Pistoleer Archive
Thread: The New Defensive Mods Not So Great
On the Issue of the Dx2. The best on my server, in comparisons to the best scatters.
DX2 106-165 2.3 speed 17/42/20
Scatter 117-185 2.0 speed 17/51/17
The dx2 is not a bad gun....The lack of highqualityrhodium steel gates its full potenetial. Also the ap1 is non functional =/.
Any master doc/master pistoleer only has 18 points left without the ranged line from marksman,4 with, most of us are "pure". I
You are not "pure" at all....Doctors is a very very very powerful defensive addition to any combat class....
Doctors are combat support. The ability to become a doctor, while shotting stopping shots is pretty destructive. Docs/pistoleers are some of my toughest opponents.
- Buffs, they can do thier own....You are always walking around with about 2kHAM (If the bug doesnt get ya lol)
- Your specials cost nothing because of your buffed sub stats
- You can cure poisons.....This ability alone is extreamly powerful in group oriented PvP.
- Res
- 1k+ heals once every couple of seconds, very nice.
So you see, you used those extra points and became much much much more powerful then you were when you "just had pistoleer". Your no longer a "pure" pistoleers...Your a Pistoleer/Doctor. Thats an ability the hybrid classes can not get, they spent to many skill points to become a doctor.
carbine does and once the warp problem is delt with so will rifle. Whats wrong with us wanting to be as good as the other elite ranged classes?
Actually sir nothing 
. Infact, I agree all elites should be pretty even. But this is who is best? Thats merly an opinion right now....The rfilemen cry about the pistoleer accuracy, the Pistoleers scream about the riflemen ap3, the carbineers wonder why thier speed is 60% of a riflemans 
.....
So in your opinion who exactly is more powerful?
As ElectricNomad posted on the forums a few days back, Pistoleer got a defensive boost on TestCenter, along with Carbineer and Rifleman. I couldn't post at the time (forum bug - "error on page") butfolks seemed fairly happy with the changes but there wasn't much reaction to them.
I'm not very enthusiastic about the changes, for a number of reasons, and wanted to see if other people agreed with me. First of all, here are the changes on Test Center:
PISTOLEER
+75 Dodge
+20 Defense vs Knockdown
+32 Melee Defense
RIFLEMAN
+78 Rifle Accuracy
+37 Ranged Defense
+60 Block
+85 Rifle Aiming
+20 Melee Defense
CARBINEER
+25 Carbine Accuracy
+85 Counterattack
+10 Defense vs Intimidate
+21 Aiming
+20 Ranged Defense
So we get three boosts -- to Dodge, Defense vs Knockdown, and Melee Defense. Of the three, only Melee Defense is valuable. Why?
Let's take Dodge, to start. I'm a Master Pistoleer, so I currently have +30 Dodge. Right now I dodge maybe 2 percent of incoming attacks, and that's being generous. I usually only dodge maybe 3 or 4 times a night. With the new change we'll have +105 Dodge ... so we dodge 7 percent of attacks now, at best? Big deal.
But there is a bigger problem with Dodge, in my mind. The Dodge animation makes you stop in your tracks, which is a real problem if you're trying to run or stay on the move -- which I always do, because I'm almost always more accurate than my enemy and want to make myself harder to hit. So right now I don't even WANTto Dodge unless they get those animations fixed, because I don't want to be forced to stand still.
What about Defense vs Knockdown? Isn't that a great change for us? No, not at all. This is something that Jaegen figured out long ago and explained in a post to the Devs. Let's say that Defense vs Knockdown reduces your chance of getting knocked down by a certain percentage. The problem with that is that the enemy will just spam the knockdown move against you, and once one of them hits, you're knocked down for a while. So unless the fight is really short (1-3 shots) or your Defense vs Knockdown is very high (maybe 70-80% chance of resisting knockdown) then the defense is worthless.
Here's an example. Let's say that someone is spamming knockdown against you, and Defense vs Knockdown reduces your chances of getting knocked down by 50% (best case scenario). You have a 75% chance of being knocked down by the second hit and a 87.5% chance of getting knocked down by the third hit. By the fourth hit, you will be knocked down 93.75% of the time. So Defense vs Knockdown doesn't do much for us. Maybe it forces the other guy to use a knockdown move twice instead of once, but that's hardly a big lifesaver for us.
The only real help we get is the +32 Melee Defense, which is helpful because it reduces the accuracy of melee attacks against you. Sadly that's pretty much a nonfaction PvE-only benefit for us. It doesn't help us running faction missions at all, and it doesn't help us much in PvP unless you're facing CH pets, since melee is such a nonfactor in PvP.
As a basis of comparison, Riflemen get some major boosts. They get +78 Rifle Accuracy, +85 Rifle Aiming, +20 Melee Defense, PLUS +37 Ranged Defense. I have no idea why they get so much, unless it's to compensate for a potential speed change down the line, but as all of you know the Devs haven't mentioned anything about speed since we bugged them a month or two ago. Right now the only real advantage that a pure Pistoleer has is accuracy, and that's out the window.
Why am I bringing this up? Because we need to fight for some real improvements before these changes go live. We need a Ranged Defense boost and we also need to get them to fix the Dodge animation and boost the Dodge percentage so that +105 Dodge means something.
What do the rest of you think? Maybe you guys like Dodge a lot more than I do, or think Defense vs Knockdown is cool. Personally I think these are horrible changes ... they sound good on paper, and people will ASSUME that they are valuable to us, but they don't help us much in reality. That is a recipe for us continuing to be gimped ... we already have enough worthless skills.
We'll need to run some tests, both on Dodge and Defense vs Knockdown, before making some posts about this ... but if everyone agrees, maybe we could combine this with our FWG5 concerns and push for both at the same time.
I'm in a generous mood so I'll stand over on the Rifleman's side of the line. They have to go prone and fire from prone pretty much. We get a huge boost to our defenses by the sheer fact that we can move around and fire pretty freely.
That being said I don't like dodge stopping you from doing what you were doing. Its like talking in combat and suddenly you do one of the silly animations. It completely stops your character from firing, moving etc. None of the animations should override movement and combat. I think that's something major they need to work on.
We also need to figure out what's up with speed. Why didn't we get a speed boost or re-org. And if the original poster was right we actually lost 10 speed (can someone look at that?)
More than anything else we need MTPS to work and Fanshot to go back to AE. It was awesome being able to shoot multiple targets. MTPS could be health targetted with BS3 dmg. It would be even better than fanshot, or it could target more..whatever. But if it only targets mobs that are attacking you then it will be yet another gimped special.
Sorry if I'm rambling but I only have a second more to post.
Philosopher1976 said:
"...Let's say that Defense vs Knockdown reduces your chance of getting knocked down by a certain percentage. The problem with that is that the enemy will just spam the knockdown move against you, and once one of them hits, you're knocked down for a while. So unless the fight is really short (1-3 shots) or your Defense vs Knockdown is very high (maybe 70-80% chance of resisting knockdown) then the defense is worthless.... By the fourth hit, ..."
Most people can not spam multiple KDs, even with my low HAM DH17, I'd lose most of my action bar byt the time the "fourth" shot hit. Also, KD does not work well by itself (lasts a second maybe), so you need to add dizzy to it, which doesnt't stick all the time. So you are looking at a lot of HAM cost there.
If the first KD doesn't stick, I might try another (never have so far), but I wouldn't expect anyone to try more due to the HAM costs.
DiLune wrote:
I'm in a generous mood so I'll stand over on the Rifleman's side of the line. They have to go prone and fire from prone pretty much. We get a huge boost to our defenses by the sheer fact that we can move around and fire pretty freely.
You're right about this, but don't forget that Riflemen have a lot of advantages over us as well. They sacrifice mobility for much higher DPS ... until now. Pure Pistoleers lose their one advantage -- accuracy.
My point wasn't about Riflemen, though. My point was just that the changes don't really do much to help us, so let's be aware of that and ask the Devs to do something that does. (Unless other people Dodge a lot more often than I do, which I doubt.)
I agree 100% that our broken specials and speed are the #1 issues. My point is that we need to raise these issues before the new defenses go live ... otherwise the Devs (and other professions) will point to our new "uber" defensive abilities when we ask to get our broken specials fixed. I'd rather not have skills that are worthless but sound good.
DiLune wrote:
We also need to figure out what's up with speed. Why didn't we get a speed boost or re-org. And if the original poster was right we actually lost 10 speed (can someone look at that?)
More than anything else we need MTPS to work and Fanshot to go back to AE. It was awesome being able to shoot multiple targets. MTPS could be health targetted with BS3 dmg. It would be even better than fanshot, or it could target more..whatever. But if it only targets mobs that are attacking you then it will be yet another gimped special.
BeWary wrote:
You can turn the animations off, I noticed this when I was "lol"ing at someone in combat and my toon stoped fighting to slap a knee.( I also use "wanna" often and the foot stomping animation attached to it is annoying) Turn em off and the only problem you have is that you look a lil deadpan when you "lol" and your toon stands stock still.
I knew that you could turn social animations off, but can you turn off combat animations as well? If so, that's really important... can you (or someone else) test this and confirm that it turns off the Dodge animation?
Tanks wrote:
Most people can not spam multiple KDs, even with my low HAM DH17, I'd lose most of my action bar byt the time the "fourth" shot hit. Also, KD does not work well by itself (lasts a second maybe), so you need to add dizzy to it, which doesnt't stick all the time. So you are looking at a lot of HAM cost there.
If the first KD doesn't stick, I might try another (never have so far), but I wouldn't expect anyone to try more due to the HAM costs.
Oh come on Tanks ... let's be honest here. First of all, you're not really using a DH17 -- you're using a Laser Carbine, like everyone else.
And if you can't spam knockdowns, then you're not being very smart ... I hunt with a Master Carbineer who spams knockdown constantly without a problem due to buffs. I can use UnderhandShot (BH Carbine knockdown) at least a few times with a Laser Carbine if I use a HAM cost powerup.
In any case, knockdowns aren't a carbine-only issue. What about LowBlow, for instance?
The bottom line is that the stupid "Defense vs. Knockdown" stat doesn't do crap for us.
Nice post Phil, I agree 100% with it. Something HAS to be done about riflemen speed. They are currently GROSSLY overpowered, and once patch comes out...get ready for the rifleman bandwagon.-DP
Philosopher1976 wrote:
BeWary wrote:
You can turn the animations off, I noticed this when I was "lol"ing at someone in combat and my toon stoped fighting to slap a knee.( I also use "wanna" often and the foot stomping animation attached to it is annoying) Turn em off and the only problem you have is that you look a lil deadpan when you "lol" and your toon stands stock still.I knew that you could turn social animations off, but can you turn off combat animations as well? If so, that's really important ... can you (or someone else) test this and confirm that it turns off the Dodge animation?
I'll keep my eyes open for it, considering how rare dodge is I might miss it. I don't remeber being stopped in my tracks recently by the dodge animation and I do like to run and gun.
I think you missed the point here.
Pistoleers, are supposed to run around freely and have great accuracy even when they are running around. If you take a look at pistoleers tree they have the best defenses against state change attacks, and other 'debuff's.
However Riflemen are supposed to go prone, aim and kill the target in few shots. They dont get any defense against KD, and their other defenses are poor as well. However because of low accuracy in close range and 2.5x melee penalty + moving penalties that rifles are getting, they NEED huge ranged, melee defense for survive while running away.
You stated that dodge is worthless. Sureit is, cause it doesn't work atm and designer already stated it. I can guess that +105 dodge is alot better than +30 cause it doesn't addup LINEAR. Dodge, Counter Attack and Block give ranged classes huge advantage against all melee classes but TKA. TKAs get a new modtodefense against these 3 skills.
Generally all defense stats were buggy so far. I can guess that they fixed it. Its our advantage against BHs which don't become any defense and thats the intended way.
I think ranged elite classes shouldwork alot betteragainst BHs and Commandos. Seems like the combat designer figured it out at last.