Pistoleer Archive
Thread: A reluctant retort to a part of the Pistoleer State of the Profession
I didn't want to muck up the original thread, but something in their caught my eye. Now, I wasn't here trolling for flames - my alt is an aspiring master pistoleer / master smuggler. I was checking up on the Republic Blaster news when I ran across this:
Philosopher1976 wrote:
“Dabblers Delight”
At this point the only use of Pistoleer is as a supplement to OTHER professions -- Smuggler, Bounty Hunter, Commando -- that DO have useful pistol specials and certifications. Those folks are taking bits and pieces of Pistoleer in order to get speed and accuracy boosts to the non-Pistoleer pistol skills and pistol certifications they have that DO work. So a Smuggler can take the Marksmanship line and get a accuracy boost to his own specials, or a Bounty Hunter can take Stances 2 and max out his Pistol speed. That's the reason we're seeing a huge number of "Novice Pistoleers" but so few Master Pistoleers. While other professions are dabbling in Pistoleer for some speed and accuracy to use with the WORKING pistol skills and pistol certifications they receive from OTHER professions, the average Joe Pistoleer is excited about getting his next box of Pistoleer ... until he realizes that, yet again, the skills he obtains from that box are broken or useless.
*thinks of all of the Master Gunfighters / Rogues and Master Gunfighters / Expert Bounty Hunters he's run into and chuckles*
I realize what you're saying here and I really don't want to come off as trollish, but I honestly feel this "Dabbler's Delight" scenario is the other way around. With novice medic and MBH I can get up to three boxes in any one line of pistoleer, and frankly there's nothing that be gotten with those few skill points that's worth having. I've had stopping shot - it was nice, but not that much better than torso shot / eye shot to justify spending my precious few skill points on. Smugglers, well to be any good with their specials they're going to need the speed and accuracy lines which, with as least half of the pistoleer tree full, knocks them out of the realm of the "dabbler".
Frankly, the master pistoleer has more to gain from raiding bounty pistol or dirty fighting than a master bounty hunter or master smuggler has to gain from raiding any one line of pistoleer. To everyone outside of this forum that makes the pistoleers the dabblers, not the other way around. Me, I don't care too much. "Dabbling" makes this game fun. For God's sake though, please turn off the "Expert Bounty Hunter" tag. I doubt most "Expert Bounty Hunters" in SWG could find an informant appropriate for their level of investigation, let alone track a mark past novice.
"The master pistoleer has more to gain from raiding bounty pistol or dirty fighting than a master bounty hunter or master smuggler has to gain from raiding any one line of pistoleer"
but also keep in mind smugglers suck without pistoleer, so that rules that theory out....and you say doing 2 lines in a profession and not going any further isnt dabbling.....then what the hell do u think dabbling is?....going into a skill u have no intention of coming close to master is a dabbler to me.
Id go further into this, but honestly your post didnt make to much common sense to me, so i'll leave the rest to my fellow pistoleers.
Only one thing, Q came here and asked why so many people where 'novice pistoleers'. He was curious why novice pistoleer was the biggest profession out. Not Master, but Novice. We explained it to him, so he nerfed us instead of stoping the dabbler's. The BH/Smuggler/Commando's have nerfed us with their dabbling. I choose pistoleer for a combat defense roll so I can take up other things. Why should I have to take up another combat profession? Do rifleman have to take up another combat profession to be the BEST with a rifle? Do Carboneer's have to take up another combat profession in order to be BEST with a carbine? Do Creature Handlers take up another profession to be BEST with Creatures? No, so why should I HAVE to take up another profession in order to be BEST with a pistol? In order to support your accusations, you would have needed Q to come here and ask, 'why are there so many Novice BH/Commando/Smugglers', However, he didn't say that, now did he! Your accusations are false, read the boards before you try and turn things around on people with speculations and idea's and calling them truth and facts!
I think part of the problem is the devs' inability to wrap their heads around the skill system they've created. They've made a system that encourages people to dabble in, and even master, multiple elite professions. Yet, when it comes time to try to figure out who's playing what, they approach the data as if this were a class-based game. The problem isn't one of Bounty Hunters dabbling in Pistoleer, Pistoleers dabbling in Bounty Hunter, or Droid Engineers dabbling in Chef.
Bolanos wrote:Only one thing, Q came here and asked why so many people where 'novice pistoleers'. He was curious why novice pistoleer was the biggest profession out. Not Master, but Novice. We explained it to him, so he nerfed us instead of stoping the dabbler's. The BH/Smuggler/Commando's have nerfed us with their dabbling. I choose pistoleer for a combat defense roll so I can take up other things. Why should I have to take up another combat profession? Do rifleman have to take up another combat profession to be the BEST with a rifle? Do Carboneer's have to take up another combat profession in order to be BEST with a carbine? Do Creature Handlers take up another profession to be BEST with Creatures? No, so why should I HAVE to take up another profession in order to be BEST with a pistol? In order to support your accusations, you would have needed Q to come here and ask, 'why are there so many Novice BH/Commando/Smugglers', However, he didn't say that, now did he! Your accusations are false, read the boards before you try and turn things around on people with speculations and idea's and calling them truth and facts!
The problem is that the devs have no idea how to approach profession metrics in their own game.
it's all about perception.
Bounty hunters think there are more pistoleer dabblers
Pistoleers think there are more commando/bh/smuggler dabblers.
Bounty hunters have gotten pistoleers nerfed
Pistoleers have gotten bounty hunters nerfed
squad leaders and image desingers have gotten both pistoleers and bounty hunters nerfed
Chef's are going to get the Jedi nerfed.
Without hard numbers we don't know for sure.
All we know is this
About 6 percent of the player base has novice pistoleer and about 2 % for BH. Not sure on smuggler etc but it's around 1 percent or so.
Everyone is dabbling in everything. Pistoleers dabble in BH and smuggler, BH commando and smuggler dabble in pistoleer.
Pistoleers think they can't get decent specials unless they dabble in BH and smuggler, BH thinks they can't get decent specials unless they dabble in pistoleer. Smugglers and commando want skill mods so they dabble in pistoleer.
We all dabble, you dabble, your correspondant dabbles, BH's dabble, commando's dabble, smugglers dabble, fencers dabble, TKA's dabble
We all dabble.
What was my point?
I have no earthly idea.
The point is that dabbling is good. Nowhere did I say there's anything wrong with it. I was simply challenging the assertion that the there are more bounty hunters and smuggler dabbling in pistoleer than vice versa.
As for my commenton a smuggler takingtwo full lines in pistoleer, I believe I said they'd want at least that many. Frankly, being that close to the other lines, needing a minimal of experienceand skill points to complete them and not finishing it out doesn't make sense to me.
While we're at it, why would a pistoleer ever take the bounty pistol line?Hooray for pistol speed stacking andall, butas a pistoleer I'd rather get the dirty fighting line formuch fewer skill points than dump it intobounty pistol and walk away with only eye shot and torso shot.
Anywho, just my thoughts. Thanks for keeping it civil.Now back to my graduate lab report!
Let me explain something, this is my point of view and the reason why I say dabbler's are killing the pistoleer profession.
This game is not truely profession based although it does 'revolve' around professions. It is a skill based game, but once again, 'revolving' around professions. Personally, dabbling should be removed for a SHORT time. In this short period of time they should balance the combat professions. Once balanced they should allow dabbling again. The idea behind this is each profession on its own is balanced with each other and stand a fair chance against the other. However, if a person wishes to 'dabble', and put all their skills into combat class's, then no one should have the right to cry or complain about the added power that one person has, because he 'invested' into being an elite combat profession. You will no longer have the, "this profession is more powerful then us!" arguement anymore since everyone is balanced. Now it will be more of a, "Daaaammmnn, that guy's template is solid, I gotta work on my fubar PvP template". After professions are balanced, you can mold your toon to be what you desire, defensive or offensive power. But that will not happen until dabbling stops long enough for the dev's to balance the professions.
I hope that made sence, in short, if all combat professions where balanced, then those who spend the extra point in dabbling should be granted the greater power for their Offensive attacks (example dabblers). They (dabbler's) should not be striped of that. However, the dev's are striping them of that which in effect is striping those who wish for defensive (example Pistoleer)power of their only defenses, thus hurting the defensive player's far more then their aimed target, the Offensive player's.
In short short (hehe) balance professions first and pay no mind to the dabbling BH 
(hehe, sorry, had to throw that in 
)
DirthNader wrote:While we're at it, why would a pistoleer ever take the bounty pistol line? Hooray for pistol speed stacking and all, but as a pistoleer I'd rather get the dirty fighting line for much fewer skill points than dump it into bounty pistol and walk away with only eye shot and torso shot.
Anywho, just my thoughts. Thanks for keeping it civil. Now back to my graduate lab report!
3 reasons- Eyeshot, Torsoshot to stack with the 2 bleeds for a 3 part health based DOT, and the 1 second stoppingshot with any pistol ever made. Agreed it may not be the most efficient play points wise but it is a killer PvP template.
Pre-"fix" access to the scatter was also a big pluss so you will see some hold overs from then.
My biggest beef with the dabblers is that we can't "get" anything good to replace our broken specials as every dabbler with a pistol will get it. What is balanced in the hands of a pistoleer/doctor may be WAY overpowered at BH speed, or may stack up to be a god killer with lowblow/lastditch combo.
We can't be a "stand alone" ranged combat class because everything we have stacks with 2 other ranged combat classes and it leads to to many godkiller templates. So we are left broken and pushed further down the fix list. Yay.
DirthNader wrote:
I realize what you're saying here and I really don't want to come off as trollish, but I honestly feel this "Dabbler's Delight" scenario is the other way around. With novice medic and MBH I can get up to three boxes in any one line of pistoleer, and frankly there's nothing that be gotten with those few skill points that's worth having. I've had stopping shot - it was nice, but not that much better than torso shot / eye shot to justify spending my precious few skill points on. Smugglers, well to be any good with their specials they're going to need the speed and accuracy lines which, with as least half of the pistoleer tree full, knocks them out of the realm of the "dabbler".
Frankly, the master pistoleer has more to gain from raiding bounty pistol or dirty fighting than a master bounty hunter or master smuggler has to gain from raiding any one line of pistoleer. To everyone outside of this forum that makes the pistoleers the dabblers, not the other way around. Me, I don't care too much. "Dabbling" makes this game fun.
I'd disagree with you on a few points. You're looking at it from the perspective ofa Master Bounty Hunter that's dabbling in Pistoleer. That's not necessarily the case. Even for people intending to be MBH one day, I hear its a long road up the investigation skill line. Are your skill points going to waste in the mean time? Most likely they're being put to use, maybe in the pistoleer tree, maybe elsewhere. If they're put into getting Techniques IV and Stances II, you're getting a ton of speed and a ton of defenses.
I also feel that due to the amount of skill points it takes to become a BH, it is for the most part unrealistic for a pistoleer who also wants to do something else to also get points in the pistol line of BH.
Of course, the argument can be made either way and I'm sure there are probably examples of both types of skill sets (pistoleer dabblers & BH dabblers). But I believe Phil is correct.
A smuggler is almost forced into the pistoleer profession - the delay for last ditch is as long as stopping shot (4) and if they don't have any pistol speed mods above what's gained in marksman, they're really in trouble. A commando is almost forced to at least dabblein the pistoleer profession if they want to use their launcher pistol. Since both the smuggler and commando don't have to get any extra pre-requisites (not that they should) to gain access to the pistoleer tree, they(& BH) have alot to gain with a minimum of extra skill points expended. A pistoleer getting BH is a totally different story.
in this game kick ass.
You can take an all out combat class and supplement it with
a few medic skills, and i don't hear any master doctors bitching about dabblers.
Seriously, stop trying to tell people how to play their game.
Dabbling is great. It keeps the game fun by allowing you to aquire useful skills without
always having to grind stupid ones in order to get master.
Yes, "Expert Bounty Hunter" is a stupid tag. They should rename it to Bounty pistols expert or something.
Yes, there's way too many of them. But that's because apparently 80% of this game's population
is obsessed with being an "00ber pvp d00d" and nothing more. That sad fact is a reflection of
the people playing the game, not the game itself.
Personally, I intend to drop BH soon in order to Master pistoleer and free up slots for more medic
skills as well as a few other items which would allow me to have a well rounded character. That's
the whole beauty of the system.
Let's be honest, the people who bitch about dabblers are doing so for one reason:
They worked hard to Master their chosen profession, and they're pissed off that they can get beat
down in PVP by players who haven't mastered much of anything, but "dabbled" in the useful skills
from multiple trees.
You call that cheap, I call it smart. Shed the fat, take what you need and leave the rest behind.
Republic blasters work now, and a friend of mine who dabbles in pistoleer was having better luck damaging Piket's with it last night than I was with my scatter.
I'm anxiously looking forward to Thunderheat following through on his plan to go out with the correspondents and groups to work on issues.
For Pistoleer that would mean (hopefully) Thunder would check out the following templates:
1)Pistoleer -pure et dur, test out all our specials and weapons and hopefully see that a lot of them don't do anything.
2) Pistoleer/Smuggler- Those smuggler specials are just plain FUN!!! something that seems to be missing from the Pistoleer line specials.
3) Pistoleer/BH Pistol
What I hope after he goes through all these is that he realises what Philosopher and Jaegen and the rest of the "High Level" Pistoleers have been saying: There is a lack of stuff in our profession that makes it truly 'fun'.
I'm all for templates, but when 1 Line of Smuggler has 4 extremely useful and fun attacks, suddenly I'm getting Master Pistoleer just so I can shoot Last Ditch at a good speed, there's something seriously amiss.
No nerfs, no extra power, just practicality and fun in pistoleer specials. As it stands we have 2 or 3 specials in our entire line worth it, and they become obsolete and passe with the investment in 1 line of alternative profession.
And I believe this was the crux of Phil's arguement
Lorez said:
"Republic blasters work now, and a friend of mine who dabbles in pistoleer was having better luck damaging Piket's with it last night than I was with my scatter. "
Have you checked the stats on the Pikets? I used to use a scout with them because their acid ressistance is MUCH higher then energy 
.
Also, republic blaster certification is not specifically a pistoleer certification.