Praxium matchup guides: vs Traders

What is this guide for?

This guide serves as an attempt to break down the PvP matchup against Traders at a thorough, general level, while keeping the majority of tactics on the bottom shelf. It is intentionally guild agnostic, makes no assumptions around MT or other optional includes, and does not attempt to be the end-all-be-all when it comes to strategy against the guild in question.

This guide assumes that Enrichment for the Trader is active.

Where are Traders strong?

• Stacked physical defenses
  • Trabe Chalice + Manifest Force
• Decent elemental defenses
• Incredibly low hinderance, high absorb armor
• Instant application, prep-less hard CC
• High accuracy ramping TM
  • Arbiter's Stylus
• High alpha strike damage
  • Enriched Crystal Dart
• % based incoming spell mitigation

What are their likely builds?

• Stats
  • Heavy emphasis on the Finesse/ offensive contest
    • Traders lack variety on offensive debilitations, especially hard CC.
    • What they lack in variety, though, they make up in extreme quality.
    • Speculate Coin requires no prep time, and no setup other than having coinage on-hand. SPECULATE COIN instantly applies a Finesse vs. Reflexes contest hard CC with a 2 second roundtime.
    • Many Traders will spend most of their stat points on AGILITY, as it serves as Primary in the Finesse/ contest.
      • A capped/near-capped Trader will likely aim for 120-140 base Agility to ensure these debilitations land.
  • A secondary emphasis on Discipline and Reflex
    • Losing access to your wards (via dispels) and casting (via Sanyu Lyva or Huldah's Pall) is crippling to any magic user.
      • A capped/near-capped Trader will aim for 130-140 base Discipline to ensure continuity of wards and spellcasting.
    • Reflex is Secondary in the Finesse/ offensive contest. Given Speculate Coin is the only native hard CC Traders have, landing it is of utmost priority.
      • A capped/near-capped Trader will aim for 130-140 base Reflex.
      • Note that putting points into both Agility and Reflex make them very resilient to spells and abilities that target /Reflexes.
  • A tertiary emphasis on Wisdom
    • Wisdom helps govern Starlight Aura Regen for Traders. While they likely will not have many points remaining to place here, this is the most common rollover TDP placement.
• Scroll spells
  • Anti-Stun
    • Traders have no native access to anti-stun in their kit. Anti-Stun is Holy mana, easiest for Traders to cast sorcerously.
  • Psychic Shield
    • Traders want to protect their wards against dispel and maintain their casting abilities. Since each of those debils target /Willpower, this is a must-include. PSY is mana native, a bonus.
  • Variable third slot
    • Traders are largely limited to buffs or defensive spells for their third scroll/tattoo slot. No magic spells key off Agility and Reflexes, which leaves them in a limited position to add offensive debilitations to their arsenal. ARS, Crystal Dart, and Starcrash are fantastic options, eliminating the need for supplemental Targeted Magic spells.
      • If a Trader is attempting to out-turtle their opponents (see below), the addition of Shear (blocks incoming/outgoing spells, native mana), Essence of Yew (increases defense against enemy SvS), Rage of the Clans (increases ability to hit opponents, hardest mana type) are all fantastic options.
      • If a Trader is attempting to out-alpha their opponents (see below), Centering (+balance, easiest mana), Substratum (+TM, hardest mana), or other buff fillers make a lot of sense.

What are they trying to do?

• Out-alpha their opponents
  • A fully enriched Crystal Dart against a debilitated target hurts a lot. This will regularly chunk their target's vitality by 30-50%. Winning a fight is a lot easier when you are starting with that kind of vitality advantage.
  • Traders opting for alpha strike damage via Crystal Dart have the option of running Mask of the Moons for their cyclic rather than Arbiter's Stylus.
    • Mask of the Moons is a cyclic that blocks a % of the incoming hostile spells. This % is roughly 25% of the incoming spells without Speculate Luck active, and 50% if you have Luck.
      • Depending on the RNG, Traders have the most potent anti-magic capabilities in the game, as unlike WORM/AC/Shear/etc... they retain full outbound spellcasting with MOM active.
  • However, this strategy relies on their tert TM outstripping your defenses, which is not likely to occur until the Trader is approaching cap. In those instances, then, the Trader will likely try to...
• Out-turtle their opponents
  • Traders without near-capped Targeted Magic are hamstrung by their Tert offenses. Their primary viable means of dealing damage pre-cap is Arbiter's Stylus, a Targeted Magic spell that dramatically ramps its accuracy over time.
  • Traders opting for ramping damage via Arbiter's Stylus will find the rest of their RT free for other activities, and likely to be spent on REPAIRing their ablative wards.
    • Unlike every other caster in the game, a Trader's Trabe Chalice and Iridius Rod spells cannot be repaired/reinforced/replaced by re-casting. Re-casting simply extends the duration of the ward in its current state.
    • If TRC or IR takes enough damage, they stop mitigating damage altogether.
    • REPAIRing TRC and IR takes a RT, the duration of which is dependent on a Trader's skills/stats.
    • By focusing on ARS to apply damage, a turtling Trader can devote all of their RT to tossing coins at their target and repairing their wards to maximum protective status.

How do you win?

• Minimize their alpha strike
  • Since a Trader's alpha strike is predicated on hitting for maximum damage with a fully Enriched Crystal Dart, holding your shield in your off-hand and stancing Shield + Evasion is your best option in minimizing the incoming damage. Crystal Dart is not defense bypassing.
  • Extensive testing shows that holding/stancing Shield against a Trader reduces their initial alpha strike damage significantly. If they continue to rely on CRD damage instead of swapping to melee, you will continue to mitigate a significant portion of the damage for the rest of the fight.
• Move rooms
  • If a Trader is utilizing ARS against you, move rooms often.
  • ARS ramps accuracy with each cyclic pulse, hitting more often the longer it is allowed to ramp.
  • Moving rooms breaks ARS, causing the cyclic to be released. The Trader has to re-prep and re-cast the spell, starting the ramping process over from the beginning.
• Bring varied damage
  • A Trader that is able to stack TRC and MAF against an opponent is a Trader overwhelmingly favored to win the fight.
  • When Enriched, TRC is a fantastic physical ablative ward that stacks with the MAF, itself a fantastic physical ablative ward.
  • By bringing varied damage (physical + elemental), you force the Trader to either drop TRC or MAF and put up Iridius Rod, halving their physical mitigation...or eat 100% of the elemental damage that you are bringing to the table.
• Hit their /Fortitude or /Willpower defenses
  • As many Traders are going to be focused on Agility and Reflex to the detriment of Wisdom and Stamina, their /Fortitude and /Willpower defenses will be lower than other comparable MU's.
    • Target them with spells like Nissa's Binding, Rend, Ward Break, Huldah's Pall, Sanyu Lyba, etc... While you may not land the spells immediately, PSY is ablative, and will likely fall far faster than when utilized by other guilds due to stat allocation.
  • Note, Nonchalance is native protection for the Trader against Charm/ and Fear/ spells. Where possible, avoid those offensive contests when contesting the Trader's /Fortitude and /Willpower defenses.
• Don't give them time
  • The more space a Trader is able to create in a fight or the more breathing room you give them, the longer their wards will remain at or near full strength, and the more pulses ARS has to ramp against you.
• Stat for /Reflexes
  • A Trader's native hard CC is completely tied to hitting a target's /Reflexes contest. By stacking Reflex and/or Agility as a tertiary stat, you completely remove (or at least reduce) their ability to debilitate you.