Pistoleer Archive

Alright I'm tired of all this misinformation roaming around in the Pistoleer Thread. So why not cut out all the BS and get down to the facts?

When it comes to the Player Vs. Player the Pistoleer IS a pretty good profession. We are extremely powerful, extremely fast, and can bleed. Does this mean we are even close to being as effective as any other class? Of course not. When it comes to a group fight, the Pistoleer is just a strong pet sitting back draining his HAM while his target heals his action and health pools, totally neglecting what you just did. It is a sad situation for us when it comes to PvP, but when it comes to PvE we are the **edit**. My 41 - 210dmg FWG5 can do fan shots from 300 - 1200 damage and they shoot incredibly fast. My bleed attack can hit an opponent for up to 500 health per bleed, and my Stopping Shot can punch someone in the face for 1500.

Now we all know every Pistoleer move attacks a random pool, and we have absolutely zero effect attacks like blind, stun, dizzy, intimidate, etc. This furthers the reason as to why we are pretty much useless in group combat PvP. So what should happen then? Should the Pistoleer geta mind shot? lol, absolutely not or that would open up WAY too many possible Pistoleer nerfs(we have yet to be nerfed due to the simple fact that we are not that dangerous in PvP). The only thing I would like to see is the ability to attack a health pool or action pool, not a random one. Also, Stopping Shot should atleast dizzy or stun your opponent, since that seems to be the whole purpose behind the attack(since the description is a lie now).

Now, lets tend to forget about all the shortcomings of the Pistoleer. It is incredibly easy to hit the Pistoleer profession, and we do get fast and powerful weaponry. The Pistoleer is basically the perfect side profession for anyone, even down to a Architect(that is until Elite Elite professions become a reality). So what is the problem?

When it all is said and done, if your a serious combatant in the GCW you need to have another profession. Simple as that. Become a Bounty Hunter / Pistoleer. Become a Commando / Pistoleer. Become a Combat Medic / Pistoleer. Or drop the entire Pistoleer tree andbecome a Creature Handler / Commando.

We all know that the Pistoleer needs some help, but in all truthfullness I am a master pistoleer and find myself where I need to be considering I have Squad Leader and medical skillsto worry about as well. The Pistoleer should be a cool profession, since it is the mastering of the pistol. So I'd rather see upgrades to our persona moreso then upgrades to our skills(even though like everyone else I'd like to see the ability to use a Scatter Pistol or havea mind shot or be able to target pools moreefficiently or be able to Stun someone, whatever).

I'm totally confused by your post. So Pistoleer is "pretty good" although it's just a "side profession" and requires you to get another profession to be effective. So what is the point of this profession? It adds nothing above Novice. What is this exciting weaponry we have access to? As far as I know, all I get is the DX2 at Novice and I'm unimpressed.

In your post you said that "if your a serious combatant in the GCW you need to have another profession." Well I don't WANT another profession. I want this one to work.

Thanks for your comments.

You want this one to "work"? It works just fine.....

And if your novice in pistoleer it is no reason you see no reason behind the profession. Work your way up to Fan Shot and then complain. Doing 350 - 450dmg in PvP at 1.0 speed is pretty **edit** nice if you ask me.

But, as it goes, this and.......hmm...bleed shot 2 is all we have to work with at the moment. Stopping Shot is the most powerful move we have, but its too bad the delay is so high on it.

"So Pistoleer is "pretty good" although it's just a "side profession" and requires you to get another profession to be effective."

I never said it requires another profession to be effective. I was saying it is the perfect side profession since it allows you to do so much damage with so much speed and basically anyone can get it. It is THE alternative profession to get for any class. You can be a Pistoleer and anything else to be honest, and really you can just go up the Techniques and Marksmanship skill trees to be as effective as a Pistoleer can be.

But, I'm confused by your statement that you want pistoleer to "work"....

I'm a Master Pistoleer, so I got Fan Shot long ago. It does worse damage per second than Kip Up Shot from the Marksman tree. Plus it's Random HAM ... and also, if you read Jaegen's posts you'd realize that only 80% of the listed damage is going into one pool, so its even less powerful than you realize.

As for your numbers, you are quoting the BEST damage possible from your FWG5 ... not the average. You are not averaging 350-450 using FanShot with your FWG5. That is 1400-1800 in normal damage.

Regarding my post, there is nothing to be confused about. Read our correspondents' sticky posts, and look at the extensive tests that he has run -- and others have run -- detailing how each of our specials work. Once you realize that all of them are worse than the stuff you got in marksman, then you'll see why I say our profession is broken. On top of all those broken specials, speed is bugged and our defenses don't work either.

One more thing -- you're right that Novice Pistoleer and perhaps the accuracy and speed lines are helpful to Commandos and BHs. I think the view of most people on this forum is that we want to be more than a secnodary profession that those guys can dabble in, but want to have something useful for people who just want to be Pistoleers.

I have to agree with you that the Pistoleer profession is just far too basic. But, it is anything less then uneffective. I took down two imperials at once today 1 vs. 2.

But Fan Shot IS the highest damaging move probably in the entire game, and no, it has never split its damage across multiple pools before for me and I've used it **edit** near 100,000 times. It is really the only move I ever use. When I hit and it says "Head Hit", then all my 1200 damage(PvE) goes to the mind. Same with hitting the action or health pools.

And Fan Shot has almost no delay, the delay is even less then Body Shot 3 or Double Tap and it is 5x more powerful. Kick Up shot is effective...I guess, but I wouldn't care since Fan Shot is still twice as powerful.

I'd like to see some flare added to the Pistoleer class. Say holsters, being able to flip our pistols around our fingers(I think this should be done while stationary or kneeling), see smoke coming out of the gun after Stopping Shot, etc.

Seriously I knew from the beginning the Pistoleer would not be the most effective class when it comes to PvP, but with the recent changes we just need some additions to bring us back to where we were. Which was a valuable choice for someone to choose profession wise.

Nope, that's wrong. Test it out yourself with a friend -- fire a Fan Shot at him and ask him to look at his stats. Only 80% will go in one pool, and then 10% of each of the others. Random HAM attacks work that way. Sucks, really.

There is a delay on Fan Shot, which you can calculate using the speed equations on the sticky posts. If you have high enough speed that there is only a one second delay (the shortest possible in the game), then you shouldn't be using Fan Shot because Stopping Shot is better. If you're at a lower level, Kip Up Shot is better ... although in reality it's best to choose BodyShot2 since you won't be hitting Random HAM.

By the way Fan Shot is not 5x more powerful than anything. Take a look at the multipliers on the sticky posts and FAQ.

Drowzyjedi,

I afraid that you are posting on a forum with a whole bunch of very knowledgable folks. Most of what your are talking about has been tested extensively, and I mean really tested. We have without a doubt one of the most committed correspondents as wellplayers that have done the dirty work,and it would do you alot of good to read some of his stickied posts.

Every single pistol move in the game, has been tested multiple times, using different weapons in a very controlled manner. Comparisons on speed, armor, and just about everything else has been done. Once you have read this information then you might want to test some things yourself. You will see that pistoleers have deeply serious issues, that must be fixed for this profession to be viable in both pve and pvp.

Fastgun

DrowzyJedi wrote:

Should the Pistoleer geta mind shot? lol, absolutely not or that would open up WAY too many possible Pistoleer nerfs(we have yet to be nerfed due to the simple fact that we are not that dangerous in PvP).

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"Should the Pistoleer geta mind shot?"

Interesting thought - Maybe it is absurd to think that masters of ANY weapons should be able to reliably hit someone in specific body parts, I don't think so. Why shouldn't highly trained fighters be able to hit someone in the head? This makes me think that all combat classes should ba able to target any part of the HAM bar, but only at a very high skill level. Say, ummm...... maybe master? Hmmm.......

I truly believe that there are way too many overly powered moves at too low a skill level in their respected profession. I feel that a professions mosteffective combatmove should only be obtainable at the master level. It is a shame to see the deadliest moves on the lower boxes of skill trees, making dabblers better than masters.

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"we have yet to be nerfed"

With this statement, you have lost your - respect and credibility - from every master pistoleer in the game.

A disgruntled pistol worker

Here's the bottom line in my opinion.

We have some special attacks that havenever worked correctly, and some defense mods that have never worked correctly. Then we have some special attack with lower dps than special attacks in the marksman tree. If they can up the damage on heavy weapons then it's fair to improve our dps a little. If they'd just take care of those few issues I think the pistoleers would be happy.

As is, we've never got anything fixed. All we've got is nerfs.

Well people confuse me these days with their definition of a nerf. I've been a pistoleer since the beginning and I've never seen a downright nerf(meaning the decrease in somethings power or effectiveness purposely just do make whatever less powerful of effective). Since the beginning I've been doing massive damage with my pistol at an extremely high rate. The only thing that could be considered a nerf is the whole posture change / knockdown timer but that is for everyone.

Our AoE ranged knockdown was a mistake to begin with, so calling its removal a "nerf" is just using the term to broadly, which is somethign that is occuring alot around here.

And considering the main poster is talking about thigns that trully matter(I also have never seen my Fan Shot or anything else hit anything else but the pool displayed, and if I can't see it how could some stupid calculations tell me otherwise? Since the exact amount is so small its not even noticable), I have to consider his statements pretty much right on.

The Pistoleer is not a profession that is broken in anyway. It is just one that needs to be updated to match the current state of the game. And Fan Shot for me shoots at 1.0 speed as well /shrug. The delay might be about .2 seconds which is not even worth mentioning in all truth.

Shoot at a mob (shooting at a PC the damage to the other HAM bars might regenerate the points back before you can see it) and then peace immediately after one shot. Use your mouse over the HAM bar to check the remaining ham of the mob, 80% of the total damage goes to the bar it said it hit, 10% goes to each of the other two bars.

Tip: try not to test this on mobs that can chew you up too fast

In PvP what this means is that a random HAM shot does 80% damage to say the action pool and 10% to both of the other pools. Say your total damage was 100 so 10 damage goes to both health and mind while the majority goes to action (80). The 10 damage to each of Health and Mind is regenerated quite quickly as it is small so effectively random ham shots are doing roughly 80% of their potential. The downside is that the regen from all 3 pools of your target are helping to decrease the damage you do when you use random HAM attacks.

I like that you're content Drowzy, don't take all the comments as flames, there are just a LOT of frustrated pistoleers now.

"perfect side profession".

That's doesn't appeal to a lot of people choosing pistoleer to become an elite combat profession master (which is what master pistoleer "should" be). If you choose novice pistoleer and get a single tree of pistoleer yeah, maybe being "a good side profession", is cool. But master...should simply be more effective than a speed factory (that's less speed than rifles and bounty hunters...so we can't even say we're the fastest).

We don't really know why its's a professions that basically adds pistol speed, and that's it. Yes, if you combine it with smuggler or BH pistol, or commando, or CM, you can become "more effective", but that goes for every profession.

When I hit and it says "Head Hit", then all my 1200 damage(PvE) goes to the mind. Same with hitting the action or health pools.

Unfortunately, the readout on both the combat window, and the number you see floating, are misleading. They are in fact your TOTAL Damage number, and 80% goes to the main bar, 10% to each other bar. I think targeted shots are like this too, but that's not a huge deal, just thought I'd let you know. Yeah, looking at the float numbers is misleading...crazy game.

Apparentlysome of themisinformation floating around these boards can be attributed to your statements.

First of all Fan Shot does hit all three pools. Test it yourself, Drag the targeting window out to it's maximum length and then fire off one shotand watch all the HAM bars...you will see all three take a hit.

I'm glad you are happy with where the pistoleer class is but many of us aren't. We don't mind constructive criticism but don't come here essentially telling us "How it is" when you obviuosly don't know yourself...how it is.

I'd like to get our specials fixed, I'd like for the pistoleer line to be insular from the Bounty Hunter line and not the **edit** child that it is right now, and this is just personal but I'd like to see more defense mods abilities put in the psitol line because I really see pistoleers as more agile and quick then massive damage dealers.

Fayden Way