Rifleman Archive

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BadDawGe wrote:
Sorry to correct you here man..


Rifles having longest range? Well, last time i checked, pistols, carbines, AND rifles all could shoot up to 64m and no further.

Our accuracy is highest at the extreme range and we should theoretically have a bit of superiority shine through there,however with the way specials work we are in reality equal in accuracy to a pistoleer at point blank range (well a little worse but almost negligible) and a pistoleer is just as accurate as we are at the furthest extent of combat. So you are right, but we are meant to have the "longest" range in so much as we hit you at max while you don't thereby making us the longshots of combat. This role may be forced upon us regardless of how the mechanics prevent our role to be that of a sniper during the CB but who knows.

Rifles having low defense? Have you looked at the total ranged/melee defense of a rifleman? Carbineers dont have any of those (like 25 total) and pistoleer has only melee defense.

To reitterate the point that has been raised a few time before in this very thread and every time this point is ever brought up. We have a negative to hit modifier tacked on to us when we hold our rifle. It is the "new" way to weaken us to melee since 2.5x damage was just idiotic. With this negative modifier our melee defense is essentially cancelled out, in fact we could possibly be in the red thanks to it so that ours is lower then 0 and therefore worse then anyones. Meaning that we truly have solely ranged defense, and pistoleers have solely melee defense. Implying that we are supposed to stay out of melee range and a pistoleer is able to survive in melee range (their theoretical accuracy outside of melee range is meant to imply that they should be closeby too)

Pool damage is the problem, the ability to repetitively hit the ONLY unhealable pool is what sets them apart. If pool damage was removed and the shots were used to target the weakest parts of the body and just do random HAM damage it would balance a lot of combat out. You could still kill someones mind pool off but it would be much more difficult.

We have that shot, it's called strafe2 and is our most powerful and most used special. It also targets multiple people meaning it is that much more useful in multi-person combat. But lets forget about that and focus on HS2/3. To fire it we cost our mind pool a close equivalent to the damage we deal to your own mind. Meaning that we are limited by our mind pool as per how much damage we can do to your mind pool. Seeing how that is truth we therefore focus our points in the mind pool weakening our H and A pools increasing the efficiency of your healable specials many times. Also realize that while we are firing this, or any other special, we are removing our ability to heal ourself due to the mind loss we inflict on ourselves. So yes we could heal your damage but then we can't inflict as much damage to you. In short, mind not being healable is a double edged sword for us.

Leave mind unhealable also. If you made mind healable by anyone then everyone would become a doctor and use the stims that cure 2k+ to every pool. There is no way in hell that someone could die if they could just keep healing every HAM bar. Thats part of the problem nowadays is that people who CAN heal H/A bars can heal them for so much.

If that is the case then it would simply be whoever is the luckiest and has their random HAM attack target the M portion. Essentially battles lose any chance of tactic or skill and simply become who has the mind fire DOT weapon and/or a crapshoot.


Rifleman aren't fully overpowered, but yes, overpowered to an extent. There ability to perform actions faster and much more damaging than the other ranged professions makes them more powerful than the other professions.

But what of our duration? As you brought up just before, a pistoleer and carbineer can heal away all of their costs and spam specials until they run dry of stims. How does a rifleman continue to fight after his mind has beed drained from using his specials? Either run away and rest to recoup or use normal firing shots which do no damage in comparison to a special. So we have speed and power but short length. We are like artilerry, fire off our load and if you get hit by it your head's a crater but if you can survive our limited amount of shells we're doomed.

If you put a buffed/unarmored rifleman vs. a buffed/unarmored carbineer (both of them at least a little pvp-smart), with no other secondary skills, the rifleman would always win. Thakitillo food prevents the carbineers KD, carbineers lower damage and damage that mainly targets healable pools cant compete with headshot to any degree. They could try to move closer but they sacrifice their own accuracy by doing so and it still doesnt compare to a rifleman's accuracy.

Hmm, remove armor but not buffs and a rifleman will win. How is that surprising seeing how buffs are what negate all of our cons and costs and therefore leave nothing but our strengths whereas for a carbineer it just makes their costs go away but they still have their cons. Rifleman= ++, Carbineer=+-. Hmm, which is better? How about we remove buffs for this situation and see what happens? It would be a lot more interesting to say the least, and it has been so long since a fight of that nature has occurred in front of me that I can't even really assume what will happen.

A lot needs to be done to professions and there is no telling exactly what needs to be done.. But in the mean time we can stick with what we have in hopes that we survive in the long run.

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PsychoticChipmunk wrote:

So I take it we win the arguments claiming that we are overpowered?

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Erm.. if by "win the arguments" you mean "prove that nerf cries for rifleman are stupid and anyone making them hasn't looked at why exactly they pwn so much" then yeah I'd guess so.

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DavidGX wrote:

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Auto wrote:

I have to disagree, Rifleman are overpowered in that they are more powerful than the other ranged professions in every situation.

Higher AP

Higher Accuracy

Higher Dmg Weapons

Higher DPS

Anyone who says Rifleman arent overpowered has never been a Carbineer, Rifleman in the past was much better, there were reasonable penalties for the great dmg now its practically flavor of the year along with cm.

Combat balance will solve this though.

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That's the purpose of rifleman. Longest range, highest damage, lowest defenses. That's how we are. Carbineers are as weak as you say because of the incredibly high armor (70 - 90% to all carbineer dmg types in most situations). AP3? Come on. How many rifleman use a T21 in pvp vs an armored opponent? Even that AP3 usually isn't enough to punch through the godarmor we have now. You're right, the combat balance will fix this. Armor of the gods will be smacked with the nerf bat and carbineers and pistoleers will be just as effective as rifleman.

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Mannmoroth wrote:

Rifleman has better defense then carbines yet carbineer is a closer range then rifleman. AP3 adds an extra 56% damage to armored opponents and it is something to complain.

There is an AP2 carbine so the T21 is only 25% more. Carbineers are suppose to make up for the lack of defenses with their status attacks. Does a Carbineer need defenses if it's target is suffering a KD?

The problem is that high end content is immune to status effect which negates Carbineers and those professions that rely on status attacks as their main stay.

As well since it is only AP3 gun the amount of "Kill Stealing" a rifleman can do is crazy.. with my 750 damage t21 and capped rifle speed I was able to outdamage a group of 10 for loot rights on a krayt.

The Rocket Launcher is also AP3. However you rarely see a Commando use any weapon other than a Flame Thrower because of issues in their profession.

Basically "Why Rifle is Overpowered?" We are the only profession with astun gun that has AP on it, so all the other stun weapons are penialized 50% of damage no matter what the stats on the armor's stun layer is.

Only an issue in PvP which the majority don't even do. The constant "nerf Rifleman" calls are 90% from the PvP group. However there "solutions" will have an adverse effect on PvE which is what the majority actually do. You don't try to balance for one system which is in a vast minority while having it adversely effect the majority.

There are many other ways to fix the problems with PvP without doing this. The main one being lowering buffs and armor. Health Action buffs make Mind the best pool to target in PvP. Again this isn't an issue in PvE. Also if you lower armor resists than Stun weapons no longer are the only way to effectively damage players. Also if you make armor only have high resists to a couple damage types, instead of all, then you have the ability to tailor PvP so it is more tactical.

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Mannmoroth wrote:

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DavidGX wrote:

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Auto wrote:

I have to disagree, Rifleman are overpowered in that they are more powerful than the other ranged professions in every situation.

Higher AP

Higher Accuracy

Higher Dmg Weapons

Higher DPS

Anyone who says Rifleman arent overpowered has never been a Carbineer, Rifleman in the past was much better, there were reasonable penalties for the great dmg now its practically flavor of the year along with cm.

Combat balance will solve this though.

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That's the purpose of rifleman. Longest range, highest damage, lowest defenses. That's how we are. Carbineers are as weak as you say because of the incredibly high armor (70 - 90% to all carbineer dmg types in most situations). AP3? Come on. How many rifleman use a T21 in pvp vs an armored opponent? Even that AP3 usually isn't enough to punch through the godarmor we have now. You're right, the combat balance will fix this. Armor of the gods will be smacked with the nerf bat and carbineers and pistoleers will be just as effective as rifleman.

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Rifleman has better defense then carbines yet carbineer is a closer range then rifleman. AP3 adds an extra 56% damage to armored opponents and it is something to complain. As well since it is only AP3 gun the amount of "Kill Stealing" a rifleman can do is crazy.. with my 750 damage t21 and capped rifle speed I was able to outdamage a group of 10 for loot rights on a krayt.

Basically "Why Rifle is Overpowered?" We are the only profession with a stun gun that has AP on it, so all the other stun weapons are penialized 50% of damage no matter what the stats on the armor's stun layer is.

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Oh please, gimme a break. Stun is a perfectly fine dmg type. It's no more "overpoweredomg!!1!!!" than heat, or cold, or blast, or kinetic.. etc. The problem there is armor. It's ONLY vulnerable to stun (not counting lightsaber). T21 with it's "ubermighty!1111!" AP3 is almost useless in PVP because of the overpowered armor.

Unless those 10 players you outdamaged were scouts, CHs and n00bs who were using damage types that the krayt shrugged off then I find that hard to believe. A group consisting of master elite professions hitting a targets weaknesses WILL NOT be outdamaged by a speed capped rifleman.

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LiakyK wrote:
You wanna see a tough riflemen do Master Rifle/ Master Fencer 4/0/0/4 TK. Those are the riflemen you must fear.

Message Edited by LiakyK on 07-20-2004 02:19 PM

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First: I agree that secondary buffs should be nerfed, because they negate armor encumbrance and special attack cost. If you remove them from the game completely you destroy the basis of one profession; plus all it does for combat is make people die faster.

Second: I agree with the this poster and the ones before him. Most of the people complaining about rifleman fight powergaming uber pvp'ers. Those are the players who are going to seem uber regardless. We have a pikeman/doctor in our guild who is AWESOME at PvP, and most people think pikeman is broken.

My template:

Master Rifle/Master Fencer/4004 TKA/1000 Medic

Jawa: 571 max / T21: 700 max / Stun Baton: 411 max

Armor: (Helm - 81base/43stun - Chest - 84base/43stun - Rest 90 base/23stun)

Stats: 400/400/1000(1000/1000)

I also have a master doctor alt.

Janta Blood stim B = 784 heal

Janta Buffs (guild city is a medical city = 3500 h/a and 3300 secondaries; well over 2k per after encumbrance).

Basically I'm up around 4k+ health/action with 2500 secondaries and about 3000 mind / 2500 focus / 2000 will power fully buffed with brandy/arisha.

This post is not to brag, as I'm sure there are lots of guys with better. This post is to show you the intangibles that you DO NOT take into consideration everytime a rifleman kills you in PvP.

The fact that I'm sure lots of players have better equipment than me, and can PvP better than me shows it isn't necessarily the class, but combat in general that needs fixed.

Anyways, nerfing a class in order to make another class better is never the answer.

SOE should do something like this:

1. Limit secondary buffs to 1000.

2. Rework armor encumbrance/protection to make all suits viable and encumbrance actually matter.

3. Fix armor peircing.

4. Rework the filling on foods.

5. Apply 75% PvP reduction to CM's.

That would go a long way to helping out combat as it stands.

If you nerf rifleman some other profession emerges as UBER and it gets nerfed, so on and so on and so on.

Besides whatever is best will always be used in regards to class, weapons, armor, equipment, foods, etc; so it hardly matters anyway.

I also agree that totally changing the game now as far as grouping and combat will alienate a ton of players who for the last year have gotten used to be uber solo'ers that can/will solo most anything in the game. That is what it's been like, it would be hard/impossible to force everyone to be a "newbie" again, which is what the "combat balance" sounds like.

My two cents at least

Message Edited by DarthXanthic on 07-25-2004 03:31 AM

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Talkawa wrote:

I havent seen anyone point out that Carbineer's and Pistoleer's have other proffesions to improve they're base weapon, unlike Rifleman who cant pick up anything after Master RIfleman to improve rifles, I was a Pistoleer/BH and I owned plenty of Rifleman, and no BH takes a helluva lot less SP then it did before, not they can even get some smuggler Pistols, never been a carbineer other than in BH and theres no reason why you cant pick that up and improve tremendously in offense if you add up all the speed mods and accuracy mods etc etc it comes up higher then Rifleman

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At the cost of defence maybe.Carbineer and pistoleer is borked badly. Seeing as you have mastered pistoleer I shouldn't need to point that out. You can not compete with either of these profs unless you dabble in bh or in case ofpistols, smuggler. If they ever get fixed I still wouldn't see them being stronger then any other templet stacker. HoweverMR MC MPleaves alot of points to defence stack. Carbineers only have another offensive prof to chosse from if they want speed cap and pistoleers need the smuggler or bh to have more then 3 working specials. Riflemen is stronge by itself but defence stacking is golden. Higher damage, same or better speeds, variaty of damage types. More choices to dabble or templet stack because there offence is already there. Now before you all think I am a riflemen hater I am not. I just got done with pistoleer a few weeks back and it left a bad taste. I agree that riflemen shouldn't get the nerf bat but the other professions need afix. I agree with most of the post in this thread and on most points brought up to the original poster. I am doing riflemen now not to join the band wagon but because it's not borked and I like rifles better then pistols anyways. Besides I have drop it a few times for other stuff and I should really just master it because I keep coming back.

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DavidGX wrote:

1. Coupled with the unbalanced mind pool and a jawa rifle, this makes it seem to some people that stun needs a nerf. Truth is, there's nothing wrong with stun. It by itself is no more over or underpowered than any other damage type.
2. Considering that most armor is either vulnerable or very weak against only stun (not counting lightsaber) this singles out stun as somehow "overpowered". Most armor is 70 - 90% to all other stats (again not counting lightsister) so when you go from 80 or so resists to zip, it makes a pretty big impact on the person taking the damage and makes it seem worse than it actually is.

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I want lightsister resist armor.

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PsychoticChipmunk wrote:

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Waste93 wrote:

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Auto wrote:

I have to disagree, Rifleman are overpowered in that they are more powerful than the other ranged professions in every situation.

Higher AP

Commando also has AP3

Carbineers and Swordsman have AP2

Everyone else has AP1.

Not sure on Pikeman. Are they AP1 or AP2?

Higher Accuracy

Not by much. Rifleman has only +15 accuracy over a Pistoleer once you figure in the accuracy bonus for specials. These specials cap at +15 for Rifleman and +50 for Pistoleer. So accuracy is much closer than it appears.

Higher Dmg Weapons

Damage of the weapons is actually fairly close to other weapons. Max on a normal T21 is about 400.Most otherprofessions haveweapons fairly close to this range.

Higher DPS

Only at Master. At lower level the Rifleman actually has lower DPS than a Pistoleer. However raw damage is suppose to be the Riflemans advantage. So they are suppose to have some of the best damage potential. Only the Commando should be higher.

Anyone who says Rifleman arent overpowered has never been a Carbineer, Rifleman in the past was much better, there were reasonable penalties for the great dmg now its practically flavor of the year along with cm.

You say that Rifleman was much better in the past. But Rifleman has not changed hardly since launch. We did get a special or two fixed and we got some defense bonuses along with everyone else (except BH) back in Jan. But can you tell us what has changed within Rifleman that has made them better? The answer is nothing.

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This is why you need to be our corr waste

Only one elementalthing has changed since the game's launch to greatly skew combat and PvP. It has haphazardly skewed it to our favor for good or ill and that elemental item is buffs. Before when you couldn't get buffed, you couldn't wear armor or if you did it was fairly low grade. Noone wore a full suit of composite and the pieces they did have were mediocre at best. Now I can wear a full suit of comp thanks to buffs that, when not buffed, I can only truly wear the chestpiece, or the leggings. Encumberance has become moot and as such armor has gone from a balanced pro/con to an overpowered pro and non-existent con.

The same effect has occured to specials thanks to buffing. For a rifleman, special shots are just that. Special. We have the highest ham costs thanks to the fact that it takes away from our mind bar to fire specials. After 10 strafeshot 2's, unarmored and unbuffed, I have roughly 25-30 mind left in my bar. Nowadays, however, I can get fully buffed and fire specials until my buffs wear off. No risk of losing my mind even if I was firing at faster then 1 shot per second because I can get my mind bars to idiotic levels. And I'm a bothan; just think of what humans can do thanks to their substats being broken.

Take the buffs out of the game and things become a lot more sane. People have to wear extremely low lvl armor (meaning a pistol and a carbine do good damage, probably twice as much at least) rifleman have our con back meaning we have a huge risk of injury or death when firing our specials to take our opponent down while they stim their costs away. Basically the only con I see with the removal of buffs is the doctor profession losing their cash cow and going back to healing in the med center, rezing in battle, and countering CM's.

PS we do have horrible melee defense, our 2.5x modifier was swapped out with a high to hit modifier so we'll get hit several times more often then a pistoleer by melee combatants. Ranged is a bit high though I do concede that.

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