NOTE! There's a revised and better version of this guide *here*
Trader Guide
A rough guide in the works
Trader, the profession people love to hate.
The Trader Profession is a very diverse profession.
We get roots, calms, debuffs, heals and well .. even charms ..
Considering our abilities, the trader is primarily meant as a backup team player,
but with a bit of skill, they can be quite competent at soloing as well.
The trader is also famous (or infamous) for his/her abilities in PVP,
and especially towards lower through mid levels, we can be quite the damage dealers played well.
( Also check "Guide Update : Trader's Role" in a post further down )
Choosing a breed :
Any breed can be a reasonably good trader,
It's just weighing some abilities over other and pick what you think you'd like.
- Atrox traders get more HP, and they have a slight easier time getting into good Str/Sta
armors. On the other hand, they get less nanopool and takes a bit more time getting to the
really good drains. I'd say good early on, but may miss out on a few things later in life.
- Opifex traders can get a little bit better evades and a bit higher attack rating,
going the traditional way with shotgun, bit higher inits f.ex, but they get a bit less HP.
- Nanomage traders get to their best drains a bit earlier on and the nanopool helps
keep you alive, but they have less HP and can suffer a bit on the armor-wise.
Nanomage may be a bit more difficult at start, but the strengths of the breed will
be more prominent and pay off later on.
- Solitus trader is an allround very decent trader choice. Probably "the trader breed" if any.
As you can see, it's really just picking what abilities one appreciates over others.
The way to play : Weapon to choose?
There are many ways of playing a trader. However, the trader is the only profession
that really gets the opportunity to excel with shotguns. Thus, I assume you'll want
to go the traditional way, eventually ending up as a 100% crit dependent baddie
with a miraculously unpredictable damage output. (Well, not all shotguns are crit dependent,
but using one is, in my opinion, an interesting change from a lot of other profs )
The reason traders are the only profession that really excels with shotguns is because
soldiers are the only ones with a non-general shotgun buff and it's self only.
For them, it's better to use something else. We only get expertise buffs, but we also have drains
to help our attack ratings go up. Besides, it's a cheap weapon skill.
When you're about to pick your shotgun,
I recommend picking one of these :
- Vektor ND Shotgun / Home Defender
These shotguns have no specials at all. On the bright side, you don't have to put any special skills
to use them, and that can save you some IP on the lower to mid levels. Also, on the bright side,
twinking these babies on with drains and getting a wrangle from your fellow trader makes'em easy
to equip on high QLs. Also, they're very easy to get a hold of and can be found in shop terminals.
I think I'd pick Vektor over home defender as it hits for energy damage instead of the home defender's
projectile. The way people put up duck explosives, they'll crit in pvp as well.
- Pump Trainee/Pump Master
Awesome gun. If you can get a hold of one, enjoy it while you can because as they only go from QL 40 (trainees) up to 50 (master),
you'll outgrow it in no-time. It is a *very* good Shotgun, though, very good.
- Ithaca
This is an old PVP favourite. Truth is, being crit reliant as it is, it's best to wait with these until
you can get on at least a ql 250 Vision Enhancer, granting you 8% crit chance. Also, having two specials,
it can get a bit on the expensive side, IP-wise, on lower through mid levels. Also, having two specials,
you'll probably end up wielding it on far lower QL than a home defender or Vektor.
so, leave this one in the freezer for now.
The Way to Play : Armor to choose?
Ouch, this is a hard one. Generally, good strength agility armors like primus, secundus, tertius and flower tech
is cheap and easy to get a hold of. Mantis is also great and dead sexy. At lower level, going the intelligence/psychic
way, you could go and get some living cyber armor f.ex wich has some nice bonuses.
The way to play : Distribute IP!
A dreaded topic indeed. Some will agree, some probably won't.
ABILITIES ]::..
I think I'd say all, perhaps a little less sense/psychic
on lower levels. Everything here is quite important.
MELEE ]::..
Nope
THROWN ]::..
Nope
RANGED ]::..
Go for shotgun skill here. If you're going with vektor or home defender, wait until later with
putting up specials when you can use a change of weapon and it'll be cheaper.
SPEED ]::..
Ranged Init - Go for it. Going the way you're going, you'll soon equip scopes that will lower this skill,
and it's generally a skill worth upping.
Nano C Init - Yeah, put some IPs into this one as well. When you're well up some levels, you can put in a
Nanoformula Recompiler that will add lots to this as well - so that should help.
Evades, Duck explosives - These skills work great on a well played trader. Ladder some good drains on the mobs
and they won't hit you as much, wich helps immensly. This should be effective in pvm up to and through
title level 2.
TRADE & REPAIR ]::..
Comp Lit - Max this one. Anything else? .. No, if you made a trader to do tradeskills, it's better to be patient
and wait until you hit title cap around level 130 or so before putting many of these skills up.
You may want to put some up, but IP soon gets scarce, and I recommend you save what you can.
NANO & AIDING ]::..
Don't put up matter creation and matter metamorphosis.
For now, those two skills are more worth in the ways of IP you can save on not putting them up.
You can put those up later in your career.
You may want to max the other nano skills, especially time & space and psychological modifications.
These two skills are used for roots, drains, wrangles, the nanos that shorten down roots and
probably something else not mentioned. Psychological modifications is also used in calms and (*gross*) charms.
Charms will kill you, but calms are good. Biological metamorphosis is for heals.
Sensory impression is for calms and our yummy Comp Lit buffs.
SPYING & NAVIGATION ]::..
If anything, put some in perception for PVP and perhaps some help on the scopes.
Map Navigation can be imped, but enough to get the most basic map reader upgrades won't
exactly hurt you much. Break and Entry should be *at least* your level if you want a chance at opening chests
later on. If you don't want to open chests and doors, forget it. You can open them later in your career.
By now, you've no tradeskill use for the skill anyways.
As you go up, IP gets tighter. It's up to you to find out what to prioritise. I, myself, tried a somewhat risky
approach and only put up time & space and psychological modifications and a little bit sensory impression
up until level 70-80 where I had a bit more IP and got'em maxed. The reason was I wanted to PVP,
and I thought I could be better at it if I spent my IP on other stuff than calms and health drains.
Healing in teams could be done by others and in pvp, opponents would be dead before I relied on health drains anyways.
I also left the calming on those levels up to others ..
It worked, and IP never got really tight for me because when I started PVMing more, I got spare IPs to put
on the other skills anyways. I doubt my way is something one would generally recommend, so think out your own strategy.
The way to play : Laddering drains!
You got your trader up and going. Now it's time to check out what you can do with him/her.
The trader's strength lies primarily in his/her drains. There are two lines of drains for you once you're up and about,
namely "Ransack Skills" and "Deprive Skills". These come in different QLs, some better than the others.
This is how to put them to use :
When you cast deprive skills on a leet, it's attack skills and nano skills will decrease.
Your attack skills and nano skills, however, will go up.
If you then cast ransack skills on the same leet, it will stack with the deprive skills,
thus lowering the leet's skills even further and your skills even higher.
Now that your skills have been temporarily upped, you may be able to cast a better version
of deprive skills, wich puts them up further. Then you may be able to cast a better ransack.
It goes on like this until you're at the best drain you can cast. Your attack skills and nano skills
will be upped considerably, so you'll do more damage, crit more often, be able to equip better guns,
throw nastier nanos and so on while the duration lasts. Note that specials, like fling shot, do not
increase by draining mobs.
When doing missions, etc. this optimal state of performance is where traders prefer to "work".
when one is at one's highest drains, just make sure to recast your highest ransack/deprive before
they time out.
Keep track of the skills you have when fully drained. Also keep an eye on the drains you just can't use yet
and get get them when you can. When you have a new drain run, recheck your skills to see if you can run an
even better drain than before. Drain, check, upload nano and repeat if possible and you'll be uber in no-time.
Using drains to equip "stuff" :
- Better Shotgun
This is really simple, and you'll probably figure it out on your own.
Get a shotgun expertise, get your top drains going, note down your shotgun skill.
Then check how much above your drained shotgun skill you can go before you are Over Equipped.
This is easily done by doing a "/tell helpbot OE #" (# is your skill). Then check what QL shotgun you can use and
not be OEd while at fully drained. To equip the shotgun, run expertise, find a trader that can give you the wrangle
you need, then run and drain something and equip it. Now, you'll probably be OEd, but as soon as your drains hit the
roof, you'll be under the 20% curse.
Some prefer a bit lower QL guns in PVP, wich
may be smart sometimes, considering what might happen.
- Better NCU upgrades
You can also use this method to get on NCU. Get a decent amount of NCU. When draining up, hitting the +75 comp lit
buff doesn't take long. If you can afford it, get some comp lit or Psymod/senseimp assist imps in as well.
What you want is to get enough NCU to do something like this :
Sensory impression expertise + teachings (+25)/masteries(+50)/infuses(+90)/mochams(+140) +
Psychological Modifications expertise + teachings (+25)/masteries(+50)/infuses(+90)/mochams(+140) +
Biggest possible wrangle (up to 131 or 132) from a fellow trader +
your own drains.
This ought to get your nano skills up by a lot.
Probably enough to run some nifty comp lit buffs, namely :
Frequent Customer (+75), Bulk Trader (+160) and Trading Mogul (+260)
Having run the highest possible of these, start swapping out your old NCU stuff with new upgrades.
If you don't have enough NCU to do this process, do what you can so you get more NCUs to repeat.
Along with more NCUs, you might want a "Nano Formula Recompiler" at as high QL as possible to get those
drains flying. You'll feel like a whole new trader afterwards ..
The way to play : Getting a proper scope.
Yes, these help even at low QLs. I'm afraid I'll have to try and detail this section a bit later on, because I simply
can't remember what perception buffs you can get at lower levels and how high. Anyways, it's as easy as this. If you're
using a vektor f.ex in your lower levels, you'll want the vision enhancer that gives highest crit percentage while
crippling your inits as little as possible. "Vision Enhancer" are easily obtained. Say you want a 3% scope, then check
either http://www.aodb.info and look it up there or http://www.auno.org .. By investigating a little bit, you'll
find that on QL 134, the Vision Enhancer gives you a +2% bonus to crit chance. At QL 135, it ladders up to 3%.
Get the lowest for the wanted percentage and get it in. Both fixers and adventurers can buff perception,
but there are some level caps on the buffs that I can't remember at the moment.
( Better check "Guide Update : Getting a proper TIM Scope" if you don't use crit dependent shotguns )
The way to play : Basic PVP/PVM tip
As you probably have figured out, drains are nasty in PVP and will cripple most others.
I'd say the height of trader PVP would be during title level 3, from level 50 to 100.
Also, as you might know, people don't tend to put too much in duck explosives as it's the
less useful of the three dodging skills. The evadeskill for shotguns usually being duck explosives,
you'll crit a lot.
I won't delve into techniques and whatnot on pvp, but there's one tip worth mentioning :
If you can, drain up before you enter the pvp zone.
This is usually done by finding some low level mob, draining it and then calming it, keeping it as a "pet".
These "drainpets" are often used in pvm or to keep your skills up in tower battle, etc. as well if there's nothing else
to drain. You may have seen traders draining the ICC guards in Meetmedere as well or pulling rollerrats and whatnot
with them when they're marching out to war.
Some Final(?) Words ..
Check later posts for tips from other traders!
Also check out Arowen's Trader Guide - Also check the thread about it here ..
Added Sections On Later Posts :
Guide Update : Trader's Role
Guide Update : Earning Money
Guide Update : Getting a proper TIM Scope
Guide Update : Implants!
For you who may have looked this up for help on your new trader,
welcome to the family ..