Critical rate... no.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatester
Even WITH 100% critical rate, a trader cannot come close to the damage of more than half the other professions. A 220 trader runs at 70%+ crit already. Not much to improve there.
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Critical rate... no.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatester
Even WITH 100% critical rate, a trader cannot come close to the damage of more than half the other professions. A 220 trader runs at 70%+ crit already. Not much to improve there.
Just to remind, i killed LotV with 2 similar setups(crit wise), other had 500+ more AR and resulted ~2% less crit%.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatester
AR builds are clearly not the way to go for DD professions. Bad actually if AR pieces replaces other +dmg items.
IMO, something needs to be done. The difference between max capability should be smaller between worst dd prof to best. Trader should be closer to the middle DD wise not worst support/worst DD/worst defence.
Sorry I misspoke. I would not say AR at the expensive of crit rate is a good thing in all but a few cases, what I meant to say is having a high AR in a build is never a bad thing. More AR is always more DD, although there are definite diminishing returns in effectiveness when it applies to crit rate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Otansaanpas
I could agree with you here, but then we'd both be wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by -Barg-
Trader is around the middle of all those.Quote:
Originally Posted by -Barg-
Could easily make a list of 3 or 4 professions worse in all those areas compared to a trader. Post would be long and troll-bait for people, but I am sure you were actually just making a point and not trying to specificially state that traders are the worst profession at everything.
Unfortunately, AO's PVE is so pathetic that hybrids have no value. That is the only real problem support has in PVE and why a trader can be infinately more valuable in PVP situations.
Eh, yeah. The problem with lack of viability for hybrids is not damage at all, but the content design itself. The only instance in existance which doesn't encourage eliminating non-core professions is Collector. Every profession is equally viable there.
Then again, i don't see how that is revelant to AR templates.
Hmm I don't think I expressed myself very well.
Look at it this way perhaps: before SL, the difference between a green skill max and the darkest blue skill max was 180 points. After SL, that difference increased to 480 points. Add onto that, the addition of vastly more AR budget available to specialists from perks, new self-only buffs etc and the differential between specialist and non-specialist professions becomes massive. Then in addition to that, symbiants and other items leaned far more towards AAO for specialist professions than non-specialist professions - so the differential became massively more again.
So if you had just extended the linear formula at the time, there would have been a huge differential that would go too far. So then the idea was that the post-1K curves would soften the impact of the massive increases for specialists, while the extra skills budgets, buffs etc would still allow the specialists to establish a stronger advantage than before SL. Using the same curve for everyone would have removed all the specialism benefits gained in the new budgets... so different curves were adopted for different professions, to reflect specialism.
Now... there were difficulties that resulted from this happening in combination with other effects. Around the same time MBS was introduced, high AC mobs were causing min damage to be the rule, SL also had low evade mobs on the whole - so non-specialists hit all the time... all of these combined together to mean that things were still out of whack. There are other impacts too, that are more complex and have to do with the overall system.
For the record... I think that Traders are a special case in this too... they're sort of weapon-specialist, AR specialists... but also sort of not. And the way damage is working in AO works particularly badly for them in some ways.
I'm not sure that simply restoring a linear template would really be a good answer to the issues. I think it's as likely that you'd end up creating more imbalances in the end... and that it could negatively affect player-mob balance too.
There's a case for altering the AR templates in some way and more generally for altering the differentials between non-specialist and specialist professions across the whole system. I think it's likely that larger changes need to occur and that those changes need to happen in several systems (MBS, mob AC, PvP reductions, +Dmg etc).
Indeed... it's possible that the recent changes to allow +Dmg for nano damage are a first step along such a path. Who knows? ;)
All that said though... I'm not really on top of the systems as they are now - so I could well be talking out of my derriere. :D
X
The issue with trader damage is the same it's been since I started playing. They need weapons that take advantage of their capabilities and that means they need profession-locked weapons. FC did the right thing with S4 and MK6 Silverback, but they don't scale with today's endgame so they still lack from a damage POV. Removal of the 1K AR template? That's a pretty big change to address a subset of the professions that have subpar damage performance. That might not be a good idea without understanding its impact on high damage professions. It may close a gap but generally may put the high end profs above some reasonable threshold.
The way it is now the higher the AR you go the more screwed over lower template profs are. In the long run (if they want us to believe there will be one), they need to remove template, adjust weapons /damage items and skills profs can achieve to allow a maybe 25%-30% range from the highest to lowest DD prof anything more like it is now is ridiculous. I rolled a shade and levelled it to 220 to kill inf dynas as trader took way too long to kill anything, guess what I hardly play my trader anymore which is a shame as its the profession i fell in love with.Quote:
Originally Posted by Obtena
shade vs trader damage difference can not be explained with better AR-template.Quote:
Originally Posted by -Barg-
shade does about 100k damage per minute without perks, specials and without second weapon.
Remove the AR templates and apply a flat % reduction to all damage for each profession?
A flat AR template cut across all profs at 1k and simple add dmg applied instead for leftovers would even the floor. Make it 1/8 and everyone will be happy.
I've been playing my 220 trader lately with my 220 ranged advy on second account, and the trader OD's the ranged advy (troaler+pewher).
I have to spam damage on advy to make the trader not be the tank.
Honestly, I'm thinking about twinking him up and making him be my PVP main for a while.
add energy dmg on trader=ftw. improved health haggler= pretty reasonable nuke/heal every 4.5 seconds. With raidbuffs and purple hud and a few other goodies, it's obnoxiously similar to disharmony.
i bolded your problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by McKnuckleSamwich
if you have to spam damage on your adv to pull agg off a trader you're doing something seriously wrong.
Pfff an Advy with AS pistol being OD in PvM... not that hard.Quote:
Originally Posted by McKnuckleSamwich
The sad part is that my 209 trader OD's my 220 Agent if I'm only counting the dam by weapon @ equal % crit amount. Even after the +Dam etc. (Trader Xan Shotty and Agent Xan Rifle).
Personally I buff Melee for the drain perk proc on my trader :D and going dual with more specials to set it off more often. Finally some survivability @ my lvl (trader 209 atm) Am thinking to go melee for this perpose.. (3 attack bars etc you know the drill)
Indeed, melee trader is a viable option, with all the Crit % we got. Hell, I do 3.4k min dmg crits without any IP in MA, fully drained.