Pistoleer Archive
Thread: 129 pistol speed-Is it worth it?
MetallicaJunkie wrote:
According to the Canon sources, the Tenloss DX2Disruptor can't be used beyond 7m, but when within range it can blast through bulkheads and disintergrate human sized targets in one shot, surely if devs intended to make the T21 that fast because in the "real" Star Wars universe it is that fast, then surely the Tenloss DX2 Disruptor should have a min/max damage of several thousand within 7m. As for the weapon speed reflecting aim speed, I can't really fault you as that's the only conclusion that makes sense, but surely ALL masters of combat should be hitting the speedcap with all of their moves, and not just Riflemen, TKM and Fencers...
Agree. Some allowances have to be made for the game. Such as increasing the range of the DX2 and lowering the 300m range of the T21. I also agree that all professions need to be hitting the cap at master with at least most of their specials.
Pistoleers hit their cap much sooner than Rifleman for example. However that is based on autoattack which noone uses. The issue with Pistoleers is that their delay mods on their specials make it much harder to hit the cap. That requires a change to the delay mods in Pistoleer specials and those of other professions. Either that or increasing their speed mods or a little bit of both. This needs to be done to all professions so that at Master most, if not all specials, hit the cap. When I hear Master Pistoleer or Rifleman I'm not thinking of someone that just knows how to use the weapon, I think of the fabled trickshot artists like Annie Oakley and such.
Again this is true, and perfectly reasonable. Every single handheld blaster in Star Wars used the same technology more or less and would therefore have comparable speed. Disruptors had charge times that would cap their speed regardless of how long it takes you to aim and of course projectile weapons would only fire as fast as the feeding mechanism allows, Striker and Launcher pistols for example.
Agree.
I agree that DPS should not be equal, but to make the hardest hitting but slowest gun faster than the lightest hitting fastest gun is wrong. They should end up the same speed at master.
Agree.
Speed and accuracy equal among all professions at master. All differences should reside within the weapon. That is balance.
Agree. I don't know about Carbineers. But I do know that a Riflemans and Pistoleers accuracy are actually fairly close. One thing that many people forget is that specials have built in accuracy mods. Rifleman specials cap at +15. Pistoleers cap at +50. The difference at Master using specials is less than 10%. That is without factoring in the weapons accuracy mod which would depend on range and the weapon in question.
These should be given realistic values and reflect the true role of the profession, riflemen are built for long range combat therefore should have high range defence and a little state defencezero melee. Pistoleer mid-level state and melee but low range defence. Melee, high melee and state defence but zero ranged defence, they're not meant to fight ranged anyway.
That is already pretty much how it is. Though I wouldn't say zero melee defense. Remember that using a long rifle in melee as a staff does provide some defense vs melee. It appears that Rifleman have good melee defense but you also have to remember that melee fighters have a bonus to hit a Rifleman. That effectively lowers the melee defense and it also means that effectively a Rifleman can not hit hte melee defense cap since part of the +125 would be negated by a to hit bonus. The question then becomes what is the to hit bonus and how much does it negate. Personally I would like to see them remove the to hit bonus and lower the Riflemans defense vs melee by the corresponding amount. Same net effect but it would be less deceiving when looking at the professions for comparrison. Might simplify the code too.
Offense is off the chart with +90 speed, +170 accuracy and my T21 (no loots) does 496 max damage with AP3, I have fired strafe2 for over 5k with this weapon no powerup. In addition to this they get AoE attacks, not cones but AoE, if it's on the screen it gets hit and they get just as many dots as any other marksman. They also have more ranged and melee defence than other marksmen.
Rifleman AoE attacks are cones. There are two kinds of AoE attacks. Ranged AoE's are a cone. Melee are a radius AoE. See above in reference to melee defense. Also remember that the rawmelee defense modis the same as Pistoleers.
State defence works on a probability system and is therefore worthless, keep trying and we will fall down regardless of KD defence, dodge is our only reliable defence. We have less "combat multipliers" than riflemen, two cone attacks, one broken AoE, one knockdown, two bleeds and no posture changes, riflemen with "some" multipliers, 2 AoE, a dizzy, a stun,a posturechange and two bleeds. And our offense is not so much low, as non-existent when facing high end mobs.
Technically Rifleman have 4 AoE attacks. Also their posture change in posture up. I agree with you about high end MOB's. Which is why I've suggested the changes to MOB's. It does help. For example if a MOB uses status attacks the Rifleman could be Stunned (which lowers damage), of suffer a KD or Dizzy/KD which negates their offensive power. Lack of status defenses is a disadvantage and would be taken advantage of by the MOB in this case. Someone with a defensive template would be better able to resists these attacks. Also I suggested because of these MOB changes to lowering the armor/resists and HAM level of the MOBs as part of the MOB's defenses would be increased defense or the use of status effects. So in some cases a defensive template would be more effective.
Plenty of AoE and cone attacks, two bleeds, plenty of state and posture changes and a couple KD's, no argument, definitely high in combat multipliers. Mid offense, accuracy isn't bad at master but their speed is worse than pistoleer, they do not cap any of their moves with their stronger guns. Low defence, correct.
Agree. Their speed needs to be fixed. In the same way as Pistoleers. Either they delay mods, more speed mod, or a cobination of both. Along with changes in HAM costs.
To better reflect the claims you made riflemen have to take a decrease in defence and/or lose a combat multiplier or two, pistoleer needs working defences and a little more offense, not too much just enough to allow high end combat, carbineer needs his specials fixing (ham costs) a couple new guns (not energy or acid) and more speed. Speed capping pistoleers and carbineers at master without taking any BH will not upset riflemen's claim to power as DPS will be unneffected as long as the weapons remain the same, all else failing AP will keep everything in check.
Rifleman melee defense is effectively lower than it appears because of the to hit bonus. We've also been discussing dropping or changing StartleShot1/2 which is one of our AoE attacks because it's redundent with FlushingShot1/2. Of our two status attacks Dizzy is of little use. Creature MOB's are immune to Dizzy (it has no effect on them) and since Rifleman have no posture down attack it's of very limited use in PvP. It can be somewhat useful in fighting NPC's if you can get them to do a voluntary posture change though.
Increasing the speed for Pistoleer would increase their offense. But yes I pretty much agree with what you say here. Especially about fixing (and increasing)Pistoleer defenses. Right now status defenses are really of only use in PvP since MOB's don't really use them. Along withbroken Pistoleer specials. For example I don't believe that DisarmShot does much right now. I would say it causes a delay be they removed delay attacks so it wouldn't be reasonable to try for that. But how about giving it a Stun effect? Stun lowers defenses, makes the target miss one round, lowers their damage, and makes it easier to stick other status effects. I know many of you have your heart set on having it unequip the weapon. But if that isn't feasible then Stun might be a good alternative and could at least be a temporary fix until later.
The fixes you're suggesting for the mobs still don't fix the underlying problems with the pistoleer or carbineer classes. They both lack the offense to efficiently fight high end mobs, fencers are in the same position but have the defences required to stand there and get the job done eventually, pistoleers have no chance. To exclude a combat class from high end combat is wrong.
It doesn't if done by themselves. But as a total package it might. By making these changes to MOB's you can also decrease their armor/resists levels along with their total HAM while keeping them about their same average difficulty level. What it does is makes some professions more effective against them and some less. Which profession is which would depend on the MOB type.
This is something I would like to see soon, everyone having their own role in combat that is not simply driven by damage. But at the end of the day, there are only two classes for high end PvE, hitters and tankers. If you can't deal damage or take damage, you aren't going to be included in the hunting party.
Agree
Although changing the mobs to allow for all combat professions to have a role would work, I think it would be much better to alter the professions themselves. I do find it strange that all riflemen think the combat balance should focus on the mobs again. The mobs have already been balanced once remember? It's our turn to be balanced, now sit down and prepare for nerf.
I don't know that Rifleman think that the combat revamp should focus on MOB's. I would be surprised if they did, though some might think so since Rifleman is one of the few mostly working professions and they think others are like them. I think it should focus on both in the long run. The MOB's weren't really balanced before. All they did was increase HAM and armor/resist levels making damage the sole factor. Also it appears that their combat revamp idea from when they changed MOB's is nothing or little like what is actually going to happen now so it does have to be looked at.
Nor would my suggestions have to be done at the same time. I agree that it's the players that need to be balanced first. That includes fixing the broken specials, fixing speeds so everyone can pretty much hit the cap at Master, and making more items useful within the professions (especialy Commandos).
But I also think that if no changes are made to MOB's, then we are going to end up in the same situation. Raw damage is still going to be the only way to take them out and though damage might be a little closer, it still plays into the advantages of those professions where that is suppose to be their strength and ingnores those professions with other strengths.
My concern is that the combat revamp will be focused on balancing PvP which is going to have an adverse effect on PvE which is what the majority do.
PS: Don't take this personally Waste, as I for one agree with most of what you say,I have read some of your debates on the rifleman forum, and you put your ideas across well without resorting to flaming. You would make an excellent correspondent to your profession in my opinion and I'm sure that many of the rifleman community would agree.
I don't take it personally. I enjoy civil debates which this is.
MetallicaJunkie wrote:
Pistoleer accuracy without BH is terrible, 95 compared to Rifleman's 160. Carbineer is 130 sitting right in the middle.
Once you factor in specials the difference is only +15 between Rifle and Pistoleer. I suspect that Carbineer it fairly close there too once you factor in specials.
Another factor is that accuracy does cap. There is always about a 5% chance of miss. With the accuracy at the levels they are at it gives pretty much all professions the same accuracy. Of course with extreme defense statckers the difference becomes more noticeable.
As for the to-hit bonus on rifles, that's bogus and should be removed in favour of giving your melee defence a true value. The rifle/staff analogy makes a lot of sense, I've tried campaigning for anti-melee specials for carbines, rifles and even heavy weapons before, but to no avail. All I wanted was to crack a dudes skull with the butt of my gun. At fanfest it was suggested that we may be getting this in the combat revamp, so fingers crossed.
Rifleman have heard a rumor (unconfirmed) about a /ButtStroke special which would be the their anti-melee attack. I would suspect if true something similar for most if not all the ranged professions.
I keep hitting things outside of the cone with strafe2 personally, but maybe that's just a bug in the special, there's still that bug that stops you from damaging npc lairs if one of them hits you or is killed while using strafe2
Probably a bug. There were a number of issues with publish 9 that messed up AoE attacks. Most of those were fixed it seems but some may have been missed and some old ones probably still haven't been corrected.
All items certed to you should have some use, although some things (specials included) have to be made obsolete by the new improved versions. For example one cone attack is not redundant just because there's a higher damage one further up the tree. And there's no reason to use D18 pistol if you have a republic blaster. Commando definitely needs adjusting so that there is more to them than the flamethrower.
If in redundent you are talking about Riflemans StartleShot. In that branch you have FlushingShot1/2 and StartleShot1/2. FlushingShot is a posture up attack with a stun. The level 2 is AoE. StartleShot is a posture up attack but no stun. Delay mods and damage multipliers on the two are identical. However FlushingShot is actually gained at one level lower than StartleShot. Making it redundent.
I agree strongly with you about weapons. But you also have to look at where the weapon certs are. If I remember the D18 is low on the Marksman Pistol branch while the Blaster is Novice Pistoleer. The Blaster should replace the D18 when you gain the cert. It should be a better weapon.
Although I can see where fixing the mobs would give the effects you claim, I don't think it would fix any problems. The enemies could still be overcome with raw damage. A high endmob of any typecould have status effects coming out it's arsehole and the pistoleer could resist them all and still not be in a better situation than now, very much in the same way that posture changes and KD wouldn't make a difference in combat ability if you could just pwn it with superior damage. Some new system needs to be devised that would allow for each and every combat profession to do something different in PvE and give them their own role.
Not if you can't hit them. Those professions that rely on damage generally have lower defenses. So the MOB can stick status effects on them and could make them lower their damage (Stun) or making them lie on their back with a Dizzy/KD. If you are suffering that your damage output is zero.
Also as part of that revamp we are talking about reducing the armor/resists and the total HAM levels. Which would make the low end damage professions more viable in such situations.
This system does give professions a role. Certain professions would be better suited vs certain MOBs.
As long as after the revamp I can take my pistol out to the high end dungeons and such and do my fair share of the work to get the loot, I'll be a happy man.
There's loot?
The uncertainty of the whole combat balance issue has, in it's own way equalled every profession in the game, as we all know nothing of what this publish will bring for sure, we can only hope.
Agree. I think the whole secrecy surrounding the revamp has done much more harm than good.
Waste93 wrote:
Certainly has. I really wish one dev would just wander the forums and see how much speculation of the combat balance is actually happening, then maybe make an announcement to put a few fears to rest. I for one would have happily accepted these delays in the combat balance if we were told a little about what was going to happen and saw a couple combat fixes to tide us over.
MetallicaJunkie wrote:
Pistoleer accuracy without BH is terrible, 95 compared to Rifleman's 160. Carbineer is 130 sitting right in the middle.
Once you factor in specials the difference is only +15 between Rifle and Pistoleer. I suspect that Carbineer it fairly close there too once you factor in specials.
Another factor is that accuracy does cap. There is always about a 5% chance of miss. With the accuracy at the levels they are at it gives pretty much all professions the same accuracy. Of course with extreme defense statckers the difference becomes more noticeable.
No master misses noticably in PvE, this would suggest that either everyone's accuracy is roughly equal, or even the most inaccurate professions have enough to hit high end mobs. This is an issue in PvP however especially in terms of anti-melee whose defences are such that some professions have little hope in scoring a hit.example,Pistoleers trying to shoot fencers.
As for the to-hit bonus on rifles, that's bogus and should be removed in favour of giving your melee defence a true value. The rifle/staff analogy makes a lot of sense, I've tried campaigning for anti-melee specials for carbines, rifles and even heavy weapons before, but to no avail. All I wanted was to crack a dudes skull with the butt of my gun. At fanfest it was suggested that we may be getting this in the combat revamp, so fingers crossed.
Rifleman have heard a rumor (unconfirmed) about a /ButtStroke special which would be the their anti-melee attack. I would suspect if true something similar for most if not all the ranged professions.
That's where I heard about the /buttstroke special, although I'm generally exclusive to the pistoleer forum, only the riflemen were talking about the dev responses at Fanfest...
I keep hitting things outside of the cone with strafe2 personally, but maybe that's just a bug in the special, there's still that bug that stops you from damaging npc lairs if one of them hits you or is killed while using strafe2
Probably a bug. There were a number of issues with publish 9 that messed up AoE attacks. Most of those were fixed it seems but some may have been missed and some old ones probably still haven't been corrected.
They tried to make it so cones wouldn't stop at the target and keep going, although successful in that sense it appears possible on certain terrain to hit things a good 20m outside the cone. I've only seen it happen on hills and such recently.
All items certed to you should have some use, although some things (specials included) have to be made obsolete by the new improved versions. For example one cone attack is not redundant just because there's a higher damage one further up the tree. And there's no reason to use D18 pistol if you have a republic blaster. Commando definitely needs adjusting so that there is more to them than the flamethrower.
If in redundent you are talking about Riflemans StartleShot. In that branch you have FlushingShot1/2 and StartleShot1/2. FlushingShot is a posture up attack with a stun. The level 2 is AoE. StartleShot is a posture up attack but no stun. Delay mods and damage multipliers on the two are identical. However FlushingShot is actually gained at one level lower than StartleShot. Making it redundent.
I was generalising with the moves, I wasn't being specific to riflemen. Better example, BS3 on pistoleer was listed at redundant because it's DPS isn't greater than BS2 until master and the same has been said about stoppingshot and fanshot. Neither of these moves are "redundant" they just require a little more skill to be used effectively. I also believe that startleshot was intended to force an enemy to uncover, which would be useful if rifleman were in fact snipers and used that ability in PvP, or similarly if NPCs used cover.
I agree strongly with you about weapons. But you also have to look at where the weapon certs are. If I remember the D18 is low on the Marksman Pistol branch while the Blaster is Novice Pistoleer. The Blaster should replace the D18 when you gain the cert. It should be a better weapon.
Perhaps the republic blaster wasn't the best example and perhaps the DL44 would have been a closer comparison but the truth remains that nobody uses the marksman weapons. Carbineers will use laser and DXR6 and riflemen will use their jawa, pistoleers may even bring out their FWG if they have a good prenerf, but in general everyone sticks to the elite weapons because they're simply better. I would like to see the usefulness of a few low end guns return, but not all, it wouldn't feel right for all those training class weapons to stay around. And I think we all agree that commando needs to be tweaked to renew the usefullness of his gear.
Although I can see where fixing the mobs would give the effects you claim, I don't think it would fix any problems. The enemies could still be overcome with raw damage. A high endmob of any typecould have status effects coming out it's arsehole and the pistoleer could resist them all and still not be in a better situation than now, very much in the same way that posture changes and KD wouldn't make a difference in combat ability if you could just pwn it with superior damage. Some new system needs to be devised that would allow for each and every combat profession to do something different in PvE and give them their own role.
Not if you can't hit them. Those professions that rely on damage generally have lower defenses. So the MOB can stick status effects on them and could make them lower their damage (Stun) or making them lie on their back with a Dizzy/KD. If you are suffering that your damage output is zero.
Yeah, I can see that your raw damage professions, lacking defence could fail, but the high defence low offense profession can't hurt it. Truth is as long as melee and do both jobs, pistoleers in particular are still left out of high end combat related content.
Also as part of that revamp we are talking about reducing the armor/resists and the total HAM levels. Which would make the low end damage professions more viable in such situations.
Lowering armour, resists and HAM totals on mobs would allow the low damage output professions to fight more viably, but at the same time increase the effectiveness of the hard hitters, possibly negating the fact that they have little defence, it can't hit you if it's dead already.
This system does give professions a role. Certain professions would be better suited vs certain MOBs.
Problem with giving each profession it's own role, and a possible reason why the system is screwed up right now could be that we can hybridise any profession now even BH. Under your system a rifleman's role would be to deliver high damage at high speed but get mauled if the mob closes in, if he masters doctor as well he could heal himself infinitely negating that lack of defence and become unstoppable, or master a high defence profession and suffer no weaknesses. It is these hybrids that make balancing combat everyone difficult, every single possibility must be counted for.
As long as after the revamp I can take my pistol out to the high end dungeons and such and do my fair share of the work to get the loot, I'll be a happy man.
There's loot?
There was, but it was exchanged for force crystals.
The uncertainty of the whole combat balance issue has, in it's own way equalled every profession in the game, as we all know nothing of what this publish will bring for sure, we can only hope.
Agree. I think the whole secrecy surrounding the revamp has done much more harm than good.
