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

[sultryvoltron]

Lowbie PvP is gonna need some testing!

Although the level check on drains is going to make a huge difference. The changes seem pretty good, but the new Health Drains look pretty powerful.

[Lejiia]

Gatester, you means the crit drain that was removed from skill drains?

[Firezus]

lol 2,7k bm and ts
1. 5k nano and health drain every 4 seconds should be changed so that you only can cast one of them every 6seconds for example
2. The skill drains seem nice but the shouldn't buff nano skills except the highest
3. WTF 30% Crit increase?
4. Please no 4h durating for lend nano and cl buffs

[RmikClan]

NO i cant be possibly reading well 5k nano drain nuke with 4 sec cooldown lol what???

[Brofist]

in before the emo army starts posting

NO i cant be possibly reading well 5k nano drain nuke with 4 sec cooldown lol what???

That didn't take long.

[Alternity]

That didn't take long.

Hahaha EPIC! ;D


Maybe level my 216 trader nao heh! Might prover entertaining to some extent with these changes

[Obtena]

I'm sure I'm reading this wrong or something, but using any nano drain (eg. plagarise notum) fills the trader's nanopool 100% or?

I think you are seeing the : Current nano, recover 100%. I think that means (in a very complicated way) that if you drain someone for X nano, you get 100% of X to your pool. There are other effects that work that way currently for traders as well so this way isn't new.

[erozc]

Massive changes. Interesting.

Will we see an era where people invite traders for crit buffage, then they silently won't in order to boost personal damage?

[Obtena]

Gatester, you means the crit drain that was removed from skill drains?

Traders under 215 get crit buffs they never had before. Re-balance isn't just about 220 PVP traders.

[Syyceria]

Please do keep in mind that i'm rusty and old, so a lot of my comments might be pretty outdated...

Document can be found here: http://www.anarchy-online.com/anarch...20-%202011.xls

Gosh, so much pink. I think i'll stick with your tl;dr and won't study these sheets.

- COOLDOWNS:
== AOE Roots: 30 seconds
== Roots: 10 seconds
- The roots have gotten significantly reduced durations in PVP versus players and pets:
* [AOE] Flow of Time: 7 seconds
* Entreprenural Thrall: 7 seconds
[...]

So if i finally managed to actually land a root after 4 resists and 2 immune messages, i will get a whopping safe 7 seconds of distance? And i assume even fumbles will get a 10 second cooldown? Will i at least be able to put all roots known to mankind on a hotbar to cycle through them or will they share a cooldown?

To be honest it was already hard enough to keep them melees out of range before this change, since they got better root-resistance. And most of the time the cc toolset is used against us, since everyone runs around with 2 roots-on-demand and we don't have any immunity against roots. Why should i bother casting this if i won't have the time to heal myself up after landing it, let alone the time to drain my target to survive a close combat scenario?

Calm/Mezz
- Sharp increase in NanoInit debuffing.

Increases our chance to run away from NTs and survive...

Team Health Payments
- The damage we take is no longer a DOT, but a straight hit equal to the Health range. (dunno why they're called Delayed then...)

Will we still be able to cycle through them for increased team support?

Drain Health, Heal Other
- COOLDOWNS:
== 3.5 seconds
- Unfortunately, these babies are no longer usable on ourselves, as they're considered drain nanos.
- NanoCost has sharply increased (1650 at top).

What the what? This sounds like a huge nerf. Looking down i see that we will get a heal-drain that will heal us for about 2.5k, but i really prefer a self-heal that doesn't have to counter a NanoResist and will fail >50% of the time. This is bad. It's the nano I used most often in PvP obviously and not only won't I be able to pay the nanocost if i spam this, no, i won't even be allowed to spam it on me...hmmm...

Drain Other, Heal Self
2730 BM/TS/Nanocost | Level 218 | Damage 5056, Heal 2528[/size]
- The amount drained is either just a tad smaller, or improved (usually improved).

I assume the damage will be halfed in PvP and reduced by reflect...so i get a small chance to deal about 1.7k damage and heal myself for about 2.5k? I wasn't able to find the nanos in the sheet (don't blame me ), but will we get 2.5k health or just a %-return of what we drained? Latter would turn this heal into an amazing ~1k heal in PvP if above numbers are for PvM only...

Evade Buffs
- 4 hours. That is all.
- The other tradeskill buffs are 4 hours.
- Guess what? These babies are 4 hour long nanos as well. Recharge has also been slashed to 1 second. So now you don't have to rebuff constantly to twink on your belts and NCUs, nor do you have to recast when selling bags upon bags of plasma and cut gems.

"Hello FC, i won't be able to survive for more than 10 seconds after these changes" - "Here, take these 4h buffs instead of the 1h versions..."

Don't need and please don't try to sell this as an improvement to our toolset.

Nanobot Defense
- Breed differences has been removed from these nanos.
- The nano drain on us is one straight hit of 50,000 nanopool.

No more hiding in sneak for a minute after using NBD? Fine with me...

Charms n' Pets
- COOLDOWNS:
== 15 minutes
- I hope you liked your Carlos, because now you can use them twice as often!
- The charms... I got no clue. I don't know if they removed the 30-minute stun from the charms. The Psychic requirement is still 449, in any case, so... but we still have them.

I can rp with my pets twice in a 30 minutes timespawn. Oh joy. Looks like another change that noone will notice.

Grid Team / Grid Self
- Our team nanos now only take 60, 50, and 40 seconds to cast.
- AND OUR SOLO ONE ONLY TAKES 40 SECONDS. Instead of 3 minutes!!!! Woo! Now we have a REASON to buy the solo one!

I'm slowly getting the idea that we get improvements in areas where we help teammates or which are completly useless and huge nerfs in everything that used to be helpful for us or helped us in any way...

Root Reductions
- COOLDOWNS:
== Self: 20 seconds
== Other: 7 / 5 / 3 seconds
- Values adjusted to keep in line with the new CC durations.

</care>...never had the time to cast them anyway after a melee adventurer or enf rooted me...

Drain AC Debuff
- Oh and guess what? THEY DEBUFF AND BUFF CRIT CHANCE NOW! Up to 30% on both sides! Celebrate!

Wait a moment? What's the idea behind this one? "Oh trader can't spam their selfheal on them anymore, lets make them spam other nanos that used to be completly useless"?

Skill Drain
- I hope you're sitting down, because this will shock probably the entire planet.
- The drains now last 15 seconds. The drains, now last, 15 seconds.
- The drains also scale based on the level of the target.
- The drains have been halved in amount drained, and do not drain the AAO of the target if it's not an NPC.
- Laddering drains, and the amount returned to us has not been affected EXCEPT now the duration of the buff portion is 10 minutes! Yaaaaaay!

Hahahahaha...seriously? Can I make a joke that a developer finally managed to level to TL2 and met a trader inside a towerfield? Oh well, it seems like i found the nanos i will skip to cast in favor of my attempts to land a health-drain or cast a ac-debuff on players...<sigh>

Skill Wranglers
- The single target ones are GONE. The team ones do not debuff us anymore!

Oh great, now we have to actually team those randoms that ask for wrangles. What have we done to you that we deserve that?

Corporate Protection / Industrial Sabotage / Shutdown Skills
- GONE.

Yeah, our reflects and evades had been to good and our self-heal to OP, it's absolutely clear that we should also loose the remaining aad we had.

I remember when i ran around with a gimpy Snakemaster dealing barely any damage and not being able to kill anything except green agents that didn't had enough concealment. I think the post-patch Syy will have to run away from the 15.x patchline Syy.

[Gatester]

First off, Saetos the benefit of the drains last a long time, so while your target may not be punished forever our drains now buff us for 7 minutes longer at 10 minutes. The nano resists were also adjusted in a more fair manner I believe.

It looks like traders will turn into a weaker charm pet class as well now, and depending on how our trader tools will work we could possibly buff our pets quite well.

My level 1 was actually made more OP, I think it is funny but that can't be helped I suppose In fact, I'm not sure my level 1 could actually die in a self-buffed fight.


Ok some actual critiquing:

Traders still lack a static defense. Traders have to encounter opponents before they can become stronger, regardless of the drain durations. Whether this is a problem or not is up to individual perspective but I would still like the option of a longer term DtN buff just to curve some of the damage. In pvm I don't really see a problem if traders are able to charm a temp tank while they drain.

The healing is incredibly substantial with the health drain, and the cost is honestly irrelevant for a trader. We will not be able to abuse nano drain laddering but the nanos actually heal enough that it should be moderately manageable at lower levels. The current levels of drains once on a target, should nullify enough damage to allow that level of healing to keep a trader alive for a fair amount of time.


So what it looks like is traders have improved the broadness of their debuffing but can still be alpha food if caught offguard. What I still dislike is that drains take away vital skills and at least 1 drain would always be running, but the amounts were nerfed significantly and there is not a target level lock on which drain lands (my drain suggestion wins ). It should be somewhat manageable except for MA's who will be absolutely screwed when encountering a trader.

I am also planning a trader around master's bidding, Combat remodulator, and the future improved 4x mini carlo pets of ultra death

[Lazy]

No one likes massive AC boosts and +15% crit chance? I'd take another look at the document, that is the single highest damage increase of any profession and combined with large AC debuffs makes traders the damage mongers.

didn't look at the spreadsheet cuz it makes my eyes bleed. just skimmed saetos' condensed summary. 15% crit and 7k ac's is hardly something to jizz about in my books.

[Manicmouse]

Exciting changes on the whole, makes me glad I stuck with my NM trader if evades (relative to target after debuffing) aren't going to be as good as before.

[Gatester]

Gatester, you means the crit drain that was removed from skill drains?

Target Modify Critical Increase 15

Thats a TEAM buff, traders are getting 6% more crit chance as well?

When I talk about the benefit in teams then mention a buff, I am likely referring to traders being the teams damage monger or highest team damage increaser in AO's history. Rolleyes eyes right back at yah

[Shareida]

After thinking about it for 30 minutes: We completely loose the ability to solo PvM. Lowering Targets AAO was the only thing that kept us from getting killed. Reducing the drains to 15 seconds also in pvm renders us almost completely defenseless.

[Ciex]

Even tho i have a trader myself im gonna enjoy those cries

[Obtena]

Ok some actual critiquing:

Traders still lack a static defense.

I noted that as well. I'm not sure how that will play out in the new AO. It's somewhat disturbing giving that it wasn't all that spectacular to being with. I wouldn't get too excited. Static defense isn't always necessary for every profession. My biggest issue is that like always, casting burden is not alleviated with this proposal.

The healing is incredibly substantial with the health drain, and the cost is honestly irrelevant for a trader.

It's evident to me that traders, PVM or PVP will be swapping drains and one-trick nanos for AC drains and Health Plunders. I'm not sure costs will be irrelevant. i think it's better to say they will can be managed with the appropriate nanotools.

So what it looks like is traders have improved the broadness of their debuffing but can still be alpha food if caught offguard.

Again, just more evidence that FC is converging to a team-based PVP model. People that stubbornly refuse to embrace it will find themselves performing poorly. I like the direction of the nanos. It might take some skills to PVP with a trader now.

[Bonghigs]

Here are my thoughts.

For one, i'm not concerned with a lot of these changes are they are mostly cosmetic in many ways and do not affect combat (pvm or pvp). even the ones that do, i can accept the changes as part of a larger scheme (everyone's roots will change, etc). That said, from a 220 end-game trader perspective, the drain changes are a huge nerfing.

let me elaborate:
- the removal of the 15% crit buff from our drains presents a very large DD nerf to us in PvM (and pvp to a lesser extent). Previously, the only way to get a solid DD setup at all was to do a crit-gear setup; this is not not possible as -30% to the overall setup is crippling. Sure we can spam the health drain on NPCs, but did FC really intend to turn is into a nuking class?

- The recharge/cooldown/duration timers don't seem to make sense to me on our drains. For one, we have very fast recharges with a cooldown... this means FC wants us to be spamming everyone with in the area with debuffs. BUT, with only a 15second duration it is nearly impossible to realistically keep these debuffs up on more than a couple people at best. This seems like an inherent flaw in the re-design.

- There other issue i have with the drains is that with the halving of skill drains and the removal of the AAO drain portion on players, our defenses are basically trashed. In short, traders do not have a good enough def rating to stand at all; the only reason top end traders can handle any damage at all is because of the additional AAO drains making our defense rating "relatively" better. Without this, most professions will still be able to perk us easily even after being drained, and if that is the case why have drains at all? Again, it seems like this change was made without really considering all the consequences.


As a more general concept, i'm really confused why FC is being so heavy-handed here. I know many people complain about skill drains (get virus scanners people...), but the truth is if traders are so overpowered why aren't there more of them at tl7? I fear that traders are being basically dismantled as a viable pvp profession because other people complain about being drained instead of coming up with ways to avoid it/remove it/get around it/etc. ((I know traders are way OP at tl5 and below, but there are much better ways to solve this problem without a heavy nerf to tl7 traders... level locks or debuff scaling being my personal front-runners.))

Basically, these changes turn 220 trader pvp into "hide around the corner and spam debuffs... if someone sees you either run or die". I do not mean to be doom-saying here, but as one of the very few active 220 end-game trader pvpers left (on Rk2 at least) i feel that if i don't speak up FC will never hear it.


What i would love to hear from FC is: what is the basis for the changes and the new numbers? TBH, it's pretty clear that the main focus was not making traders viable in the new system; rather it was trying to appease the people that complain about being drained. It's a sad state...

Traders were one of the only truly unique classes in all the MMO's i've played over many years... these changes are a tombstone on that profession from a practical perspective.



NOTE: if the people who actually do NOT HAVE TRADERS or DO NOT PVP ON THEM could leave these discussions to the active players instead of muddying the water with complaints and half-truths, it would be so appreciated by everyone involved. If you've not played a 220 PvP trader (and i don't mean logged your friends' once, i mean played for months and months to really perfect the character), then i'm sorry but your opinions are most likely half-truths and not realistic (note, this goes for all professions, not traders).

[swedoc]

BAD stuff imo:

- Borrow Reflect, does it give US reflect like before? 10 sec debuff?
Ok in mass pvp i guess but crap in 1vs1 (could use like 15-20 there)

- Ac debuffs, where crap before, (top one) now seem to debuff a static -10k, still mostly useless on high lvl mobs at least. (except for the part that gives +30% crit, that's good)

- New heals, kinda hars reqs on top one, i can get that skill if i'm double proc drained + x2 normal drains (and i'm sure fc will alter how procs work) + mochs in current setup (not that much nanoskill oriented)

- NO WAY of healing yourself if you don't have a target, or did i miss something here?

- where did our ranged init go? we really need more to use shotgun 1/1 at full def (as most other profs can use their weapons like that)
- Can't debuff mobs NR as much as before (6400+250 iirc) but i guess nt's will do it better anyhow, their arena now.
- 15 sec duration on drain is ok, IF TARGET IS A PLAYER, in pvm it's a bit ridiculous.
- Corporate Protection / Industrial Sabotage / Shutdown Skills, GONE! bah!

Quoting Saetos: "we've gone from draining an effective 1500 AAO for 3min+ to 276 for 15 seconds. This is definitely a huge hit to our defensive prowess, puts a much heavier emphasis on using our nanos, especially our beefed up health drains, to protect ourselves."

Ok fine, But i need an alternative to survive, feel free to fill me in on how we can do that

Good stuff:
Lovely nano drains.
A tad faster casting mezz
You seems to be able to cast gth on mobs to regain nano.
Divest damage looks lovely, we're able to keep it running 100% of the time.

Unsure on the charm/pet nanos, how long pets are with us, if we can move when we have stuff charmed etc, please clarify.

[Bonghigs]

It might take some skills to PVP with a trader now.

Statements like this are unfounded it's rediculous. At lower tl's traders are very OP and can be easy mode, but at tl7 traders are one of the most difficult professions to play well. That is, not just spam debuffs and then get rolled over, but to actually be an effective part of your side's efforts.

I have no idea if you even have a trader, but if you're going to make comments like these in a post specifically designed to give honest feedback, at least clarify your statement a little bit....