Pistoleer Archive
Thread: Our Defensive Mods Are Broken/Useless
Lev, there is a reason this is a skill game and not a class game....
Face it, as much as you, or the BH's dont like it, the trees are there to be picked apart....To take what you want and you dont want.
The pistoleer is an elite profession, its also a very very cheap profession...That is NOT a draw back, that is a power, it allows you to combine easily with alot of other professions to form something more powerful then your own.
Frankly the BH should be more like the smuggler, a profession that is essentially built around an elite combat profession......
Elite combat professions are the core of combat, nearly everything is build around those trees, however those trees are NOT classes, they are there to be used as a piece to a greater whole. If they were self sufficent classes then they would cost 250 points would they not?
There are certain things I would change however, like having any pistol skills in the BH tree. IMO, as I said before, the BH tree should be a general combat/tracking tree, to be built around another Elite profession, like Smuggler is built around pistols.
The only "combat" professions should be Pistoleer/Carbineer/Riflemen/TKA/fencer/Swordmen/Pike men. All other classes, like BH and smuggler ect should have general combat mods, and general special moves that improve and expand on those classes combat skills....
However again, this is not a class based game, the pistoleer skill tree is there to be used by somone who is adding onto a template, it is not there to be a class in and of itself.
And no this does not meen pistoleer does not need work 
, it just meens your to used to playing a class based game
I think most people are not truly anti-dabbler. People have misconstruted the term either out of ignorance. This is a skill based game and any combination of skills will yield a playable character. That character may not be able to PvP if it's a Chef/Dancer, but it's still a character.
Theroot of everyone's anti-dabbler problem is such:
There are two professions A and B.
Profession A is the best with an XYZ weapon while Profession B is the best with an ABC weapon.
Now if you havesomeone who is part Profession A and and part Profession B you get Profession A/B.
Theoretically Profession A/B should be good with XYZ weapon AND ABC weapon.
However this is not the case in SWG.
Profession A/B is BETTER with XYZ weapon AND ABC weapon that both Professions A and B.
That's the anti-dabbler problem, not someone who picks up Master Pistoleer and Smuggler Dirty Fighting; that's just being smart.
Taewyn said:
<QUOTE>Face it, as much as you, or the BH's dont like it, the trees are there to be picked apart....To take what you want and you dont want.<END QUOTE>
Taewyn hit this one on the head. It has been encouraged and even touted as one of the features of the game to mix and match professions to make a character that offers a unique skill base. Instead of coming down to title it instead comes down to skills people mesh together.
It's not the Dev's fault that people haven't completely clued into that and instead go into these moulds.
The following should all be taken with a grain of salt asa character study. Numbers aren't going to completely backup what I'm saying.
A Pistoleer is a grand artist. Deadly accurate with a pistol in his/her hand and lightining fast. But beyond that, they have skill to fire a pistol in any situation and be accurate. A Master Pistoleer should be able to hit the eye of a needle in pistol range even when running. They are the Debonair duellers and the Masters will have some of the fastest Pistol moves in the galaxy.
But not everybody is going to want that. Some people may find they want the accuracy while running combined with their Bounty Hunter skills, while others still may find the dodge bonuses help them out.
We need to move beyond this notion of Pure Pistoleer v. Dabbler. Sure we have a dabbler element, that tells me that we have some great skills in there. Specials need to be adjusted to suit the people who are going to master this profession but lets not hate on the dabblers.
Half the fun is sitting there for hours and trying to figure out WHO your character is going to be. A Jack of all weapons, a character who can fix a drink at the bar and chop your head off with a sword, a Musician who tracks bunnies in his spare time, An AmateurSquad Leader who fancies himself the next coming of Barishnakov....
Taewyn wrote;
The pistoleer is an elite profession, its also a very very cheap profession
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Cheap in skill points perhaps but not in XPs combat and weapons XPs in those areas BH is a cheap skill (4) scatter pistol boxes it takes 4 times as many weapons XPs to make master pistoleer pluse the huge amount of combat XPs BH doesnt have to earn 12 boxes.
That balences out the so called cheap Elite profession BHs spend a little over 2 times the skill points pistoleers spend 4 times XPs and WORK to earn their skills
Simply put BH is fine like it is they dont need pistoleer skills and they are unbalencing the game by using them.
I see your point but it is overshadowed by my point concerning BHs using pistoleer skills and stacking them. Seeing how the scatter pistolisnt even a pistol ...if it was as a master of pistols i could use it its specials should not stack with pistol skills.
This isnt a nerf to the BH profession i am talking about it is simply making them play with their own toys which they have plenty of and leaving my few toys alone so i have something to play with !
Leva Oripa
Master pistoleer-Flurry
a. if Smuggler required something besides Pistol Exp for 1/2 of it's trees... like Combat Xp for Dirty Fighting thereby allowing the Smuggler to use any weapon and for UW, well it needs to be fixed period. Except for UW 1 it is purely for PvP and as we know 70+% of ALL people are Neutral.
b. Smugglers are Required for Unarmed and Pistol, showing Pistoleer or TKA would help with combat skills BUT, by point in part A, since you're using So much pistoling, instead of it being weapon neutral, people ARE going to want to become better at Pistol so they can take higher Level missions without having to start at rock bottom with another weapon.
c. Spicing and Slicing are crafting skills, DF as I said should be weapon neutral and UW should be Merchandising or Smuggling Xp. I think the Prereqs should be Artisan: Engineering based (for at least 1 leg) but NOT weapon specific for the second leg, whatever it would be, I have mixed feelings with this one.
d. [b]BH and Commando, well if Rifle was 1 of their weapons instead of Pistol then Rifleman would instantly become a 'Dabbler's' profession instead.[/b] Of course then Rifleman would e in the same spot. What they should do is at least with BH is take thier weapons, add Rifle to it and Spread them throughout the 3 weapon trees. That way they get better at the 4 weapons they can use (instead of 3 of 4) but since to get better at all of them they have to take 3 trees (which they were going to anyway to get master right?) There by Discouraging BH dabbling into Specifically Pistoleer and since they have decent and equal Rifle, Carbine and Pistol abilities, it all boils down to weapon of choice. If they want to take one of those Elite professions and if none of those professions were borked, there would be no weight one way or the other and none of those proffesions would be considered Dabbler's Professions.
well there's Smuggler and BH fixed, I don't know anything about Commando, but I'm sure I could figure something out
Here's a simple question...
How does dodge work with ranged defense? Which kicks in first? Do both kick in?
Our other exciting boost, to Defense v. Knockdown, doesn't help us either. This is another problem that we've reported to the Devs in a previous Correspondent Report. Let me explain why. Defense vs Knockdown, as far as we can tell, 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.
Wrong.
Defense vs. KD and posture change work for pistoleers. I was master pistoleer, now I'm almost master bounty hunter. The knockdownBH has underhand shot or fireknockdown, which can add stun and dizzy to a target. Neither of these attacks are high damage. When I'm fighting PvP,if the KD does not work the first time I will not spam it. Why? Because while I'm spamming a low-damage shot the other guy will be using highly-damaging specials. Pistoleers are the hardest ranged fighter to knockdown. Rifle and carbine are much simpler. For comparison,whena BH is knocked down, which we almost never resist (no resist to state changes in the BH line) if we are dizzy we are not getting back up. When I was pistoleer my ability to ignore the dizzy state and get back up wasn't 100% but it was good enough to make a nice difference.
I never noticed dodge to work any more than it does now as a bounty hunter, and my whole dodge line is gone. I never noticed a defense vs. blind working. But the defense vs. KD, posture change, and dizzy DO work.
Defense vs. Dizzy, KD and posture change don't work 100%, but there is a world of difference between having them and not having them, I can tell you that personally. In fact I'm probably grabbing the pistoleer defense line up to defense vs. dizzy after I get master bh in a couple weeks, it's that good.
And before the hate begins, I'm playing every ranged class, Pistoleer done, BH now, Carbines next, and finish rifle later. This is an objective post about how well pistoleer defenses that work make a difference.
-- Ypi
Ypiana wrote:
Defense vs. Dizzy, KD and posture change don't work 100%, but there is a world of difference between having them and not having them, I can tell you that personally. In fact I'm probably grabbing the pistoleer defense line up to defense vs. dizzy after I get master bh in a couple weeks, it's that good.
That's one of the problems with the way things are right now. You can go up the Pistoleer defense line and get our best defenses, and at the same time you are picking up our best specials. It's the same way with Smuggler, a Master Gunfighter can go up one tree and have all those awesome specials. A Smuggler should be differentiated from Pistoleers, to do that best we would need to spread the specials out (Underworld is a Pistol xp tree, with absolutely nothing that can be used in combat given with any of the skills).
Keep Low Blow in Dirty Fighting, move Panic Shot to Underworld, and move Last Ditch to Master. Sprinkle in a couple of +5 speed and +5 accuracy modifiers here and there, and the Smuggler gets closer to it's own profession instead of a Pistoleer's wet dream. It will still reward the Pistoleers who want some extra speed and accuracy, and they can still get a ranged KD and/or the awesome Panic Shot... they'll just have to spend more points to get them all.
For Pistoleer, I'd be happy if they simply made multi-target or disarm2 top notch specials. That way you can't have our best specials and defenses by going up one tree. I hope they are putting the extra +20 KD Defense mod in at Master... otherwise it just feeds that tree even more value.
izdefiler wrote:
For Pistoleer, I'd be happy if they simply made multi-target or disarm2 top notch specials. That way you can't have our best specials and defenses by going up one tree. I hope they are putting the extra +20 KD Defense mod in at Master... otherwise it just feeds that tree even more value.
Unfortunately the additional "Defense v. Knockdown" is in the same box that the +20 is in now. They just increased it to +40.
Samra,
Could you see about trying to get the additional +20 moved to the Master box? I know there are otherimportant things you want to focus on,but I've been thinking about this and it really blows. It also may not be wise to complain about a gift, but all this gift is doing is making us even more attractive to dabblers.
Right now anybody can get our best specials and all our defensive mods by going up one tree. If you add more defensive mods to the same tree, how does it improve a Pistoleer if nearly everyone else is gaining those benefits? Everyone from TKs to BHs to Commandos go up that single tree to enjoy those mods. A better example is the Pikeman profession, a good chunk of their defensive mods come at Master.
I don't mean to pick on dabblers, I will soon be dabbling in TK for their defensive mods& meditation/buffs and Smuggler for their specials. Despite my plans, I still would rather see Smuggler specials split up between Underworld and Dirty Fighting, andI'd still rather see a couple of the TK mods moved to Master.
We will have the best defense vs. KD in the game (for a single profession). That's awesome, it just needs to have a cost associated with it. I know you are busy, you're doing a wonderful job and it is appreciated.
Thanks
Izdefiler, I think you make a good point, but unfortunately I can't promise much. I have done everything I possibly can to get the Devs' attention, but so far no luck. I don't even have Test Center Correspondent access yet! As I've told them, I'm worried that the patch will go live before I even have a chance to test the new defenses. We'll see what happens -- I just posted on another "issues" thread on Correspondent forum today. Hopefully we'll get some attention soon.
izdefiler wrote:
Samra,
Could you see about trying to get the additional +20 moved to the Master box? I know there are otherimportant things you want to focus on,but I've been thinking about this and it really blows. It also may not be wise to complain about a gift, but all this gift is doing is making us even more attractive to dabblers.
Right now anybody can get our best specials and all our defensive mods by going up one tree. If you add more defensive mods to the same tree, how does it improve a Pistoleer if nearly everyone else is gaining those benefits? Everyone from TKs to BHs to Commandos go up that single tree to enjoy those mods. A better example is the Pikeman profession, a good chunk of their defensive mods come at Master.
I don't mean to pick on dabblers, I will soon be dabbling in TK for their defensive mods& meditation/buffs and Smuggler for their specials. Despite my plans, I still would rather see Smuggler specials split up between Underworld and Dirty Fighting, andI'd still rather see a couple of the TK mods moved to Master.
We will have the best defense vs. KD in the game (for a single profession). That's awesome, it just needs to have a cost associated with it. I know you are busy, you're doing a wonderful job and it is appreciated.
Thanks