Balancing trader drains, ideas thread.

[Lupusceleri]

Some thoughts:

- Peoples twinking on insanely high drains at insanely low levels needs to stop - over 1k PM TS at L56 anyone?
- When the drains land, it's all over.
- Perhaps, make drain (de)buffs scale to your level, and give them an AAO (de)buff to make up for the nerfing.

- Nanite drains would look like this on the target:
--> On victim -250 skills @ L200, -200 AAO (at every level).
--> At L118 this would mean -148 skills, and -200 AAO.
--> On self +210 skills @ L200, +150 AAO (at every level).
--> At L118 this would mean +124 skills, and +150 AAO.

Numbers would of course be up for change. This tones down the extreme laddering, and stops completely crippling the target. Yeah, trader becomes a lot harder to hit thanks to the AAO debuff, but at least your weapon won't be 0%-25% OE when you do get in that lucky hit.

Another possibility would be giving every drain the same "advantage" (de)buff to skills and, simply make the better drains debuff more AAO.. this would stop laddering just the same but still give an advantage to casting higher drains.

[Gatester]

Easily solved. When drains are casted on the Traer, both nanos run on the Trader, positive first then negative; but negative can be on a higher stacking order than negative so positive immediately cancels.

That would mean in trader vs trader (or agent) one trader would in fact lose all benefits he has once he is drained.

Duration of positive and negative effect have to be the same unless we have a more complex solution.

[Whealer]

The Issue :
Drains buff and debuff both nano skills and weapon skills allowing for the Trader to easily "ladder" up their drains and place their targets at a large disadvantage.

Proposed Change :
Change the Deprive/Divest line to debuff only weapon skills. Increase the amount debuffed by 50%. Place a 105% resist on the Deprive nanos and a 95% resist on the Divest nanos.

Change the Ransack/Plunder line to debuff only nano skills. Change the amount debuffed to match the Deprive/Divest nanos of the same level. Place a 105% resist on the Ransack nanos and a 95% resist on the Plunder nanos.

Add a third drain line that debuffs special attack skills entitled Defile/Desecrate. Set the amount debuffed to 50% of what is debuffed by the Deprive/Divest and Ransack/Plunder lines. Place a 105% resist on the Defile nanos and a 95% resist on the Desecrate nanos.

The Upside :
This allows the Trader multiple ways to cripple their opponent while doing so more efficiently at higher levels. It also decreases the amount debuffed overall by 25%. The addition of a third drain would allow the Trader the opportunity to slow down the recharge on special attacks allowing for prolonged survivability. Low level Traders would require more time to cast all drains on their targets due to the need of "laddering" drains to cast the top end nanos.

The Downside :
The Trader will still potentially be able to "ladder" drains and take advantage of casting the top nanos in the line. Nano reliant professions will be hit harder then weapon reliant professions as the Trader will not need to cast the weapon debuffs on them where as weapon reliant professions will need both nanos cast to debuff them effectively.

[Genie]

Duration of positive and negative effect have to be the same unless we have a more complex solution.

The more complex the solution the greater the chance for it to be flawed. The simplest solution is often the best solution.

Just level lock the the drain line, and in addition add more end level drains, so that traders still get new and better drains as they level. Make the top drain only available to the top levels who twink nano skills to the breaking point, that way they get a reward for their twinking effort.

[AGPEcko]

This post will likely fall on def ears, but trader drains need level locking at the lower levels. Particularily where I have experience and care: 15-30 (low tl2).

A level 15 trader arriving at a pvp event, and draining for -105 and -95 in the first 5 seconds is horrendous and pretty much results in a weapon being 0% effective and ending the contest.

Actually subscribing to this thread... just in case...

[Saetos]

Or:

Break up the drain component into two parts:

A small skill drain (maybe -100 to -200 total with nanite improved drains instead of -550)
The rest of the original drain would be constituted of an AAO debuff.

So for example: instead of Plunder Skills (Weak) draining 125 weapon/nanoskills, it would drain 25 weaponskills/nanoskills and 100 AAO. The loss in AR is the same in all circumstances (and actually gives a slight bonus to the AAO debuff that mobs get; PS(Weak) only debuffs 63 AAO on NPCs) but players' nanoskills and weaponskills aren't shot to crap. Keep the positive effect the exact same: buff the Trader by 97 nanoskills and weaponskills.

Now, if you're worried about drains stacking on Traders, introduce this mechanic: Trader drain buffs and debuffs will all fit in one line. However, for stacking order, the drain debuff component will ALWAYS be in a higher stacking order than the buffs; so if both exist in the NCU the positive effect will instantly be overwritten.

[dockside]

One easy fix is to just remove about half of the drains, making the maximum amount of laddering possible a lot less. As it is now traders have like 5 times as many nanos in thier drain lines as most profs other profs have in thier lines anyway

[viandante]

Remember that real traders need the drains for PvM too. Any changes shouldn't affect their PvM abilities and many of the changes proposed do so.

Edit: Trader soloing and leveling is really hard at low levels. Making a PvP low level twink nerf is great but normal traders should be able to keep or even improve their abilities PvM wise.

[Hacre]

Yes lets nerf Traders back to the laughable stage they were pre LE.

Traders are supposed to cripple you. The problem with the Trader toolset isn't their drains, it's other silly tools like GTH, Drain Procs, Borrow Reflect and Shutdown Skills -combined- with their decent drains.

Obviously I'm not referring to lower TL PvP here but having played a lower level PvP Trader perhaps some scaling to level is in order rather than dumb level locks. A Trader with their "within their level range" drains would mean no one ever playing a Trader again at lower level PvP because it's the drain laddering that makes them powerful opponents combined with their ability to use this to tweak on really high ql weapons. Nerf Traders that hard there and all you'll see running around at those TLs is a load of GA Fixers that no one can hit (and no Trader can drain their GA to OE anymore thanks to these ideas).

Perhaps level lock the Nanite drains to 150? I didn't bother tweaking for them on my level 41 Trader as they just weren't necessary. Traders can ladder up drains just fine with a comp mastery and some actual effort spent into tweaking nanoskills.

[ArienSky]

Trader soloing and leveling is really hard at low levels.

Strange, to me soloing as trader is one of the most easy things.
They have calms, heals and drains.

Sure, it requires some work, to keep the drains up, which makes it fun, but there are other professions (NTs/Agents) that have a way worse time soloing at lower lvls.


Please try sololing as NT or Agent at lower levels before mentioning that Traders have a hard time.
As I see it traders are very well balanced in PVM at the moment: if you give an effort, you can do AMAZING stunts, taking on multiple red mobs, where other professions have difficulties with even two orange ones, and die by 3 green.


I like the AO skill system, and lvl locking nanoes would be against that.
Sure, traders are annoying in PVP, but I would not wish them to be removed, it indeed does require effort to play them well.


Kind Regards
Ariensky

[jorricane]

Arien, it totally depends on your playstyle. I found NT and agent rediculously easy to play solo at low levels. You don't go toe-to-toe with most mobs, but the kills are rediculously quick and the levelling rediculously fast for both.

My babi agent and NT were both levelled solo from tl1-5 in less than a week a piece. Whereas my trader is still sitting at lvl 50 for the last two years because I find it to be an underpowered prof at that level (even with a master on at low levels it was an unpleasureable toon to play).

IMO traders drains should be levellocked, or, at least some more severe limitations should be put in place - maybe a pvp only like where ransacks will drain enemy and boost yourself while the second line only drains the enemy. If there was a change in drains however, there would need to be some other forms of compensation for traders.

[Lupusceleri]

Or:

Break up the drain component into two parts:

A small skill drain (maybe -100 to -200 total with nanite improved drains instead of -550)
The rest of the original drain would be constituted of an AAO debuff.

So for example: instead of Plunder Skills (Weak) draining 125 weapon/nanoskills, it would drain 25 weaponskills/nanoskills and 100 AAO. The loss in AR is the same in all circumstances (and actually gives a slight bonus to the AAO debuff that mobs get; PS(Weak) only debuffs 63 AAO on NPCs) but players' nanoskills and weaponskills aren't shot to crap. Keep the positive effect the exact same: buff the Trader by 97 nanoskills and weaponskills.

Now, if you're worried about drains stacking on Traders, introduce this mechanic: Trader drain buffs and debuffs will all fit in one line. However, for stacking order, the drain debuff component will ALWAYS be in a higher stacking order than the buffs; so if both exist in the NCU the positive effect will instantly be overwritten.

This, at least for the Nanite drains and below (leave L215+ drains as they're now) is indeed a pretty good idea since it will give Traders the NERF they need in PvP. But instead of making them useless in PvM, these new drains will be far more effective for PvM since debuffing a mobs AAO actually matters when it comes to evading mobs.