Pistoleer Archive

Message Edited by -Darkstarr- on 10-13-2004 03:05 PM

Message Edited by -Darkstarr- on 10-13-2004 03:06 PM

Message Edited by -Darkstarr- on 10-13-2004 03:10 PM

That's absolutely great. Thankyou very much for taking the time to answer my questions so thoroughly!

I'll be sure to stick around on this forum, seems like a great community.

Thanks again for your help.

So, Force Senstive? (puts n00b hat back on) ... how do I go about unclucking/gaining access to that?

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-Darkstarr- wrote:

Hiya.. Welcome to SWG...

1) Kite is running away from a melee opponent to keep yourself out of his range, but keeping him just inside of yours. This is a smart tactic, but you will usually get complaints from melee fighters. Of course, you can always respond "Sure, I'll stand right here while you bash my head in. Would you like me to lay down too?"

2a) Between the two, if you're just going to use pistols, then go BH/Pistols/Smug. It gives you last ditch (Chance to apply a stun state, cutting your opponent's damage down by 50%). It also gives feign death, which allows you to play dead so players and NPCs can't deathblow you should you get low on HAM. The only advantage in going MBH/Pistols in that you'll get an extra pistol special (Confusion Shot) and you get a slightly higher accuracy mod, and +7 ranged defense.

2b) Go up the pistol techniques line first to get fanshot. This gives you a rather high-dps (high damage per second) area attack and allows you to level much quicker. Second, go up the accuracy line, then the dodge line. The 4th line, the one that gives you speed, is leveled through combat xp so it will come as you level off other boxes.

3) The more bleeds you do, the less xp you get per kill. Start off with the combo you stated, then use healthshot2. Bodyshot2 has a lower dps, and bodyshot3 is "bugged" by a lower dps than should be. Spam healthshot2, It's your highest dps shot until you speed cap and get Last Ditch from the smuggler skillset.

4) It's a rather "decent" DE-10. You probably haven't been playing long enough to know this, but the DE-10 is a "combat revamp" pistol, meaning that it's damage will remain the same in the near future when all other guns are nerfed for damage in an uncoming revamp of the combat system. With that in mind, put it away and don't touch it until then. If you just HAVE to use it, then save it only for opening up with torso shot. The burn ticks in torso shot are determined from the wound %, so it's a good gun to use. Until the combat balance/revamp, save up a few credits and buy a high-end Republic Blaster. You can get nice ones around 2.8 speed and 260-300 damage for 50K or so.

5) The guns of your trade? You're a pistoleer, EVERY pistol is one of your trade. Many newbies (and veterans) think that not every gun is useful. That couldn't be farther from the truth. Until you hit the speed cap, put two of every gun in your backpack. One for speed, one for damage. Before fighting a MOB, check the resists on it by using /examine. You may thinkStriker pistols are useless...get stuck on dathomir fighting ahigh-level Nightsisterand you'll soon think otherwise.Select your gun based on the armor resists of the MOB. As for the "most popular/most effective" guns, those are as follows:

PvE (Player vs. Environment): DX2, Republic Blaster, FWG5

PvP (Player vs. Player): Geonosian Pistol, Accuracy Crafted DX2, Modified Republic Blaster, DE-10 (for torso shot because of high wound %).

6) The minimum damage is most important in PvP, where anyone who masters a ranged profession has ranged mitigation 3. This is greatly affected by your minimum damage on your gun. For this reason, many players use a minimum damage powerup on ther gun.

7) Either check the boards or loot a Geonosian pistol schematic from the Geonosian caves and get ahold of some krayt tissues. It helps if the Weaponsmith you are using has 12 experimentation points (just ask him if he/she is, he'll know what you mean). This gives better results in the finished weapon.

8a) Speed caps at 100. Past 100 and it doesn't makea difference, with or without tapes.

8b) Since you will be speed capped by doing both pistoleer and BH pistols, you'll want accuracy tapes. Higher accuracy counters high defenses. This will be EXTREMELY helpful if you end up fighting a Jedi or melee defense stacker.

9a) Stopping shot has a higher DPS (damage per second), but it hitsrandom pools. it has a 4x damage multiplier, so a gun that does 300 damage can potentially hit for 1200, or 1800 if the target you are attacking is knocked down. This is useful when the target has a rather low HAM pool. When you fight higher HAM targets, it's usually more effective to target one single pool using your health specials and then spamming healthshot2.

9b) Fanshot is like stopping shot, but it's an area attack (cone shaped), so it hits everything in front of you. This is useful for taking on several targets at once. Use it when fighting more than one target.

10) The template you are grinding doesn't have that great of an anti-melee defense (poor state defenses and low melee-defense). Your best bet is to intimidate1 (a novice brawler skill, reduces their chance-to-hit), last ditch (stun, cuts their damage by 50%), then use your bleeds and such. Kite them. If they make you change posture, then use panic shot and hit peace. This will delay them 10 seconds. Get out of their primary range (roughly 15m) and start blasting away at them again.

PS) By going novice commando you will get the launcher pistol certification. The launcher pistol will allow you to take out base turrets and ATSTs, but novice commando will not give you any defensive bonuses. In your case, you should probably goeitherBH3040 if you want to hunt player Jedi, go rifleman 0100 for an extra +10 ranged defense, or rifleman 0010 for an extra +10 melee defense. If you don't mind some extra grinding, then I would seriously suggest getting some FS skills and using your 12 skillpoints on Combat Prowess 4000/Enhanced Reflexes 4400. This will give you +12 in ranged accuracy, melee defense, and ranged defense.

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Hope I answered your questions.

Darkstarr

Master Pistoleer/TKM/Smuggler 0440/Master Combat Prowess (FS)/+27 Pistol Speed (Attachments)/+29 Accuracy (Attachments)

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Awesome reply. Only one correction to add, and it's not a really big deal, but the confusion shot is a low end BH carbine special no one uses much. FastBlast is the master level BH pistolattack, and it's an attack that hits all pools simultaneously. Most BH players hate this attack, and I'd agree that Fiegn Death is probably the single most useful PVE tool going. I miss it every time I get sent to the cloner when I am hunting Nightsisters. Can't wait for the rebalance so I can be a functional pike/pistoleer. I miss my sweet DL44. Fast as heck, almost nada for HAM cost.

One question for some of the folks that seem to have a better grip on the CB. The weapons we loot off of the NPCs in game.... are these close to the damage values we can expect after the fact? Say for example, when I loot a scout blaster off a Storm Trooperwith a max damage of 90. Another example, might be the factional requisition weapons. Just curious if anyone has any ideas on this.

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-Darkstarr- wrote:

9a) Stopping shot has a higher DPS (damage per second), but it hitsrandom pools. it has a 4x damage multiplier, so a gun that does 300 damage can potentially hit for 1200, or 1800 if the target you are attacking is knocked down. This is useful when the target has a rather low HAM pool. When you fight higher HAM targets, it's usually more effective to target one single pool using your health specials and then spamming healthshot2.

stopping shot has a dmg modifier of 5.This actually allows a 300 dmg pistol to produce hits of 2250 in pve mode , because the dmg formula is : (weapon dmg*1.5)*dmg modifier (if used). if hte target is knockdown m a lucky stopping shot can produce HUGE damage. t

9b) Fanshot is like stopping shot, but it's an area attack (cone shaped), so it hits everything in front of you. This is useful for taking on several targets at once. Use it when fighting more than one target or if you aren't yet speed caped cause fanshot is much faster than stopping shot

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-Darkstarr- wrote:

9a) Stopping shot has a higher DPS (damage per second), but it hitsrandom pools. it has a 4x damage multiplier, so a gun that does 300 damage can potentially hit for 1200, or 1800 if the target you are attacking is knocked down. This is useful when the target has a rather low HAM pool. When you fight higher HAM targets, it's usually more effective to target one single pool using your health specials and then spamming healthshot2.

stopping shot has a dmg modifier of 5.This actually allows a 300 dmg pistol to produce hits of 2250 in pve mode , because the dmg formula is : (weapon dmg*1.5)*dmg modifier (if used). if the target is knockeddown a lucky stopping shot can produce HUGE damage.

9b) Fanshot is like stopping shot, but it's an area attack (cone shaped), so it hits everything in front of you. This is useful for taking on several targets at once. Use it when fighting more than one target or if you aren't yet speed caped cause fanshot is much faster than stopping shot

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great replies so far...seeing as how you are definitely going BH, then you will be speed capped...meaning if your pistol speed is 100+ then you will always fire every special at 1 second per shot. You should therefore take the highest damage special available to your, and peferably a pool targeted attack..

In the pistol realm that shot is last ditch, which is a smuggler special...if you decide to not go smuggler then our second most powerful special is stopping shot, but it is a random pool attack. The ratio for random pool attacks usually spreads the damage to 3/2/1 for Health/Action/Mind so you have to weigh the worth of 5x damage against 3x damage going directly to health through HealthShot2...I prefer to just use healthshot2 and get 3x damage going to health automatically over 5x randomly from stopping shot. As a BH you will also do 3x damage to mind using eyeshot. If a targets mind stat is lower, then go ahead and pummel that till its dead.

Good luck...great people on this board have already covered much of everything else...

One good thing to do is to plug the stats of your weapons and your speed mods into here Damage Calc And you'll be able to tell how well your pistols fair

Last advice...carry several different pistols. You'll know which is your utility pistol (probably the DE-10 since you'll be speed capped) But often times its handy to have your Scatter, republic, Geo, FWG5, and maybe even a striker to help you out of a tight spot.

• Jedi do not have armor, therefore they don't have defenses against damage types (i.e. stun, acid, energy, etc.). To a Jedi, it's all the same.


• In place of armor, Jedi have Saber Block. This will prevent 85% of your shots from getting through...so, in a sence, it's like giving Jedi armor with 85% resists to everything. Being that only 15% of your shots will get through, your best gun will be the gun that does the most damage. Given that you're new and you won't have access to pre-nerf weapons, DE-10's will be your primary Jedi fighting weapon. The reason that melee BHs do so well against Jedi is that saber block only applies to ranged attacks. Melee'ers can cut right through it.


• It's true that in most PvP you want to attack what HAM bar is smallest. However, in the case of Jedi you want to attack with whatever your best specials are so a lot of the time stopping shot is best. As a ranged Melee BHer, you'll need to mix in a lot of different tools.


• Jedi do lightsaber damage type, so armor as it currently stands will do you no good. The only reason you would have to hunt in armor is if 1) there is significant risk of PvE attacks or 2) the Jedi has a group defending him. The 2nd should become less and less of the case since being in close proximity to a protector team is actually raising the Jedi's visibility and causes more BH's to be able to hunt the Jedi. You can find PSGs with high LS defenses, but they are buggy & expensive).


• Jedi Bounty missions are currently at a very poor state. All of these bugs should be fixed, but if you became a BH tomorrow, expect to be disappointed.


• Today, by going MBH/M Pistoleer you're actually throwing away some skill points since you'll be over the speed cap. However, thatshould change after the combat revamp. The combination should be a great way to go for Jedi missions in the future. The one state attack that actually affects Jedi is Intimidation, which lowers their saber block ability.


• Some of the costs associated with being a purely ranged BH are clothing attachments (might spend up to or over 2m), BE clothing w/sockets (not a huge expense, but a 100k or more), high end weapons (such as krayt DE-10's - 2m to 7m), LLC's & Laser Carbines (a few 100k if you're just grinding those, up to 1m if you want good ones to use during bounties), detination droids (20k-40k per mission), PSGs (high LS resists are 20k a piece), powerups (when only a few handful of shots make it through, you need to make them count), tickets, insurance (because you'll likely die), speeders, mounts, Aakyrd (spell?) droids, Seeker Droids, buffs, & food (near 1m for crates of all the different types you need). Take all those expenses, concider yourself lucky l if youtake out a Jedi with a $100k bounty, concider yourself EXTREMELY lucky if your droids even work,and you can see how tough it is being a ranged BH. Don't take this as me discouraging you from goind MBH and doing Jedi missions. I've mastered 4 professions (including my time in beta) Scout, Marksman, BH, & Pistoleer. I love this profession, but it's good to know what you're getting into so you won't be disappointed.

As for your question on FD, you'll use it more in PvE than PvP. Combat Medics can easily turn your bars black if you FD. The main reason to go FD in PvP is if you have a support team nearby to heal you and get you back up and running quickly. FD can save you from loosing your buff, so it's a huge benefit in PvE.

Message Edited by Rockhurst on 10-13-2004 09:09 AM