A common misconception about hacker

**Pylat**

Now before you read the first 2 lines of this post and jump on the reply button please read my entire post and consider my logic before giving me feedback, not flames.

Hacker is not Anti-MKT, there, I said it. When you take a look at the hacker tree itself, it really is not geared that well to fight MKT's. The only reason hacker's actually do give MKT's grief is because of the Attributes you have when you are a hacker, nothing else. Let me point out my reasoning behind this conclusion.

1) Defense: Now every nemesis class in this game gets passive % bonuses to defense against the tree it is designed to fight. MA's get bonuses to viral defense, gunmen get bonuses to melee defense, Spies get bonuses to ballistic defense. This means that, when combined with the defense bonus from attributes, the defense of this tree will be higher than the accuracy of the tree it is designed to kill (Even when the defender has no defense clothes on). Hacker does not get these bonuses, there are NO bonuses to thrown defense at all, so even with a Reason of 30, a hacker will only have a thrown defense of 140 (Without clothes), the average accuracy of an MKT is around 160, much higher than the defense of a hacker. This is inconsistent with all the other nemesis classes in the game.
My Solution: Add passive thrown defense to hacker abilities. This is not an unreasonable request to make, it is consistent with all other tree's in the game and because there are NO thrown defense bonuses anywhere at all what better place to put them then the hacker tree? They can replace some of the useless passive bonuses found in the hacker tree's. While it is true that these increase the potency of your debuffs, there are still useless ones. Such as Melee and Ballistic damage buffs in the network attacker tree, which has no debuffs to Melee or Ballistic Damage. Or the IS buffs in the lvl 33 Ravager ability, which are next to useless and only affect the Destroy Resolve ability. I would gladly give up those minor benefits for 10-20% more thrown defense.

2) Debuffs: Now at first I believed perhaps what hacker lacked in defense it made up in offense. After all half the power of hacker is the devastating debuffs it can lay down. But when I looked at the tree this is what I found:
A grand total of 3 debuffs which decreased Thrown accuracy, and none at all which decreased thrown damage.
There are 3 debuffs that decrease Viral Acc and none that decrease viral damage.
2 debuffs that decrease Melee accuracy, one that decreases Melee accuracy AND Damage, and one that decreases melee damage.
A staggering 6 debuffs that decrease ballistic accuracy and 1 that decreases ballistic accuracy AND Damage.
So I though perhaps the anti MKT debuffs were more potent. UI Lag 1.0 is quite handy I admit, but since the bug fix is not as dependable (I am not saying bug fixes are bad, but it is true the bug fix decreased the potency of this ability). Fumble Field and UI Lag 2.0 are both far down in there tree's, over level 30, meaning it takes a lot of memory to load them. They are also not that good when compared to despoiler, a similar area debuff which has a 30 second effect timer and 30 second reuse timer and also decreases damage. Where Fumble Field and UI Lag 2.0 only decrease accuracy and have reuse timers longer than their effect timers. You hit a gunman with Despoiler and they know they are in trouble, hit an MKT with UI Lag 2.0 and it's as if they are not debuffed at all.
My Solution: Increase the effectiveness of the Anti MKT debuffs, or slip some anti MKT debuffs in with existing ones, make despoiler so it also affects MKT's, overload 1.0 can decrease thrown accuracy and defense, Combat shutdown can affect Thrown accuracy and defense. I expect MKT's will say "But we need something in exchange", I think that's fair. Change the combat Aura's in Force Multiplier so that they also affect Thrown Accuracy and Damage, this might give more incentive to load the tree and will make it's buff consistent with the single target buffs found in Upgrade Master.

So that's my idea. No nerfs to any tree's. It will be bringing one tree up into consistency of the "Nemesis" classes as we know them, and it will be increasing the power of a highly underused tree, providing incentive to load it and thus, more variety in PvP.

Comments? Opinions?

**Kemy**

I checked the hacker tree yesterday and there are some abilities that do grand melee and ballist defense, I think it was in the Network Attacker tree or Ravager, dunno. I'll check when I'm and screenshot it. =)

**Pylat**

There are, in Network attacker and Despoiler, but this doesn't explain why Hacker has no thrown defense.

Spy and Master Shadow gets bonuses to Melee and Ballistic Defense aswell.

Devaude-TGS

Well explained. I agree with you.

**Kemy**

You just don't get it.
MKT is designed to be the master-of-all trees. Stay off my tree, I want to bizzybizzybwapwn everything!

No other tree debuffs like the hacker tree though so I guess you should use that to your advantage. SMILEY

There are debuffs that lower viral defense and thrown accuracy. I don't see this being a problem during pvp where hackers have a hard time beating MKT's.

**Pylat**

While hacker is the awesomeness with debuffs it's anti MKT debuffs are rather lacking when compared to the other debuffs available, that's kinda my point.

**SolidRevolver**

When 9mmfu said he was going to have a go at balancing the MKT (or knifer trees) Mabey when he said that he wasn't limiting it to the MKT tree on its own and mabey he will be looking at the other trees and what they have related to it SMILEY

**Denary**

Destroy Resolve is the only attack you need against MKT's, hit em with that and the fight will be so yours!

although I do see where your coming from with accuracy vs. defense, I've stated before that MKT is just a huge win button due to the lack of defense clothing against it and the huge amount of accuracy it possesses. With Update 52 it changed that slightly due to the fact you can block their sneak attacks much more easily now, and that miss - miss actually happens now (although I'd much rather have the combat system returned to pre-update 52)

**Marias**

pack-hunter wrote:

Destroy Resolve is the only attack you need against MKT's, hit em with that and the fight will be so yours!

although I do see where your coming from with accuracy vs. defense, I've stated before that MKT is just a huge win button due to the lack of defense clothing against it and the huge amount of accuracy it possesses. With Update 52 it changed that slightly due to the fact you can block their sneak attacks much more easily now, and that miss - miss actually happens now (although I'd much rather have the combat system returned to pre-update 52)

Destroy Resolve is MKT bane. I know that whenever I get hit with it, my first instinct is to panic. I think the fact that you have instant debuffs makes a bunch of Defense against an MKT obsolete, but if you were to put MKT defense on the tree, I'd advocate the removal of the ballistic/melee bonuses to some extent. I know a reason that I use the tree now is that it's difficult to stack against. The lack of MKT defense does make the tree overpowered though. Maybe we could make the bonuses only available on the Network Attacker tree so that there would be some kind of counter to loading it. It would be rather annoying fighting someone who had Dots to interrupt every attack, devastating instant debuffs that you can pick and choose compared to any other tree where it's a bit random, and 2 cannons that shave off half health while someone is sitting there for 30 seconds rooted and powerless.

**Pylat**

I've hit MKT's with both Destroy Resolve and Inefficiency Field and then interlocked them and STILL gone down to an endless stream of knives. After the duel the MKT told me they never had to worry about IS anyway. Destroy Resolve will give you an advantage against any tree, what I want are strong anti-MKT debuffs, not strong anti-anyone debuffs. If there is only 1 debuff you can use that can truly put an MKT on the back foot you would have to think about the balance of MKT anyway.

This isn't just about 1 v 1's anyway, this is about the support role Hacker can play too, laying down despoiler on a mess of MA's and Gunners will give your side a significant advantage, but the debuffs available against MKT's are not up to par.

**GypsyJuggler**

I've been playing a hacker for a while now and I agree with Arcanoloth to such an extent that I can't think of anything to add.

**GoDGiVeR** · 08/23/2007 03:02:19

Trayen1 wrote:

Maybe we could make the bonuses only available on the Network Attacker tree so that there would be some kind of counter to loading it. It would be rather annoying fighting someone who had Dots to interrupt every attack, devastating instant debuffs that you can pick and choose compared to any other tree where it's a bit random, and 2 cannons that shave off half health while someone is sitting there for 30 seconds rooted and powerless.

The point is, that there is no throw def boni whatsoever. Adding it to only one tree makes the idea kinda futile.
Also, you also have enough DOTs attacks as spies, but mostly used is only Sever Artery 'cause it's quite potent. Also, I've been rooted for over half a minute just by using movement debuff knives, same by using crippling throw, which has a rooting timer that is longer than the reuse timer (note that the root did NOT break when I still got knived, while the description depicts otherwise :S).

And yes, I support this and got nothing to add to Pylats idea.

**Sphairo**

There is one major flaw (in PvP, that is) for hackers, and you know it's true. If someone is sensible enough to stock up on alot of anti 5.0's, when fighting on the field around 8 times out of 10 your biotic will sweep away your debuffs with ease. Not only with ease, but speed. That, and compared with the number of time it takes to cast some of the hacks (look at dev field, for example.. sheesh) the anti would have rinsed all those precious downgrades you took so long to cast on them (Providing they hit). There is no other tree you fight that will desperately require you to use anti's like they were candy canes, except for knife thrower, and maybe immobilising shot. (shock, horror!)

There are absaloutely *no* thrown defense bonus's whatsoever, which does really not come as a surprise. Maybe changing effective code down the vector tree (IS regain bonus it has at the moment i'm sure) to add in thrown defense 10%, or somewhere in one of the resist abs (contagion, etc) I also notice there are hardly any thrown defense clothes with decent %'s, except for this grubby mask (2%), so maybe that's another thing to have a gander at.

Hm, I do think the hacker has enough downgrades on MKT, it really does not need a thrown damage debuff if you have downgraded their accuracy so as they won't hit you, you won't really need a % damage debuff, makes sense right? Considering, of course, they don't drug themselves up with anti's again!

When fighting a MKT, I use the environment as best possible, keeping your distance and out of range is good, but you won't be able to do that if your fighting a handfull of ravenous reds. Take into consideration hackers have a far better range than MKT's, too. Hacker can cast their hacks out of distance which would help, ish. ;)

It's really a cat and mouse game, but I do feel the root of the problem lies within the cast timers, and the lack of thrown defense bonuses, definately.

spha x

**Pylat**

Most knives have a 16m range, Staggering throw the exception with 8m range.

Most hax have a 16m range, with Logic Barrage, Blast, Cannon and Code Freeze the exceptions I can think of with 20m range.

Hackers don't have much of a range advantage at all =/

**Endomorph**

I have beat Numerous players in duels and Pvp with Hacker Loaded from Mkts to Ma's without Destroy Resolve, i think hacker is fine as it is.

However Antibiotics are a *CENSORED* with Ravager loaded and the UM's Autosweeps ftl SMILEY