Rifleman Archive
Thread: Swords+Rifles=???
Oh yeah, here are the total defensive mods I will have If I am correct:
80 Block
87 Ranged Defense
65 Melee Defense
20 Dvs Blind
40 Dvs Posture Change
25 Dvs Knockdown
60 Dvs Stun
110 Counter Attack
30 Dvz Dizzy
20 Dvs Intimidate
I'm currently a master swordsman/master brawler. I picked up ranged support 4, and am working up rifleman now. It sounds fun,and rather effective to me. Plink away with the rifle till someone gets close, then whip out your powerhammer, hit COB, knock them down, and hit warcry2 to stop them from doing anything for 20 seconds.....and continue to beat the crap out of their mind.
Since you are going to be in melee, armor will be very good to have, so buffs/spice/food will be necessary.
I knew that before I started, but went ahead because i always have access to buffs. Therefore i have mind/focus/will all maxed....and always run around with the others buffed.
Its been pretty easy to level rifleman so far, even though i just started it. With master swordsman just drop a few mind bleeds on a big group of critters, hit COB....tap your foot and wait for 30 seconds, then one-shot all the 1-mind critters. 
I am not doing holos at all. When I started the game back in July, Rifleman was always my goal. And I leveled rifleman walking to school with no shoes, in the snow, and it was up hill both ways...no...wait.... that is what I tell my kids, But it was throughout the 2.5x melee damage modifier days. While leveling rifle, I chose to go to Pistol IV to be able to have something to fall back on if they got to within melee range, which they often did.
After finally getting to Master Riflemanseveral weeks ago, I decided to try out Swordsman for the melee damage mitigation bonuses.I was going to have to give up my pistol skills I had always relied on, so I was a bit reluctant to do so, but Swordsman made sense as the 2H Sword attacks compliment our attacks so well. And all I can say is DOH! Why did I not do this before? Rifleman + Swordsman rocks, and I think you will find you will enjoy the combination. Once I saw what I could do with Swordsman, I dropped pistol like a blaster on overload.
You will have a great advantage for leveling Sword since you already have a lot of your Rifle skills; specifically you alreadyhave Mindshot1 and 2. Once you get to 2H Sword II in Brawler, you are going to level Sword fast because you get your first mind pool attack, /melee2hheadhit1, at that skill. At that point,all you have to do is get out a 60m or so, fire Mindshot1 and Mindshot2 then go Peace, while waiting for the timer to tick down, wander out to about 100m or so and equip your 2HWeapon of choice. When the timer ticks off and they bleed, this will single pull that critter. That is a good distance because by the time they get to you, at least two bleeds have already ticked off. When they start getting close, fire off Intimidate1, Warcry1, and Center of Being (assuming you do not have Master Brawler for Intimidate2 and Warcry2). If they hit, Intimidate will make them hit you less, and Warcry will delay them for 10 seconds (20 if Warcry2). Center of Being will always works, and it improves your defenses for a time. Now, just start whacking away with /melee2hheadhit1.
As you move up into Swordsman, you will not only get the Powerhammer, but you get better Headhit attacks, and you also get /melee2hMindhit1 and /melee2hMindhit2. These are mind bleeds which not only stack with each other, but they also stack with /Mindshot1 and /Mindshot2. With the right weapons, you will easily average at least 4000 - 5000 points of mind bleeds.
The only thing is that if you are trying to concentrate on leveling Swordsman, you will want to make sure you hit peace before you start autofiring your rifle when trying to apply the mind bleeds. Otherwise, getting non-bleed hits with the Rifle will take away some from your Sword XP.
Of course, if you decide to try to finish off Riflewhile you are leveling Swordsman, you can always hit them for the mind bleeds, drill them with Headshots till they get on you, then finish them off with the Sword once they get to you to divide up the XP between the two weapons.
Good luck to you.
i love swordman rifle man combo. the quadruple bleeds were just to much to pass up. right now i'm 4004 in rifle master swordman, and master brawlerand i'm loving the bleeds warcry 2 andintimidation2. if i get all 4 bleeds on a target i will have a total combined bleed of like 7k at least have gotton up to 12k in total bleeds. this template is just awsome.
this is an awsome combo and i'll never give it up.it's just so powerful in pve and pvp
Master Swordman Forever ~ Pve wh0r3 
my other sig is a Corovette. 
Let's get real...no one uses bleeds against big game unless they are planning to stalk and/or kite. Which is very annoying. Bleed rates are so slow as to be nearly useless in a real fight; let's take a look at some real-life situations:
1. Party hunt. By the time any big game has suffered a single bleed, it usually will not last another one before the party's lvl800 raging Grand Mauler andthe half-dozen TKA masters hepped up on spice have nearly dropped it. In addition, there is a much higher XP reward for spamming headshots than wasting that time giving out bleeds that don't matter since there are a dozen pets and brawlers standing inbetween you and the target.
2. Solo hunt. Due to the weakness of the Rifleman and the fact that bleeds do not kill, it is insanity to try bleeds as a regular tactic. By the time you've hit your bleeds, the target will spot you and WILL overtake you unless you birst run. Then you have to carefully stalk the target and wait a long time for the SLOW bleeds to get him to 0. Frankly, this only works against medium game. Large game have such huge hams and potent resists that the bleeds are meanigless -- because in the 20+ seconds it takes for a bleed to occur, the target has caught up with you and is ripping your guts out. Against smaller game, a few headshots kill much faster and with a larger XP reward and less mind drain.
So what about the melee bleeds? Also useless: if it's a target that you could beat up with a 250+ damage sword, it's something that can easily be beat with a 500+ damage rifle. The only reason to get swordman with rifles is to benifit from the melee defenses and not to be healpless in a knife-fight.
GUTB wrote:
Let's get real...no one uses bleeds against big game unless they are planning to stalk and/or kite. Which is very annoying. Bleed rates are so slow as to be nearly useless in a real fight; let's take a look at some real-life situations:
You must be joking! Remember before the big patch when everybody threw a fit about people soloing Krayts? I was one of those people, and I'll tell you right now that killing the biggast baddest game that SWG has to offer can ONLY be done with bleeds and DOT effects. Don't believe me? Take as big a group you want against a Nightsister Elder or a Krayt and don't use any DOT effects. See how many bodies you end up with when you could have done it easier by bleeding. Rifle/Swords is an extremely deadly PvE combo because of the bleed damage you can do.
it works pretty well
mad bleedage, should they decide to rush you
im sad that i had to put down my sword.