Carbineer Archive
Thread: HAM Cost Comparison: Why the Carbineer Always Loses
Pistols are fast. You can hit as frequently as my TKA could at mid level, and I haven't even gotten 'novice' pistoleer yet. You can do a special like /bodyshot2 perhaps 20 times before you are in danger of dying to a pool hit on your action. My tka/carbineer has trouble doing 6 specials before he needs to meditate and rest up for a minute. A good friend is a rifleman, and his specials seem on par with our carbine specials... so why aren't we splitting the difference?
Why aren't carbine specials a middle of the road HAM cost? Also, they do comparatively less damage than pistol. Yes, of course, the pistole may hit for 200 on a special where the carbine may hit for 400, but if the pistol can special 4 times by the time my carbine cycles once, who's coming out ahead? With my pistol guy (remember, a crafter with artisan-geared stats) I can kill most enemies before they close. With my carbine I have to macro 'shoot, frighten, shoot, frighten' and mix armor in there for the inevitable failures. White-con monsters are a tough fight with carbine, and red-cons are the same risk to a psitoleer. I expect to kill reds 75% of the time with my pistol and some crumby bone armor, and I expect to kill whites 50% of the time with my composite/carbine character.
What am I missing?
-FL
The problem is we are NOT heavy hitters. Sorry to burst your bubble, but we dont do much damage compared to some classes.
Commandos, Bounty Hunters - THOSE are heavy hitters. I mean 1000+ in PVP.(BH with LCC).
We are not a support class, we are a combat class. Support classes are medics, doctors, entertainers, etc. Our role is for combat.
The high HAM costs are NOTa feature, its a bug. Devs have acknowledged this, and say they are "looking" into it. The fact is, for our HIGH ham costs we do not outdamage those we use less HAM.
If you are trying to say our high HAM costs justify our damage, then up our damage about 5x, because we use like 5x more HAM than most ranged professions.
Furthermore a carbineer does not *need* medic, it just happens to fit well because of the above mentioned *bug* with HAM costs.
Please dont embrace our broken features and bugs and try to play them off as something else, you do the profession no good by doing so.
HAM costs are a bug. We are a primarily combat class - an elite combat class technically. We do not do significally more damage than anyone else. Pistoleers can shoot for 500-600, thats about the most I've ever done in PvP. Bounty Hunters can hit for upwards of 2000 in PvP, so can Commandos. How do you figure we have "massive damage" potential?
"This keeps us in the back, armorless and out of the frontlines. "
Snipers lay in the back - not carbineers. Carbines are more of an assault gun - IE up and front charging. Thus charge shot 1 & 2.
I'm sorry, but I don't like people trying to steer us in the direction of some sort of indriect artillary support class. Carbineers are an elite combat class, just like pistoleers and riflemen. We should not be considered support just because a large majority of us have medical skills - suprise, most people have medical skills, even bounty hunters, just because its usefull.
Carbineers contribute nothing to a group unless they are grouped with only carbineers/pikemen, or are using normal attacks(which hit a random pool).
Okay first off, I kept my comparisons within the non-hybrid advanced classes. Meaning no Commandos, Bounty Hunters and the like.
A Carbineer is a straight off-shoot of Marksman. Not even master Marksman at that, novice Carbineer only require one line from this profession. The skill points required to get novice Carbineer is 35, you have 215 skill points left. One of the main reason I did not think it fair to compare it to other hybrid professions is that they require master Marksman and so forth.
Yes, we are heavy hitters. Compared to Pistoleers, we do hit very hard. I think I was at 0.1.4.2 in Pistoleering when I dropped it. That right there is the max I would have gotten in terms of damage with pistols. Everything else was just accuracy, speed and defenses.
And not everything a class has is a feature. Every class has strengths and weaknesses. Apparently our weaknesses arethe lowestaccuracate guns, high HAM costs andweak physical defenses. Our strengths at the moment would have to be the state-affecting attacks, the ability to target the action pool, and the potential to do very high damage to it at a fairly fast rate.
No other class beside TKA has so many attacks that inflict status effects on their targets. Afflicting status is solely a support type of skill. It's there so the frontline fighters don't take so much beating and ease the battle for your side.
The laser carbine is our gun. Out of most situations that would be currently ideal for a Carbineer in combat situations this gun just outperforms everything in our entire stockpile. It has Medium Armor Piercing, that right there is a 50% damage increase on AR1 opponents. It has also, on average, the gun with the highest max damageof all carbines. Of course, not without its own weakness, it has a very low min damage which makes it unreliable at times. This gun is ideal at long range. Currently, this is our best gun and it tells a lot about this class.
Again, no melee defense whatsoever. If it's there and hidden, it's not much as Pistoleers or Riflemen are getting. Having none of this whatsoever, I just find it difficult to accept this class now as a frontline fighter. Added with the high HAM costs for specials is just another sign that we are not suppose to be up there getting close and personal with mobs.
Another thing you seemed to have misunderstood is the statement I made that Carbineers are a Combat Support class. You missed the combat part before the support it seems. A medic would be a support class, I agree with you there but that's not what I said and meant about Carbineers. Being a Combat Support class means we would be there in combat but would not be the main killers of the group. Just the fact that all or most of our attacks seems to have a status effect tacked on to them further supports this idea. Action Shot has a posture down effect. Full Auto Single gives various status effects such as blind and dizzy. Leg Shot has a stun effect. I would hate to use crowd-control as a title befitting a Carbineer because of what people have thought of it before mainly someone who spams posture change and knockdown but we are still that part to some extent. Having the ability to hit multiple creatures that are in combat is also a big part of crowd-control. Cone effect shots should be used with caution though. Probably not as powerful as it used to be but it's still there.
As for requiring medic and if you don't think this class requires it then you are fooling yourself. I had medic when I was a Pistoleer, all it was was to reduce the downtime between fights. Pistoleer was fast and accurate enough to spam Warning Shot all day. You can kill anything by spamming Warning Shot all day. You didn't even have to drain your HAM to do it. Hit /healthshot2 then /healthshot1, throw in some Stopping Shot or Fan Shot somewhere and spam Warning Shot the rest of the day and anyone could kill a lair of fambaas. Easy enough. Now, at Carbineer, just using the specials can seriously drain your HAM, but the trade-off was the damage. I have seen professions out there that have gotten away with just what they have and no medic skills. For Carbineers, it's impossible to go on hunts without medic skills or an actual medic. Unless, of course, you're just going to do regular shots all day maybe throw in a few specials here and there.
But that's silly.
As for Charge Shot, the name refers to the action that your toon does when executing the move. Meaning it's what you do when you're trying to knock something down. You charge forward and shoot. To knock something down. Now, being blessed with a ranged weapon and having the ability to stay away means that you should not be anywhere near your opponent when doing so.
Also, as further definition of the class, it would seem that the Carbineer is a totally group dependent class. Anything that has been mentioned before has been mostly in the domain of solo combat. If you will pass on the medic skills and walk completely without the ability to heal yourself then you must be dependent on a group to be successful and use the class as best it could. Even with medic skills, it would still be beneficial for a Carbineer to always be in groups. If I had an army, I would equip them all with carbines. Just think of the ability of several Carbineers together each one shooting everything in front of them. It just makes sense. While everyone else is mostly shooting one target at a time, Carbineers have the gift of multiple targets. And not only with one special but all of them. It seems that all our topof the lineattack specials are supposed to have a cone effect. How more powerful can an army get?
Of course, it'd be nice if they actually fixed these specials since a lot of them don't even have the cone effect they're supposed to have. But hey, that's just me. That's the way I see it.
"Yes, we are heavy hitters. Compared to Pistoleers, we do hit very hard."
Show me proof. From personal experiance, we hit no harder than pistoleers or rifleman. My friend is a pistoleer and can easily hit me for 500+ with stopping shot. The most I have ever done with crippling(our most powerful shot) is 500ish. How does that make us "hard hitting".
"No other class beside TKA has so many attacks that inflict status effects on their targets. Afflicting status is solely a support type of skill."
What status effects can we do exactly? Stun..stun...stun.. random blind(which means its unreliable and unpredictable, and a dizzy that doesnt stick). Oh, and btw, stun is broken. Therefore all we get is blind - and we cant do it reliably. Other elite professions can do more/the same amount of status changes we get. Furthermore a status change does not imply support class, because EVERY elite combat profession gets atleast 1, if not several status changes.
I disagree that laser carbine is the "best" gun. First off, there is no "best" gun. I would say laser might be ideal for PvE, but for PvP it lacks. I find Elites or DH17's are far superior in PVP(since AP bonuses dont work properly in PvP). The low minum damage makes it an unreliable gun, and only its AP value makes up for it in PvE.
If you think that the melee defense pistoleers/riflemen gets makes a difference, I'm sure you could go ask them and get a contrary statement. It doesnt matter if pistoleers get +10 melee defense and we get +0, It seems to be in question as to whether they even work, and if they do, what they actually do. I've never noticed a notable difference when I gained/dropped defense skills.
Action shots posture change is most likely a bug that works in our favor - nowhere in the skill description does it mention it. I cant say for sure though. Have to ask a dev. Once again Full Auto's dizzy does not work(doesnt stick). Stun is broken as well, far as I have ever seen, it does nothing.
I agree we used to be a good crowd control group - now we are not. We may be good at crowd killing - but not "control" in the sense of keeping them pinned down/knocked down.
I'm not fooling myself I simply state that no class REQUIRES another class. You seem to think you have to put points into medic or you will explode. Sorry, not true. Also, its not just carbineers this is true for. Name ANY combat class that doesnt beneift from picking up medical skills? Name any combat person you know who has no combat skills. Right. Its not impossible, its just slower and more downtime. You can rely on normal attacks spaced out with specials, I've done it. Why is it silly? Because you dont do it?
Uhh I'm not sure what your point was about charge shot. There is no physical need to "charge" with a gun. It doesnt make the bullet(or lasers) travel faster. Thus it seems to fit in line with a more "assault" type profession. As well one of our titles is.. well.. Assaulter. Imagine that.
No profession should be "totally group dependant". I'm sorry but your whole argument seems to be that because we have status changes, and medic skills are good for us, that we should be crappy in direct combat and are a combat support role?
We are an elite combat profession as per definition by the manuel.
Everyone gets status effects - granted we have some area ones, but so do others(riflemen get area dizzy for example).
Medic skills benefit -everyone-, meaning every combat class. Which is why almost everyone has medical skills. Stop trying to pretend that its just carbineers who pick up medical skills, or that you *have* to. That same argument could be made for any combat class, and thus I guess we are all combat support professions?
The fact is, we are really no different from pistoleers/riflemen, except our HAM usage is so out of whack, that most carbineers tend to pick up medical/doctor skills to compensate. However this is only due to a bug, and players coping. This is not some inherint feature of our class, nor does it make us some sort of combat medics/support class.
They ruined the most prominent use of carbineers with the timers. We used to be good at holding down groups of mobs, now we cant.
As for your mention of a group of carbineers being powerfull - the same thing applies for any group of people who do the same type of damage. A group of pistoleers is just as potent as a group of carbineers, and as riflemen. So what? The fact is that rarley happens, and groups are more rag-tag assemblies. Due to distrubution of players and what professions they chose, they tend to overwhelmingly be health/mind shooters. Thus action shooters(IE carbineers, and well pikemen, but how many of those do you see?) are rather useless in group combat, because you contribute very little to bringing down the mob.
Do a test. Grab a random group, and go hunting. See what HAM the critter is dying from. Unless your grouped with a bunch of carbineers or pikemen, odds are you arent doing much except soaking up XP. Before we could at least help out by keeping the monsters pinned, while everyone chewed at his HAM. Now we are just big XP sponges.
In summary basically, you seem to want carbineers to be guys who hide in the back , applying status changes to targets to help the group out.
I dont see us like that, and dont want us to go there either. I got this profession to be proficiant with a carbine - just like pistoleers and riflemen, just with a different skillset and guns. We arent the "shamans" of SWG, nor should we be in my opinion.
We should excell at group combat, by useing area attacks(which we have and they work) and area pins/knockdowns(which we have and dont work). As well as being able to target action, just like riflemen target mind, etc.
Sorry but I dont see "Mauraders", "Infiltrators", "Assaulters", or "Mercenaries" hiding in the shadows trying to "stun" people. I see them charging into battle with guns blazing.
Aram hit the nail on the head.
By design and the devs own admissions, we are not meant to be support characters. Any character can be a support char, just depends on your situation and your group tactics, etc. The point is we should be equally effective in solo hunting as any other combat profession(non hybrids, elites). The only difference there should be is speed, guns, specials, etc.
*A skilled pistoleer and a skilled carbineer should be able to hunt at comparable levels of skill. your choice in one or the other should depend on your personal playstyle, not one being uber and one being useless*
Ok, we seem to be on different pages over here. I hate to say this but it is true, this Star Wars game is Star Wars first and game second.
On that note, it means designers have made professions out of weapon classes. And then after that made it so that each weapon acted differently. If we had the same damage, speed and costs of Riflemen and Pistoleers, why would they even categorize by weapon types? Why not just call us Mind hitters, Health hitters and Action hitters.
As for damage, you seem to be using a DH17 Snubnose. Why not use a laser carbine? Then go show your Pistoleer friend a couple of shots. If you're doing 500 damage on average for PvP then at most you are doing is 2k of damage for PvE. You could do this kind of damage with a laser carbine just using Leg Shot 2. Your friend is using a pistol you say? Well, then he's most likely using Stopping Shot and with a good gun. That's the third box up on the Trickshot line in Pistoleer. And you're comparing it with a skill you get in the carbine line of Marksman? Isn't that a bit lopsided? Just face it, your Pistoleer friend is higher in skill than you. Probably a good reason he beat you so badly.
No, merely having status effect does not mean a class is a Combat Support class. By merely adding everything that a Carbineer already has (aside from broken specials) it greatly suggests that it is supposed to be one. Just by having status effect and thinking it is already something is just silly. A status effect heavy class plus a high HAM costing class plus a multiple-enemy targetting class plus weak defenses (I just checked and it seems we get the least amount of range defense as well and also the other type of defenses such as Defense vs. Knockdown and so on) really does make it easier to see that the class is of the Combat Support variety and not of the frontline fighter type (the ones you are expecting to be hit). Yes, everyone has status effects, but we had status effects up the wazoo since Marksman. Too bad they don't work.
If they lowered our HAM to similar levels as Pistoleers, why would anyone even be a Pistoleer? From most of your post, you seem to agree that yes a lot of our special attacks are broken and that really hurts us a lot but if they were not this class would already be very powerful.
Yes, a group of Pistoleers would be powerful but stronger than a group of Carbineers (with working specials)? I don't think so.
Well, literally Carbineers do not require medic skills. But the playstyle of the class does require medic skills or a medic tagging along with you when you desire to perform any sort of combat function. There are other functions such as cannon fodder and target practice dummy which can be fulfilled by anyone but if you wish to do something else then yes, you will be required to have medic skills or a medic with you.
My point about Charge Shot means that it's just a name and that having "Charge" in the name does not mean we are suppose to be charging at the enemy and getting all messy with them. The Devs have mentioned that carbines are supposed to be middle of the road between pistols and rifles, if that is really so, in terms of range we are more closer to rifle than we are to pistols. Meaning the back row, far away and, ideally, prone. With a laser carbine. Having the title of Assaulter does not also mean that you assault solo, nope. Assaulting usually requires a whole group of people and as I have said carbines are a group-heavy class.
I know I can survive as a Pistoleer without medic skills. It would just be a little harder and I definitely couldn't kill fambaas solo anymore. And that's fighting reds, as a Pistoleer, you can fight white-yellow conned mobs without heals. This is still true mostly because of Warning Shot and the ability of Pistoleers to hit anything anywhere with a great rate of success at the fastest rate possible. Now, let's see, can Carbineers do this? No, and not with a desired rate of success. Carbines are way too slow and inaccurate to spam Warning Shot all day. Besides that, there is still the issue of HAM costs. Most Carbineers if solo would not survive for long without any medic skills. Other professions can do it just fine, while Pistoleers is a good example TKA is a better one.
Again with the feature about the HAM issue, I tell you it's not a feature. It's a weakness. The classes have weakness, *gasp* oh my lord, you mean I'm not suppose to be an uber soldier handing out death likestreeters handing out porn cards in Vegas? Yes, it's a bit more HAM cost than what I would like but I can see where it's coming from. Star Wars first, game second.
We are very different from Pistoleers and Riflemen. Just from the fact that all our skills are heavy on the multi-target and status effect should clue in most people.
As for the hunting groups tests, please consult my first and second post. Regular attacks are random damage. By being able to hit the action and the mind the carbine and the rifle are specialty classes compared to pistols. There are more health hitters than anything because more people find it easier to play that way. There are more mind hitters than action hitters because mind is very vulnerable in PvP (it is the smallest bar and the most unbuffed pool in the entire galaxy - who'd want to sit in the cantina forand inordinate amount of timefor a minor mind buff that lasts for 30 minutes?). There are very little action hitters because quite frankly we are a broken class. And noone, I mean absolutely noone has a worse hit rate than a Pikeman. Add to that the inherent feature *lol* of all brawler classes to have -15 to-hit modifier at all times. At least, the Commandos get their 1-2 shot incap. Pikemen get diddly.
I dunno where you think I'm taking this profession, but I'm just saying where it's at right now and where it should be when the specials actually get fixed.
What your vision of our class really doesnt matter.......doesnt matter whether you see us as a support class.
That said and before you get angry 
.......neither does mine. Only the devs vision matters because they use that vision as a guide for designing balance within the game.
Setting aside whether people want us to be a support class(which i think its safe most dont), the devs designed game balance with the idea that carbineers are not a support class and thats how things get screwed. If they balance with that in mind maybe it works out ok, but at present no.
Second, the difference is much deeper than just targeted pools. We are able to pin enemies more effectively than any other profession(non pool related), our weapons are slower than pistols but hit harder...same with rilfe vs carbine. Ideal range is a concern also. Range, speed, special moves, etc all play into why someone would be carbineer.
I didnt choose to finish my char as a carbineer because I was impressed with action damage. if anything i think its the least useful pool attacks from any group. I chose it because I like playing the role of a shock troop. Going in first, fairly heavy hitter, decent speed and a medium range so I can go into bestine, fight in rather close quarters but still be able to keep a bit of distance between the enemy and myself.
These are the differences that the devs had in mind when they talked about profession balancing.
Lastly, theres is no excuse for HAM. period. HAM is unbalanced with the other professions, the devs know it, the pistoleers know it and almost every single carbineer knows it. Star Wars is nice, but when it comes to keeping people interested in a profession for years, there has to be balance and .....fun, which it is not.
BTW - i dont recall anywhere in the movies seeing a ST collapse and die and his buddy go "damnit...i told him not to use more than 7 specials..."
Hey, man. All I said is that this is the state of the Carbineer now and when the specials are fixed. It all made sense to me how everything fit in together. I wanted to be like SWAT with the submachine gun style weapons but sadly this is not the case.
As for the movies, a couple of scenes near the beginning after the Imperials boarded Princess Leia's ship she was hiding in one of the corridors with a CDEF pistol then in comes tromping in a bunch of stormtroopers carrying E11 Carbines. Then one of them said, "Hey there's one!" and another said "Set to stun!" here's the funny part, Princess Leia jumped out and shot one storm trooper and he fell down. Now, I'm already assuming she's not anywhere near a master Pistoleer. Nor do I think that her CDEF pistol was the godly variety. Nope, I think it was a noob gun and Princess Leia was probably not even a Marksman. You know what I think happened? That stormtrooper has spent most of his HAM during the opening scene when they boarded the ship. These guys were probably spamming /fullautoarea all over the place. In a full suit of ST armor no less, imagine the encumberance on that and the high HAM costs of carbines. Anyway, that stormtrooper got shot once with a noob weapon and went down. He was a carbineer.
Anyway, I'm just seeing the facts of the moment and if you want to remain blind to it, that's up to you. A Carbineer is not a solo class. A Carbineer who wants to stay alive for long is not a frontline fighter. You saw what happened to the stormtrooper in the front. What is the opposite of a solo class? A grouping class. What is the opposite of a frontline fighter? A back row shooter. You have the ability to do otherwise but currently, I advise against it. 
Sky, your way off on your assumptions. My char is finished and my laser's,ee3's and e11's are all low HAM(for carbine).
I wasnt flaming you man, so go smoke a cigarette and relax. Im just saying carbineers arent meant to be a support class. Regardless of what we are useful for now, thats not what we are meant to be(thus why we are waiting to be fixed).
You made my point for me by saying we dont excel as well as other classes at solo combat.
We should, just in different situations. Pistols arent much good in a wide open fields at longer ranges(or they arent supposed to be @ 64 m).....in a situation like that, carbineers and riflemen are your bread and butter. close in, it can be a different story. all depends on your situation.
One profession shouldnt be overall better than another one and currently its that way. Theres a difference between balanced and specialized.
We are not balanced.
I'm going to stop trying to argue, because you have started making up facts and assumptions.
I never stated I was using a DH17, nor was I using Legshot2, nor was I using a carbine with high HAM costs.
So have fun making up facts. I wont waste my time.
Just wanted to say that you are basing our class off its current bugs - not how it would be if it worked.
If we worked, we would be both effective by ourselves, and in groups, just like everyone should be.
And your assumptions that carbineers cant solo is wrong.
I made it to 1/4/1/2 without really ever grouping and with almost no medical skills(I only used stimpack A's).
Your playstyle does not determine the rest of ours. You may find yourself being a support role more often than not, I find myself doing fine, with the exception of numerous bugs that plague our profession and need to be fixed - not embraced.
to say you loose that much hams with 3 specials is kinda.... and nor did I mean my post to be a flame, but the situation where you loose so much of your HAMS doing very few specials is exaggerating and the only way I could see that happening is if your carbines have very high HAM costs.
This does not mean I don't want HAM costs for carbineers lower, far from it, It should be lowered. Either Make our specials do more DMG, or lower the costs of HAM, If the DMG was worth the HAMS doing specials then I wouldn't mind, but it is not.
As for specials, Autoarea2/actionshot2/wildshot2.... it is working, I guess they fixed it during a patch or something cause I've seen it do dmg.... and now I use it all the time, as long as I'm in a group.
As for Legshot3, It is broken and Suppression2/Chargeshot2... I haven't gotten yet so I don't know.
Only complaints I have now are HAMS and Carbines (make carbines stronger, elite carbine should be at least 150 to 250 base at 3.0 speed.... meaning a good slice -30% would make it 195 to 325 at 3.0 speed..... (being realitic here, commandos were fixed too strong and they're getting nerfed sooner or later and I don't feel like getting nerfed again) I think all carbineers could live with an elite carbine base stats doing 150 to 250 at 3.0 speed, low hams OFC. Does almost the max DMG of laser carbine with better min dmg... at faster speed.
That's all I want to see, a Elite Carbine 150 to 250 base at 3.0 speed w/ Low Hams or make the elite better and make HAMS in general lower than now.