1 Introduction
2 What are fixers: the toolset
3 Why do I think fixers are not cutting it in team pve
4 Why do I think fixers are not cutting it in solo pve?
5 Pvp specific mechanics
6 Why do I think fixers are not cutting it in team pvp
7 Why do I think fixers are not cutting it in solo pvp?
8 The end conclusion
9 Addendum: How do the various parts of the toolset hold up?
1 Introduction
The purpose of this long post is to point out why exactly Title Level 7 fixers are in crises. I’m going to list how I and others feel how the TL7 fixer toolset is holding up in terms of both teaming and soloing in pve and pvp.
The bases of this is comparison: comparison between the toolset of fixers and the toolsets of the 13 other professions. When I compare a support toolset (both buffs and debuffs) I look at the profession list and think of what every profession has to offer to the team, then I see how many give better support and how many others offer worse support. As such this post is still largely based on personal impressions of me and people that bothered to give feedback, but it's the best I could do without giving a detailed description of each individual profession and their toolset (which would be way too much work).
I’m also going to describe the various parts of the fixer toolset and give a cryptic description for each part, this for benefit of the people who are not familiar with TL7 fixers and their toolset. Many parts of the fixer toolset may at first glance look good, but there usually is catch for which I give brief description in "9 Addendum: How do the various parts of the toolset hold up?". The descriptions are cryptic because going into greater detail would make this post even longer.
What I’m not going to do is explain how TL7 fixers came to be this way, nor am I going to suggest any specific miracle items or solutions to "fix” fixers.The point of this thread is to point out what is wrong with TL7 fixers, nothing else.
2 What are fixers: the toolset
A list of the various parts of the fixer toolset. The cryptic description I promised is found in section 9.
2.1 Fixer support toolset
2.1.1 Fixer specific healing: heal over time
- long hot 2904hpm
- short hot 5400hpm
2.1.2 Fixer non-healing support toolset:
- runspeed buff (+800 or +720/+680)
- RK only evade buff (+79)
- ncu buff (+500)
- Damage buff (+40)
- Evade debuff (-170 or -250)
- Evade debuff proc (-170)
- RK single target Roots
- RK area and single target snares
- SL single target snares
- RK only evac nanos and fgrid
- SL+self only garden evac
- tempory item creation nanos
- Program Overload
- random buffs for sneak attack, perception, breaking and entering and the indispensable trap disarming.
2.1.3 Support toolset in perks
- NCU booster (+70)
- Spatial Displacement: root+snare removal perks on target + tempory immunity
2.2 Fixer self only toolset
2.2.1 Defining perk lines
- Careful in Battle (or defensive stance ...)
- Acrobat
- SMG mastery
- Dark kin
- Spatial Displacement
2.2.2 Defining skills
- Good (cheap) evades, runspeed, smg, tradeskills, perception and concealment, treatment and firstaid
- Decent burst, full auto, fling various ranged weapon skills
- Bad other skills, including all nano skills and body development -> low hp
2.2.3 Fixer specific healing: heal over time
- Hot procs: 2196 hpm + 2535 hpm
2.2.4 Typical weapons
- 1/3 damage template above 1k attackrating
- Pvm: hawk mk6, hawk mk5+kmp, kmp+big burger/socom
- Pvp: hawk mk 5 + onehander, rarely hawk mk6+XXX hotswap
- 2 damage procs: +40 and +60 to all damage types
2.2.5 Defining items
- NCU hacker interface
- SWS 11 and lower
- artillery+support symbiants
- pvm: dustbrigade armor + ofab
- pvp: mostly combined sharpshooters
3 Why do I think fixers are not cutting it in team pve
Teams are made up out of 6 players chosen out of 14 profs. It's the 13 others that fixers are competing against for a spot in the team (under the hypothesis that there are enough people on lft and people don't just have to pick whatever is available). So ideally I would have to do a systematic comparison of fixers in comparison to each other prof, but since this is simply too much work I'll just have to trust my and others their subjective experience here.
Disclaimer: Due to changes in the game a lot of the fixer toolset has gotten a lot less useful. Other things simply don't work because of game mechanics (evade debuffs don't work against mobs with only aad,...). For others there are simply better alternatives available. If I only keep the things that work everywhere, that long list in the second post is reduced to the short list below. The things listed below are what define present day fixers role in teams:
3.1 The core team toolset of fixers:
3.1.1 Fixer support toolset
Fixer specific healing: heal over time
- 8304 hpm from 2 hots
=> 8th best heal other profession if I'm not mistaken. This healing is so low that for most teams it’s not even worth mentioning or casting.
Fixer non-healing support toolset:
- runspeed buff (+800 or +720/+680)
- ncu buff (+500)
=> I rank this toolset as the 9th to 11th most desirable.
Overall I'dd rank fixers as the 10th most desirable support profession:
=> therefore I do NOT consider fixers to be a support profession.
3.1.2 Pvm damage dealing
- Smg mastery in combination with hawk mk5+kmp5 or kmp5+socom
- 2 damage procs: +40 and +60 to all damage types
=> Because fixers have no support nanos to cast in combat they can fully concentrate on dealing damage, but this does not mean they are great damage dealers. This depends on a lot of factors, but in most situations fixers are about 9th if I recall everything correctly, ranged damage and not reliant on pets which has its benefits, I'dd say about 3/7 from the ranged profs.
=> I do NOT consider fixers to be a damage dealing profession.
3.1.3 Pvm tanking
- Best evades
+ low hp
=> Fixers combine having the best evades of all profs with very low hp and no other means of damage mitigation. Fixers have no large taunts and only have mediocre damage available for agro control.
=> I’m unsure where to rank them, but anyways: NOT a tank.
3.2 The sum of parts
Tl7 fixers are not support, no damage dealer and no tank. So fixers are a hybrid. Being a hybrid doesn't necessarily mean the profession is not desirable, but since fixers don't excel anywhere and are outclassed by a lot of the other profs in more than 1 of the categories (often all, see Cour’s post below for an example), and a team only has 6 spots: fixers are a last minute filler and nothing more (except for first DB instance).
3.3 An example of how fixers are completely outclassed by another profession
4 Why do I think fixers are not cutting it in solo pve?
In solo pve there's no direct competition between professions for a spot on a team, but there are huge differences in performance so certain professions are more suited for soloing then others. Most of the endgame soloing in AO is done against easy grey mobs, but what I’d like to try and establish is that fixers are in fact a bad choice if you want to roll an endgame soloing profession (to solo any of the larger challenges).
Disclaimer: Due to changes in the game several parts of the fixer toolset have gotten a lot less useful. Some simply don't work because of game mechanics (evade debuffs don't work against mobs with only aad,...). If I only keep the things that work, that long list in the second post is reduced to the short list below. The things listed below are what define how tl7 fixers solo. A cryptic description of their usefulness can be found in the addendum.
4.1 The toolset of the soloing fixer:
4.1.1 Fixer survival traits
Fixer specific healing: heal over time
- 13035 hpm in the form of 4 hots
Fixer non-healing survival tools
- best evades
- capped runspeed
- Evacs both in SL and RK
[- RK snares and roots]
[- SL snares]
+ low hp
4.1.2 Pvm damage dealing[/b]
- Smg mastery in combination with hawk mk5+kmp5 or kmp5+socom
- +40 dmg buff
[- 2 damage procs: +100 damage]
4.2 How does it hold up?
Fixers still have low damage and are now missing the “add damage modifiers” that greatly help out fixer damage dealing in teams: Fixers solo relatively slow.
Survivability is also relatively low because fixers are extremely bad equipped at dealing with any kind of burst damage (or just one single hard hit). Against hard mobs fixer crowd controlling is pretty much none-existent. Apart from the unreliable evades fixers have no means to decrease incoming damage other than kiting. Kiting is not profession specific however.
The only things that sets fixers apart from everyone else is the ability to evac when needed, which allows fixers to "reset" the fight (mob has full hp again by the time the fixer gets back) without losing outside buffs in case of an emergency. I don't consider this very useful.
All in all I would say there's 8 other professions that have both better soloing survivability and damage (my opinion is mostly based on how I think everyone fairs against SL dynas and AI bosses, it's not an exact science just yet). Fixers do have an advantage in some instances over some of these because of being ranged: kiting.
3 other professions have better survivability but somewhat lower damage. I don't know how the upgraded traders hold up now in terms of survivability+damage, nor do I have a clue on how engineers survivability compares.
4.3 The sum of parts
If you're looking for a soloing profession, then look elsewhere.