Pistoleer Archive
Thread: Pistoleer Strategies: Soloing Post CU
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DanoCollins
Wed May 04, 2005 1:25 pm
#1
Nice guide.
I have not been far from my bike post-CU...that is for sure.
I respec'd back into Master Pistoleer recently, and I am having a lot of fun with it. I like the KD and +root+ stuff, and feel more involved than when I was spamming Swordsman attacks.
Message Edited by DanoCollins on 05-04-2005 04:25 PM
Uthyr
Wed May 04, 2005 3:45 pm
#2
That was inspiring, Distayne, thanks for posting it. It's nice to see that somebody else out there is not having a hard time with the CU as a solo player. I am mostly-solo myself, and whereas I had a hard time with it at times on test center and was beginning to get discouraged with it, after I started spending more time with it on live and really learning how all the specials work together and how the combat level system works, I am now holding my own quite nicely in solo battles, am earning plenty of XP (even taking the double-XP week into account) and am not getting incapped nearly as much anymore--in fact, hardly at all now unless I get careless or fail to keep an eye on my health. The key ingredients for me have been (notnecessarily in this order), (1) Stopping Shot, (2) mixing up Pistoleer specials with Bounty Hunter specials, (3) medic skills, and (4) perhaps the most useful thing for me--using my battle droid as a tank/root. The two major adjustments I've had to make since the CU are that I now am careful not to aggro more than one mob at a time (so a lot less use of cone AOE's!), and that I have to be a lot closer to my targets (35m is still way too close for my taste, but I'm trying to adjust my mindset).
distayne
Wed May 04, 2005 8:36 pm
#3
What's funny is I refused to group until I got my solo game in order (after all if you can't take care of yourself how can you hope to help take care of someone else, no?) so I did my first group xp run today and holy crap. I don't care how much you like to solo, even after double xp goes away we're looking at 500k/hr while grouped without breaking a sweat. That's 3x as fast as I was making it before. I understand jedi visibility is an issue, got no solution for those guys. But I mean, c'mon. 500k an hour.
Also, wasn't meant to be a guide so much as a sharing of ideas and methods of soloing. So keep em coming like Uthyr here! 
What level is your battle droid? I went out and bought a combat droid and I can't imagine it surviving the first engagement, it's a little low on the hp/defense department. Plus such a low combat level I mean, c'mon.
Gray03
Wed May 04, 2005 11:09 pm
#4
I'm only running around at combat level 57 atm - but here are what I hope are some usefull tactics. I've been able to take up to 59th level critters solo and even pairs of 55ths a few times. (Most times though, 2+ of them and its time to run for it if you're solo)
I open up with Adv. Stopping Shot, from right at 35m (unless I needed to be back further to avoid aggro, in which case I plink them with a cdef rifle to get their attention), I follow it up with Warnign shot, then hit them with Imp Body Shot mixed with placed shot on auto attack. I can usually get off two-three sets before the stopping wears off. Then depending on how badly hurt they look, I either toss a phecnacine dart (really nice snare) and kite them a bit, or I hit them with warning shot, disarming shot, adv firearm strike followed by imp body shot. If that hasn't finished them off I just alternate body shot with quickdraw until they go down.
I have had good luck using traps and the stopping shot to split the initial lair spawn but I have also gotten a lot of use out of my trusty old probedroid.
distayne
Thu May 05, 2005 12:02 am
#5
OK, well I wasn't thrilled the first... 10 times I logged in since the CU. But I've been reading the forums and changing templates and amazingly enough ended up exactly where I was prior to the CU minus my teras kasi skills and with some extra medic stuff. Current template CL 80 Master Pistoleer / Master Smuggler / Novice Combat Medic. Anyways, just had my first relatively successful solo run and I thought I'd share what I did differently and maybe if we all start working together we can stop the complaining and start again with the productivity. Ok, so the first thing I did before this run that made a difference was I went shopping. My weapons were alright, but I bought some powerups for them so I could increase my DPS, I bought some food (Crispic: plus accuracy, vegeparsine: melee defense, and something like kipic or something that gives increased regen for your pools + like 20% health), I bought some spice. Booster blue is like a 20% increase to health, action regen and mind regen with a -20 to health regen: but I heal my action with Stim-D's that I also bought, plus Bacta spray does like 250 for me in the interim. I bought some recently made armor too. Essentially I ran over every aspect of my character and tried to incorporate what was new about the CU into it. Then what I didn't do before going to dantooine and grab some missions was I didn't bother to get a buff. THey're only 30 minutes from what I've seen and both of my food/spice enhancers last half as long but can be carried with me and are twice as effective as the buffs I've seen in game since the CU.
Sooooo... now I'm ready right? So I went to Dantooine, grabbed a coupla creature missions, rode my bike out there and about died on the first one cause I aggroed the whole group. I had to hope on my bike and circle around and re-approach. This time I got a little smarter and approached from the side. I shot one of the closest ones with a ranged attack and the critters around him gave me the red question mark that meant trouble, but I was already backing out of their range so they went back to ignoring me, except for the thune (CL 80) that I had hit, it came after me. I used advance concussion shot and +rooted+ him, then spammed quickdraw and improved body shot until he was dead 30 seconds later. With my food/spice HAM pool was a non-issue. Rinse and repeat man. Only issue was if I drew more than one critter. Usually I can play the game of +root+ one, run a bit more, root the other, kill the first one before his root runs out, start on the second one, re-root him when he comes out of it (root will have easily reset by then) then kill him too. if there's three or more that you draw by mistake that's what your bike is for.
Sooooooo, in summary:
1. Keep the bike handy
2. Learn to draw mobs one at a time. You can get away with shooting a member of a pack if you get outta there before it's buddies can aggro you.
3. Use food and spices (spice downtime is now 30 seconds--I didn't even notice the first downtime I had, I just noticed the next fight that I didn't regen action as quick).
4. Re-equip your characters to take advantage of the features in the combat upgrade.
5. To minimize health loss take advantage of your status changing shots. I saw a great post here on the pistoleer board showing pure pistoleer moves like intimidate shot etc... designed to slow down the monsters, stop their attacks for like 5 seconds etc... It doesn't take long if you have enough action regen to slam these guys with specials.
Pre/Post CU Experience Gain Solo Comparison:
Ok, I spent a little more money I think on food, but I'm completely doc/buff independent and I love that. I hated that everyone was all beefy all the time wearing composite. But anyways, I used to make about 500-600k/buff (3 hours) without pushing myself too hard. I made about 120k in 30 minutes, but with dual exp that translates closer to 60k real experience right? So figure I make 360k every three hours, which is down a bit. But I'm doc independent now, and my buffs last 15 minutes a piece on average, so I don't have to feel guilty about playing in short bursts anymore. And that's solo. I'm sure group experience could be a LOT better, but for those of us anti-social types I'm just trying to show you all that it is possible to do it just fine. I hope some of this helped some people, and more importantly I hope you all keep posting your sequences/scenarios for soloing individual and groups of mobs. If we share strategies here it can only get easier.
Sooooo... now I'm ready right? So I went to Dantooine, grabbed a coupla creature missions, rode my bike out there and about died on the first one cause I aggroed the whole group. I had to hope on my bike and circle around and re-approach. This time I got a little smarter and approached from the side. I shot one of the closest ones with a ranged attack and the critters around him gave me the red question mark that meant trouble, but I was already backing out of their range so they went back to ignoring me, except for the thune (CL 80) that I had hit, it came after me. I used advance concussion shot and +rooted+ him, then spammed quickdraw and improved body shot until he was dead 30 seconds later. With my food/spice HAM pool was a non-issue. Rinse and repeat man. Only issue was if I drew more than one critter. Usually I can play the game of +root+ one, run a bit more, root the other, kill the first one before his root runs out, start on the second one, re-root him when he comes out of it (root will have easily reset by then) then kill him too. if there's three or more that you draw by mistake that's what your bike is for.
Sooooooo, in summary:
1. Keep the bike handy
2. Learn to draw mobs one at a time. You can get away with shooting a member of a pack if you get outta there before it's buddies can aggro you.
3. Use food and spices (spice downtime is now 30 seconds--I didn't even notice the first downtime I had, I just noticed the next fight that I didn't regen action as quick).
4. Re-equip your characters to take advantage of the features in the combat upgrade.
5. To minimize health loss take advantage of your status changing shots. I saw a great post here on the pistoleer board showing pure pistoleer moves like intimidate shot etc... designed to slow down the monsters, stop their attacks for like 5 seconds etc... It doesn't take long if you have enough action regen to slam these guys with specials.
Pre/Post CU Experience Gain Solo Comparison:
Ok, I spent a little more money I think on food, but I'm completely doc/buff independent and I love that. I hated that everyone was all beefy all the time wearing composite. But anyways, I used to make about 500-600k/buff (3 hours) without pushing myself too hard. I made about 120k in 30 minutes, but with dual exp that translates closer to 60k real experience right? So figure I make 360k every three hours, which is down a bit. But I'm doc independent now, and my buffs last 15 minutes a piece on average, so I don't have to feel guilty about playing in short bursts anymore. And that's solo. I'm sure group experience could be a LOT better, but for those of us anti-social types I'm just trying to show you all that it is possible to do it just fine. I hope some of this helped some people, and more importantly I hope you all keep posting your sequences/scenarios for soloing individual and groups of mobs. If we share strategies here it can only get easier.
Noghri_Killer
Thu May 05, 2005 1:13 am
#6
Did I miss something here? Does he mean "combat" droids, or did a DE publish sneak through without me noticing? "Battle droids" are on the Corvette and in the DWB, right? Although, owning a battle droid would be sweet and also being able to upgrade its weapons.
Uthyr wrote:
That was inspiring, Distayne, thanks for posting it. It's nice to see that somebody else out there is not having a hard time with the CU as a solo player. I am mostly-solo myself, and whereas I had a hard time with it at times on test center and was beginning to get discouraged with it, after I started spending more time with it on live and really learning how all the specials work together and how the combat level system works, I am now holding my own quite nicely in solo battles, am earning plenty of XP (even taking the double-XP week into account) and am not getting incapped nearly as much anymore--in fact, hardly at all now unless I get careless or fail to keep an eye on my health. The key ingredients for me have been (notnecessarily in this order), (1) Stopping Shot, (2) mixing up Pistoleer specials with Bounty Hunter specials, (3) medic skills, and (4) perhaps the most useful thing for me--using my battle droid as a tank/root. The two major adjustments I've had to make since the CU are that I now am careful not to aggro more than one mob at a time (so a lot less use of cone AOE's!), and that I have to be a lot closer to my targets (35m is still way too close for my taste, but I'm trying to adjust my mindset).
Uthyr
Thu May 05, 2005 8:01 am
#7
Noghri_Killer wrote:
here? Does he mean "combat" droids, or did a DE publish sneak through without me noticing? "Battle droids" are on the Corvette and in the DWB, right? Although, owning a battle droid would be sweet and also being able to upgrade its weapons.
Hehe, sorry Noghri, that was a typo--I did indeed mean a combat droid. Thanks for the correction.
Thanks for the correction.To answer your question, Distayne, I have two "combat" droids. I put "combat" in quotes because they actually aren't of much use for dealing damage to mobs, but they are helpful as tanks. One of them is an LE Repair Droid. He's annoyingly slow-walking and only fights at melee range (the animation just shows him kicking the mob repeatedly with his toe--it's ridiculously amusing), but he has relatively high HAM stats (6000/6000/6000), so he lasts a little while. He doesn't have high self-repair power though (auto-repair power = 36), so once he's drained of health, he's out of the fight for quite a while unless I repair him. I find that I don't use him very much anymore because he's too slow. I may name him Pokey.
My other droid is an R5 style (I think--he's not labelled anymore, but he looks like R2D2). His name is Spike. He's much faster, and can attack from a long distance (not sure how far exactly, but if I give him the attack command from 100m away, the mob will immediately aggro). His HAM is only 4500/4500/4500, but his auto repair power is 91, so he's constantly healing himself and seems to last longer in a fight than the LE droid. He's also a lot more mobile, so maybe that just keeps him out of harm's way better.
The way Isolo thingsis as follows: I start way outside of pistol range, and give Spike the attack command on the nearest mob. The mob immediately aggros and starts heading straight for Spike (and me) while Spike heads for him. I try to position myself so that I will be about 35m from the spot where they're going to meet (it's just guesswork, but I've gotten pretty good at it), and then I turn and face away from them, set my chase camera on and then face the camera toward them (facing me from in front of me), preparing to kite. As soon as they meet, I start hitting the mob with my specials--usually Warning Shot-->Intimidate Shot-->Advanced Stopping Shot. Spike holds the mob in place long enough for me to position myself and fire the first two specials, but the mob would break past him and start heading for me if I didn't hit Stopping Shot at that point. Between Spike's tanking and my Stopping Shot, the mob is rooted long enough for me to alternate several rounds of Advanced Critical Shot and Torso Shot (BH specials--the latter has a small bleed DoT). The momentthat Isee the root wear off, I start kiting the mob while continuing to alternate CS and TS. Much of the time, I can finish off the mob without taking a single hit, but if I start getting whacked by a ranged attack or the mob closes to melee range, I hit him with an Improved Underhand Shot (another BH special) to knock him down long enough so I can get back out to 35m and continue kiting. After the battle is over, I use my Medic/Combat Medic heals (bactas and stims) to bring my health back to 100% so I can go back for the next mob and repeat. I don't often need the stims to heal myself during battle using this method, but I do like them for shortening the time until I'm ready to get back to fighting.
Sometimes Spike survives the battle; sometimes he gets incapped. If he incaps, I just rez him and let him self-heal for a minute or so, or heal him with a repair pack, and then go back to battle. It works well for me!
Edited to fix some typos.
Message Edited by Uthyr on 05-05-2005 02:46 PM
Pug
Thu May 05, 2005 9:51 am
#8
Well done, Uthyr. This is good information for people getting used to the CU.
RenKesson
Thu May 05, 2005 9:58 am
#9
Uthyr hit the nail on the head, once again. Using pets and droids as tanks doesn't seem very Star Warsy, but it's getting the job done for me. I cycle between two pets (my razor cat and my cu pa mount) as my diversions. I usually sick the pet on one mob while spamming Disarm Shot and random damage moves against the other. The pet rarely survives I find, but his job is to keep me alive anyway. 
Nifty
Thu May 05, 2005 10:49 am
#11
good post, uthyr.
I find I can take a equal level mob by kiting a bit then applying the stopping shot when it's almost in melee range. Usually, the mob doesn't have a chance to hit me. If it isn't dead when it unroots, I'll just knock it down, and disarm it once it gets up.
definitely would be easier with the pet tank though. I don't think my pet could handle it though, he's just a level 2 rill named Bill.
Uthyr
Thu May 05, 2005 11:57 am
#12
Thanks guys. Like Distayne, I didn't mean for my solo method to be a guide--only to give an example of one way to do it that works for me. I could probably solo mobs failry easily (though probably taking more damage) without a tank pet as long as I kept kiting, while continuing to root or knock down (or snare, for those who have the skills) the mob as necessary to keep it at maximum range as I run. I should have also mentioned that I could have done the same tanking procedure using nothing but Pistoleer specials. I just use the BH specials because I find some of them more powerful.
One other thing about my droids---I've noticed that Spike has an annoying tendency to not stick with me after I start kiting, so when I need to give him the next attack command, he's too far away. I've been getting around this by adding a button to my toolbar to activate my "call Spike" macro, which is "/tellpet Spike follow." That returns him to me so I can sic him on the next mob.
Lotussutol
Thu May 05, 2005 2:49 pm
#13
Here is my quick and dirty guide to solo xp…
I have not yet went to buy new armor/stims/weapons/food/drink/spice. I am using what I had before.
The food/drink is brandy/veg a something or another…and I am using pixie spice…
Head to lok/dath…I go to lok and get missions that pay out around 8.5k to 9k per mission…I mix it up…gurk/npc ones/what ever else…
I eat/drink/shoot up and then click vitalize (I am zab and it is a decent buff)
For animal based fights I use these attacks/stradegy.
Warning shot, intimidate shot, torso shot, stopping shot…back up and switch between quick draw and critical shot (still need to figure out what is my best all around attacks…
When I think stopping shot root is going to break I hit em with a intimidate shot and underhand shot to knock them down and back up to 35m again and blast a few shots and back up till stopping shot is ready again…rinse repeat…
If it is npc's I throw in some disarm shots to stop the npc's too…
I am getting xp on lok at about the same rate I was solo pre CU…
I just noticed that the patch notes mention a balance pass for lok…so this may be useless information…sorry if that is the case!
PS I am MBH/MP/0003SL at the moment...
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