Trader love time!

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Kiryat-Dharin
OK.

Let me put it you this way.

The original poster asked for new, more powerful shotguns.

There's NOTHING wrong with the shotguns you have. I in fact submit that the available shotguns are every bit as good as, say, the available SMGs (excepting Manex), BECAUSE THEY ARE.

Would you rather have an Ithaca or a Sol Chironis? I'd rather have an Ithaca.

Would you rather have a HD or a MCS? If you like specials, replace HD with Medium Shotty. Either way, I think there's a lot to be said for the shotguns.

Traders have PERFECTLY adequate weapons as is. You aren't supposed to be prime damage dealers - if you think you are, you need to stop smoking crack. Your weapons should be, at best, around the level of fixers. Remember that you can, when drained, achieve a good attack rating with ANY gun, and therefore the "but it's a blue skill" complaint is a bunch of crap.

Traders aren't gods. My personal opinions on skill debuffs in PvP are that they're too powerful as a general thing, but I've tried playing a trader (didn't like it much) and I understand you aren't gods.

Now you guys need to understand that traders are pretty well off the way they are, and that asking for better weapons is just going to piss off other professions who have a valid point.

Traders don't need new guns.

Dunno nor care if the original poster was being serious. I dismissed him as joking. Traders do not need a new weapon. No profession, in my opinion, needs a new weapon. Traders DO need some attention. Both in the way of bug/balance fixes and new items.

[locomdenom]

Originally posted by Kuroshio


Dunno nor care if the original poster was being serious. I dismissed him as joking. Traders do not need a new weapon. No profession, in my opinion, needs a new weapon. Traders DO need some attention. Both in the way of bug/balance fixes and new items.

Yes.

But NOT new, more powerful weapons.

That's my point. Traders don't need more damage. They need something to bring them up a bit in PvM without affecting their current position in PvP, where you have to admit they do pretty damn well.

What that is, I'll leave to traders. Ones that understand that damage is not their answer.

[____________Alantria]

Ummm Kuroshio, Im not sure why you pasted my post and went balistic on me, I basicly agreed with you.
I now its anoying to hear people talk about uberness not really knowing a class, GA fixer here, Hi.
little anger management there please

Though dont make assumptions on what pvp is to people, you say so unimportant, many would dissagre with you, what you deem important may not be to others and vice versa
Im not one of them but just fyi.
And let me clarify again, I dont care about trader PvP uberness or lack of it. I just stated a general PvP concensus be it right or wrong.

[Kuro]

Linne Furiae Aisu

Originally posted by Alantria
Ummm Kuroshio, Im not sure why you pasted my post and went balistic on me, I basicly agreed with you.
I now its anoying to hear people talk about uberness not really knowing a class, GA fixer here, Hi.
little anger management there please

Though dont make assumptions on what pvp is to people, you say so unimportant, many would dissagre with you, what you deem important may not be to others and vice versa
Im not one of them but just fyi.
And let me clarify again, I dont care about your PvP uberness or lack of it. I just stated a general PvP concensus be it right or wrong.

Yeah I'm only taking prisoners, on this particular subject, for one reason: to torture them as slowly and painfully as possible Sorry if you ended up with the rest of them

But until PvP starts having a more pronounced effect on the regular gameplay, I can't place any value on it. Look at it from this standpoint:

Traders that don't even PvP and (maybe until NWs) never had any intention to PvP have had to suffer the situation Traders are in because of Divest/Plunder being used in PvP.

Your sig says you're a GA Fixer avoiding PvP. That's either because of the gridspace inversion nanos or because you don't like PvP. Regardless of what you might think of the Gridspace Inversion nano effectiveness, what would you be doing if Funcom took the easy way out and simply nerfed the evades on GA so people in PvP could hit you? Ot better yet, when Funcom made the MCS they decided to stop there because everyone claimed you're too uber?

[____________Alantria]

Yes the nano has alot to do with my lack of interest in PvP, and actually i dont avoid many shots in a GA3, only in full defence do i notice some misses and then my gun slows down to almost a halt.
No biggie though i could accept that if not for the "special" nuke.

Fixers have to put up with the same type of people who complain on how hard it is to kill us of us in 1 on 1 pvp and this becomes the basis of a uber standing despite the fact that mass pvp is entirely different , not to mention you can choose not to fight a fixer/trader/doc/eqb enforcer 1 on 1(unless your ganked).
In mass PvP you have a hail of specials welcoming you no matter what proffesion you are.
In fact the more uber you are percived the more likelly you will have their focus on you.

I do understand where your comming from. All these complaints about the 1 on 1 PvP and your PvM experience is stagnant. I feel very frustrated listening to this nonsence myself.
Anyhow i hope they bring some variety to your class, as i said it has been a while.

[Sallust]

PvP is an important part of gameplay (not for advancing your character primarily, but for having fun) and should not be ignored.

that said ...

Traders deserve to get high level content just like every other profession.

They shouldn't get:

1) another PvP advantage
2) Another tradeskill advantage. Tradeskills should be for everybody. Its time the engineers were given more of a better chance at tradeskills... and a few other profession too.

Maybe some new high level team buffs (non-wrangle) would be appropriate. Maybe give them an attack rating drain (that boosts teammates instead of the Trader?) for use on Uber Mobs. Dunno, but lots of good ideas can be developed.

maybe some kind of Trader only quest for better armor. I've seen barter armor and not been impressed.

Whatever, I don't care too much what it is so long as it abides by points #1 & #2.

Good luck Traders

and nerf-mongers please go play another game. It doesn't matter what any profession gets so long as everybody else is balanced up to that level.

[Wrangeline]

Trader is able to do inzane damage both in pvp and pvm. Im a 181 trader myself and I know that fully drained we do darn good damagewise.

The problem with "our" guns atm tho, is this:

Most of us use/have used shotgun. Now as we all know shotguns do crap both in pvp and pvm if we dont have ellts. If u have ellts u will do good.

If u dont have ellts or u simply believe that a manex or x3 or what have u will allways beat a shotgun after critnerf then u are probably one out of many that have used IPR's.

So basicly the problem for traders atm is the simple facts that we MUST have a really really expensive ELLTS to compete with other professions if we go shotgun and all us older traders (not the ones made 2 weeks ago and never bothered to go shotgun) was FORCED to do IP-reset if we didnt own a ELLTS.

We shotgunusing traders (like all 95% of us) had to choose between expensive scope or waste IPR.

For that drawback I think maby we could do with a shotgun that isnt so critreliant. Im not saying it should do same damage as EQB but it could deal the same damage as a trader with..say.. 12% scope/Ithaca combo. Perhaps be like the X-3 but the only difference is that it has shotgun-skill instead of Rifle skill. U could even call it "Wrangeline's enforced shotgun of Justice" (jk about the name, dont flame lol.)

[_________KrazyKanuck]

Originally posted by Sallust

2) Another tradeskill advantage. Tradeskills should be for everybody. Its time the engineers were given more of a better chance at tradeskills... and a few other profession too.

I have to disagree with that. Tradeskills should be limited mainly to the classes who are intended to be tradeskillers and serve in backup rolls. Somehow though 2 of the 3 (traders and fixers) originally intended for this purpose ended up being 2 of the top 4 classes while the other of the 3 ended up being the overall worst class(engies)

PS yes i do understand certain other professions may have certain tradeskills specialties but looking at the IP costs for tradeskills it become quite obvious which classes were intended to be tradeskill classes.

[_________________MIL]

as it is ive played all the so called uber pvp professions

doctor kicks ass

trader kicks ass

ga fixer (i have) kicks most ass
i guess it does depend on the ga your using for lvl group your fighting im only lvl 54 ga1 fixer but they miss at least 65% of attacks when attacking me so my hots are adequate to keep me alive

as for the shotgun issue
what about the MCS upgraded weapon right

why cant we get a weapon that we can upgrade

Vektor and Krutt dont even go to ql 200
neither does ithy but whats 1ql

ive tried all of the shottys and i just dont think that they give u any solo capacity

If your assumption is correct that we traders weapons should be on the same lvl as fixer weapons thats bull crap u guys got manex which ive seen in action is one of the best weapons in the game if u have adequate ranged init

So please dont post if your not gonna make any sense

dont give traders new or better shotties
but give fixers damn monster damage gun
bullcrap to that

And my intention was someway for ppl who want to invest ips into tradeskills to partially gimp themselves to have a chance to make a weapon that is less mediocre than what is available

shotty really lacks and why with our hordes of tradeskill knowledge cant we make them better

/me thinks ga fixers cant post here about what we dont need

if they make drains half then ga defense increase should be halfed additional damage should be halfed evades should be halfed get what im sayin leave us be plz

[Isgrimnur]

interesting thread. I made a trader to do tradeskills, and have found myself getting into discussions to this effect with the other tradeskill class: engies.

Engies get MANY items to buff their tradeskills. They may argue that yes, we traders get the maestro buffs that help out, however they forget, those buffs arent self only, and so, an engie who has all that nice gear that adds bonuses to tradeskills, and gets the maestro buffs equals a far better tradeskiller than the trader.

Now I don't really care so much about shotguns. However I would like to make a suggestion: Why not have buffing shotguns that buff tradeskills. I mean doesn't that new engie pistol do something to that effect?

Also would like to see some more buffs, like chemistry or nanoprogramming etc.

I think traders should be more than just that pvp class that everyone goes on and on about how uber they are. If FC changed it so the drains didn't effect the other players AR/nano skills, traders would be what then?

I dont think traders need priority lovin', but I do think tradeskills do...and thats all I really care about with my trader.

[Sallust]

Why get an Engi & a Trader when you can just get a Trader? There's nothing which needs their piddly little 10 point boost to tradeskills. Now the Maestros buff enough to make a real difference.

Nanoprogramming buffs... there are more than enough of them now. How about something to do with the skill and the high amounts of it that are possible?

Tradeskills aren't supposed to be only Traders, Engineers, and Fixers. Those are just supposed to be the generalists. MPs, NTs, Crats, Docs, are all supposed to be specialists.

But the fact is Traders right now have it all in tradeskills and we sometimes get the scraps to make for ourselves.

No, Traders have enough in tradeskills. Fix tradeskills and other professions' ability to use them.

I'll agree to priority luving for tradeskills and to some non-PvP, non-tradeskill loving for Traders down the line.

[Alpherah]

I actually wanna see traders get PVP love too.. so i can see all the enforcers get their ass handed to em again..

Trader Online, The Enforcer Wars anyone???!?!

[coldwarkid]

Originally posted by Kenidy/Isgrimnur
Now I don't really care so much about shotguns. However I would like to make a suggestion: Why not have buffing shotguns that buff tradeskills. I mean doesn't that new engie pistol do something to that effect?

"That new engie pistol" never made it into the game. Neither did the Spider Poison Gland or the Custom Made Engineer Rings. The Technical Ceremonies items are nearly impossible to get hold of - it's a real event when someone manages it. The Giraldi Crystal is common enough, but requires you to dump IP into Melee Energy to use it. So does the Seller's Crystal, but being a Trader item at least you can drain your way into that.

If you add up all of the super dooper Engie items for tradeskills, you'll be lucky to see +40 in most skills (the exception being Electrical Engineering, which is slightly higher). Consequently, while an Engineer can achieve a slight edge over a Trader in tradeskills, he can only do it if he has all the right items and if he has a Trader on hand to dole out the buffs. There may be a few very high level items where that 40 points makes the difference, but for general tradeskill work Traders are in a far better position. If that +40 isn't going to make the difference, what do you need the Engineer for?

Traders have their problems. However, weakness in tradeskills isn't one of them.

~R~

[Sallust]

The effort to get that +40 should not be discounted either. Like the breastplate which drops off "The One". Wouldn't surprise me if not more than 10 people playing AO on all 3 servers have it yet.

Its on an Uber MOB, and just until recently MP & Engi pets couldn't touch them at all... now they just barely can, maybe.

Vs. Trader buffs which are easy to get and every Trader who wants them has them. The fact that there are MANY engi items to buff the skills and that when all added up they don't equal the easy to get maestros, is not a point in your favor.

Engis should get a buff for ME, EE, QFT. Engineering & Trimmer skills... come on already.

Docs should get a buff for Ptech and Chem.

Crats should get a Psychology buff.

NTs & MPs should get some high level things to actually make with the high Nano-Programming skill.

Traders can already do it all, so why be afraid of specialists?

Then people might grudge you a better PvM ability less anyways.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Sallust
The effort to get that +40 should not be discounted either. Like the breastplate which drops off "The One". Wouldn't surprise me if not more than 10 people playing AO on all 3 servers have it yet.

Its on an Uber MOB, and just until recently MP & Engi pets couldn't touch them at all... now they just barely can, maybe.

Vs. Trader buffs which are easy to get and every Trader who wants them has them. The fact that there are MANY engi items to buff the skills and that when all added up they don't equal the easy to get maestros, is not a point in your favor.

Engis should get a buff for ME, EE, QFT. Engineering & Trimmer skills... come on already.

Docs should get a buff for Ptech and Chem.

Crats should get a Psychology buff.

NTs & MPs should get some high level things to actually make with the high Nano-Programming skill.

Traders can already do it all, so why be afraid of specialists?

Then people might grudge you a better PvM ability less anyways.

So in order to get some attention for ourselves, we should let others who have been getting attention get more attention and wait patiently some more?

Erm...NO!

That's exactly what got us here right now. You can consider us being a OE tool a useful contribution to the game. I don't. So minus sitting on our butts and wrangling you into that shiny gun you found, what else do we do besides tradeskills? I dare you to mention damage.

[locomdenom]

Originally posted by Wrangeline
Trader is able to do inzane damage both in pvp and pvm. Im a 181 trader myself and I know that fully drained we do darn good damagewise.

The problem with "our" guns atm tho, is this:

Most of us use/have used shotgun. Now as we all know shotguns do crap both in pvp and pvm if we dont have ellts. If u have ellts u will do good.

If u dont have ellts or u simply believe that a manex or x3 or what have u will allways beat a shotgun after critnerf then u are probably one out of many that have used IPR's.

So basicly the problem for traders atm is the simple facts that we MUST have a really really expensive ELLTS to compete with other professions if we go shotgun and all us older traders (not the ones made 2 weeks ago and never bothered to go shotgun) was FORCED to do IP-reset if we didnt own a ELLTS.

We shotgunusing traders (like all 95% of us) had to choose between expensive scope or waste IPR.

For that drawback I think maby we could do with a shotgun that isnt so critreliant. Im not saying it should do same damage as EQB but it could deal the same damage as a trader with..say.. 12% scope/Ithaca combo. Perhaps be like the X-3 but the only difference is that it has shotgun-skill instead of Rifle skill. U could even call it "Wrangeline's enforced shotgun of Justice" (jk about the name, dont flame lol.)

FFS.

There are GOOD non-crit reliant shotguns. You guys are, quite frankly, spoiled.

Look at the Home Defender. Look at the medium shotgun. Look at the Vektor. We'll compare them to a gun that does 'decent' damage, the Mausser Chemical Streamer, all at their respective maximum QLs, and to the X-3.

Shotguns

HD: 2.3/2.5 2-438(720) no specials
Vektor: 2.32/2.5 8-386(812) no specials
Med: 2.5/2.5 9-379(720) flingshot

And, just for fun, the strange one, the OT MPS bursting shotgun

OTMPS: 2.22/2.41 2-350(381) burst

And, the comparison weapons, the QL200 MCS and X-3.

MCS: 3/1 1-400(350) burst
X-3: 2.4/2.3 1-464(496) AS

Your non-crit shotguns are easier to get to 1/1 (the medium shotgun is SLIGHTLY harder to 1/1 than the X-3, but not much), do nearly as much damage per normal shot, will crit MUCH harder, and crits aren't that rare at high levels w/o a scope (MoP, TTS, TIM scope, you've got 15% chance right there). Specials-wise, fling and burst are usually equal (unless we're talking MCS or Div9 burst at high levels, when burst gets fast), and AS *might* be a bit better... but I don't think it is. Too slow on the recycle.

Add to this the fact that a drained trader can have a VERY high AR compared to most classes, and you realize the simple facT:

Shotguns are FINE.

Hell, you can dual-wield an HD and a Eyewind Onehander and get 3 specials on the offhand.

Add to this the fact that a trader can be effective with ANY weapon in game, due to the fact that most of your AR comes from your drains, not from buffs. It's just a question of IP spent.

Add to this the fact that weapons with split ARs don't hurt traders as badly as most professions for the same reason.

Traders really do need to STFU about their weapons.

edit: Edited to add X-3 information to the fray, as well as my personal opinion on specials.

[locomdenom]

Originally posted by Kuroshio
So minus sitting on our butts and wrangling you into that shiny gun you found, what else do we do besides tradeskills? I dare you to mention damage.

In missions, traders out-damage me. As well as pretty much everyone else.

At drain-immune uber-mobs, this usually isn't the case, unless the trader has a mezzed drain-pet that he can actually keep the entire group from killing (rare).

I'm a fixer. Besides giving you NCU and HoT, what do I do? But you don't see me asking for damage. That's not my province.

It really shouldn't be the traders, either. How about you guys start suggesting other things than damage, and I'll start agreeing with you?

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Kiryat-Dharin


In missions, traders out-damage me. As well as pretty much everyone else.

At drain-immune uber-mobs, this usually isn't the case, unless the trader has a mezzed drain-pet that he can actually keep the entire group from killing (rare).

I'm a fixer. Besides giving you NCU and HoT, what do I do? But you don't see me asking for damage. That's not my province.

It really shouldn't be the traders, either. How about you guys start suggesting other things than damage, and I'll start agreeing with you?

Read what I was replying to. I don't want a gun, especially not a shotgun. The only people that fall for that trap are the newbies people keep deceiving on the newbie ooc lines. The Trader profession is to varied on what they carry for a shotgun to do any good anyways (some are wielding ARs, some are using SMGs, I use a bow).

But above that I don't want some guy that keeps thinking because his profession is called "Engineer", he's supposed to be the King of Tradeskills and kicking us in the teeth over the Maestro line. I'm a System/Network Engineer. I haven't built either one of them in 2 years except in my house. They've even had the gall to ask for better tradeskill buffs than Traders or have ours given to them (both nerfing the trader profession since who makes the items doesn't affect the final product).

What I'd like for the Trader orofession is about 100 new tradeskill items, each with at least 2 different variants. And not over the next year and a half. But all at the same time. But that's not likely to happen

So more realistically I'd settle for the issues in the profession being addressed and a couple cool things to make us feel appreciated. Its either that or I start asking for an AoE Divest/Plunder line

[_________________MIL]

I say add more tradeskill items

Handmade items=good

There should be at least 10different armors to make

There should be about 20 different guns to upgrade

There should be about 50-100 different items that add to skills and such that can be made

There should be atleast 12-15 different guns that can be made by traderskills (should be useful and worth selling not like the weapons that can be made today)

And if im not mistaken TRADE is the KEYWORD in TRADESKILL and in TRADER

So we should have all the best tradeskill buffs

as far as nanos go im fine with what we got maybe a chemisty and nanoprograming buff would be nice i mean after all we are the masters of tradeskills

[locomdenom]

For god's sake, don't step on the MPs toes any more than has already happened with their NP buffs being spread around... traders already are the masters of tradeskills, you don't need to add NP to the list.

Kuro, I know you didn't ask for better guns; I'm just nailing the traders who did to the wall. You're pretty reasonable (well, minus the AoE divest ) in what you want.

But recognize that the engies did expect to be *better* in tradeskills than they are. I'm an electrical engineer. Did I build my computer? Nah. Do I have the knowledge, skills, and (access to) the tools to build some portions of it? Sure! So don't state flat-out that engineers shouldn't have *better* access to tradeskills than they do. They already have to buff-hunt like crazy for their bots, don't make them do it for tradeskills too.

Traders should be the all-around best at tradeskills, self-buffed. Let engies have the 2 'engineering' skills for their own, because they'll never be as all-around good as traders w/o Maestros being nerfed in some way. Chemistry, well, the engies get a buff there already, so they're effectively a little better than traders self-buffed. Leave it alone.

More trade-skill items would benefit higher-level traders the most, and they tend to be the ones who're hurting. Allowing the ability to drain uniques (not like it affects their damage output or anything, so why not!).

What else?