Rifleman Archive

Will the 75% damage reduction and more HAM cost on knockdown hurt or help the rifleman? Answer: YES

Points:

1) Everyone thats serious about PvP will have doc's buffs running, Docs buffs can buff up to 2200 to every stat but mind stats.

2) With doc's buffs running knockdown HAM cast will not matter. they can spam it all day!

3) Rifles are slow and we have a 2.5x damage done to us if anyone gets into melee range. So, what does this mean? Well, a Doc buffed up BH or pistoleer will have plenty of time to get in melee range and plenty of time to knockdown us to death or just spam HS3's.

4) We do damage to Mind, which cant be healed. Right now that is true, but I dont see that continuing people are screaming for Doc/medic/CM to heal mind damage. And even if it stays true, that you cant heal mind damage. What does this mean? Well, it means that everyone will max out mind stats and run spices for mind and food for mind buffs. Remember you have everything else covered by docs buffs that last over an hour. So when you get into battle spice up and food buff up. and continually keep hot keying food mind buffs so you now that they are up and running.

5) Rifleman have no defense for long term battles. Look at our tree structure, If we dont kill fast, we die. Now you might say: "Well take up 2h weapons to offset rifle". Im not talking about off-seting with an entirely different profession. Im talking about rifleman and there ability to be an effective rifleman. Remember: Why did the devs give Bio-Engineers the ability to make pet stims. They gave this ability so CH didnt have to take medic skills. So with the same logic, why should a Rifleman have to take 2h weapons to offset his rifle.

Final thoughts:

The 2.5x damage to use by melee range has to go away. It will not work with the new system. Think about it. why did they put a 2.5 damage penilty on us? Because it was a trade off of being able to kill in one shot or almost kill in on shot. So if the enemy survived the first round he should have a equal chance of killing us. With the new system, the 2.5x damage is no longer needed.

Well said, they might be able to take it off pvp only, since they did with damage, and our damage is still the same in pve.

this is stupid and doubt me and my guild will pvp much anymore with this change. Pvp will turn into who can knockdown who first?

I disagree. When the T21 rifle and armor ratingsare fixed I think riflemen will get 2-to-3 shot kills in PvP. All player armor is AR1. You'll get a damage multiplier against them from the rifle being AR3. For yourselves - wear armor, buff your own stats with food and doctor meds and spices.

Most pistols are AR0; there's only one that a Pistoleer can use that's AR1. So in addition to doing 75% less damage, a Pistoleer will be doing 50% less damage because of the armor unless they use a SR combat pistol or take BH or Commando for the scatter or launcher.

In other words - you get the advantages of increased defense, and you'll (eventually) get an increase in damage and armor penetration that's unrivalled by other professions short of the commando and BH.

Most pistoleers have the BH pistol branch. This allows them to use scatter pistols which ignore armor (almost like they are AR2).

In addition to the ability to ignore armor, BH's can target mind pools (eith eye shot) and do MORE DPS than a rifleman with a T21 using headshot3.

If thats not enough, they are losing action/health (easily healable) while doing eyeshots while we are losing mind.

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Looks to me like BH/pistoleers are going to be better snipers than rifleman.

bloody good point.. forgot about that fact that it costs us mind points to use our specials - but not BH.. though this might be reduced somewhat with the wep HAM experimention changes that the smiths are getting soon.

I still think that accuracy modifiers need a serious look at with regard to the pistols.. we cant really think about balance till the weapons perform as they should do

I think it's a fallacy to say "most pistoleers get the BH branch" - after all, getting BH requires mastering two professions. I think "most pistoleers" are people who use pistols as their weapon when fighting, but are other professions like doctor, combat medic, squadleader, CH, crafters, etcetera. These Pistoleers don't have the ability to do mind damage.

As noted, armor is bugged right now. Many weapons don't have the proper AR values, and armor itself is buggy. However, these bugs will - at some point or another - be fixed. Combining that with 75% PvP damage reduction will result in a serious PvP killing power hit to professions that don't have high AR weapons (such as the T21 is intended to be) and cannot do mind damage.

As a side note: I think it's more accurate to say "many PvP specced characters are BHs and use theirranged KD and Eye Shots." This is because BH's are a powerful class that can combine a powerful ranged knockdown with a powerful mind damage attack and a powerful pistol class weapon. I suspect we'll see that when Commando is reasonably fixed up, that there will be many complaints about their power in PvP as well.

No defence for long term battles? Geez i just got Flurry shot today and went on a long solo fight with a rebel general so whenever i need to get out of range to heal quikcly i used flurry shot to dizzy him and ran out of range. He instantly stands and falls flat on his arse, the riflemen are very good with staying power because not only does the cover skill allow you to avoid being hit but you get a powerful attack like flurry shot very early on.

This is such BS!!! Sure our profession is based off of being able to hurt them where they can't heal easily, but if we can't kill them before they get on top of us, then we're screwd!!!! Cause we have to start all over on a different pool!!!! And why in the hell would the devs do anything that would help out BH any??? I can't figure this out!!! They are obviously the most dangerous profession in the game and I heard that one out of every three players onscreen, is a Bounty Hunter!!!! If there are soooo many of these guys then why the HELL do they need any more help??????? This pissed me off to no end!!!! I just signed up with the Rebellion last night so that I could do more PvP!!!! I'm considering changing professions now! I really don't want to be a Bounty Hunter just because everyone and their grandma is one, but if I must, I must! AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGG!!!!!! THIS IS TOTAL **edit**ING BULL **edit**!!!!!! We are snipers, we're suppose to be able to take people out in one shot!!! And I dont' put too much faith in the T21 either! By the time its out, the dumbass devs will nerf that thing too!!!!Ok, in RL, you take a SWAT sniper, and give him a sling shot and a hand full of pebbles, THATS WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO US!!!!!!!!!!!! What is going to be the point in being a Rifleman now???? So you can take down someones mind pool a little bit before they get to close and you have to start all over on a different pool that you could be working on the hole time with a different profession?????

excuse me .........i need to breathe a little....... I just hope the devs read this stuff......

As it stands right now, I have not been able to kill a BH yet without help. Mind damage does nothing to them and by the time you can give them a decent mind damage (with a laser rifle since our server does not have T21) your already dead from eye shot. Not only that but the devs seem to have the opinion of "well they are bounty hunters so they are supposed to be god" Great, why even have professions then why don't we just make a game called Star Wars Galaxies : Bounty Hunter because i have only been playing this game a month and i'm bored to tears with these "destory the lair" missions and with these changes it doesn't look like i'll be of much use on the battlefield unless i'm part of a large group whoare all using headshot

I originally thought that reducing damage would kill riflemen, but now I don't think that. It can actually help us a lot. Unfortunately it helps Bounty Hunters more, but maybe someday they'll make defense skills worth something and then Bounty Hunters will be screwed.

I'm a medic and I spend almost all my time online with a friend that's a medic, so this is a great change for me. I can get into a PvP fight with someone and just heal away all their damage until they drop from mind pool damage. I'm sure that one Mindshot2 from a T21 will still incapcitate anyone eventually, so just mindshot and heal and run. Once they drop, go do a sniper shot on them and there you go.

Melees shouldn't even be a concern. It's not like they're faster than you. Just kite them.

I don't see them allowing for real mind pool heals. If they allow mind heals, it will be at a rate of like 10% that of normal heals. Otherwise they would have to completely redesign the rifleman class because our whole profession is based around not being able to heal mind damage.

I think you are right, but i doubt the devs will change that this new damage reduction thing makes rifleman totally useless in pvp

Forget about doing mind damage people. It's not going to happen after patch. Why?

Well, this might not be true for T21 (I'm on Intrepid, there are no T21s here), but fora laser rifle it is. With full Marine + the missing pieces padded, it costs me around 150 mind to pull off a special shot like headshot3. With 75% damage off, 150 will be slightly below my average hit with HS3.

So, by using special shots to target someone's mind pool, I'll effectively hurt my own mindpool by the same amount of damage really. It's suicide.

Riflemen need a "fix". Don't ask me what it is... my guess is extended range and perhaps more shots like "conceal shot" that don't make targets autoattack, but at a lower HAM cost.