Pistoleer Archive
Thread: Ganga's Method to Master Pistoleer
Recently on the Kauri forum I described my path to Master Pistoleer that I was able to accomplish in approximately 14 hours of playing time. As a disclaimer, I did not master this profession because a holocron told me to. I mastered it because I like combat classes and I enjoy the variety of pistols in the game. Someone asked me if I could put together some lessons that I learned along the way, so that's what I'm doing here. As an aside, I did do most of my progress towards Master Pistoleer in a group and I am also a CH, so those two facts alone helped me by having others tank, so you're actual time to master may vary. However, I have learned a number of lessons along the way for soloing, and that is what I address here. Also, in helps in any combat class to have novice medic and buy the best stim B's you can find - it enables you to last longer in the wilderness before coming in. So without further ado, I present:
Ganga's Quick and Easy Guide to Mastering Pistoleer
First and most important to the Pistoleer profession is getting an awesome gun - one with good damage and a low speed. Why? Your experience is a direct reflection of how much damage you do to the mobs. Therefore, a gun with high damage and low sped means a total of more damage dished out to the creatures. I don't care about wound % since to get to Master Pistoleer you will be doing all PvE (wound % only really matters in PvP IMO), and I don't care too much about HAM costs, but I'll explain why later.
So which pistol to buy? My recommendation is to spend your hard-earned credits on the best Republic blaster you can find. It is only one of two pistols a Pistoleer can use that have light armor piercing, and generally good stats. It does energy damage, which many creatures have some resistance to, but if you hunt the right critters that won't be a problem. As an alternate you should also get a DX2 pistol. It also has light armor piercing, but does acid damage. Now since most mobs have lower acid resistance than energy resistance, you might be wondering why I recommend the Republic Blaster. It's easy - most Republics have a better damage range and lower speed than DX2's, and experience is all based on dealing damage. If you hunt the right mobs, the Republic will be used much more than your DX2, and you will gain experience faster.
Now, I also recommend getting a decent FWG5 and Scout Blaster. You will rarely use these against mobs, but just in case you find something with vulnerability to Heat damage the FWG5 is a good choice. Typically, I used the FWG5 and Scout Blaster to finish off lairs/nests so I didn't wear down the condition on my main guns.
Finally, get crates of weapon attachments. As a Novice Pistoleer, look for something that lowers weapon speed and increases damage. As you get higher in the tree and you get bonuses to your firing speed, find powerups that increase both your min and max damage. At any given time I would have between 5-15 crates of powerups in my backpack. And always make sure that your guns have power-ups equipped. Remember that even if they expire in the middle of combat you can open an inventory window and drop one back on the pistol to get the enhancement again without any penalty.
My typically loadout of pistols was 1 awesome krayt (max damage with power-up of 488), 2 higher-end Republics (max damage with powerups in the 350+ range), 2 higher-end DX2's, and FWG5, and a Scout Blaster. You may wonder why I had 3 Republics and 2 DX2's. This is because as a gun got below 50% condition in the wilderness I could switch to a different gun without having to go back to a city to find a Master Weaponsmith. Also, it is important to have your guns repaired by a Master Weaponsmith with good tools. I never got a critical failure from them and the most condition I ever lost at one time was 40 points. Also, my awesome Krayt Republic was used only for DOT's and emergency situations (explained later).
So now that you are equipped, let's talk about stat migration. The proper stats are important to any profession. The reason I mentioned earlier that I don't really care about HAM on pistols is because with the right stats your specials will cost you almost nothing. Now I play a Human character, and I found the best layout (again this is for PvE) to be setting all red and green related items (i.e., Health and Action related) to 400, and all blue related (i.e., Mind related) to 1000. Now you may think I'm crazy, as pistols primarily drain the action bar, but there is a method to my madness. On Kauri, you can get all six red and green stats buffed from a Master Doctor for between 4K-10K credits. These on average would last me 2-3 hours of hunting. Since mind damage cannot be healed in combat, and the mobs I hunted usually only attacked health or action, it was a good balance. And while you can get mind buffs, it takes much longer and in my experience rarely lasts more than an hour or so. Anyway, with your red and green stats buffed up to the 1500-2500 range, you can take a fair amount of damage, your specials costs almost nothing, and your regeneration is very quick. If you have novice medic, the 1000 in each of the blue-related attributes means you can heal yourself with only a minor mind drain should you need it.
Ok...now that you are buffed, where to hunt? I suggest an advanced planet since you can gain good experience there from the mobs. My personal favorite was Endor for the hunting of archanes. Why archanes? They are easy to find, both the archane drones and venomous archanes have lower energy resists than acid resists, and neither of those two have armor. Archane warriors, webmasters, and widows all have light armor but still have lower energy resists than acid resists. Also, if you get archanes from a mission, you are guaranteed to get 2 to start at the nest, and 6 total for the whole nest. If you attack the nest right you will never have more than 2 archanes out at a time and there is an easy way to pull just one.
From an economics standpoint a round-trip to Endor plus buffs will run you in the 12K-18K range. If you take just 4 archane drone missions you come out slightly ahead, and any other missions after that is gravy.
Now how to attack the nest properly. Note this should work for just about any nest where only 2 creatures are spawned initially. Approach the next but stay just out of range of the closest creature (for the sake of this text, let's assume it's an archane). Walk to just within range then drop prone. Crawl so that you get to just under 60m (usually around 57 meters is good, and Republic blasters are more forgiving at far ranges than the DX2). Target 1 archane and fire off a health shot 1, health shot 2, and a body shot 2 (until you get body shot 3 that is). Hit peace, stand, and run back so you are 80m or so from the archane and go to a kneeling position. Here's what happens. Since you were prone the creature didn't zero in on you before you hit peace. He will ignore you, but the health shot 1 and health shot 2 attacks are bleeding DOT's (damage over time) attacks that affect the health bar. Once the DOT kicks in several seconds later, the creature will agro you. The nice thing about archanes is that they usually aren't too close together and by running out to 80m or so you can pull just one at a time like this. When the archane starts running towards you spam body shot 2 (or body shot 3 once you get it) until you kill it. Now some folks swear by stopping shot once you get that, but that special is slower and can randomly affect other pools, while with the health shot bleed DOT's and body shot attacks you are concentrating on killing the archane's health bar only. If the archane gets close enough to attack your buffed stats should protect you. Even if you get poisoned your regeneration rate should be high enough to effectively heal you every time you take damage from their poison.
For killing the second archane (it should be alone now), it is slightly different. Again be in the prone position at around 57m but instead of hitting peace, just keep attacking. Why? Because there is nothing else to agro you since it's alone, and while prone you can probably get another 3-6 shots in of "free" attack before3 it charges you. So the process is here is to again use health shot 1, health shot 2, and just spam body shot over and over until dead. IMPORANT: Once it agro's you and charges make sure to change your stance to either kneeling or standing, otherwise it will get too close for you to attack prone.
A common question I get is why to sue both health shot 1 and health shot 2 - shouldn't we just use the better of the two attacks? The answer is no - use them both. These shots stack, meaning each will do damage. So if you do 150 points with health shot 1 and 300 points with health shot 2, every time the archane bleeds it will take 450 points of damage. It's a nice way to wear these guys down quickly. Also, use your best pistol for the health shot 1 and health shot 2 attacks. I mentioned earlier I used my Krayt Republic sparingly. I would use it for the health shot attacks since it would inflict more damage, meaning that the bleeding caused more damage. As a result, things would die quicker which would mean less of a chance of me dying or even taking damage. Otherwise, I only used my Krayt if I felt I was in danger of dying and needed some extra punch in my body shot attacks.
So hopefully this will help people out. Just remember that when your buffs wear off you need to re-buff. Without buffs this template will get you killed very quickly. But if you do it right, do it smart, and are careful with your agro's you should be able to come out slightly ahead in the bank with the title "Master Gunfighter" over your head. 
biwan:Good post, Ganga...
1 other tip - you can't remove powerups from a crate while in combat, so make sure you always have 2 or 3 loose ones in yourinventory before fighting......