Acknowledge us FC: Full Defense

[Playstaytion]

The mass pvp environment in AO is something that has changed drastically compared to the way things were initially prior to LE. Now there are more debuffs, more damage, and with the introduction of LE procs, there are even more hostile buffs placed in this setting than there were before.

“Well, we still do not consider 1v1 to be a focus for balance in any way, …”
– Silirron
(All I could find. Unfortunately, I could not find the original post by Sil where he went into detail and elaborated on why they cant balance 1vs1 pvp)

According to this and other previous posts, it is stated that 1vs1 pvp is not what FC is going to try to balance, but mass pvp instead. Moreover, Doctors in a 1vs1 pvp situation is a completely different subject (or in this case, a different thread ), but in a mass environment for a doctor, there are many disadvantages (too many in fact), that a doctor faces.

Having 20k+ hp is great, but 20k+ hp is nothing in all honesty with all the damage and capping specials that we experience. A ma, agent, adventurer, enforcer, fixer, keeper, and shade can 75% - 120% us in a rather quick amount of time and being full agg does not help this at all needless to say.

Currently there are plenty of debuffs in the game that can hinder the doctor toolset, and more recently, some can even reduce us to a body just waiting to die, literally… but that isn’t the argument of this thread. What is however, is the doctors ability to go full defense and effectively use our toolset at full defense to at least have the chance to resist these debuffs like everyone else. Doctor nano resist is absolutely beautiful, but there is no significance in having such high NR only to be forced full agg to insta our heals, rendering it useless.. We don’t mind you putting the debuffs in here because some professions needed that boost and we understand that. Just give us a way to resist them.

Currently there are 9 out of 14 professions that can pose to be a potential nemises to a doctor (and you can make that 10 if you wish to include some engineers due to the huge nano drains and freak strength stuns):

• Trader – GTH/Stun/Drains/Nanodrains
• Agent – Stun & Alpha power.
• Adventurer – Alpha + Healing effeciency debuff
• Bureaucrat – Nano init debuffs, Perk Stuns, Nano Stuns, and Proc stuns
• Enforcer – A lot of NR, Alpha power & Stuns
• Fixer – AS/FA + Stuns (Jarring burst has 100% chance of stun and working as intended now)
• Martial Artist – Stuns, Crits, and Alphapower
• Meta Physicist – NSD, various other nanoskill debuffs, proc debuffs, and healing effeciency debuffs.
• Shade – Perk stuns, proc stuns, and nano drains in addition to alpha power.

It goes without saying that a doctors defense are heals, and ultimately, we are a profession dependent on the *instant* casting of our heals in order to survive and outlast. However, with the current way the doctor toolset is arranged, we have to play 100% full agg (or close to it) just to instant cast our top SL heals. On full def, yes we can heal, but we are seriously disadvantaged due to the slow cast time of our SL heals (not to mention that the dots are even slower – but I wont go there); Because of this, some may argue that we can indeed go full defense and use CH as an instant heal, but then we would literally be reduced to an Agent in FP doctor minus the crits, alpha power, and capping AS – which obviously does not benefit us as much as the agents.

In a mass environment, a doctors chances of resisting the many debuffs thrown at us are slim to none due to the fact that again, we are at full agg (or close to it) to effectively use our toolset. If this is, “working as intended,” and the fate of the doctor profession is to forever remain full agg to effectively use our toolset, then please give us an official response and at least tell us (so I can roll an alt that doesn’t have to live on full agg to effectively use my toolset), and disregard all text after this.

I have spoken with countless TL 7 Adventurers who are very avid pvpers and all of them have told me that most advys on average will have between 1.8k-2k+ nanocasting initiatives, and to instacast the top Adventurer heal, Beauty of Life, you would need around 2.3k Nano casting initiatives. So lets take a brief moment to look at the adventurers top heal:

Profession: Adventurer

Quality level: 213
Nano Crystal (Beauty of Life)
Description: Nano Crystal - Heals the target of 2352-3528 points damage.

Compared to:

Profession: Doctor

Quality level: 212
Nano Crystal (Revivification)
Description: Nano Crystal - Heals the target of 2607-3527 points damage.

As you can see these two heals are very close to each other (not including the temp hp), but for the sake of the argument, I will go down a heal, to the next doctors heal, Restorative influx (ql 209), and compare that to BoL (ql 213) instead because the 1500 hp bonus added with the actual heal from restorative influx will heal for roughly the same amount (so 2097 minimum and 2837 maximum +1500 = 3597 health restored at the least, while 4337 health restored at the most which is also including the health that’s restored from the temp hp also when using this 209 heal). So what we have is:

Profession: Adventurer

Quality level: 213
Nano Crystal (Beauty of Life)
Description: Nano Crystal - Heals the target of 2352-3528 points damage.

Compared to:

Profession: Doctor

Quality level: 209
Nano Crystal (Restorative Influx)
Description: Nano Crystal - Heals the target of 2097-2837 points damage.

Again, although Restorative Influx heals for less than Beauty of Life, it will be compared because when you include/factor in the actual temp hp (which also heals/restores health for those who didn’t know), they will heal for very close to the same amount.

So going a bit more into detail on these two nanos:

The Advy top heal requires 2.3kish nano casting initiatives to cap the speed time on Beauty of Life, and instacast it on full def. In contrast, the Doctors lower heal, Restorative Influx, is not even instacast with as much as 2.8k nano casting initiatives needless to say this is a 209 heal of all heals. I find it extremely biased that Adventures, the second best healers, can instant cast their top heal with only 2.3kish nano casting initiatives while doctors, the *masters* of healing, cant even get the 209 heal (of all heals) to instacast on full defense with nearly 500-600 more nano initiative (depending on doctors set up), needless to say they both almost heal close to the same amount.

Its time the doctors get a boost to allow us to effectively pvp with our toolset on full defense like everyone else. The fact that doctors pvp on full agg and have a slow-casting toolset on full defense is nothing new (especially to the doctor community), but all we would really need is something (or a nano) that would give us the nano casting initiative we need to pvp effectively on full defense with our toolset. Many ideas have been thrown around on how to fix this sorta small, but very annoying for a doctor, problem. It is a topic that has been brought up countless times and I am optimistic that this could be the thread to help FC acknowledge this issue and fix this.

Personal insults and flames for whatever reason are never acceptable when trying to get feed back so just keep that in mind. I ask that all the readers and especially the doctors, discuss their reaction on this and share possible solutions for fixing this issue. Just please keep it civil, on topic, and more importantly, keep it constructive.

My ideas for fixing this lean mostly towards either a new improved heal that’s instacast on full def, or a nano that gives us enough nano casting initiatives to go full def and insta our current heals. Here are a few *examples* of what I think:

Zerg Magnet

Description: After several near-death encounters with Tanius Corbinson, the top-ranked trader, Dr. Blaze decided to create a formula that would attempt to help provide a defense against humidity extraction. Though it does not eliminate the hostile effects of humidity extraction, at least this would prepare him with a better defense for the next encounter.

Nanocrystal (Zerg Magnet)
Target: Self
QL: 220
Nanocost: 890
Duration: 8 minutes, 20 seconds
Attack time: 3.32s
Recharge time: 5.97s

Attack skills:
Biological Metamorphosis: 36%
Matter Creation: 32%
Matter Metamorphosis: 32%

Requirements:
To Use:

User Biological Metamorphosis >= 2051
User Biological Metamorphosis >= 2051
User Matter Creation >= 1751
User Profession = Doctor
User Level >= 220
User Specialization & Fourth
User Expansion sets & Shadowlands

Effects:
On use:

Target Modify Nano init 600
Target Modify Run speed 100
Target Hit Healing Effeciency -25%
Target Hit Nano Cost -10%

-or-

Improved Renewal of Being

Description: Heals the target of 4817-6517

Nanocrystal (Improved Renewal of Being)
Nanocost: 1157
QL: 220
Range: 25m
Attack time: 5.5s
Recharge time: 4s

Attack Skills:
Biological Metamorphosis 52%
Matter Metamorphosis 48%

Requirements:
To Use:

User Biological Metamorphosis >= 1901
User Matter Metamorphosis >= 1901
User Profession == Doctor
User Level >= 220
User Specialization & Fourth
User Expansion sets & Shadowlands

Effects:
On use:

Target Hit Health 4817 .. 6517
Target Cast Renewal of Being

- If Level >=201

[Regidoc]

While this IS a wonderful post, you're actually better off posting this in the game suggestion form rather than in here. Only moderators really go in here and usually only upon the request of the professionals that run that particular forum.

[Mmba]

I appreciate the effort, and i agree with and understand your concerns probably more than most. However, I've made this point to the devs and been told (by sil) several times that doctors would be considered OP to be able to go full defense.

While I don't necessarily agree with that (because of the way NR/evades function at agg vs def... we aren't able to utilize that part of our toolset) it is simply a discrepancy in opinion on what we are supposed to be able to accomplish.

Still, I (and in a sense, 'we') can present the facts in the hopes that their opinion changes. It is unlikely that it will change, unless the circumstances around the issue dealing with other professions increase in severity, in which case it will become more prevalent anyway and obvious, thus requiring less work than the doctor community has already put into this issue by pleading with FC since SL came out.

It never hurts to ask, and I have made several notes on my progression through this issue (never in a new thread, I didn't wanna cause a huge stir over it.) Like one of your suggestions, I made a suggestion to take away healing effiency and other positives for huge buffs in return. I think it is very important to note that I presented this with the full intention to the professionals community that the nanos were not intended to balance or add anything to the profession but simply create more diversity. It might be easier to ask for a little and work our way up the ladder than it is to ask for "god mode" all at once. (not that i think this addition could be considered as such)


In the end, while I find it extremely unlikely that we'll get anything that rewards us with a huge boost in the area of nano init alone, it is much more feasable to think that such sort of positives-for-negatives nanos could work their way into the future. (note that i say more feasable than something unlikely, but i'm not saying that its probable to happen.) give it time and i will certainly push. if anything, your post tells me that I'm not the only one that cares about this any more, and I'm glad to see that. This issue will continue to be in all of our stickied lists: bug list, wants and needs list, radical unbalanced suggestions list. I will link this from one or more of those as I see necessary if we get enough support behind the idea in this specific thread.

[Fifty50]

• Fixer – AS/FA + Stuns (Jarring burst has 100% chance of stun and working as intended now)

thats not plural at all, thats one stun, with 2 secs duration..

Fixers can forget about alpahing a good doc btw.

[lizor]

I'm 100% totally behind the idea of being able to utilize full def to get a decent cast speed on our top heals.

Personally, I believe we should look at getting our passive defenses improved rather than our active defense ie heals. By passive defenses I mean our NR, evades, ability to resist stuns, etc that work when we aren't actively casting or attacking.

[XenonDe]

Personally I think there's no way but full def for mass pvp. I made the change to play full def using a combination of the non instant 216 heal (0.5 sec faster the BI) and CH for emergencies. Being forced to CH takes a great deal offense away and leaves me vulnerable to alphas during recharge but for battlestations it did increase my survival rate drastically.
For most solo encounters in and outside bs I still switch to 75% for better heals and dots unless I need my NR to work there too, and change back to full def when said person runs off.

It's working subpar and is a hassle but 50-100% agg is suicide on the BS when every root/snare/drain/nsd/heal eff debuff lands on you.

[wyldebeast]

I completely agree that this is a problem for docs, I just don't agree with the ways proposed to solve it.

Mmba has stated a few times, that it is FC's view that we would be OPed if we were to instacast ours heals at fulldef, so to me it's clear that we would have to give up a whole lot more if we want this to happen. IMO, the proposed nano isn't even close to being a negative, I'd gladly give up 25% heal eff for those bonuses.

What I'm thinking is looking at the things we tell all the new docs to do, and nerf those aspects. We tell the new docs to get a 2 sec nano delta and cap nanocost as two of their top priorities. What if we were given items to be placed in the slots were we gain most of these benefits? What I'm thinking is something like this:

Combat Medic's Headwear // Combat Medic's auxiliary Compiler (deck 5!)
+huge amount of nano inits
+very large amount of %nano cost (making our nanos more expensive)
-large amount of nano delta (reducing the size of the ticks)
no ACs, buffs, extras.

No rings, no nanos, no stuff to add unto our existing setups, but instead real choices. If you want these things, you give up something very important. With the proposed items we'd loose a lot of good buffs and a lot of nanocost reduction to gain the advantages.

Yes, I know in the long run it's better to ask for stuff that doesn't nerf your prof in one aspect to help it in the other, since then we can ONLY get better, never worse. But I'd rather see something happen sooner than later and prefer choices, even if those choices seem wrong to other docs.

[XenonDe]

Agreed.

I don't mind sacrifices to get to full def, actually I think those should be required.

[Gralmuph]

Atleast something needs to be done, cause it's damn hard to be with the best as a doctor in fight. And I don't like the %luck needed to succeed with it either.

I would love to see a change in the ways doctors pvp today, not that I know how it should be... but I would love to see a change

[Manaas]

Why do you have to insta your heals? One doc on RK1 has found a way round this problem: he is in a full evades setup with about 2.4k resistance to dodge and 2.3k resistance to evade clsc and maintaining high AR and about 16k hp

He uses the 216 heal which he can insta at full defence and it heals pretty much all of his hp.

BI is not you're only heal

[XenonDe]

The heals has to be instant cast since you don't have 1-2 seconds to heal up while the opponent is pounding on you. In those 1-2 seconds you can easily get alphaed.

I'm using a combination of the 216 heal and CH too for mass pvp. The evades hardly stop anything though, most non support profs can alpha through 2k4 defense rating easily and 16k hp can also be alphad quite easily

[Manaas]

but yes to counter that you have a insta cast heal which heals up that alpha (see 216 heal)

whereas most docs these days favour the max hp route: no1 can alpha 22k+ hp in the time it takes you to heal it back up.

[XenonDe]

I should have been more clear. 16k hp are easily alphad without leaving a chance to heal inbetween.

[Manaas]

i dont see how =/ perks all take at least 1-2 seconds to execute and no profession has 4 capping special attack available in 1 second. Surely it doesn't take much to just hit heal? I know stuns complicate things but you have FM stims and prior warning to alphas, ie enf has rocks flying round him, agent hits CS and the rest of alpha is quite slow (unless its a gank agent) keeper has no stuns, fixer has A stun but doesn't last long.

Doc you can use heal perks before stunned+also remove stuns (crats ok but that goes for everyone) and hitting heal after isn't that hard.

[XenonDe]

Sure whatever you say, appearently you have more insight on the doc profession and experienced more alphas on a doc then any doc here.

You may wanna consider BS too, which this is all about with all the funny funky debuffs including a total of over 170% stackable heal eff debuff or GTH. The nanoresist working from fulldef is needed for mass pvp, not duels.
Full def has no other effect then working nanoresist and maybe evading a shot from a support prof here and there. That 20k hp is working better then 16k hp should be a no brainer there since full def or not, you take the same damage.

[Manaas]

I havent played a doc to tl7 admittedly but on my tl5 doc on BS I find that 12k hp combined with full def with about 1.5k NR means that most things cant debuff me. But when i AM debuffed its basically game over unless i have my heal perks up.

I'm just saying having no debuffs and being full def is a lot better than being debuffed all the time at full agg and having an extra 5k hp?

16k hp was without the heal proc on the SL heals as well so we're talking more about 18k

[Legion84]

• Fixer – AS/FA + Stuns (Jarring burst has 100% chance of stun and working as intended now)

thats not plural at all, thats one stun, with 2 secs duration..

Fixers can forget about alpahing a good doc btw.

How many proffessiins left can alpha a good doc, not many.

[XenonDe]

Well, there is quite a differnce between the damage and alphas a TL5 and a TL7 takes. Of course full def has a priority but the evades setup doesn't do so well, and currently full def slows heals in a hp setup as much as in a 16k hp evades setup.

The 216 heal can't be instacast at full def yet, it can be instacast at 25% agg though with 3000 nanoinit which can be reached with OBs. Full def would require 3300 nano init to instacast it. Instacasting BI at full def would require 3600 nano init.

edit:
The "Improved Renewal of Being" the OP suggested would be a identical copy of the 216 heal which is instacastable at full def. No improved healing compared to the current 216 heal.

[catdog]

How about a diffrent approach to things?

Give doctors buffs that make it worth going full def even though heals can not be instacasted then. Thinking a relatively good NR buff here.

[Mmba]

I should have been more clear. 16k hp are easily alphad without leaving a chance to heal inbetween.

agreed. however, with the doc in question (2k evades, full defense) then 16k would be much harder to mow through. its simple game mechanics.

How many proffessiins left can alpha a good doc, not many.

if you have the hp... very few. stuns help greatly as the original poster noted.


overall, the idea is simple: if you want to go full defense, you'll have to sacrifice healing. we already have a way to do this: use a lower heal. however, there could be different tradeoffs through positive-for-negative nanos. is us being full defense while using our highest heal OP? we say no, others say yes. we'll either have to make a better argument or wait for the game dynamics to change the situation.