Scout Archive

I am thinking of becoming a scout/creature handler and I am going to be playing with my friend who is a rifleman so I was wondering what I should train in for combat?

my suggestion would be pistol or brawler.

i trained up in both pistol and rifle.

scouts have a great technique for taking down creatures. USE YOUR TRAPS! throw 1 of as many different kids of traps as you can at the creature. usually by the 2nd or 3rd trap they're right on top of you so youre going to have to fight at close range. i used this technique since day 1 until recently when i got a probot. now i send the droid in and trap/fire from a distance. unless its a large mob, i dont ususally take hits anymore.

1 thing you want to make sure of is if its just the two of you, make sure you take the inital shot (or trap) because you dont want the creature attacking your friend. rifles do no good at close range no matter what powerup you have.

Yep, in beta I initially thought that rifleman would be a better match for scout, and they do work well mind you once you get high enough up there, but I find pistol or brawler to be better as the above poster stated, it compliments traps better.

Only at first, at the end of the Scout tree, a carbine is actually a better choice, as your best and last trap does Action damage, as does the carbine's Leg Shot series.

However, with the carbines problems right now, I'd probably stick with pistols if I were you. Or hope that they fix the carbines fast. Hell, you got the points for now, train both up

Yeah genius that I am,I initially went with a carbine,but with the well documented problems that has,I'm working pistol and rifle now also.I still prefer carbine overall,and if they ever get aroun to fixxing it,it'll be great,but I'm not holding my breath.

Right now,I have skill points to burn,so no harm in trying everything till I find a weapon/trap combo that "fits"

i only am up to advanced carbine, but almost have specialist in pistol and rifle. im gonna do carbine last.

what problems does the carbine have? i havent heard anything about them being bad.

I went with Rifle as a novice scout after I discovered several types of animals (Durni's and Paralopes on Corellia) that are very vulnerable to attacks on their mind pool. Using the Level 1 Rifle special attack Headshot and the Level 1 Trap Sharp Bone Spur you can take down those critter's mind pools very quick. It made grinding out the harvesting for scouting exp go a lot faster.

As I got closer to Creature Handler I realized that there weren't any creatures (at least none I've heard of yet) that target the mind pool. So to reinforce the damage my pet was going to be doing to the Health pool I decided to switch over to the Pistol.

Starting with Rifle and switching over hasworked reasonably well for me (getting theexp for the first 3 levels in a weapon skill isn't really "that" hard)but, if you want, you can start using Pistol right from the start and there'd be no wasted effort.

"Democracy is the worst form of government... until you consider the alternatives."

Winston Churchill

I think pistols and brawling skills are quite nice for scouting, but if you are going to hunt with your friend quite a bit, you might want to consider also using a rifle. If your friend is using a rifle, his/her special attack damage is going to be primarily mind damage. If you are using a pistol to attack (with special attacks) the enemy's body pool, then you aren't working together as efficiently as you could.

Optimally, you want to match weapons with your hunting partners, so that you are affecting the same pool with your special attack damage.

Just something to consider.

That scout blaster is really appropriate, as well, since I usually did end up shooting a lot of little critters to get experience, and speed becomes more important than maximum damage. Brawling works great with some of the traps, but I've never been willing to go that route myself. Later traps that snare critters make ranged weapons veryeffective as well, but I couldn't tell you which to choose between a rifle and a pistol, because you're probably better off choosing both.

Have you had any problems with ADD's yet? You know, you get the creature running and it ends up pulling some of its friends into the fray?

I have rifle trained up to lvl 3 for when I group with my buddies who are all rifleman so I can use headshot 2 to compliment the group. My pet tanks and we wipe the baddies out rather fast that way as most creatures and npc's mind pools are not that high.

My main weapon is pistol though.I'vetaken that up to novice pistoleer for healthshot2. I like pistol for a couple of reasons. One, it affects the health pool so it complimentsmy pets attacks. Two, you get both warning shot and threaten shot which can turn a potential death into a win. If I've bitten off more than I can chew, I willsend in the pet, usehealthshot2 (which is a dot basically) andthreatening shot alternating with warning shot to keep the creature running while my pet does the damage. Works really well and I've been able to solo some very hard mobs that way for missions or goodcreature handlerexperience.

The past couple days, I decided to give pistol a shot. couldn't resist the pun, sorry.

I would have preferred to excel in rifles, just out of personal taste, but I read a lot of interesting posts on pistols and their strenghts. I was all the way up the marksman rifle & general ranged trees.

Holy **edit**, what a difference. The stats don't really tell much, but the pistol is sooooooo much better. The power of the rifle just isn't there like it should be.The melee damage reduction is so huge. My defense must have gone up about 500% or so. I can stay in a fight for minutes now, instead of 30 seconds. The speed bonuses are nice too. I can get off about 3 or 4 shots before most mobs detect me. By that time they are almost 2/3 down, in any HAM level. This is way better than the 2 mind shots the rifle gave me.

Kinda crappy that rifles suck so bad. Like some of the posters stated, it was nice to mind shot with some noisemakers and spurs, but **edit**, I'll take good ol' ass whooping power over any of that. That combo becomes useless later on. Perhaps in a better world the balance would be better. Rifles would have some better special attacks early on, and their power would be as significant as the pistol's melee dam defense.

If you have a pet/droid that does health/action dam, you have no choice. Dump that rifle, trust me.