Rifleman Archive
Thread: Please critique this TKA/Rifleman combo
I'm hoping to get a bit of wisdom onthis template. Here's what I thought would work well.
Brawler - Unarmed IV
TKA - Master
Marksman - Rifle IV
Rifleman - Master
Scout - Exploration IV (movement speed)
(this leaves 32 points left to spend on either...)
Option 1
Scout - Hunting IV (for some extra money and CH)
CH - Management III (for the 2 pets)
Option 2
Scout - Trapping 1 (for the nice mind trap on monsters)
Medic - First Aid II (to stop bleeds) and Pharmacology III (for stimpacks C, experimented)
The basic strategy is to soften with mind attacks from cover and switch to unarmed (vibroknucklers) when theenemy closes on me with the TKA mind attack.
Option 1 - Pets add damage over time and are fun to have.
Option 2 - Fun trap for pvm and much more resiliancy with self heals.
(1) Does this look like a well balanced PvM template with occasional PvP?
(2) Which looks better, option 1 or option 2?
(3) And the tough question, which race? The top four I am considering are...
Bothan - great TKA efficiency (because of good action/quickness/stamina) and moderate rifle efficiency. Can use all armor.
Trandoshan -wonderful TKA bonuses but low efficiency on TKA cuts way down on specials and low efficiency on rifle. Missing 2 pieces of armor (hands and feet).
Wookies - great TKA efficiency, very good rifle efficiency. The only downside islack of armor which scares me a little for the end-game. Can still wear most clothes that I assume can carry skill-upgrade stones.
Zabrak -good HAM andgreat mind regeneration, plus Equilibrium. Low efficiency on tka and low efficiency on rifle. Can use all armor.
(4) Any other thoughts are appreciated!
Thanks for your help.
Talok Shar'Valinor, Starsider
I'm hoping to get a bit of wisdom onthis template. Here's what I thought would work well.
Brawler - Unarmed IV
TKA - Master
Marksman - Rifle IV
Rifleman - Master
Scout - Exploration IV (movement speed)
(this leaves 32 points left to spend on either...)
Option 1
Scout - Hunting IV (for some extra money and CH)
CH - Management III (for the 2 pets)
Option 2
Scout - Trapping 1 (for the nice mind trap on monsters)
Medic - First Aid II (to stop bleeds) and Pharmacology III (for stimpacks C, experimented)
The basic strategy is to soften with mind attacks from cover and switch to unarmed (vibroknucklers) when theenemy closes on me with the TKA mind attack.
Option 1 - Pets add damage over time and are fun to have.
Option 2 - Fun trap for pvm and much more resiliancy with self heals.
(1) Does this look like a well balanced PvM template with occasional PvP?
(2) Which looks better, option 1 or option 2?
(3) And the tough question, which race? The top four I am considering are...
Bothan - great TKA efficiency (because of good action/quickness/stamina) and moderate rifle efficiency. Can use all armor.
Trandoshan -wonderful TKA bonuses but low efficiency on TKA cuts way down on specials and low efficiency on rifle. Missing 2 pieces of armor (hands and feet).
Wookies - great TKA efficiency, very good rifle efficiency. The only downside islack of armor which scares me a little for the end-game. Can still wear most clothes that I assume can carry skill-upgrade stones.
Zabrak -good HAM andgreat mind regeneration, plus Equilibrium. Low efficiency on tka and low efficiency on rifle. Can use all armor.
(4) Any other thoughts are appreciated!
Thanks for your help.
Talok Shar'Valinor
i have nothing to critique 
this is my template as well, although i might not get all the skills up all the way in Rifleman / TKA/scout so that i might get a little bit Creature Handler as well.
i forgot
i would pick scout as the main starting prof cause they have most rounded stats. if you pick marksman or brawler to start you will be perma impaired mindpool wise for the rest of your toons life which might be a very bad thing if you ever plan to PvP.
you want your health , action and mindpool to be about equal, with health/action slightly exceeding mind so that you can take some dmg and not get incapacitated.
I did think about 2 handed but was concerned about having both of my weapons being so very slow. Also, TKA does have a mind attack high up in its tree so I can continue to target the same pool.
Any thoughts on the best race?
IMHO :
TKA/Rifleman/CH and a little healing.
Race:
Wookie-good for CH, has no penelty on range, second best race for melee.
Trando-Good with melee, normal in CH, no penelty on range.
Stats Max health, action 900, mind 900
Pire wrote:i forgot
i would pick scout as the main starting prof cause they have most rounded stats. if you pick marksman or brawler to start you will be perma impaired mindpool wise for the rest of your toons life which might be a very bad thing if you ever plan to PvP.
you want your health , action and mindpool to be about equal, with health/action slightly exceeding mind so that you can take some dmg and not get incapacitated.
You can start with any profession you want and migrate your stats to your liking. No profession will make your stats "permanent" so don't worry about that. If you do decide you want to migrate them after character creation I suggest that you do it on the tutorial or the space station (If you skipped the tutorial) as the stats will migrate instantly there instead of slowly over time once you enter the game.
Also, if you do decide to go Trandoshan I suggest stats like 1000 health, 1000 action, and 700 willpower. Try and max your regen stats as well. That will make you reasonably hard to kill in PvP and you will have enough mind for the rifle shots (The few shots that you get before the mobs runs to you). With your health and action that should be enough to hold your ground against whites or even yellows. You could probably kill some reds if you have vibro knucklers too.
Trandoshans start with an insane bonus to unarmed and it really does help later on when your damage is multiplied. TKAs are very fast and btutal. Tagging that with the slow and devastating rifle packs quite a punch. Also the rifle special attacks will use your mind and the TKA special attacks will use your health/action mostly so you don't have to worry too much depleting your HAM bar on specials instead of worrying about the enemy.
I tried the 2-hand sword out in beta matched with my rifle. They worked ok but I thought that the sword was much too slow to finish the target off. I found that I needed to be careful preserving my mind pool as much as possible instead of going all out destruction on the mob. With the TKA I am finding that I can finish things off fairly easily and I actually have more defensive skills than the other brawler professions. The highest damage that I heard someone doing was a guy named Daddar on Bloodfin doing 3600 damage in one hit against a Tusken Raider.
With the TKA you also get to attack the health bar with body shot or the leg hit so you can cater to all 3 types of groups. The meditate skill will eventually heal up your mind wounds so quickly that you won't need to set foot in the hospital again. Meditate also stops bleeding, poison and disease. You can do powerful combos with the TKA, striking all 3 HAM bars swiftly and brutally at once sometimes. You can make your NPC or PC target dizzy and knock them to the ground if they are within 15m of you. You can boost your performance up significantly if you need to use all your strength to finish off a mighty foe. The force of will skill is currently bugged but when it works you can recover from a long incappacitation well before others can even think about getting up.
TKA/Rifleman is a very good choice and I am actually taking it myself.
OK, well if you want to have the most power, I would go with
Master Rifle
Master TKA
marksman: range weapon support 4
scout: explore 4
medic: organic 2
I would skip a light entry into CH. You lack the supporting skills to make the creatures worthwhile. By mastering TKA and rifle, you tie up way too many points.
You want explore 4 from scout for the terrain mods and movement. You have a rifle, so you wont need traps. Also you are not concerned much about downtime, so the whole camping line is out. Harvesting is a bonus that you dont really need.
THe main point I would like to make is you really want to add range weapon support 4. This line gives you the warning shot that confuses stuff and keeps it from closing, and more importantly it gives you suppressive fire. If you are going to master rifle, then I suppose you really want all the tools to be effective at it, and some of the general ranged skills from this part of marksman are necessary for the complete rifle.If you look in the entire rifle tree, there is not one special move which will knockdown an opponent. Suppression fire knocks down a foe at range, which will come in handy for stopping something from kiting you or running away, and let you close and put the TKA hurting on them. Furthermore you get some general ranged benefits by climbing that branch to 4 which will help with rifle.
Organic 2 lets you get stimpack b's which will give you a quick boost in the field. Another option would be instead of medic to go entertainer: entertainment healing 2. This would let you hunt in some distant city with an empty cantina nearby and recover battle fatigue.
One build I am considering is ranger hybrid:
TKA master
Ranger novice
Rifleman: sniping 2
Marksman: ranged support 4
Entertainer: Entertainment healing 1
First off, you are going to be pretty nasty with the TKA master up close and personal.
Ranger novice is more of a statment of getting master scout. At master scout you get really fine terrain and burst run bonuses, and novice ranger is only 6 points more which will give you an improved camp and more global scouting bonuses. You go this route if you like scouting. I like it at the moment as it grants me a degree of independence...creature harvesting is fun, as well as the mask scent ability and fast terrain movement. Traps are a hoot and do really amazing mind damage. If you have alot of animal adds up close, you can mow them down with the heavy hitting mind traps...I have seen one trap pretty much empty a mind pool, leaving the creature a pushover for just normal attacks. Right now ranger is pretty lame, but if you get ranger novice you will accrue ranger xp for later if they do rework it to be something more than scout: part 2.
In this build you get rifleman and sniping 2 for the headshot. The idea is you snipe to open with some serious mind damage, then either trap (if its an animal) and finish with TKA master. Again get suppression fire to keep stuff from running away, and I would say go entertainer and rely upon improved camp + meditate to heal up in the field.
If you want to be more of a rifleman with melee for cleanup, then I would do the following:
Rifle master
range weapon support 4
novice ranger
novice medic
swordsman: techniques 1, finesse 1
Here you would headshot the crap out of stuff with riflemaster, and if it closed maybe toss a trap and finish with the sword head techniques. Ranger gives you global travel. My concern here is the miss rate on sword for not taking it all the way and the general lack of decent weapons on lag free servers. You might have to pair ranger back to primitive scouting and bump swordsman to master. I hear swordsman at some point can one-shot stuff given the right weapons.
As far as race goes, make an armor decision. Some TKA's like to wear no armor because 'you special move yourself dead'. If you are in this mindset, go Wookie since they get stat bonuses to offset a lack of armor. If you want to wear armor, go trandoshan, since all but 2 slots can have armor and those two slots are worth the trade IMHO for unarmed bonuses. If full armor is your thing, I would go zab for equilib.
this is also my template but things changed after I actually learned how to be a rifleman. A good rifleman can make sure the creature NEVER gets within melee range. warning shot is a blessing.
I still have unarmed IV and will keep it but i'm not certain if i will take tera kasi or use the points to further my rifle skills... like i said, i can take down crazy stuff now that i learned to effectively use warning shot and /maskscent in battle... ofcourse this only works on PvE but that is what my char is designed for anyway.