Pistoleer Archive
Thread: Pistoleer/Smuggler Question
I actually mastered Pistoleer by accident.
I first mastered Smuggler, then toyed around with Commando (0/0/4/0). After a while though, I capped out my Pistol XP...900k...and had already been dumping my Combat XP into Pistoleer...so I was 0/0/0/3 Pistoleer...
When I grew bored of the flamethrower and launcher pistol, I unloaded Commando and trained to 0/3/0/3 Pistoleer. The DF tree combined with the Marksmanship (accuracy) and Stances (speed) of Pistoleer allowed me to pick up XP at an astonishing rate. Of course, I picked up a very nice Krayt FWG around the same time, which also came in handy. But, after I started, I pretty much mastered Pistoleer in about 2-3 weeks...playing only semi-regularly.
I haven't played on that character in well over 2 months though. I signed in the other night, just to check my mail, and found out that my house had been destroyed, along with my PA's former guild hall. Ah well...
What Caylin said is the smartest way to get pistol xp. You get 0/0/4/0 pistoleer for fanshot, then group with peeps on Dathomir with your dx2 (or in my case a pre-nerf scatter pistol, heh), take Enraged Rancor missions and when you shoot all you'll see is green in your combat log. I really enjoyed my pistol grind, it was easy and entertaining...good luck.
Get buffs, good kinetic armor, and go to dantooine to take quenker/savage quenker missions. Pick up
novice pistoleer.
Try this... go prone 64 meters from the lair. Hit one of the quenkers with healthshot2 till it drops.
Chances are you will kill him before he starts moving towards you.
Take out his other quenker friend. It should die before it reaches you.
Use healthshot2 as your primary shot. It targets only one pool (health) at near fanshot damage. I've
punched in the numbers into a SWG damage calculator for a 2.0 speed 78-170 pistol with novice pistoleer
pistol mods (+30 pistol speed). Healthshot2 hits for 139.8 DPS (damage per second), fanshot hits for
147.6 DPS. The real DIFFERENCE is that healthshot2 hits only the health pool, while fanshot hits a random
pool. The effect is that healthshot2 will kill faster.
Also assuming that only one quenker is spawned at a time when tapping the lair, you'll only have to deal
with more than one when you reach the lair at first. Lairs begin with only two of them.
Continue to tap the lair until a quenker spawns. Do not continualy hit the lair until it blows up.
Supposedly this will cause only two spawned quenkers to appear in total - not the four that are supposed to.
This has been tested to kill lairs quicker than the use of fanshot. I personally would go up the accuracy
(marksmanship) line of pistoleer first. If you plan to master both pistoleer/smuggler, i'd suggest mastering
pistoleer first... making the pistol xp in smuggler a real breeze.
Assuming all you will hit are quenker lairs, you don't really need fanshot... if you plan to group alot while
hunting, i'd pick up fanshot after (or before to your taste) getting marksmanship 4.
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse! 
Yeah I've come to learn that HS is a great major power shot myself. AND it's easy on the HAM bars. Caylin, normally I would agree but this is what the dev's did when they had to go and redo the bleeds. This was ENTIRELY their doing. They upped the damage on the shot to make it more functional.
Besides, it'll be gone in the balance anyway, unless they screw that up too. 
/aim
/lowblow
/healthshot 2
/healthshot 2
It's a beautiful sequence if your Low Blow succeeds. Health Shot 2 does sick damage to quenks when they're prone from Low Blow, or close to you prone from /Meleepistol (Pistol Whip).
Id go get dirty fighter line 1st. Then get buffed and armor'd after you got that line and then head to the fort and master pistoleer in a weekend. 
Thats what I did.
Low blow panic shot last ditch last ditch last ditch.....