Rifleman Archive
Thread: /Petition: Dear Holocron, a reasonable request from a Rifleman...
Dear Holocron:
I've been doing a lot of thinking in light of recent changes and think I have a reasonable request to offset many of the new problems presented to Riflemen. This will not "fix"our problems, but should at least bring things in line with current developments in the game.
Before posting my proposed solution, let me start by listing some of the problems. I'll explain my logic behind the solution afterwards.
I will not talk about teleporting mobs and LLC specials doing melee damage because those are bugs and (hopefully) not working as intended. This is also not a nerf post asking that other professions be nerfed.
* Problemsfor riflemen
Almost everyone has a non-ch pet now. 95% of those pets do melee damage which means that all those pets are now 2.5 times more powerful against us.
The damage output of a T21 is now too low. Many people are outdoing them with high quality laser rifles which are also more accurate and have lower HAM drains.
Firing specials kills riflemen really fast. In a current PvP situation I've had to sacrifice up to 3/4 of my mind to take out a single target.
At close range we have little to no chance of hitting our target because current T21s have up to -70 accuracy modifiers when a target closes in (it goes even higher if you and/or the target is moving).
90+% of the monsters in the wild do melee damage. That means that any white or red con creature will incap or kill us in a single hit. With supression fire being reduced to a one-time-deal we need to avoid them like the plague.
BH's are able to deliver mind damage at a faster rate, with higher accuracy, and with a lower ham cost than riflemen. Additionally the pool that it drains from (action) can be healed.
* A reasonable change to riflemen
I would like to propose that your bring the damage level of the T21 back up to where it was prior to it being nerfed.
At first, I could see how the thought of bringing on 3,000 damage would horrify you, but in light of recent changes to BH and Commandos, 3,000 damage has become nothing compaired to the 15,000 damage pulls that those weapons are doing. I understand the the super specials are close range attacks, but running away with a T21 equipped is not an option due to its horrible accuracy modifiers (see below).
I'm not asking that you nerf those other classes. Returning the original T21 damage will help us compete with these classes that drain from healable pools (unlike our own mind drains). It will not make us the kings of delivering damage as they will still deliver vastly more than we will, but at least we will be able to compete under certain circumstances - while others will still spell instant death for us.
Returning our riflepower will also increase the damage dealt to white & red con mobs in the hopes of being able to kill them a little easier before they run up and pull their one-shot-kill on us (we can get the most out of ourone supression shot).
A higher rifle damage will also help compensate for the immense mind drains that our rifles cause to us when we use specials. There is no other class that must sacrifice 3/4 of a pool in order to incapacitate a single target. To make matters worse we cannot heal our mind afterwards which leaves us as sitting ducks for 5-7 minutes as we run and hide waiting for it to regenerate.
The decreases in accuracy have dramatically increased the miss rate of the T21 compounding damage onto ourselves by forcing us to use more mind when attacking and by allowing us to take on much more additional damage from our targets. At least with higher damage output our hits will be able to partly compensate for our many misses.
A higher damage output also helps us counter the threat of BHs. As we attack them, we drain their mind and do heavy damage upon our own mind. As they attack us, they drain their action while dealing high damage upon our minds. It's easy to see that a riflemen is actually helping the BH incap us from mind drain. An increase in our damge would at least increase the chances of us incapping the BH frommind damage first.
* Conclusion
I hope you have a chance to read and reply to this post. The proposed change is simple and will allow us to compete against the other classes in PvP and PvE situations.
This change will not make us the king of anything. Commandos and BHs will still deliver more damage. Pistoleersadn Carbineers will still shoot faster and more accurately. BH's will still deal out mind damage at an immense rate and for little personal cost. Every weapon will still be more accurate than our beloved T21.
Riflemen will still cause immense drains to their own pools. We will still have horrible accuracy with our own weapons, and we will still fear anything that does any type of melee damage (and triple fear it if it's social).
This one simple change will at least give us the ability to compete with these other classes and will allow us an increased ability to explore harder planets where everything seems to kill us on a single hit.
This one change will not make us "uber", but at least it will make us into something.
Sincerely,
Arian Six
Please note: this has also been cross-posted onto the general discussion page.
-- A6
Nicely put and well reasoned. I liked the even tempo in which it was written, very calmly and thoughtful.
I hope more people pay attention to this.
I actually disagree with this request. I don't want riflemen to be the next flavor of the month...
What I want is for the lower ranges of the laser rifle and T21 to be increased dramatically, and accuracy of the rifle increased by 20 to 40 points in the ideal to max ranges. This way us novice riflemen, even though we might not do as much damage as BH's and commandos, we will hit more of our shots, and for better consistancy.
Oh, and I also want the 2.5 melee multiplier added to all other ranged professions. Thatmight finally give melee the chance to get a surprise hit or two against a ranged person and score some PvP kills.