Pistoleer Archive

Here are the results of the below poll on foods and stat migrations relevant to Pistoleers (moved to the top of the thread for easier reference):

No clear trend was reported for HAM stat migrations among pistoleers. A few people (myself included) reported setting the Mind stats high, but others preferred to focus on other stats. Part of the reason for inconsistency here is the supplementary combat professions that many Pistoleers have (which may require different HAM weightings), and also the fact thatmany pistoleers always fight buffed, whereas others only occasionally do.Because Quickness (an Action secondary)takes a big hit when using Pistoleer specials, I recommend setting that high if you will be doing a lot of unbuffed play, unless youwill compensate with foods. If you always play buffed, then none of your Heath or Action primaries or secondaries are especially important at the present, and I recommend setting Mind stats as high as possible. Which of thethree mind stats you give more weight is a matter of preference and depends on your playing style. I suggest reading the Pistoleer FAQ for another opinon on migrating your HAM stats. Keep in mind that this info may all change after the HAM revisions in the upcoming Combat Upgrade.

Here is a listing of the various foods, drinks, and spicesthat pistoleers said they find useful. I won't post stats here because they vary greatly depending on the crafter's skill level and ingredients that go into making them. You can get a rough idea of the relative stats of these and other foods from the following excellent websites (keep in mind there are a few errors/inconsistencies on the first two sites, and I have also found the stats to be much higher for many foods on my server):

The number of people who reported using eachis in parenthesesbefore each food/drink/spice name. I will edit this list as needed with any corrections or additions that people post here:

I'd like to take a poll and ask all the Pistoleers here what they use, if anything, for foods while fighting with their pistols, and why. I'd also like to hear what people's stat migrations are (and your toon's species, since that relates to HAMs). If you use different foods for different playing styles (PvE vs PvP) or for buffed vs unbuffed, please specifiy. If the armor you use influences your food selection or stat migration, please specify that too. I'm doing this for several reasons: (1) to see if there are any common elements among most Pistoleers,(2) to see if anybody else is doing something useful that I never considered and (3)to provide some information fornewer pistoleerswho aren't sure what to use. If enough people participate, I'll try to summarize the results.

Here's my own setup (if people could reply following this format, it will help me to compare and summarize):

My toon is a Human, and I only fight PvE.

My stat migration is as follows (color-coded by pool):

When I am unbuffed, I use the following foods (# servings in parentheses):

(1 or 2) Vasarian Brandy (depending on what I am fighting)

When I am buffed (expecting heavy combat), I use the following:

(1-2) Vagnerian Canape, as needed when I get into trouble

Lately I have been wearing a 4-piece set of encumbrance-sliced comp armor (sometimes 3, without the helmet) when unbuffed and not expecting to take heavy damage, and a 4-or 5-piece set of effectiveness-sliced comp when buffed. I sometimes wear a full set of Ubese (for the low encumbrance and the kinetic resists) when fighting creatures. The lower the encumbrance, the more I can spam my specials when unbuffed.

Here's my justification:

My current stat migration is designed for mostly-unbuffed PvE fighting. I am a medic, so I can instantly regen my Health and Action to 100% and therefore don't need any more than the minimum for Consititution and Stamina (the regenerating secondaries). Likewise, I don't need high stats for Health or Action, but I keep them set just high enough so I won't get killed by one lucky shot before I can heal myself.Because Action is the pool that has the highest cost using my pistol specials (followed distantly by Health), I keep my Quickness (the secondary that reduces specials costs) high.Because Mind is the only pool that I can't heal during battle (and also because mind buffs only go so far), I have that set at its maximum setting. I keep Willpower somewhat high to help regen my mind when it takes damage from attacks or from the cost of using my medic stims, but most of my Mind regen power comes from foods (see below).

For foods when unbuffed, 2 hits of Scrimpi boosts my Quickness to over 1500, such that there is no Action cost at all using my specials. Some people use Accaragm for this purpose (with the added advantage that it also boosts your Action and Stamina), but Scrimpi is less stomach-filling, so I can have 2 hits and still be able to fit more in my stomach. Accaragm is also a drink, so it takes up stomach space that I could be using for Brandy. The one hit of Scrimpi reduces the Health cost of using my specials, but even so, Health is the one pool that I have to keep a close eye on when I spam my specials after filling my stomach. With 2 hits of brandy, my mind hardly drops at all as I spam my specials, but even just 1 hit of brandy is often sufficient.

When I am buffed, the onlystats I need to pay much attention to are my mind stats, so I focus on mind-enhancing food/drink and nothing else.

Col. Uthyr Pendragon | Artorius Pendragon
Elder Pistoleer/Rifleman/Bounty Hunter/Combat Medic
Elder Architect
Naritus vendors:
Tatooine (2369 -4123) - Castle Uthyr, Mos Eisley West

I don't fight unbuffed that much anymore. My main is a Rodian, so red HAM is my weakest spot. One of the man reasons I don't fight unbuffed is because my con is so poor. I've migrated alot to the mental stats, because I found that when using the TK specials in conjunction with pistols, I need the mind more than anything. I can heal everything else.

I may check into the Scrimpi if I can find any. I used to haul a crate of accargarm around, but I drink brandy now. Other foods I use are synthsteak and snow cake when I really need to hit all the time. My template is:

Master Smuggler

Master Pistoleer

TK 0320

Novice Medic

Some FS stuff

I tend to use Ahrissa for focus.

Last night, I logged into a firestorm. The Dant Mining outpost was getting attacked (by untrained force weilders and other Darksiders)on Bria, and I logged into the cantina just as the AFK musicians were getting slaughtered. I dropped a Pixie, ate a cake and a steak,washed it down withtwo shots of brandy and went into combat with over 600 bf and over a hundred wounds on health and action. When the pixie was about spent, FD and wait out the downer, got up and hit it again! I went mostly after small fry; untrained weilders and renegades. With good use of terrain, they were not able to melee me, and all I had to contend with was force lightning and chokes at range. If I'd have been buffed, I'd have been toe to toe with em, but as it was, the strategy of spice and food worked OK.

--Yak

You're not weird at all, Mapa, I want to know what other people use too! Well, so far two people out of two say they use Ahrissa. I've also heard a couple of SWG veteran friends of mine(non-Pistoleers) say they swear by Ahrissa. I find that curious, because I have no need for Ahrissa at all. With the setup that I mentioned that I use, my mind does not dropappreciablywhen I spam my specials. With 2 hits of brandy, my focus is more than high enough. Maybe it's because my toon is a human? I don't know.

Col. Uthyr Pendragon | Artorius Pendragon
Elder Pistoleer/Rifleman/Bounty Hunter/Combat Medic
Elder Architect
Naritus vendors:
Tatooine (2369 -4123) - Castle Uthyr, Mos Eisley West

I should have said I use Ahrissa in unbuffed PvE when I can't find Accaragm because of the stims I have to use to recover Action. I use it in PvP because mind is a terrible thing to waste.

I also prefer Musician buffs to Dancer buffs. Don't know why, it just seems to work out better for me. YMMV

Col. Uthyr Pendragon | Artorius Pendragon
Elder Pistoleer/Rifleman/Bounty Hunter/Combat Medic
Elder Architect
Naritus vendors:
Tatooine (2369 -4123) - Castle Uthyr, Mos Eisley West

Jeter Pidhe -Adventurer- Bo-tang Clan - 12pt AS --- LOST --
"If you are not confused, you are not paying attention."
Massive selection of stat capped armor sets at BoSam Armor.

Yet another mention of Ahrisa! I may have to look at the stuff more carefully to see what the attraction is, although I still really don't feel the need for it. With 2 hits of brandy in me, no mind buffs, my Focus is at around 1350, so my Mind hardly drops at all when I use specials or stims, and regens fast enough to keep up anyway. I'd rather save the stomach space for foods to reduce my reduce my Health and Action costs. I'm going to continue reading these posts with interest to see how many others use Ahrisa...

Col. Uthyr Pendragon | Artorius Pendragon
Elder Pistoleer/Rifleman/Bounty Hunter/Combat Medic
Elder Architect
Naritus vendors:
Tatooine (2369 -4123) - Castle Uthyr, Mos Eisley West

I have been in stiuations like the village in phase 4, the 'vette, or other high end situations where 2 brandies where not enough and I had to go to muon. Now I just use 1 brandy and 2 Ahrisa and if I get into trouble I have room for another brandy or an Accaragm as needed. I just want to have some room in both so I can react to the situation.

No pie?! o_0

For buffed, "high" end PvE, I use pikatta pie (50% increase to the opponents "miss" chance. I live and die by this stuff!) 2 X brandy and depending on how high-end a combo of synthsteak and exo protein wafers (wafers are like the cheaper version of synthsteak. 25% dmg reduction for 17 attacks, contra 45-50 for 34 for attacks. But the wavers have *5* filling).

Buffed PvP uses a similar setup, with the possibility of adding a canape if my mind seems to be getting low.

For unbuffed PvP, as a bounty-hunter, my usual combination is accaragam, brandy, pie, wafers and that wubbly FS health crystal for a health buff, with a back up muon/pixie to toss into whereever it's needed (only live fire test I've done of this combo though ended with the unbuffed knight taking a 1300 action hit from my bomb droid. Unbuffed, he had 400 action)

I only do unbuffed PvE if I get attacked by some bloody CorSecs, in which case I usully don't eat anything at allunless I absolutely have to.

My stats are roughly migrated to somewhere around 75% of max mind (human) and a bit higher health than action, but more secondary action. This is mostly so I can avoid getting one-shotted by CorSecs and to ensure that I'm able to go into a fight unbuffed against a jedi without getting my ass handed to me *that* quickly.

What I'd seriously recommend:
1)Always keep some spice in a toolbar. Pixie/muon. They're the last defense line against getting incapped and should be used when you see which pools he's going for.
2)Get pie. Seriously. It's not easy to find, itcosts a lot, but thedecrease in damage in PvE is insane. I can solo camp the DWB's first roomswithout medic as long as I don't run out of pie.If I run out of pie, well, many a hunts have had me going "no wonder I was being hit so hard, no pie!". More than once from a cloner -_-
3)Pick up some wafers. The extremely low filling means you can as good as always chuck one. Excellent for emergencies, and if possible even better for continous fighting.

Another food that's nice to have, at least for a bounty-hunter, is parwan nutricake, burstrun food. Eat it, instanstly burstrun, and once it runs out you can eat another or use your natural. Do *not* use the natural first.

(And IMHO, mind secondary buffs > mind buffs)

Thanks Caix, you've given me some ideas for some things to add to my toolbar. I actually do keep Neutron Pixie on me at all times, but it's not in my toolbar and it never occurs to me to use it! Fortunately I rarely need it though because I just stim myself when I take too much damage.

It seems you have a rather different approach/goal with foods than I do. You take foods to prevent taking damage from enemies (a sensible approach!). I take it to prevent taking "damage" from myself, i.e., to reduce the damage done by spamming my specials. You could definitely argure that your approach is more important if you are in situations where you would be taking a lot of hits, because mobs can cause not only damage, but wounds and states. I try to keep myself at a safe ranged distance when I am not buffed, and kill all my targets before they get anywhere near me (using a tank droid/pet helps!), so I prefer to focus on the cost of my specials. I used to fight exclusively buffed, but I am really trying to make myself a more effective unbuffed player lately.

Col. Uthyr Pendragon | Artorius Pendragon
Elder Pistoleer/Rifleman/Bounty Hunter/Combat Medic
Elder Architect
Naritus vendors:
Tatooine (2369 -4123) - Castle Uthyr, Mos Eisley West

Anybody else want to participate before I write a summary? I'll let this thread run a while longer.

Col. Uthyr Pendragon | Artorius Pendragon
Elder Pistoleer/Rifleman/Bounty Hunter/Combat Medic
Elder Architect
Naritus vendors:
Tatooine (2369 -4123) - Castle Uthyr, Mos Eisley West