Rifleman Archive

Thread: Melee defense after Patch 7

Sotaudi
Tue Apr 06, 2004 6:09 pm
#14




UWSkeletor wrote:




The problem as I see it Sotaudi, is the +40 melee defense does no good to a rifleman. If you are holding a rifle, you will be hit by melee, regardless of your melee defense. Even if you have the cap of +125 I found that it makes very little difference. So the only time that this +40 to melee defense comes into any use is if you are using a weapon other than a rifle. So what is the point of putting it in the rifleman tree if it is of no use to a rifleman?


I understand that yes, pistol and carbine can stack their defenses and offenses, but for them, since they don't get the to-hit modifier, they can actually use these defenses while holding a pistol/carbine, so it makes sense for them. It also makes sense for a pistol user to have melee defense, they are "supposed" to be fighting up close. A rifleman should not be fighting up close.


I disagree that removing this defense would nerf rifleman, a rifleman holding a rifle will not notice any difference of whether they have +40 or +5 melee defense. The only thing it would nerf is someone using rifleman's defenses in another profession.






So again, I get penalized because I am holding a rifle, and I get penalized if I do not simply because I have rifleman skills? That is what you are saying. Every profession gets to stack their defenses, every profession except rifle, that is. I know you do not mean it this way, but I am sorry; this all sounds a bit elitist to me. If I put away my rifle to use a more appropriate weapon for the situation I am facing, I suddenly go from a rifleman to simply "someone using rifleman's defenses." Am I not a rifleman because I choose not to stubbornly hold onto my rifle when all logic suggest that I should move to another,more appropriate weapon for the situation?Or are we so ubber that, if someone does get within melee range, we should be penalized no matter what alternative strategies we take?


Besides, this is still all holding up a double standard. As I said, a Master Pistoleer gets a whopping +7 to ranged defense. That sounds to me like a Pistoleer is not suposed to be fighting at long range. Yet, by adding Master Brawler/Master Fencer, he can get more ranged defenses than a Master Rifleman. How is that different than a rifleman, who is not supposed to be fighting at close range, being able to carry over defenses to another profession build to be surviveable at close range? Additionally, a Master TK/Master Fencer/Master Brawler can actually have more ranged defenses than any pure ranged build can hope to ever have. And this is true despite the fact that they have no ranged weapons skills whatsoever and have no ranged to-hit bonus applied against them.


You are looking at this all wrong. First, I do not buy that the +40 does not help us at all. I think it helps some in order to make us slightly harder to hit than a Novice Marksman holding a rifle, and that is the way it should be. Thus, it softens, but does not eliminate, the To-Hit bonus against us. But even if that were not the case, look at it this way. A pistoleer gets to add to his melee defenses by adding Fencer or other professions, and he gets to hold onto his ranged weapon while doing so. A Fencer can add to his ranged defenses, even over and above what we can ever hope to achieve as ranged only, and he gets to do so while continuing to hold onto his melee weapon. Yet what you are saying is that Rifleman alone has to face the choice of taking a butt-whoppin' for holding onto his primary weapon or be gimped if he is smart enough to choose the appropriate weapon for the situation. It seems to me that if I am going to take a penalty for holding onto my primary weapon, I should get a bonus for being smart enough to switch to a more appropriate weapon when the situation demands it. And that is what having that +40 melee defense does for us. It allows us to make that choice without being gimped simply because we chose to become a rifleman.

Message Edited by Sotaudi on 04-07-2004 12:44 PM



Sotaudi Crestlighter
Master Rifleman / Master Combat Medic
"The Physician's Pain Reference"

Former Professions
Master Doctor | Master Swordsman | Master Brawler
Master Scout | Ranger



Sotaudi
Wed Apr 07, 2004 12:05 am
#15





Geddeo wrote:

Thanks for your point of view on this Sotaudi, its impossible to get the whole picture from just one point of view.

Believe me, I realize that the melee defense does come in handy. I'm a TKM as well as a Master Rifleman and the +40 melee helps out a lot when I'm unarmed. While I like the extra D I get, I still don't think it is right. Can you honestly say as a master swordsman that you think a rifleman should have as much if not more Melee defense than you? (I've never checked out swordsman mods, but from your math it looks like the master swordsman gets 27 melee)? I think we as riflemen and women stack too well with the melee professions at the moment.

The way I see it should be is that if a rifleman wants to negate some of his or her melee vulnerabilities we can take a melee profession, but in taking and mastering that profession we should not be on the same level as a melee build.

The other problem is that I see us as damage dealers. With that should come some major defensive holes, and the devs are trying to give us those holes with the chance to hit mod in the last patch. It seems their goal is to make us weak against melee. With the +40 melee defense it is far too easy to plug that hole by simply switching to a sword or knuckles when the enemy gets close. Without the +40 to melee we would still be able to pick up melee profession and do the same thing, but we would be at a disadvantage to a straight melee or pistol melee build.

As for the pistols getting more defense mods, I think the pistols should have higher defenses as they give up some of the damage dealing ability. I know all of this is going to be fixed in the combat balance, but I don't know how far along they are with that balance. The devs won't read this but our corespondent might, and he has more influence over the dev team than we do. I just want to get him as much info from the rifleman community as possible on what we need and don't need so we don't get gimped in the combat balance. I have one view, Sotaudi has another and I'm sure there are other out there. Its up to Klaw to decide what is best for riflemen and what to fight for and what to consider acceptable casualties.

Message Edited by Geddeo on 04-06-2004 10:32 AM



I appreciate and understand your reasoning; however, it is upholding a double standard. You are essentially saying that I, as a Rifleman, should get hit more often when I am holding my rifle, but I should also get hit more often when I am not. You are also saying that other profession builds get to stack their defenses by mixing and matching even unrelated professions, but I, as a Rifleman, do not. And this is on top of the fact that the other ranged professions get to add to the skills of their weapon of choice by going to otherrelated professionsin ways that I cannot as a Rifleman.


I chose the Pistoleer/Fencer/Brawler comparisonfor a reason. Structurally, it is identical in its build to mine. It is Master Brawler + Master of a Ranged Elite + Master of a Melee Elite. Also, Pistoleer has poor Ranged Defenses like Rifleman has poor melee defenses because of the To-Hit penalty on us. Yet, with that build, a Pistoleer using a Pistol can pickup better ranged defenses than a Master Rifleman, and only 15 less than what I get with my fullbuild. He also gets a capped melee defense and a capped Dodge. That is 4.6 times the melee defense than I get as a Master Swordsman and Master Brawler and still nearly twice what I get by adding the defense from Master Rifleman. And that is on top of all the defense against state changes that we do not get.


But let us look at it another way. AMaster TK/Master Fencer/Master Brawer has a ranged defense of +119. To put that into perspective, that is more ranged defense than I can get by pouring every point possible into ranged professions. Master Rifleman/Master Carbineer/Master Pistoleer/Marksman 4 4 4 1 (with 2 points remaining) gives a max of +106 to ranged defense. Master Rifleman/Master Carbineer/Master Marksman with everything else into Pistoleer gives a max of +110 to ranged defense. In fact, there is no purely ranged build you can make that will give you +119 to ranged defense, yet the melee build mentioned leaves me 47 more points to spend anywhere I choose, and if I spend them in Pikeman, I not only have a maxed outmelee defense, butI can cap my ranged defenses as well, and not one ranged weapon is certified in that build!


More to the point, it is also worth notingthat thisbuild (Master TK/Fencer/Brawler) has +47 more ranged defense than I get as a Master Rifleman, yet while I take a melee To-Hit bonus against me that negates my +40 melee defense, melee suffers no To-Hit ranged penalty against them to negate the +47 more ranged defense than I get as a Master Rifleman.


No, what you are proposing is a double standard. Other profession builds get to max out their defenses against us by using cross profession defense stacks whilewe take a justifiable melee To-Hit penalty which negates our native+40 melee defense while using a rifle, but when we go to plug that defensive hole by switching to another weapon, we still have to suffer because we chose rifleman as part of our profession build? As I said, you are saying that I not only have to get hit more because I am holding a rifle, but I get to get hit more even when I am not. And that is unfair.


Besides, if I get killed because I got no benefit from stacked defenses when I switched from Rifle to Sword, no one is going to think, "Well, it looks like everything with Rifleman is balanced." They are simply going to think, "Boy, that Swordman sucked!" . They will not consider that as a balance to Rifleman, and when I kill them with my Rifle before they get to me, they will still call for nerf.


I am sorry, but this proposal gimps us in ways far beyond anything reasonable, it supports a double standard, and it still will not put an end to the cries for nerf against us. I respect your position, but it is unfair.

Message Edited by Sotaudi on 04-06-2004 12:18 PM



Sotaudi Crestlighter
Master Rifleman / Master Combat Medic
"The Physician's Pain Reference"

Former Professions
Master Doctor | Master Swordsman | Master Brawler
Master Scout | Ranger



Greeblesnort
Wed Apr 07, 2004 12:07 am
#16
If the only reason people were picking rifleman was because of our "uber" defenses, I might agree with this. But the truth is, people choose riflemen because we can outdamage any other profession hands down and do it in groups. Another +40 MD is merely a balance vs the melee types with +gazillion accuracy. As a master pistoleer, I was pretty irritated whenever I miss --anything--. As a master rifleman, I accept that fact that I --will-- miss with a T21 on a pretty frequent basis up close but at range, I am pure evil.

Yes, I appreciate the extra +40 MD that rifleman gives my TKM/rifleman, but the primary reason that I choose melee/ranged is to be more versatile. If I can't kill it before it gets to me, then I switch to unarmed and beat the daylights out of it (while enjoying my 57% damage reduction with TK)

Dropping this does nothing but nerf riflemen unless they wanted to convert it to another +40 ranged defense (which would make a little more sense).
UWSkeletor
Wed Apr 07, 2004 10:26 am
#17

Ok, I thought about this some more last night and came up with what I think is the root problem:


They gave a rifleman only penalty (the to-hit modifier) but alleviate it somewhat by granting rifleman a skill that can be used by anyone.


Now, let me explain the problem with this, using some numbers. (**note-these numbers are obviously not exact and their are more factors in the accuracy calculation, but I think they are close enough that it will illustrate my point)


Rifleman receive a to-hit penalty when facing anyone who is using a melee weapon. Lets say this to-hit bonus gives 2.5x the chance to hit us, effectively increasing our opponents accuracy by 2.5 times. So, you have a rifleman facing something with lets say 100 accuracy.


100 accuracy * 2.5 = 250 accuracy - 40 melee defense = 210 effective accuracy against a rifle user. Now lets say the rifleman decides he doesn't like that and unequips his rifle.


100 accuracy - 40 melee defense = 60 effective accuracy against the rifleman.


That is a huge decrease in accuracy. So while the 40 melee defense, doesn't really do all that much when you are holding a rifle (let's be honest, 210 accuracy vs 250 accuracy still means you are getting hit a ton), when you unequip that rifle you are boosting your defense by a ton. Just to illustrate how this benefits a brawler taking up rifleman even more, let's assume instead of 40 melee defense you have 125.


100 accuracy * 2.5 - 125 = 125 effective accuracy against you. This isn't too bad, but it's still pretty good. Now, the person switches to his <insert brawler weapon>


100 accuracy - 125 = -25 effective accuracy.


You can see that if youincrease your defense even more through other professions the large amount of benefit it is going to give you by unequiping that rifle. This, in my opinion, is due to the fact that they introduced this penalty to rifleman to make us easier to hit. This is a rifleman only penalty, so there should be a rifleman only solution. To fix it I think one of two things should be done:


1) Change it so that as you get higher in Master rifleman, the actual to-hit modifier that gets used gets lowered. So in my above example, a novice rifleman gets a 2.5 x to-hit modifier, but a master rifleman gets something like 1.5.


2) Get rid of the to-hit modifier and get rid of our melee defense. This would be more in line with how other professions operate (i.e. the pistoleer only has +7 ranged defense so is much easier to hit with a ranged weapon).


Now, just because I think it makes no sense to have the melee defense in the current system, I don't necessarily think it would be a great idea to go and ask the devs to nerf us, not sure if that will really accomplish anything. But if they bring it up, then I think they need to look at the problem, which is the rifleman-only to-hit modifier, and if they want to allow the rifleman to alleviate this somewhat, then they should do that through a rifleman-only means.


***edited because I accidentally submitted before I was finished

Message Edited by UWSkeletor on 04-07-2004 12:41 PM



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Skel Etor
Valcyn
Master Sharpshooter

Logitition
Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:03 pm
#18

There is a reason the rifleman gets the +40 to melee and the pistoleer only gets +7... it is the status defences.. +50 to KD, Dizzy, and stun is a big deal.. The only one that gets better is a fencer. if u want to nerf the riflemans defences then u would have to give him a comprable statusdefence spread like the Pistoleer gets.


If u guys do not see it yet, u will... the new stack these days is the status def stack. KD/Dizzy is a tough combo that leaves a person on their back fish flopping with no way to couter besides using drugs. A pistoleer is a favorite to combat this, the fencer is in the same category.


Melee's get the bonus to hit the rifle user and unless he wants to take those hits he has to DISARM. That is another HUGE tool. cannot do massive damage if u do not have that massive damage dealer in your hands. If u pick up a melee prof like say fencer and he is a pistoleer and whatever other prof.. he has now brought u down to his level.. the melee level...


Why give up the defence?? Rifles are not that powerfull... it is just that the other prof's like pistoleer and SL, and commando... are a bit broken

Without food and armor and buffs the pistoleer has the upper hand...


Take and have a duel with a pure pistoleer, and a pure rifleman.. no food, no armor and no buffs.. start at 30m from each other... the pistoleer will win about 8 times outta 10. Why? because the HAM costs on the rifle will be about 140-250 each headshot3. With a 1100 mind u can squeeze about 6-8 .. the pistoleers dodge will avoid a few hits, his pistol that takes about 40-80 each stopping shot on his healable ACTION bar... heck without the KD resists we will be sitting ducks for the KD he has..


It is armor, buffs, food and the unhealable mind bar that makes Riflemen so tough... not that they need to be nerfed. if the devs cannot see that this time they will just start another FOTM, another Retool for those that want to war with WORKING tools, and the patch jumpers that will leave the game because they are sick of it changing every patch.



Uben Haum'Qui




g!g (()beh )(aum'jmi)\~
][][][][][][][][][][][][][]Imperial Servant of the People][][][][][][][[][][][][[][]
RabidEwok2
Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:23 pm
#19

The defense should be removed as it only benefits dabblers. Doing well in melee range should be a pistoleer perk. Rifles should be high DPS but depend on long range to do well.






ZEER
Sith Lord | Hatched May 2004

gozarian
Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:46 pm
#20
I'll throw my hat into this...


Your talking about lowering the melee defense of rifleman to make what point? That taking rifleman for the +40 melee defense enhances some other profession in a way that isn't intended? Since when did this become a single profession game? Rifleman isn't the only other profession that has modifiers that can enhance or help to offset innate profession penalties. Just lowering the the melee defense to +5 doesn't really solve the problem.


I do understand that you *may* feel that just because the modifier doesn't dramatically help the profession so then it just shouldn't have it. ...Well then. +5 Ranged defense doesn't really help a pistoleer. So let's remove that modifier entirely. No melee profession has a ranged cert. So why do they have ranged defense? ...Let's drop that down to 0! Carbineer is supposed to be a mid-ranged combat profession. Yet they have +45 ranged defense? ...That's too high! Let's drop it!


You can't just pick on rifleman in this case without taking a look at the big picture. Each and every combat profession has a modifier that can be exploited in some shape or fashion(which is becoming less frequent with each change to the game.). So instead of worring about how the melee defense works. I'd rather worry about why the hell there is a to-hit bonus when defense just got a cap? Not to mention most rifles have very high penalties to hit at point blank. A further penalty just seems silly, but that is just me.
Logitition
Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:46 pm
#21

Now under that logic.. nothing should work between prof's then right? If the pistoleer wants to dabble it is the same as a rifle dabble right? What is good for the goose is good for the gander I guess...


I do not think I would dig not being able to make my 2 professions coinside and play off of each other.. I guess I could be a rifleman OR a fencer OR a pistoleer, but to have them be able to mix together is just nuts, right? might as well take and knock all our points to 100 instead of 250 and take us back to EQ 101...


If u are into PvP 24/7 u are going to keep more than one prof... since only 5-6 work u are going to be considered FOTM.. because the devs screwed up on the buffs, HAM, food, and healing capabilities of the mind bar, the prof that happened to be able to deal the best with it is going to get nerfed AGAIN.


It is a cowards way of dealing with a problem.. cover it up with another mistake instead of gettting to the bottom of it and doing their homework (yea I am talking to u, devs) Take and nerf the defences.. the Rifle pvp users will just dabble to get it back and we will see u next month.. when u run out of options and things to call nerf on u will be able to target the next class and nerf it.. maybe if we can all get together we can get it so where all the profs look the same and do about the same thing.. then we can call it Star Wars Tournament 2004..


I know why they call for so many nerfs.. cause that is the only thing the devs pay attention to... If it is not 10 pages long and a post that contains the word nerf.. the devs skip it.. make the mind buffable and there would not be a need for a nerf.. make it healable and u will get the same result.. Lower buffs to half of what they are and u will see carbineers and pistoleers and others come into play and then they will have to watch their own backs...



It is nuts.



Uben haum'Qui






g!g (()beh )(aum'jmi)\~
][][][][][][][][][][][][][]Imperial Servant of the People][][][][][][][[][][][][[][]
UWSkeletor
Thu Apr 08, 2004 3:11 pm
#22




gozarian wrote:

I'll throw my hat into this...


Your talking about lowering the melee defense of rifleman to make what point? That taking rifleman for the +40 melee defense enhances some other profession in a way that isn't intended? Since when did this become a single profession game? Rifleman isn't the only other profession that has modifiers that can enhance or help to offset innate profession penalties. Just lowering the the melee defense to +5 doesn't really solve the problem.


I do understand that you *may* feel that just because the modifier doesn't dramatically help the profession so then it just shouldn't have it. ...Well then. +5 Ranged defense doesn't really help a pistoleer. So let's remove that modifier entirely. No melee profession has a ranged cert. So why do they have ranged defense? ...Let's drop that down to 0! Carbineer is supposed to be a mid-ranged combat profession. Yet they have +45 ranged defense? ...That's too high! Let's drop it!


You can't just pick on rifleman in this case without taking a look at the big picture. Each and every combat profession has a modifier that can be exploited in some shape or fashion(which is becoming less frequent with each change to the game.). So instead of worring about how the melee defense works. I'd rather worry about why the hell there is a to-hit bonus when defense just got a cap? Not to mention most rifles have very high penalties to hit at point blank. A further penalty just seems silly, but that is just me.





You make some good points here. It is very hard to try and balance something when you can have so many different possibilities of professions, and counteract any weakness through other means, and I like that about this game.


So I think my second post then was mainly in regards to the to-hit modifier. In a game where you can do all of these combinations, why does there exist a rifleman only penalty? Isn't the introduction of that kind of offsetting their idea that it isn't a class based game? So if it were class based, maybe the +40 melee defense to try and offset the to-hit modifier makes sense, but since it isn't class based the +40 doesn't make sense in my opinion.


I think my numbers illustrated the point. With a rifle, the +40 isn't that big of a help, but a small help. That's fine, that's great. But you unequip that rifle, and all of the sudden that +40 is a huge help.


So I think I am in agreeance with you here, as evident by your last paragraph. If there was no to-hit modifier, then there'd be no need for the +40 melee defense. The real problem is the to-hit modifier.




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Skel Etor
Valcyn
Master Sharpshooter

Sotaudi
Thu Apr 08, 2004 3:35 pm
#23




RabidEwok2 wrote:

The defense should be removed as it only benefits dabblers. Doing well in melee range should be a pistoleer perk. Rifles should be high DPS but depend on long range to do well.







This is the thing that boggles my mind here. How is being a Master Rifleman withmasteries in twoother combatprofessions "dabbling"? I am a Master Rifleman. Itwas my first and is my preferred combatmastery. I am not someone who "dabbled" in Rifle Special Abilities in order to pick up an extra 40 points of melee defense. If I was going to do that, I may as well go up Pistoleer or Fencer and pickup a lot more.


Besides all this talk about how we are supposed tostay at long range is ridiculous. In a big PvP fight with multiple players on both sides, you do not get to stay out at 50m from everyone all the time. Against a well organized enemy, you will frequently find yourself dizzy and unable to burst run. You will frequently find yourself posture changed or KDed just long enough for someone to get into melee range, then all this elitist talk about how you do not need melee defenses because you are supposed to be fighting at long range because nothing but smoke.


Riflemen, not dabblers, need this melee help because when someone inevitably gets within melee range of us, we are faced with only two choices. Take a beating or give up our preferred weapon. And if I have to give up my preferred weapon, the balance should be that I get a little extra help when I switch to my secondary weapon.




Sotaudi Crestlighter
Master Rifleman / Master Combat Medic
"The Physician's Pain Reference"

Former Professions
Master Doctor | Master Swordsman | Master Brawler
Master Scout | Ranger



UWSkeletor
Fri Apr 09, 2004 12:58 am
#24
does anyone else have any opinions on this? agree or disagree with me?



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Skel Etor
Valcyn
Master Sharpshooter

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