Rifleman Archive

Assuming that I wouldn't want to keep blasting away with a rifle when a mob closes in, what is the best option for a close-range auxillary? Pistols work well, but their specials drain and target a different pool. I suppose the separate drain could have a upside, but given the unrealistic accuracy-at-range of pistols currently, it's almost too tempting to just use that as the primary ranged option too. (Of course, as soon as I'd do that, they'd come along and fix it.)

In looking around the Melee trees, I noticed that 2H has a line that focuses on Head shots, which would seem to be great since it presumably damages the same pool as rifles. But 2H also seems to have Action drain on its specials, which means another pool to worry about when doing Stat assignements.

What are the good working solutions people have come up with so far?

Use a pistol to hit it with warning shots. That'll send it running the other way, and then you can switch back to rifle again.

I see two good paths, and I'm considering both:

1. Master rifleman/BH pistol IV, which leaves enough points for BH carbine III or novice pistoleer and a box there.

Pro - pistol can be used for both eye shot at close range, or to do health damage while grouping.
Con - no medic skills

2. Master rifleman/scout explore IV/ranged support IV/swordsman/medic, really no need to master swordsman or medic, so it's better to balance them out

I think this is what I'm going to do, just because medic is so important. And you get a bit more diversity with swordsman, rather then another ranged weapon.

Swordsman works great with rifleman . after hearing about the pet nerf i have been pushing sword up. im almost ready to train my 3rd box in sword and with a CM you can go nutz . ya dont tak1/3 of the damage if ya not to drunk to get that sword in hand and stand up b4 the mob closes on ya . and you get great head shots with swordsman . it was fun tankin bich snaches on dathomir the other nite after the nerf to em =)

Mercennary

Daktotan Order> DO

Lowca

medic/entertainer was nice but having a pet as insurance is worth dumping medic/entertainer imo to train the 2 rows in CH to have a pincussion when ya want to work that rifle exp.

i highly recoment not wasting the points.... tune your rifle selection differently...

t21 or laser rifle for the distance sweet spot.. ((500'sh shots @ 7-10 seconds)

e11 for the 45-50 range battling (similar to carbide speed/dmg)

and mabe the SG82 for 30-40 range fights (yes if they ever fix them, i know)

spray stick for the 5-30m range (similar to pistol speed/dmg) ((150'ish dmg @ 2.0 seconds)

I've been trying to massage some gunsmiths to putting in thier good stuff and heavy experimentation into some of the side wepons....i havnt used my pistol in a good 2 weeks (which similarly as you were discussing.. i had been using for when the battle comes in tight) Im slowly feeding my once "master marksmen tree" into the rifleman tree...and using the different rifles instead of different wepons.

This might work as well: master rifleman, swordsman only up to expert tech., medic with first aid 2/pharm 2/organic chem 2, and creature handler with taming 1 and training 2. That should allow a wookie to use up to a level 35 creature, assuming the +10 taming bonus makes up for taming 2. The only loss would be ranged support line from marksman, but I'm sure the 9000 HAM Arachne Warrior would more then make up for it.

Edit - the wookie bonus doesn't count for anything worthwhile, so drop pharm 4 and add taming 2 to the above template. Is 2/0/3/4 a good medic template? Will the items made in organic chem. 4 be usable with only pharm 3?