Rifleman Archive

A week or so back Holo asked why everyone was taking up pistol at such a huge rate, and was there perhaps a exploit or bug that they were not aware of. I am here to say it is neither, rather the design of rifleman skill that makes it impossible to use.

I know this is a rehash of all the problems with the skill, but I figure what the heck my turn to bi***.

When I started this game I knew I wanted to be a rifleman/ranger. IT woud be so cool to be up on that grassy knoll picking off creatures and players in PvP.... and even with all the bad talk about how gimped it was i didn't think it would be that bad.

Well, I was wrong. Just starting in rifleman you can't do PvE alone for the following reasons

- even while under cover or maskscent if you attack a creature it's friend see you.

- all creatures do melee damage

- we take 2.5x on melee damage.

- we can't hit the broad side of a barn while running

- the specials take way to much HAM.

I would spend most of my time healing in camp rather than fighting, and could barely take on a single con yellow without some down time. Infact in a week of casual playing (say about 8hours) I managed to amass a whole 100k in rifle xp.

Now being a master scout and master marksman I figure screw this I will try Bounty Hunting, they get pistol and it might be fun for a change. Well HOLY CR** with a pistol I was beating down thigns that I couldn't even think about with a rifle. and here is the thing. I wasn't even a BH yet. I didn't have the xp to get novice, so I was out with my FWG with only master marksman. Things that conned yellow to me with rifle were red with pistol and I beat them down so fast and with no down time that I managed in one day to rake up 175k in pistol xp - SOLO.

So in 1 day (granted it was a longer playing day for me) I raked up almost twice as much pistol xp than a whole week to get rifle xp.

So now I get no 2.5x damag, I can hit 80-90% of the time while running, I can use special moves with out killing myself.

While I will hold my rifleman skill for the time being in hopes it gets fixed, I can honestly say there is indead a reason why everyone takes pistol.

now I am not calling NERF THE PISTOL. I am saying SAVE TO RIFLEMAN. the dev's really need to remove some of the harsh penelties on the class if they want it to survive. I also know many of you have said - "Just wait until you are a Master, you will be devastating". Perhaps but when you can be devastating as a novice why work on a skill that requires Master to do the same.

I hope the Dev's read this and fix the inbalances and make rifleman a viable skill again, good luck to all of you still working on your skills, I hope one day to return to your ranks

Thanks

Kaspar