PvM Imbalances

[sultryvoltron]

So many threads on these forums lately keep devolving into profession comparisons with "the big four", namely Docs, Enfs, Crats, and Soldiers. I might even throw Shades into that lot as well.

I think everyone knows how wildly strong those professions are, so discussing what they are capable of is rather pointless. Instead, I would like to see what the OTHER 9-10 professions can do.

Can anyone put together a team capable of taking down the Beast with 5 or less players while not including a single Doc, Crat, Enf, Soldier, or Shade?

Has it ever been done? Can it be done? Is anyone willing to try it?

[Wyoming]

Been done. I did it with Doc, Crat, Enf n Shade. Shade was me as extra DDing
I got shoulderplates of sabotage.

[Dysfunction]

Been done. I did it with Doc, Crat, Enf n Shade. Shade was me as extra DDing
I got shoulderplates of sabotage.

Read again and respond accordingly

[Wyoming]

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

[sultryvoltron]

Been done. I did it with Doc, Crat, Enf n Shade. Shade was me as extra DDing
I got shoulderplates of sabotage.

So you did it with every single profession I said not to use...

[Wyoming]

Oh! I misread that entirely. Sorry.

[Wyoming]

Well, I once heard a group of Shades did it. One of the reasons I made one.

It should be doable with:
A Keeper - for 2 attacks absorbed every spamcycle
An Engineer to provide reflects and maybe to reduce the AAO of adds to make the Keeper's job easier
A high Evade class to tank - Fixer would be best
A mild healing class - Adventurer would work I think.

Other than that, and alot of hard work, and positive thinking, maybe it's doable.
Once again, I misread it first time around.

[sultryvoltron]

A very large group of any profession can do it.

But we are talking about a very small group of non-pvm lovechilds.

[Wyoming]

It wasn't specified how big the group was, but 15 shades could do anything.

[MachSchau]

Simply no. Your criteria for a beast take down team is impossible. By comparison, it is like in Star Trek when James T. Kirk was given the simulation for the Kobiashi Maru (however it is spelled), you are suppose to fail.

Take a moment and read the balance documents and educate yourself on what professions are being given what and how other professions secondary role will contribute to the overall picture.

[Wyoming]

"Balance documents" - I was going by simple logic NOW.
Often, in 12man, I will pull agg and actually survive those hits; Fixers get insane def, and I think that Beast won't land more than 3 or 4 hits in the time it takes for the Keeper to refresh the shield and if the Keeper can actually use the aura in rapid succession - perhaps with an NT in the team too - it should mean that the Advy can heal sufficiently.

It would be easy with any one of the "god" classes in the team - I wouldn't classify Enforcer in there, though. Soldier and Shade both make better tanks in most situations, outside of APFs and 12man, simply because they have higher defenses - Enforcers are about the same as MPs otherwise.

[sultryvoltron]

Simply no. Your criteria for a beast take down team is impossible. By comparison, it is like in Star Trek when James T. Kirk was given the simulation for the Kobiashi Maru (however it is spelled), you are suppose to fail.

Take a moment and read the balance documents and educate yourself on what professions are being given what and how other professions secondary role will contribute to the overall picture.

Then why is it allowed for the pvm-lovechild profs to kill beast as 5 or less?

[MachSchau]

Because it is old content and characters have received boosts since when it was initially released.

[Wyoming]

Mach, no. Docs have received little in the way of PvM - one good Doc could keep a whole raid alive in T3 and with BI - because it's exactly the same bloody toolset. It's not like Shades are now, with their SC and their Tattoos - Doctors have always been PvM gods, as have Bureaucrats.
The only difference now is that the Crat's insane debuffs can decimate the biggun.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

The trick with this type of endeavour is to try to match up damage mitigation techniques with a potential tank and enough support that can recover from problems encountered.

From my experience, besides enf, shade and sold, keeper or MA would make the next best tank based on individual damage dealing and capability to mitigate damage based on toolset.

MA would have to sacrifice damage for HP, keeper would have to sacrifice damage for HP and or AAD.

My feeling is that an MA wouldn't be able to tank Beast. Keeper I think could with ibehe, some swaps to HP items, doc buffs from agent, towers, raidbuffs, could bring HP up to about 36-40k without too much hassle. I think thats enough HP to take a hit, a random hit plus a nuke without dying.

Keeper also has watch ward.

So, I'd go with keeper to tank.

Next you need DPS, and I don't think there's any way you can get around this: you need an engineer for DPS, DVP, and splitting the source of damage into engi+2 pets (ie sole taunt lowered by 1/3 to allow keeper to maintain agg slightly more easily).

Since we're using DVP, we probably want to keep working the angle of reducing beast AR.

So, lets toss a trader into the mix. Now, we got an SL mezz, AND reducing crit, and AR on beast pretty substantially, add in divest damage to knock off another 500 damage per hit, trader got half decent single heals as well, plus a big team heal (purple heart) if soli, can add survival to the heal perks as well)

Next, we got to try to lower damage dealt even more... and only other prof who I think can do that is MP. However, MP is also gunna need to try to NSD beast, and this will spectacularly increase the effectiveness of the keeper tank as well. If no nukes are forthcoming, keeper will only need to deal with physical attacks which fit perfectly with keeper natural evades, DVP from engineer, AAO drains from trader, and... finally, a healer who can also add some 250 evades to the keeper in wolf form:

Advy to heal - Advy will have to be using the calling, spamming beauty of life raidbuffs, swapped to heal eff gear.


Ok, based on this team:
tank/2nd healer: keeper
reflects/DPS/mitigation: engi
support/mezz/3rd healer: trader
support/NSD/nano/4th healer: MP
heals/evades/support: advy

So the PVM paper breakdown is as follows:

Reflects
24%(buffs)+3%(coon line) =27% static reflects
Devotional armor +32% for 20s

AR debuffs
-1210 AAO (DVP)-150AAO (Divest)-150AAO(Plunder -102AAO-136AAO (procs)
Total: -1748 beast AR

Damage reductions on target:
-500 damage (divest damage)
-589 damage (desecration of resolve)
-294 (desecration of will)
Total: -1383 damage

Evades buffing:
120 from RI (can be brought in)
mother wolf + Istare (201 evades+60 evades)
Insight: 102 evades (20s/110s)
Total: 381 extra+102 temp

AC buffing:
5000 AC (gift of assurance)
1037 AC (Major armour distributor)
Total: 6037 AC's (equivalent to 604 damage stopped on physical attacks)

Healing capabilities:

Primary:
Beauty of life (600HP/s)
Improved health haggler: 1827hp/4.56s rech = 400hp/s
MP pet: With SS10 trained Mortificant heals for 1216 - 1694 with 3s/4.5s attack/recharge =(275hp/s)
Total primary: 600+400+275=1275 hp/s vs BI 1444 hp/s (no adjustment for heal eff)

Secondary and perk healing:

Imp ambient invig: 1053/20s =53hp/s
Spirit of blessing: 1000hp/40s = 25hp/s
lay on hands 1110hp/40s=28hp/s
Curing touch 6900hp/120s=58hp/s
3x bio rejuv = 3*1450/30s = 145hp/s
3x bio regrowth = 3*500*30/300s =150hp/s
Awakening = 4250avg/105s = 40hp/s
Assume 3x solitus in group and all 3 are beta genome 10: Survival: 3*580*6/120=87hp/s
Purple heart: 7445hp/330s =22.5 hp/s

Total secondary healing: 53+25+28+58+145+150+40+87+22= 608hp/s

Total primary + secondary healing: 1275hp/s+608hp/s = 1883hp/s

So team healing capability *should* be more than enough given this motley crew, but realistically the problem would be everyone coordinating. I couldn't find any real init debuffs, so this could make the whole thing very difficult.

The only profs that offer any kind of substantial init debuffing are doctor (procs), MA (incapacitate/red dusk perks), shade (procs and nano procs), and crat (nanos). Taking doc/crat/shade out of the mix leaves only MA, and MA just doesn't bring enough damage mitigation and healing to the table to beat out trader (mezz/AAO debuffs/heals), MP (NSD/heals) or engi (DPS/AAO debuffs/AC buffs/teriary healing) which means that init debuffing must be compensated for by alternate mixes of evades/AR reductions/nuke limitations/raw damage debuffs/reflects/blockers and AC's and obviously compensate healing.

Imo, it sounds very tough, but I think this team might be able to do it.

The -1700 AAO on beast, and 380ish extra evades is pretty significant. I've always found that when I can keep beast DVP'd on my engi that the tank takes significantly less damage. Playing with an enf who knows how to use absorbs and cycle mongo etc, I'd say there's no doubt in my mind that you can easily do beast without a doctor. So it's just a matter of trying to make the different methods of damage mitigation work in harmony and having enough heals on demand to pick up the slack if there's gaps.

[Wyoming]

An NT would work in the mix to help the others land debuffs (-3k NR iirc) and to blind him (If he's blindable) for another -500 AAO.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

ya, I was thinking about that too.

That will really help the NSD land.

NT couldn't take the place of any of the other profs though. And, NT's are annoying because they *could* provide another element of mitigation, which would be absorbs, but, spamming absorbs would completly nullify their damage output.

They'd have to be added as a 6th but couldn't make the cut as an alternate 5 imo.

[Doctrony]

Here's my opinion on the subject, and that's all it is, an opinion.

While I do agree that certain professions have distinct advantages over certain other professions when it comes to specific PvM content, I also do not feel as though this is entirely the fault of the toolset given to those professions, but also the way the game is fundamentally designed.

Take for example the following scenario:

You are putting together a standard beast team, you've got your 'god professions' ready to go, the only thing you're missing is a Doc, which you just cannot seem to find. However, there is a friendly MP who offers to heal for you instead.

Now anyone who's done beast with a single team knows that having an MP heal just isn't going to work. Instead of simply chalking the problem up as a disparity between the healing toolsets available to an MP, and the toolsets available to a Doctor, I suggest taking a closer look at the presented situation. I am assuming most people will be aware of most of the major differences between a Doctor and an MP's heal-pet, so instead of listing them, I'll just continue with my theoretical explanation.

The question I'm asking is why is a Doc required for the Beast, and not why are Docs better than MPs for Beast.

The answer lies, fundamentally, with the way that specific encounter is designed. Now I'm not ofay with the exact HPS of an MP's heal pet, so I will try not to throw out too many numbers for comparison, but the point I'm driving at is the sheer amount of damage that the beast produces, both on the raid and on the tank itself. With nukes and standard attacks reaching upwards of 8k damage, it simply isn't feasible for a single MP pet to sustain a group of even 5 players. The question then is, was the reason the MP failed to heal that raid because he didn't heal enough, or because the beast hit too hard?

From my perspective, modern encounters and PvM instances in AO are designed around having a Doc present. Also from my own perspective, the only way to really challenge a Doctor is to present them with large amounts of damage, very quickly. I'm looking at DB3 for the most part, when I say this.

This style of encounter design does two things:

It attempts to and sometimes succeeds in challenging Doctors.
It makes it almost impossible for any other class to fill the Doctor's role.

So what, then if the encounters themselves were to be altered to make it more plausible that other professions could heal them? The fire room in DB3 is a good example of moving in the right direction in terms of making encounters accessible to more than the god classes. Almost all of the damage in the fire room is avoidable, with the major exception being the damage from the boss itself. If everyone present executes the encounter perfectly, you wouldn't need a Doc, and an advy could probably heal the damage caused by the boss. Moving quickly out of the fire and avoiding the dots turns that encounter into a walk in the park for a Doc or a jog for someone like an Advy.

Unfortunately, this is when that idea begins to break down, because, in the situation I just described, having a Doc there trivialises the encounter. While an Advy can heal it, you would be crazy not to bring a Doc, simply because of the difference between the two profession’s healing capabilities. Imagine a beast that does 75% less damage. Suddenly an Advy might be a viable option as a healer, perhaps even an MP, yet having a Doc would again trivialise the content, because it wasn't designed with them in mind.
From what I can see of the current game, there is an arms race between the damage that Doctors can heal, and the damage being done by bosses and their minions. This arms race has the added effect of leaving every other healing profession without a paddle, and with the latest iteration of the re-balancing documents, I don't see this changing any time soon.

Unfortunately it wouldn't be as easy as simply changing encounters to be more non-doc friendly. As previously outlined, the disparity between docs and their healing cousins would still be far too large. The next option then would be to lessen the distance between these professions in terms of healing, which brings me to my next point: Homogenisation. Homogenisation is an event in which the toolsets of at least two classes are 'homogenised' or made to be very similar. If healing was to be 'equalised' across multiple healing professions, then the uniqueness of those professions would suffer as a result.

As with everything in games design, there is always a trade-off. If you want something, then you must pay for it with some other relative cost. Often times design decisions come down to 'the lesser of two evils', what change can we make that would detrimentally impact as few people as possible? I do not envy the position that AO's development team is in with these rebalancing documents; they're definitely stuck between a rock and a hard place. While some changes are no-brainers, many others, and specifically the more complicated ones, are virtually guaranteed to affront at least a portion of the player base. The biggest concern for me is not the changes themselves, but how much different AO will 'feel' as a result. A large portion of the reason I will never truly leave this game, is because of the nostalgia and feel behind the game itself. It is this one thing that I hope does not change, which is subsequently the hardest thing to maintain.

TL;DR game design, and game balance is a multi-faceted discipline with no single, straight-forward solution, that is almost guaranteed to leave somebody out in the cold. My suggestion is to give as much constructive feedback as you can, while keeping a positive attitude. The rebalancing of AO is as much a community effort as it is a developer one. We have professionals for a reason. Use them, utilise your links to the dev team and help make AO better than it already is.

Cheers.
-Trony-

[drainbamage]

Unfortunately it wouldn't be as easy as simply changing encounters to be more non-doc friendly. As previously outlined, the disparity between docs and their healing cousins would still be far too large. The next option then would be to lessen the distance between these professions in terms of healing, which brings me to my next point: Homogenisation. Homogenisation is an event in which the toolsets of at least two classes are 'homogenised' or made to be very similar. If healing was to be 'equalised' across multiple healing professions, then the uniqueness of those professions would suffer as a result.

Heals are already homogenized. Advys and MAs have essentially the same core healing toolkits as a Doc (it's not like there is much variety), they just don't have the output or sustainability needed.

If the choice is between more professions being viable, and enfs and docs not getting their feelings hurt because they get to keep their special snowflake status, I think the answer should be obvious.

[lainbr]

Well, I dont really know who can tank a proper beast raid besides enfo or shade -.- If I can fck use an enfo or shade in tank hole, I can imagine it being quite viable with 1 MP and 1 Keeper to replace crat, 1 eng to replace Soldier, 2 Advs to replace doc.