The Marketplace: A Trader's Guide to the Profession
As our current profession guide is five years old, I thought it'd be cool to get a new one up and running.
== Welcome to the Trader Profession ==
You've heard of us before, I hope. While usually rolled and played for the PVP aspect of things, the Trader is an incredible asset to nearly every team they visit. Our damage is quite good - weapons that would make the most revered of twinks sweat give us no problems at all - and we delve into the support role quite well, buffing skills directly, giving and taking health, keeping the nanopools of our Doctor friends nice and full, and other neat buffs and tricks.
What this guide aims to do is to attract the PVMer to the Trader profession. Hopefully after reading this, perhaps you'll give this profession a whirl, and see why I love it so much.
Part 1) Breed Choice
I find that breed choice almost doesn’t matter with the Trader profession, especially at high levels (this is of course assuming you have Shadowlands – if you don’t, then you’ll find the breeds carry more obvious key differences).
At the beginning, most people find Opifex or Solitus traders easiest to play; good HP combined with good nanopool and rather well-balanced abilities (except perhaps Opifex and its problems with Stamina sometimes) make these two breeds well-suited for the Trader profession. Opifex carries an advantage over Solitus with symbiants and a slightly higher Shotgun skill than Solitus Traders, but this merely places Solitus in a very close caliber with Opifex; both are great all-around breeds.
Nanomage traders have an easier time casting higher nanos, getting a better nanopool at low levels (our nanos can cost a lot of the bar when you start laddering skill drains), but of course has a problem with HP. Since Lost Eden came out, the Nanomage breed has been given some boosts: certain nanos we can use (Nanobot Defense) are more effective as a Nanomage, and there is a special item out there that is Nanomage only that gives a 5000 point absorb when right clicked. If you're free-to-play, ignore all that, but still doesn't stop the Nano breed from being perfectly viable - just watch out for that ticking time bomb of an HP bar.
Atrox traders have a good source of HP, which can be quite handy for soloing. However, we use a lot of nanopool in our life, and as an Atrox, you will have difficulty getting the nanopool to properly function as your best in a team - although this will probably not matter too much at TL7, what with all the nanopool regeneration we can get at that point. Definitely doable, and can be fun. Just consider yourself forewarned.