Rifleman Archive

I PvE, usually solo but sometimes with groups against creature damage and blasters. I'm wondering if I should trainfor CONCEAL shot or FLUSHING shot. I don't know what either of them do. Or should I suck it up and save for MIND SHOT 3 first? I'd like to hear your opinion.

I just got conceal shot , I think I would go for Flushing first . Solo it does not help against being mobbed at all . Headshot 3 from my reading is not worth it . The damage to your mind is greater than the increase in damage to the target.

Thanks for the input DDfan, perhaps I'll go with flushing first.

I'm saving Conceal as the last thing to do. When I was in your shoes, I went with Mindshot3 first. True, it does do a heckuva lot of damage to your Mind pool, but it's also very powerful. The benefits don't necessarily outweigh the cost, though, especially if you're not used to getting Dancer/Musician buffs and/or using Muon Gold.

If you want to see the most bang for your buck right now, I'd go with Flushing Shot. It does more damage than some of the lesser attacks, even if its special ability doesn't work half the time. In my experience, it's the damage I go for (and if the specials like stun, dizzy, etc. work, all the better).

I'm gonna go against the grain here and say get concealshot first.

In my experience, it does almost as much damage as HS3, and more than HS2. With the new patch, concealshot will work against social critters. Plus, in a group, you won't be the one catching aggro, and the 2.5x melee dmg.

Flushingshot 2, now there's a shot I wouldn't mind having...

---

Wulfheir wrote:
I PvE, usually solo but sometimes with groups against creature damage and blasters. I'm wondering if I should trainfor CONCEAL shot or FLUSHING shot. I don't know what either of them do. Or should I suck it up and save for MIND SHOT 3 first? I'd like to hear your opinion.

---

I would go Conceal 1 first, then up 1/2 way in the sniping tree for accuracy, by then you should be halfway threw special abilities 2 , then work up the counter sniping tree to third box for flushing 2, about the same time you might be able to get flurry2 from special abilities or not far from it.

What matters more to me is accuracy with conceal shot, speed isn't as important as hitting everyshot. Missed shots = wasted mind pool.

However play with what style makes you happy.

I think Flushingshot2 is hands down the best bang for the buck in the tree thus far. I am currently only a 2-2-3-2, however.Concealshot works nice, but with a tank of any kind (I use a Cowardly Gurreck) the multiple hit factor of Flushing2 is outstanding. Not to mention, the defense mods you get with CounterSniping 3 is very impressive, and will help keep you alive longer I think. As for Headshot3, I only tend to use it in PvP. High HAM mobs take too many shots to put down, making the extra mind cost hard to justify. However, in PvP (even with the damage modifiers) HS3 can provide that little bit of extra damage to take someone out in 3 shots rather than 4, for example.

I went sniper 1, conceal 1, then counter 3 and am glad I did it. While having counter 3 is making things go much faster now concealshot is useful to have, plus getting all of those gets you pretty close to spec 4. It is a good shot and it is getting fixed in the next patch to be completely viable instead of just uner certain circumstances. But get the bleed first of anything.

I would not recommend getting conceal shot. It works great if you are soloing without pets, but without more accuracy the chance to kill something before you miss the frist time is too bug, even if they do change BAF behaviour in the next patch.

If you have a pet or mostly play in groups, I'd definately go up to flushing 2 first. AE attacks are avery good way to get XP and deal out a lot of damage fast. Especailly flushing with it's high modifier. Given that you probably want to go to Master anyway, I'd say this is the fastest way to get xp. Getting flushing 2 and conceal afterwards will be faster than the other way round IMHO. But as I said, this is only an option if you have someone tanking for you. If not, you can't do much other than conceal anyway against higher critters.

HS3 is nice, but only viable if you are playing musician buffed or on spice. Otherwise it has a much worse dmg/ham ratio than HS2, and the chance to run out of mind before your target is dead is much higher. Also keep in mind that hiwle this stacks with your mind bleeds, it does not stack with the Health or Action damage that your pets or most people in your group will do.


So, unless you don't use pets and don't group, I think you are better of with countersniping. But I do agree that this is a very personal style. Go have a look at the pinned thread iun this forum about "styles". This will explain in details what the different shots do. Then, if you can, find a higher Rifleman on your server and ask him to show you some of the specials, so you an get a feeling of how they work and what you would like better.