Carbineer Archive

Ok here comes soemthing down the pipe for you all. This is the Carbineer State of Profession thread. In this thread I will list some bugs, issues and the like that are currently plauging the carbineer. This thread was asked from us from our assistant community manager and will have direct interaction with him. This will be a good sum of the list of issues that we have that Thunderheart will personally take care of. Please feel free of what you think of the list, any changes, agree with it, etc. Moving on, I would like you all to share what you think of the list or perhaps you have anything to add.

My overview of the carbineer profession is that it is simply unfinished. The carbineer itself is a playable profession, however, there are distinct problems within the class that keeps it from being what it could be. That is true for a lot of professions as well, however, I feel that every profession should be able to be played well seperately. I will now start the list.

• It was always the biggest complaint about the carbineer and still holds true today. The HAM costs of the carbine have been outrageous since the first time I saw a carbineer in the beta. In the beta, I was a pistoleer while my friend was a carbineer and I would see him kill himself with every special that he used. He had to use his specials right and in a timely manner to keep from killing himself while, I on the other hand, just spammed Body Shot 2 all day losing maybe 20 action.
  
  Now, especially with recent developer interests, there is no doubt that the HAM costs are too high for our own good. As our biggest issue, this needs addressed immediately.

• Carbineers have long suffered from useless and broken specials, each with their own problems. Special moves not working as they should is yet another huge problem. Specials for a profession need to be working as intended. Charge Shot 2 was the only carbineer special that really gained any good attention and yet the biggest problem for it wasn't solved.

A.Charge Shot 2

• The cone for this special seems to be working properly, however, now you can get multiple attention while you fail to knock them down. It's been quite a while and even after Developer attention, the lack of knockdown for this skill remains to be unchanged. This special could be considered a key special for the carbineer to help hold off multiple targets with its multiple area attacks. This move also suffers from the deemed annoying charge shot animation.

B.Charge Shot 1

• Knockdown without timer and noted as working as intended. A very useful skill and definately one of the top carbineer skills for this reason. It works.

C.Wild Shot 1 & 2

• Since the cone was fixed on wild shot 2 it has probably become the choice of area damage for carbineers. More damage and higher chance to stun than full auto area makes it a nice skill. However, I believe that it is mainly used for the area damage which I think is too low than it should be.
  
  In the past, we asked if Wild Shot could have additonal statuses or perhaps change stun with something else. I'd like to know everyone's status on this. We have multiple specials that can cause stun, such as leg shot.

D. Burst Shot 2

• If any of you remember my report that I posted on the discussion forum, you'd remember how hard I hit burst shot 2. I also liked what I did there and I will use it again.
  
  Burst Shot 2 says that it’s more damaging than Burst Shot 1, however, it is not any more damaging than Burst Shot 1. Higher Costs, and no apparent damage increase makes this skill worthless. Burst Shot 2 needs something to make it stand out. Right now, Full Auto Single 2 deals more damage and gives status effects. Crippling Shot out damages it in damage as well. Burst Shot 1 is a great skill at lower levels, however, Burst Shot 2 is completely lacking on anything useful.
  
  Making it AE would be making it another Full Auto Area (like wild shot 2) that does random damage. Giving it status effects would just make it another Full Auto Single (random damage). However, Burst Shot 2 is quite high up on the tree (on par with crippling shot, our best skill) and could be seen as a pumped up full auto single or given less HAM costs.
  
  Burst Shot 2 is on the same level as Crippling Shot but is no where near Crippling Shot in performance. It has always been a wish that Crippling Shot targeted action only. Perhaps Crippling Shot could target just the action pool (doing less damage than it does now) and the current damage that crippling shot does could be brought over to Burst Shot 2. Since Leg Shot 3 is said to be an area attack action targeted skill, Crippling Shot could be a single targeted shot doing as much as Leg Shot 3 (x.5 over leg shot 2) for example.

E. Leg Shot 3

• Our third action target special has always been broken. Recently, the developers stated that it was to do x.5 more damage than leg shot 2 (which it doesn't) and that it should be an area attack (which it's not). I'm sure the damage increase is welcome, however, I've seen that some people do not want Leg Shot 3 to be an area attack skill. What is the status on that one?

F. Full Auto Single/Area

• Both skills dizzied in the beta, however, they've failed to apply dizzy since release. The dizzy on these skills need to be fixed so that it sticks. This should be a welcome boost to our knockdowns and posture changes.

G. Action Shot 1 and 2

• No where does it say that it should have suppression properties, so I’m assuming that suppression fire’s effect are not suppose to be on these skills (AE for action shot 2). Supression effect on these skills is preventing us from using bleeds as freely as we’d like. Developers mentioned /actionshotarea to help clarify the move's effects better, however, they failed to mention if it was to PC or not.

H.Supression Fire 2

• Changes Posture, however, it does not seem to have an area/cone effect. I believe that Action Shot 2 has its effect. Right now, the only thing this skill has over Supression Fire 1 is damage. If it is to remain a single creature PC, then could the timer on this skill be lowered? I see no reason to have a Tier 4 Suppression Fire 1.

I. Scatter Shot 1 & 2

• Displays 1 damage on the combat tab. Not as damaging as Crippling Shot and does little damage when divided between the bars.

• If you take a lot at the Ranged Professions, you will notice that Riflemen receive +90 speed, Pistoleers receive +75 speed while Carbineers receive +60 speed. At the moment with the way the weapons are, Carbineers need to fire quicker than they do now. It's common sense that the carbineer's speed should be inbetween the rifleman and the pistoleers (roughly +80). There has been a lot of talk concerning this topic and I would really like to get some kind of movement on this going. I've read alternatives that you said you'd accept higher damage increase if there were a speed cap of some sort. To be even competent with the carbine you must pick up BH Carbine line. It becomes even more aparrent when BH/Carbineers say how well they can do because of this. I would know since I have a character that is just that. A profession, certainly master, should be dependent on their own abilities.

4. Carbine Weapons

A. Elite Carbine

• The biggest problem we have with our weapons is that the Elite Carbine isn't good. It's no secret and it's very obvious. As soon as we saw the Elite Carbine on a vendor, I'm sure we were all very disappointed. The Elite Carbine is useful for it's minimum damage, however, the DXR6 is very compareable to it in almost every way and it does acid-based damage. The Elite Carbine is an energy-based weapon, the same as the laser carbine, however, the Elite Carbine can't match up to the laser carbine at all. You could have a Elite that's 150 - 210 (AP1) or a Laser Carbine that's 60 - 405(AP2).
  
  Ideas to make the Elite Carbine more competent have been a different damage-type (Stun, Cold), more AP, more damage or reduce crafting components.

B. EE3

• EE3 is a good carbine. However, I think people expected more out of it. For a shotgun-like carbine, it's less than we could hope for. However, for a heat-based gun, it does it's job. However, the EE3 has a splash damage to it that currently doesn't work.

• Before the timer was added for PVE, the Carbineer profession was thought as more fun and less interdependent. With the timers in place, the carbineer now needs another profession to hold off on it's own from even decent challenges. Also with the timers, the carbineer lost an important job that it needs to do -- crowd control. With all the KD/PC moves that we have for the carbine (more than any other ranged profession) it seems that we are the ranged class that does crowd control. Something did have to be done to stop farming with action shot 2, however, I think that the timers that we have now severly limit our ability to preform our role.

6. Counter-Attack

• With the new changes, carbineers will be counter-attacking more depending on their skill level. However, counter-attack is still broken in one specific way... it's counter-attack. At the moment, it's just another dodge. You don't fire back you just shrug off the attack.

• A known weaponsmith problem, however, it has been discussed as a primary reason as to why Carbines and Rifles do not match up to pistols. A certain problem with stacking components really hampers the improvement of these weapons. However, with the recent changes to the FWG5, it seems as though it was intended.

• It seems that when you fire an area attack at a group of creatures, you’ll hit the creature you targeted but you will do zero damage to the creatures behind the one targeted (in the cone) and of course they’ll aggro and attack you. What I did find out, was that the first area attack only attacks creatures that are in combat. Example: if there are 10 worrts and I fire at the first worrt, I’ll kill the first worrt but 9 worrts will aggro me. Now, if all 10 worrts were aggroed, somehow (someone attacked the lair) then my first area attack would hit (and most likely kill) them all. This affects Strafe Shot 2 as well. I assume that AE works on MOBs that are aggroed on you and if they arn't, then they will after you "attack" it.

9. Dizzy

• Although this was already mentioned in the special moves area, dizzy does not appy on the moves that it should. Dizzy could be used very effectively with our KD/PC moves and it needs to be fixed.

10. Defenses

• With the newest increase to our defenses, we received +10 to intimidate. Many would look at that as a joke, since most of us carbineers have never even been hit by intimidate. I'm sure we all expect to see the Pistoleer always on top with their defense bonuses, however, it's always been something that the carbineer has always been dreadfully lacking. Pistoleers do similar damage and have higher defenses. The only thing non-special related that the carbineers have going for them is Armor Piercing, which is always bugged in some way.

11. Armor Piercing

• There has always been bugs with Armor Piercing, including attack unarmored opponents. The latest problem I've seen with armor piercing was on the test center. I attacked a creature that said no AR, no resists. One of the creatures outside of the city. I attacked it with a special and did less damage, however, I did full damage when I attacked it with auto fire/normal fire.

12. Spelling Consistency

• Currently our name is still spelled incorrectly in game. Even my title says "Carabineer." In-game says, "Carbinier." We've agreed long ago to have everything be "Carbineer."

• More Carbine weaponry.
  
• New Skill at Master.
  
• Enhanced Speed Mods.
  
• Enhanced Defense Mods.
  
• Removal of the Charge Shot animation.