Rifleman Archive

As the subject of the thread says, I have finally come to understand. What I have come to understand is why so many people have given up rifleman for other combat proffessions like pistoleer. Let me explain to you first why I didn't understand. My main toon is a wookie. This means nearly the same secondary stats but larger pools than humans or in my case, same pools with larger secondaries. Also, my main is a ranger. Why that is important will be clear in a moment.

Here is why I came to understand. I started a toon on bloodfin with the intent of becoming a commando. This toon I decided to make human. Right now I'm working on rifles 4 and let me tell you what I've noticed using a spraystick with the ham cost of umm, forgot the health cost but the othertwo are 43 and 44. Health is less than those two. First off, I miss a hell of alot. At least 40% of the time I see -miss- above my target. With a scoutpistol doing the same damage (more consistant damage at that) I rarely see a -miss-. This is even at ranges of 40-50m. Granted, I'm at pistols 4 but +10 accuracy can't make that much of a difference. The only thing I can think of why I do so much better on my ranger is the creature-to-hit bonus. My ranger is only 1,0,0,0 in the rifleman line.

Now, while accuracy isa big issue, so is ham costs. My spraystick has slightly lower ham costs than my bowcaster but while I can spam headshot2 with my caster, my spraystick gives me only about 10-15 shots using headshot2 before my mind pool is shot. My wookie only has 100 more mind than my human. It's because of this I don't even bother using headshot2 on my human, rather I spam warning shot (while wearing half a set ofchitin armor)which has about the same ham effect as headshot2 on my wookie. Does anyone else find this a bit odd?

There was one other thing I've noticed as a human but I forgot what it was while writing the above...

/sigh With pistols having nearly the same damage, alot faster damage output, and better accuracy, why the hell would anyone want to be a rifleman? Something has got to change. Lower ham costs maybe? How about increasing rifle accuracy? Ham costs wouldn't matter as much then...You could raise rifle damage but no, there's already too much onehit incapping in pvp. You devsobviously care about the game your making or wewouldn't get patches as much as we do but as it is now, I can't wait to get 30k more rifle xp so I can stop bothering at all with rifles. That's rather sad as I do like them a whole lot. What can you do for rifleman?

In response:

Spraysticks have very poor accuracy at all ranges. the only good thing about them is their firing speed - and that's only if you're not a master rifleman (at which point, it doesn't matter what the speed of the rifle is).

I would say get yourself a good DLT20a (good reliable dmg, not bad speed, low ham cost, no armor piercing). for things that require armor piercing, get yourself a good E11 (good reliable dmg, not bad ham, medium AP).

Then, put 30% speed, 15% mind powerups on the rifle for added effectiveness.

That said - if you're wookie is a ranger, and your purpose of being a ranger is to hunt down organic resources, there is no better weapon than a rifle. You haveAP3 and at master you shoot VERY FAST. What you need to do is get at least enough CH for a GSP. If you don't know, it has 8k ham, no armor, but 65% resists to kinetic dmg.. it can take a severe beating.

get yourself flushingshot2 in countersnipe 3 and you can tank and kill just about anything, and you can kill multiple mobs at once when they agro your GSP. your xp will go up very fast at this point and you'll be master in no time. Once you're master, have fun 'soloing' Krayt dragons - tank with your two Grauls and pop a muon gold, spam Strafeshot2 on your poweredup T21, they go down in 60-80 shots with a good rifle. (that's about a minute at master rifle).

Thats what you can expect from master rifle, as a ranger, with some ch - you will fear no mob.

nevermind your effectiveness in PvP - you won't be disappointed.

my .02

"So your telling me there's a chance?"

The accuracy is just the gun then? That's very relieving to hear. I've never gotten to use anything better than a bowcaster as ahazi doesn't have the rainbow crystals nescessary to build t21's. Considering I jumped from a cdef to a bowcaster (been using one ever since) I never had a problem at all with rifles until I started working up the line with my human.

There's really that big a difference between Master Rifleman and not master? I may have to find some way to scrounge up more skill points... 140 for ranger leaves me 110. 2,2,0,0 in ch is what, 23? That leaves me with 87. How many skill points is master rifleman?

I am a Master Ranger, over 1/2 way to Master Rifleman and have some medic skills. Will have to kill the medic to fill 2 more Rifleman boxes. But basically all of your points will be used to make a Master Ranger / Master Rifleman. Now, you could give up 1-2 trees of your Ranger to get the 1,1,0,0 in the CH line to get the GSP. Something I may do in the future if they do not improve some of our lines to be more worthwhile.

Meh, the only way I'm dropping any ranger skills is if I get a holocron telling me to become a weaponsmith or something even then, I'm not sure I'ld do it. Ranger is what I wanted to be (not counting Jedi) when i bought the game so ranger is what I'll be.