Great guide, really helped me so far - thanks

I am level 204/22

One area I am struggling with a little is Perks - I am 1hb/piercing set up so at this stage have the following all maxed
Blunt Mastery (10)
Bio Shielding (10)
Light Infantry (ai) (9)

I also have
form of troll (4)
Mutate (ai) (7)
alien tech (ai) (2)
Alpha Primary genome (ai) (4)

so is there anything that stands out here that's wrong or are there any other perks I haven't thought of that I should be thinking of?

Hi Nic

At level 204, you're too low to be tanking endgame or near endgame instances, so in my opinion your best bet is to try to maximise your damage.

The obvious switch for me would be AI perks:

If you don't NEED 2 perks in AIT 2, then definitely put those in something combat related.

So for AI perks I'd do:
1 in mutate (for cause anger)
9 in CoLi
9 in CoNC
That's AI 19.
If you have more AI perks then you might want to think about how to boost DPS.
Wit (Atrox secondary 3) adds 60 dmg for 30 seconds which is valuable
if you have 5 more free, stick em in to mutate.

The 6th perk in mutate isn't great since it checks MC vs NR, but with reasonable AAO it can land in PVM fairly reliably. It doesn't do a lot of damage and it's on a long recharge, but its ok.

Alternately you could sink all your free perks into atrox primary - body slam isn't THAT bad - it will do 2500 dmg with 10 perks in the line which is respectable, albeit a slow perk :/


Enforcers don't get a lot of damage perks unless you go 1HB/1HE - but you can get nearly the same number of damage perks by branching out a bit:

brawler, for example adds dmg and gives two damage perks with a 4 perk investment.

imo for SL perks you could do:

10 blunt mastery
10 coon
4 brawler

At 204 bioshield line is obviously nice for soloing and a bit of team support (I spam bio rejuv on CD), and if you're smart you can use it to your advantage to boost your DPS as well: perking all the way gives 3% reflect and 80 damage shield, popping bio shield will boost your damage shield by 120, add rage for another 95 dmg to 295, add ice burn for 70 more, and use Violation buffer to boost your damage shield by 60 more.

Now you got:

Say, 25 shield in symbs,
80 in coon
120 on bio shield
95 in rage
70 in ice burn
60 in procs
= 450

And if we had a 300 tower site you can plant a cold laser tower for another 50 for a nice round 500 damage shield.

Now the trick to damage shields is you need to get aggro to use them, so, now taunts start to matter.

If you're fast with nano absorbs, got decent AC's and got all your standard items up (i.e. 13% reflect graft), you can mitigate damage down to a level that is exceeded by your damage shield - that's what you want. So, if you can get your damage shield up really high, it means you can start padding the fuck out of your damage. Weaps? sure, but imagine that each hit your weaps did was affected by 500 add dmg - that's no small amount, so get your procs, buff up and tell the mobs to come at me bro!

So, now, even if your weaps are sluggish, and you got only moderate add dmg/crit, the best thing to do is boost your taunt: scorpio's aim of anger is ideal, and mutate 1 (cause anger) paired with max psychology are the best tools at your disposal. if you don't have scorpio aim of anger, you should use the scheol quest taunter which does I think about 3600 taunt every 10 seconds

Ephemeral Annoyance 3600/10s
Jealousy augmented aggression enhancer 1800/6s
Scorpio's aim of anger 2000/6s


All good items for agg generation.

Am i wrong if I say Ephemeral Annoyance is only avalible in ql 100 / 125 (i.e from quest)?

so
ql 100 Ephemeral Annoyance 1225/10s
ql 100 Ephemeral Annoyance 1522/10s
Jealousy augmented aggression enhancer 1800/6s
Scorpio's aim of anger 2000/6s

yes you're right, I looked at wrong QL.

Jealousy augmented is the one to use then if you're taunting hard.

Wow. Just wow. I started my first enfo a couple weeks ago just using the basic enfo guide on aoU and have been relatively happy with the enfo's ability to do and take dmg. Kind of stalled out at 90. Was feeling like I wasn't really playing the prof like I should be. This guide changed my entire perception. aka zOMG ABSORBS! I love absorbs. I had no idea that's even how the absorb nanos worked and I immediately researched into brawlers sense 2. Love love love. It's like I'm unstoppable. I watch the combat channel for when my absorbs aren't hitting any more to recast shock absorber and just keep proc'ing shrug off...it's like...wow. #comeatmebro Thank you!

lol!

I know... I met a "veteran" enforcer on beta (a very good guy, and a very old player), and I was asking him why he's taking so much damage?

So he's like "well I just spam mongo and try to front load DPS to bring a few mobs down before they can OD my mongo."

I was like: ... have you tried absorbs?

He's at level 180ish or whatever on his enforcer, and he's like ya, "I precast it before fights."

Riiight, ok let me suggest that you use a viral compiler and try casting that in fights.

He PM'd me on AO forums a few days later, and I swear the entire message was in caps. It was like he'd just discovered how to tank.

It was pretty funny, he said his survivability went from easily handling 1-2 mobs, to surviving and being ready to fight after 5-6 mobs (i.e no post fight healing) .

Ya, absorbs work!

Noobas,

thanks that was really helpful. I got the Jealousy taunt sorted, I was using the normal one before. I also sorted the infused viral compiler and will work on absorbs more during fights. Also Grind got me enforcer DB Hud item which has absorbs as well and I also got full Ofab ql300 spec edition helmet, back item and shoulder pads so that has all helped a lot.

On perks I did all you said and will play with the odd ones to see whats best, although I didn't out anything into CONC as I don't need to yet, too far from big nanos and able to self cast all that I can at this level.

Again really helpful guide and I will now work more on my tanking, which I have been trying to do in inf.

Awesome.

Glad I could help.

I'll start on the TL7 guide this week.

I've updated guide with TL7 written up.

Very nice again, Noobas.

Minor addition: you mention the DB flexible boots http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=270392. Those drop quite well in Dust Brigade dungeon 1 (the one with color altars). Getting them here is faster than doing DB dungeon 2, unless you're farming DB2 for another reason already.

A possible option, viable for people doing a lot the Prisoners daily mission or able to solo the Prisoners in Milky Way, is the Sturdy Detention Boots http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=274976 : almost identical to DB boots but with more nanoskills (25 vs 20), good for enfos in the making who are done yet done with nanoskills, but no damage modifier.

Sturdy Detention Boots offers a huge (10% !) resistance to the nanopool drain line of debuffs. (http://auno.org/ao/db.php?cmd=search&na ... strain=856)

DB Boots offer Blind and Nano Shutdown resistance (2% each) instead.

I might update guide as to where to find each item.

I did mention the sturdy vs flexible boots as an alternate choice.

I might have to do a guide for Doc as well, since I've been getting similarly annoyed by poor play by docs lately as well (not in org specifically).

As an old player I maybe should know more about playing different profs. I do ok, but still could learn lots. I think your guide is awesome and very useful.
The poor play is one of the Things we get when ppl just rush to 220, you don´t know your toon very well. Some players are able to do so cause they have a lot better understanding of the game than others, but most can´t.

so I am wondering about set up

I have gone along with 1he/1hb as many people suggest.

so I have a small concern that the added 1he takes up 10 perk lines that could be used in say adding damage or hp. It would also allow me to max the other slightly less important skills.

On the down side I wouldn't have sneak which I mainly use in BS.

I haven't tested the various options of dualling 1he or 1hb or going 2he or indeed 1h and piercing.

Hey Nic

If you have already collected 1he/1hb weaps, that's great.

The next step is deciding what you want to do with your setup.

My soli enforcer is 1he/1hb. I use 1he mastery+1hb line maxed

The reason I use this setup is because I'm nearly always teamed with very reasonable damage mitigation (crat+keeper) and I have a 13% graft on my person as well, so fully buffed I'm sitting at 59k-62k HP I think.

I find this amount of HP to be completely reasonable to soak several hits and carry on.

The issue for me is DPS and taunt. Because I often team myself/grind (keeper) in a crit setup, the main thing I have to be aware of is how much aggro I've got going (in contrast to many people's opinions of 220 keepers, a crit setup for PVM is unbelievably strong/good DPS).

The keeper will completely out-taunt enforcer on damage by like 1.5 to 1, so on raw normal damage and special spam, keeper will just own enforcer after about 2 minutes. So for me the issue is making sure I'm generating enough taunt though DPS output that the keeper doesn't become the inadvertent tank.

Using imongo+imalice, this would never be a problem, but a lot of the time my enf is nanodrained (mitaar) and can't cast anything, so I got to make sure DPS is up there.

You don't have to use both lines, however. If you aren't multiboxing, and you're keen to play effectively and be a good team mate, the 1HB perkline is a very strong choice with stuns and init debuffs. the 1HE perkline can be swapped out for another.

At 220 a very solid perk setup is:
10 biococoon
10 1HB
10 Colossal health
10 1HE or 10 troll form (I prefer 1HE)
You WILL need nanoskills, so:
10 CONC
10 CoLI
Then when you get past AI 20, start perking into mutate. (I'm at 7 perks into mutate on tankngank)

With highway+nice AAD in research/helmet/OFAB back/green hud3, Infused Alb defender, etc. crat... then any debuffs like trader drains/NT blinds/engi blinds... you got yourself a highly useful evade perk.

Evasion isn't nearly as big an issue at 220 as it is at say 150ish where you can actually evade pretty nicely with a decent setup, mainly because heals are so big and HP is huge and watch ward+crat is so much damage mitigation... but it CAN help. especially on trash mobs in pande or APF/S42. Then you want as much evades as possible. Spam imongo, go full def, and you'll see your HP bar bouncing far less than otherwise.

That's really interesting.

I am 219/26 atm

my perks are
10 biococoon
10 1hb
10 1he
9 Troll

ai
10 Coli
3 ai tech
3 CONC
10 mutate

so Colossal Health would be good especially for the HP and heals
I am needing comp mochams to use top end nanos atm and before fighting I have to swap in and out some hud items

also you mentioned full def whereas I have been looking at full agg.

i will try with Colossal health and see how it feels and remove ai tech, only swap i do here is boots but will us db boots instead.