Trader Pets - The final conclusion?

[baffle]

First I have to admit that we have been holding back info about pets until we knew more about them and ofcourse to get some issues looked at. I will give you my view of what the real purpose of these pets are.

First of all, like we all predicted each of the pets have a debuff they love to spam on on their victim. The following debuffs are :

Reduced Efficiency - Same line as plunder, 190%
Enervating Speech - Same line as Forced Bankruptcy
Captive Audience - The general Root Line
Revealed Indiscretion - The Abolish Line

They first thing we focused on when testing these pets was.. ofcourse. the damage. As the pets are working today, they are not doing any damage that are worth to mention. This will need some more tuning.

.. but there are other aspects of these pets that suddenly tured out to be quite surprising. For you people out there that have a hard time landing a plunder, root(s) or lacking the time to drain nano, these pets have all the debuffs in one nano. The pet nano itself.

Now, for the even better part. We did some testing in Ent arena trying to figure out how these pets worked in pvp. We knew ofcourse that the damage was not something to bother looking at, so we focused on the pet debuffs.

Trader Pets vs. 220 Enforcer

Take 1 :
Full Agg - 1335 NR
All the pet debuffs landed

Take 2:
Full def with HHAB - 1835 NR
All the debuffs landed, except the root. (?)

Take 3:
Full def with HHAB and rage - 2635 NR
All the debuffs landed.

Take 4:
Full def with HHAB and rage - 2635 NR
All the debuffs landed.

We also suspect that some of the pets run their debuffs multiple times, such as the root. I suspect that one of the pets as described in the root nano have a 30% chanse of casting a root (that wasnt breakable with rage?), so I would guess this is every 12-15 seconds. We are not sure about this yet.. just speculating. More testing is needed, but the best way to get more feedback is to get these pets obtained on live and start the madness.

So far my conclusion is : The Trader Pets are ment for pvp and to initiate a combat in pvm for mobs that can be tricky to debuff.. but most of all the pvp part. Right now they are debuffing maniacs.

However. As you are probably thinking now.. what about the cast time? This is a big issue at the moment, and I would like to see the 10 seconds reduced to maybe 7 seconds (or lower) and we are starting to get somewhere. If i dont remember wrong, a dev once said that the trader pets might need the cast time reduced, so hoping for this!

I think these pets have a great potential.

One last question for the high end traders out there. What is your nano init?

Please, only constructive feedback here

Edit: And no, I dont know where to get them.

[sobeguy]

Final conclusion? On live, its still all speculation. We don't have the pets yet, so I can't say much about them that we don't all already know.

As for nano init I usually run around with 2k give or take. Lvl 218 now.

[Afelia]

Thanks for the info Baffle.

One last question for the high end traders out there. What is your nano init?

1300-ish. Never bothered to spend IP since level 200 and I use Pande NCU in slot 6. It's time to rethink that. (been using AI compiler in slot 6 for PvP)

Looking at the NPC-items in the database, the damage is not bad, it's hilarious, if I understand all the DB-items correctly. They could do some tuning to the damage too.

[baffle]

Looking at the NPC-items in the database, the damage is not bad, it's hilarious, if I understand all the DB-items correctly.

Correct. They do I min damage of 90 sl. Damage could be tuned up. I can reveal that the four pets did an average of 4k damage on infero dragons after AC debuff during the 60s they live.. and around 1500 damage without. If we are thinking damage only, 4k is about the damage i loose casting the pets.

Im not sure if they are supposed to do damage, but to make them more useful in different situations a damage boost woudnt hurt.

[bryoni]

heh pets do look awsome, so the main focus of them are for PvP use and maybe a little raid entertainment.

I do have one critisim, these pets are for 220 use (re req) a trader PvP viabilty starts fading about 180? to almost nothing around 205? (i dont count ganking greys and greens as a viablility) compared to other professions.

In short Traders are V nice at pvp upto 149 then a 'no go' to 220.

Imagine being 219 and carp at PvP because you don't have the pets.

Oh well at least this does give some motivation to get to that magic level of 220 and yes it something i would like (after all most 220's will PvP as due course).

Just need to get them in game now huh ; ).

[Nahia]

first off my nano init is around 2.3k self

now about the pets themselves, my main issue about them before I can even try them out is the locktime compared to their duration

I was thinking maybe when we cast them we can choose between 4 buffs, each pet having 1 to offer and that they might last maybe 30min with then 30min before we can get 1 again, whih would have ben fine by me

But as it isnt the case, even if their effect sound good especially as it's all together I still think the 1h lock is way too long, reduce it to 20min and it can become interesting
but if main purpose is pvp then it's certainly 1 vs 1 cause I dont see that being great help in mass pvp at all and with 1min per hour I doubt this will be as welcome as it could be
1min out of 20 would still only be 5% of the time so I dont think it'd be overpowered now would it ?
tbh as there's no stun effect in the lot even shorter would be fine imo as some prof would be kinda unaffected even by all those, unless the pets become great dmg too

[Sell]

my nano init is like 1.6k, never concentrated on it

the pets look ok, but still they are a novelty imo, they aint gonna help us any

[Solerna]

ok a pvp aid at lvl 220

I'm nost sure how good they are the amount of 220 traders is limited wish means the usefull ness of the pets are...

Now if I ever get them up, having 4 pets for 60 secs once every hr isn't going to help much in pvp, ofcourse if u do a friendly duel they work but for anything else I can not se how. Reduce the cast time and the might become a way to survive?

I'n my opinion a revised charm line would be more inline with how I feel traders should be. Maybe this is a step on the way? *hoping*

[baffle]

I'n my opinion a revised charm line would be more inline with how I feel traders should be. Maybe this is a step on the way? *hoping*

Ideas around Traders and charms have been suggested many times in the past, but we have always met the wall when it comes to suggestions in that category. I dont think that would ever be realistic. I remember Mercatura and also Baxie said this in their time.. and I had the same experience.

The pets we get now is probably the closest thing we ever get, so I guess we need to make the best out of that situation.

btw: Will be gone for some days now. Im back next week.

[Nova]

Hmm.

My final conclusion:
Those pets are just out there to test out the new profession what come next epansion AO:Lost Eden. Some kind of necromancer.

[bryoni]

got to be careful what you say about trader charms atm, recently i posted something about the way it works as a line and had comments removed because it is was a discussion about an exploit, cant see what it was i said and i am not sure i want to know if it relates to expliot (did post anything that i havent posted many times in the last 3 years.

V odd.

On topic having had a chat ig GC about this (guild is one of the few with two.. yes two... 220/218 traders in it) it is of concern that pet seems to be focused on PvP and only avialable at 220.

[Nahia]

Hmm.

My final conclusion:
Those pets are just out there to test out the new profession what come next epansion AO:Lost Eden. Some kind of necromancer.

hmmm let's see, so it's usable only by lvl 220's of one of the least played prof at this lvl, cant be found on live yet and only usable for 1min per hour
Could hardly make it worse for a "test"

[Phab]

got to be careful what you say about trader charms atm, recently i posted something about the way it works as a line and had comments removed because it is was a discussion about an exploit, cant see what it was i said and i am not sure i want to know if it relates to expliot (did post anything that i havent posted many times in the last 3 years.

V odd.

Thats in reference to an old old 'sploit. God knows why it hasn't been removed yet.
Most traders, atleast the old schoolers, knows how this works, but I don't know anyone that uses it.

Sorry about the off topic =)

[dodgyforums]

I conclude that trader's are not a pet class.

And this is a half-assed "fix".

[Shagie]

I agree I think the existing issues could be re-examined. A pet is just going to create even more problems, and doesn't really address the real issues.

[Shareida]

Stopped raising Nano init at 1.7k aswell. Since highlevel Sl nanos are capped at 2 sec casting speed anyways.

[Rabalder]

As a nano here says; Sometimes the speaker at a press conference won't shut up. Sometimes the speaker is as interesting as a dead chirop. That sometime may be now. FC was obious thinking of trader community when making these.

[Palmero]

so when is FC going to do somthing usefull, like adding a pvp shotgun and new drains?

[dodgyforums]

lol just delete your trader, it's never going to be fixed

there won't be any new uber drains

salabim won't ever get aimed shot added to it

and "support caster" attack rating will stay as it is or maybe nerfed more