A step forward or did anything happen at all?

[Bakong]

So running around in bs with my trad and plow dead, sold alpha me because he sees me first ok, running around plow dead engi rapes me in 3 secs, ok its an engi, running around plow mp destroys me after repeatedly calming pets yet they sem to be able to wipe it immediately due to pet clense i think, running around plow dead, nt instas me in 4 secs from their new triple combined with a single, because with a 30% cap thats logical to give to a prof, plow dead shade sees me first, reasonable, its a shade, running around plow dead fixer destroys me with fa as burst fling, omg a soldier except i cant hit it...,dead crat init debuffs kills me while casting first drains, dead, advy, oh great a soldier alpha with coon evades and heals, dead, a keeper because he saw me first with his fast alpha perks and hes ME, dead, ma, because hes zazen stance and can out heal anything. I mean duels are different but for god sake why is trader so vulnerable to so many profs in such a variety of situations. Why is it take the bait and shutdown skills last enough for an "attempt" to get off one drain. Given if it doesnt land we are done for. Nowadays so many profs with such powerful alphas and yet our most valuable defense (drains) still are countered leaving us open to a hail fire of alpha and perks landing. Our nanobot defense is crap lasting only seconds before the enemy out damages it and still kills us in mere minutes. How the does an advy have evades coon and heals and we have drains and a sorry excuse for a heal that does 2k at best and im exaggerrating. Yeah yeeiyf is nice, if you survive long enough for its to actually help you heal before your destoryed by the next alpha in a few secs anyway. This profession is broken. pvm is good fun but when over half he profs destroy you because they spot you first and press their one button keybind, there is a major problem.

Forgive my rant but wow. Are traders really going to just live like this until the end?

[lainbr]

:/ Traders PvP crappyness is well know and Raggy is working his ass to convince Michi to do something about it

P.s.: NTs has no triples.

[MrLysol]

Removal of pre-draining has hurt us badly. Resist, Resist, Resist, Take the Bait, Drain1 success, your dead.

We need more static evades, Acrobat/Evasive Stance line. Rework Nanobot Defense 30s, with no nano drain after. I dont get why there is a penalty after..other professions oh crap buttons like coon doesn't cripple you after.

Sorry, Trader PvP is sadly destroyed atm. Broken in many ways and in a very dire state.

[Raggy]

Both myself and Michi are aware of the crappy situation of Trader PvP currently. I've given him a rather large list of suggestions to help resolve some of the problems and I am waiting on his response. Michi is also watching these forums for feedback regarding Trader PvP so keep posting!

The more overall insight we accumulate the easier it will be to pinpoint the biggest issues and resolve them.

[Missdjaxx]

you need pvp at Bs,it is so simple...reroll trader

[appolonia]

Just for the record, is it possible to sum up the pros and cons, so it's easier to discuss them ? I haven't pvp since the merge (...) and can't get the raw opinion of a reliable player.

DAMAGE

It seems obvious that we lack damage, through perks and weapon (considering Silver as our only option). PDKP looks nice, having to dual it with craphander is not as sexy, Troll is less support so less AR but doing better than EOW and those pistol IPs are up for DKP anyway.

So we get AS Burst Fling, those last two with lowish AR so less bullets/crits. But we have the option, and the dual means moar drainz/procs. We're still missing on a true hard alpha though, se we need to stand longer to benefit from regulate dmg and draining.

DEFENSE

We lack raw/static defense. No damn evades, they ruined PvP already, but pure AAD. Our gameplay is more of fliping a coin than smoothering things, and I see no problem with this, nobody forced us to play trader after all. Nevertheless, we have the worst defense options of any prof and we deserve an improvement. I've long thought about blinds or stuns as we are trickers, but it would mean another cast, and another "chance" for it to fail against NR. A proc, no question, obviously.

Note that everybody shouts about NR being broken, yet we barely land a nano on low NR profs...

So, we never got CiB and it suxx, just give it to us, it would be as legit as for crats, and it would stay in our basic toolset's line. Aren't we supposed to be convoy guards ?...

The shield is ok, it's not a tool but a oh **** button, and it had to have a drawback, inline with our toolset (hello nano drainz).

If we stay on the evades debate, the NM coon on the contrary is one piece of ridiculous uberness since it's 100% absorb compared to a higher chance of evading, but I saw nobody complain, people are so weird. We shall not have to rely on RNG to compensate our weaknesses, so, CiB full route, with crappy 20 sec duration / 200 sec recharge as a "bonus" (as it's obviously not a TOOL but a gadget)

Then well, the only kind of defense we'd lack is reflects. We got a "manashield" and soldiers got a baby NS, we should have stolen their reflect coon too instead of just borrow it. Like, 50% DEFLECT (no reflect) for 5 secs to stand alphas OR delay them, ultra draining so the inabilty (weapon/attack skills down) to do anything but castings drains meanwhile. Nanodef would remain the ultimate defense, thus eating our nanopool but giving a HUGE dmg boost on top of the coon, like the sacrifice perks.

Giving us buffs from drains and aad/o - healeff debuffs to the target was also a great idea, I love the fact people can't do things because we drained their skills but eventually, letting them cast and face poor effects might be cool too, so the debuff shall be strong.

I write all this on the fly, just throwing ideas, I might be very wrong about the later mechanics (and wouldn't like to end up saying crap in irritation like I did about MA). Bacisally I just wouldn't like our toolset to be revamped totally (and PLEASE NO ACROBAT/EVADES) or worse, we're being given a Zazen. Just a way to get rid of the stupid "he saw me first" biased complaint that brings nothing. Because you know, if you don't want people to see you, just hide or run in their back (always played max conceal and it was so great !). Or grab friends, for teamplay is the key.

EDIT : I know there are 2 threads going but they're quite dead, feel free to move.

EDIT2 : Still don't know what to think about init. debuffs

[Saetos]

The more overall insight we accumulate the easier it will be to pinpoint the biggest issues and resolve them.

The biggest issue is obvious, has been staring at our face since Alien Invasion came out, and is the main reason I cannot bother to keep paying my accounts - the game's extraordinary focus on accumulating AAO and AAD. Balance cannot be attained, with the perk system the way it is, if evades still work as they've done with the utterly ridiculous amount of items ingame that fit almost all equipment slots that modify AAD (and AAO for that matter).

I've said before that none of this balance would mean anything if that wasn't fixed and we see the result of it here; even our best attempts at fixing the Trader toolset is basically for naught because now we have to somehow ask for hundreds of free AAD from *somewhere*. The fact that no one has seen this coming besides myself and maybe a few others is completely daft.

[Samcon]

Greed of Zset? Drain, slow swap back to AS. Or keep it on and bore your opponent to death.