Scout Archive

Please give me some helpful information here. Im getting so fusterated with this class. What am I doing wrong??! Currently, im about to get Advanced Rifle, my weapon of choice is a Tusken 83-142 rifle and only a few pieces of bone armor. (sucks i know, but I dont have a lot of cash) Im hunting outside of my noobie city. I take aim on a enemy. /aim /headshot /pleasehitdamntarget... I start firing, miss miss miss miss miss you hit for 200 miss miss miss miss (and yes im in Prone). Meanwhile, the target runs up to me and Kun Foos me for 700 damage and Im dead before I can get off a 3rd round of fire. I mean COME ON! Scouts are suppost to be the most self sufficient in this game, yet im almost always dead after each mob I go after and there is a LOT of downtime healing. What am I doing wrong? Why does my accuracy SUCK. Please help me out here. THanks.

Perhaps your problem is you are not at your ideal range (60 mts)....

First off, make sure that you are not prone when the mob gets to you. If you are, they will do insane damage.

Second, you need to switch to a pistol if the mob closes to melee range because rifles give you a huge penalty at point blank range.

Third, Bone armor is actually hurting you when you are fighting mobs. It adds no protection to physical damage (only blasters and the like), and takes away from your HAM pools. You'd be better off unequiping your armor unless you know you are going to be fighting something that shoots weapons at you.

Finally, it will take a while to get good with the rifle. I think that the slow speed of rifles makes the learning curve on them a little steep because often if you miss a couple times (which you do a lot at the early levels) you are in big trouble without a pistol. You may want to try using a pistol til you have trained it up a couple notches, then you can pull it out if the mob closes in on ya with the rifle.

Sounds like you should be asking 'Why do rifles suck'? Other than modest creature to hit bonuses (and some ranged debuffs with traps), the scout line has nothing to do with ranged accuracy. Sounds like that's where you're having a problem, and not with the scout profession.

That being said, rifles are a bit rough to bring up through the ranks, but it is doable. I'd try posting on the marksman or rifleman board and see what suggestions they have to improve your survivability.

Joedash

I think Bone Armor actually does help against physical attacks. The tradeoff isn't worth it, though.

Stop using one of those jacked up looted Tusken's, if that's what you're using, they're immensely slow. My advice would be to pick up a pistol for a while, so you can defend yourself at close range. The reason they're pummeling you is that rifle users automatically take double-damage from melee attacks. You're probably better off unequipping it and punching the mobs at that point.

THanks for the replys guys. I will check into these things.

All of the above suggestions are right on.

If you going into a fight:

1) Use the right weapon, in the right posture, and at the right distance

1a) Add your weapons into your toolbar for quick switching

2) You're a scout, make some traps and use them!

Traps work hand in hand with the weapon you are using. For example, a Bone Spur trap when used saps a targets mind pool dramtically. Add a few head shot from a rifle and you have one dead mob. Other effect traps have are snare (slows target down so you can use rifle/carbine longer), poison, make more vunerable to range attacks etc...

Also, make sure that your ranged weapon of choice complements your melee weapon of choice. That is, if your ranged weapon is designed to do Mind damage (M on the HAM bars) make sure your melee weapon is designed to do Mind damage (Two handed weapons).

And if you're just starting out, don't pick targets that are beyond your abilities. Stick with white and blue, venture into yellow after awhile but stay away from red until you are confident.

And here is the thing I've found the most useful: Arrange your toolbars so that you can easily access all of your combat techniques and assets easily. I have mine arranged so that I just work my way from left to right (F1 to F12) when hunting.

F1 goes prone, F2 selects rifle, F3 selects Headshot1, F4 selects Headshot2, F5 stand up, F6 selects 2 handed weapon, F7 performs 2handed lunge, F8 performs Headhit1, F9 - F11 throw traps and if all else fails F12 is set to BurstRun.

The secondary toolbar, accessed with the shift key, is set up for ancillary attacks. Warningshot and aim under the rifle section, etc.

It's very easy to fight when you're organized and can quickly and easily access what you need when you need it. It took me 2 weeks of learning the hard way to appreciate this.

Jmatt.

Thank you you just answered a half a dozen questions running around in my head.

ILIADo Novice Scout, Tyrena, Corellia

Guys,

All of this is great - everything I would have said. With the exception of one thing: Bone Armor.

Bone armor is nearly USELESS for a low level scout. Bone only works against blasters, not melee. How many gnorts you seen carrying blasters? For the encumbrance it does, it's not worth it. If you are primarily a scout, don't bother. If you are primarily PvPing, or hunting NPCs, go for it.

The best low level Scout armor is Mabari. Get a set of this before you blow the 5-6k on bone.

I had a set of Chitin, but I don't think it did much. My padded armor is extremely useful now, but you've got to be able to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous (like me - thanks Jaxes!) to be able to afford it. My sliced set ran 40k.

For low level players, don't bother with armor at all until you can get a set of Mabari. It's just a waste of dough. Use that on more important things, like tipping the hot Twi'lek in the Cantina.

B

Well, you've got me there, Mabari is the best I've used so far, and currently use. Chitin was preposterous. I was just saying Bone because I think it does have a small defense against kinetic (maybe I"m thinking of Mabari, then). Guess I'm wrong. I would just suggest you have something on you when the gnort gets to your position and starts nibbling.

Yah, mabari. Unfortunately, the legs are TERRIBLE looking and make my butt look fat, somethin' that I've gotta avoid at all cost. Look for the kinetic effectiveness on any set of mabari to make sure it's good, as that's what most critters are attackin' you with.

Oh, and lower encumberance (health action mind) is nice.

Be sure to use phecnacine dart or adhesive mesh traps to immobilize the critter first, then let it have it with a glow-juice for range debuff. Then smack it with your rifle (only it helps to stand back and actually, yaknow, pull the trigger ) fora bit.

Yarha Lostsoul, Master Scout

Another useful hotkey is one I set up for a "main menu", so that I can set up 3-4 different weapon oriented panels, with corresponding special attacks and skills laid out. I can go to the main menu bar, which might have some not so important skills on it, and hit a button to equip my weapon of choice and equip/unequip armor based on the role it plays in combat. The "main menu" button is on each pane, so I can go back and change quickly to another weapon without sacrificing certain special abilities buttons (they start to add up). Another useful pane to set up is an armor pane that has your full or partial suit of armor in the hotkeys, and a macro that will rip them on or off with the press of a button. I can wait till the last second before a bignasty reaches me to suit up, so I don't lose the regen rates and pools until I absolutely have to. When a mob is on top of you, armor is recommended. This can take a while to setup, and you have to be meticulous how you use the macros(I'm thinking I'd be better off making a text file for all this because I've lost my entire toolbar configuration three times now when I was disconnected) but the rewards are significant. What he said.