Pistoleer Archive

Or possibly justso the Bounty Hunters could have another way to raise their skill?...

The reason I ask is this....

While looking at the Skill descriptions for Masters I noticed a theme inall of them except Pistoleer... They all have this grandiose statement about how good you are, and the Pistoleer's effectively says, "Hey, you're ok at the Pistol now, but if you wanted to Master this weapon you should have been a Bounty Hunter". Lets look at these descriptions and see what they say...

Master Bounty Hunter: "The Master Bounty Hunter can effectively track down and eliminate almost any opponent."

Bounty Hunter Pistol Spec IV: "Bounty Pistol Specialization IV brings the Bounty Hunter to a deadly understanding of a pistol's weaknesses and strengths. A Bounty Hunter with this level of pistol training should never be provoked, unless one favors an early 'retirement'."

Bounty Hunter Carbine Spec IV: "Bounty Carbine Specialization IV brings the Bounty Hunter to an extremely lethal grasp of advanced carbine techniques. They will be able to demolish lesser opponents with impunity."

Ok Seemingly BH is amazing at these things, but lets get soem other opinions...

Master Carbineer: "The Master Carbineer is unequaled in their abilities with carbine weapons."

Hmm... unequaled?.... does that mean except BH's or is there a mistake here somewhere....

Master Pistoleer: "The Master Pistoleer has gained significant improvements in short-range firearms along with a series of special abilities for nearly every situation."

And here we are.... Blah what a terrible description... Although, unfortunately by the way the game is actually working this is a more apt description than the Carbineer one for both weapons... I am seriously wondering why we should bother Mastering something to be ok at it?... when other people who do the same thing become unequaled or Deadly?...

Now for my own completeness I will toss in some other descriptions:

Master Rifleman: "The Master Rifleman is unequaled in their deadliness with a long-range rifle."

Master Swordsman: "The Master Swordsman has specialized knowledge and skill in the two-handed sword category, and is a fearsome opponent."

Master Fencer: "The Master Fencer completes the specialization of the onehanded sword, making them one of the fiercest melee opponents."

Master Teras Kasi Artist: "The Teras Kasi Master is one of the most feared melee combat opponents, as they can deliver rapid, damaging blows to even the strongest of enemies."

Master Pikeman: "The Master Pikeman is able to deliver the most damaging blows with one of the most deadly types of melee combat."

These are the only info we have to go by as to the Dev's vision of what each class is about, and I know the Dev's won't compare classes, but some things just don;t make any sense... Like, a specialized pistol user who can't effectively weild 2 different pistols (both which are better than ones we can use), makes no sense... and BH's being better at our spec weapon than we are also makes no sense.. I think some clarification on these descriptions might be in order, and while not comparing the two classes an explanation as to why we get jilted, so another class that is easier to master can out do us at our thing...

and yes BH is easier it takes multiple 100's of thousands less combat xp to master BH than any spec weapons class, and BH's are better with1 line of skills to our 4 lines....

I like your post a lot Jodun but I should say one small thing in the BH's defense. The investigation tree is a bitch. Now the Devs are reportedly going to fix it and make the marks a lot easier to defeat but before the fix goes live... the investigation tree is a big bad bitch. So don't assume its so easy to master BH. Yes its easy for a dabbler to get pistol tier IV or carbine tier IV (probably even LLC tier IV once they make a god **edit** decent LLC) but investigation is a bitch and imho, based on what I've heard because I'm a pistoleer not a BH, its probably as hard if not harder then gaining all that combat exp.

Ok, I'll concede the Master Bounty Hunter point... they should be rockin anyways.. heh... From what I had seen they didn't seem to be having any trouble, I saw one guy cheaping his mark, which was like 2.5x my hieght humanoid, from inside a cantina and the Mark was just kneeling outside dying... But in all fairness Bounty Hunter xp probably is a bitch to get...

So to re-define and clarify this point:

Pistoleers 17 skills all about pistol...not as good as BH's that get 4 skills in that weapon, and they get a faster more damaging AP 1 weapon, ie Scatter Pistol this is not right... and in those 4 skills they end up with more spd total than a master pistoleer and more general accuracy.

Thanks for the feedback KillerGnomie...

Hey np and I do agree with your points. BH pistol users get 3 skills in their tree and all 3, imho, are better then our 17 skills combined. Eyeshot rules, Torso shot isa pain the ass (being on fire is not fun - I've seen a BH decimate my arachne webmasterpet with bleeding shot, healthshot2 and torso shot), and I'm assuming their bleeding shot is pretty decent or at least equal to our best bleed shot (healthshot 2). Also they get kick ass mods (+speed just rules for only going 4 boxes).

Text is just text... the variation in descriptions probably has more to do with which developer wrote which descriptions than anything to do with the reality of the class.

BUT, I agree with what you're getting at.

What they should have done is make it so that Carbineers are the best with a carbine, and Pistoleers are the best with a pistol, and make BHes the best at something unique to them - maybe three lines of LLC, or give them light versions of the acid cannon as well. Or some totally new and unique weapons. Make them the best at their own thing, so that others can be best at what they're supposed to be the master of.

BHs should have been the best at trapping humanoids. Imagine the tactical things you could do with humanoid traps in PvP. It would have made that an entirely different game than it is now. Plus, it would have used BH's scout skills. Oh well, water under the bridge.

You've hit it, I think, Taallyn. Give the BH traps that affect humanoids, or any non-beast creature, and have it that only BH's can use these traps. This would go a long way to give them unique power and not take away from other preffessions the title of being master of a weapon.

I'd hate to get hit with a trap, and get owned, even though I'm a better shot with a pistol....but it would make sense.

This thread is really good. I do agree that the BH's pistol skills should not be equal (let alone supperoir) to the Pistoleer's skills. However, the BH class in no doubt veiwed as a super-duper elite class by the development team. Plyaing Traps would be great for the BH class. To even them out, take away some of those uber pistol skills. Also, why else require a BH to master scout? The trapping makes perfect sense!

No class should be as powerful with pistols as the Pistoleer. It's that simple. The BH should have a skill that would make them more than a match for any player, and the trapping would do that.

Alas, this will never happen, but a great idea!

I think maybe you hit it right on the nose with the Traps idea... because with no tracking in scout, the only thing that the BH gets from it that is an applicable skill is the ability to move more quickly in harsh terrain... other than that it kinda makes them self sufficient which is also in line, but not enough to require the type of commitment they put into it... The two base professions should both be represented in some form in the elite one they lead to...

Just as a note to this BH scout thing, the skill description on a Master Brawler:

"The master brawler has gained the basic skills for all melee weapons, and is ready to advance into specialization of one particular type of weapon, or into a hybrid profession such as a bounty hunter."

Now, I think they may have changed this, by now, but whether they ahve or not, I am betting they originally had planned to make you master Brawler and Marksman.... but who knows what goes through their heads... Tossed this ion for the amusement, especially if this is still the description of Master Brawler...:-)

During Beta, both BHs and Commandos had very different prereqs than they do now. A week or so before launch, the Devs completely changed both professions. So, neither one really got that much testing time in before they went Live.

I'll throw my 2 credits into this post. I am a former Bounty Hunter (2-4-4-2) and a current pistoleer (0-0-4-3) thankfully i had 170,000 combat capped before i switchs ... i digress ...

Becoming a bounty hunter during the first 6 weeks of release was easy, maybe that's an understatement, it was very easy. The only challenge was grinding the survival exp needed for the scout line. Providing you did the research and picked up either marksman or scout right off the transport you were set. Harvesting while leveling weapons, the masked scent exploit, insane novice creature handler tanks to soak damage while you killed reb mobs with a dlt20 etc etc ... Kiting kimas with glow juice traps and maxing traps IV in 6 hours ... bleeding a mob with healthshot and then hitting it with a non-certified grenade for 800 or more COMBAT xp ... there was NO real challenge to obtaining bounty hunter for me. All the above "bending of a weak AI, coded game" was well documented and posted in these forums. Call them cheap, call them exploits or call them what I do ... public information.

BH pistol and carbine were just a standard grind made very easy with the above mentioned creature handler weak coding. Combined with the sick specials it was a cakewalk. After carbine 1 i was getting upwards of 4000 xp for a giant baz nitch.

LLC was the same thing (if available on your sever) the difference was rather then getting 4k xp for a GBN i was getting 1500-2000 heavy weapon xp. Granted i was only getting 1 combat xp for the LLC. BH need combat xp for what ... nothing .. so its a mute point.

Investigation was broke, or it still might be ... you could goto corella, pull a misson, turn 180 and get the waypoint from the novice informant. If the mark was too far, just abort and redo it. 10% of the time my mark would be within 500m of corella, if not within it. You could cap invesitgation with almost enough xp for investigation 2 doing this.

Most of the master bounty hunters or advanced BH did just that. A master BH can have novice medic, FA3 and pharm3. It was a skill point juggle of of gaining CH skills and releasing them as your progressed in BH investigation and LLC.

A Bounty hunter will throw the magic number of 217 in your face all day long ... BS ... there are few masters who can complain about the 217 skill points as most BH are usually 1-4-4-1. Of course we see alot of "master bounty hunters" these days, dont be fooled there is a simple command to change your title wither your in the class or not. /setcurrentskilltitle combat_bountyhunter_master works. warning *be aware not all master smugglers are smugglers period* yes i have bugged it.

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Advancing as a pistoleer is a real grind. Throw in the fact that i use 3 main skills healthshot2 (novice pistoleer) bodyshot2 (marksman) and pistol melee defense 1 (pistol special abilities 1). The other pistoleer specials hit random HAM pools making them **edit** near useless. Dont even make me laugh about the DX2.

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Our goto skills are barely above the marksman skill line. As we progress up the 17 pistoleer skills we gain titles but thats about it. Speed and acuracy are sub-par when taken head to head with the BH pistol line. Torso shot and eye shot just flat out own. Bleed shot is random pools but with a scatter a couple of shots will hit major health.

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Here is the problem that i have: The very few skills that make up our uniqueness are getting nerfed into nothing. We are barely better then our marksman pistol specialists brothers.

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The real balance issue isnt pistol envy, its we are not a well thought out class. Our class has no flesh and no real insentive to advance once area knockdown is gone. Pistol whip may be a lower HAM cost KD, but its nothing a dabble cant get easy enough for 11 skill points. The same 11 points that make our class deadly and overpowered lol.

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We need a purpose. Carbineers hit action pools, Rifleman hit the mind pool ... why do we hit RANDOM pools with most of our specials? Sure we fire faster, but the health pool is the highest pool in combat professions, why not let us go after the highest pool with the fastest weapon?

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I don't want to be a bounty hunter again, i want to be a pistoleer ... i don't want anything taken from the BHs ... i want a purpose ADDED to being a pistoleer.

Mason, great post ... one of the best on this board in a while.

I have no problem with BH being better than me (Master Pistoleer) in a particular situation, but there s _NO_ situation in which I am better than a BH. After the disarmshot nerf have no special whatsover that gives me the edge over them.