Rifleman Archive

I would keep the defense vs status line of pistoleer, if you can. this goes VERY nicely with any other profession, especially rifles which doesn't have much for defense vs status.

warning shot in the ranged support line is nice, and you also get a bit of ranged defense from that line -

otherwise, it isn't essential, just 'nice to have'. I would suggest getting warningshot, if you don't have any melee skills. (at least until you master rifle's). but then again... save your combat xp for the rifleman tree - it'll be much easier to level rifleman if you have a speed box or two to begin with

I climbed to Master Rifleman with Ranged Support IV and Pistol IV. The skills in Ranged Support are useful but now that I have made Master Rifleman and supplemented with Brawler and Swordman, I have given up my Pistol and Range Support lines altogether because I do not particularly need them now. Here are going to be the issues for you:

1. You will lose some Ranged defense without Ranged Support but not significantly so.

2. /Aim is useful early on, but after a certain point you stop using it. It may be helpful against Defensive Mod stackers, but with the changes going in, that may not be a significant factor. I am currently debating whether giving up the only two discretionary skill points I have in Diagnostics I in Medic for Ranged Support I to get /Aim back. If people who stack defenses are still impossible to hit, I may give up the heal speed for /Aim.

3. /Threatenshot is only useful against lower level creatures.

4. Tumbling is pretty useless except to help doctors and other medical types level (it uses HAM, which they can heal,without having to be in combat).

5. /Warningshot has been useful for leveling. However, the bleed changes may make this less useful. One leveling technique is to bleed a critter then keep it off of you with Warningshot until it bleeds down enough to kill it. Without stacking bleeds and with bleeds taking into account resistances, bleeds are going to be much smaller than before, so leveling this way will be more risky (warningshot does not always work) and more time consuming. It may be that Concealshot (slower and more HAM costs) will become more attactive to many people who would not consider it before.

6. SuppressionFire at Ranged IV is of limited use; however, it is the only posture down effect special usable with a Rifle. That is, all rifle specific posture changes (Flushingshot and Startleshot) do posture changes up. Now this makes sense because you do more damage as a ranged profession the higher the target posture. So you normally want to get things up out of prone. (Melee is the opposite. Melee damage goes up as the posture goes down.) However, the only way Riflemen can get a knockdown (KD) is to get someone dizzy with Flurryshot and force a posture change that they then change back on their own (Dizzy only works for a KD with voluntary posture changes). Well, most people in PvP know better than to go prone or kneel. This makes them immobile and more at risk to melee attacks. So everybody stands once the battle is underway. If they are already standing, then you have no chance of forcing a posture change that they will then change on their own with Rifleman-only posture changes. SuppresionFire is the only hope of forcing a posture change that may be useful with Dizzy. But even then, it is not reliable (even when it sticks, the KD may not happen, and the posture change will not work more than once every 30 seconds).

So all this is to say that there are some nice features in Ranged Support, but nothing that you cannot live without if you are not going for Master Marksman for the +5 to speed.