Pistoleer Archive

As to the issue of dual wielding...

I would like to see it as an ability to use two different types of weapon alternating the shots.. say you have a fwg5 in the right hand and a tanglein the left.. and your in pvp you could use left attack or right attack if you notice different armor on your target without having to take time to pull out a different gun. Perhaps you could slow down the time it takes to pull out a different pistol to make this ability more useful. And you could perhaps make dual-wielding mandatoryin order to use multi-target shot (and beef up the multiplier on that.)

The way I see pistoleer:

1) Speed: Agreed. Pistoleer should be the fasted ranged weapon, This should include most specials barring only the most powerful ones for reasons of ballance. Carbine next fasted and rifleman the slowest but, of course, the highest single shot damage. The reason behind the speed is that pistols should have the lowest single shot damage but rely on specials that have specific purposes. These skills should allow pistol to be competitive to others through special effects that aid the pistoleer to continue to dish out damage while surviving in close quarters. I see these as a single target control skills (as oppossed to crowd control) when pistoleers are forced into a dueling situation. Pistoleers should be the master duelers when it comes to ranged weaponry. They are the old west gunfighters of the Star Wars universe. Even in the movies they pistol fighters were very western'ish in their use of pistols. I am not talking one hit firepower but, again, tricks to survive at close range.

Eg. Disarm should work: it should make someones weapon useless for a short period of time, making them switch weapons or wait it out. There should also be a change where changing weapons resets all attacks...switching weapons is far too easy in this game. Other specials should be evaluated to see if they are made redundant by similar skills (Healthshot changes will make bodyshot obsolete next patch, doubleshot is pointless due to healthshot2 doing equal or more damage anyway and has a bleed. A pistoleer should be full of tricks with a gun known through history as the gun of many tricks. I have no idea why we see nothing like fast draw.

2) Range. Game mechanics must be changed to create roles for the guns in this game. Pistols should be short range support. They should fire off fast when needed and accurately up to a certain range. After that their accuracy should drop off dramatically. Keep ranges at 65m but make it almost pointless to fire a pistol at that range. On the flip side Rifles should be the exact reverse. Withing 30m they should be dramatically reduced in effectiveness. Carbines will fit in with penalties very noticable at point blank and extreme range. To offset this penaltya player should have to take the extra time to make an aimed attack or given one tool to allow them limitedeffectiveness at their worst ranges. As we all know range limitations are poorly implemented and shown most vividly through rilfeman who can fight far too well within the ranges where pistoleers should dominate. All guns should have thier place within the game.

3)HAM pool damage. I would like to see targeted HAM pools like tka. Mainly because health targeting is utterly pointeless for pistoleers. They do not do the damage to be effective in taking down health in pvp against such buffed and armored opponants who simply have to heal once to get back what they lost to the last 5 or10 of your shots. Pistol experts throughout history showed thier skills off showing how accurate and fast they could be as close ranges. Gunfighters knew they had limited dropping power compaired to other weaponry so they killed by purposely hitting vital areas of their trarget. I think multiple HAM targeting would give me, personaly, a feeling like my character is a master at the small firearm. This and the fact that bodyshot will be obsolete when healthshot is changed to hit health next patch PLUS that fact that so called random specials hithealth 50% of the time anyway. I have not killed a SINGLE mob through mind and rarely through action by using random specials alone. So change to all HAM targeting for conceptual reasons and for redundancy of current skills and game mechanic limitations.

4)Area Attacks: This needs to be strengthened. Pistols should be able to fire off fast and at multiple targets by a master pistoleer but, again, should be tactic employed effectively only at short range. There should be a slight attack penalty when using such skills but offset by the massive short range bonus pistols get. At long range the penalties would stack with standards ones that even a gnort would dodge it. Carbines are the crowd control ranged weapon but pistol should be to carbine as sword is to pikeman....area effect damage complimenting area effect crowd conrtrol. Rifles should be the one target wonders like TKA is. As a TKM myself (along with pistol) I often feel somewhat useless when my swordsman and pikeman buddies double up. I kill one guy at a time efficiently while they knock down 4 guys and area effect them to death. I see pistol and carbine being group friendly like this. Rifleman and TKA are the lone fighters there to challenge the single, tougher entities. All have their role.

5)Defenses: Pistoleers should be the melee fighters of ranged weaponry. A center of being'like skill would suit the profession well. The master pistoleer in movies and legend were often described with a Zen'like quality. It was an art to say the least and amazing, faster than the eye abilities and firing while moving accuracy was thecomman portrayal. As it stands I like the bonuses (other than dodge animations messing everything up) but tweeking between the three main weapon classes should still be done.

6) Dual Wield: As they say, "JUST DO IT!" Pistoleer lacks one massively important attribute: Personal identification. The current skill set does not give the feeling of a pistol wielding duelist but, rather, a low damage, slower than expect pea shooter class. There needs to be a singlular, class-defining ability. Duel wielding is just that. Because of this dabblers can not have access to this ability. As muchsense at it would make, it would not be wise to make one branch duel attack skills because so many would just grad it to be cool. It should be a master ability and provide the pistoleer with a functional purpose. Single wielding should allow use of more slower higher end damage attacks. Duel wielding should allow faster, lower damage shots that add up to a slightly higher dps over time and access to more effective area effect damages. However it is implemented, other than the differences just mentioned, it should be a little more show than effect. It should make players look at a master pistoleer and say, "COOL! Look a pistoleer!" As opposed to now when they say, "What are you?"...You:"I am a pistoleer"..."Oh? Is that a smuggler or Bounty Hunter?...You:"*sigh*".

I am not screaming for changes now. I am also TKM and more than effective (other than uber armor, buff, skill stacking players who make anything other than disease and headshots pointless..but that is another problem) at the moment. I just want to pick up a pistol and feel like some of the characters in the movies and in the books and roleplaying game before SWG who use pistol to such effectiveness. That and my love for the old western gunfighter

I think many of the problems with the current professions can be solved by sitting back and defining class roles withing the game. Something that I think is being done with all the top 5's and defining attribute questions thrown at us.