Oki, so I'm making a thread for my trader (Rulzwrngl), as he's starting to creep slowly towards endgame, and I have to put some thought into the setup.
First off, symbs!
Need the following:
Intelligent Support:
Head
Lhand
Larm
Intelligent Control
Chest
Waist
Rhand
QL300 implant:
Lwrist + MM/RS/NR clusters
Traders can use Artillery, Support, Control and Extermination.
NEED:
Eye - Support - Vortexx
Larm - Support, no phys init on control - Vortexx
Rwrist - Control or support - Vortexx
Lwrist - 300 imp (MM/RS/NR)
Rhand - Control or Support, Control has tradeskills (Need control, got support for beta (has MA))
Lhand - Support, no MA on control - Mitaar
GOT:
Legs - Control, no duck/dodge on support - 12m/nerevta
Ear - Support or control, doesn't matter
Brain - Support has dimach, while Control has tradeskills, whichever fits better
Rarm - Support, no phys init on control
Chest - Control, No skill lock and strength on support
Waist - Control, no sense or body dev on support
Feet - Support, no MA/phys init on control (no evade on support though, but you win some you lose some)
Last edited by Rulzern on Wed Mar 18, 2015 12:22 pm, edited 5 times in total.
The crit bonus on the MA weapons is pretty significant. (500 for the weapons, and 630 for the 3k MA item).
Currently, I get around 2k and 3k more damage from crits than normal hits.
With triple-wielding, we're at (ideally) 45 hits per minute, plus 10 fast attacks and 5(?) brawls, but there are some extra factors that play into this as well; add damage has an effect on accumulator and health plunder, which add up to around 13 hits from health plunder per minute, and 15 accumulator procs per minute.
So in total, +crit has an effect on 60 hits per minute, and +dmg has an effect on 88 hits per minute.
Assuming an average effect of a crit to be 2/3rds in favor of the weapons (in reality it is more), the crit bonus is around 2.3k, for each % crit, that that is equivalent to 23 added damage for 60 hits per minute. This is equivalent to around 16 add. damage that effects all 88 hits per minute.
So, each %crit is worth around 16 add damage.
EDIT:
It should be noted that add. damage also increases the healing done by the accumulator proc, by 81% of the added damage.
So in total, the difference isn't that great (around 5%) without add damage, working with min damage situations. In non-min damage situations MA-related things pull out far ahead. In addition, all add-damage has 18 extra hits per minute (so each added +dmg adds 58 DPM, in contrast to shotguns 40 DPM).
I beleive these estimates are fairly conservative, traders do get more shotgun, but my MA estimate is on the low end also, and extra MA skill improves the MA weapon dramatically (up to 300-990 (630)). I also did not consider the effects of having more hits for procs (accumulator and LE procs are very important for DD), so in all, I think the MA trader pulls quite a bit ahead of the shotgun trader in the end, for pure DD.
There's ben several long winded breakdowns on AO forums (I was one of the initial promoters of MA trader as long ago as 2007) and I've written substantial add dmg vs crit breakdowns for it complete with calcs.
no link atm, sorry.
" I Don't Like That Man. I Must Get To Know Him Better." -Abraham Lincoln
I use obitoms+calculator on my MA and even with DOF/limber I get into trouble with agg and not having enough defence./HP to deal with big mob damage.
I think you'll find with a 15% scope+snipers friend+gauntlet Rshould/icy brawn+1 igoc+DB chest and your nanite enhanced drains that your crit rate will be easily enough to keep you feeling really DPSy.
I'd go with just the one for starters, and pair it with an infused ancient defender (first aid/AAD/HP). util 3 will be DB module? If not stick a regular ancient defender or an infused vision one in that slot.
But I'd be careful about going too suicide mode - I think you'll find your damage, even without all the extras will be enough to draw agg fairly regularly - if you don't balance your offence and def/HP, you could be landing in a world of hurt more often than you like.
Traders don't really have oh shit buttons like MA's do (ES/ring heal/inner balance)
" I Don't Like That Man. I Must Get To Know Him Better." -Abraham Lincoln
MA damage should be significantly higher than trader damage (post-1k AR nerf + worse MA weapon), which means that even with all the "extra" stuff, I should still have trouble pulling agg from "real" DDers, but I suppose time will tell.
I tried to get betas on, and realized what a pain in the rear alphas are going to be. Since alphas are almost necessary for a decent setup, I switched breed to solitus (gasp!).
I think I have pretty much all I need, want to get one more research done, and I should be ready to go. And I don't think I need to start with brain, IIRC I won't be missing any stats/treatment in the other slots (intelligent ear was more or less a r-click, without buff weapons, and many points over in most stats, using suboptimal buff gear and missing one relevant stat research).
Cool if you don't have to start with the brain. Do you have enough AI perk points to trains all the possible lines buffing abilities? It can help with the dreaded one or tow points finally missing (due to the way the game rounds numbers sometimes). Well, you know that anyhow
A small update, all the alphas and the 300 imp are in.
1% crit is equivalent to around 21 add. damage in my setup without spamming health plunder, so DChest is much much better than combat chest. (and scope is much better than combat hud)