Pistoleer Archive

FS cone attack? Don't we have already 2 attacks similar to this already?

1. Multi-target-shoot

2. Disarming shot 2

Both has identical Multi cone shoot effects , they are identical, didnt noticed much of a diff between both of em since the Pistoleer nerf, unless there's something major i missed...

Thanks for laying it out that way Jaegen. Here are my picks:

MTPSC: 32m AOE radius Random HAM

Fan ShotB: Cone effect, medium damage AOE

Stopping ShotA: Lower Delay to make it similar to fan shot

I think this combo preserves a good single target PvE attack in a slightly faster stopping shot, as well as some nice situational attacks that could come in very handy for PvP.

I agree that the delay on stopping shot should be decreased to allow 1 second spamming at master, as this is the norm for all other ranged professions regardless of which special they use. Either that or bump us up to +90 speed. I realize this is surrendering to the buggy speed calculation in place, but I highly doubt they're going to chage that game mechanic for a long time, if ever. If it's going to be fubar, at least let us be as fast as everyone else.

Here are my thoughts ... sorry I didn't notice this thread earlier.

Unlike many of you, I'm not in love with FanShot as it is. Having FanShot as an AOE is fine, particularly if we can get them to do more for StoppingShot. I think that we need to get them to lower the delay on StoppingShot so it's more useful for lower level Pistoleers and add a state change (stun, dizzy, or something) to it. Stopping could be the Pistoleers' main attack alongside a revamped BodyShot3. I don't understand how making FanShot AOE is bad for PvP ... why WOULDN'T you want to attack enemies that are near the guy you're targeting? Only time that is a problem is when your enemy is standing next to the RSF or CorSec, but how often does that happen? AOE is usually great, in PvP and PvE.

MultiTarget should be a AOE cone BodyShot3 with a Bleed attached, in my opinion. I don't trust the Devs to get the "attack everyone within 32m" code right ... at least we know that AOE cone works. I also don't think we should ask for Random HAM over Health Targetted, which I know Jaegen and I have already gone back and forth on privately. I don't see the advantage of hitting only 60% of the time on a single pool instead of 100% of the time. Hitting Health IS much worse than consistently hitting Action or Mind, but the reality is that a random HAM attack hits Health primarily anyway. Might as well hit it consistently and hit it faster so the other guy dies before he realizes he needs to heal himself.

Don't worry about Intimidate. I think it's powerful but I don't think it will be overly so, in my opinion. The attack itself won't hit for very high damage and you only get Disarm2 at Master so few people will have it. Just make Disarm1 considerably less effective. I REALLY like the idea of having Disarm2 be an AOE intimidate. Right now dealing with groups of pets in PvP (and mobs in PvE -- I hate those groups of Stormtroopers running at me on faction missions) is a real issue for us.

Also, I think we shouldn't be shy about BodyShot3. That is supposed to be our centerpiece special, and you have to climb an entire line to get nothing but that, basically. Even if it is upped to 3.0 it is still worse than TorsoShot, so that shouldn't be a balance issue at all.

And yes, the DX2 is still an issue, without a doubt. Same suggestions as always, on that front.

Okay, I just read through some of the responses. I think we should increase damage on StoppingShot instead of lowering delay. But that's just me. Either is fine.

I _don't_ think we should ask for StoppingShot to be our ranged knockdown because that would make the HAM cost so high that we couldn't use it ... and knockdowns aren't so great anymore. I'd like to have one in our tree in case the Devs decide to make knockdowns useful again, but right now it's not an issue for us really.

Double Tap should be an AOE BodyShot2. At least that's my opinion. That would make it useful in some situations and would differentiate it from StoppingShot and the new AOE FanShot.

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Palinore- wrote:

I think the cone idea for Fan shot is ok but not too good, considering we've got enough cone attacks with Disarming 2 and Multi-target-shot atm. Two of the most useless Master Pistoleer skills unfortunately. Iv'e personally had enough with cone-effects up to now

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I'd just like to disagree on behalf of some ofthe NON-Masters here:

It would be nice to have a cone effect damage shot without having to become a Master Pistoleer. I like the idea of a Fan Shot doing damage to a cone area. The plan the Devs laid out for Fan Shot sounds good to me, especially if they apply the damage to Health rather than make it random HAM.

Another thought, make Double Tap a VERY fast, low damaging, *low HAM* special.

To me the "Double Tap" name implies speed, so the idea behind this could be a special with a very low damage modifier, very low in cost, and very fast in speed. The speed would allow people low on the pistoleer tree to have something that fired at(or near) 1.0sec even though they don't have many of the speed mods yet since it is only a 2nd box skill.
This would probably be a skill that would be less used or replaced later on by Masters because they would have specials that do greater damage, and the speed mods to make them worthwhile.

Someone mentioned adding a bleed to BS3, that sounds cool too. Dmg up front, along with DOT damage following. Sort of like making it BodyShot3/HealthShot3. They could probably keep the dmg/delay as it is right now if the put a bleed on it.

Also, I don't believe Stopping Shot should be 1.0 spammable, higher damage for more delay. I doubt they'll give us a ranged knockdown too, as they took it away from DS2. Something more like a posture change or stun would be enough to "stop" a target temporarily, a high damage suppression fire(and add more success than suppression)

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Palinore- wrote:

I think the cone idea for Fan shot is ok but not too good, considering we've got enough cone attacks with Disarming 2 and Multi-target-shot atm. Two of the most useless Master Pistoleer skills unfortunately. Iv'e personally had enough with cone-effects up to now

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I'd just like to disagree on behalf of some ofthe NON-Masters here:

It would be nice to have a cone effect damage shot without having to become a Master Pistoleer. I like the idea of a Fan Shot doing damage to a cone area. The plan the Devs laid out for Fan Shot sounds good to me, especially if they apply the damage to Health rather than make it random HAM.

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I agree 100% with you here , but what i dont understand and it's not us itsDev's in question. If they would add Fan shot as a cone AOE , this would make it very similar to the DIS2 & MULTI2 , now my question is what would they do with those 2 specials gained at master? Apparently Fan shot would be far superior for a level 4 skill than a Master pistoleer skill. A Cone AOE could be applyed to any skills in the pistoleer branch i dont see any inconvenience here. What i dont understand tho is why transforming Fanshot into something that already basicly exist. Why not changing the effects a little bit on em first then after tune in with the DPS. As for DIS2 and MULT2 they need to be revamped totally imo if there's some drastic changes added to level 4 skills. I like the thread, were getting somehwere.....

I think that what is most important is to get what we were expecting to have when we first fired up the game and looked at the skill trees. Let's not get carried away and start asking for everything imaginable. Read the descriptions of the skills and consider these when we are asking for these skills to actually work.

In my opinion, what we should be asking for should be very reasonable.

-Specials that fit their descriptions - they wrote these descriptions, they should make our specials do what they have written and had planned.

Make the better skills higher up the trees. This should be common sense really.

Be certain that mastery is worthwhile, we worked hard to become master pistoleers, make it special for us. Give us something worthwhile. Something that other classes will envy.

These things can and should be applied to every profession in the game. We can ask for and get alot, just by requesting what the skill trees promised as we moved up the skill trees.

i know a lot of you are asking for more AOE but i think 2 or 3 is fine not counting PBAS2. i think we still need a powerful single target shot. all the level 3 and up specials seem to be in debate on whether they should be AOE or single target. i think they should go like this;

AOE or cone: MTPS- the high damage random HAM shot. possible state change?

PBAS2- obviously. with good damage equal to PBSS2

BS3- med to med-high damage that of course targets the health pool

Sing. Target: DAS2- with higher success rate for intimidate and moredamage than DAS1

StopS- arelatively good damaging shot with posture change down or knockdown

FanS- a high damage shotwith possible state change or target health pool or bleed

PMD2- this could goeither way. an AEO knockdown could be powerful. a single more powerful hit could work too.

as i have said before i dont want a lot of AOE shots. i want diversity and options. i generally use the strategy that attacking an enemy one at a time is better than a lot at once. i also know that this isnt always your option. i think this breakdown is pretty good for whatever comes a pistoleer's way.

I have a problem with "replaceing" abilities as we go up the tree. I think each power should have it's own use for a different situation.

If we keep talking about DPS, then all we're going to end up having is 1 special that we spam over and over again like we do now because we get the best dmg/delay out of it.

The way I think of things:
BS3- If fixed, this will become out "spam shot". One of the higher DPS shots + targeted pool
Fan Shot- Cone fire, [random HAM?]
MTPS - Ranged AE [random HAM?]
PBA2 - Point blank AE
Stopping Shot - High damage, high delay [effect?]
DA1&2 - Some kind of effect shot, anything is fine

DPS is a great measuring tool, especially before, but when new effects are added we can't just look at the raw number anymore
Fan Shot & MTPS - If the proposed changes go in, these will both have the possibility to hit multiple targets. So even if their pure dmg/delay number is lower, you have to factor in the # of targets they hit. DPS goes up DRAMATICALLY for AE attacks.
I think our skills should be able to complement a smart pistoleer who chooses which special to use, I do NOT want us turned(back?) into a one trick pony!

So make BS3 or Double Tap(how is this lost in the mess?) our "bread and butter" spammed attack. Where if we're out solo or something we want to do the most damage in the most efficiant way.
Leave our other abilities(FS, MTPS, PBA2, SS) to have their own niche and uniqueness. I hate the idea of skills replacing skills replacing skills, unless there's a progression like BS1, BS2, BS3 etc.

Using the numbers in our FAQ(if these are still accurate). MTPS = ~1.2 DPS , not much.
MTPSx2= 2.4 DPS, MTPSx5= 6.0 DPS, MTPS at full 10(supposed) targets = 12.0 DPS!!
Not sure about cones and if there is a limit on them, so I wont punch up any numbers.
These are why the 'situational' abilities are good. DPS really only applies to single target shots, and then-only if spammed. Why spam Stopping Shot if you only need 1 or 2 hits to finish a target off(notice I said finish, don't mean start to finish).

If you've played a game like EQ, DAoC, etc. you should know how powerful AE attacks are, I do- I played a Wizard in EQ before I quit some time ago.

Thoughts?

PS- I included the [brackets] for possible changes. The [random HAM] ones meaning it would be nice if one of these were targeted, and the [effect] meaning something else to be added(posture, KD-doubtful, dizzy)

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Madrox wrote:
I have a problem with "replaceing" abilities as we go up the tree. I think each power should have it's own use for a different situation.

If we keep talking about DPS, then all we're going to end up having is 1 special that we spam over and over again like we do now because we get the best dmg/delay out of it.

The way I think of things:
BS3- If fixed, this will become out "spam shot". One of the higher DPS shots + targeted pool
Fan Shot- Cone fire, [random HAM?]
MTPS - Ranged AE [random HAM?]
PBA2 - Point blank AE
Stopping Shot - High damage, high delay [effect?]
DA1&2 - Some kind of effect shot, anything is fine

DPS is a great measuring tool, especially before, but when new effects are added we can't just look at the raw number anymore
Fan Shot & MTPS - If the proposed changes go in, these will both have the possibility to hit multiple targets. So even if their pure dmg/delay number is lower, you have to factor in the # of targets they hit. DPS goes up DRAMATICALLY for AE attacks.
I think our skills should be able to complement a smart pistoleer who chooses which special to use, I do NOT want us turned(back?) into a one trick pony!

So make BS3 or Double Tap(how is this lost in the mess?) our "bread and butter" spammed attack. Where if we're out solo or something we want to do the most damage in the most efficiant way.
Leave our other abilities(FS, MTPS, PBA2, SS) to have their own niche and uniqueness. I hate the idea of skills replacing skills replacing skills, unless there's a progression like BS1, BS2, BS3 etc.

Using the numbers in our FAQ(if these are still accurate). MTPS = ~1.2 DPS , not much.
MTPSx2= 2.4 DPS, MTPSx5= 6.0 DPS, MTPS at full 10(supposed) targets = 12.0 DPS!!
Not sure about cones and if there is a limit on them, so I wont punch up any numbers.
These are why the 'situational' abilities are good. DPS really only applies to single target shots, and then-only if spammed. Why spam Stopping Shot if you only need 1 or 2 hits to finish a target off(notice I said finish, don't mean start to finish).

If you've played a game like EQ, DAoC, etc. you should know how powerful AE attacks are, I do- I played a Wizard in EQ before I quit some time ago.

Thoughts?

PS- I included the [brackets] for possible changes. The [random HAM] ones meaning it would be nice if one of these were targeted, and the [effect] meaning something else to be added(posture, KD-doubtful, dizzy)

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This is exactly what i meant madrox... i agree that it needs to be different and not only the DPS factor has to be in play, we need different kind of attack with effects, not similar ones with different speed range. DPS is important, but lets add new flavor to the current skills by keeping their original intents.

first off great job jaegen. keep up the good work.

1. more speed- we are supposed to be the fastest

2. stoppingshot- add posture down effect and slow delay.

3. fanshot- keep this a single target attack. it should be our most powerful sing. targ. attack. kind of like 'triple tap'

4. bodyshot 3- make this the AOE attack that everybody wants. keep the damage the same or maybe a slight increase (our AOE HAM target)

5. disarming shot 1 & 2- i like the intimidate effect. DAS2 as a higher damage, better chance to intimidate shot but still single target.

6. multitargetshot- high damage AOE

personally i dont want to see a lot of AOE shots. there is the problem with targeting things that you dont want to shoot. i also try not to put myself in a position where i need to attack a lot of enemies. one at a time is betterway to go.i guess its good for PvP but i dont do that often. maybe because we(pistoleers) are not that good at it. betweenthe (BS3 and MTPS) like mentioned above that should be all the AOE we need.