Trader drains Please fix

[Armus]

I didnt say they dont have an offense.
I said that, even despite the high ar, they have got barely any decent offensive tools.


Not including ALL special attacks that soldiers seem to use?

Sorry but that isn't true. Trader alpha (crit as, fling and a reg hit as well as a few perks) gets me to 40% as a soldier with 24k hp and prenul+ofab back. The crit rate in addition to great AS is what makes trader alpha great on some classes, despite not having many perks.

ps. A good alpha is an offensive tool.

And so is drains, cc, blinds, stuns etc. All of which traders have. If face I'd rank trader offensive toolset amont the best in game.

[Koizumi]

Trader alpha (crit as, fling and a reg hit as well as a few perks) gets me to 40% as a soldier with 24k hp and prenul+ofab back

Uh.....ill just stop myself from commenting on that

[Jekonam]

Maybe after one drain is cast, it is harder to land the next. Gives the opponent a small chance of recovering before being rendered useless.

Plunder is harder to land than divest. Against good twink plunder is very often not spammed.

[Dreamer]

Plunder is harder to land than divest. Against good twink plunder is very often not spammed.

And sometimes, regardless of how many billions people spend on some tl5 twinks, a top trader will still land those plunder/divests because getting the required NR to resist isnt viable to make the rest of an EQ work.


At the end of the day it doesnt make the trader stop to think about trying to spam it, there has to be a downside to these massive debuffs.

[Koizumi]

And sometimes, regardless of how many billions people spend on some tl5 twinks, a top trader will still land those plunder/divests because getting the required NR to resist isnt viable to make the rest of an EQ work.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/forumdisplay.php?f=259
[New Thread]
/topic:/ Plx fix nr.
/Message:/ Plx fix nr. Im cant resists.
[Submit Reply]

there has to be a downside to these massive debuffs.

/me points @ recharge and NRcheck

[Dreamer]

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/forumdisplay.php?f=259
[New Thread]
/topic:/ Plx fix nr.
/Message:/ Plx fix nr. Im cant resists.
[Submit Reply]



/me points @ recharge and NRcheck

4 second recharge dear god save you from this massive recharge... It would take me those 4 seconds to see the message, see where it came from, pop whatever needs to be activated, and maybe start to try and land something before the next one came.

Put both up to 5.5 seconds i'll be perfectly happy with drains. And for the lower level drains, bump reqs/level lock.

[Weltall]

Divest should probably have a longer recharge and plunder keep the same recharge, so you have a kinda easier to land but longer recharge or harder to land but quicker recharge kinda thing going.

[Jekonam]

4 second recharge dear god save you from this massive recharge... It would take me those 4 seconds to see the message, see where it came from, pop whatever needs to be activated, and maybe start to try and land something before the next one came.

Put both up to 5.5 seconds i'll be perfectly happy with drains. And for the lower level drains, bump reqs/level lock.

If it would take you 4seconds, then you are not in the level to fight against top twinks. 4 seconds is what it takes for 170 agent to destroy my tl5 trader.

[Dreamer]

If it would take you 4seconds, then you are not in the level to fight against top twinks. 4 seconds is what it takes for 170 agent to destroy my tl5 trader.

Lame example, agents destroy alot of profs quickly. But 4 seconds? Did you just stand there or what?
You missed the point anyway. My point about top twinks was about the lack of NR they can get to resist, no matter how much better at pvp they are than me.

My point about 4 seconds was that its not a disadvantage of any great significance.

[bitnykk]

it's not the place to say "lol you suck" to anyone.

overall problem with traders is they are pretty much squishy and weak before drains, and with too big AR + too much crippling opponents with predrain and/or after drains.
this issue is really annoyant at low levels because that makes traders preeminent at tl1-4 basically, as notum war is all about OSB (+predrains).
at the same time drain system is what makes trader (along with agent) one of the most interesting profession ingame, and AO a unique twinking options MMO.
all over that trader ain't OPed compared to common SL mobs ...

so we can't expect a basic nerf (e.g. nano level requirement, nanocost double, NR % raising, or any rough limitation), no more than we can ask for a complete change (e.g. target skill % debuff, separate melee/ranged from nanoskills, allow only 1 line -red or blue- or any total mess) that would both nerf the profession, kills it spirit and/or favor older twinks to post-patch ones.

after a lot of debate i've considered the best fix was to condition the landing of drains on target player to a controlled version of the same line depending on target level ; that would make no change in PVM/twink & no hardtime gameplay for trader, but would avoid low level opponent to reach 0% OE and complete crippling.
also i'm to remove the conditions on the AAO debuff (if NPC type >= 1) so it always applies in PVP also (supposing the n.repulsor & enfo nano/AAO procs won't be rebalanced down to reasonnable amounts) or to adapt level better (e.g. make nanite improved land on TL7 only).

i've exposed this solution in this post (feel free to browse the entire debate) :
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showpost.php?p=5769454

[howlin]

Lame example, agents destroy alot of profs quickly. But 4 seconds? Did you just stand there or what?
You missed the point anyway. My point about top twinks was about the lack of NR they can get to resist, no matter how much better at pvp they are than me.

My point about 4 seconds was that its not a disadvantage of any great significance.

4 seconds is enough to kill a trader with most professions, if you fail its because you ignored the trader and he drained you.

[Notcrattey]

4 seconds is enough to kill a trader with most professions, if you fail its because you ignored the trader and he drained you.

Being drained doesn't always involve ignoring the trader.

[Dreamer]

Works fine at low levels like your example. But what happens at Tl5/6/7 who decides which version is 'balanced' version to land in PvP.
I can see nanite enhanced still being used for tl5... which isnt balanced still. Even If you cap tl5 drain at the non nanite enhanced ones - traders still get to drain ~ 440 points off. Aswell as the -AAO mod on top of that.


Congrats howlin for missing the point too. I didnt attack 4 seconds *then* get drained, i was already after someone - got drained from *nowhere* aka - i run past a teleport in bs, trader enters same section from a different teleport - and then drains me. I then had to turn my attention to him. I then had 4 seconds to do what i could before being drained (most likely) again.
Sick to death of people who read something out of context in threads.

[agentwolve]

drains ect are hostile defensive actions.

[howlin]

I didnt attack 4 seconds *then* get drained, i was already after someone - got drained from *nowhere* aka - i run past a teleport in bs, trader enters same section from a different teleport - and then drains me. I then had to turn my attention to him. I then had 4 seconds to do what i could before being drained (most likely) again.

Bummer. Use tab and watch your environment, run back trough the teleport?
So in 4 seconds trader gets to try to land a plunder on you and fails ofc, since it has 150% NR check on it? Boo-hoo.
Next time trader will zone trough teleport and you will stun him and alpha him in 4 seconds.

[Strupstad]

Bummer. Use tab and watch your environment, run back trough the teleport?
So in 4 seconds trader gets to try to land a plunder on you and fails ofc, since it has 150% NR check on it? Boo-hoo.
Next time trader will zone trough teleport and you will stun him and alpha him in 4 seconds.

Plunder has 5 seconds recharge, duh!

[howlin]

Plunder has 5 seconds recharge, duh!

"Sick to death of people who read something out of context in threads."
He will be insta divested and only 4 seconds to react!

[Jekonam]

Not in anyway scorning you, but sounds to me as if you are not understanding how to fight against a trader, or how you should not fight against trader. You seem to believe that plunder lands so easily. I don't even bother to plunder best twinks on rk2 (unless Im absolutely sure that I have the distraction advantage and enough time).I would just be wasting my time taking too big risk with the NR check. Average trader @ tl5 has around 5k hp and 5-6 professions in anarchy online can INSTASPLATWTF123 that amount of hp.

Yes, we have annoying toolset and if you give us enough time, its your own mistake which leads to easy solo kills for the trader. We are also extremely vulnerable in the matter of hp, let alone that we are entirely dependant on NR checks. If we don't drain, we suck, if we do, we can compete.

[Agreement]

This thread is just sick…
I don't deny there is a scaling problem in the trader profession (especially with drains), but this whole discussion,with most of people not having a single idea how trader works, is misleading.

To the people that write ideas to change the trader's scaling issue: the problem is at lower lvl, not at high level, so don't even try to write stuff that may balance the twinks we are talking about,but **** up the high level ones.

Also I wanna point that TL4/TL5 twinks have most a the time a very crappy NR (due to lack of IP), empowering even more the impact of nanos…

At lvl 220 and against a decent lvl 220 (may vary with the profession), our drains get countered at least 1/3 of the time, even 2/3 to 4/5 for Plunder.
And yes, to do something decent against a equally geared person, the trader must have their drains to land (at least Divest, Corporate protection is quite needed too, Plunder is mostly the icing on the cake).

The problem seems to be scaling (as OFTEN said before) so don't try to change the trader's nanos, leave that to the professional and the players that actually play trader.

To end my rant, I also wanna say that people that never played/don't have a clear idea of the profession they are arguing about to just stop making up (stupid) ideas to change that profession, that doesnt mean you can't complain against them, of course!

PS: And STOP, just stop, making up perfect fights (ie: no nano resisted, no perk resist, capped special attack, crits on lower special attacks, procs always on ...), these fights almost never happen, but I can't deny that they don't happen, statistically they have to happen but seriously for what 0.x%?

meh.

[Weltall]

Also I wanna point that TL4/TL5 twinks have most a the time a very crappy NR (due to lack of IP), empowering even more the impact of nanos…

Ummm what? Crats/docs/fp enf agents/NTs/traders/advs/fixers/enfs/MAs/MPs/keeps all have decent-very high NR, that just leaves shades, soldiers and fp doc agents so... what are you talking about?

At lvl 220 and against a decent lvl 220 (may vary with the profession), our drains get countered at least 1/3 of the time, even 2/3 to 4/5 for Plunder.

I seriously doubt that, divest lands on 2.6k NR like 4/5 times, so I imagine for lower NR profs, it's much worse.

It's a 90% check nano... and traders have around 2.8k-ish nanoskills or somewhere around there predrained.