Newbie question about the fixer being overpowered

AO is the main topic, but you can also talk about things like the latest console game you've played, web comics, movies, music, etc. as they pertain to your AO experience.

Moderators: AOU Team, Forum Moderators, Site Managers

Bobby Daniels
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2011 8:58 am

Newbie question about the fixer being overpowered

Post by Bobby Daniels » Fri Jul 29, 2011 11:39 am

Seeing the fixer's nano line, makes me think he's overpowered.

1. Healing
On the long term HoT it doesn't say what the healing interval is, but I suppose that it is similar to the one from the Doc.
So here's the fixer's highest HOT: http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=162734
And here's the doc's highest HOT: http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=28662

Even if it lasts only 30 minutes compared to 60 from the doc, the fixer's HOT has more than 3 times more minimum healing. And that gives him the best healing buff IMHO.

I have a soldier and I would really love a healing line on top of what I have. OMHH doesn't count. That's a joke.

2. Armor
With the GA, the fixer is well above the soldier, the one that should have the best ACs.

3. Buffs
a. The fixer has speed with a titanical value compared to the advy, the one that should be one of the fastest breeds, if not the fastest.
b. The fixer has root. With 4 minutes and 35 sec root, fighting in pve against a close combat monster is a joke.
c. The fixer has 201 weapon buff compared to the 150 the soldier gets. I mean, really? Better weapon buff than the expert in weapons?
d. The fixer has damage boost of 40 compared to the 22 (at the cost of 150 speed) the soldier has. Another one throwed at the soldier.

4. Gridding
Another huge fixer advantage compared to all the professions.

5. Evades
Self healer and evader. Damn, that's tough to kill!


I don't say that the fixer shouldn't have some of those advantages, like gridding and grid armor, but having so many advantages that surpass so much the other breeds is a bit too much.
If you give healing to the fixer, why not give it to all the breeds?

I play as a soldier and I find that having a non-support profession with healing and with better armor than me is a little bit hard to digest.
Anyone else agrees with me that besides tradeskilling, the fixer has it all?
I'm not the new kid from the block. I'm the whole block, baby!

User avatar
Krishina
Posts: 76
Joined: Sat May 21, 2011 12:27 pm

Post by Krishina » Fri Jul 29, 2011 12:41 pm

I have a lowish level fixer, but I'm friends with high level ones. And no. It isn't an 'I win' class. I'm not sure what your meaning with ACs - fixers are evades, GA's ACs aren't as good as wearing armour. (And if any class should have the highest AC it's enforcers, not soldiers.)

Adventurers go fast by morphing. Fixers go fast by partially digitizing. Both are fast. I fail to see why this is an issue.

The character concept of a fixer is that they're the black market dealers, the computer hackers, the one that breaks in, grabs what they want, and gets the hell out of dodge. Put on a good reflect shield and a fixer winces (shades do too) according to friends since you can't dodge a reflect.

I'm guessing your main is a soldier, right? If you look on the Funcom profession forums you'll find a lot of fixers pointing out a lot of reasons they think they're a very long way from OP.
Krishina: Level 100 Engineer, RK2

Looking for a toe in the AO rp door.

User avatar
Snakebite
AOU Forum Moderator
Posts: 3291
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:32 am
Location: North-East England

Post by Snakebite » Fri Jul 29, 2011 1:55 pm

Docs only have ONE HoT line, it's a VERY powerful but short lived HoT.
Fixers have TWO HoT lines, their short HoT isn't as powerful as a Docs and is overwritten by the Docs HoT, but they have a long HoT also, which is nice.

Over all, the Docs healing is much higher.

The Fixer HoTs are designed to give him a bit of survivability whilst on the run and in the case of the long HoT, take some of the pressure off a Doc in a team mission.
Image
Don't make me come in there and Moderate you!

Bobby Daniels
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2011 8:58 am

Post by Bobby Daniels » Fri Jul 29, 2011 2:03 pm

You do get ACs. Like 2000 for MK4. I know it's not much, but the fixers also get evades and heals.
You say advies get speed by morphing? Try speed reduction by morphing into fighting forms.
My problem isn't that fixers are fast and have evades. The problem is that they get better HoT than docs, best evades and better weapon buffs than the soldiers. On top of that add a root and snare. Want something more?
Considering that there are very few hits that get through your evade skill, the ones that get through are healed by the huge HoT.

I imagine a typical fixer fight against a mob like this: snare, root (at around lvl 55 you root a mob for 1 min and 23 sec) and if the target is not down in that amount of time, he has to get past your evade skill to land a hit or two.
Considering that the mobs that hit above 70 hp every 3 sec are very rare, even if he hits you everytime, having a HoT saves you. But I don't see many mobs surviving over 1 minute of hits from 2 MGs and weapon buffs, so he might not even get the chance to try a hit on you.
That's close to god mode in my opinion.

I have to admit that I haven't played a fixer yet and all that I'm writitng is from studying the nanoline on auno. But those are the fixer's nanos.
I might repeat myself, but it's only for making my point. Having heals on a fast-evader-rooter profession is way too much.
I'm not the new kid from the block. I'm the whole block, baby!

Bobby Daniels
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2011 8:58 am

Post by Bobby Daniels » Fri Jul 29, 2011 2:08 pm

Snakebite wrote:Docs only have ONE HoT line, it's a VERY powerful but short lived HoT.
Fixers have TWO HoT lines, their short HoT isn't as powerful as a Docs and is overwritten by the Docs HoT, but they have a long HoT also, which is nice.

Over all, the Docs healing is much higher.

The Fixer HoTs are designed to give him a bit of survivability whilst on the run and in the case of the long HoT, take some of the pressure off a Doc in a team mission.
The long HoT is inferior to the doc's? Are you kidding me?
The fixer's highest heals 362-370 hp for 180 hits, with 10s delay and the doc's highest heals 100-151 hp every 32s.
How is that inferior?
I'm not the new kid from the block. I'm the whole block, baby!

User avatar
Llie
AOU Content Editor
Posts: 404
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2011 1:29 am

Post by Llie » Fri Jul 29, 2011 4:20 pm

Not sure what your objective is for your original post. If you think Fixer's are the profession of least resistance, I suggest you roll one and try it out. Everything you pointed out is pretty much true, in practice everything more or less balances out.

Here are some observations from playing a fixer:

HoT's are great passive heals (like MP heal pets). The target gets healed at a fixed rate for the duration that the nano(s) are running. But being a doctor is more than just buffing everyone with HP and HoT. The healer's job is to keep one eye on the team's HP bars. If everyone's hurting, pop off a team heal. If the tank or DD is near death, target that person and hit with an enormous single heal. HoT's can only supplement that. They improve the target's survivability, but they don't make a difference if they can't outpace the damage that person is receiving. Yes, Fixer HoT's are very nice, and increase the survivability of the target.

Grid armor looks great until you actually choose to make a grid-armor fixer. They require matter creation, which only the useless item/ammo summoning nanos need, I think. For a class with all blue nano skills, upping the skills to cast a grid armor is a serious pain. It will cost you enough IP at levels below 190 that you will have to think seriously about compromising other skills. Much of my career, I needed MP nano skill buffs and Trader nano point buffs to cast my grid armors. Grid armor is fickle. They poof when they poof, and don't care if you're in the middle of a boss fight. Grid armor is really not an armor at all but a evade and defense buff. At some point, if your mob's attack rating is high enough, their attacks will punch through grid armor like a hot knife through butter. You're invincible for 20 levels, and then suddenly you're running around in a useless ugly blue leotard. Oh, and obtaining a grid armor is insanely expensive and/or difficult.

I already mentioned the all blue nano skills. The fixer's long HoT nano line is level locked, so you can't even get MP buffs to temporarily use a higher one. Most of the fixer nanos cannot be rolled and must be obtained from dyna/boss/chest loot.

Ok, so what's *my* point? Not sure. Being a fixer is periods of the easy life of invincibility punctuated by periods of frustrating farming and getting knocked down and sent to reclaim faster than we can meep there.

That being said, I've not taken a soldier into TL 4/5, so I'm really not the right person to comment. Is a soldier's career consistently difficult from level 1? I think that may well be true. Being one of the top damage dealing professions without any viable self heal is painful. I'm guessing some perks and things may help, but being a profession that is expected to tank without the massive HP, without a viable self heal line, can certainly be frustrating.

But then again soldiers have TMS/AMS, which I've used at low levels. When used correctly, the mirror shields are an amazingly effective tool. My 220/25 soldier org mate rocks and I've watched him solo all but Ian Warr of the mercenaries. I seriously doubt a GA4 fixer would do as well.

Using http://auno.org/ao/stats.php?dimension= ... =0&level=0 as a rough guide, you will see that at low levels there is a slight bias toward enforcers, but at the top of the levels, there is a sudden bias toward doctors and soldiers. You have to ask yourself why that would be if fixer's were indeed better than doctors and soldiers combined.

Weeping Willow
Posts: 64
Joined: Thu Mar 16, 2006 4:32 pm

Post by Weeping Willow » Fri Jul 29, 2011 4:55 pm

Bobby Daniels wrote:The long HoT is inferior to the doc's? Are you kidding me?
The fixer's highest heals 362-370 hp for 180 hits, with 10s delay and the doc's highest heals 100-151 hp every 32s.
How is that inferior?
You may want to check the nanos a bit more seriously before ranting like that :)

This is the top RK Doc HOT, and it heals for 277 .. 323 every 5 sec.
The DB one is 292 .. 347
What you talk about is the small hot linked to team HP buff doc have.

Comparing Doc and Fixer HOT is kind off moot anyway as Doc's HOT is really a very small port of their healing power.

Comparing fixer "ubarness" to soldier's being nerf without taking into account TMS is a good joke.

User avatar
Snakebite
AOU Forum Moderator
Posts: 3291
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:32 am
Location: North-East England

Post by Snakebite » Sat Jul 30, 2011 4:55 am

Actually (I may be wrong) but there's only the cat morphs of an Advy that have a RS debuff, dog certainly adds RS.

Also, you're assuming only one mob attacking you, this rarely happens unless you play close attention. Whilst a fixer can tank a mob reasonably reliably, you can pull agg with an AOE attack quite easily (fixer bullets I'm thinking about) and then with 2 or more, your HoTs can't keep up.

Actually, Deathless Blessing isn't the top Doc HoT, the one you wanna be looking at (as WW amended) is Team-Enhanced Deathless Blessing, better HoT AND one shot gets all teammates :wink:
Image
Don't make me come in there and Moderate you!

Bobby Daniels
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2011 8:58 am

Post by Bobby Daniels » Sat Jul 30, 2011 5:14 pm

You're talking about having a problem with healing when you're attacked by multiple targets.
But this is my problem: you have a healing line. And a good one too. On top of big evasions.
Having healing and evasion is a big advantage in my opinion.
I'm not the new kid from the block. I'm the whole block, baby!

User avatar
Snakebite
AOU Forum Moderator
Posts: 3291
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:32 am
Location: North-East England

Post by Snakebite » Sun Jul 31, 2011 12:27 am

And one stun and your evades are rendered useless.

The bottom line is, all the Proffs have strengths and weaknesses, but then this isn't meant to be a solo game...
Image
Don't make me come in there and Moderate you!

ShadowInTheNight
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2010 3:06 pm

Post by ShadowInTheNight » Sun Jul 31, 2011 3:53 am

Bobby Daniels wrote:You're talking about having a problem with healing when you're attacked by multiple targets.
But this is my problem: you have a healing line. And a good one too. On top of big evasions.
Having healing and evasion is a big advantage in my opinion.
Roll a fixer and test your theory. At low levels my soldier survives a lot easier thanks to being able to kill faster in addition to using TMS when it gets tough. What my soldier can't survive my fixer can't either. This is of course when talking about my roughly equally well (or badly) geared toons.

Weeping Willow
Posts: 64
Joined: Thu Mar 16, 2006 4:32 pm

Post by Weeping Willow » Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:17 pm

moreover, nothing forbid a soldier to get a HOT ...
too bad TMS cant be cast on target :)

tgjensen
Posts: 24
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:53 am

Post by tgjensen » Mon Aug 01, 2011 4:15 pm

Oh, and OMHH is far from a joke. When you're able to insta-cast it you get 200-300 hp every 1.2 seconds when spamming it, so let's round off to 200/s. That's an amazing rate of healing. Compare Dr Hack n' Quack and Advanced Medical Reclaim combined, which come out to a little less than 90 hp/s. Even a doctor's Lifegiving Elixir (don't know if that's the best best doc heal, but just as an example) comes out to ~200 hp/s.

I'm a 200 soldier and I use OMHH all the time. You compromise some of your damage-dealing ability, but it outheals a lot of dynas' damage-dealing capacity quite comfortably. You certainly shouldn't dismiss it so easily.

Bobby Daniels
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2011 8:58 am

Post by Bobby Daniels » Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:04 am

OMHH insta cast? It has a 2,7 s cast time and I find it ridiculous to invest in nano casting speed as a soldier at lower levels.
So let's say that at best you start using it decently after lvl 100, but the fixer has a healing line at no casting cost (after the HoT is applied) all the game.
And like I said: having a dodger that can heal is beyond me. Maybe they should think about giving HoTs to tankers as well.
I'm not the new kid from the block. I'm the whole block, baby!

Bobby Daniels
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2011 8:58 am

Post by Bobby Daniels » Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:07 am

Weeping Willow wrote:moreover, nothing forbid a soldier to get a HOT ...
too bad TMS cant be cast on target :)
I wasn't talking about buff begging.
And to have a soldier to cast TMS more than 2 times with a full nano bar, maybe we should chose the Nanomage breed.
But then we would have to figure out what to do with the 2 minutes nano shutdown.
I'm not the new kid from the block. I'm the whole block, baby!

Post Reply