Rifleman Archive
Thread: Eyeshot Post by a BH
Your reluctance to consider Eye Shot draining the mind pool in a Rifleman forum is quite badly misplaced. Draining mind would hurt a BH too much? We lose mind when applying a bleed. We lose mind doing a headshot. We lose mind doing a warning shot. We lose mind targeting a random HAM pool. A LOT of mind. It's the price we pay for attacking the mind pool. Also, believe it or not, Riflemen need to heal too... a LOT, because of our hideous melee penalties. So now we're losing mind from our attacks, and mind from healing. I don't buy the argument that you need to heal, therefore you need to preserve mind. The same goes for me, but I can't.
Think of what happens if Eye Shot drains from the mind pool. You don't spam it, as so many Bh's do now, only pausing to heal with a Stim B so they can continue to spam. Rather, you SAVE it for those situations which are appropriate, which is what you are implying a BH should be doing. Find the doctor with low mind, eye shot to finish. Find the rifleman with low mind, eye shot to finish. Any rifleman or doctor worth his salt will be heavily weighted toward mind anyway, so you would primarily be attacking those other pools, except that's not what happens now... now it's eye shot all the way, regardless of the target, regardless of anything else. Eye shot x 4, stim, repeat.
This also brings up another problem... where does it say that BH should be the best at combat hands down? The PLAYER should be what makes the difference, not one goofy unbalanced attack, which is exactly what is happening with Eye Shot.
Haul out a laser rifle for a while and see what happens to your mind pool, don't swap to nonrifles when things get rough, and see how you have to adapt. This is what we as Riflemen do every day. If you were really interest in being a versatile, strategic combatant, you would welcome a change like eye shot taking from the mind pool, as then the player with more skills and intelligence will come out victorious, not just the guy with the eye shot. Winning by spamming eye shot is nothing to be proud of. Winning through good tactical decisions is.
What makes BH so special? What makes me think we fight a special kind of mobs nobody else gets?
Well, to sum it up most efficiently, we do. BH marks are always red. I hear there's some even con ones now, but have yet to see it.
BH marks are no joke, and if we cannot beat them we cannot hunt bounties. If we can't hunt bounties, we are not bounty hunters.
We cannot bring a group because only we can attack our marks.
We are supposed to be able to beat any class. The debate is not whether BH > rifleman, because as far as combat is concerned, it is. Don't hate me for that fact. I didn't design the system, but it is an actual fact. Mad that to be the best of the best at combat you have to be a BH? Well, that's the devs, not me, and not any other BH. If they change that, I hope they change the cost of the BH profession in skill points, as well. That is why our skill points are so high.
The point of the debate is that a BH should not outdo a master rifleman using the highest mind attack in a contest soley of mind attacks. Period. That's not to say we shouldn't pull out another weapon and attack another pool. We should. The way the system is currently is that we have more muscle, so to beat us you must have more brains. Love it or hate it, that's the way it is, and I'm not here to debate that.
The fact is you will never, ever, not in your entire life ever convince the community of BHs that eyeshot should drain mind because it IS a primary attack, and it WOULD make many of us incapable of killing out marks.
Once again, this is reality. Love it or hate it, it's fact, and maybe the fact that eyeshot is so important on our missions is another problem. Fact is, if you ask the devs to make eyeshot mind based, and don't offer a solution to the problem BHs will face, you will only further the animosity between the communities of BH and riflemen. We don't need that. In fact, we need to be helping eachother through these things.
Now, can you honestly say that not one single rifleman can think of any other solution? I thought of two that would work just as well.
Also, if you want it fixed, why does it have to be fixed specifically YOUR way? That hints at a sinister or malicious alterior motive, which again, will not help anyone.
Granted, the devs will do what they do. It will be fixed THEIR way. Chances are, that will NOT be the way you want it done, the way we want it done, or the way Johny Pizza Delivery Boy from Mars wants it done. It will be the way THEY want it done.
Still, if we come up with a solution that fixes the problem without screwing anyone over then we have a better chance of pulling the devs' ears a little bit at least.
If the only thing you can possibly come up with is that it should drain the mind pool, you are not addressing the problem, you are only addressing your personal beliefs, and I can tell you the BH community will NEVER go along with that happily.
If you are creative enough to see the problem, not ONLY your proposed solution, then perhaps we can help eachother. Otherwise, our communities will be divided, and that is NOT a good thing. It's not neccessarily a disaster that could ruin the game or anything, but it would certainly benefit both classes more if we helped eachother. The same goes for any interaction between all professions.
NOw, the problem is NOT that the eyeshot move drains action. The problem is that a rifleman with the highest mind hit is no match for a BH with the first pistol skill we get in our profession. That is an imbalance. There are multiple ways to fix it.
I have been honest, open, and sympathetic of the riflemen needs. Is it really too much to ask the same, at least for the purpose of this thread?
Even if it ends up not being used, let's see what we can come up with here, and then put that specific idea before both communities to see what everyone thinks. Maybe it will fly, maybe not, but does it really hurt to try to go the extra mile for both professions?
Also, i can guarantee this is not the last of the problems for the BH profession OR the rifleman profession. As both communities mature more broadly in their skills, we will see alot more. Wouldn't it be better when it's your turn to be in our shoes that we try to help YOU as much as possible? The only way the BH community will do that is if you do it. Whoever gets the first chance sets the precendence.
Is it easier to simply nerf us? Yes. It's easier than coming up with a solution working together, and it's a whole hell of alot easier than trying to get the devs to listen to it. Would it kill us to try? Well, I certainly hope not.
If your rationale for BH being > everyone else is your marks are red, ADDRESS YOUR MARKS. If your marks are too difficult, the solution is not to beef up the BH so you can solo reds consistently. Reds are theoretically not supposed to be soloable... in practice, they can be but shouldbe extremely difficult. A mark shouldn't be higher than yellowish if it's a required thing for you to go for. Because now you get beefed up to take down a red mark, and all other balance goes to hell. If say your marks were all light blue, would that mean that your class should become much weaker, therefore destroying you in PvP? And don't say that "well, our marks are red, so we should be more powerful, but it's unbalanced so everyone should be more powerful." That road leads to horrific balance problems way beyond the scope of eye shot. "I need eye shot to deal with my marks." If you cannot do the marks with anything but eyeshot spam, that should tell you two things: the marks are way too rough, and eye shot uber alles.
The skill point debate is old and tired. Yes, it costs a lot to be a master BH. It also costs a guy as much to specialize in several combat trees, without blowing points on things like survival, hunting, and trapping, which are specifically not about PvP effectiveness, yet these are supposed to add up to the justification that you should be better at PvP because you can make a bigger camp? Yes it's hard to become a MBH, but we're not even talking about MBH. We're talking about NBH + 2 pistol boxes. And that's just what we see, all the time.
Interestingly, a customer just told me in somewhat broken and misspelled english that eyeshot rocked, he was able to kill 3 guys at the same time no problem with it, and hold his own against more in another fight, by himself, USING NOTHING BUT EYE SHOT. I've seen him fight, and he's no tactical genius. He just spammed eye shot and hit the stim. This is what causes animosity between BH eye shot proponents and everyone else, not some suggestion that eye shot should drain mind.
You said the problem is not that eye shot drains action, but that eye shot > high level riflemen all the time. Uh, the reason that eye shot > high level riflemen is BECAUSE of the action drain, and the accuracy at all ranges, and the speed, but it's primarily the action drain. What would you have us say, the solution is to have rifle drain action? That makes riflemen > all, except for warping melee.
A mind drain may not be accepted by the BH community. Fine with me. Enjoy fighting nothing but BH's in PvP in the future, using nothing but eye shot. The rest of us will just not PvP. You came in cordially asking for a solution for the eye shot vs. rifle problem, but won't consider a mind drain at all, which is the most reasonable and holistically-balanced solution. It seems like you're saying, I want a solution so we all get along, but I don't want to be weaker in any way. That's not going to happen. And as for getting BH support when Riflemen are nerfed, we already are nerfed, have been since the beginning, and it's because of two things primarily: bad design for the rifleman, and the efforts of very vocal BH advocates that were here before you.
We do see the problem. The problem is that you are able to hit an unhealable pool while using a healable pool. If riflemen HS# used action and hit mind, we'd be hearing the exactly the same thing from everyone else. I'm not sure what you think is the problem, because that's what -I- see the problem is with Eyeshot.
And again, Eyeshot is a PvP attack. Roll/dive/kip have better DPS IIRC. Mind damage means nothing in PvE. I still have no idea what BH missions have to do with Eyeshot. And while your group may not be able to attack your marks, they can certainly heal, buff and rez you.
BHs aren't actually the best combat class, not even presently. They're better in a particular situation, which is a very important distinction.
If you disagree with what the problem with Eyeshot is, please tell us what you think the problem is. As I said, just changing riflemen specials isn't the answer, because it just makes the problem bigger.
I don't understand what you expect us to do. How do you know there is a better solution? The fundamental problem is that you're hitting an unhealable pool while using a healable pool to do so. The only way to balance this is if you took some sort of unhealable damage, such as wounds or BF, or mind pool. Other ideas? Well, let's take the commando flamethrower. It does unhealable damage in the form of wounds from its flame DoT. The drawback is that it's limited to 16m range, 15s recycle time and the fact that it's a DoT (meaning you can do something about it while it ticks, and does not stack).That would be a reasonable balance to Eyeshot, too.
My problem with the BH situation is the we use more skill points arguement. EVERY elite class should be the BEST at what they are specialized at. Now BH uses more skill points so they should have MORErange of specialsbut not one all powerfull general attack. At range a rifleman shooting head shot 3 v. a BH at range shooting eyeshot, the rifleman should win... Pistol in close range should own a rifleman. The balance with BH is that that they get get specials from all 3 trees giving them a WIDE range of abilities. The BH speciality is the jack of all trades idea like the druid in EQ (which is imo the strongest class in EQ)... What your not talking about isbalance. MANY BHssay inharently that BHs should be stronger then ALL because they have to spend more points but that automaticly makes them more powerfull than ANY class and that kills balance.The universe would be full of BHs with no one to hunt hehe.The skill trees you have to master give you abilites that are really important. The speed bonus from exploration is one of the most overlooked but usefullskills in the game imo. Not all skills for being a BH are combat related too and i think that is whyBHs shouldnt be the strongest in the game just equilly bananced...
The thing that I don't think any of the Bounty Hunters see is that, yes you are supposed to be able to perform in a very wide variety of combat and have many different ways to kill your bounty. The problem, however, is that you are THE BEST at each of these various combat types (or most, pistol and rifle, not sure about carbine to be honest), that's not fair. I'm fine with you doing mind damage, but you should in no way be the strongest in these. You're advantage is being able to target all three pools, but you shouldn't be the best at draining them all. Basically, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Ok so our proposed solution is unacceptable to you becaues it costs too much for the bounty hunters to handle, nevermind that it is all we do even with a nerfed gun and broken skill line yet we carry our cross, then what is an acceptable solution to this? Make mind damage healable? Then what stops doctors from being invincible? What is the point of doing mind damage as opposed to any other version, in fact whats the point of the whole rifleman profession since we have the worst accuracy and DPS compared to any other combat class. You want us to see the effects caused by our supposed solution the only problem is that any other solution doesn't exist. If you want to do mind damage you have to take mind damage, if that means that doing BH missions become harder think about using tactics or having a pet or group help you with heals and such. Besides how many bountyhunters actually hunt bounties? They aren't required to advance in the profession they are just a bonus to you. I fail to see how causing mind damage will destroy your class unless the devs over do it, all it will do is make you use tactics and tactics do not equate to spamming one "uber" skill so you can win without thought.
If you want our opinion yet find it unacceptable due to it "costing you too much", which is just another way to say that we want to stay god and not loose a thing, then ask other people for their ideas you will either find it is the same or worse then ours.
Fact is the whole balance of PvP shouldn't be shifted because one profession, the BH, has tough "marks". Hell, change the difficulty of the marks then. Giving BHs some uber special to kill them is not a logical answer. And I am definately tired of getting spammed by eyeshot but what I hate the most is that eyeshot might very well get US nerfed. Many people don't see eyeshot or headshot. They just see unhealable damage. Damage that they know only could have come from a BH or Rifleman (in ranged combat).
I don't even want our headshots to take action either. I want BH's eyeshot to take mind 
. I mean its just a balance issue. Making headshots cost action will just get all mind damage nerfed faster. I don't see how changing eyeshot to using mind pool cripples BHs. We Riflemen have had to deal with it since the very beginning of our profession. As you stated Meyree, heals also take mind. But no one knows this better than us. We are medics too.
My main point Meyree is that difficult marks should not be the reason why BHs should have such a powerful special. Its the MARKS that need to be changed. BHs can indeed attack all the pools. Action on a carbineer. Health on a pistoleer. And mind on a Rifleman. But you know what? They don't. They use eyeshot on all three. And why wouldn't they? Meyree, BHs DON'T attack my mind because it is weak. They attack my mind because it the most effective way in taking ANYONE down. Rifleman, Carbineer, or Pistoleer.
Riflemen rely on mind damage. A mind damage nerf hits us a lot harder than it does you. Those are just the facts. I mean you would still at least have your LLC. What do we have at that point?
Hi there,
I usually dont post on these forums because of how much it seems that everyone just tries to kill eachother verbally and not much constructive stuff is done. Now as a non novice but non master rifleman i am pretty much at a disadvantage a lot of time in any kind of combat and dont really pvp much but i do have some questions and suggestions. if they have already been voiced, i appologize. I also want to thank the nice bounty hunter person who is being very good about all of this.
I will first off startby asking what kind of damage does the eyeshot really do in PvP? i dont think ive had it done to me so i dont really know.
Also, I really understand what was said about BH's needing to really be badass because their marks are really hard to kill. That makes sense.. but i have two solutions which might help.
1) Make the marks easier to kill. I really dont think that this option really makes sense since it would take a lot of fun out of the class. i know as a rifleman i always take great pride in killing the tougher targets rather than corellian butterflies or whatever.
2) and I think that this suggestion might really help, is just take it down a notch for PvP. I dont knwo how nerfed your shots are in PvP compared to PvE, but if you did it this way it would even things out a bit yet still make it so you can kill your marks out in the real world. I know that when i DO do pvp my sliced t21 with a headshot 3 only does abotu 230 damage while BH's and Commandos can pretty much regular fire for about 900 a shot. this makes it pretty moot for me to even get involved when Im the one who can get oneshot killed and not others. That way you could probably keep the eyeshot doing it the way it is but if during pvp its not as powerful as when you are killing npc's that would satisfy everyone right?
And finally, as for teh BH should be better with a weapon than a master of the elite that deals only with that weapon is kind of stupid. Like i said before, I do understand that BH's are killers and should be badass.. but with their versatility there should be some loss of effectiveness. I think that a Master BH should have like (and these are just guesstimates for theory not what i actually think it should be) 85% of the level of mastery with a rifle as compared with a master rifleman, likewise with pistols vs. pistoleers, etc. BH's may say that that would be unfair because then the bounty hunter is always lose.. the truth is that you have the ability to use tactics by using a combo of weapons that target different pools so that it IS possible for a BH to still kill people effectively. From the way people make it sound the bh has to be better because they take more skill or something to get there.. but with what some people are saying I could go get master marksman which bh has, master rifleman master pistoleer and carbineer or as close as you can with the skill pts and not have anything else i would still not be as profficient in weapons as a master BH which doesnt seem right.
Anyways, i though i would through all that out there.. being so early in the morning i hope it is coherent.. but i think Eyeshot would be ok if it was the same in pve but lowered in Pvp and give the rifleman something of a chance with their guns to make a showing in pvp adn other thoughts but yeah.. maybe it will spark a thought or more likely I will just get told how stupid i am and should just leave. Anywasy enough rambling
Emon
Meyree wrote:
U) Umm...all riflemen specials use mind primarily. And all players use mind for healing, not just BHs. How is it a 'huge drawback' for BHs to use mind for eyeshot (and thus have less for healing) when riflemen already have that penalty?
M) Because missions given to BHs in PvE involve MUCh more difficult enemies. BHs and commandos actually have to face AT-STs on faction missions, for example, and that's only at 0-1-2-1
Are you holding an LLC when you get your mission? Hold a weaker weapon and I'm sure the mission will be easier.
My input for this arguement comes from a statement made by the devs themselves. I'm told as a rifleman that I'm unique because I can do mind damage which is supposed to be unhealable. But when another combat class has an attack that does the same damage as I can do, as well as cause blindness, how am I unique? Then I see proposals to make mind damage healable? That's like saying, "we changed our mind, your class doesn't mean much to us now since there are several times more people who play other combat classes and they are complaining about what you can do, which means we have to cater to them."
And then combat medics have mind poisons?
If they want riflemen to be unique in this way, then we should be the only ones doing mind damage directly. Otherwise come up with a new reason why we are unique. I'm not saying get rid of BH mind damage, but it should not be anywhere on par with what a rifleman can do. I dueled a BH guildie last night, and he spammed eyeshot at me and I had no chance. You can't tell me rifleman mind damage is on par with a BH's mind damage anymore. I've seen it in action and there is a big difference there.
Yes, maybe I'm saying nerf eyeshot. I see no problem with this. But not a damage nerf. Make it hit something other than mind, maybe a random pool, or just cause blindness. Then mind is no longer the sole factor in combat. BH's will be able to use their eyeshot as they wish, but with the random hit mind damage is not the point of using it.
My boyfriend is a Master Bounty Hunter, and I certainly think for his hard work he deserves eyeshot...but guess what; all you need is TWO boxes in the BH tree for it. It took me a lot longer to become a Master Rifleman than it did for him to get novice BH and two boxes of pistol xp(omg the easiest xp to get ever). It also costs me a ridiculous amount of mind to pull off these shots(3-4 shots and I have to sit for 5 minutes to regenerate my mind pool) and I take 2.5x the melee damage someone holding a pistol does. How is that fair?A bounty hunter is supposed to be versatile...that doesn't mean they should be able to do more mind damage than a master rifleman...that doesn't mean they should be better with a pistol than a pistoleer, and it does notmean they should be better atusing a carbine than a carbineer. Somehow you Bounty Hunter's think you should be the best at everything just because you use points. Ifthat were the case being a Bounty should be equal to as many skill points as master rifleman, master carbineer, and master pistoleer combined. But, no one can master all three of those...so being a BH should not make you better than all those classes.