Pistoleer Archive
Thread: Preparation for the next issues report Profession improvements
Make Disarm shots disarm, not damage the weapon. No one wants to be the guy that just annilated your 40,000 credit T-21 sniper rifle. Like many have said, have it unequip, and slightly damage the opponent's weapon.
Increase BS3 damage. It is worthless as is. Fix PMD2 as well, due to the lack of knockdown.
Make the pistoleer speed mods add as high as riflemen. Their ability to have a +90 speed, making their blasts as fast as a pistoleer is not something that makes any sense. Riflemen are shooting long range rifles, hence they take some time to ready for a shot. Pistols are vaguely point and pull the trigger. They should be the fastest firearms out, unless of course carbines are "supposed" to be assault rifleish. Regardless a pistol is faster to shoot than a rifle.
Since Disarm shot 2 is going to be nerfed, make it an intimidation attack as well, much like the intro brawler Intimidation. Personally, if i came up against someone who just shot my blaster out of my hand, I too would be rather frightened.
Have stopping shot cause a stance change,i.e: make them kneel, as it it really were shooting to "stop" a charging attacker. Of course, if this were added the HAM drain would naturally have to be increased a bit.
Make double tap only fire two bolts... I am sick of looking at my double tap shots firing 3-5 times.
Give us a notice that pops over our head when we resist a knockdown or stun or something. Also have this done when we dodge so we can get some proof if this is working or not. I think i have dodged sometimes as I do this strange sidestep manuver during PvE combat, though a little notice would be nice 
Aside from that...
We need to focus on a few things:
1. Fixing Body Shot 3 so that its DPS surpasses BS2.
2. Convert some of our random HAM shots into Health pool targeted shots - example: change Double Tap so that 50% of the damage dealt is ALWAYS to the Health pool with the remaining 50% being random with an equal chance to fall in the 3 pools. There is also a proposal in this thread to convert MTS into a Health pool targeted shot. I'd favor something like this as well.
3. Fix our Defense mods (this is not just a Pistoleer problem, however).
4. With the removal of KD from Disarm 2, we need to look at having some effects added to our shots. I would favor Blind. I've also been an advocate of making Disarm into an attack delay - the targetcan move, the targetcan heal, but the targetcan't attack for a specific period of time, say 8 seconds for example. This would have to have a timer applied to it as well to prevent its from being spammed in the name of balance. Perhaps we could do this Jaegen:
- Make Disarm 1 a Health pool targeted shot with a DPS somewhere between BS1 and BS2and give ita niceBlind effect that last 10 seconds or so. This would be pretty effective in combination with BS 3 in PvP and BS 3 and HS 1 and 2 in PvE.
- Make Disarm 2an AoErandom pool targeted shot but one that deals nice damage and applys an attack delay as I outlined above on an AoE basis.
Just some thoughts.
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Jund Starstrider - Imperial Sympathiser/Novice Pistoleer/Novice Ranger/Novice Creature Handler - Chilastra
1 - Disarm1/2 need to be totaly redone. I know it's been said 50 thousand times already, but I figure one more post on it is one more that might convince the devs.
Have it NOT damage the weapon - this is stupid and will just get nerfed when everybody (including pistoleers) starts getting angry when their 20k gun gets destroyed in a large raid or something via disarming shot. Makedisarm 1 put the gun back into inventory or to make it unusable for5 seconds(as the person "fixes it" or whatever).Have disarm 2 make the gun useless for 10 seconds and maybe stun the opponent (since it'd be sorta startling if someone shot your gun out of your hand!)
2 - Bodyshot 3 is very obvious, and has, once again, been mentioned a ton. It needs to be considerably more powerful than bodyshot 2. You should not been tempted to use bodyshot 2 once you aquire bodyshot 3...
3 - Fix the defenses we gain going up the stances and grips tree, obviously.
4 - Melee defense 2 needs to be revamped. I think melee defense 1 is OK (though I think the latest nerf to KD is a bit harsh), but defense 2 needs to be worth the thousands of combat points. Make it KD and intimidate/stun/blind... whatever, just make it do something worthwhile.
5 - Point Blank Single/Area 2 need to be redone, and as Jaegen said, have them cause considerable more damage than they already do. Since you have to be so close, and they have a risk involved (you may be too far away), they should causeat least 2xmore damage than a regular attack at the same range. Using the pistoleer DX2, I get a BONUS for standing at "point blank range," so those attacks are totaly worthless.
6 - I've mentioned this in the above 5 points, but we need a status changing shot. Bleeding is great, but we should be able to stun or intimidate like the other professions. I don't think it's right that I have to become a bounty hunter to aquire a status change effect (blind).
7 - Stopping shot needs to be changed. Fanshot is SO much better than stopping shot. Once I got fanshot, I never even considered using stopping shot. It may do more damage on occasion, but it's EXTREMELY slow and doesn't always do more damage. I've gotten fanshot to do upwards of 1300 damage 4-5 times in a row, but stopping shot goes sub-1000 more often than not it seems. Either increase the damage of stopping shot, focus it on one pool (and then raise HAM costs to balance), or include a status changing effect like stun or intimidate.
8 - Multitarget needs to be fixed, of course.
And now for what I think needs to be "nerfed"...
1 - I always thought that you should receive the DX2 cert a bit further up the tree than novice. It seems silly that a novice can weild the same gun that a master weilds. Either make the DX2 a master-only gun (and force novice's to use FWG5s, which are pretty good anyway), or provide a new gun for masters. Do this for all professions, as well, but there should be some really good perks for mastering a ranged profession.
2 - Increase the HAM costs a smidge for Fanshot. I can spam fanshot forever using a DX2, and I shouldn't be able to do that with such a powerful attack. Special moves should never be spammed IMO - they should be SPECIAL MOVES that you can't spam.
We lack state effects which we do need some.
Body shot 3 = Torso shot would be fine with me or some other state effect.
Point blank single 2 = Increased rate of fire like very very fast if they are within 5m
Pistol Melee defense 2= I think would be neat if we could grab the person as long as we didnt move and use them as a shield for a few seconds (3) where they take the damage of anyone shooting at you. (if it includes a knockdown it wont be worth it because the HAM will go bananas so no knockdown)
Multi Target Shot = um to hit multiple targets
Disarming shot 1 = Should make them unable to equip a weapon for a few seconds. It may seem unfair but it IS named disarming shot.
Disarming shot 2 = AOE version of Disarming shot 1.
Fan shot = able to hit more than 1 pool at a time.
Point Blank Area 2 = i dont even know because at our level you dont fight AOE style close range. Maybe an aoe knockback? with a dizzy state effect? Not sure
Any state effects to anything would be nice. We dont have a dizzy, we dont have a cold based attack which I thought was a nice idea that I think it was thellen who mentioned that.
Also any of these suggestions don't warrant having 2 versions of the move, unless the 2nd is really AE. I'm not sure we need an AE disarm, though. And it sounds rather unrealistic to shoot the guns out of 5 people hands in 1 shot. My first idea of a state that reduces firing rate would support 2 versions with the 2nd one having a greater reduction.
Convert some of our random HAM shots into Health pool targeted shots - example: change Double Tap so that 50% of the damage dealt is ALWAYS to the Health pool with the remaining 50% being random with an equal chance to fall in the 3 pools. There is also a proposal in this thread to convert MTS into a Health pool targeted shot. I'd favor something like this as well.
My suggestons, not necesarily in priority order:
1. fix defensive mods - the indicator floaty is an excellent idea to show us it's working
2. fix BS3 - this is such a no brainer, yet bears mentioning yet again.
3. more health targeted pools...if that's our area, then give it to us. It's not like people aren't wandering around pixie'd and buff'd to the gills. We should be able to at least put some fear into them.
4. Specials: Double tap doing at least 50% health is a good idea. Stopping shot should be huge health pool damage and a posture change to at least kneeling with a definite increase in speed. Fan shot is kind of a silly thing, it really seems like it should be a mini-multitarget shot. Maybe fanshot should be random HAM damage and multitarget should be targeted health pool damage.
5. PMD1 is fine...adding the timer is ok. Add AoE KD to PMD2 with same timer and same 7m (or 12m?) range. 7m in RL is roughly 21 feet, but in game, you might as well be inspecting the critter's gender.
6. Do not change us to universal griefers by destroying other people's weapons!. Keep disarm and disarm2 and force an unequip on the weapon. Disarm1 should be single target, disarm2 should be AoE. This bears well with the whole "gunfighter" theme with the old movies showing the lone gunfighter shooting someone's gun out of their hands. Just imagine a horde of screaming pistoleers rushing onto the battlefield unequipping the enemy's weapons only to die in a hail of blasterfire from the out of range riflemen...now that would be fun =). This leads to...
7. Change our range. Max range on pistol should be 50m. Give carbineers 60 and rifles 70 or 80. They're friggin snipers... Adjust the effective ranges on pistols accordingly. Make us get close since that's supposed to be our area but we shouldn't be +0 at point blank.
8. More pistols!!!!!DX2's on Ahazi still suck! The only time I use it is when something is heat resistant. That is just plain silly. The idea about a 44 magnum type weapon is excellent. Mebbe a light version with lesser damage and AR0 or 1 in a III or IV lvl skill and a better version with AR1 or 2 and higher damage in the master box. Think .357 and then a .50 caliber for master.
9. Crowd control. Suggested this in another thread, but maybe a SuppressionFire2 with an AoE posture change to give us some control over the mounds of critters trying to eat us. This should not unbalance PvP either if #7 were implemented. This also helps set us apart from marksmen. Imagine the lone gunfighter shooting hats off a posse of bad guys, if that doesn't get em to stay down, nothing will.
Since I'm not quite master yet, I don't really mourn the loss of AoE KD, but crikey, give us some reason to use something other than HS1/HS2/BS2.
Fix BS3 to do more damage then BS2.
Fix the DX2 so the AR1 actually works for ALL NPC/PC's.
Here is one that I tested today, Have Stoping shot hit health pool more often, out of7 bolle bole's using snare traps/root trapsand stoping shot only, 4 died to action, 1 to mind (increadible isn't it? it was actually close, all the pools were down to nothing), and 2 to health. (bad luck maybe? I don't know, but I wasted my points, I should have gotten the two boxes of aiming 
)
and last (at least for now) TURN ON DEFENSES. We're suppose to have them, but your not giving them to us. so fork them over dammit.
One thing I was thinking about was to have a cold based attack. Sort of the antithesis of BH's Torso Shot.
Another thing is to make Multitarget Pistol Shot a Healthtargeted shotin addition to what it does now. It would be the ultimate expession of Pistoleers doing Health damage.
I also like the above suggestions of adding intimidate to one of our specials.
First things first,
I started as a wookie rifleman/CH for some unknown reason after we got out of beta, and I did enjoy the profession until the game started getting more advanced and the crafting started getting better. During the first stages, being the rifleman was great. I could do PVP and still keep in comparison with the mind shots and the bleeds..
However... (and this is my point to the post) at the time, armors were limited to Bone armor.. yay!
Something that people are not taking into account are the other options out there to make yourself a more effective player.
I'm still working on Novice Pistoleer, but I do currently have the FGWS5(can't remember the spelling exactly) that's been created and sliced down to a 1.5 speed, 22.2% wound, and 45-174 damage. Quality weapons are out there to help overcome some of the other classes apparent advantages.
Secondly, I do agree with most of the posts about Pistoleers being better than BH's using a pistol weapon. There should be specific weapons that Pistoleers should have access to. I hate to make the comparison, but going back to some of the other games that Sony have created, class weapons should be implemented somewhere. I know what you're saying, "BH's can be Pistoleers too! This doesn't help!" but there are ways around that. If you're currently advertising yourself as a BH with your title, then you've got the option to use the BH specific items, Pistoleer, you've got access to using the best pistols in the game.
BH's should have access to great weapons, but nowhere near the caliber of what the Pistoleer has access to. BH's should however have access to armor better than any other class. **edit**-for-tat.
Body shot 3: Been done to death
PBS2: This is theoretically an appealing shot, because it is fast and does decent damage. The problem is the HAM costs are among the highest there is. They should be really low (after all, it's not too hard to aim at something close to you)
PBA2: well, IF IT WORKED, this might be good as is.
Pistolwhip idea: Switch the damage type to kinetic instead of whatever the pistol shoots. After all, you're just hitting them with the butt of it.
PMD2: I like the idea of knockdown + stun + warcry. This would emulate the effect of getting knocked silly by the butt of the pistol, but not have the problem of the dizzy state with keeping people from changing posture.
Stopping shot: Possibly increase the min damage of this shot a little bit. I continue to like the idea of slowing down the attacker to a walk for a brief (1 sec?) time.
Health Shot 3: This might be a good idea.
Doubletap idea: pretty decent now, but instead of lots o damage, actually treat it as two separate shots at once, which means that there's a change that two different pools may be hit at once, or both will hit a single pool. Raw damage output would increase somewhat, but it would be more scattered. Another way to go would be to give this "random scatter" effect to fan shot instead.
personally i think the knockdowns were intended as only an attack against melee, designed to knock them down for a period of time so you could run away and get off some shots from ranged. Therefore i would like to see pistol whip automatically stop the attack queue so i don't have to clear it everytime a mob gets too close and i have to do a adhoc knockdown and then wake them up because i attack again immidiatly after. knockdown should be used for no otehr reason so i think an automatic peace is a good idea.
stopping shot is only useful as the first attack as a gamble that it will do 1-2k health damage, then its useless compared to BS2. It needs to do what it said on the tin, stop the enemy from approaching. I can live with less damage.
Pointblank needs to have status effects,I would go for dizzy as it seems most appropriate. It would be nice that the higher level point blank made status effects on all melee mobs in front of you, that would be nice.
Disarm shot should dis-arm.
Pistoleers are currently too accurate at 64m. We should miss almost at the time whilst standing at 64m and even at master level we should miss half the time. only at ideal should we hit everytime and a master shoudl never miss. I think this should be tied into the quality of the gun. a more powerful gun shoudl miss more the less skilled you are. Only a master should be able to hit everytime with a gun that does 1k damage a shot.
Pistoleer should be hard to hit. They should dodge about the place, keep enemies from coming close to them as they are the second line of defence. If someone breaks through a melee tank pistoleers should be able to deal with them until the tank can get back to doing its job, but only for that duration.
I'd think the speed cap shoudl be kept. I can't think of the current power of guns also firing at 0.5. that would be a silly amount of damage. we already do enough damage for what we fire, we need better shots and guns to make the game more tactical other than simply spamming BS2.
Also as a side note, in a game that is currently based around getting one of the pools down to 0, we really need other things to make anything other than health spamming the only viable thing.