Agent Issues

[Frigidflames]

The mimic refresh, would only work if visual profession wouldn't let a doctor (or whatever it required) upload it and cast it as well, not that there would be any benefit to that, just saying.

As I said, update the nano and not the crystal, and they would not be able to upload it in the first place.

[Zoolander]

1. Silencer doesn't work (and glory either for that matter)
2. We don't do a lot of damage, however we draw a lot of agro. Repressor and all that jazz helps, but not a lot.
3. Can't AS in APF
4. blah

[Militaryman666]

I would love to have silencer also hit for 1 damage, or something similar. Just to see feedback on when it procs. Other then that I still think that if Aimed Shot were reuseable it would solve alot of our damage problems for the most part. Our Perks are decent damage and our weapons have pretty good stats compared to alot of other professions. It wouldn't hurt if it were a bit higher, but that's not the issue in this case. In our case, the only problem we have is that our only real special attack (other then flingshot and thrown weapons) cannot be used 99% of the time in solo pvm, while in other situations it can be used quite frequently.

If Aimed Shot was able to be used while in a fight, it would fix alot of problems for Agents. Not only that but even other professions will be able to gain the benefits from this if they gimped themselves enough. Simply put a timer that has to do with the attack speed of the weapon that will charge up and fire the aimed shot, speeding up with the aimed shot skill of the user.

Then the only other few changes needed would be to raise the overall stats of the Lord of Angst and the High Lord of Angst, raise the critical damage on the QL 300 Kyr'Ozch to 500, and the attack and recharge speeds of the Revolution/Pinpoint capped at 2 seconds (not 3) at QL 200+.

[Sexyboy]

My personal issues:

Double the crit on Kyr'Och Rifle.
Open another line of Symbiants to Agents. Preferably Support or Extermination.
Make Inamorata Rifles more available.
Reduce requirements of the higher proc nanos considerably: up to 350-400 points off of the highest.
Reduce requirements of the escape-line. This line is usefull, but too hard to cast. Also reduce the cast time to 3s.

Nice-to-have:
Access to all Spec1-3 Nanos of other professions.
Fix conceal.

[Blackcradle]

I'm 99% sure silencer works, seeing as I have lost aggro many times because of it. Although there is no feedback message saying it proc'd, if you watch the npc you can see it light up green (kind of like the acrobat perks) everytime it proc's. I'm not saying it's not working as intended perhaps the detaunt should be stronger or the proc % should be higher, but it is working.

However, back on topic here's my list(not in order):

Better Rifles I would say this is the most significant problem at the moment. The fact that our end-game rifle's just don't perform well enough and compare to the end-game weapons of other professions. Although the minimum damage on our rifles could be better, I would say it's good enough on the 300 kyr, however the crits are horrible. Agents are second to MAs when it comes to crit frequency, and we have short term crit+dmg buffs, so it doesn't make sense that the crits on our rifles are lame. It doesn't make sense that a hammer, or someone's fist (even an agent's fist if we really tried) should crit harder than a high powered rifle. Also, the fact that the Kyr rifle is white and shiny is strange, but that's beside the point.

Stacking of our SL dmg proc nanos I'm not sure if these were intended by FC to stack or not however, the fact that they change whenever you zone is a problem.

Correct scaling of our SL dmg proc nanos 99% of agent's don't even bother using these past the Sickening versions, so this obviously isn't working as intended.

Fix the glory on our Silenced Rifles I have heard that the glory is coded wrong and tries to execute on the target and not the user. I'm not sure if this is the problem or not, but either way it doesn't sound too difficult to fix.

New Roots Our roots are utterly and completely useless at this point in time. We have no hope of landing them in pvp because of such high NR and they almost never work in the Shadowlands. Infact our low level 109 snare perks lands more often than our highest ql root. A new SL root, even if it were only pvm oriented would be nice.

Mimic Extention Since we are so dependant upon mimic for most things we do, it would be nice if after our mimic ran out if it were to become frienldly and cancellable like many people have mentioned above. It is a nuisance when solo-ing a tough npc and having your mimic run out, or having to wait til it runs out to fight anything in fear of the aforementioned situation happening.

Nerf Alien Scouts Perception When fighting the ground waves of aliens it seems like the majority of them are scouts. The fact that we can't use our primary attack against over half of the npc's we are supposed to be fighting isn't fair. It would be one thing if shades and everyone else couldnt hide from them, but agents are supposedly masters in the art of concealment, we should be able to hide from any scout alien, especially green ones... Afterall, how are we supposed to be assassins if we get scouted out first.

Reworking of Deathstrike When SKing I would occassionally use this perk, but rarely. It would be nice if it were changed to the target being below 50% and stunned health instead of 15. This would also help our damage output.

Escape Line... I like the idea of this line, however it isn't very practical in use. It would be far more useful if the attack time was lowered to say 1 second and then just double the recharge or something. Then we could actually use this nano to make a quick escape since our inits are already slower when in mimic, which is most of the time you would need to be escaping for one reason or another.

[Budley]

TO add me "hear hear" to this thread...

Alot of good ideas listed so far. Great job guys.

Concerns:

Mimic should be benificial in time as well as inits. Seems that fundamentally, an agent that meets the requirements to perform higher "false profession" skills should not be penalized with a small 20 minute duration. We already take a hit with inits and nanoskill penalties. How about a mimic (extended) line of nanos, (ex: RRF vs RRFE, etc...), with the ability to remove it at will. If balance is still more of a concern, then give us a debuff penalty like we get with wrangles and concentration nanos of a fair duration, like say 3-5 mins. (how many of us have sat in a garden waiting for one mimic to drop to cast another, then another for buffs when help is unavailable)

I'm not so much concerned with a the use of other profs SL nanos as much as I'm concerned with a simply better "non-CH" healbuff during mimic-doc. Lifegiving Elixer was an adaquate heal when RK was the only place to be, but as everyone knows SL/Alien damage is a huge contrast to the RK average damage scale. LE isn't cutting it. Again, if balance is an issue, then make it "self-only". My agent is doing alot more soloing lately so this would be a great boon to my AO enjoyment. (quit making me "team" all the time for simple tedious farming)

Perks - Unfair activation time, pure and simple. If AO is so concerned about balance then remove the uber assasinate and death strike or raise the requirements. These perk benifits are useless 80% of the time. (APF anyone?) I don't mind having to guess when 15% is reached, but waiting 5 seconds to watch my uber "coup de gras" land on a long-dead corpse makes me a team mortician, not a DD. It's even further frustrating to watch the crawling perk progress freeze while the attack bar stutters as if I hit reload by accident. Soften up followed by Pin Point is what I would consider a reasonable activation time. Fix it or get rid of it.

If the conceilment skill is not to be overhauled, then atleast make it less difficult to overcome the ungodly perception of some of these aliens. All we agents reasonably had in a large APF raid was AS. Maybe increase the benifits to concealment in the Shadowsneak perk line and make it accessible to Alien perk points. We atleast should have the option of sacrificing more points for the ability to AS aliens in the first place.

SL nanos are bugged. We have very few of them, so throw us a bone and fix em.

edit (sp)

[cellestron]

Nerf Alien Scouts Perception When fighting the ground waves of aliens it seems like the majority of them are scouts. The fact that we can't use our primary attack against over half of the npc's we are supposed to be fighting isn't fair. It would be one thing if shades and everyone else couldnt hide from them, but agents are supposedly masters in the art of concealment, we should be able to hide from any scout alien, especially green ones... Afterall, how are we supposed to be assassins if we get scouted out first.

Escape Line... I like the idea of this line, however it isn't very practical in use. It would be far more useful if the attack time was lowered to say 1 second and then just double the recharge or something. Then we could actually use this nano to make a quick escape since our inits are already slower when in mimic, which is most of the time you would need to be escaping for one reason or another.

Alien playfield - Since 15.9 I have been unable to AS on any of the playfields with any reliability. Other agents I've spoken to say the same thing. Has concealment been further bugged on apf or was the aliens perception boosted to insane amounts?

Escape Line - Over the past few days I have tried this nano on a few occasions (to show others it's effects) and every time I cast it, it did absolutely nothing. I got no bonus to runspeed, I had both the cooldown and negative effects running in my NCU but they didn't have any visible effect on my skills. Also I did not get the hp loss (unless that has been changed). I was using the lowest ql one (since I never bothered buying any others).
Was wondering if any other Agents have noticed these nanos are no longer working. Also wondering if it even matters but that's another story.

[Militaryman666]

The health hit has been changed as it is it no longer sets your health low. However the duration on it is outragious compared to anything else in the game. It's not like it adds a 100% damage resistance, or a 200% critical chance. I think it would be nice to have this nano upped in duration and usefulness for the time being.

[Twistshot]

Seems like a lot of people are having a lot of problems with our nanos, prehaps we should get FC to look at them first and in detail before moving on to anything else. If they were fixed I think it seems that it would go along way to reducing the need for other things being looked at.

Except for Conceal vs aliens, that sounds all messed up.

[Apathetik]

Nano's:
Remove Sneak Attack from UA and add Fling (for same amount)

Increased duration or "extended" versions of top end RK nanos.

Re-scaling (DMG WISE) the Anatonmy Line starting with "Nano Augmentation" or adding another 1-2 more to the top (like ql 201 and 212 addition)

Re-Scaling the Shock nanos starting with "Sickening Shock" to reconize the emmence amount of IP required to get your skills up there to cast them...or lower the requirments a tad

Re-Scaling the SL Dmg Buffs Line starting with "Blast of Ommitance" to scale with the requirment, or reduce requirments (+180 more points into 3 nano skills to get +5 more dmg seems unreasonable to me) (same concept as previous)

Self only 201+ Agi/Sen Buff

(NEW IDEA) An AOE De-Taunt Aura line - for maximum potential it should not be action oriented (like proc on weapon...obviously this would not help a non-dmg doc) and aura excludes enforcer/keeper/ma/solja

Weapons:

Would Like to see Bigger crit mods on existing rifles.

Work AS into PvM...either AS works like it does in PvP or maybe a new special unlocked at certain points (simular in concept to backstab) or something...

Armor:

further upgrade to sharpshooters helm allowing it to further realize its potential (Lvl up to 220 and have scaled boosts to AC's and Bonus's...and maybe get some +Aimed Shot on it..as far as the crit bonus...i seems fair to see 3% at 210 or 215...that would be nice)

further upgrades to the elysian peliesse - best looking item in game for agents - perhaps an upgrade that drops in adonis and another that drops in inferno...I'm not saying it should be better or comparable to t3...but i like options and it would be nice thing for lowbie agents comming up and the veterans alike.

[charleyd]

Death strike is still bugged, cannot land it on bosses (which is just about the only place in game where the perk is useful). It requires the boss to be stunned, and, since bosses are no longer stunnable, it does not land anymore.

Fixes which have been suggested in the past:
(1) Also check to see if Concussive Shot has landed (if the check for stun nanos fails).
(2) Remove stun requiremet from Death Strike all together.

[Lymankk]

i dont know much about higher end but all i know is that at lvl 114 i can do a 14k AS on an ely heckler, and my AS recharge is about 11 seconds, keeping that in mind if i could AS in mid fight, i could mostlikely kill hecklers with running and ASing..... seems like a good idea to me but i think the mob should take less dmg, with makeing AS useable in mid fight agents would b the top DD by far forever wich makes them seem overpowered when they really arent, they cannot take any dmg unless they are mimmiced as a doc.

[Apathetik]

something tells me....call it a gut feeling...that you have NEVER EVER hit ANYTHING for a 14k AS. People who want to be taken seriously should have thier facts straight. You make a valid point about AS in fight....but you must remember that a solja can FA in fight for 15k (btw, cap on AS is 13k), so, run and AS...run and FA...its the same thing basically....just we are squishier and don't have TMS to fall back on...

I would be happy with in team, no sneak required, AS. Even if it had an 8k cap on it....anything would be better than the currant situation.

[hexone]

Havnt touched Concealment since lvling past 200...and yet...I can As any mob (cept boss) in apf. All u need is...Ruse 3...leet... and that should do the trick...I think it's 2.5k needed or some sheet...im not going to check...cuz im just to damn lazy.

Imo Agent = #1 pvp class if u know what your doing. Any EXTRA things we get, like acrobat, bio shield would make us unkillable.

Only thing an agent needs...is a simply 120 or so evades buff...so we dont got to go hunting down an ma. Would make my life ezer hehe.

Other than that...ya...fix simple bugs...like glory/concealment...cuz i mean having to hit H 3 times after zone = hurts my finger.

[Twistshot]

Alright heres one that has cost me my "life" a few times. Un-sneeking upon mission success.

Sneeking missions where everyone is hard red to you is so much fun when you, ohh for example, sneek a find person.

"Ohhhh! Theres the guy I need to find!"

Changing area please wait.

[Twistshot]

We need our weapons ranges re-adjusted, im looking at a freeking pistol with a 35m range. A "Over-Tuned Khemo-Tech Model 200" QL 51

WTF?

[Militaryman666]

AS Can hit for far more then 13k.. you're not forgetting that the damage cap on AS is 13k, however, absorbs are taken care of before that cap is placed on the damage, so it's possible to knock out an absorb shield and still hit for 13k damage, thus being greater effect then 13k damage. The only problem with that, is mobs don't use absorbs too often, and it's not often you'll get a high damage AS in pvp.. so..

As for his statement about getting 14k on a heckler, I think it was just a typo, but if he's seeing 13k, then he might be getting anywhere between 13k and 17k by his level, it just caps at 13..

As for me, i'm sure i've broken the 20k damage barrier many times, the only problem there is that i've never really seen that much damage because of the cap.. Anyways.. enough with this stupid argument, AS damage is fine, just remove concealment restrictions and put on an aiming timer before it will fire.. like a perk has.

[agentgimpy]

I would be happy with in team, no sneak required, AS. Even if it had an 8k cap on it....anything would be better than the currant situation.

Why would you be happy with an 8k cap when Soldiers have a 15k cap? And why just in team?

AS should be 15k cap no sneak required, just like FA. I cant believe this still hasn't happened, it is the one thing that will give us more PvM damage without affecting the sacred "PvP Balance".

All-in-all good posts, not too hard for FC to make some possitive changes from this thread. NT's just got some love in 16.0, perhaps we could be next in line... please?

...AS re-usable in PvM no conceal and up the cap to 15k, no balance issues....DO IT!!!
..and the mimic recast idea... Plain, simple, no balance issues.....DO IT!!


But who am I kidding, FC has begun messing with PvP balance once again in preparation for LE, so we are more likely to see a nerf rather than anything else :/

[Militaryman666]

Well, the reason we haven't been fixed is because the Agent community is too undecided on what our problems our, and our professionals simply aren't being heard by the Devs.

We have too many people that think a low damage cap team version of AS would fix everything for us, when it would only make things so much worse. At the moment, you just want instant gratification which is the root of every single problem in this game. Things need to be thought out and planned for the big picture and then slowly implemented. Adding a gimped version of AS that you can only use on a team is going to be changed around way too much, and wouldn't fix our true problems with AS as they are.

Concealment needs an overhaul as do perception, breaking and entry, and even trap disarming. This game is almost entirely head on now, and the traps and locks really don't stop players from doing anything, even the highest QL locked doors can be cracked by a novice at breaking and entry. Concealment isn't effective on ANY mob that you would actually want to sneak from, and it's way too slow because it's tied to AS as a requirement. Run speeds are way too high to be sneaking slower then walk speed. Sure, there are a few tricks and workarounds, but this game is gonna go to hell if they make everyone rely on a workaround to have things the way they should be, or at least a little better then the way they are.

Neocron does exactly the same thing, I can honestly say that game is worse off then AO was in beta, however that's not saying much because ever since beta AO has slowly gone downhill in many aspects.

We need to get back to our roots, redefine the professions so that they don't just meld together in random sequences. Make situations that actually require specific people, and balance it out to where everyone gets to be needed. This game right now is grouped into 4 specific groups at the moment..

Support
Crowd Control
Damage
Tanking

Many of the professions have one or two of these, some have three and some even more. The way they balance things is extremely unfair in different situations. But that's to be expected, not everyone was ment to be perfectly balanced, or there would only be one profession and no problems. And that would honestly be boring. However, the problem is that some professions are "more balanced" then others, at least that's a catchy quote I found on the forums a while ago.

Doctors are capable of so much at higher levels, they gain their defense through support, and with the highest support rating, they have one of the highest defenses in most situations. With their damage over time nanos at higher levels, they're capable of doing a decent amount of steady damage while still being able to keep up their defense. On top of that they have a minor form of crowd control which seems to be one of the most popular today.. Uncontrollable Body Tremors. That line is able to be used on every mob thats in combat with you with ease. That makes pretty much every NPC that attacks you about 20% as effective as it should be, if not even more of a reduction. Sure, they still hit hard but due to their defenses being the result of their godly support abilities, they're pretty much immortal.

I only used that as a basic example.

Comparing it to Agents as they are today.. Agents are able to have limited crowd control through their root and snare nanos outside of mimic, which are extremely lacking in strength to any other root, snare, mez, charm, etc in the game. They can use minor crowd control nanos through mimic'ing various professions including Nano Technician for their single target mez.. Crat for Single target mez and AoE mez, as well as charms which when stacked with our base damage, make us competable with other mid damage professions, but no-where near the "damage professions"

As for Support, we have access to most of the buffs that teams find useful, however through using them, it restricts our access to any other profession that might be more appropriate for the situation. This ability alone makes us unsuitable for using it in a team position where we would be required to do something else. On top of that, we're able to Mimic Doctor, Martial Artist, or Adventurer for team and single healing. Considered one of our most powerful defenses, Complete Healing is overly used by any Agent once they're able to use it at a reasonable cost. Note, Complete Healing also comes with alot of major side effects in Shadowlands, not to mention the fact that it has a very high cost/recharge compared to alot of the real doctor heals.. As for the other professions healing capabilities, normally they're decent when you're that profession, but we don't get access to anything useful at all.

Even back before Shadowlands came out, the Adventurer single and team heals were questionable agains't normal mission mobs and higher level areas.. Martial Artist heals were close to useless without the amount of evade skill they were capable of. However, in Shadowlands they have gotten every one of those healing problems fixed for their profession through extension of their healing nanos. Agents did not get any of this, nor did they get anything else.

Agents are capable of using every healing pet for MPs up to Restite, however past a low level setting, even Restite can become useless easily. We don't have access to any of the higher level healing pets.. Vivificator, Belamorte, Mortificant.. Without access to these, we completely grow out of the older pets and they no longer become useful unless you're afk on an alt and just have your pet healing them so they don't die.

As for tanking, Agents do get Access to the TMS shielding, but even that has been limited through all of the perks and new nanos introduced for Soldiers. Not to mention we have nowhere near the health of the normal tanks and even in a mimic form, we're unable to do anything about it. We mostly have to rely on someone healing us, or heal ourselves with Complete Healing over and over again, turning it into one of the better defenses in the game. However, our healing is not even close to par with Doctors, or even Adventurers. We have no absorb perks, healing perks, or anything to benefit us with that.



My summary here, is basically this.

The game has evolved into an amazing MMO over the years, constantly changing itself to be more acceptable to the playerbase and they've attracted many new customers reaching a new high for the game. The PVP system could use some work, but otherwise the game is close to bug free compared to most of the other games I've played.

While this game has evolved though, it's seemed to have forgotten about Agents, not in the primary sense, but through trickledown, we have become one of the lower end professions on every scale.

Our damage is low quality due to our reliance on Aimed Shot and Charms, when used correctly this will never be able to outdamage the true damage professions, which is what Agent was originally intended to be..

"Masters of the shadows, precision snipers able to attack their targets at range and keep them at bay, able to be versatile through false profession, assume profession, and mimic nano programs whenever the situation demands.." That is what the Agent was ment to be, however it's turned into a perverse joke and merely a hopeless cause for alot of others. There are a select few that are happy with their Agents, however, these are the people who only use their Agents for Alts, Pvp, Soloing inferno dynas and farming symbiants etc, and other random tasks. An Agent is useless when it comes to a real situation, their damage is blow average unless going full out, which takes an insane amount of experience, skill, and dedication to turning your charactor into pure damage. This costs billions of credits to achieve and still only obtains a very weak "damage profession" status.

Anyone can agree with me that Shades have surpassed us in damage, as have many other professions in realistic situations.. Basically, not being the richest person around sitting with the best equipment on your agent and only going all out for damage to show off. However, they manage to do it while slacking off immensely. I've played a 218 Martial Artist that could solo an inferno dyna that my 220 Agent normally kills, the difference being.. With my Agent it demands my attention.. Most of the time while fighting with an MA I'm able to get up and walk away from the keyboard and fix a sandwich while I wait for the mob to die. It's a shame how big the difference is, and those of you who have seen the difference know what I mean.

Alot of people tolerate the difference. Alot of people claim that it's a good thing because then the profession actually requires "skill" to play well. I can guarantee you it dosen't take much a level of skill as it does patience, it requires alot of practice with a very predictable method of playing. Alot of people claim that they can do this and that with their Agent, mostly just braggarts.

The truth is, Agents are far behind where they should be at the moment. That's pretty much it. I can name alot of the problems I have with Agent atm if requested to do so, but this is mostly a balancing post more then anything. I want my Agent to be fun again, they took that away from me ever since the 13.02 patch.

I can do what damn near every other Agent does if it's what is expected of me, I can sit here and spout of ideas on how to improve the game until my fingers cramp up and I suffer from carpul-tunnel. But i've been doing that for the past 4 years, and it's gotten us nowhere. So if you want me to continue making random posts about "change this, change that" i'll continue to do so. Otherwise, i'll expect something to change about this situation that we're in. Because I can tell you that I and alot of other Agents that I know would be much happier.

[Twistshot]

You should send a copy of this to the boys and girls at FunCom and Ark and get ahold of the professional and see about hitting the Dev's threw him as well.

Perhaps we can get a poll going threw the professional to see which section should be worked on first, if they will actuall listen that is.