Rifleman Archive

with the 75% damage reduction, pistols completely own rifles, because of their much higher DPS. Ifa rifleman didnt hit his first 2 or so shots high enough before the shots he'd be dead from the pistoleer.... now it doesn't even matter.

I used to think like you, right after the patch. The truth is, though, that a well-played Riflemen now owns everything except a BH.

Here are a couple methods that work for me. I make about 1000 fp a night killing imps since the patch, and I sometimes go all night without a single death. I'm 4,0,1,2 in rifleman.

First, buy some good Stim-Bs. This can't be emphasized enough. You can heal yourself for around 400 health and action every 5 seconds with good ones. This is a MUST, as you will not see the advantage of being a rifleman without them.Our advantage is staying power, and doing unhealable damage. You'll need novice medic to be able to use Stim Bs.

Method 1

1.) Engage the enemy from just under your max range. Pop off a mindshot2 or 3, getting them bleeding for 200-300 cycle.

2.) Duck behind cover (something that breaks line of sight) or pull out of range for a bleed cycle, heal yourself. Meanwhile, they cannot heal the damage you are doing to them (mind).

3.) When your rifle is ready to fire again, go back in, aim (don't want to waste that huge HAM hit on a miss), hit them with a HS2 or 3.

4.) repeat #3 maybe once or twice more.

4.) Deathblow.

Method 2

1.) Find yourself a spraystick. Looted ones are available on every server, and these are fine for your purposes.

2.) Use flurry shot (rifleman line, counter-sniping 1I think) to dizzy your opponent. This may take 2 or 3 hits to become effective. No problem with a spraystick.

3.) Once the dizzy icon appears, use supression fire (marksman line, ranged abilities 4) to lower posture a couple of times. They will either fall over immediately or fall over when they try to stand up.

4.) Hit them with dizzy again once they fall, so when they finally do get up, they fall again.

Note (2-4 can be done in about 5 seconds with a spraystick)

5.) Now that they're on the ground, switch to a heavier rifle and pound them with headshots or regular shots to conserve mind. Or, if you have melee, move in and beat the hell out of them. I have swordsman, so I usually move in and head-hit, which also does mind damage.

6.) Deathblow.

Method 3 (multiple opponents)

The main thing here is to stay out of range. Harass them. Be smart. Try to control the range on your terms. If you don't get too far ahead they usually won't burst to try and catch you.

1.)Duck just into range, hit one enemy with a mindshot, move out of range.Repeat this until they're all bleeding. You'll take a lot of damage. Use your stims. Let them chase you. One thing I sometimes do is burst run, but don't get too far ahead. I just use it to duck into range and then get back out again quick.

2.) Once down to about 1/2 mind (16 seconds on a good bleed), thebleeding enemieswill slow. They won't stop chasing, they'll just hang back, leary of a headshot. Someone will still be in front, probably the last guy you bled. Use this opportunity to finish off the frontrunner with a couple of headshots. If you incap them, don't go for the DB yet unless you have ranged DB (sniping 4), just keep running, keep healing yourself. There's nothing they can do for him either. He's stuck there until you come back for him.

3.) By now, if you werefighting 3 or less and you got them all bleeding, the tables will have turned.The 2 enemies that are left willbe very low on mind and easy to finish off.

When fighting only 2, I usually just use the dizzy/supression method to knock one down, then deal with the other.

A couple other tips -

When running away, try ducking into a house. You go off radar. Quite a few times I've ducked into a house, watched my pursuersrun by, and then ducked out the door,tagged one with a headshot or mindshot and run the other way. Also, even if they see you go in, they will often hesitate to follow if they don't have melee. This can give you time to heal, andgive youfree shots at themif you duck out, fire, and duck back in.

Having a melee skill can really help. When your mind gets low and all you have is rifleman, you're hosed, as you can't do specials anymore. If you have melee, you can try and direct the battle into close quarters (by say, ducking into a house or a building) and use melee specials, which use health or action (which you can heal). Melee also finishes off an enemy you've knocked down a LOT faster than the rifle will. Melee skills get a damage bonusagainst prone enemies.

Buy a crate of Stim-Bs. These cost 15-20k, but are well worth it. A good stim can have up to 30 or more uses, each healing for around 400 health and action. A crate has 50 stims, and uses only 5 spots (soon 1 spot) in your backpack.

Protect your mind! If it gets low, get clear and rest. This is the one thing you can't heal. Be smart. I see rifleman all the time charging into battle with 1/3 mind. You can't survive like that.

When fighting other riflemen, use a helmet! This can save your ass. Especially with everyone running around with borked T21s that are AP0. These do about half damage against a composite helmet. Hotkey it so you can take it off quickly when you need to heal your mind.

The one thing we really can't deal with (nobody can) is a BH with eyeshot. They have incredible DPS on an unhealable pool (1000 to zero mind in 3 seconds in our tests). I have a couple good friends who play BHs and are extremely skilled, andsince the patch both of them have beenin situations where they were hugely outnumbered (we're talking 10 to 1) and still managed to win. Their eyeshot doesn'tuse mind like our headshotsdo, so they can wear a helmet to protect their mind and just go foreverhealing action and health with stimpacks. Your only hope is to either get lucky with the dizzy/supression combo right off the bat, or tag them with a bleed right off the bat and run like hell.

vs AT-STs - Just mindshot and run. They'll store itto kill the bleed if they're paying attention.If not, you'll win eventually.

Wow Mindshot 3, eh? You must be a FS Rifleman or something.

Awesome post taco! Lots of good tips. You confirmed some combos i was considering and gave me some new ones. Very well written, too. Im feeling better about being a rifleman.

Props

whoops! yeah, there is no mindshot 3. I meant mindshot 1 or 2.

wow very good points their taco.. didnt think of alot of those things.

one thing about the stimpacks tho is that they drain mind when you use them. Add that to the extra amount of shots you have to take because of the reduced damage in pvp and you'll be running out of mind fast. I really don't see how the 3 vs 1 example would work...

I haven't had a problem with the mind hit from using stimpacks. Especially if only 1 heals you almost all the way. You definitely need high sub-stats in mind to be a rifleman, though, so you recharge fast. My mind stats are 1000/700/650.

yeah great post!

I'm still trying to figure out what combo I'm going to do with rifles. probably swordsman, ranger (I know I know) or combat medic.

One comment, wouldn't the DPS of a master rifleman be higher then that of a bounty hunter using eye shot? Due to the fact that at master you're firing just as fast as anyone else? I've never used eye shot though, so I don't know exactly what kind of damage it does.

I would imagine a rifleman would be doing a lot more because at master level you're shooting really really fast. Assuming they fix T-21's soon, you'd also have AP3.

It would depend on howlong you were shooting for. A BH with novice medic can heal back most of his action at around 50 mind cost. A t21 will eat through your mind like crazy. I would guess that over a short period of timea fixedT21would have quite an advantage over the BH.

Great Post!

I've stuck with Rifleman from the beginning even when everybody said Pistoleer would beat them down. Now I can't wait to get the stun shot to try out that combo.

On Sunrunner, the best we have is the laser rifle, because of the resource shifts. I think I'm gonna try out some different rifles now also. Has anyone tried the Jawa or the SG82, with stun and cold damage to see how that worked?

I suppose someone needs to be the bringer of sanity here...

This is mostly towards Tacos suggestions btw.

Towards method 1 & 3:
To sum, he basically suggested hitting them with bleed and running around hoping they dont catch you. How terribly creative.

Towards method 2:
Flurry/Supression rocks, on PCs and NPCs alike. Problem? It only works if you are trying to take one person out. And I mean ONLY 1. Another person shows and you get a free trip to back to the cloning center. Because its general impossbile to keep more than one person locked down at a time with this combo.

Suggesting that you heal yourself is nice, but of course that requires that you have medic. And does nothing to adress the fact that rifle specials use mind points.

And as for the big mind shots, my T21 using headshot2 gets up to 400 damage now, assuming it hits, and only does that every 10 or so seconds. And if you are moving and trying to hit with most any rifle but a spraystick I wish you luck, cause you will need it.

Just trying to put things in perspective.

Slayzer/Laramee