Trader PVP strategies lawl

Intro

The first thing you should know as a Trader engaging in PVP is that you’re going to lose. Just about every single time. But as long as you go in with the correct expectations and only PVP on your own terms when you’re ready to get killed, then it can still be a lot of fun. Since pretty much your only shot at winning a fight is to vastly out-train your opponent (even an Empath or Commoner would have the advantage assuming equal time spent training), I’ll mostly focus on the best ways to go about training for PVP as a Trader.

Armor skills:

Obviously you should be training shield as your highest armor skill. After that I strongly recommend training all 7 other armor skills. We’re one of the few classes with Armor as a secondary skill so it’s definitely worth taking advantage of for the TDPs. In terms of which to wear when actually PVP’ing, I’d go with leather or maybe light chain since obviously evasion is king in PVP

Weapon skills:

First of all, Light Thrown is a given. The closest thing we have to a wannabe disabler, Speculate Coin, depends almost entirely on Light Thrown skill (some people think it depends mostly on Trading skill which is completely untrue - 1000+ ranks of trading won’t even hit past 200 ranks of evasion if you didn’t train LT).

If possible, I would recommend also pairing LT with training the Offhand Weapon skill so you can throw lefthanded while aiming a crossbow in your righthand. But if it would require backtraining to catch up (which it does for me personally), then I wouldn’t bother.

Speaking of Crossbows, you could always just rely on LT as your primary weapon, but I prefer Light Crossbow for the full aimed shot bonus. The hardest thing to do in PVP as a Trader is actually hit your opponent, so you need any bonus you can get.

After LT and an aimed ranged weapon, I would just pick any other 1-2 weapons for training purposes, and just in case melee PVP combat is not worthless in Combat 3.0

Other important skills:

Arcana - try to train at least 200 ranks in this skill so you don’t burn more than 1 charge when using CJs. It’s not a huge deal but you definitely need to keep CJs available on you at all times, and less charges used means less hassle with refilling them.

Evasion - Obviously the most useful skill on this list, along with Shield. Always go with 100% evasion, 80+% shield in PVP rather than the opposite, since our one combat buffing ability is a large evasion boost.

Hiding - it is obviously recommended for all classed to train hiding for PVP, although you could probably get away without training it as a Trader. Against any opponent that you actually stand a chance at hitting, they are very unlikely to be able to hit you if you stand out in the open. So generally all you accomplish with hiding is drawing out an already boring fight where neither side can hit the other. Still it’s always better to have options, so I strongly recommend training it anyways

Perception - this obviously useful skill suffers some of the same issues as hiding. Anyone with enough hiding to bypass a Trader’s perception will basically always have enough evasion to be unhittable. Still, you should definitely focus heavily on training perception since you can even do it easily while outside of combat (collecting shoe tacks works inside Trader shops, or collecting rocks whenever letting the caravan lead while trading contracts). You don’t want to find yourself with enough weapon skill to hit an opponent but not enough perception to find them hiding, as this would be more embarrassing than a Mark Sanchez GQ photoshoot.

Trading - Traders’ circling requirements basically look like this: 8 ranks of trading per level and that’s it. So never forget the importance of occasionally training the most brutally boring skill in the game, since each rank basically amounts to 20+ TDPs when you consider how many TDPs you gain from leveling per each 8 ranks of trading.


Actual Combat Strategies:

Unfortunately, this part is pretty short. You can’t really get all that much more effective as a Trader than just popping CJs and speculate defense at the start, then standing there in the open hoping your opponent gets confused enough to give you time for a full aim, then throw a Speculate Coin, pray for a stun and immediately fire your crossbow. You may be able to draw things out longer by utilizing stealth and running from room to room, but ultimately as a weapons tertiary class with no disabler it generally all comes down to whether you can even land a hit AT ALL. This will probably get even worse in Combat 3.0 where the GMs’ goals are to tone down offense and buff defense, plus every class except Traders is getting completely revamped spells and abilities. But like I said earlier, PVP can still be a lot of fun as a Trader if you go in with the correct expectations.