Rifleman Archive
Thread: I am Confused.. Why the Rifleman calls for Pistoleer changes?
I am going to post the main post from the Vote thread and kinda give a rundown on what my personal opinion is on each of them and see where my rationale is when viewed by another profession.
1.) 2.5x melee damage should be changed
It should be changed by either reducing it, or making it so it works positionally.
Personally I think this should be based positionally for all Ranged professions. If you are standing, your ability to defend against Melee attacks is much greater than if you were prone regardless of the weapon you are currently equiping. I think one of the other rifleman hit the nail on the head... 1.0x for Standing 1.5x for Kneeling, and 2.5x for Prone. Now this would still play more to the rifleman since you dont see many Pistoleers laying prone but gives a degree of variance and is made applicable to all classes.
2.) Our master rifleman special, Strafe Shot 2, should be changed to a more powerful single target attack.
This I think needs be left out completely. SS2 is one of the only high modifer multi-target specials Rifleman get.
3.) Sniper Shots HAM miss rate seems to high, as if it has a negative to hit bonus. Rifleman feel it should be made to automatically DB rather then miss.
This realistically should be a **edit** near always hit. Its not hard for a skilled marksman to hit hit an immobile opponent.
4.) Accuracy accuracy accuracy...
Instead of placing a cap on other profession specials, which really would make us too strong, just fix the accuracy modifiers for christ sake. Make pistols able to use specials at long range, just make them horribly innacurate, like how rifles are at close range. I think this is the key issue here, if the devs got their **edit** together and fixed the way accuracy works everyone would be a whole lot happier
This could be addressed in numerous ways but I think the most logical is to examine the accuracy modifers on allRanged classes specials and maybe scale them based on skill level? Or maybe even scale them internally based on a Weapon Equiped vs. Random Range Check?
5.) Return the T-21 to previous stats. There was nothing wrong with it the way it was especially now when held up and compared to the bounty hunter's light lightning cannon and commando arsenal
This I firmly agree with in light of changes made to the LLC and the Commando line weapons. The T-21 was designed to be High Damage High Recycle time. It was made to be a Tank buster. This weapon to balance I think *should* have horrible range check modifers to all ranges pre-60m.
6.) Reduce the ham bar cost on special attacks, and weapons. Our HAM costs are so high that we get a limited amount of shots. A T21 with 600 focus has a HAM costs ranging from 140-200, depending on the styles. Our weapons use mind, so we lack long term fighting, so after a matter of shots we cannot heal ourselves back up, we are forced to run back and sit down.
Realistically this needs to be addressed with my Zabrak Rifleman with 1000mind 500focus and 900willpower I am using 161mind per shot with my Post-Nerf T-21. This limits me to about 6.2111801 shots before my mind is completely exhausted. Now take my unstyle average damage on my T-21 and that adds up to about 2400 damage (average at 400 damage per shot unstyled). Now styles will significantly increase that to about 7320 (1220 average using Flushing Shot 2 on normal AR1 Endor Mobs) but that is a complete mind drain.
7.) GIve us new rifles. How about a lightning based rifle, a fire based rifle, and an acid based rifle ? How about adding an advanced wookiee bowcaster ? How about adding variations to armor penetrating abilies to these new weapons, adding grenade launcher attachments, and flare attachments,laser scopes, silencers that really work, night scopes, etc ?
I think a variety in weapon damage type is nice, but that also I think removes some of the specialties of other classes.
8.) Surprise shot: Works for carbines, but in rifle tree????
This I believe has already been fixed.
9.) Lack of resources, our weapons have some of the rarest resources and the most resources. Making them very hard to get and very expensive. For example Starsider Just got the T21, and Bria still hasnt recieved one, among a few other servers.
I was never a big fan of specialized resources whatsoever but this is kinda up for grabs. I mean I think the devs removing the specialized cost of the LLC and Commando weapons kinda opened the door for ALL combat professions asking for their Elite weapon to have specialized resource cost removed.
10.) Max range should be increased to 100 meters for the Rifle.
Absolutely not, this is completely unbalancing.
11.) The Rifleman suffer from lower DPS making it very hard to gain experience at lower levels. We propose either our damage be increased or speed be increased on our base weapons.
Rifle XP is VERY hard to obtain. Those that doubt should try and move past Novice Rifleman. Something would need to be done here but I think it could be addressed with adjustment of Style availability and not so much dependant on base damage or speed of the weapons, they are Rifles after all.
12.) Make a second suprise shot, currently the first one has lower multiplier, and is very hard to use. So we propose a second one be added to master concealment or Master Rifleman, with a very high multiplier as we are forced to go into cover to use it. Such as 7, this would also support you wanting rifleman to use cover while in PvP.
Personally I think the whole Concealment line needs to go back to the drawing board. BAD implementation.
13.) In Pvp when someone is concealshoted/surpriseshoted , we shouldn't be autotargeted, this would work only for the first shot though, for balance sake.
I think this is a good idea as long as it only works on the first shot in PvP. Past that you get into Balance issues.
14.) Startleshot - "useless" spec becuase flushing shot does the same thing and also comes with a stun, add something ne to it such as a temporary snare, or a posture change.
I personally think that Intimidate should be added to this shot. Yet again, with snare you get into balance issues and posture changes is **edit** near useless.
15.) Change Mind Damage. Remove the incap from losing Mind and add more HAM specific attacks to the classes that specialize in Mind Attacks (Riflemen and Two-Handed Swordsmen) This will allow for longer PvP battles as well as more rewarding PvP sessions. The Rifleman will still be able to keep a healer from healing and doing unhealable damage, but the other HAM specific attacks will make the Rifleman more usefull in fights where no one else can do mind damage, allowing him to strike where an opponent is weakest. Remove the blue bar as the deciding factor in PvP and you'll have fixed alot of my gripes.
HAM Bars are there for a reason. Reaching 0 = Incap, no question there.
16.) Add more bonuses to the 2 skill trees that are barren in the Rifleman class. Concealment and Rifleman Special Abilities Trees are lacking. The speed mods are nice in the Combat XP tree but we need a few more Defense adjustments to make it feel a little more worth while. New Certificates for different types of weapons with vary damage potentials and AP ratings would be nice in this tree. We feel as we have no other classes to stack abilities with we should gain more from just one class. There is only 1 spec for Rifle, 3 for pistol 4 if you count commando, 2 for Caribineer. We would like to see things added like defense vs knockdown, and more ranged defense and or more block.
Rifleman defense mods are kinda baffling but none of them work in game from what I can tell anyway so who cares lol. When they work, THEN lets address this.
17.) In order for us to exist as a "long range only" class, we need a special attack designed to stop a target from closing distance with us. Such as changing startle shot to a snare or posture change.
Snare is just a bad idea plain and simple, maybe a slight knockback effect but yet again this would have to be tread on carefully do to balance issues.
18.) Krayt tissues need to work as a percentage enhancement, not a flat value. a +30/-.3 tissue is a huge percentage improvement for an FWG (and you only need 1 tissue per pistol), but it's an insignificant improvement on a T-21 (and you need 10 tissues... the effects don't stack, it just takes 10 to get the one enhancement).
I really dislike the idea that all ranged weapons in the game can be modded with Krayt tissues except the T-21 and with the 10+ drop nerf something needs to be done with this to allow us to be able to have a modded elite weapon also.
There are my ideas and I am open to constructive ideas....
It's actually really easy for a BH to pick up CH now that the Devs have made two trees of CH worthless. If you're a 1/1/0/0 CH you can call a grand wrix or greater sludge panther, and you can have a high level CH train the pet so you get all the benefits of the other two trees. A 2/2/0/0 or 3/3/0/0 CH is pretty much all you need to get most of the power out of that class.
A BH already has all of the prerequisites for CH and has 33 points left over after Master BH. And of course as we learned today there are fewer MasterBHs than there are Master Image Designers 
That's not only because Investigation is hard but it's also because Investigation and the Master box give no combat bonuses. So most BHs really have 50-60 points left over to grab other skills.
They just like to say "217" a lot for emphasis. LOL
Philosopher1976 wrote:
That's actually a great idea Ral ... it gives Carbineers something useful and also gives them an incentive to group. I think these games are more fun if they make skills work better together than they do solo. It rewards teamwork and strategy.
hehe i come from DAOC, Im not a soloer at all i love grouping.
To be honest i like the Jack of all trades thing here but in a way miss the whole class roles ... You're a tank you're a healer you're DDer you're Crowd Control... and well the rest are leeches 
If they intend on this game having any high end content or even just efficient content Ral is right, there are 2 things that HAVE to be addressed.
Crowd Control (Enchanters in EQ)
and Debuff (Shamans and even Enchanters in EQ)
Otherwise this game will always be Zerg and require little tactic.
I think this would be a GREAT addition to Carbineer
I think I'm going to be ill. All these points in "Natureboy" and I can't hardly touch that and stay alive with rifle... We have had 3 master rangers drop a bunch of boxes (I think they only kept tracking) to get CH boxes. Now I know why. There is just something wrong with that...
Philosopher1976 wrote:
...snip interesting things...
A BH already has all of the prerequisites for CH and has 33 points left over after Master BH. And of course as we learned today there are fewer MasterBHs than there are Master Image Designers
They just like to say "217" a lot for emphasis. LOL
Okay, here are my comments/responses to your ideas ... I put my stuff in ALL CAPS so you could see it.
------------------------------
I am going to post the main post from the Vote thread and kinda give a rundown on what my personal opinion is on each of them and see where my rationale is when viewed by another profession.
1.) 2.5x melee damage should be changed
It should be changed by either reducing it, or making it so it works positionally.
Personally I think this should be based positionally for all Ranged professions. If you are standing, your ability to defend against Melee attacks is much greater than if you were prone regardless of the weapon you are currently equiping. I think one of the other rifleman hit the nail on the head... 1.0x for Standing 1.5x for Kneeling, and 2.5x for Prone. Now this would still play more to the rifleman since you dont see many Pistoleers laying prone but gives a degree of variance and is made applicable to all classes.
I AGREE WITH THIS - I THINK THEY SHOULD JUST GET RID OF THE 2.5X MELEE DAMAGE.
2.) Our master rifleman special, Strafe Shot 2, should be changed to a more powerful single target attack.
This I think needs be left out completely. SS2 is one of the only high modifer multi-target specials Rifleman get.
OK.
3.) Sniper Shots HAM miss rate seems to high, as if it has a negative to hit bonus. Rifleman feel it should be made to automatically DB rather then miss.
This realistically should be a **edit** near always hit. Its not hard for a skilled marksman to hit hit an immobile opponent.
PROBABLY RIGHT. IT SHOULD AT LEAST BE MORE ACCURATE THAN THE HEADSHOT SERIES. THEY PROBABLY MADE IT INACCURATE TO PREVENT ONE RIFLEMAN SITTING ON TOP OF A HILL FROM STEALING FP FROM EVERYONE IN A LARGE BATTLE, BUT THAT'S A PROBLEM WITH THE STUPID WAY THEY GIVE FP IN PVP RIGHT NOW. THEY SHOULD SHARE FP WITH THE GROUP WHEN SOMEONE IN THE GROUP DB'S AN ENEMY IN PVP OR ONLY GIVE YOU A FRACTION OF FP IF YOU DIDN'T DO A LOT OF DAMAGE TO THE ENEMY SO YOU CAN'T JUST NINJA DB.
4.) Accuracy accuracy accuracy...
Instead of placing a cap on other profession specials, which really would make us too strong, just fix the accuracy modifiers for christ sake. Make pistols able to use specials at long range, just make them horribly innacurate, like how rifles are at close range. I think this is the key issue here, if the devs got their **edit** together and fixed the way accuracy works everyone would be a whole lot happier
This could be addressed in numerous ways but I think the most logical is to examine the accuracy modifers on all Ranged classes specials and maybe scale them based on skill level? Or maybe even scale them internally based on a Weapon Equiped vs. Random Range Check?
THIS IS OBVIOUSLY THE ONE I'M MOST WORRIED ABOUT. I THINK THE ANSWER IS TO MAKE RIFLES MORE ACCURATE AT SHORT RANGE BUT THERE ARE LOTS OF SOLUTIONS AND YOU CAN FIGURE IT OUT FOR YOURSELVES. ALSO SEE MY ANSWER TO #11 ... YOU HAVE TO PICK AND CHOOSE, BASICALLY. I THINK YOU ALSO HAVE TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT ASKING FOR ANYONE TO BE WILDLY INACCURATE AT RANGE OR ELSE THERE IS KITING ISSUES.
5.) Return the T-21 to previous stats. There was nothing wrong with it the way it was especially now when held up and compared to the bounty hunter's light lightning cannon and commando arsenal
This I firmly agree with in light of changes made to the LLC and the Commando line weapons. The T-21 was designed to be High Damage High Recycle time. It was made to be a Tank buster. This weapon to balance I think *should* have horrible range check modifers to all ranges pre-60m.
THAT MAKES SENSE. I'VE NEVER HAD A PROBLEM WITH THE T21 BUT YOU'LL PROBABLY GET A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO DISAGREE. PERSONALLY I DON'T SEE THE PROBLEM WITH THE ONE-SHOT KILL AS LONG AS THERE ARE SIGNIFICANT DISADVANTAGES AND WAYS TO COUNTER THAT. YOU CAN'T HAVE EVERY DISADVANTAGE TAKEN AWAY EITHER.
6.) Reduce the ham bar cost on special attacks, and weapons. Our HAM costs are so high that we get a limited amount of shots. A T21 with 600 focus has a HAM costs ranging from 140-200, depending on the styles. Our weapons use mind, so we lack long term fighting, so after a matter of shots we cannot heal ourselves back up, we are forced to run back and sit down.
Realistically this needs to be addressed with my Zabrak Rifleman with 1000mind 500focus and 900willpower I am using 161mind per shot with my Post-Nerf T-21. This limits me to about 6.2111801 shots before my mind is completely exhausted. Now take my unstyle average damage on my T-21 and that adds up to about 2400 damage (average at 400 damage per shot unstyled). Now styles will significantly increase that to about 7320 (1220 average using Flushing Shot 2 on normal AR1 Endor Mobs) but that is a complete mind drain.
RIGHT THEY NEED TO FIX THIS ALTHOUGH IF THE T21 IS A ONE-SHOT KILL THEN MAYBE THEY WON'T REDUCE THE HAM AS MUCH FOR THAT GUN.
7.) GIve us new rifles. How about a lightning based rifle, a fire based rifle, and an acid based rifle ? How about adding an advanced wookiee bowcaster ? How about adding variations to armor penetrating abilies to these new weapons, adding grenade launcher attachments, and flare attachments,laser scopes, silencers that really work, night scopes, etc ?
I think a variety in weapon damage type is nice, but that also I think removes some of the specialties of other classes.
YES, PROBABLY RIGHT. I THINK THE BHS WOULD BE MAD IF YOU HAD A LIGHTNING RIFLE. THEY NEED A BETTER BOWCASTER FOR THE WOOKIES THOUGH BECAUSE RIGHT NOW THEY FEEL UNLOVED. IT AT LEAST NEEDS TO BE SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER THAN THE DLT20.
8.) Surprise shot: Works for carbines, but in rifle tree????
This I believe has already been fixed.
OK.
9.) Lack of resources, our weapons have some of the rarest resources and the most resources. Making them very hard to get and very expensive. For example Starsider Just got the T21, and Bria still hasnt recieved one, among a few other servers.
I was never a big fan of specialized resources whatsoever but this is kinda up for grabs. I mean I think the devs removing the specialized cost of the LLC and Commando weapons kinda opened the door for ALL combat professions asking for their Elite weapon to have specialized resource cost removed.
RIGHT. AGREED.
10.) Max range should be increased to 100 meters for the Rifle.
Absolutely not, this is completely unbalancing.
THANK GOD. LOL
11.) The Rifleman suffer from lower DPS making it very hard to gain experience at lower levels. We propose either our damage be increased or speed be increased on our base weapons.
Rifle XP is VERY hard to obtain. Those that doubt should try and move past Novice Rifleman. Something would need to be done here but I think it could be addressed with adjustment of Style availability and not so much dependant on base damage or speed of the weapons, they are Rifles after all.
I THINK THAT YOU GUYS MIGHT WANT TO PUSH FOR HIGHER RIFLE DAMAGE, BUT THEN YOU NEED TO PICK AND CHOOSE. IF YOU WANT LOWER HAM COSTS AND HIGHER T21 AND NO 2.5 MELEE AND LESS ACCURACY FOR OTHER CLASSES THEN YOU NEED TO PICK AND CHOOSE. I'D FOCUS AND ASK FOR A FEW THINGS INSTEAD OF ASKING FOR 20.
12.) Make a second suprise shot, currently the first one has lower multiplier, and is very hard to use. So we propose a second one be added to master concealment or Master Rifleman, with a very high multiplier as we are forced to go into cover to use it. Such as 7, this would also support you wanting rifleman to use cover while in PvP.
Personally I think the whole Concealment line needs to go back to the drawing board. BAD implementation.
YEP. ALTHOUGH SOMEHOW THEY NEED TO MAKE THIS CENTRAL TO THE RIFLEMAN PROFESSION BECAUSE THAT'S A BIG PART OF THE WHOLE "SNIPER" ROLE.
13.) In Pvp when someone is concealshoted/surpriseshoted , we shouldn't be autotargeted, this would work only for the first shot though, for balance sake.
I think this is a good idea as long as it only works on the first shot in PvP. Past that you get into Balance issues.
YES, EVEN THEN YOU WOULD NEED A DELAY FOR THE PERSON TO GET OUT OF THE CONCEAL MODE, SO THEY WOULD BE IMMOBILE FOR A CERTAIN NUMBER OF SECONDS. THIS WAY IT FORCES YOU TO PICK YOUR SPOT INSTEAD OF JUST RUNNING UP, CONCEALING, AND FIRING. THERE ARE OBVIOUSLY BALANCE ISSUES TO WORK OUT HERE.
14.) Startleshot - "useless" spec becuase flushing shot does the same thing and also comes with a stun, add something ne to it such as a temporary snare, or a posture change.
I personally think that Intimidate should be added to this shot. Yet again, with snare you get into balance issues and posture changes is **edit** near useless.
YOU GUYS SHOULD ASK FOR SOMETHING, BUT AS I SAID IN #11 IT'S A MATTER OF PRIORITY. PERSONALLY FIXING YOUR SPECIALS SEEMS IMPORTANT TO ME. A PVE SNARE MIGHT BE USEFUL, SORT OF LIKE WIREMESH TRAP. THAT WOULD HELP LEVELLING UP RIFLE XP.
15.) Change Mind Damage. Remove the incap from losing Mind and add more HAM specific attacks to the classes that specialize in Mind Attacks (Riflemen and Two-Handed Swordsmen) This will allow for longer PvP battles as well as more rewarding PvP sessions. The Rifleman will still be able to keep a healer from healing and doing unhealable damage, but the other HAM specific attacks will make the Rifleman more usefull in fights where no one else can do mind damage, allowing him to strike where an opponent is weakest. Remove the blue bar as the deciding factor in PvP and you'll have fixed alot of my gripes.
HAM Bars are there for a reason. Reaching 0 = Incap, no question there.
YEP. THE DEVS WON'T CHANGE THIS BUT IT'S INTERESTING I GUESS.
16.) Add more bonuses to the 2 skill trees that are barren in the Rifleman class. Concealment and Rifleman Special Abilities Trees are lacking. The speed mods are nice in the Combat XP tree but we need a few more Defense adjustments to make it feel a little more worth while. New Certificates for different types of weapons with vary damage potentials and AP ratings would be nice in this tree. We feel as we have no other classes to stack abilities with we should gain more from just one class. There is only 1 spec for Rifle, 3 for pistol 4 if you count commando, 2 for Caribineer. We would like to see things added like defense vs knockdown, and more ranged defense and or more block.
Rifleman defense mods are kinda baffling but none of them work in game from what I can tell anyway so who cares lol. When they work, THEN lets address this.
NONE OF THE DEFENSE MODS IN PISTOL WORK EITHER. THEY ALSO SUCK RIGHT NOW.
17.) In order for us to exist as a "long range only" class, we need a special attack designed to stop a target from closing distance with us. Such as changing startle shot to a snare or posture change.
Snare is just a bad idea plain and simple, maybe a slight knockback effect but yet again this would have to be tread on carefully do to balance issues.
RIGHT THIS WOULD BE A DISASTER IN PVP. WHAT THE HECK IS A TERAS KASI ARTIST OR SWORDSMAN SUPPOSED TO DO IF YOU CAN KEEP THEM AT BAY FOREVER?
18.) Krayt tissues need to work as a percentage enhancement, not a flat value. a +30/-.3 tissue is a huge percentage improvement for an FWG (and you only need 1 tissue per pistol), but it's an insignificant improvement on a T-21 (and you need 10 tissues... the effects don't stack, it just takes 10 to get the one enhancement).
I really dislike the idea that all ranged weapons in the game can be modded with Krayt tissues except the T-21 and with the 10+ drop nerf something needs to be done with this to allow us to be able to have a modded elite weapon also.
THEY SHOULD JUST MAKE IT SO YOU DON'T NEED THE SAME SERIAL NUMBER. THAT WOULD SOLVE THE 10+ DROP THING AND FRANKLY WOULD SAVE US ALL A LOT OF HEADACHES. RIGHT NOW IT'S DUMB BECAUSE YOU ARE IN A GROUP AND HAVE TO SPLIT UP THE LOOT BUT GIVING EVERYONE JUST ONE TISSUE DOESN'T WORK.
Oh right ... I thought he meant the radar dot thing that you mentioned in the Pistoleer forum.
I must have been reading too fast.
I think alot of the issues that were put on the vote have valid points and with balance in mind could be done but like your said Philosopher its more of an internal community job now to determine what is the best balance not only for our own profession but try and be realisitic in how *our* ideas will affect *other* professions as well.
An example would be.....
Increase T-21 back to Pre-Nerf status, alone this is not that big ofa deal. Add reduced HAM cost profession and weapon wide and the T-21 could be a bit overpowering.
Its this kind of thing that we have to look at and find a balance.
I REALLY think that it would help greatly if the Devs simply gave us a roadmap of what they invision combat classes to be in this game as earlier stated.
Its easier to find a mixture if you know your intended *CONCRETE* limitations and boundries.
Philosopher1976 wrote:
Oh right ... I thought he meant the radar dot thing that you mentioned in the Pistoleer forum.
I wish lol