The Great Progen nerf

[Statyomota]

I have worked hard to get my PW to 148. In ST4 and beta he was very fun to play many hours of hunting in Cooper, fighting the wandering pirates in Paramis but now it seems that is all in the past. The mobs are so pumped up I no longer have fun playing my PW. In my guild the JD are the greatest warriors now thanks for that. I love that the game is back  but some tweeking needs to be done.  I enjoy solo hunting that I seem to no longer be able to do. I guess joining the ranks of JD is my only choice with the current state of the game. Yes this is a frustrated vent thanks for reading.

[Stanig[IS]]

Nothing has changed for the PW from ST4 through beta til now.  Absolutely zero.  I do not know where you get the idea it was nerfed, because it was not.  I would know, my main play toon is a PW.

 

If anything its the JDs that got the bat upside the head, with all the raid bosses that see cloak now.  So seriously, post evidence.

[skitszo]

don't seem to bad to me... HDc seems to be kinda worth having now..litle.. but its baby alt so not sure yet....PW die from bosses still  lol...but shield sap seemed to wwork ok..decent damage and shield regens...   those faction with shield nova save oodles of time.....maby your just getting mobbed?....  got 50+ deflects up?....

[Mattsacre]

I don't think the problem is the PW, they seem to work reasonably well (with a few glitchs like the CT on and off etc. hopefully that resolved now). I believe primarily it's mob AI that has become the problem. Mobs that people have become accustomed to plowing through previously, now have different AI, due to mobbing and "call for help" the PW now have problems finding mobs high end to solo out.

 

Old Live (tm) the primaty mobs PW leveled on, were the volts (with exception of deviants they were good 1 to 1ers), the BBW pirate drones (there were  several 1 to 1 spots or the paired ones were seperatable via GL), the tengu (the northern ones weren't so clustered that you couldn't kite them) several spots for gene hunters (those were either totally solo spawn or seperate enough they as well could get agroed without agroing the pack),  the oni in xipe (with care you could chip them from the edges) and ironicly the grissom space patrol (PW faction mob :) that was absolutley 1 to 1, they never jumped in to help each other)

 

Because of current AI: either due to pairing, call for help mechanics, scan ranges, dmg types, neutrality etc. etc. it has become exponentially harder for a PW to level in many of those spots since Old Live (tm) AI. And let's be honest as well, many got "lazy" becuase of the rudimentary AI in the ST(s). Hopefully the AI will be tweeked about some and the old or some new leveling/looting spots can be provided for the PW soon, but as the OP have percieved, old mechanics and old tried and true spots are not good for PW now as they are for the JD w/ summon/cloak/coma.

[Stanig[IS]]

Or try this.  Get a fast engine and REVERSE KITE.  Seriously guys?

 

I just watched someone try to sit on a spawn nav and tank them.  Do not do that.  This is how you die...

 

Also, dont multibox a TT and sit there, because as your TT spams more and more will draw to it, and the TT dies. 

 

Mobility.  Teamwork.  The solo game is not dead if youre doing more than sitting still right in the center of two spawn nodes trying to take on 10 tengu at the same time.

[HellHasArrived]

The solo game is not dead if your a JD... As far as reverse kiting goes, combat trance one of the PW's main skills only works if you don't move.

Edited January 27, 2013 by Sleven.

[Stanig[IS]]

Play the timer, you only have to pause for 1 second to reapply it, and then you have what 21 seconds i believe to move.

[Mattsacre]

That begs the question.....

What is a PW SUPPOST to be? A tank.

What are it's skill set DESIGNED to do? Sit in a spot and dish out dmg and absorb dmg.

Where can a PW do what they are suppost to do with their skill set solo with current AI? Nowere.

 

Some say "adjust or die" *shrug* o.k. do what Stanig suggests, works most times, not always...don't forget summon and hack. But whatever.

Or if devs don't want to provide PW friendly combat mobs for leveling.....(that seems to be overweaningly JD doable now because of thier skill set BTW).

Don't.

Yeh don't, don't do the mobs with your PW, park em. Wait for mobs AI that are more suited to what they were intended to be, a class that sits in the maelstrom and dishes out armegedon.

Let the JD's that have had the advantage of mobs to level on, or the credit from loot, or the gear from raids be the tank. Let them sit in the maelstrom and use thier skills to tank raids.

 

Since there will be a shortage of PWs that couldn't level on available mobs, or have the credits from loot, or the raid gear to effectively tank..the JDs will have to take up the slack, maybe they can keep the bosses attention off the healers while they cloak and dagger the bosses, maybe they can kite the bosses with L8 shields....

 

The point remains, the PW weren't nerfed.

But the end results may have as well been, if they can't do what they are suppost to be with what they got vs. whats out there, you have effectly neutered them.

[GenghisBob]

That is one of the biggist problems I see with soloing with a PW.  Sure you can move aounr and kill things, but you do have to KEEP MOVING or get swarmed over.  Just how are we supposed to pick up the loot we worked to get?  I can kill them but if I stop for loot, my shield is gone before I get enough to pay for my ammo!

 

And before you say "team work", I did say "solo".

Edited January 28, 2013 by GenghisBob

[jrichards]

in Live PW's could never sit in 1 spot and solo a CL 58 voltoi, tengu, or GSP.  They had to use their skills and kite it. Just like JD have to use their skills to solo these mobs so too must the PW use their skills.  A tank is never defined by not having to move.  In any MMO over that last 10 years a tank that doesn't move usually dies.

 

 

I think a big problem with mob AI, and there are several, is that mobs will aggro everything within 10k even if yer sig is below 2k.  I don't care how good a single mobs 'call for help skill' is a continuous call for help is just way overbalanced.  A secondary problem is mob level and grouping.  I can't stand seeing CL 38 mobs patrolling where CL 27 mobs are.  I hate seeing CL 10 mobs mixed in with CL 43 mobs.  And the spawn system isn't working quite right.  If I kill mobs 10k from where I started kiting them (where there are no mobs) I shouldn't see these mobs re-spawn on top of me after 60 seconds.

 

There are def issues with mob's that have nothing to do with their skills they use (most of which still do not work).  As par as progen in general I have posted this before but plasma PL's still are not producing the damage they did in Live. The plasma cascade just doesn't occur.  One way to see the truth in this is that a progen can do more damage with chem and impact (without debuffs) then with plasma.  Overall mob group issues, mob spawning rate/area level inconsistency, plus damage output, I can def see why people are complaining about playing PWs.

Edited January 28, 2013 by Crichton

[skitszo]

was the backwards limit of 500 speed fixed?   In original live i use to run supernova 9 and backward kite with groups on the voltio...you really didn't worry about trance cause if you were far enough away the voltio range was short and you wouldn't get hit...only other issue is the projectile accuracy bonus from trance i guess.

 

 

everyone start getting lazy and forget?

 

and tanks in WoW that don't know when to move are dead dead and dead....

[GenghisBob]

We evidently aren't even supposed to care how EnB worked in 'Orginal Live' EnB.  Why on Earth (and beyond) would we care how 'WOW' works?

 

And why is it absolutly necessary that a PW needs to fly backward faster than MOBs can fly forward.  Progen ae supposed to be the slowest of all the races, but yet we have to outrun MOBs BACKWARDS???

[Mattsacre]

I too did a lot of the kiting of volts etc. I wasn't saying never kite and be able to sit and never move :)

 

The method I always used was kite the mob from max range and thrust back, if they were a fast mob hopefully by time they got close enough to shoot I had them well down in shields and could then stop and gain the CT buffs back. If they were a slow mob, then I could stop and start as needed.

 

Don't forget, there are other things in there beside resists from CT....like accuracy and crit and shield recharge rate and reactor recharge rate. The last 2 was always crutal to a PW farming, they got a faster recovery between each kill, if they planted it between each mob kill.

 

Back to my point, the previously good places for PW killable mobs are now former good places due to inconsistant AI behaviour. AI with insane thrust from previous iterations, AI with unbalanced call for help ranges, AI with unrational scan ranges, AI with pairing/grouping out of parity to their levels.

 

Becuase PWs damage style (a constant flow of bullets) is dependant on them staying with in range to do it, and they are usually moderately visable if not highly, they are locked in to initiating combat a certain way, they current AI is making it very difficult to find suffucient mobs that a PW can do.

 

The situation only frustrates the PW when they see JD being able to( due to their multiple ways if initiating combat)  continue taking those mobs, that PW now are denighed, or even because of new AI, take mobs that previously JD could only rarely do. It only fuels the conspiracy theorists claim of Jenny bias when they are locked out and others aren't.