Pistoleer Archive

Sorry to rant...but this is just getting stupid.

While Krayt hunting tonight, I went from having fun to being simply speechless. Pistoleer can't even compete with the likes of Riflemen and Commandos. Like, not even close. Heck, I was the only "Master" of a ranged skill tree and I was getting so out damaged it wasn't even funny. Additionally, a lone rifleman (master ?) with a pre-nerf T21 actually took every single kill from a group of four (including me - master pistoleer, a rifleman - close to master , a commando - not master , and a carbineer - not master).

Meanwhile, back over in some other thread Thunderheart is making statements like "pistoleer is great...rifleman not so great..." - (paraphrase). I really don't care if I am uber, but I do expect some freaking balance.

And now...they want to nerf fanshot...the only good special we have...period. A super short, long refresh KD and some weak bleeds is nothing to jump up and down about, not to mention our long list of crap/broken specials. I blow my action ham away trying to keep up with a rifleman who has barely touched his HAMs and guess who gets the most exp??? Not the MASTER of a profession.

Maybe after suffering for years under Sony's rule in EQ where my main class was also ignored forever (Ranger) I am a bit touchy...but I am about to give them a middle finger and yank my checkbook away from these idiots forever.

Does anyone see ANY hope that they won't just keep screwing us over and maybe do their %^&* homework instead of reacting to people screaming nerf because they can?

/em I feel a little better * grin *

Krayts are not a good showcase for pistoleers. It's a little thing called AR3 armor. If you're using an AP0 pistol, you're only doing 3.75% damage against a dragon with 70% resists. That's why riflemen are going to dominate so much (either that or a commando with a rocket launcher), they're doing 30% damage with their AP3 weapons.

Healthshot 1 and 2 are incredibly useful vs. krayts, since they'll do more damage than the normal attacks. If they can stack with a commando burn (the big hitter), then it will really bring one down pretty quick. However, none of those attacks count towards kill credit.

Here's the flipside on kill stealing. I wandered into the crystal caves to see what was up. I was totally by myself, no pet or anything. It was packed, there were about 5 players and about 12 pets (at-sts and grauls). I happened to show up right as a group of untrained dark force dudes spawned, and everyone started attacking it. These are the easier guys, that have AR0 and 50% resists to all.

So i figured "what the heck", took out my Krayt FWG, ate some food, and began spamming 1-second fanshots into the confused battle. When the smoke had cleared, I ended up with the kill credit for ALL FOUR of the force dudes that were killed. But this situation was custom-made for me. Other people's pets were tanking, my weapon was on the same terms as everyone else, and because I was hepped on food/healing myself, I could spam a fairly high damage attack against 4 targets every second forever.

And I don't think you're familiar with the mind costs associated with every rifle besides the DLT20. They're pretty nasty.

Very true, krayts are not a good showcase for the abilities of the pistoleer. I saw on the rifleman forums a dude braging about taking down a peko-peko albatros single-handedly. How did he do it? Conceal shot over and over, pausing to heal his depleated mind every so often. How long did it take him? 40 mins. I laughed my ass off. I saw an albatross, found a house to pull my pet speed-bump the rock beetle and my med droid, buffed myself, then charged the albatros. As you can imagine, speed-bump got incapped like a champ after 2-3 hits (im not a very good owner to work for im affraid), then the albatross is after me, and it is pissed. No big deal, i took it down in about 40 seconds. The poor albatrosses dont have any heat resistance, so it was a no contest. I took a ton of damage (bless you composite armor), but since pistol specials come out of the action pool, i could heal myself 4 times during the fight.

Sometimes it just plain sucks to be a rifleman, sometimes it sucks to be a pistoleer. Rifleman have a stun weapon, ~150 damage, ap 1, a cold weapon, ~200 damage, ap 0, and about 50 laser weapons with varying amounts of ap, from 0-3. The jawa ion rifle is pretty cool, but the freeze ray pretty much sucks. So if a rifleman's enemy is resistant to energy, the rifleman's options are sketchy at best. Krayts just happen to be heavy armor to everything (kuz they are badasses)so high ap weapons have an advantage.

Riflemen also take a 2.5x modifier to all mele damage they get while holding a rifle, so it all evens out in the end.

Wow, what kind of rifle was this dude shooting that "hardly touched" his HAM bar? My first character was a master rifleman and I can tell you, with the exeption of the DLT20, ALL rifles have nearly prohibitive HAM costs. With a 1200 mind HAM I was only getting 4 specials off with my T21 before I had to switch off to my DLT because my mind was almost gone.

My notes:

PvE: With fanshot we get easily the best xp of the group when fighting against MOB groups. Against powerful single mobs we are pretty poor. We better stay away and not disturb others when killing krayts Ok, maybe not, but that's not far from the truth.

PvP: Here again, against enemy groups fanshot and healtshots are great, but duelling is not for us, which is pretty odd since we are gunfighters. Stopping shotjust can't matchBH/smuggler pistol shots.

We would be nothing withoutthe fanshot. If they nerf it and wont give something as powerful tousI will drop pistoleer and get probably riflemen or BH/Smuggler skills.

You went dragon-hunting with a pistol ? And you got disappointed ? Good - Something works in this game.

Yeah, pistoleers are the LAST profession to be krayt hunting bro, sorry....but its the sad truth.

And as for the person who said we cannot compete in duels....well...not so true, most smugglers are pistoleer/smuggler hybrid...so that counts as us as well hehe

In the right conditions a Pistoleer can still contribute to a Krayt hunt.

I was out last night in a group with my new Republic Blaster (71-344, AP1) and by the time the dragon went down, I'd made 4500 pistol XP and about 750 combat XP (don't quite understand that part, I thought combat XP was always relative to weapon XP but that's what it said).

I'm also a Doctor so I played other roles in the group (like constantly dragging/healing/reviving the dumb TKA guy who would run up to the Krayt, hit it once and go down), but still, I felt like I contributed at least a bit..

yeah pistoleers are next to worthless in krayt hunts. I use my pre-nerf FWG5 and just spam fanshot on them for pistol exp. I usually end up with 1000-4500exp. Not too shabby when you add in I get an equal share of the loot

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Hirojin wrote:
In the right conditions a Pistoleer can still contribute to a Krayt hunt.

I was out last night in a group with my new Republic Blaster (71-344, AP1) and by the time the dragon went down, I'd made 4500 pistol XP and about 750 combat XP (don't quite understand that part, I thought combat XP was always relative to weapon XP but that's what it said).

I'm also a Doctor so I played other roles in the group (like constantly dragging/healing/reviving the dumb TKA guy who would run up to the Krayt, hit it once and go down), but still, I felt like I contributed at least a bit..

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You got your extra combat XP for healing. Medical Profession are now given combat XP relating to that.

This game was always designed to be a 'team' oriented game. Meaning that some professions are going to excel in certain situations while others are going to suffer. Take a rifleman to the Imperial Base on Naboo and they're going to struggle compared to a pistoleer or in close combat type.

But Pistols can contribute to Krayt hunts, they just can't (and shouldn't) be soloing

Well, with the exception of Morricone, I appreciate the posts people. I generally try not to post whines, but I have just gotten sick of the entire lack of balance in this game and the murky skill definitions that were obviously not play tested enough.

Morricone, your a troll and would be doing me a great favor if you would go bother some little children who might think that you have as much wit as you think you do.

Now, for those that posted ACTUAL messages containing more than self boosting dribble...

You are all correct, just the Krayt example was kind of bad...

My frustration has been building as my friend has been getting closer to master rifleman because now, with single mobs OR groups of mobs, he is far superior. Which...well...covers the entire range of combat...big single tough mobs and groups of not so tough mobs...

The krayt was just the straw...especially with a single rifleman stealing our kills and who also had been soloing them all day and had 21 tissues and 4 pearls.

The ONLY disadvantage they have once they catch up in speed is the fact that their specials use mind, which obviously cannot be stim healed.

Now, this appears to be a disadvantage that is soon going to vanish as per the test center changes...so now they just get even better.

Sure, with fanshot I can eat a crowd pretty quick and w/novice medic I can keep doing it until I run out of mind. This has its uses...the primary one is to get exp...which at master is well...uh...not so needed. Of course, with the upcoming changes, being a medic isn't going to help me either, so now the rifleman gets that much better in comparison.

Also, this presumes you are a medic as well, which in general I try to compare skill trees without hybrid skills...something that has gotten the pistoleer soooo much flak because people lump us pure pistoleers in with those with BH and smuggler.

I never wanted to solo a krayt, never expected to, but then I guess I was silly to expect NO class in the game to solo one in under 2 minutes.

I do however want a clear place where I do excel, and there simply isn't one.

BTW, I neither have a pre-nerf fwg5 or a krayt republic blaster, but then the rifleman I group with has "standard" gear as well.

So...I guess I wait until the next round of patches, but if they don't fix some of our skill tree problems, I am either a new range class or gone from SWG. Horizons comes out next month, maybe THEY will appreciate their customers.

Anyway, thanks again for the feedback people!

Won't be anyone soloing Krayts after next patch, anyway. They're getting HUGE increases in HAM, etc.

Like, reported Canyons have 300K Ham, Ancients 600K.

Intended that it takes, not a group, but a LARGE, good group, to take one.

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roboslug wrote:
Well, with the exception of Morricone, I appreciate the posts people. I generally try not to post whines, but I have just gotten sick of the entire lack of balance in this game and the murky skill definitions that were obviously not play tested enough.

Morricone, your a troll and would be doing me a great favor if you would go bother some little children who might think that you have as much wit as you think you do.

Now, for those that posted ACTUAL messages containing more than self boosting dribble...

You are all correct, just the Krayt example was kind of bad...

My frustration has been building as my friend has been getting closer to master rifleman because now, with single mobs OR groups of mobs, he is far superior. Which...well...covers the entire range of combat...big single tough mobs and groups of not so tough mobs...

The krayt was just the straw...especially with a single rifleman stealing our kills and who also had been soloing them all day and had 21 tissues and 4 pearls.

The ONLY disadvantage they have once they catch up in speed is the fact that their specials use mind, which obviously cannot be stim healed.

Now, this appears to be a disadvantage that is soon going to vanish as per the test center changes...so now they just get even better.

Sure, with fanshot I can eat a crowd pretty quick and w/novice medic I can keep doing it until I run out of mind. This has its uses...the primary one is to get exp...which at master is well...uh...not so needed. Of course, with the upcoming changes, being a medic isn't going to help me either, so now the rifleman gets that much better in comparison.

Also, this presumes you are a medic as well, which in general I try to compare skill trees without hybrid skills...something that has gotten the pistoleer soooo much flak because people lump us pure pistoleers in with those with BH and smuggler.

I never wanted to solo a krayt, never expected to, but then I guess I was silly to expect NO class in the game to solo one in under 2 minutes.

I do however want a clear place where I do excel, and there simply isn't one.

BTW, I neither have a pre-nerf fwg5 or a krayt republic blaster, but then the rifleman I group with has "standard" gear as well.

So...I guess I wait until the next round of patches, but if they don't fix some of our skill tree problems, I am either a new range class or gone from SWG. Horizons comes out next month, maybe THEY will appreciate their customers.

Anyway, thanks again for the feedback people!

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You're right, there isn't one...There are many.

Pistoleers are the most VERSATILE profession in the game. Lighting fast, okay specials that have no real glaring weaknesses. We can stay out of every profession's 'wheel house' and still be a viable threat. Fighting a TKA? You can stay at 30-40m and hit them, or you can get in close and personal with a rifleman and really hurt his accuracy.

We get massive dodge bonuses and lately I dodge 3 to 4 times for every one I'm hit by some pretty decent mobs...some people may complain about the dodge animation, but it doesn't bother me too much.

At some point in the future, the glaring oversight of the 1.0 second rifle will be fixed and pistol users will be the speed demons of the combat world.

Like every profession we have short comings, we shouldn't be going up against heavily armour foes (yet I'm still smacking the crap out of medium armoured, red conning Kunga Warriors) and we don't pack the whallop of some other classes, but our versatility is our trademark.

You can't kite us at a great distance and expect to be accurate, you can't get near us unless we let you and all the while anybody is trying to position for a shot, there we are, pistol a the ready blasting off shot after shot.

We're not at 100% yet, but we're still in good shape.