduced, what values do you put on it when you have to take in such widely different existing defence values?
Also, such a finely balanced design that requires a lot of different elements to be balanced together tends to suffer very badly at the hands of mudflation. That is, all professions improve over time in various ways - as do mobs. With professions that have clear design templates, it's easy for them to be improved and those improvements can largely be carried out in one specific area - e.g. adding AAO/AR for weapon specialists.
But when you design a profession as a jack of all-trades, then any improvement in one area can tip the overall balance and cause players to focus in on one very specific build that may be heavily overpowered... or a relatively small change can cause a previously viable build to become suddenly underpowered.
It doesn't take much increase in AR for other professions, for example, for most opponents to go from not being able to perk you to being able to perk you. It also doesn't take much increase in Def for other professions to make the AAD procs fire off much less reliably which can have a huge effect on overall balance.
That's one of the big differences between that 'golden period' for MPs that has long gone. There was a period when you could fire off procs on yourself (which was fixed) and in the time since, MP AR has kept up less well with other profession AAD. Less reliable AAD procs was enough to push Bow MP Def low enough most of the time, that they became easy to perk/proc and so overall def became too weak, just because of relatively small changes in relative power and proc chances.
What you also tend to get is a lot of trade-offs with tools that are introduced when you design this way. So I can wear the Shield of Zset and have great defence... but I have little or no offence alongside that, especially with pets being so unreliable. But note too, I largely lose procs as well because of the issues of being melee for an MP.
I can have Special Blockers from SS... but can't cast anything for 30 seconds so lose all my debuffs during that period, which takes a chunk of other defences away in trade for the blockers.
I can get smaller AAD from creation shields, but can't use ranged which makes hitting that much more difficult, and so reduces the chances of firing a def proc off. Nor will I be able to dual-wield normal weapons with it, so I then have to live with low damage melee weapons with no specials.
I can increase the power of all three pets by wiedling the 2HB Quest Staves... but have to be melee, can't get good AR for perks/procs, they have low damage and no specials.
I can get good offence from the AS on the tigress, but have such weak AR in the process that procs don't fire reliably (greatly reducing defences) and perks won't land.
A big issue for MPs has always been defences against weapon and perk damage. Against nukers MPs have some decent debuffs. Against normal weapon hits, MPs have some decent damage debuffs. But MP debuffs have no effect against perk specials. They have relatively little effect against Weapon Specials. Their nanodamage reducers don't work on most DoT hits.
Also, the most powerful defensive effects are personal buffs that affect all incoming attacks. I can debuff the damage from one opponent - but a crat AAD aura makes everybody less likely to hit him. Or a Soldier/Engi reflect reduces damage from every attack. MPs tend to be very weak on such personal defences, relying more heavily on hostile cast effects with their restricted scope.
These are the problems of following the 'finely balanced jack-of-all-trade' design template. If it could be reliably kept up to date, and if you could balance it well across different players, different builds and different levels - then it would be a lovely idea. The reality tends to be that you get long periods of being under-par, with short periods of really well-balanced power occasionally that don't last. And you get knee-jerk over-reactions with too many tools that have too many trade-offs and don't, as a result, work well as an overall package.
X
Renowned jester of the double AS Tigress
MP in sneak eNSDed me and did about 20k damage in 10-12 seconds
"MP is the only one who has had the tools to kill Every fricken toon in game. and...few mothns ago, MP did it. reckon why it changed? because the good ones left, or the cry-my-mother ones Tools changed? I think nada changed, apart from the players."
>>>Reckon why it changed? Because the good ones left, or the cry-my-mther ones Tools changed? I think nada changed, apart from the players.<<<
>>>Because the good ones left, or the cry my mother ones tools changed? I think nada changed, apart from the players.<<<
>>>I think nada changed, apart from the players<<<
>>>Nada changed.<<<
How is this for not misquoting you? You said you think "Nada changed, apart from the players." I'm pretty damn sure my reply to your post was that A LOT has changed with the addition of AS pistols, pistol perks, and 17.7+ nanos. Your argument that the change in MP success if based on the absence of good pvpers that left the game since their Godmode stages and that "Nada" has changed elsewhere shows how flawed your perception really is.
And if that wasn't enough to show everyone how flawed it was, "You have extremely good Debuffs" just made me lol. The only thing you hear people complain about when they fight MP's is the nsd ****PROC**** on the Tigress, otherwise most ppl just laugh at eNSD, NSD, our damage debuffs (lol), and from what I've seen, the only prof that is really that bothered by Beneficial Scourge is Agent, which let's face, there are few debuffs that don't completely destroy Agents.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised though. The fact that you keep referring to our PVM toolset in balance discussions reveals a lot. I often wish they'd separate the forums into PVM and PVP balance to stop those that think a prof is perfectly fine because it does well in PVM or TEAM PVP.
Last edited by Dushey; Jul 21st, 2010 at 23:12:31.