Rifleman Archive

Since most people only read posts that have petition, nerf, or suck in them - I thought I should name this post CHEF DPS WAY BETTER THAN RIFLEMAN! PETITION TO NERF EM! THEY SUCK!

Anyway... I was getting real tired of getting beat on with no armor last night and started to investigate my options. I went to a local Armorsmith and started reviewing the HAM hits for various types of armor. I was looking for something with a high Kinetic & Energy Resist since I mostly PvE right now.

I found that the incredibly ugly Mabari Armorweave had pretty low Mind HAM hits. Less than 9 for each piece unsliced,except the helmet. Which by the way, just about all helmets are a no-go. 200+ mind encumbrance? Geesh. Getting back to Mabari, the special resists on it were heat and blast. However, some of the ghetto suits I was looking at had 17% kinetic and energy as well.

The other cool thing about the Mabari is that it is cheap. Its cheap because it is ugly as all hell. Most people place it only slightly ahead of bone, so there is not a big market for it.

Right now, it appears to me that everyone on Lowca thinks they should go composite because "it's highest up the Armorsmith tree, it must be the best!". But after reviewing everything, it seems that armor is way more situational. Has anyone else experimented with armor?

I wore Mabari Armourweave up until very reciently. It saved my life on more than one occasion.

Now I am back to wearing plain clothes since I picked up CH and have a pet to tank for me.

I will be going back to some type of armour once I drop CH for my final template.

i hav my armor on a mcro and toggle it on only when in dire need...this way i can regen the fastest...my current armor is a mish-mash...mostly padded

Ya I found a pretty good pair of Mabari chest plate, it had relatively good resists and stuff but it's mind encumberance was incredibly low (I"m not ingame and don't remember) and it was being sold for 300 credits...I"m thinking of grabbing a whole suit minus the helm because dev's hate us.

Marauder armor pieces are very light with high resist. Its a armor that you can get from mission on endors

I use PSGs. I have had very good success with them.

AZ

I use a full suit of padded. The padded encumberance is pretty high, but it's somewhat easier on mind than the other high level armors. I bought 2 suits, got bot sliced and picked the best enc sliced items of each. If I don't use a helmet I only loose about 120 mind. If I'm up against one single enemy I usually don't use armor. If I think he's high level I usually wear it.. if I'm up against more or a large PvP-event I always eat moun gold.

Once resistance on clothing works I will wear that, but for the most part I dont have or want armor I do have a few sets of Bone thaand one of Membari and Chitin that I have hanging in my house. Mostly even with armor the 2.5 times for melee damage kills me after 3 hits insted of 2 or 1 and god forbid I can shot somethign with in 10 m of me or warnign shot or straiff work.....

i have a full set of padded armor that i keep on a macro. I also migrated my stats. all my mind stats are MAXED, and i also maxed,(or close to it) both my action secondaries and my health secondaries. In order to do all that i had to cut down my Health and Stamina quite a bit their both at around 750 (i'm a zabrak).

I was worried about doing this but i haven't looked back since, and i also hardly ever ever die. I throw all the gear on in melee range mostly, and sometimes when shooting pesky yellow/red con rebels or pvp. When i get in melee range i throw on my armor and whip out my 2hd curved sword and chop chop away.

Although due to my low health/action bars i dont do too many special moves, it's really no big deal. that swords so quick and powerful that i can kill off my target quickly, especially since it's allready bleeding pretty **edit** bad by the time it gets up in my face.

SO yes, i think amor is definitely worth it. I've tried that Marabi (or however you spell it) armor and didn't like it much, and i love the padded stuff, great stats on it. Get it sliced by a master and you'll be good to go.

4-1-1-4Rifleman/ Master Armorsmith here, so I'll weigh in.

Bone has no kinetic protection, unless the smith has used Voritor Hide segments, but those are currently bugged (see the Development Board's armor post) and won't actually give any kinetic protection. This is highly useful if all you're doing is killing Meatlumps at range and engaging in some light PvP or factional missions.

Mabari has no energy protection. Useful only against creatures and folks wielding FWG5s. You can get kinetic protection on it up around 20%, perhaps higher with advanced segments. If you're just kiting banthas, snorbals, and the like, this is probably the armor for you, but don't expect it to do anything against NPCs.

Chitin starts to get more balanced. Without advanced segments, you might get something like 30% kinetic / 10% others (including energy). With advanced segments, I regularly get over 50% kinetic protection and 15-20% energy protection. This is a good suit to have in the event that you get swarmed and have to switch to another weapon to avoid the melee penalty. I use my Advanced Chitin suit all the time. The HAM costs aren't that bad either, and you can always go helmetless if need be, or use a Mabari helmet if you really want the head covering.

Tantel (all three pieces of it) is basically an upgrade to bone/chitin, with energy protection at its core. I combine Tantel and Chitin pieces quite often for Bounty Hunters to use when going against their marks, as it's low encumbrance and can be balanced between energy/kinetic.

Ubese is my favorite PvE armor, hands-down. Without the helmet, the mind encumbrance of my layered, non-sliced suit is only 210. A good smith can make a kinetic-layered Ubese suit with stats that equal or better the advanced chitin, with lower encumbrance. I'd not suggest using the ubese helmet, though, since it is cumbersome. Replace it with the Tantel or Chitin. When the layers and advanced Ubese segmentsare working properly (again see the latest Dev post), Heat-layered Ubese should be the rifleman's choice in PvP, since you will only have vulnerability to stun and cold and can probably have upwards of 35% protection to every other damage type.

Padded armor is my least favorite armor. It doesn't serve too much of a purpose in my opinion other than as eye candy and, when bi-layered, as a poor man's (or poor server's) composite. Using advanced segments, I can getupwards of35% protection to energy/kinetic/cold/electricity/restraint, but it has base vulnerabilities to heat and acid. Combined with its high encumbrance, if you're a rifleman, I'd stay away from padded.

Composite means high resists (if made well) and high encumbrance (even if made well). The helmet is an absolute killer for a rifleman using styles, even if it's sliced (though I've seen it sliced down to about 160 before). Very useful for PvP, though, particularly when you can get those advanced segments and killer slices. Krayt Segments make very good composite, too.

Sooooo ... after all that, what do I recommend?

PvE: Ubese or Advanced Chitin

PvP: Encumbrance-sliced Composite without helmet OR heat-layered Ubese (when it works)

Also -- use shield generators. A balanced Mk.2 will get you about 25% to all and will stack with armor (though the actual calculation is a bit funky) and won't cost you all that much on most servers. Energy-balanced Mk.3s would get over 50% energy.

Wow. Sort of a long post.

I'm a wookiee......I die ....a lot....thanks 2.5x melee.....i get killed by guys that are blue to me sometimes...it's embarrsing. I wouldn't tell anyone, but we're close right guys?

I just found a sliced composite helmet with 46% to all the main resists with only 154 mind encumberance. To me this seems like a good trade off for 1v1 PvP, although I wouldgo for no armour in group PvP battles since I tend to use more mind.

Agreed on the Ubese, great armour for PvE except the helmet.

How do ya put armor/weapons on a macro. Call by serial #? That would help a bunch...