Rifleman Archive

Some things I have discovered grinding up the Rifleman line , and my experiences with Rifles in general since Beta ... I'll just list all the little tidbits in random order , they are just interesting little things I have picked up along the way .

You can stack Mindshot I and Mindshot II . You can use both attacks to open up your assault from a Prone position and the MOB will not recognize you until your THIRD attack , which is a Headshot II for me .

After Headshot II ..... I stand up and unequip my rifle and put a glue trap in the combat que . At this point the MOB is usually right on top of me and the trap is being thrown . Right at the same time the MOB hits me for the first time the trap hits the MOB and glues them down to the ground for a minute or so . Now run back out to range , reequip and kneel and let loose with another Headshot II . The Mindshot DOT tics should be going off now and most of the MOBs I fight are already dead or close to it at this point . VOILA an easy 1k XP . Doing this on LOK all night last night and got 250k XP or so pretty quickly and painlessly . Went about 2 hours without taking damage of any kind .

Your weapon * seems * to take condition damage ONLY if it is equipped when you are taking damage . Melee damage , in fact . Your rifle should NEVER be equipped if something is in melee range , anyway . But an interesting fact non the less . My weapon stayed at 826 condition for the entire two hours that I did not take any melee damage of any kind last night - although I must have fired a thousand shots with it . This is with weapon power ups added to it , BTW .

My Laser Rifle blew up in my face last night when I attempted to repair it . I was using a well crafted weapon repair kit , that had garnished spectacular results ... up until that point . Previously , the weapon that I would repair ( from a state of 800 / 1000 condition or less ) would go back up to 950 condition , then 900 , etc . My first repair on the Laser Rifle , however , and the message I recieved was " your attempt to repair the weapon was a total failure " then the weapon dissapeared from my inventory ( !!!! ) .

Using Warning Shot with a pistol gives worse results than using a trap to glue them to the ground . By the time you have enough trapping boxes to get the glue trap your trap skill mod is good enough to get a successful trap attempt most times - EVEN AGAINST THE HARDEST RED CON MOBS . Tested this all night on LOK and worked much much better than Warning shot . Warning seems to work 1 out of every 5 times , and glue trap seems to work 75% of the time .

Also , if you use a Mindshot I and II bleed combo to kill a MOB and DO NOTHING ELSEthere is a good chance you will not get XP for your kill . Don't know if this is a bug or not but a good way around it ..... fire with your rifle while the DOT's are ticking off .... doesn't matter if you fire once , ten times , if you hit the mind pool or any other pool . Just firing off ONE shot minimum with any rifle will get you full XP for your kill . Good tactic is to open up with your high damage slow speed rifle for the MS I and II , Headshot I and then unequip , trap at melee range , equip a Sprayer and kite at range with normal attacks or Headshots . Sprayer drains the pools fast tho ....

That's all for now , I got more observations but they will have to wait I gotta go to work lol . Good hunting all

Jon

Great tips!

I cant wait to get mindshot 2....along with trapping 4 (almost there). Trap glue trap you are talking about is the one you get at trapping 4 correct?

Thanks for the info JonSee, I never knew you could stack Mindshot 1 & 2 or that weapons only take damage from melee.

Nice info. I'm close to getting Novice Rifleman so I'll have to try out the glue trap thing when I get mindshot II. (I'm also close to master scout)

Great tips Jon.

Especially the stack of the mindshots. Its a bit expensive on your HAM, but can often make the difference. The Sniper community appreciates it I'm sure.

Thanks for the info Harpoon , must have been some bug last night affecting my gun . I'll try it out later tonight and see if it's changed for me .

But last night what happened was this - I checked my Rifle condition and it was at 826 I believe . Then , two hours went by where I did not take melee damage of any kind . I was fighting and killing the entire time with mainly this weapon , a Laser Rifle . Using Mindshots I and II and Heashot II's on every single kill for two hours straight . After the 2 hours the condition was still at 826 . So , weird but I'll see if it's different tonight .

Also , let me add some stuff here .

If you use Take Cover from standing , you flop to the ground into prone , then a little icon of a green stick man swirls around you and you either suceed at taking cover or fail .... if you suceed and attempt to fire any special you will get the message " you can not use XYZ while tumbling " ....

To bypass this delay set up to macros on your hotbar . First macro is the Prone command located in Macros / Other . Second is Take Cover .

Go into Prone manually THEN attempt to take cover . Your toon will lower into prone ( instead of flopping ) and the little green man will come out . Now you can fire specials at will with no penalty ! Go nuts with your maskscent , Headshot II's or whatever .

Also , this is just common sense but don't attack MOBs that BAF ( Bring A Friend ) or you will get eaten up fast . Look for MOBs that you can 2 or 3 hit split with HeadShot IIs and give 1k XP per kill . Some of these on Lok are the Spined Snake and the big flappy flying things there , or the Gurnasets . Then of course there is the pathetic Langlatch that runs as fast as we crawl and gives around 800XP depending on the variety .

By the way the glue trap I'm refering to is the Trap four one , just forget it's name . I can only get 2 uses per trap but man are they a Godsend . Also I have noticed that Sharp Bone Spurs do an inordinate amount of damage on some MOBs .

ALSO , and maybe I shouldn't post this but I think they have a teleporting fix coming in for MOBs anyway so what the hell ....

If you climb up a SHEER cliff on Lok and snipe from great heights many of the MOBs lack the ability to climb up after you . So you can shoot from perfect safety , while all the little MOBs run around down there in circles getting DOTed to death . Remember to pump in a shot or two with any rifle to get full XP

ALSO , here is how I use my Probot to take the danger out of most of my fights , even after they have made him unhealable in the datapad ..... this is an alternative to the GlueTrap method listed above ...

First , find your sucker . Then , go into Prone at ideal range ( I would suggest 60m with the Laser rifle ) . Then use the Probot command " follow target " on your target . ( I have this command macroed to the word " get " ) Follow target will make Probot float right over to the target and get right in his grill , then ...... just sit there LOL . He will also follow target around if it moves .

Now , open up with your Mindshot I , then Mindshot II . Immediately give your Probot his killwords which should be macroed and stuck up on your Hotbar . Then it's just Headshot I , II or III depending on what ya got . Ride that train all the way home to your 1k XP reward hehe . As long as you get good rolls on your specials then you are guaranteed to get the lions share of the XP . This way is safer than the GlueTrap method , but the trade off is the diminished XP reward .

Myself , I'm an XP hog so I try to get it all for myself and none for Probot .

But either way Probot , or any Bot for that matter , or pet or hireling should ALWAYS be out and active while your hunting because it gives you a group XP bonus .

For example , Crazed Durni that can be 2 hit split with HeadShot I give you 340 XP if your alone - if your grouped with a bot or animal EVEN if it doesn't attack the target you will get a bonus up to 400+ . Multiplies out on the harder Mobs , so your potentially missing out on hundreds of XP points per kill if your partner is not right by your side .

Doesn't matter if he's a silent partner or not .

I hear some food buffs can increase our MindPool stats by as much as 1200 points . 1200 !!! I have started up a list of chefs so I can get some , once I do I'll let ya know it's effectiveness and penalties , if there are any .

Good hunting all and peace

Jon

Those are some really good tips! I can't wait for mindshot 2 so i can stack that crap. And suddenly my mouse droid is going to become a lot more usefulin combat, yay for XP.

But a few notes on Mindshot XP. IT doesn't really seem to have any sort of identity on it's own. I'm also a 2H swordsman, and a tacticI use is to mindhsot everybody in a mob (a weak one that tends to gang up, womp rats etc), after the third or so they'll all charge me. I just start slicing thier heads off with 2H head-hit and by the third or fourth they're almost dead anyhow. The thing is, I don't getANY rifle XP,I get all my XP on 2H (which is really handy because I'm not a very good 2H). It looks like the way bleed damage gets assigned is that it just assumes you're dealing the damage with whatever it was you're attacking with currently, and XP gets split accordingly.

It's pretty handy if, like me, you're trying to level up something you suck at.

Uh the weapon's condition takes damage/reduces whenever you use specials. Try it out, check your guns condition, firethree or soheadshot2s or whatever and you'll see it decrease by 1 point.Overcharge shot is the biggest weapon killer, each shot takes off like 2-5 points. Regular auto attack.. I don't think it has any effect on the condition, if it is it's in the low decimals so every regular shots or so it will decrease the condition by 1 or something, but probably not.