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Thread: Improve sacrifice specials

  1. #1

    Improve sacrifice specials

    Dear Funcom,

    It'd be awesome if the sacrifice special 'purple heart' can be made usefull.
    (http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=248244)

    Currently 'purple heart' heals for 6350 to 8541 health with the side-effect of a dead trader. This heal is not significant enough to justify suiciding. When this special was introduced 6-8k was a very big heal. Nowadays with the LE, AI and XAN items health has become less of a luxury. This has made this perk special obsolete and turned it into a long forgotten piece of the Trader toolset.

    Can you please make this a 100% complete team heal? This way it would make it possible to CH enfo's and other tanks in raid when stuff gets nasty.

    The second request is please make it instacast. It is currently 3 seconds. In 3 seconds a lot can happen. Most of the times I have tried using this special the tank was dead before it finished execution.

    By making these two changes it can be a special worth using. This would, in my opinion, in no way make the Trader OP or have a negative effect on game balance. It would make Traders even more interesting to play and work the way it was intended.

    Dear funcom, please consider adding this small change with a big impact for Traders to the next patch.

    Kind regards,

    Tradoroz

  2. #2
    I'll bite.

    I agree, but I'd even go as far as to say that the entire line could use a rework.

    Volunteer = really a half assed perk, it just doesn't make a big enough difference to bother using. The only time I've ever used it for ANYTHING useful, was when I was using trader doing a CT attack with high shield, and everyone was spamming area/team heals as fast as they could go.

    Sacrifice - it has it's uses, but most of the uses are borderline exploits, i.e. park a trader on the edge of a QL 14 tower field, pop sacrifice in team, lowbies run in and gank the CT with 1k add dmg. I mean sure it "works" but was that the intended purpose?

    Purple heart - again... if it kills the trader was it really worth it?

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Tradoroz View Post
    Currently 'purple heart' heals for 6350 to 8541 health with the side-effect of a dead trader.
    Quote Originally Posted by McKnuckleSamwich View Post
    Purple heart - again... if it kills the trader was it really worth it?
    Guess I'll bite too...

    When you guys are saying 'dead' and 'kills' is that figurative? I've never died from using Sacrifice or Purple Heart on my trader.

    Code:
    Modifier:
    On Self:
      Modify Add All Off. -10000
      Modify Add All Def. -10000
      Health temp set to 1000
    I just tested it out to make sure. It didn't kill me.

    I'm not saying that this perk line doesn't need a rework but mainly curious about two different people stating that this kills the trader. I suppose if you're crazy enough to use it in a scenario where a mob is nuking then you might end up dead. Normally I just give a doctor a head's up (via a script) so I can get a heal right away (and ofc so doc/enf don't panic). Anyway, if its killing you, maybe there is a bug.
    Last edited by Traderjill; Aug 27th, 2014 at 00:30:56.
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  4. #4
    It also delivers a massive taunt.

    Actually sacrifice and purple heart are both extremely situational:

    sacrifice is slightly less so because you can use it prior to starting a fight so the aggro draw goes un-noticed by the mob(s).

    But purple heart... I mean, you can't use it without dying in nearly any PVM situation. If that's the purpose of it... (rollseyes) fine, but I really think it would be a LOT cooler if the perk was built so that it wouldn't kill the trader.

    Lets take a comparable perk: http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=251237 (Awakening), in the advy AI perk line The Call. Heals for 4000hp right? recharge 105 seconds.

    NO DEBUFF, NO HEALTH SET TO 1K, NO DEATH.

    But... get this.

    Purple heart: http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=248243 6k heal
    massive death sentence debuff.. DOESN'T EVEN HEAL TRADER

    AND...

    330s recharge.

    So

    the most comparable perk in game heals for 2/3rds of purple heart, heals SELF as well, doesn't debuff with a retarded death sentence, and is available 200% more than purple heart is.

    I mean, I know advys are love childs and all, but when we compare it this way, maybe we should make awakening a team heal not self. Imagine the uproar? and I haven't even suggested that advy gets a debuff.

    Lets equal the playing field.

    Same with sacrifice, lets just go with a 20s level*20 add all dmg buff, no debuff, no set health to whatever.

  5. #5
    i wasn't arguing against changing the perkline, my question was very specific to 2 people saying that it kills the trader. I've used both perks on my trader many times without dieing so I was confused by that statement.

    Now as for everything else, traders are all about draining and sacrifice. I mean look at wrangles.. you cripple yourself to strengthen others. I don't necessarily see anything wrong with that.

    My suggestion is that they review the exact debuff values (and maybe remove the taunt) but the debuff part makes sense and is completely in line with the profession specific toolset.

    I'm kinda tired of funcom changing the uniqueness of each profession.
    Last edited by Traderjill; Aug 27th, 2014 at 02:14:11.
    You can find me at:
    Battlenet @ Marilata#1680
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  6. #6
    Ok I agree to some extent... but just look at the balance.

    Awakening wtf owns purple heart

    self heal+team heal vs team heal
    no debuffs vs wtf retarded debuffs
    no taunt vs. wtf taunt
    105s recharge vs. 330s recharge
    1s execution vs. 3s execution

    I'm not saying give traders the same level of love as advy - we all know how that goes anyway I mean, we got evidence in this perkline exactly. What advy gets is like the perfect heal, and what another prof gets is something that only a masochist would ever use, can't use in most circumstances, and really, exactly as you say: cripple yourself... what? for fun?

    It's a useless perk for 99% of situations.

    If we're asking for changes here, I'd rather have something that affects the USER directly, and not in a bad way.

    Here's some examples of other profs AI prof line:

    MA: Red dusk: 30s 1100 init debuff (incredibly important perk for both PVM and PVP)
    Enforcer: highway: 220 AAD+4k HP? I think for 30s, situational, certainly, but with team buffs it could be a significant benefit especially in PVP in a charge.
    Crat: Overrule one of best perks crat has, period. 500AAD 450 NR for 20s for self and team
    Agent: The shot. arguably the single best lead of perk an agent has in his repertoire
    Keeper: purify... Well this one is crap, but I guess it's situationally useful, certainly lower value than some.
    Doctor: nano transmission. Crap as well, highly situational and really not a highly used perk. I've used it a few times by accident and it's sort of like why bother...
    Engineer: I don't even know why I bothered typing this much.
    Fixer: one of biggest damage perks available, on a 45s recharge no less.
    MP: Ka mon.. lol whatever, useless. A moderate damage perk but 130s recharge pretty subpar.
    NT: program overload I honestly don't know much about this at all seems useful I guess.
    Shade: chaos ritual, ya a decent perk but most shades perks are pretty decent. useful I guess, but the perkline itself is pretty much a 100% to perk for all shades so seems about right.
    Soldier:Muzzle overload ya fine pretty decent but nothing to write home about.

    Overall, I'd say that for most profs the AI line is fairly important. For a few profs you kinda wonder when the last time FC looked at them was, like Trader, MP and engineer.

    Some profs have very strong perks here, others not so much.

    Strongest I'd say are shade/crat/soldier/MA/fixer/advy

    Moderate strength I'd say are keeper/enforcer/agent/doctor/engineer (medallion pretty good despite last perk in line)

    Which leaves MP/trader/NT at the bottom.

    Quite frankly, most of the profs are OK and the perks work, but many of the ones in the 'moderate' strength are only there because ONE of the perks is decent. Some profs have three quite useful perks like MA. I don't think they are OP, but all three function at least. Keeper, same thing, all three work, even if the last one is kinda meh.


    But no matter what way you cut it, some profs got pretty jacked. I've never perked that line on my MP. I always perk it on trader because you need the evades, but the perks are 95% crap. NT I don't have enough knowledge about to make an informed comment.
    Last edited by McKnuckleSamwich; Aug 27th, 2014 at 05:17:06.

  7. #7
    Hmm.. I'm not sure how to respond in a way that truly portrays what I think about this topic.

    Traders are a fantastic support toon that often get overlooked because their tools are either not useful (i.e. how drains don't land on beast), are simply subpar in comparison to other options (weapons/nanoskill debuffs on mobs aren't truly that effective on mobs) or people simply overlook their toolset because they can't think outside of the healer/tank/crat/flects box.

    I don't want my trader to turn into my soldier or my crat or any other profession. What I want to see is traders shine in what they do to the point that people feel that they need to have them present. I think the AAD/AAO/CritIncrease/CritDecrease drains are going to go a long way in doing that when 18.7 hits... especially if they land on endgame bosses.

    In 18.7 crats are losing a good portion of their init debuffs (tapes and the init debuff in workplace depression), tanks are losing hp (gaining heal reactivity) and fights are going to drag out due to deflect. Traders may very well be back in play again if Funcom does this right.

    That being said, I'm not opposed to someone looking at the trader perk lines but I honestly don't disagree with an AI line that lets traders shine when it comes to team support, even if that means they buff their team while not receiving any direct benefit.

    I saw your review of the perklines of other professions and personally don't feel it is helpful because there is no other profession even remotely close to a trader in-game. No one has the type of skillset that traders have so their perkline shouldn't just be a ++ to the Trader directly because that isn't in synch with what it means to be a trader.

    Not necessarily directed at anyone in this thread, but my tone is probably a result of just being plain tired of people recommending changes that essentially turn profession X into some hybrid form of profession Y. If you want profession Y, then roll and play profession Y. I've watched it for years on the forums and I guess the trader profession is just my favorite so this is hitting a nerve.

    I like my trader's toolset so I'd like to see enhancements that are in synch with what being a trader is all about not some half attempt at leveling a playfield that simply can never be level. An apple will never be an orange.

    Let me throw something out there. When a doctor is full on healing a team, no one thinks "Man this doctor's dd is horrible.. we need to kick them from the team". The reason why is because they're providing a very useful service. If the trader uses a perk (or 2 or 3) during a boss encounter where their personal damage sacrifice is outweighed by the benefit to the team.. not sure why that would be a problem. If you're playing a trader you should understand that is the nature of playing a support profession.. no different than sacrificing dd on a doctor so you can keep the team alive.

    I can understand the issue with whatever taunt value since you guys are saying this taunt value has caused you to get killed (can't repeat enough that I've never had that happen and used to play quite a bit with a trader that used it often with me as doc and it never happened to him either). I also like the OP's point about making the heal value meaningful.

    But in terms of your (McKnuckle) wanting a complete rework to make it in line with other profs.. not sure I'm on board with that.
    Last edited by Traderjill; Aug 27th, 2014 at 07:27:37.
    You can find me at:
    Battlenet @ Marilata#1680
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  8. #8
    I didn't make any suggestions regarding rework, or what it 'should' be aside from saying if you turned it around and made the advy heal the same as trader you'd have an uproar.

    I only said that it's relative strength is significantly weaker than the most obvious comparison (that being advy team heal), and mentioned that other professions have varying strength level 10 AI prof perks as well.

    I'm not suggesting that traders BECOME advy, or traders should become 'more like' prof x.

    What I'm saying, is I agree with the OP, and I personally find traders prof AI line to be one of the WORST overall professional AI lines:

    Volunteer is situational and moderately useful at best.
    Sacrifice is situational and moderately useful, but more often than not gets abused in a "exploit" manner as opposed to legitimate use in an encounter.
    Purple heart is weak, endangers the person using it (significantly), and doesn't do enough good to offset the serious danger it puts the user in - and further more is often too slow to have the intended effect.

    3/3 perks are weaker than average or sub-par.

    All in, if the perk line itself didn't offer absolutely necessary modifiers, there would be exactly zero reason to perk it, in favour of champion lines and likely one alpha/beta line.

    I agree with your statement regarding maintaining the uniqueness of traders. I'm not suggesting that we change traders core toolset, I'm simply saying that this perkline could be boosted, AND, if the perks are usable in solo play it'll be significantly better overall for traders.

    Let me say it slightly differently:

    Imagine you're doing a raid on doc, and a trader joins the team (and just to add the corresponding comparison an advy as well). You're doing beast, and you miss a heal on the tank.

    Who will provide the necessary heal? trader with purple heart or advy with awakening?

    I'd be willing to bet, between you and me, that purple heart has been used effectively 1 time for every 100 times awakening has been used effectively.

    The calling is an excellent perkline, awakening is a fast execution perk, and heals for a BIG chunk of HP, furthermore it's available in less than 2 minutes.

    Don't you think that traders should enjoy that same or similar functionality?

  9. #9
    In regards to the whole 'if advy's had the trader perk there would be an uproar' thing.. that was the point I was making about comparing two totally different classes. There should be an uproar if advy's are all of a sudden getting sacrifice style perks. That has absolutely nothing to do with their profession toolset whatsoever.

    Do I think traders should have the same or similar functionality as an advy... not really. Do I think that the trader perks should be altered to be made more useful, absolutely. I already stated that I agreed with the OP in that they should increase the amount of healing provided by Purple Heart. Personally what I would love to see is the trader sacrifice 75% of their HP to provide a 50% heal to their team. (It actually could go lower for the % of hp left on the trader. I don't get why leaving the 1k hp on the trader is a problem currently for anyone or causing death. When you use that nano I'd hope you let the the doc know first so they're ready to heal you. I hit sacrifice/purple heart, doc tosses a heal or ILC and between that, hots and a shied mitigating some damage I've always been fine. I really am not seeing how people die. I've never failed a trader using either of those perks when I doc'd and I've never had a doc fail me.) Anyway, I think flat values for that type of perk are useless as HP values are prone to change over time. I'd like to see the same for Sacrifice.. drop the trader down to 25-50% DPM for x amount of time and boost the teams damage by 25-50% for that same amount of time.

    Again, I don't mind the sacrifice side of the perks.. I like that aspect.. they just need to make the sacrifice worth it by tweaking some values. If you're saying the same thing or similar then I guess we agree. Your posts didn't come off to me that way but maybe it just got overclouded by all of the profession comparisons that didn't really matter (imho).
    Last edited by Traderjill; Aug 27th, 2014 at 08:44:57.
    You can find me at:
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  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by McKnuckleSamwich View Post
    Fixer: one of biggest damage perks available, on a 45s recharge no less.
    NT: program overload I honestly don't know much about this at all seems useful I guess.
    Cripple is on a 90 second cooldown, not 45, and program overload is a lottery because it has a chance of this happening instead the desired buff effect.

  11. #11
    I don't even mind the dangerous part. That's the point of sacrifice. I'd just appreciate it if purple heart got some loving in the form I mentioned.

  12. #12
    @ jill

    If you need to tell a doc to watch your health before you pop sacrifice... it's a 100% fail.

    A doc can just as easily, if not more easily, in 1/3 the time produce the same heal for not only the entire team, but the team and the raidgroup.

    Why would the doc bother to single heal the trader if the team has just suffered the second nuke in a row from beast?

    I'd call that a sh*tty doctor. If the doctor looks at his team and everyone has 30-50% HP and he decides to single heal the trader ... wtf. that doctor just earned a free kick.

    A lot can happen in 3 seconds, if you're on the third add wave of beast, and beast just double nuked, your team is going to be in a lot of crap.

    The only possible reason I can see why a trader might use purple heart here, is to self sacrifice. If a doc insta-heals the entire group he'll attract a lot of agg from the adds and it may lead to a wipe. If the trader collects the agg via purple heart, there's no way he's going to live through aggro of 6-8 mobs even with the doc healing him and ILC and ibehe running - maaaybe if you pop nanobot shielding and have NM coon up... but it'll be tight and you'll have to kite like you don't feel like running from the caina.

    Bah, anyway I don't really care about this.

    If a trader is given a 4k team heal on a 105s CD that heals self as well, I wouldn't complain. You'll notice that traders have lost every one of their 'oh sh*t' defences in 18.7. Not that a 4k heal will save them from an MR alpha or whatever, but it might.

    Imo, if you look at what kind of defence losses trader suffered in 18.7 I think the appropriate fix for purple heart is a team blocker and special blocker on demand lasting 2 minutes. 2 regular, 2 special, and a self 5k absorb with a 180s CD.

  13. #13
    My example (regarding telling the doc) really was in reference to Sacrifice, not Purple Heart btw... I put Sacrifice/Purple Heart so that probably caused some confusion. It was also pretty much the least relevant part of my post though for some reason it was the part you chose to respond to. Guess its like the profession perk list you provided.. simple things cloud the point of posts sometimes.

    Anyway, not sure what your thoughts were on the % based perks.
    Last edited by Traderjill; Aug 28th, 2014 at 01:26:42.
    You can find me at:
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  14. #14
    For sacrifice, I agree it helps to give a doc warning. My opinion on it is that it works best if popping the half second before someone has agg though. from my experience (at least my recollection, but it could be flawed), it's an area aggro but only affects mobs that are already fighting. So if you pop it prior to entering the fight, everyone starts with 1k add dmg, you start with a debuff, but you don't have agg AND debuffed to hell.

    With regards to the % based perks for healing, I agree that it could be beneficial, but I'm really not very fond of perks that don't help the trader him/herself. I just don't like the idea of having perks dedicated to boosting/helping the team survive, but adversely affecting oneself.

    That said, the thing I'm least happy about with regards to purple heart is the activation time. 3s is just too damn long to make a difference. When I play doctor, or advy, and I'm killing beast I've got a really useful habit of stopping dotting around 75%/50%/25% HP because I know adds are coming, and adds+nukes gets hairy fast for the doctor.

    If I can't get my team's HP back up to 80% within 3s I feel that I'm introducing adverse risk to achieving the successful outcome of the raid. If a trader see's HP dropping around him, and pops PH and it takes 3s for the heal to be realized, I'd say 75% of the time that heal will be useless. Most docs I know save their BG heals for nukes (I certainly do). If an advy is present and doesn't pop awakening immediately after a nuke, I'll give him a tongue lashing - when else would you use it?

    PH, as it is, is a third rate heal. It's activation is too long, it doesn't heal enough, it's likely to cause the loss of a debuffer/DPS/support toon in a competitive environment and even if it doesn't cause the death of the trader, it will put undue pressure on the doctor, other support healers to try to keep the trader alive during the insane agg fest immediately after popping, if it's not completely underrepresented as valid heal in teams, one only needs to consider the value in solo play to realize that it's a complete waste.

    Making it a % base heal will slightly improve it's use.
    Making it a 1s Activation will significantly improve it's use
    Making it a team heal including self with a lower recharge will make it useful.
    Making it a team % heal including self with lower recharge, lower activation time and not induce a crippling debuff will make it valuable.

    But, making it a team % transfer heal from self with lower recharge, lower activation time and not induce a crippling debuff will make it valuable, but doesn't impart any value to solo play or the other specific issue traders are dealing with in 18.7 which is the removal of SDS which was one of the only methods to help counter a MR alpha in PVP.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by McKnuckleSamwich View Post
    Ok I agree to some extent... but just look at the balance.

    Awakening wtf owns purple heart
    Two different profs, two different perks, can't compare them. This is just silly and you know it.
    Dagger 220/30/70 Shade // Attempted 219/24/?? Enforcer // Canidae 180/0/0 Adventurer // World 185/26/32 Meta-Physicist// Cramp 150/20/35 Engineer
    Ya wanna fix something - give RK mobs better xp, make RK matter again.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mamman View Post
    Give shades love or we will stop buffing people!!

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Notcrattey View Post
    Two different profs, two different perks, can't compare them. This is just silly and you know it.
    Of course I can compare them.

    I also contrasted them.

    I'll show you, for your own benefit of learning English skills!

    They are similar in the ways I've mentioned (both provide team heals) <-- note I've just compared them.

    And, They are different because one has a 1s execution while the other has a 3s execution; one heals the whole team while one heals team but not self; one has no debuff and one does. <-- there you go I've just contrasted them.

    Now, stop being silly and provide some constructive feedback.

  17. #17
    Plenty of useless perks in this game, I don't see why anyone would be against these (and lots of others) being updated.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Notcrattey View Post
    Two different profs, two different perks, can't compare them. This is just silly and you know it.
    Yeah... Advy is better in every way.

    Purple heart and the Sacrifice never made sense to me. Their rebalance is in order. Tweaking them would be nice.

    Someone put it under official 18.7 suggestions?

    They are fun perk concepts, Purple heart especialy... set trader health to 0 and pop complete heal on team, or atleast something in region of 20k.

    Sacrifice, make it scale with level. 1k is not enough at 220 and to much at 14. Say 2200 at 220 and 140 at 14. Also make sure trader dies afterwards...

    As for dying after use, maybe give trader a 3k DOT with 10th tick of 100k. So after perks run out trader dies.
    Quote Originally Posted by Michizure View Post
    This'll be fixed for the next patch

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Georgesmith View Post
    Yeah... Advy is better in every way.

    Purple heart and the Sacrifice never made sense to me. Their rebalance is in order. Tweaking them would be nice.

    Someone put it under official 18.7 suggestions?

    They are fun perk concepts, Purple heart especialy... set trader health to 0 and pop complete heal on team, or atleast something in region of 20k.

    Sacrifice, make it scale with level. 1k is not enough at 220 and to much at 14. Say 2200 at 220 and 140 at 14. Also make sure trader dies afterwards...

    As for dying after use, maybe give trader a 3k DOT with 10th tick of 100k. So after perks run out trader dies.
    Errr.. Why'd I use it if it actually kills me? I mean I'm not going to kill myself for the sake of your DD ranking. And if you ask me it is supposed to cripple the Trader, not actually be a suicide button.

  20. #20
    yea really.

    Which trader in his right mind will use something that's going to kill him?


    logically... none. BUT...

    If keeper's are getting a rez removal and an engineer is already casting a beacon warp, then a trader with 6 self buffs to get back in the fight would alllmost start to make sense if you had good logistics.

    If there were more people playing AO, it would start to make a lot of sense to have a keeper and engi parked just for transport and getting people back in the fight. A sacrifice to wipe half the opposing force due to huge add dmg and insta-kills galore could be a valid tactic.

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