Bounty Hunter Archive
Thread: Pistoleer or Carbineer
Zimal wrote:
this may be biased due to being a pistoleer but pistoleer is better
i concur with my friend above me
Both are excellent professions, and some of us master BOTH of them 
Since a double mastery is out of the question for you, I would probably go with Carbineer. Without having a full combat template, it is going to be very important that you keep high end mobs away from you. You wont be Level 80, so there are a lot of mobs out there that will hit you hard, and a lot of mid level mobs that will agro you when they wouldnt agro Level 80s.
Since you are most likely not planning on being a fulltime combat player, I think Carbineer would give you more exit strategies from potential harmful situations than Pistoleer would. I say this for many reasons:
- Crowd controlling. You will be able to flee mutliple targets until they break agro. This will be more efficient for you than actually standing and fighting them in many cases. You will have a very effective snare, an area snare, and a ranged KD. You will be able to run straight through an entire field of red cons, target one, spam suppression fire, and keep running and most likely live without much of a scratch.
- Raw damage. You will have one of the most damaging specials in the game. On the rare occasions when you will actually be standing and fighting, you will be able to hit hard when you need to.
- Battle armor cert. This gives you excellent all-around protection. It is not what I wear, but that is because my template is geared around a different style of combat. Battle armor in general will serve you very well in all walks of PvE, and with a PSG you will have a sizeable increase in energy protection
- Great balance of speed, accuracy,and defensive mods.
These all make Carbineer a superior choice for you as a SINGLE combat mastery. Make no mistake, I am a firm believer in Pistoleer, and with certain templates Pistoleer can be far more dangerous than Carbineer can. In your case however I would recommend Carbineer. And rifleman isnt even a choice to be honest. Rifleman is by far the weakest of the standalone ranged professions. It can be incredibly dangerous when combined with other professions, but on it's own it isnt all that great. Pistoleer is a little better off, but once again it's true strength and power come from combining it with other professions.
In fact, I think THAT is the big problem with the debate about ranged professions these days. So many people compare the ranged professions as individual entities when comparing them. This is ludicrous. Very rarely will you see a hybrid crafting/combat template like yours. Comparing WHOLE combat templates is a far better way to assess the strength of the ranged professions. Is Rifleman all that great? Well they get nice range and damage, but they get crap (and I mean CRAP) for specials. But when you combine Rifleman and BH, or Rifleman and Pistoleer, or Rifleman and CM, and you are talking about some seriously dangerous combat templates. Carbineer was meant to be a great middleground, and as a result it is extremely well balanced. It does NOT mean that it is the best ranged professions. There is no such thing. But in a standalone sense, when you are only comparing the individual ranged professions themselves, Carbineer does stand out as a smart choice.
Hope this helps!
/whap Davidii
/burstrun
ChefVomit wrote:/whap Davidii
/burstrun
*grumbles something about needing to kill Zemzam again*
Trebonious wrote:
ChefVomit wrote:/whap Davidii
/burstrun
*grumbles something about needing to kill Zemzam again*/shakesfist at Davidii
DAMMIT I BLAME AKEEMA! I wanted you all to myself! ARRRRGGGGH!!
I'm a die hard pistoleer but i've picked up carbines as a compliment and to extend my range. I'm finding that situations requiring anything over 50m are actually quite limited but 35m is simply ineffective for the purpose of kiting. If you can not dedicate your template to combat I would not suggest anything more than dabbling in pistols.
If you feel you can make do with nothing but stims for healing I'd suggest DE/Master Carbines/Pistols 0404. The general mods from those two lines of pistoleer are very nice to have and the disarming shot and stopping shot specials would probably be quite helpful to you.
If you'd rather have healing in your template (which i highly recomdend), You could try DE/Master Carbines/CM 4000 (or it might be prefered to drop that top box of cm and geta few boxesof the heailng efficiency from medic). With some easily craftable clothes and foods your heals should be pretty decent.
oh and /blowkiss davidII;/wedgie Zemzam
ChefVomit wrote:
Trebonious wrote:
ChefVomit wrote:/whap Davidii
/burstrun
*grumbles something about needing to kill Zemzam again*/shakesfist at Davidii
DAMMIT I BLAME AKEEMA! I wanted you all to myself! ARRRRGGGGH!!
Sorry Zemzam, only Silly gets me all to herself.
TheSillyOne wrote:oh and /blowkiss davidII;/wedgie Zemzam
/wink TheSilly
DoctorInju wrote:
Thanks to everyone for all the help. Based on what some people have said here, especially ChefVomit (thanks for the great response), I decided to use one of my near innumerable respecs to switch everything I had in Pistoleer into Carbineer. With a 2242 tree in it, I've noticed a massive increase in my survivability. Carbineer has more of what I was used to with ranged combat, anyway (having last played 2 years ago).
Again, thanks to everyone.
STARSIDER STREET FIGHTERS TO THE RESCUE!!!!
glad to be of service and i'm sure we all hope you have fun with your newest template