Quickie Explanation of New Trader NanoSheet (Summary Open to Criticism)

[Sama]

Why can't FC just leave drains as it is. If there is a need to reduce duration on PVP so be it. Not that it matters as before you can cast both (assuming the first one lands) most likely the trader would be dead. As some TL7 profession have very high AR that a single drain does not matter now.

But to change how drains work in PVM will kill the trader profession.

at tl5 there are toons with such hi ar a single drain doesnt matter there either. I agree with the premise of this post. Traders in PvP need to be addressed, especially lowby, but if you make the changes also effect them in PvM like proposed you are going to cripple the profession into a buff totem that cant solo.

Perhaps you could keep the lvl lock in PvP, and adjust the time that the drain lasts in PvP, but leave the rest alone in PvM. I have a TL6 trader that is in ok gear, and in PvM if i dont land my drains pretty quick its gonna be a quite fight with me headed to the reclaim. I cant imagine trying to fight and basically being religated to buffing others(which looks like i wont be getting the crit love) and while endlessly cycling my drains.



Hate to say it, but like many others I dont see myself continuing to work on my trader after this. Sad thing is i was finally really starting to enjoy and learn the profession. I dont see all of the changes as bad, and understand that the game as a whole is getting a nerf stick. But i just cant see this working out at all for those of us that like to solo a bit.


Also, was i the only person that was suprised that traders didnt get the Trade Skill/Nano skill swap?

[Shareida]

Agreed. SL didn't exist in 2001 either, so that should be removed as well!

I agree.

[XenonDe]

trader drains didn't used to drain AAO (like 2001 to 2008), and traders still managed in PVM, why talk BS?

In all fairness that's actually not quite true. Trader drains used to drain AAO in pvm since the 15.9 patch which went live around december 2005 iirc. It was a fix to them because mobs weren't affected by them.

The AAO part hasn't affected players until LE came out though which would fit the 2008 time table.

[Gatester]

So, gatester, what's your take on TL7 trader pvp come the rebalance? I'd like to know, since you seem to have a good grasp of the document and how things work in practice.

I said it plenty of times but I will reitterate, traders are pretty much screwed as far as survival goes. A single emergency nano does nothing and traders need something to cushion damage that is relevant to the profession. I think a static DtN like NTs have would be good because the trader profession can actually maintain or regain their nano and it would also increase the number of capping hits trader could take.

Drains I would prefer drained AAO but worked in two parts. The Divest lines would be easier to land, debuff about 200 AAO, and last for a longer duration, around 45 seconds. The Plunder line I would have act as a secondary drain that can only land if Divest is running. The Plunder line would cap at about 500 AAO reduced, last for 10 seconds and have a 20 second cooldown. I would also include a group of AAD reducers so that traders have a bit of variety in their toolset based upon their situation.

Tl7 traders will have some problems and I am pretty sure I said that a few times, the only thing I really laughed at was that someone said traders would be screwed against doctors lol. Tl1-5 traders have no reason to complain, and before I hear complaints about enforcers or MAs, those bastards are pretty damn OP at those levels and need to be balanced. We should NOT be trying to balance professions around overly strong professions, that is what we have been doing for years and the results were AS pistols, LE nukes, GTH, etc.


Traders will be great in mass pvp with support but 1 on 1 they took a major hit. The hit was probably necessary but some professions gaining boosts instead make some of these changes seem unfair. What this nano document shows me is a massive boost to pvm for traders who are leveling, not trying to solo pande or albatreum, but the traders like mine who have recently gone through a very difficult period of leveling into the shadowlevels.

I didn't survive because of drains in pvm but utilizing my healing and CC tools. My healing wasn't always enough, I couldn't mezz mobs in SL, and it was a pain from 20 to 200. I barely managed dark ruins solo and that seemed ridiculous for a supposed CC profession. People arguing these changes break the trader profession when they are exactly what I would have needed honestly pisses me off because I feel it is their own selfish attitudes as already leveled traders that is causing it.


Is that what you were looking for?

[Larafina]

there was no need to hit traders in pvp that hard to give them some nice tools for pvm ...

[Niles]

1) duration to roots and the lack of landing them.. lol, how should I survive when one of my most important defenses are gone?
2) duration of drains (and the lack of landing plunder).. lol, lots of profs already steamroll traders fully drained, how will my defence be with minor draining?
3) no ability to heal myself for what? lol

I could go on, but some of the posts are very to the point. Im not saying that all is not viable, some are really nice suggestions, but those above (and some more) are simply over the top. At this point Im happy I have several high lvl toon. One thing is sure. FC surely means REBALANCING when they say so....

[Drakeep]

there was no need to hit traders in pvp that hard to give them some nice tools for pvm ...

Still i miss the wonders of pvm traders, the only good thing will be the ability to use AS unconcealed(yet unconfirmed), but still we'll suck in pvm.

Again the real issue with pvp traders are just tl1/2/3 and maybe 4.

[Shareida]

Still i miss the wonders of pvm traders, the only good thing will be the ability to use AS unconcealed(yet unconfirmed), but still we'll suck in pvm.

Again the real issue with pvp traders are just tl1/2/3 and maybe 4.

Add that TL5. After that it is steadily stagnating.

[Drakeep]

Tl1-5 traders have no reason to complain, and before I hear complaints about enforcers or MAs, those bastards are pretty damn OP at those levels and need to be balanced. We should NOT be trying to balance professions around overly strong professions, that is what we have been doing for years and the results were AS pistols, LE nukes, GTH, etc.

Ofc nerfing drains and leaving some prof with 2k nr, surely will helps tl5 traders. If u lands a lucky 105 drain, that is quite a ridiculous debuff considering enfo/ma AR, then u must hope to land it again. But proly it will not be needed cause u'll get splatted before.

Traders will be great in mass pvp with support but 1 on 1 they took a major hit.

Traders are just good in mass pvp, cept for tl1/2/3 where landing nanite drains almost means gameover. Try some duels at tl5 with a trader, and u'll change idea. If a tl5 trader goes 1-1 with an enfo or nt(even without le nukes) will lose 90-100% of the times (vs ma 70-100%).

[LyraJ]

Okay, I read most of the replies but maybe I missed some so here goes. (I play primarily PVM by inclination and scheduling - it's rough finding the uninterrupted time to PVP w/a little one running around.) This is purely PVM perspective:

First:
There are a number of nanos that have a level and spec lock that don't match. The following all show spec 4 req: Modified Health Plunder (175) Evolved Health Plunder (185), Snitch Notum (165), Cheat Notum (125), Blackmail Notum (50). Since you can't even turn in spec 4 until 191, something should be changed there.

Second:
Is there a stated reason for changing the team heals? Currently the trader takes a moderate dot. This means that if you're slinging heals on team because main healer is swamped you can drain/proc yourself back without adding to their load. It also means that if *you* are the casting healer (those ad hoc leveling teams w/fixer/keeper/MA or trader) you have a better chance to handle the possibility of agg swapping to you because you're taking successive small hits instead of one huge smack to your hp. If the concern is that traders take too much damage, drop the dot to 3 ticks. If the concern is that we're OP healers and need to be made squishier I'd like to know.

Third:
With the recharge/drain changes in place I'm trying to think how PVM is going to work for the solo trader -- I spent some time in Pen dungeons yesterday testing. It looks like casting order would be something like: Divest, Drain AC, Health Haggler, Damage Reduction, Plunder, Drain AC B, Health Haggler, Nano drain, recast drains as possible, at which point fight should be managable assuming not dead. Now that's relatively doable (if scary against many mobs) for a trader that can self top drains. But how on earth is a trader draining up going to manage? Guess we're going to need more shadowleets. Everywhere.

It seems that the intent is to make us more dependent on AC drains/damage reduction to mitigate pain and better heals as opposed to right now where we count on the AR reduction of high level drains to make evades effective as the primary defense. I suppose that could work but until you get everything up that's an even more fragile balance than now and it's going to seriously suck against SL mobs with high minimum damage. Especially since we're going to become more heal dependent while having to recast drains every 15s.

Fourth:
Currently I can land AC/nano drains on most or all bosses but I can only rarely land divest/plunder. Is that likely to continue? I can definitely see the appeal to adding crit reduction on bosses and it would be nice to cast something that actually impacts the team survival in those instances.

[Obtena]

I don't think your PVM assessment is right in the third point. For a typical PVM, The Skill drain, AC drains, Damage reduction, etc... is all NICE to have, it's not necessary. The only thing you need in PVM if you are soloing is your health to not go below zero. Therefore the ONLY thing you will NEED is a health plunder and the new HP-and-nano Drains over time nanos. If you need more, my question to you would be what are you trying to solo? Regardless, needing more than those is extra complexity, but it's not unmanageable. Honestly, is it more unmanageable than what you have to do now?

[LyraJ]

I don't think your PVM assessment is right in the third point. For a typical PVM, The Skill drain, AC drains, Damage reduction, etc... is all NICE to have, it's not necessary. The only thing you need in PVM if you are soloing is your health to not go below zero. Therefore the ONLY thing you will NEED is a health plunder and the new HP-and-nano Drains over time nanos. If you need more, my question to you would be what are you trying to solo? Regardless, needing more than those is extra complexity, but it's not unmanageable. Honestly, is it more unmanageable than what you have to do now?

Well, right now to survive as a 193 trader against 200+ Pen dungeon mobs I need both drains up early and, depending on mobs, both AC drains and permanent heals. If I can't get both drains on that vortexoid/tiig/spider I *will* die - I need to drain their AR enough so they start missing. Once they do, AC + heals + proc are enough for the hits that get through.

I'm not saying it's unmanageable. I'm saying it looks like they are aiming for the reverse where heals + damage reduction are most important and I'm not sure how that's going to work out against those same hard hitting mobs.

[Edta]

Hmm, I just realized that once you have your 10 minute-drain-buffs running you can use the lowest drain to keep the mob debuffed (since effect on mob only depends on it's level). That would make drains very cheap to maintain nano-cost wise . I suppose the idea is that you don't get a higher buff then what you cast; putting this into the document would make the drains even take more room then they do know, so that seems like a good reason to leave it out :P.

[Bonghigs]

I don't think your PVM assessment is right in the third point. For a typical PVM, The Skill drain, AC drains, Damage reduction, etc... is all NICE to have, it's not necessary. The only thing you need in PVM if you are soloing is your health to not go below zero. Therefore the ONLY thing you will NEED is a health plunder and the new HP-and-nano Drains over time nanos. If you need more, my question to you would be what are you trying to solo? Regardless, needing more than those is extra complexity, but it's not unmanageable. Honestly, is it more unmanageable than what you have to do now?

This seems very oversimplified... i really want to give you credit for not being this naive.

"the only thing you need in PVM if you are soloing is your health to not go below zero. Therefore the ONLY thing you will NEED is a health plunder and the new HP-and-nano Drains over time nanos."
... and the only way traders can keep their HP from going under 0 against mobs that are any challenge at all, is to drain their AR so they don't hit as often or so hard. If you think spamming health drains alone is all the trader should be doing in PVM, then you think traders are/should be a very boring class. This basically makes us a doctor with worse heals, no UBT, and barely (if any, would be highly situational/equipment based) more damage.

Really Obtena, this is your opinion as someone who has supposedly played a trader so long and extensively?

[Obtena]

Depends what you call 'challenging mobs'. The mobs that are challenging to me ARE the mobs that hit me while they are drained in the current game. The reality for me in PVM currently is how well I can keep up my health when fighting a DRAINED mob. I'm not gimp, but I still get hit, quite often, often enough to make it a challenge. Do I think that the -AAO on the drains is really giving me that massive extra edge to allow me to solo those mobs vs. when I don't drain them? I did some tests. I convinced myself it doesn't. That's a point of argument. You might think it does. I don't think it's terribly relevant though because of the following:

What isn't debateable is that no one is soloing challenging mobs without using every single heal they have access to. That will certainly be the case with the new scheme. How well can you keep your health up on an undrained mob? You can do that test now ... and I have done it. For me, the result was the same as a drained mob and with plunders getting an increase in heal power (and killing power) as well as increased PVM secondary drains like AC, damage, etc.. I speculate it's either a wash or favouring the new nano proposal.

What is disturbing me is that everyone here crying about skills drain nerfs almost make me think they AREN'T using their whole toolset to solo. I cast my drains typically once, twice each on a longish mob. I cast my other stuff a hell of alot more. Now tell me their isn't an in balance with the traders nano toolset? Doesn't it occur to people that it's nonsense for the LEAST frequently cast nanos to have the MOST significant impacts for soloing a challenging mob? Well, it does to me.

The other thing about many posts that's bothersome to me is that it's clear you and others have associated 'good' to 'soloing'. That's not really the case with the nano proposal. No, there isn't alot to get excited about if you are an endgame 220 soloing PVM or PVP trader. I think that's entirely the point, but that's not just a trader thing ... look at anyone else's nano document. There isn't alot to get excited about ANYWHERE if you want to solo. It's not that FC are specifically targeting traders here. They are doing what is necessary to make traders fit into the new PVP scheme. I know you don't trust me when I say that as a profession, you will WANT to team in PVP. I think these tools are going to make traders one of the most desirable PVP teammates ever.

[LyraJ]

Depends what you call 'challenging mobs'. The mobs that are challenging to me ARE the mobs that hit me while they are drained in the current game. The reality for me in PVM currently is how well I can keep up my health when fighting a DRAINED mob. I'm not gimp, but I still get hit, quite often, often enough to make it a challenge. Do I think that the -AAO on the drains is really giving me that massive extra edge to allow me to solo those mobs vs. when I don't drain them? I did some tests. I convinced myself it doesn't. That's a point of argument. You might think it does. I don't think it's terribly relevant though because of the following:

What isn't debateable is that no one is soloing challenging mobs without using every single heal they have access to. That will certainly be the case with the new scheme and IMO, that change to drains hardly changes that fact.

I completely agree with the last point. And actually, my original point wasn't a complaint -- I was trying to consciously think through how my girl could be as or more effective on the first ugly mob and I think I got a reasonable answer. After all, once all the drains and buffs are cast the next mob will be easier because you have your offense and a big chunk of defense already in place.

How these changes actually feel and work for current traders - it's going to depend on if they make enough of a difference for the AR changes that others see and on the individual players. It is a large shift in focus and a needed one if drains are going to be reduced in effectiveness. Still, it's all just talking points until we see how it works in practice.

I'd like to see a response to 1, 2, & 4 though when profs or FC get a chance.

And in response to edits -- actually, I think changes (depending on answers to 2 & 4 of my points) will make traders more valuable and contribute more in teams, especially if AC drains land on bosses. I equate "good for pvm" with the capacity to solo and contribute to teams but as I said, I only felt the need to comment on one piece, especially with the difficulty of calculating all the possible team variables.

[Obtena]

To your first point ... I think the Professionals also seen this discrepancy and reported it more directly to the devs. Let's hope it's a mistake in FC's editing the document and isn't intended.

I don't know the motivation for the second. I can only assume that if you are 1 hit healing a team of people, it's more appropriate for you to take 1 hit instead of a DoT as well. Considering that some traders regain health through HoT-like effects (at least if you have SL) the HoT on the team heals were not really that big of a drawback.

[Drakeep]

...I only felt the need to comment on one piece, especially with the difficulty of calculating all the possible team variables.

lim x → ∞ 1/x

Calculated!

[Noer]

Just popping in shortly to say that I am expecting Funcom to remove hacked rootgrafts entirely from the game with these root-changes, otherwise its gonna be even more silly with us not able to land roots on others while others can root us with a root grafts...

Anyway - I will give some more feedback on these changes later when I had time to look further into them.

[Obtena]

^^ That is actually a number because that function does converge. At least that's what I remember.