Guide to Successful Enforcer Play
Howdy, I've recently started playing my fourth enforcer, and while still at low level it's been a real hoot.
My previous enforcer experience includes:
1. Noobasmurf (200/30/65ish)
2. Ultragoombah (85/9/21)
3. Tankngank (220/30/70)
So I know my way around enforcers, or so I thought - but it turns out I had some learning to do so I'll document a bit of my findings within this thread. All of the previous enforcers I've played are Atrox, so I decided to mix things up and try Solitus, mainly because this enforcer is for PVM and I know it'll be a breeze doing alphas on a Soli. Yes, it'll take a small hit to HP but 1k HP at endgame isn't a make or break for me. As well, stuff like getting a 2s nano tick, easily getting the nanoskills for endgame nanos and keeping gauntlet gear out of OE without a problem will make up for it.
I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on this guide, but I will outline first of all what makes an enforcer successful in each levelling range, and what the average player might want to focus on in order to achieve that success.
Broadly speaking, the enforcer is a tank, in AO currently, and for a very long time, they have been the tank of choice, they have the highest natural HP, the best tools for generating single target and multiple target aggression, and have some of the best tools in game to mitigate damage.
Enforcers nano tools for tanking broadly fall into three categories:
* absorbs (damage mitigation)
* taunts and heals
* shield boosters and max HP buffs
That said, there are a slew of other tools at an enforcers disposal to generate agg, mitigate damage, heal damage and boost damage done in a few different methods, as well as some PVP type tools which I won't talk about here.
Items of interest that should be purchased immediately:
* nanos up to level 50ish if you can afford them, any general nanos you didn't get in arete.
* Aggression enhancer. Purchase from your basic store. The real purpose of this tool is for pulling. Since the patch where taunts no longer do 1 damage, this item essentially bypasses all social aggro problems by individually taunting but the mob doesn't let his buddies know he's annoyed at you. bonus! 40m range to boot!
* stims/heal kits
Title Level 1
Getting started. At low levels there really isn't a lot to say, enforcers don't need to "tank" they just need to be able to deal enough damage to kill a mob, tanking is hardly even a consideration here - stim kits, sit kits will always provide more than enough healing post/during fight to survive unless you really choose your fights badly.
The only thing a low level enforcer needs is a weapon, and to sink IP into body development, weapon/special skills, first aid and treatment
A good weapon will be more than enough to keep an enforcer cruising through the levels, especially if he has a team with him, or has some external buffs (keeper's and soldiers work well for this since large add dmg buffs only take 1 NCU and last for 5 minutes, easily enough time to kill several mobs)
Good weapon choices for TL1/2 include:
* dual baseball bats from starter area (1HB)
* howling skull from TOTW (1HB)
* phase blades from TOTW (1HE)
* Nervejolters from SoM (1HE)
* fear forged blades from SoM (piercing)
* Martial arts (don't need a weapon but can use FFB's)
* 2HE weapons - from starter area, nascense, or AI swords of low QL
* scythe of legionnaire (2HE)
* Stygian Desolator (2HE)
* Neleb Battlerod (2HB)
* any of the subway illegally modified OFAB weaps (needs LE expansion) (notably, these can be equipped simply with a 131 buff and a comp weapon skill, but will go OE for a while)
Good armour choices for TL1 are:
* sundance armor from arete
* newcomers armour (can't go wrong here, and levels with you)
* med suit
Basically, the modus operandi is: equip weapon, bash anything that moves - not too difficult.
Title Level 2 (25-50)
At TL2 for the first 20 levels or so you can really just carry on from TL1 but around level 20 or so you'll really be feeling the pinch for using small weapons so if you reach level 25 and you haven't yet upgraded your weapons it will be high time to do so. Getting a bit of help from org or an alt to run you through SoM or totw can pay off in spades - getting a decent weapon early on will provide you with fast damage, and much less time feeling strained while levelling. Equipped a decent weapon such as a neleb battlerod around level 25 will last well into TL3 if you aren't too fussy.
At TL2 you really want to start upgrading your armour to something other than a med suit if that's what you're wearing, start your first implants, get a 3 slot belt on bare minimum, and collect some highly useful armour pieces from TOTW, such as an exarch cloak (superior AC's, equipable at 21 without other reqs). If you got newcomer armour from Arete, stick that on as the AC's really will make a big difference over the next 100 levels or so - especially since you can level it in breaks in combat.
At TL2 you can start IPing critical nanoskills such as SI/PM (to 60ish to use composites), BM/MC to use critical enforcer nanos (but really isn't needed until you start on nasc hecks), and MM for max HP buffs - again, not needed until later really.
Tl2 is still about bashing as fast as you can with as much damage adding gear as possible. nano ring from TOTW paired with a platinum ring, as well as touch of the gripper and rockcrusher gauntlets and barrow strength will stack on damage nicely and make some serious increases especially if you didn't make a big effort twinking on a weap.
You can tackle tougher mobs in the 25-40 level range in the Crip cave (nasc) as well as the crip cave dungeons. these will keep XP capped per kill, which means you don't need to be equipping IQ rings to boost XP for some time yet. Playing with a decent team with everyone using decent weapons will result in a lot of fast kills and fast XP.
Towards the higher end of Tl2, you really want to be starting to use your mongo to heal yourself during fights, keeping agg off smaller/weaker players, and potentially casting an absorb shield between fights to limit damage taken.
Some big changes are just around the corner:
At the end of TL2, when you ding level 50, the VERY first thing you want to do is finish the research line Brawler Sense 2. http://auno.org/ao/perk.php?saveid=89627
This gives you the proc "Shrug off hits" which raises a 280 point absorb shield (it's an offensive proc, so it fires on landed hits). Shrug off hits is the BEST defensive proc to use for a long time. With 18.7 the proc was changed to stack with other absorbs, and because it refreshes often in combat, it means that you don't have to spend time/nano casting absorbs if you're whacking away successfully on something - but doing so between fights can really help a lot. While I don't advocate never casting absorb shields (I highly recommend it), it is a slow drawn out affair at low levels and you might not have a lot of IP for nano init. Thus, use this proc to raise shields for regular fighting and recast shields between fights. Later on you'll need to get nano init up high enough that you can insta cast absorbs (or closest to) during combat as this will become one of the most useful damage mitigation measures available.
This single proc changes the entire game for enforcers at low levels. In PVM with most mobs cycling damage types it means that you can absorb sometimes up to nearly a thousand points of damage before it breaking... but usually it refreshes before then anyway, so you basically go from eating ALL damage in PVM to eating almost NO damage in PVM.
How in the f*ck right? But ya, just get it, put it on your hotbar, and use it religiously. It's a fantastic proc up to about level 100, and even higher if you intend on saving IP on nano init and want to do a more evades oriented setup (I don't recommend this until level 200ish when you can actually achieve reasonable evades with 300 Ofab, fully upgraded green hud 3, predator buffs and big chunks of AAD in symbiants etc.)
Once you get that proc then "tanking" and damage mitigation start going hand in hand, and survival rate will increase dramatically. At this point, the importance of sorb shields should start to become clear.
To save on nano init IP and nano in combat, you can use the lowest absorb shield (provides 280 layers) which stacks with the proc, and also has a faster cast time, plus low nanocost.