Rifleman Archive
Thread: How is rifleman?
I'm giving up commando, as I've gotten somewhat tired of it.
Being a master marksman, I figured I would move into one of the other ranged combat lines. I'm having a hard time deciding which would work best for me. My question really is, what are some pros and cons of rifleman? I did enjoy it when working on marksman way back when, however there have been changes that I'm not aware of.
Thanks for any response...
As said rifleman is great once you reach master. The grind there is hard if you don't have creature handler or a group.
It's fun.
Now shhhh, if we have too much fun someone is going to nerf us down to their unfun level.
Riflemen are probably the best PvP class in the game... If you have food and drugs coming out the wazoo. Strafe2 absolutely decimates anything not in armour, and if you're lucky you can do over 200 wounds in a shot. Headshots and mind bleeds are good for pretty obvious reasons, but they don't reach their full potential until you hit Master and have the speed and accuracy mods.
Especially with the recent Non-CH pet nerf leveling a Rifleman is going to be a massive pain. Especially since the only time you'll actually get xp in groups is at Master 
It's a hard climb, but if you're into PvPing, and apparently drugs, it's worth it.
pro's: master rules, we get to carry around a friggen cannon 
, DB from 64m, we attack the mind pool. read all the flame posts to get more of an idea for PvP. medium/heavy armor weapons
con's: all specials come from the mind pool, musican/dancers buffs are not as good but take time to get and are not as good as doctor buffs. downers. food/drink/spice help too. exp is slow to get and the rate of fire sucks till you get master. you can't use the t21 effectively till you are master/near master.
you have to want to master this profession to make it worthwhile. on the otherhand pistol with smuggler dabbeling is also a killer combo. i'm waiting to see how the next 'balance' patch works. carbines are still pretty broken, but still effective.
its all in your style of play. master rifle is definaly worth it though. i had MCH before i i had any rifleman. it made leveling alot easier. otherwise you are gonna need to group to get exp at a decent rate. pistols you can still solo most things faster.
Wabit
Best things about rifleman in no particular order
Strafe 2, a very powerful AOE attack that can do 3 to 5k + dmg to every mob in the area of effect
Headshot 3, great for PvP
Mind Shot 1 and 2, awesome bleeds when used with a very high dmg laser or t21
Conceal Shot, just shot and fire and mobs wont even aggro you most of the time
Rifle Sniper Shot, pull a single mob from a group to be slaughtered
+90 rifle speed (95 with master marksman)
+80 Block
+76 to 84 range defense
+42 range defense
+160 accuracy/170 with master marksman
Bad things
Insane mind cost
Can be difficult to lvl at first, you'll be slow and very inaccurate
limited choice in dmg type of weapon, energy, cold and stun only
I would have to say the good things out weigh the bad 
oh yeah forgot, another thing that's bad hehe.
No resistence to knockdown
Hardly no resist to dizzy, posture change, blind, etc
Farstar
Wabit wrote:i'm waiting to see how the next 'balance' patch works. carbines are still pretty broken, but still effective.
Carbines...I thought they were the poor **edit** class of the marksman elites. Then today i saw the carbineer in our group keep a night sister elder, and a Dark Jedi master on their asses for the whole time it took to grind down their 300k and 370k hams. Ranged KD rules...who'd a thunk it?