Newbie question - best tradeskill profession?

Hey all,

Subject line says it - I'm an AO newbie with an interest in tradeskills, which is the best profession to choose? Trader? Engineer? Something else?

Thanks in advance for your advice/opinions...

trader

Pretty much 50/50 between Trader and Engie in my opinion.

With just self buffs a Trader is much better but with Maestros an Engie can make higher QL stuff because of all the TradeSkill Equipment they have (new engie hat is very nice :D). The big setback for Engie is the DarkBlue Psychology which is now used to make some Implants.

Trader can buff their skills - eng's cant.

Tradeskills: Engineer Vs. Traders

in all actuality usually engineers can get higher tradeskills then traders their level because of all of the special adds that funcom gives us to try and make up for our lack of tradeskill buffs. now all of our little things like Construction Sleeves, Technical Ceremonies Armor, Engineer T.I.M. Scope, and the New Engineer Hat give us decent tradeskills at best... but add trader tradeskill buffs to those, and we end up with a higher skill level. however, most engineers would rather just have buffs and not have to worry about tracking down all of those little pieces of armor or clothing that add tiny ammounts to tradeskills. also, some of the tradeskill adding armor is extremely hard to come by, the best being nodrop (Tech Ceremonies Armor).

I think most of you are forgeting something: Armors
True traders can buff most trade skills exept for Chemestry, which is used to make just about every kind of armor in the game. True, our Philosopher's Stone buff doesn't even come close to being a maestro, but so far, it's the best chem buff in the game.

So i still contend that engies are better then traders. Not to mention that we are so used to buff begging that finding some kind soul to buff our trades is almost second nature:D

Engineers are the best for making the extreme top end towers because of the few small buffing items they have. In all other situations traders are superior except in chemistry.

For most tradeskills the traders can reach the target skill required self buffed(or atleast with just SFA) while the engie will need to find a trader to get the same buffs. Yes the engie can get say 25 points more in a skill but whats the difference between 1050 and 1075 when you only need 1000 to begin with.

So if you plan on playing your character to level 200 and continuing to play on from there and doing towers ql200+ for people then engineer would be the best profession for tradeskills. However if you are like 99% of the playerbase and won't make it to level 200 and/or you like to PvP sometimes then trader is the way to go.

Engies are ALOT harder to get to level 200 as well.