Pistoleer Archive

I have learned in my time in SWG since launch that the best way to get results out of the Devs is to make your recommendation list short and pointed. We have a lot of Wish Lists, Top 19 lists, Special Status lists, etc. on this board, which are all good information, but really, what are we giving the Devs? An overwhelming amount of advice, possibly. Their time is obviously stretched, what with JtLS coming out, and the Jedi publishes and the combat rebalance, so perhaps it would serve our common Pistoleer interests best to narrow the focus.

What is it that differentiates the pistol user in real life from people who pack rifles or SMGs? Speed and accuracy. I always associate so-called "trick shooting" with pistols. With a smaller firearm, and more control over the recoil, you can do crazier things with a pistol than you can, on average, with a submachine gun or a rifle. I think most of us, from what I have read on these boards, were attracted to Pistoleer by these inherent characteristics of the pistol-wielder.

What are our two main problems? Broken specials, and a lack of PvP effectiveness. I believe both these problems can be solved, and the unique characteristics of a Pistoleer can be re-asserted, withtwo simple fixes: Disarm 1 and 2.

These specials need to do what they imply, which is to disarm your opponent. The effect, or state, would be to prevent your opponent from equipping a weapon for X amount of time. This has been said by MANY people in this forum, and we need to make it happen.

Both shots would do only Health or Action damage, as the Pistoleer is going to be aiming for the weapon itself, the hands, or the forearms, thus random HAM damage resulting in Mind damage makes little sense.

The primary differences between Disarm 1 and 2 would be percentage chance of actually disarming your opponent, and Disarm 2 would do less Health or Action damage but would cause damage to the target's weapon, with the amount of damage being proportionate to the strength of the hit. This would make sense as the better Disarm shot would be more precisely aimed at the weapon.

IMO, the Disarm shots are THE signature move of the Pistoleer. Other ranged classes have state shots, or AoE shots, or Knockdowns, but Pistoleer is the only ranged class with a Special whose intent is to actually knock the weapon out of the other guy's hand, and this is precisely the kind of trick-shooting the expert pistol-wielder in real life is capable of.

This would finally give Pistoleers a unique and valuable role in PvP. Rifleman pimping all your Docs from long-range? Have your Pistoleer spam Disarm 2 on him. Not only does the condition of the weapon get placed in jeoprady, but your opponents have to switch elements to cover the Pistoleer, which makes for some interesting and fun on-the-fly tactical reassessments.

By taking our attention away from all the other broken specials and focusing on just these two for a little while, we might get some results out of the devs faster. Hitting them with a sleu of broken specials and a wish-list for fixing all of them is kind of doomed to create the impression that nothing is getting done, an impression that a lot of people have.

If we focus our energies, we might be able to get some love from the Devs prior to the combat rebalance. I certainly don't want to have to wait that long to start having some enjoyable PvP and factional PvE with my Pistoleer, do you?

It's all about Disarm 1 and Disarm 2. Would make Pistoleer a very fun ranged combat class to play.

P.S. Why the hell do I have to keep editing my posts and pasting the contents into them once, sometimes twice, to get the body text to actually POST?? lol People keep seeing N/T posts from me until I fix them....I hate accessing the internet from work sometimes...