Carbineer Archive
Thread: Carbineers and Other Group Members? (long)
All right, so the fix is in... or it will be eventually.
We're getting nerfed, the guy next door is getting nerfed, and pretty soon, a fight will require a group and some strategy despite the somewhat awful grouping system. So, let's weigh in, and discuss what the function of various classes in a group is from a carbineer perspective, so all of our groups will be that much more effective.
It's true, we're all broken in some way... (dratted pay for beta) Keep the negative commentary on nerfs (posture change/KD, for example) and other such out of here - I'm looking for a serious discussion. The flame war is in some other thread. Yes, I know some of the skills discussed don't currently work as they should. However, read the descriptions, and it's not hard to see what their intent is.
Looking at the description of skill lists, it's not too hard to guess at what the intended role of a given class is in a battle - assuming the developers keep to the general theme they themselves have presented to us. Since this is primarily a discussion of combat professions from a design perspective, I will not be discussing the role of artisans other than tangentially - they make the things we use in battles, but they don't generally do it in the MIDDLE of a fight. Likewise, Entertainers support us between battles, but not usually in the middle of one.
I welcome your additions, corrections and commentary on this - it's meant to be a discussion of how a carbineer should be expected to relate to the other members of his group, and how they function in general for enemy groups.
Marksmen:
The marksmen class (and its elite classes) appear to be designed to give out damage to the foe while sustaining as little as possible in return.
Purpose:
The skillset appears to be desinged primarily for this purpose. The special attacks gained by marksmen in the first three lines primarily relate to a single attack pool, in preparation for their specialization in an elite combat profession. (They also allow a solo marksman to function more effectively.) If a Marksman sees an opopnent with a combat pool that is low, their abilities are designed to allow them to exploit that weakness and deal damage to that lowered pool.
The special attacks of the "support" line are designed to allow defensive support fire from those who are intentionally NOT taking an elite profession beyond Marksman. (Healers, Entertainers, Artisans, for example.)
Weakness:
All Marksmen-based classes take additional damage when attacked in melee. This makes them the primary targets of opportunity for enemy melee attackers. In addition, with the recent alterations to accuracy while moving, the intent appears to make Marksmen more dependent upon the support of melee and close-assault personnel.
Carbineer Take:
We all started here. This class is a solid foundation, but there's not a lot of advantage in the overlap for a carbine specialist. Being able to use a rifle is nice, but if you're a Carbineer, how often are you going to use a rifle? These folks aren't as good with a carbine, but they're not useless in a fight, either, and they'll be providing most of your group's support fire.
Bounty Hunters:
Bounty Hunters are a marksman based class whose flexibility is their primary advantage.
Purpose:
They can easily switch from rifle to carbine to pistol, as the situation demands. However, unlike specialists, their repertoire of manuvers is limited, and changing weapons on the fly will limit their effectiveness.
Weakness:
Varies according to weapon, as per specialists.
Carbineer Take:
Pretty much these guys play the combat role of a wild-card or switch hitter. They can fill a group's soft spots by switching their weapons as needed for the situation. Depending on the weapon they carry, their personal soft spots will change. Keep them at a distance that's comfortable for you, and not for them whenever possible. On your side, treat them as a specialist of the type of weapon they're using.
Commandos:
Commandos are designed to be the heavy-weapons specialists of a squad. They are intended to function at their highest effectiveness against clustered troops and vehicles. (At least, I assume. These guys are pretty hard to read right now, because they were released in such a sorry state - no offense to any commando is implied.)
Purpose:
Area-Of-Effect and Anti-armor. Their blast weapons will eventually have hefty damage, area-of-effect blast effects, and probably the highest armor-piercing levels as well. This is offset by incredible firing delays on special moves, weapons that have charges (get used up), and may eveninclude an increase in movement penalties to firing when using a heavy weapon.
Weakness:
Since commando Area-Of-Effect weapons have charges, a group facing a commando should spread out. (Uncertainties: Do Area-Of-Effect weapons affect the commando and his group members when used in proximity? Do Commandos take additional damage when holding their heavy weapons?)
Carbineer Take:
Do not let them fire into your group unhindered. Don't posture them down withouta melee to pound them, as you're just making them more accurate, and that's not good.On your side, they're another support member, and should be kept away from the assault troops heading their way. Posturing down the enemy group in a cluster would make these guys even more effective...
Riflemen:
Riflemen use their posture up effects to penalize the accuracy and effectiveness of enemy shooters, and their mind-pool attacks to target the support personnel of an enemy group. (Medics especially.)
Purpose:
By penalizing the posture advantages of enemy ranged attackers, they allow melee group members to better close into range to attack without being hit as often. This is seen in "Startle Shot" and "Strafe Shot", which jerk an enemy towards their feet, and out of cover, respectively.
Their skillset is designed to counter the offensive ability of enemy shooters (especially carbineers and defensive suppressing fire) while simultaneously presenting the foe with a sniper to overcome. This is seen again in the "Take Cover" manuver, which exists to grant them protection from ranged attackers returning fire. Riflemen exist to counter enemy shooters at range, and appear to be designed to function in a fashion similar to artillery - they work best when allowed to fire into the enemy position unhindered by closing assault troops.
Their ability to target the mind pool via special manuvers appears to be designed to make them an additional threat to enemy support personnel who use the mind pool for their abilities - medics, primarily.
Weakness:
Riflemen take an absurd amount of additional damage when attacked in melee. This requires them to stay -well- back from the line of skirmish, and behind the melee characters. This is amplified by the fact that Riflemen are penalized on accuracy when not firing from long range. They should be as far away from their target as they can be and still hit it effectively. Note that this would give them an advantage in attacking enemy Carbineers in a well-rounded group, as a rifleman is more accurate at long range - something the Carbineer cannot match easily.
Carbineer Take:
Eeevil. These guys can out-range you, hinder your firing by posturing you up, and generally make your life much harder than it has to be. They're going to target your medics and support personnel, and those are the folks you're trying hardest to protect. The counter for this would appear to be twofold. First, by hindering the enemy melee attackers and close-assault troops, you free your own melee allies to charge them and pound the snot out of them. Second, you can move in closer, and reverse the range penalties on them. When they're on your side, you're trying to keep the melee folks away from them with your posture changing attacks, because once engaged in melee, they're not long for this world.
Carbineers:
Carbineers are designed to provide some modicum of crowd control and protection for the riflemen (and other ranged attackers) and support personnel of their own group while providing support fire that sets up other group members for the kill.
Purpose:
Their special attacks are primarily defensive in nature, allowing them to play "keep away" with foes who must get closer to effectively deal damage - Melee attackers and pistoleers, for example.
This purpose can be seen in the downward posture change present in all "Action Shot" attacks and in the "Charge Shot" line. A melee foe who cannot approach the group cannot attack the group, and pistoleers forced to return fire from a distance would be penalized as well. It should be noted that the carbineer posture changes have the capacity to be devastating against enemy ranged attackers as well, once the group's melee specialists have closed the gap. Why? Because a ranged-attack foe who is prone cannot attack the melee target standing on top of them, and takes extra damage from the melee attacker for being prone AND holding a gun to boot.
This suppression purpose is enhanced further by the use of the suppression fire abilities gained in the Marksman skillset.
Many Carbineer abilities target random pools. I believe this is intentional, and that carbines are intended to set-up weaknesses that can be exploited by users of other weapons. If a target gets health-injured, the pistoleers move in for the kill. If it's a head hit, you've set them up for your snipers. This is a further indication of the support role we appear to play in a group.
Weakeness:
As with Riflemen, Carbineers take extra damage when attacked by a melee foe. While this penalty is reduced from that of Riflemen, it is still very substantial. Carbineer weapons are best fired from a range that is shorter than that of Riflemen, yet long enough for them to stay out of the melee line of skirmish and away from the close-assault classes.
Carbineer Take:
We rule. Just kidding... (What ELSE was I supposed to say?) Our weakness lies in being forced into melee combat by Brawlers and their ilk, attacked by pistoleers up close, or in being pinned down by rifle snipers at long range. We can counteract this by forcing a steady advance on the foe to get into attack range on their snipers, and by keeping their assault troops away from our group and out of effective damage-dealing range.
Pistoleers:
Pistoleers appear to exist to add damage to the group while remaining out of the direct reach of melee attackers, limiting the damage they sustain in return. They appear to provide close-support fire for the assault troops.
Purpose:
Their specials target the body pool almost exclusively, which appears to be the one hit the most often by normal attacks (random fire). They have no innate posture change effects to enable them to control a crowd or to counter enemy ranged attackers. Their special shots all appear to add states and increase damage, making their role damage addition and state-adding debuffs, pure and simple.
Pistoleers are intended to injure/delay/slow/harass an enemy rush, and prevent assault troops (brawlers, for example) from reaching more vulnerable support and long-range fire personnel, and to provide close-range fire support for the assault troops.
Weakness:
Pistoleers suffer the least amount of damage (among ranged attackers) when attacked by a melee foe, but still take extra damage. (Sidenote: This should make pistols a more attractive weapon choice to personnel who are primarily non-combat but need to be near the front, such as medics. It should also be noted for all those who need a weapon for self-defense but do not plan to specialize in an elite combat profession.) However, Pistols are intended to have the lowest effective range, meaning that their users must accompany a brawler nearly all the way to the enemy lines.
Carbineer Take:
We will eventually outrange these guys properly because range mods will mean something. We should be using this to our advantage by staying further away than they can effectively shoot, and by posturing them down to make them vulnerable to our melee allies when the time is right.
(Split due to length limit, continued in next post)
Additions....
Creature Handlers:
Currently, the purpose of Creature Handlers is to provide staying power through brute levels of HAM bar expressed via their pets. I am not certain if they are intended to provide meat-shields via their pets (as they do currently) in the final designor not.
Purpose:
Creature Handlers are similar to the brawler professionson an abstract level- they're assault troops, of a sort. The purpose of those nasty big pets is to stop the enemy assault troops by tying them up with pets, and to disrupt an enemy's ranged attackers by getting the pets in close to do more damage.
Weakness:
All the HAM in the world on your pets won't stop a blaster from killing you. Pets are nasty, but without the guy running the helm, they're not as nasty. Keep the pets away and kill the guy running the show, and then deal with the pets.
Carbineer Take:
On your side, these guys compliment you well. They are a combination of assault troops and defensive melee specialists. Against you, they represent a severe threat, because you can't kill the pets in just a shot or two.
Well, since we're going off of skill descriptions, we canmake entries for the currently gimpy Squad Leaders and Rangers, too, can we not? This seems to be your show, and I like the analysis so far, so I'll stay mostly out of it.
I'd suggest, however, that Squad Leaders are very much force multipliers and organizers -- they have a myriad of abilities that are intended to keep their guys fighting and functional (distribution of wounds, clearing state effects -- especially dizzy now that knockdown's getting nerfed, dizzy will be a real battle decider, etc.), as well as some skills to facilitate coordination. I'm really eager to see what's in store for these guys in the near future.
Rangers may also play into PvP combat (which seems to be a focus of this analysis), depending on whether or not their new trapping skills will be permitted to target players. If so, then they may have some interesting ways to setup ambushes, what with placeable knockdown traps, or even simple damage traps.
One comment on the stuff you've already done -- I expected to see at least a mention of the carbineer's action-targetting. I personally enjoy the action targetting, because that means that I have some good moves to do nice secondary-action wounds, which really mess with my target's use of specials in an extended firefight, since action is the most universally high HAM cost for moves and weapons (universally high meaning that if it's not highest for a particular weapon/profession, it's second, whereas health and mind are lowest for various weapons/moves).
Kaffis wrote:
Well, since we're going off of skill descriptions, we canmake entries for the currently gimpy Squad Leaders and Rangers, too, can we not?
Sorry for the delayed reply... not that anyone else here appears to have much to say on the subject.
Well, we could add them... except that no currently existing ranger/scout ability works on a PvP target. None. This will change once tracking and the new traps/camps being created have descriptions for me to use in my analysis of intent. /conceal, once implemented, may be of use as well. It's just too early to say. Ishould probablyadd them as they exist presently,as they do have a role (and VERY noticeable effect) in PvE combats, and most of what I mentioned is applicable in either case. (There is a movement to have traps affect CH pets as well...)
...but Squad Leaders, from the time I've spent reading their forums, are nearly as broken currently as commandos once were. It's hard to tell what they were intended to do, aside from being a general "buffing/enhancement for a whole group" profession. (Similar to a bard from EQ, I mean.)I'd really prefer to wait a bit longer on them, as I suspect that their entire skill tree is going to get a serious review and rewrite. (Either that, or you'll never see one because they'll stage arevolt.)
...And Smugglers, who we both left out, I omitted simply because I'm not familiar with their combat abilities enough to explain their role. Are they pistoleers? Pretty much, with a couple of special attacks and the ability to punch someone at a low level. (They're a BH-like "flexibility" class, especially if they add Pistoleer and TKA skills to their original line-up, but the pure Smuggler doesn't appear to have a well-defined or well-developed combat role in and of itself, though the spices would help a group some.)
Kaffis wrote:
One comment on the stuff you've already done -- I expected to see at least a mention of the carbineer's action-targetting. I personally enjoy the action targetting, because that means that I have some good moves to do nice secondary-action wounds, which really mess with my target's use of specials in an extended firefight, since action is the most universally high HAM cost for moves and weapons (universally high meaning that if it's not highest for a particular weapon/profession, it's second, whereas health and mind are lowest for various weapons/moves).
I'm not familiar with the useage levels for the various HAM bars broken down by move. I don't currently engage in PvP at all (yet), sothese are simply overviews of what I perceived to be the roles intended for these classes as written. If targetting action pool is truly the boon you say it is, I'd have to take your word for it - but then, that's why this post exists. I'm not DICTATING these descriptions to the carbineers here, I'm simply trying to get input and feedback. Hard-and-Fast rules won't apply universally here anyway, since skillsets can be mixed (witness a rifleman who also picks up medic, or a carbineer who adds creature handler) to provide a different set of weaknesses. If you engage in PvP and have something to add, don't leave it to me - ADD IT! (Please?)
However, it's hard to justify action targeting as a realadvantage(in my mind) as it's healable by a medic (or anyone with a usable stimpack or /tenddamage). Mind targeting seems far more dangerous (witness mind damage vs. medics, eye shot by bounty hunters, and mind poisons from combat medics) by comparison, as it's unhealable under typical battlefield conditions.
Can you watch an entertainer while in combat and recover damage?It might seem a little weird, but if you could get an entertainer out of the line of fire and then have your medic stay near him/her, could your medic regen mind damage pointsfaster? Would this give youa place for your fighters to retreat to when mind-damaged? Can EVERYONE watch a dancer while continuing to fight? (Note: NOT wounds (black HAM bars)just white-bar damage - does watching an entertainer affect this?)
Mind you, this potentially ties your group into a smallerareaand may put you at greater risk for AoE attacks - because entertainers cannot simply relocate without momentarily giving up the benefits they provide to your group by playing or dancing for you...plus it'd take real er.. spheres of brass for an entertainer to stand in a firefight and NOT fight back...Has anyone even TRIED seeing how an entertainer affects a large PvP battle by playing or dancing, or do they have zero effect on damage regen outside a camp/cantina? (Again, not wounds, I know they're unhealable outside the designated areas.)
In addition, it's now harder to say what the role of Carbineers is -especially given the recent KD/PC nerf. If we can't pin down a group by using multiple posture changes then using most of our area-effect attacks is suicide outside of PvP, plain and simple. We're getting creamed byt his most recent knockdown/posture timer nerfing, as we have more posture changes and knockdowns (Suppression Fire line, Action Shot line, Charge Shot line) than anyone else, from my undertsanding. Since the timer is tied to the target, you can't use half your moves after you've used one from that set. (Action Shot 1 + Action Shot 2 + Suppression Fire + Charge Shot 1 + Charge Shot 2 = one posture down, two bleeds, target immune to posture change or knockdown for 30seconds from AS1 attack, effective as of these changes.)
In PvE, one might be able to make a case for using a AoE pin move (Suppression Fire, Action Shot 2, Charge Shot(2?)) to set multiple targets up for a Warning Shot and/or Snare trap combination, but it's a risky technique that could backfire and get a whole group slaughtered in record time if the warning shot or trap doesn't take or doesn't hold. AoE got people killed in EQ rather often, and it seems destined to do so here as well, but that's uncertain.
Anyone else got something to say? Anyone?
(cricket chirps twice)
really nice post, just sorry it got buried at a point i wasn't reading the boards every day =)
as for smuggler...1 v. 1, they win (esp. in PvE). that's pretty much it. the dirty-fighting styles allow them to have a myriad of high-damaging (at high ham cost for pistols, still not over 100) specials that cause kd/you-can't-act-for-a-long-time/blind/other status effects.
fighting multiple targets at once, they are massively weaker unless the player himself/herself/itself is skilled at quickly cycling through targets to blast them with the appropriate special. feign death is mostly for looks, but can be used to keep themselves alive if the medic should fall.