Traders balancing

[Obtena]

Traders need their PVP focus adjusted. The fact that FC is showing their colours by extending perk executions is showing a slower game, which favours traders more than anyone. Deny it all you like but if FC doesn't balance traders downwards with long times on 'things', it's a mistake for all title levels of PVP, not just TL7.

If you think keeping more trader nano stats as is a 'reasonable' proposal in a slower game, you need to step away from things and think more objectively, and maybe get a lobotomy. I'm not arguing what profs are shut down with one drain or two or who can still alpha with GTH on them. That's stupid to do. But it is clear that nanos need to get a 'time' nerf just like perks did if FC plans to make combat a more timely affair instead of seconds.

What that means? I hope it means Traders having to choose intelligent nanos that fit the situation, instead of just doing Drain 1, Drain 2, GTH and /WIN!!!!!!!!!

[Wrangeline]

I love how so many here seem to think that just because traders have debuffs, they can just hit a couple of buttons and /dance while everyone around them are helpless.

Have any of you people actually played as a trader in a real PvP scenario against GOOD PvP'ers? Ranged adv, MP, fixer, engie and so on are much more scary in PvP than a trader. I would swap my trader for any one of those professions in a heartbeat if I was given the chance.

Here's an idea:

You are with a couple of other people in a team in BS, you meet 3 enemies and one of the enemies is a trader. What do you do? You kill the trader in a few seconds because it's easy as hell. Now you have the upper hand.

Try do the same if that trader was an advie or engie or a good MP with aimedshot instead. You'll fail miserably. All of them do good damage as well so it's not so fun letting them live for a long time.

You all make it sound as if the positive aspects of being a trader translates into all scenarios but the fact of the matter is, good PvP'ers (of many different professions) will give a good trader a real run for his money in 1 vs 1 and in group vs group, the trader has no static defenses to rely upon so the trader can be taken down very easily compared to other professions.

Keep in mind, I'm talking about good PvP'ers here. Not one of those random yahoos that walk onto BS with like 70% completed gear and AI 17 and then whines about being drained and rooted versus a fully fledged PvP trader in a 1 vs 1 scenario. I'm talking about the kind of MP's that can kite and kill several enemies at the same time without getting killed in the process, ranged advies that can tank 2 soldiers and a crat while killing a keeper because none of them could damage him enough or root him. Or maybe the kind of fixer that actually knows HOW to play a fixer unlike most the random soldier wannabe's that think specials and evades are their only tools. How about engie teaming with doc and adv that can tank and kill everything and everyone that even gets remotely close to them.

A trader is nice in 1 vs 1 in most cases and is nice for GTH'ing NT's and docs and debuffing AR of enemies and such and trader really is a very good and strong class in most cases. However when it comes to being a powerhouse, the trader is flimsy as all hell and those that whine about trader being EASY to play are incredibly naive and have not found out how squish a trader really is because they all remember how hard it was to cast a nano or land a perk after being double drained. Hey it's not exactly fun being insta killed while permastunned by a shade without even getting to perform a single action but that's what shades can do and we don't whine about that because we know that shades have weaknesses that can easily be taken advantage of in many scenarios. Traders have many weaknesses as well but people don't give a shait about that.

Will drains have to be toned down after all these profession changes? Maybe, who knows. Looking at advs, engies, MP's, fixers and such now though, it doesn't look like this is the right time to discuss what needs to be done to traders. I guess I will be the only one that will wait until after the main changes to other professions until I start suggesting ways to change traders.

As I see it, this is, atm, an E-peen topic. Traders are seen as OP by most people because they don't like meeting a profession that has a chance at beating them 1 vs 1 through other means than brute strength. They see it as humiliating that a profession without blockers, coons, evadeperks, huge heals, insane damage output, lots of stuns and so on can in any way make their otherwise straight forward PvP experience a harder one. How traders perform in a team vs team scenario means nothing to these people as killing a trader in 5 seconds in a team vs team scenario while needing a lot of coordinated effort to take down other professions, just tells them that "anyone would die fast if zerged". Which is flawed as hell but hey, whatever allows them to bypass the trader squishiness and then focus squarely on how their personal e-peen was hurt in a 1 vs 1 scenario where the trader got to make the first move.

But hey, obviously, if the general consensus is that traders are and will forever be OP as long as their toolset actually affects people, unlike how it was from 2003-2007, I'll just assume that people are unable to DEAL with the fact that there exists a profession that is designed to be good at 1 vs 1 but very squishy in team vs team, and just move on and level my advie or play my tl7 soldier or whatever. Trader is a shait profession anyway because if you do good, it was only because you were a trader. If you do badly, it somehow had nothing to do with the weaknesses a trader has. Because admitting that traders aren't completely uber is sacrilegious around these parts!

[Hacre]

Wrangeline. Walls of tl;dr aside, you cannot deny Trader power in PvP. With the click of one button, bam, that's one adversary taken out of the fight if it's a doc or an NT. With the click of 2 buttons, plenty other people are severely disadvantaged.

Whether you can go splat to a zerg, or a massive alpha, is neither here nor there. If you want ideal circumstances like you keep arguing "I die to massive alpha or more than one person" well fine, once you hit BR on a soldier in PvP you can't be taken down unless there's an NT there, owait nevermind he's GTHed and off in a corner somewhere waiting for you to let go of Q so he can use a Virus Scanner and refill nano.

Ideal circumstances work both ways. But the reality of the matter is, FC tried to bring Traders back to the offensive and went waaaaaaay too far. Shutdown Skills was just the big LOL on the cake.

As for your list of "more dangerous people" well hello there, I'm an NT and you're #1 on my list of dangerous people, in 10 out of 10 scenarios. I stand not even a fighting chance against you if you see me first, even if I am part of a group and you ultimately die I'm still stuck in misery, looking for 40k nano. I can get away from an NR8 Shade more easily than I can get away from you and even if I can't, my misery is over far quicker than if I ran into a Trader.

So knock of the "PLEASE won't you consider teh Traders" act, because it isn't going to wash. Your love went too far. Get ready, if this balancing act is truly about balance, to have some s**t nerfed.

[Wrangeline]

Wrangeline. Walls of tl;dr aside, you cannot deny Trader power in PvP. With the click of one button, bam, that's one adversary taken out of the fight if it's a doc or an NT. With the click of 2 buttons, plenty other people are severely disadvantaged.

Whether you can go splat to a zerg, or a massive alpha, is neither here nor there. If you want ideal circumstances like you keep arguing "I die to massive alpha or more than one person" well fine, once you hit BR on a soldier in PvP you can't be taken down unless there's an NT there, owait nevermind he's GTHed and off in a corner somewhere waiting for you to let go of Q so he can use a Virus Scanner and refill nano.

Ideal circumstances work both ways. But the reality of the matter is, FC tried to bring Traders back to the offensive and went waaaaaaay too far. Shutdown Skills was just the big LOL on the cake.

As for your list of "more dangerous people" well hello there, I'm an NT and you're #1 on my list of dangerous people, in 10 out of 10 scenarios. I can get away from an NR8 Shade more easily than I can get away from you and even if I can't, my misery is over far quicker than if I ran into a Trader.

So knock of the "PLEASE won't you consider teh Traders" act, because it isn't going to wash. Your love went too far. Get ready, if this balancing act is truly about balance, to have some s**t nerfed.

Well hey then I'll play a different profession. No problem. Boring to level but oh well. I talk to omnis of other professions online and they have no trouble agreeing that while a trader is generally a lot more annoying, many other professions are a lot more powerful. I talked to a ranged advie ingame in BS in tells recently and he was shocked at how OP his profession was. He was truly amazed and he said that while traders are good in 1 vs 1, advie is in general better than a trader. If traders are to be nerfed as you suggest while its reasonable for these other professions to do as well as they do, then why play a trader when you can play these other well rounded professions that has both good offense and great defense.

As I said, trader is good but anyone suggesting that trader is more powerful than these other professions are really just being naive

The point is, I'm surely not going to sit here and discuss ways of nerfing traders until these other professions have been toned down. I also will never agree that traders 1 vs 1 power should get toned down while their static defense is at ROCK bottom. It makes no sense what so ever to have 1 vs 1 power be average while having static defense be extremely below average. Thinking otherwise shows a lack of logic.

[Moonbolt]

I talk to omnis of other professions online and they have no trouble agreeing that while a trader is generally a lot more annoying, many other professions are a lot more powerful.

this is a true statement.
the thing that pisses people off so much about traders tho is that they completly dissable their opponent for several minutes if they land their drains.

if i see a trader first or if hes in cooldown from draining or healing or w/e and i get up to that trader... the trader is toast.
engies MPs etc are much harder to kill and their dmg output is alot higher.
but none of them can make me completly useless.
that is the anoying part.

[Hacre]

If traders are to be nerfed as you suggest while its reasonable for these other professions to do as well as they do, then why play a trader when you can play these other well rounded professions that has both good offense and great defense.

AHEM. Excuse me, I never said Traders should be nerfed while everyone else maintains their power.

Perhaps I didn't elaborate enough in my earlier post, I figured I've been around these forums enough for you to know that I'm not "anti Trader" and I never have been. Despite never having had a 220 Trader of -my own- I admire the Trader profession, I supported Traders getting boosts at TL7 and I've enjoyed them at other TLs.

I haven't commented on Ranged Advies in this thread because it isn't a Ranged Advy thread, it's a Trader thread. For record, after having gone up against them in their new buffed state and having seen almost every decent melee Advy switch to ranged since their love patch, I can honestly say that while Ranged Advies needed some love, they got FAR. TOO. MUCH. OF. IT.

That however, if Means is true to his word, is being taken care of at least with the rumoured heal nerfs and AS nerf. However Traders also got too much love in the wrong direction, that direction being debuffs. No one likes debuffs. Look all over these very forums, almost every continued whine is about debuffs. GTH. CB. UBT. (E)NSD. Bullseye. Drains. Malpractice, although the latter is a hybrid debuff+damage.

In my humblest of opinions, the only debuffs Traders got in the shape of love at TL7 that I think you should of got, came in the shape of your new top drains. Traders are about drains, absolutely, from level 1 to level 220 and your old top RK drains just weren't cutting it. However adding GTH, Shutdown Skills, PvP aao/aad drains and procs into the mix, it's just way too much for any single person to have to deal with. Games are supposed to be fun and for every single casting profession, running into a Trader is absolutely no fun at all. Not even remotely.

Take my chosen casting profession, for example. Drain one, bye bye Izgimmer's Double/Triple if I am self buffed. Drain two, bye bye Izgimmer's Ultimatum and any hope of perking you. However that's not enough, because being an NT, before I've even had the chance to be annoyed by those buffs, which are crippling to my offense enough on their own, I now have no nano thanks to GTH, so absolutely zero chance of even mounting any sort of offence in return. That's assuming you didn't bother leading off with Shutdown Skills, if you did, then I either run or just let you kill me to get my nano back faster.

I'd trade places with a Soldier against an NT any day of the week, month or year.

NTs aren't alone in that plight versus Traders. I've tried to argue long and hard in the past that Traders were getting too much love in the wrong direction and that it will bite them in the arse in the long term because other Trader issues weren't being addressed, ie a lack of offense or a reliable defense in the face of enemies that are either hard to drain (enforcers) or against whom GTH makes no difference at all (Shades, Keepers). But while you're busy defending your point, look at the number of professions you can reduce to tears with one or two pushes of a button:

("Drains" includes the PvP only aad/aao drains)

Soldiers: Drains and Borrow Reflect.
NTs: Drains and GTH.
Doctors: Drains and GTH.
Agents: Drains and GTH.
Fixers: Drains and in outdoor PvP, GTH (can't meep).
Crats: Drains, GTH and calms.
Engineers: Drains, GTH and calms.
MPs: Drains, GTH and calms.
Enforcers: GTH and root. Drains for the lawls after those first two, in case the root breaks.
Keepers: Drains and roots. Keepers aren't perking well set up end game Traders with 2x drains and the aao drain on them. Keepers also don't have the alpha power to drop a Trader that's quick on the NBD button and they have low NR, allowing a GTH to bolster NBD if need be.

I could go on, but I won't as I'm already at 10 professions that in ideal circumstances, you can at most make cry and own them, at worst die to but they're still sat cursing your name, taking small solace in the fact you died. The fact you died doesn't help you, but the fact they're cursing your name with what you can do, stops you getting improvements where you need them, in the shape of offense.

Your offense/defense might need attention in your eyes, as of course as a Trader you're only going to really make noise about the negatives of your profession. But so long as you can be an effective instant stop-in-their-tracks brick wall to so many, regardless of your -personal- victories, you're not going to advance any further.

So if I were you, I'd welcome some nerfage to some of your debuff power, if the net result is some -real- improvement in your survivability, or actual offense/killing power.

[Obtena]

Have any of you people actually played as a trader in a real PvP scenario against GOOD PvP'ers?

Yes ... at most TL's too. My conclusion ... yes, traders can be killed, but the more breathing room you give them, the more advantage they get in PVP, to the point where you have no chance to compete against them. With the game PVP encounters getting longer, this gives traders a huge advantage to use their tools as they currently are. Nanos will need timing adjustments.

It's not about how hard traders are to kill ... its about how severely they nerf your own ability to PVP is. Yup, that's what they do, but that's what makes them OPed. If you can't admit that, well, you're simply being subjective. I would gladly trade half my drain/debuff abilities nanos for more ability to survive and have a fight like other professions.

The fact is this really ... if FC plans on balancing traders (it's for all TL's remember, at least they claim it is), you're going to have to kiss some effectiveness goodbye.

[Racatti]

Traders are perfectly fine the way they are.

And a tons more fun than anything out there as well.

[Wrangeline]

I would gladly trade half my drain/debuff abilities nanos for more ability to survive and have a fight like other professions.

I would also give away the AAO/AAD drains and BR and GTH if it meant traders would get a much more reliable defense to make up for it. I would do so in a heartbeat

If nerfing traders debuff power is needed for traders to get a better and more reliable defense and possible offense then that's cool in my book but I haven't seen any evidence of that here yet. It's just talk about what the problems are with traders and how to nerf them to make it more reasonable. I'm just saying that this alone isn't reasonable in my book and I also tried to say that I would wait until I saw what changes other professions would get before I entered into a discussion about what kind of changes traders would need.

Until I know more about what kind of debuffing power is needed to have decent fights with other professions in the future, I am against discussing what needs to be done to our debuffing power. Because meeting up here to discuss how traders are OP and how drains needs to be toned down and such without any counterweight or knowledge of future balance, strikes me as a bunch of vultures eating away at the zebras body before the zebra is even dead yet. It would be very annoying to the zebra and I find it annoying as a trader as well

[Racatti]

Traders supposed to be glass-cannons by nature.

Don't try to turn em into another *insert random prof here*, by asking for more static defense in exchange for lowered crippling abilities, you're trying to nerf the very-defining factor of a trader.

If you wanna tank a smaller zerg, roll a prof that is able to do it.

Simple as that, no rocket science.

[Wrangeline]

Traders supposed to be glass-cannons by nature.

Don't try to turn em into another *insert random prof here*, by asking for more static defense in exchange for lowered crippling abilities, you're trying to nerf the very-defining factor of a trader.

If you wanna tank a smaller zerg, roll a prof that is able to do it.

Simple as that, no rocket science.

I'm not advocating any suggestions in this thread nor am I suggesting anything myself.. I'm just saying I personally wouldn't mind trading some of our nanos for more static defense. If you agree with that or not isn't important to me as it's just my personal opinion and not a suggestion

[Racatti]

Wasn't specifically aimed at you, but all the rest who'd want to turn traders into some form of a mini-adv.

[Obtena]

Wasn't specifically aimed at you, but all the rest who'd want to turn traders into some form of a mini-adv.

You're being delusional if you think traders in their current form won't be OPed in a slower PVP environment and won't need significant changes to their tools inline with that speed. If your not willing to accept changes, I can only imagine your shock when it is changed and you feelings of regret when you didn't pro-actively suggest the direction of the changes. The game is moving on dude. With the way you are thinking, it's going to pass you by and leave you standing in a dustcloud. Putting your head in the sand and fingers in your ears isn't going to prevent the inevitable.

[Questra]

With nerfed alphas, a 3 second long AS, and many perks now taking 2s to execute rather than just 1s, traders are going to be in a very strong position as they'll be much harder to alpha in that crucial first 10 seconds.

The heal nerf will presumably affect them, since noone seems to want to admit that trader heals are now very competetive and have been since the introduction of YEEIYF. I suspect that a heal nerf won't affect them enough though, and with less alpha power going around I think traders, the one prof you don't want to be safe from alphas, will find it easier to survive them in the new system.

Another thing which noone seems to talk about is that more traders are using NG now in more situations. With GTH and the new HHAB nanopool CH, a trader has a much longer period of nanopool to sustain the equivalent of 98% reflect. Before, I rarely saw traders hitting NG outside of a duel, but that's changed since the addition of the soldier HHAB.

Traders aren't really glass cannons anymore, just as shades aren't either. Funcom has made a lot of changes to both of those profs in the last year to give them more survivability, in the form of healing and short term defense.

[Shareida]

With nerfed alphas, a 3 second long AS, and many perks now taking 2s to execute rather than just 1s, traders are going to be in a very strong position as they'll be much harder to alpha in that crucial first 10 seconds.

The heal nerf will presumably affect them, since noone seems to want to admit that trader heals are now very competetive and have been since the introduction of YEEIYF. I suspect that a heal nerf won't affect them enough though, and with less alpha power going around I think traders, the one prof you don't want to be safe from alphas, will find it easier to survive them in the new system.

Another thing which noone seems to talk about is that more traders are using NG now in more situations. With GTH and the new HHAB nanopool CH, a trader has a much longer period of nanopool to sustain the equivalent of 98% reflect. Before, I rarely saw traders hitting NG outside of a duel, but that's changed since the addition of the soldier HHAB.

Traders aren't really glass cannons anymore, just as shades aren't either. Funcom has made a lot of changes to both of those profs in the last year to give them more survivability, in the form of healing and short term defense.

For once i agree actually.

Pretty much every non-trader agrees that your ability to cripple an opponent in two clicks (or one if they are an NT/doc) is too much. If you don't find it crippling to remove 950 offense, 650 nanoskills, and 30 crit in two debuffs then I think you have unreasonable expectations of how your profession should perform.

I understand, you're worried about your aimed shot being nerfed. Your reliable offense is going away. Your ability to turn an opponent into a quivering mess that cant hit you with anything while you /disco and press O is enough as is.

All mentions of MR or man vs zerg are irrelevant.

First: I never met someone who just waited the 5 seconds it takes minimum to land those debuffs.

Second: It is rather rare to meet someone with as low as 1500 NR these days to land the second debuff instantly.

Third: I was never worried about AS being nerfed.

Fourth: One capping hit every 11 seconds you call a reliable offense... Are we playing the same game?

Fifth: Get the hell out of that thread if you do not have anything important to say.

And last but not least: Draining roughly 50% of ones effective AR does just mean, that his 60% and higher def check attack actions will fail. Last time i checked there were plenty perks based on special

actions (agent anyone?), that will not get as affected.

[sultryvoltron]

For once i agree actually.



First: I never met someone who just waited the 5 seconds it takes minimum to land those debuffs.

Second: It is rather rare to meet someone with as low as 1500 NR these days to land the second debuff instantly.

Third: I was never worried about AS being nerfed.

Fourth: One capping hit every 11 seconds you call a reliable offense... Are we playing the same game?

Fifth: Get the hell out of that thread if you do not have anything important to say.

And last but not least: Draining roughly 50% of ones effective AR does just mean, that his 60% and higher def check attack actions will fail. Last time i checked there were plenty perks based on special

actions (agent anyone?), that will not get as affected.

Those perks will be changed to Attack Modifier, so yes they will get effected. You're trying to balance around now, not around incoming changes.

Current changes on the table:

• Debuffs will be easier to land, easier to remove.
• Everyone's alpha will be slower with 2s execute perks.
• Runspeed will be nerfed. People won't be able to run from you to avoid the second debuff as easily.
• The game is moving away from alpha-online. Regular hits are more important, and it just so happens that the new drains buff crit for the Trader.

I hope that helps.

[Mountaingoat]

Imo there needs to be some gray area between alpha killing the trader and the trader turning the fight into a hopeless cause for for pretty much any profession after 15 seconds or so.

Ideas include: making drains no more than 1minute (at least the negative part on the target, drains procs too) with a 10s-20s second lockout on the TARGET and PER DRAIN after the drain expires whilst increasing the duration on the positive part for the trader to 6 minutes or something. In other words the trader's target has a 10-20 second window of being without specifically divest or plunder, but with work on the traders part could keep overlap drains to keep the target debuffed continously. Perhaps make divest (only) have a 10%-20% chance of the negative part breaking on the target, positive effect would stay on the trader regardless though. Plunder landing on the target would stay on guarantee'd. Perhaps lessen the debuffing power of divest while increasing the debuff power of plunder. Or make the negative part of Divest last 20 seconds whilst Plunder retains it's current 3:30. Make shutdown skills last 20 seconds, but have a 70% chance break on hit/debuff and change its lockout to 1 minute.

GTH is horribly unbalanced with its ease of landing/duration/effect/no removal option (except by fixers) and needs to be addressed.

The trader needs the survivability from his debuffs I know, but that shouldn't make the fight so impossibly one sided for the rest of the fight by landing one or two nanos in just a few seconds. Yes "withered cracked shell..." etc, but make that state take a lot more work with more frequent casting/shorter duration nanos.

[sultryvoltron]

Imo there needs to be some gray area between alpha killing the trader and the trader turning the fight into a hopeless cause for for pretty much any profession after 15 seconds or so.

Ideas include: making drains no more than 30s-1minute (at least the negative part on the target, drains procs too) with a 10s-20s second lockout on the TARGET and PER DRAIN whilst increasing the duration on the positive part for the trader to 6 minutes or something. Perhaps make divest (only) have a 10%-20% chance of the negative part breaking on the target, positive effect would stay on the trader regardless though. Plunder landing on the target would stay on guarantee'd. Perhaps lessen the debuffing power of divest while increasing the debuff power of plunder. Or make the negative part of Divest last 20 seconds whilst Plunder retains it's current 3:30. Make shutdown skills last 20 seconds, but have a 70% chance break on hit/debuff and change its lockout to 1 minute.

GTH is horribly unbalanced with its ease of landing/duration/effect/no removal option (except by fixers) and needs to be addressed.

The trader needs the survivability from his debuffs I know, but that shouldn't make the fight so impossibly one sided for the rest of the fight by landing one or two nanos in just a few seconds. Yes "withered cracked shell..." etc, but make that state take a lot more work with more frequent casting/shorter duration nanos.

I like it. Break on hit for SS. Short duration on Divest, longer duration on Plunder. All sounds very reasonable.

[Racatti]

I bet it sounds reasonable for an agent.

[sultryvoltron]

I bet it sounds reasonable for an agent.

It doesn't sound reasonable to you? Did you even read his post?

Edit: Also an Agent who regularly uses Mimic Trader.