Pistoleer Archive
Thread: Our Defensive Mods Are Broken/Useless
As some of you know, the Devs have recently "upgraded" our defensive capabilities on TestCenter. But our defenses don't work and haven't worked since release, and this "upgrade" won't change that. We reported this back in our AUGUST Correspondent Report -- still no response other than that defenses are "working as intended."
In case you haven't heard, the Devs have made three upgrades to Pistoleer on TestCenter. They've added +75 to Dodge, +20 to Defense v. Knockdown, and +32 to Melee Defense. The only one of those three increases that actually helps us (in a minor way) is Melee Defense, and even that boost isn't helpful in PvP or faction PvE. The other two -- Dodge and Defense v. Knockdown -- simply don't work.
Don't believe me? I've tested Dodge and here are the results:
Defender: Master Pistoleer (+30 DODGE)
Attacker: Master Marksman (no Pistoleer or BH skills) using a CDEF Pistol from 7m away
Number of attacks: 194
Number of dodges: THREE
That's a grand total of ONLY 1.5 PERCENT of attacks dodged. That comes as no surprise to Pistoleers, who are lucky to dodge three or four attacks a night even though they have +30 Dodge. So what will +75 Dodge do for us? Wow, it allows us to dodge an extra 3.75 percent of attacks! Break out the party hats.
The reality is that stronger "defenses" exist in the game already. Let's take a look at the -Blind- state effect (from Eyeshot) as a comparison. Another set of tests, using the same Attacker and Defender:
WITHOUT BLIND:
Number of attacks: 194
Hit: 168 (86.6%)
WHEN THE ATTACKER WAS BLIND:
Number of attacks: 203
Hit: 129 (63.5%)
When an attacker is Blind, he is 2.72 TIMES more likely to miss the target. In this example, it means that an extra 23.1 percent of attacks missed. That's really significant.
The bottom line is that Dodge currently does next to nothing for Pistoleers, and this patch won't change that. In the context of the other defenses available in the game, Dodge is very weak. We should be dodging around 20% of attacks as a Master Pistoleer -- that would make the skill worth something.
In the meantime, the Devs (and other professions) should realize that they aren't doing much of anything for us by increasing Dodge -- especially when the rest of our specials and defenses don't work.
Of course there is an additional problem with Dodge, which is why some of us Pistoleers are glad that Dodge doesn't work -- the Dodge animation actually makes us stop moving, which makes it harder for us to escape from an enemy and negates our ability to stay on the move to make ourselves harder to hit. Right now we don't even want to Dodge until this animation is fixed or removed.
Our other exciting boost, to Defense v. Knockdown, doesn't help us either. This is another problem that we've reported to the Devs in a previous Correspondent Report. Let me explain why. Defense vs Knockdown, as far as we can tell, reduces your chance of getting knocked down by a certain percentage. The problem with that is that the enemy will just spam the knockdown move against you, and once one of them hits, you're knocked down for a while. So unless the fight is really short (1-3 shots) or your Defense vs Knockdown is very high (maybe 70-80% chance of resisting knockdown) then the defense is worthless.
Here's an example. Let's say that someone is spamming knockdown against you, and Defense vs Knockdown reduces your chances of getting knocked down by 50% (best case scenario). You have a 75% chance of being knocked down by the second hit and a 87.5% chance of getting knocked down by the third hit. By the fourth hit, you will be knocked down 93.75% of the time. So Defense vs Knockdown doesn't do much for us. Maybe it forces the other guy to use a knockdown move twice instead of once, but that's hardly a big lifesaver for us.
As Pistoleers, we're sick of getting skills and abilities that SOUND good but don't actually do much for us. We have an entire tree full of specials that are broken or useless. Instead of giving us a boost that sounds good on paper, either work with us to make the Dodge skill and other defenses EFFECTIVE or give us something we can use, like an increase in Pistol Speed.
Hey, at least they are trying. With a staff about their size, with 33 professions, carfting, combat, content, bugs, etc, to deal with there is only so much that can be done so fast. If these mod's end up not helping out at all, then they will eventually fix them (keyword "eventually"). And at least you have defensive mod's, and you are lucky that they are even trying to fix the pistoleer class, as their are many other class's out their with alot more things broken.
You guys dont seem to understand whats going to happen.. Once other classes are fixed and we are Underpowered (and our fan shot is being taken away) ANYTIME we ask for anything! we will be explained off because our defensive mods.. Just like our speed was used against us even though other classes could shoot as fast. You all remember that dont you? took 3 months for rest of the people in the game to understand.
Boosting our defences now is basicly useless..
All it is eyecandy and smoke being blownup our ass,because defence doesnt work.. I know because i have Fencer/pistoleer in guild he has lots of dodge, and no it doesnt work
and we will be shot down in arguments based on broken skills!
Even if they do fix defence it would have to be SUPER powerful because again FW is useless against anyone in composite.. (for example 1k shot like 800 gets taken off) use dx2? well its damage is severly less. where as other classes will get higher damage AP weapons and shoot just as fast and destroy us in pvp because guess what? we will not be able to kill them before they get 4 KD shots off.. Who cares if we resist 3 times
DisplacedSurfeR wrote:
You guys dont seem to understand whats going to happen.. Once other classes are fixed and we are Underpowered (and our fan shot is being taken away) ANYTIME we ask for anything! we will be explained off because our defensive mods.. Just like our speed was used against us even though other classes could shoot as fast. You all remember that dont you? took 3 months for rest of the people in the game to understand.
Bingo. DisplacedSurfer has hit the ball on the head.
Right now, as Pistoleers, we have a lot of stuff that sounds good on paper but doesn't actually do anything for us. We're not just dodging attacks, but we're shooting fast and disarming our enemy, then hitting him with our amazing BodyShot3 special. The reality is that none of this stuff -- Dodge, Speed, DisarmingShot, BodyShot3 -- works.
Already, other professions are using these new defenses to ask for a nerf. Another Correspondent has said that we are dodging 60 to 80% of attacks! I'm doing this testing to show the Devs the real story, which is that our defensive mods don't work and we need some serious fixes.
Maybe the other Correspondent was testing using the New Mods, the ones you should also be testing. You are making an argument about something that you know nothing of.
All the professions sound great on paper, well not all of them (poor pikeman and chefs). And as far as firing 4 Fire knockdowns goes, you wanna be 100% resistant to them? 3 out of 4 aint bad, 75% man. And by the time he is done witht the 3rd one, 3sec's later, he will already have 180 health gone and 340 action and however much dmg u have inflicted on him with 3 stopping shots.(unless he is using a cdef of course), so you are probably gonna end up winning.
Chaimera wrote:
Maybe the other Correspondent was testing using the New Mods, the ones you should also be testing. You are making an argument about something that you know nothing of.
Actually no. He was saying that Pistoleers dodge 60 to 80 percent of his attacks right now. That is simply untrue, and anyone can replicate my tests and see the same thing.
Chaimera wrote:
Maybe the other Correspondent was testing using the New Mods, the ones you should also be testing. You are making an argument about something that you know nothing of.
Well I know how Dodge works. The Devs aren't changing the way that Dodge works -- the underlying equation -- or the animation it uses, they're just changing the modifier we get. If the Devs decided to give us an additional +5 Pistol Speed, I wouldn't "know nothing" about how it would affect me. Actually, since I know the speed equation, I could tell you the precise impact that it has upon our DPS. The same is true here. If I know how oftenyou dodge with +30 Dodge and how often you dodge with +0 Dodge or +5 Dodge, I can interpolate how much I'll dodge with +75 Dodge.
"Already, other professions are using these new defenses to ask for a nerf. Another Correspondent has said that we are dodging 60 to 80% of attacks!"
Sorry, sounded to me like you said he using the new mods.
The main thing im trying to say, is that you have to test out the new mod's firsthand before you can make an argument about them.