Rifleman Archive

i'm running some tests to compare various ranged profession, during my tests with many ranged templates i had the impression that is not so true that rifleman is the big damage dealer it is supposed to be, i must also say that atm conceal and conceal shot are not working on TC, but still these seem to be more situational (ambush) skills and none of them is a master one.

this is the description from CU documentation

Rifleman
Primary Role: Long Range Damage Specialist
Secondary Role: Long Range Crowd Control (Position Control)
Offense: Very Strong(5)
Defense: Minimal(1)
Crowd Control: Moderate(3)

The Rifleman is an expert at long distance damage. Riflemen have a few support abilities to help them in this role including abilities to conceal themselves and keep opponents at a distance for a short while. Once an opponent has closed the distance however the Rifleman is extremely vulnerable.

The role of the Rifleman is that they are the embodiment of long range damage dealing. They should have abilities that allow them to maneuver at the edges of combat setting up devastating long range attacks and shots from hiding. Other ranged profession abilities such as Carbineer or Pistoleer could be used to expand and enhance a Rifleman's ranged combat options or melee profession skills like Teras Kasi may be desired to allow the Rifleman to better deal with opponents who would eventually close with them.

as we can seerifleman should be the best DPs class, itis defined as nuker(big damage dealer) and it have an offensive power of 5....but is it so true?

sadly i have not a parser, but it seem to me that rifleman is inferior to carab for damage dealt, and probably just on par with pistoleer.

here some problems that i found....

rifleman seem to have 2 main damage skills: head hit and sniper shot

HEAD HIT

this is the standard damage attack of rifleman, every profession have a non master attack that do good damage whitout any particular effect, this attack have a high part in the DPs output of a class, for this reason i was expeting to see head shot as the most damaging attack between body shot (pistoleer), leg shot (carab), head shot (rifle) and to be on par, or a little worse than adv critical shot (mBH).

what i found is that leg shot is better than head shot, using a T-21 to test both damages (mRifle-mCarab) the results are quite clear, leg shot is on par with adv critical shot and do around 10% more damage than head shot and the carab skill seem also a bit faster than rifle one

SNIPPER SHOT

snipper shot should be the big nuke of the rifleman, is the master skill and as this profession is focused on damage it should have a good impact on DPs, indeed its damage is very good, around +80% than an head hit, but is also efficent?

This skill have a verylong preparation and recast time, this makes it very inefficent, probably just during the preparation is it possible to shot 2 head shot, or an head shot and another damage skill, for more damage and more versatility, as using another attack is it possible to eventually chose another move (like a root a kd or a debuff) if something goes wrong.

also with the fact that the damage hit after the long preparation have a bad impact ongeneral DPs

let's say that we are fighting a 8k ham critter, we do 1k damage with head shot and 1.8k damage with sniper shot.

(let's say that head shot hit every second, while sniper shot hit every 2 whitout actually consider the cooldown)

Rifleman start combat

SS 1.8--- 3.6---5.4---7.2---8

HH1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1s difference

Enemystart combat

SS --- 1.8--- 3.6---5.4---7.2---8

HH1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

2s difference

This is quite empirical as numbers are not probably right, but just to show the cons of a big damage after a preparation time compared to a normal damage, this kind of hits are always inferior to a standard hit even if the standard one do exactly half the damage than the big nuke.

another problem of this shot is that rifleman is forced to do it in prone position, so gimping is maneuverability, this is another drawback that is not balanced by the damage done.

also as said above this shot have a long recast time, so is still not possible to "spam" it but it can be used every 3-4 other shots.

I think that to make this master shot a really big nuke the preparation time should be taken out, maybe even giving a longer recast time, this way it will be possible to use it as a high damage attack, but just 2-4 times for a normal encounter.

If the preparation and recast time will be left the same it needs a serious boost on the damage done, i think around a 40-50% more than now.

WEAPONS

Rifleman is the only profession that have not a master rifle with kin or elemental damage

here the weapons on various professions that have different kind of damages, they are not all master weapons, i show just 1 for a given damage type.

Carabines

Nym slug thrower: kin + acid damge (master carab)

Elite carabine: energy damage (master carab)

Proton carabine: energy + cold damage (master BH)

Pistols

DX2: energy damage (master pistol)

Republic Blaster: energy + acid damage (master pistol)

Scatter Pistol: kin damage (master BH)

Rifles

T-21: energy damage (master rifle)

As we can see rifles have not much choices for damage in master box weapons, this is quite bad as kin damage is very important for a ranged profession in fact recon armors (the ones certified for both rifle and pistol) have a energy defence bonus, and also PSG protect only against energy damage (at least the one on TC), for this reasons is quite probable that weapons with kin and elemental damage will make the difference in ranged combat.

my suggestion is to move sniper rifles in master box and give it also some heat damage (as it shot explosive slugs), other options are for sure to introduce new rifles that will cover even this kind of damages.

I will also like to see proton rifle as a rifleman or BH master weapon, in commando it seem quite useless to me... it have not specials like other commando weapons and it can't be used to do some rifleman specials like snipper shot, also commando seem to not stack very well with rifleman, and i think that if a player chose to do this template he plan to get advantage of secondary abilities of commando weapons so not for this rifle.

sorry for crappy english

Message Edited by Zilod on 04-17-2005 08:28 PM

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HeadRoll wrote:

Sorry, but you guys need a new correspondent with the upcoming CU. I seriously think the CU is gonna make Rifleman real bad. I been reading your correspondent posts and it sure seems they are playing the political don't piss off the developers line.

Sometimes you have tohold the lineand bring up points to weapon certs along with other issues that are drastically changing the game.

Put it this way, the Ranger correspondent just recently put up enough a fight with the CU that the developers FINALLY caved in and allowed for ham increases at BOTH Scout and Ranger trees. I don't see the Rifleman correspondent putting much of a fight, the usual line has been, "Well we will see what the developers come with, HUH"

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• replace the advanced laser weapon at master with a sniper rifle so that we have a kinetic weapon at master


• change the level requirements and make it prof specific a few of our rifles so we can level without having to do 5 boxed before we get a new weapon


• Proton Rifle = lost cause - the devs said they would not move on this.


• bowcaster having higher level siblings


• have the e11 gain an advanced version for RPrs


• cover - make sure it works right - so it does not break early or late


• snipershot damage multiplier


• defences vs character level - character level supersedes this and it should be the other way around


• noncombatant character levels - should they be one shotted when doing harvestor runs?


• entertainer help - what is their role


• Squad Leader pistol xp vs SL xp..

it does not make sense to attack the devs - it is better overall to present a well reasoned and backed up arguement if you want change. RANDOMLY SPAMMING A DEV = BAN FOR A GOOD REASON!

Bye and thanks for the idiotic statements about which you know nothing.

Message Edited by COLDFUSION11 on 04-17-2005 03:23 PM

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COLDFUSION11 wrote:

im so glad im the only riflemen that knows how to use the proffession correctly...

YES sniper shot SHOULD be prone, if it wasnt, i would be to powerful, being that i am EXTREMELY powerful as it is, nobody can even touch my riflemen template, it is GOD LIKE. Nobody can touch it , seriously, i can kill a guy in 4 shots, and im sure as hell not telling you guys how ^_^

On another note, pleasseee keep complaining, seriously, im already doing a boat load of damage. If we get stronger, oh man ...

*My highest damaging shot, 2467*

Enemy fully armored.

Message Edited by COLDFUSION11 on 04-17-2005 03:23 PM

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I am also very surprised to read people think currently Rifleman stink, because on TC5 today, I have crushed all people I have pvp with. I even removed some skill from my tool bar I was requested not to use, and waited for others to initiate combat. Still EASYLY won.

Rifleman is very very good currently

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Pahaddino wrote:

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COLDFUSION11 wrote:

im so glad im the only riflemen that knows how to use the proffession correctly...

YES sniper shot SHOULD be prone, if it wasnt, i would be to powerful, being that i am EXTREMELY powerful as it is, nobody can even touch my riflemen template, it is GOD LIKE. Nobody can touch it , seriously, i can kill a guy in 4 shots, and im sure as hell not telling you guys how ^_^

On another note, pleasseee keep complaining, seriously, im already doing a boat load of damage. If we get stronger, oh man ...

*My highest damaging shot, 2467*

Enemy fully armored.

Message Edited by COLDFUSION11 on 04-17-2005 03:23 PM

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I am also very surprised to read people think currently Rifleman stink, because on TC5 today, I have crushed all people I have pvp with. I even removed some skill from my tool bar I was requested not to use, and waited for others to initiate combat. Still EASYLY won.

Rifleman is very very good currently

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So good in fact that other correspondents are already calling for nerfs on us. I have just spent the last half hour fighting against that....

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Ackehece wrote:

Currently I am fighting a war in three forums related to things I can't even bring to you all yet. (ask roscannon orzawif the issue I can't talk about is uber bad) There is an issue the CU members of our team know of that has not been introduced into test center yet that is game breaking to us.

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