Pistoleer Archive

First off i wanted to run this by you pistoliers before i pass it onto the BH boards... Feel free to comment =)

I just want to say that I am tired of the BH arguement saying i use more points and here is why i feel like that...

As a masterrifleman i usewhat 93 pointsamount of points. As a MBH i use MUCH more points true...

Now the problem with this situation a rifleman has no ability touse hispointsto increasehis rifle skills. Even if a Rifleman takes upall combat skills he will still lose because the BH will still eye shot and win... The point being a BHs points are more effective than non BHs because of that fact. If points were points thenI should winbecausei usedall my points oncombat skillswhile theBH usessome combat skills but some non combat points (scouting), Atm a BH is better than a rifleman, pistolier andcarbiner but noone can even master all three showing that its imposable to match a BH.There is no balance hereand this makes BHs untouchable because no one can use up more points than he does.

Now here is the reality, Rifleman, Pistoliers, and Carbiners are Elite professions while BH is a hybrid profession. Elite professions specialize and become stronger in one thing. Hybrid professions specialize in variety and gain MOST of elite skills but should never top the elites skills. The key here isa master pistolier should win against a MBH if the MBH only uses a pistol. It isnt right that a BH can beat a pistolier on his own turf. They key to the BH is that he uses the right weapon to exploithis targets weakness. A smart BH should overcome the fact that he isnt the BEST at everything.

If you dont beleive me then ask the devs if your the best... I know for a fact that they have posted saying BHs shouldnt be the best in all circumstances...

Now to make this constructive whatdo i think should be done.... make eye shot use mind for one to match rifleman... Pistolier and BH mods shouldnt stack, 1)to prevent dabblers and 2)also to stopHYPER accurate pistol users at ALL ranges. Im not saying you cant dabble butatm there are almost no MBHs because there is no reason to be one when you can be stronger dabbleing, also because of the investigation line i know its a PAIN too.

So what you guys thing?

hmmmm...

imho, nothing is wrong with the BH in itself (but surely best move easy to get and Investigation line broken). There are many things broken in many professions but it is obvious something must be done quickly for Combat Professions because unbalance due to broken things prevent them to play.

That being said, I also agree dabblers in BH are much too powerfull and Speed / Accuracy modifiers are the main reason because they stack. Something must be done for this, it is a shame it isn't already. Then we'll need some tiny balancing between Elite Combat Professions to balance things.

Now you have to agree too that BH is very expansive to get, even if it is quickly reached (you can be novice BH in few days). Novice BH is more than 160 Skill Points to gather, it is not a tiny thing and they are right they should have some powers to balance their cost. For sure they shouldn't be better than a Master Pistoleer with a Pistol or than a Master Carbineer with a Carbine but they should be very good btw (what they currently are). BH have some broken things too but beside the Master and Investigation things not needed, it is quite balanced. The problem is still modifiers (and some moves much too easy to get) that place them in a position of perfect killing machine with less effort.

BH should be very good but not the best everywhere, this makes no doubt.


Now, I prefer being in the Pistoleer postion than the BH one. In every on line game, the more powerfull class was always nerfed to hell. Sure this isn't a "class-based" game but if BH is too powerfull, many ppl will get it and SOE won't appreciate they made 33 professions if ppl play only 10 of them. Sure it is SOE's fault but let me tell you how these guys react : they will nerf BH and upgrade the least played profession.


Not convinced ? Just lookt at everquest : Necromancer was much too powerfull, they nerfed it to useless while upgrading every other class in the game to a point Clerics were better at killing mobs. Then they introduced BeastLords but no one wanted to play them, no real advantage to do so...SOE made BST Gods, they can almost do everything...


Yes, SWG isn't EQ, I know. There are not the same Dev Teams, ok. But it is still the same direction who is leading everything and they act exactly the same way in everything they run : if something isn't attractive, let's make it more attractive than others. This is how they balance, just with some stats.


If you want the game to be enjoyable, all of us must make some "sacrifices" and agree the other should be better in some domains. I really don't want BH to be nerfed, I even hope BH will be much more fun to play than what it is now. But BH should realise some issues are going to reduce their power because they shouldn't have these powers.

The game is broken with BH, let's hope they won't ruin BH and fix this stupid Speed / Accuracy modifier bug.

I think you're probably right. I just got home from a long night of drinking with my girlfriend so I wouldn't try to attempt a longer response than that.

The MBH problem really isn't much of one, from a rifleman's perspective (pistoleers actually lose out the most IMO). It's just that good rifleman/pistoleer/carbineer templates are not well-understood yet. The fact that MBH takes so many points also means that they don't have to make a lot of choices, so it's very easy for someone to come up with an ideal or near-ideal template for MBHs. Note there actually are very few MBHs (almost everyone is a dabbler, extrapolating from the statistic posted by Holo listing BH as the *least* mastered class) however.

Riflemen and the other elite classes leave enough points that finding a good template is not obvious to the casual player. This is in my opinion the main reason for the perception that these classes are so much weaker than the BH. In the rifleman's case, it's true that increasing our offensive capabilities are far more limited than the BH/pistol/carbine as there isn't a secondary elite class with rifle specials and mods. But while defense mods are a lot less 'sexy', they're quite important, especially when you can amass a significant amount of them.

I'd wager the number of master rifle/marksman/tka precision/fencer S&G are very, very low. This is in my opinion the best group spec for a rifleman (you have to lose either explore or medic, so it's not a terribly good solo spec, which is another huge reason why most people wouldn't think of it - but that's another issue, regarding the value of grouping in SWG) and possibly the best overallgroup combat spec, period. It would be the spec of my choice if I wasn't the master SL in my regular group (another very important piece in a good group, and just as often disregarded).

There are isolated issues with balance with regards to BH (eyeshot is much more accurate than it should be, for instance, and they get too much of a benefit from taking a pistol/carbine subclass) but the difference is actually pretty small if you have an optimized combat class.

I agree Noules,

If/when eyeshot is moved to MBH, it "moves" the issue.

It moves it out of reach of pistoleers, and MBHs remain exactly as effective as they can be now, dabbling in pistoleer for the speed and keeping eyeshot as it is, whereas pistoleers dabbling in BH are reduced in effectiveness.

I disagree with the dabling remarks. The game is set up so you are supposed to dabble. I mastered Pistoleer and still had points to "dabble". There is nothing wrong with it, that is just the game.

Fine, you don't think BH's should be all powerful simply because they spend more skill points to get thier class when those skill points are spent on non combat things like scouting. I can get on board with that.

But if people want to spend all or the vast majority of their skill points to master as many combat skills and tactics at they can, preventing them from taking up artisan, entertainer or medic classes which does greatlylimit them and even give them a weakness (bleed shots with no medic skills anyone?), they should be able to kick your ass in straight up combat if you have only mastered one such profession without using the rest of your skill points to suppliment it for combat.

Interesting thing is i gotsome negative feedback from this one onthe rifleman forum and not really here,I thought it would be theother way round hehe.

I think BHs should be very strong, dont get me wrong about that, but i feel that hybrids are a jack of all trades kind of thing while not mastering any but dang near master though... Just like the druid in EQ.

I dont mean to spite all dabblers but as a Rifleman if i dabble in pistolier my rifle skills dont get better. There is a difference between getting new specials and stacking accuracy mods. IMO i think that you should have different mods for each and you use which one is higher...

I think the situation with BHs minoring in Pistolier is just to extreme and requires somthing done. I think if this was done much of theheat on the pistoliers will be aleviated.