How to pox an agent in PvP:
- Tactic one: STUN STUN STUN LOLOL. This one is an epic fail against decent agents (usually with evades), but works good against noobs. Involves spamming specials, Living Enbalming, and hoping your stunprocs work nicely + he doesn't get a CH in.
- Tactic two: Initdebuff to hell and back (starting with Nanite Advanced Red Tape because of the 80% NR check, and then the new Malaise). Once your initdebuffs are on him, stunprocs/nukes. Usually your pets can get an interrupt in. Of course he will start to CH at some point, and that's why you can run Weekend Volunteer (pvp fear) on him right before his CH finishes, so it gets interrupted.
No, the fear trick hasn't been used on me ... yet. But it will royally mess the agent up, I'll guarantee you that.
- Tactic three: AAAAAH WTB NANO!1!! This one involves using Ring of Sister Merciless, and standing next to the agent and recasting Dead Man Walking repeatedly. I would save Implode for your alpha, it drains -2k nano too (not halved by pvp rules). DMW is like a -2k nanodrain when you recast it, rather than -1k nanodrain when you simply let it pulse every 18s. Plus that recasting it every 5s is like three times as fast as letting it pulse.
For the record, Opifex agents will have around 8k (no IP in nanopool) to 12k (IP into nanopool) nano. Add 1k if they have an ACDC. Almost no nanodelta. If you combine your nanodraining tools correctly... deadly. Chucking in the new Malaise here might be smart too, just in case he manages to scrape enough nano together to CH you can stop it with a fear (and odds are he had to stim nano for that, now he can't use Free Movement to remove your nano stun!).
Tactic one is often used by noob crats on me. Tactic two is often used by good to decent crats on me. Tactic three hasn't really been used on me yet - but I would certainly recommend to give it a go, I sure know what messes my prof up.
I think it is needless to say that landing DMW at least once on the agent will be a great help for all the tactics, -410 NR will make landing initdebuffs/stuns/nukes far far easier.
It will probably be hard to live long enough to finish all the initdebuffs casting and then also kill the agent, I know.. either way if you feel the fight will be hard (and worth it) you could use your nanomage cocoon to suck up all our damage procs (Shock, Waves) so you live longer even though our AS might instantly rip through your absorb.
Make creative use of roots/snares/fears/LOS if you need a few more seconds before your heal stims are back, keep in mind the agent can't touch you until his AS recharges which takes 11.6 seconds (so don't root n run right after an AS, instead wail away at him for a bit more and then make sure you're gone JUST before his AS is back up). If you're using roots/snares/fears to abuse LOS, or just get the hell out, make sure you do /pet wait (planning to come back) or /pet follow (cya later dewd!) so your pets don't break the root/snare/fear!!
Use Battle healing kits (the ones you have to sit for that lock T&S). First Aid stims. Get HoT nanos, pimp out on healdelta, if you are out of LOS and trying to recharge your health fast don't be afraid to sit down and let your healdelta kick in.
Swapping out hp items gradually in the fight might work too (Paragon becomes Collar Casero, eJathos chest becomes CS chest or Mystical Force, etc) so that his AS does far less damage and your healing tools work relatively better.
A good agent will very likely try to UBT your pets ASAP. With the new HHAB you can get around that and remove it once you have debuffed him enough that he can't worry about recasting anymore. Of course you don't have the new prof HHAB yet, so you could /pet terminate your CEO Guardian ONLY, and have a new shell ready to pop in your inventory. Unbuffed pet without UBT > buffed pet with UBT.
If the agent is NR2 perked and has evades, you're screwed though because crats rely on debuffing the agent, to kill it.
PS: If you know you can't kill a certain agent, simply cast (Normalised) Improved Red Tape and Nanite Advanced Red Tape on him, use Weekend Volunteer, and run. NOTHING pisses us off more than being debuffed so we can't instacast CH, and being unable to remove the debuff (for a bloody SIX minutes!). Then later you can just try again with the other debuffs, or jump on his back when he's already fighting someone else.
