Pistoleer Archive

Hey all, I have a slight dilemma.

Let me first state my intentions. I am mostly interested in being really good at Teras Kasi. I'm a novice TKA now, and almost a master brawler to enhance that. I was planning on being a master CH eventually, and I'm a novice CH now, but being a CH just isn't as fun as I thought it would be.

So I decided that if I dropped all my CH and scout skills, I could diversify myself. I saw the defensive bonuses that a pistoleer got, and figured that it would add a good ranged skill as well as enhancing my TKA skills. I'm quickly advancing with a pistol (almost without trying) and am close to being a pistoleer.

Even after being a master TKA, master brawler, and master pistoleer, I have a good amount of points left. Just enough in fact to either become a smuggler (I'll have the prerequisities already) and get to the 3rd tier of dirty fighting, or to master the ranged support line of marksman.

Here are the pros and cons as I see it...

For smuggler, I like the idea of being a smuggler (it just seems cool), and the feign death ability seems really handy. I also like the added special pistol moves I would gain. The bad thing is that I get skills like making low-end spices and slicing that I don't have any interest in. Also, the only skill bonuses I get from the dirty fighting line are to the feign death ability.

The main thing I like about the ranged weapon support is that I get lots of defensive bonuses, especially ranged defense. That would really help me out. The bad thing is that I don't like the moves very much (I played a marksman in beta and didn't like the vanilla special moves), and I really hate using up generic combat XP (I need alot for TKA and pistoleer both).

So my question is... What would be better? Is feign death that effective? Are the smuggler moves (DF II and III) that great? Or is it worth it to spend combat XP to get those defensive bonuses from ranged weapon support?

Thank you in advance for any advice you could provide.

I was about to post the exact same question. I'm a ranger/pistoleer, with leftover points going to either ranged support or smuggler dirty fighting. Would greatly appreciate suggestions...

Well if the choice is between ranged support or dirty fighting, I would go dirty fighting Feign death is a great life saver and the pistol skills are great to with ranged support you get some aiming bonuses but how often do you accually aim once a fight.

I wouldn't consider Spice making a low end skill.

Take a look at what some of the high end sspice does. A must have for PvP or epic creature encounters. Not practical for every instance but well worth the investment for many, many special circumstances.

Plus slicing weapon AND terminals is very good.

Slice a terminal for large boosts to rewards. Faction and monetary.

Slice a weapon for increased speed or damage at the cost of minorly increasing degrade time. Well worth doing a LOT more damage.

I dunno, just take a closer look at the so called "Low End" Smuggler skills. They ARE in high demand.

You can't slice weapons or terminals as a smuggler novice. All you can slice are locked containers. Like I really need a stone knife or 2 units of water.

Again, high-end spice is also unavailable at novice level. And I don't have enough extra points to devote to those paths.

But the points about feign death are good. If it's as useful a skill as it seems, I'm definitely going with smuggler.

Thanks, you guys are really helpful.

something to note.
You can't be Death Blown whild FD :->
So if you can't take the heat, bleed shot, and FD.
It's dirty, but hey.. I'm a smuggler!

Feign Death kicks butt.

the only people whinning about FD just want super powers. I have been save many times by it. The only problem with FD is the run timer and that can be worked around with a quick prone,stand macro.

Tell me if I am wrong, which I very well may be, but everything I've heard points to Feign Death being useless. You can't trigger it manually, you have to be dealt a powerful blow, is that correct? Instead of faking incappacitation, more times than not, the "powerful blow" actually does incap you. It'd be nice if you could trigger FD anytime you wanted, but I've heard it just doesnt work that way.

Again, i am really iffy on whether or not all this info is true, its just stuff that I've read, but I've kind of strayed away from the smuggler route because of bad things I've heard about the dirty fighting tree. Feign Death never works when you want, or triggers when you are trying to run, and ow Blow can't be depended on for PvP anymore. I would like to hear more about how well these actually work now, and I may head to the smuggler boards next.

Yeah you can't be DBed right away while FDed but once the Player realizes you aren't really incapped they can attack you on the ground, incap you, AND then deathblow you.

I dont have any idea if thats true or not but I dont think it is. I have feigned had my stat bars at 0 and if I get up before it heals I get incaped but if I stay down nothing happens So shooting me while Im FDed doesnt seem like it would do anything.