This is my Gun: A deep look at Rifleman

[CURSE OF ROCK]

Hello. I'm Zinc, aka Lightningbullet in game. I want to talk about game balance. Specifically, Rifleman. There are a Stunning amount of carbineers and pistoleers on the side of Marksman, but hardly any riflemen. I began to wonder why, and most importantly, what might be done to bring it more in line with other professions.

Thus began my Grand Survey. Join me as we break out the biggest guns we got and figure out what it can, can't, and probably most importantly should do if it needs to be done.

- Posted 1/27/2016, Updated 1/27/2016 -

Posted in Profession Discussion as it contains any criticisms I have of the profession as a whole.

What's a Rifleman?

Let's cover the basics so were clear here.
Rifleman is an elite profession who, shockingly enough, uses rifles to deal crazy damage at long range. It only requires Rifles 4 from the Marksman tree and a few thousand rifle experience to begin your training as a long range dealer of death. It's main damage pool is Mind, the only ranged class that can deal mind damage with it's abilities.

Rifles excel at Extreme ranges, thus are best suited to dealing with anything that tries to shoot back. They lose a significant amount of accuracy at medium range (which, irritatingly, most ranged NPCs will move to the edge of) and have an attrocious accuracy at close range. They are the slowest ranged weapons of the game at time of update but can deal the most damage shot-per-shot. With a wide variety of rifles available from your local weaponsmith, you can choose a rifle that has the best combination of firing speed and damage to suit your playstyle. More on them later.

They have a variety of skills to use in combat as well, which makes up somewhat for their lack of firing speed. However, these skills take a lot out of the rifleman so be sure to equip Light or No armor and get in the back behind your buddies or plan your battles carefully when solo.

TEAL DEAR, WHAT PROS AND CONS?
Pros:
Highest accuracy at maximum range
Highest damage on a per-shot-basis of ranged weapons
Multiple skills
Wide variety of available rifles provides choice with Damage/Speed ratio.
Cons:
Slowest firing speed
Average Medium Range accuracy
Terrible Short Range Accuracy
Special attacks take quite a bit out of HAM.

This is my rifle

There are a number of rifles available in the game at time of posting. On a scale from Most Damage to Fastest Firing

T-21 Rifle (Referred to as The Cannon personally)
Tusken Cycler
Jawa Stun Rifle
DC-15 Rifle
Laser Rifle/E-11 Rifle (E-11 deals less damage and has same speed as Laser)

There are a few philosophies to use when picking a rifle, based on if you're soloing or in a group, doing DPS or supporting the group if applicable. Some prefer faster firing to put out more shots and make up for accuracy loss. Some prefer highest damage to make the best use of landed shots. Your choice of rifle is all up to the ever-present and nebulous "Player Preference".

Skills to kills

Rifleman has a number of skills available to them.

Head Shot (Rifles 4): Head shot can be considered the same as Double Tapping. Using a bit of Mind and Action, you take another shot, delaying your next auto attack. This shot deals damage to the Mind Pool if used in PvP. With a high damage rifle, this can be used to drop a targets mind with a massive spike of burst damage if your auto-attack follows through. This is on a 4 second cool down with an 8 action/8 mind cost. A significant amount.

Mind Shot (Sniping 1): This is similar to head shot, only instead of taking an extra shot you deal a shot that has a DoT effect (Scaling from your weapons damage) that last for around 10-15 seconds. The DoT affects the Mind Pool. Combined with Head Shot can be used to drop a low level target instantly with an auto attack thrown in if it is able to land. Usage of this skill is dependent upon first salvo landing/usage of Head Shot. This is on a 10 second cool down with a 4 health/6 action/6 mind cost.

Aimed Shot (Rifle Abilites 1): This is an ability that fires at 100 percent accuracy at any usable range, including point blank at the cost of only doing 75 percent the damage of normal. With the introduction of NPC HAM, This is your bread and butter. It costs Half as much as Head Shot (4 Action/4 Mind) with reliability being it's main feature on a 5 second cooldown. With a good t21, this turns into a free 40-60 damage to a random pool, guaranteed. With faster firing rifles it only adds to their fire rate.

Flushing Shot (Counter-Sniping 1): To clarify the description, This is an AoE. It fires one round at every target around whatever target you have in a rapid sweep. It doesn't deal as much damage, but can easily be great added AoE damage if enough targets are present. It costs 5 health/5 action/8 Mind and is on a 15 second cooldown.

Aim (Sniping 2): For 5 seconds, you get a 25 percent multiplicative accuracy bonus. This applies to all ranges and allows you to obtain over 100 percent accuracy at long range or usable accuracy from short range. It is on a 45 second cool down and has NO cost. Use it when it's up!

Startle Shot (Counter-Sniping 2): This ability will stun a Player character, disabling their abilities for a few seconds. It has no effect on NPCs other than being another attack. It costs 5 health/5 action/8 Mind and is on a 25 second cooldown.

Sniper Shot (Sniping 4): Deals a TON of damage to a health pool that is below 25 percent and is 100 percent accurate. If you have a target that won't go down or a boss that's low on HAM snipe them. I frequently say in chat “253 snipe” or something along them lines. That is how much damage a Sniper Shot with a great t21 can do. It is usable on hives/camps/turrets. It costs 8 HAM and is on a 20 second cooldown.

TEAL DEAR WHAT ABILITES DO?!:
Rifleman has two abilites that target mind, an AoE, a stun (PVP only status), a no cost accuracy buff, can fire once every 5 seconds at 100 percent accuracy (for reduced damage on said shot), and can deal extreme amounts of damage if a target is below 25 percent in a HAM pool (“253 snipe”).

Playing a rifleman

Playing a rifleman successfully requires a good amount of AI manipulation, positioning, picking your battles, and just flat out never fighting critters alone. When taking on a mission solo (without an HK), you'll want to setup on the highest point you can to maximize accuracy and reduce the chances of the swoopers closing range and punching you. I also can't stress this enough: Don't fight critters as a rifleman. It's not fun. Your accuracy tanks immediately and they don't care. If you must, get an HK and have it tank for you so you can get a good accuracy score.

State of the game for Rifleman

Rifleman is perceived as being underpowered despite being able to put out massive damage numbers. When I started this, I could agree with that. Their weapons are slow and their accuracy at closer ranges were garbage. Things dramatically change once you get Aimed Shot though. Suddenly you get something that rifleman desperately needs. Consistency outside of their best range. The big issue with playing a rifle is being able to keep your accuracy at a consistently high percentage so your slow shots can make an impact. Once kitted out with skills, rifleman becomes a solid nuker in a group environment. It is not a good solo class like Carbineer and Pistoleer are. With good positioning and a buddy to keep you safe however, rifleman suddenly becomes a frightening thing.

So the question becomes: Is rifleman underpowered? After mastering it and toying with it, the case changes. Rifleman isn't underpowered. It's situational. Which isn't a bad thing. The problems lie in being outside of the comfort zone. If a rifleman sets up and can stay in that comfort zone, things die really hard. If a rifleman is not in that comfort zone, things become incredibly difficult. Mitigation in the form of Aimed Shots and Aim makes it bearable but you'd rather just have the dumb thing in your comfort zone so you can kill the hell out of it.

One issue that comes into group play as well is the Mind pool being useless to target with high health targets. When hunting krayt dragons for example, it's better to focus on Aimed Shots and using Startle shot to increase your fire rate. The reason being that the other two pools are more likely targets by your team mates and your auto attacks. That's completely fine. Just something to keep in mind while playing.

So? Where does rifleman stand? I would say Rifleman is pretty solid, when in their comfort zone. If they're at mid range it depends on how experienced they are. Leveling it is a chore however due to this setup. If you take the path, be prepared to think through your encounters and you will be rewarded for your efforts.

Making it better

Rifleman being a niche class is alright. However, if we were to improve it how would we? There are some elements of rifleman that were present in SWG that are not implemented in the game at this time. Concealment/Cover and Blocking. The concealment branch not only added Blocking stat to the rifleman, it added skill and abilities to allow the rifleman to take a few shots without the enemy taking notice. Granted, you had to successfully take cover and do so at LONG range. If they did get closer, the rifleman had block so they were safer while fighting. Concealment might be an issue since NPCs are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and don't care about your defense.

Another thing present in SWG were additional levels of the same abilities. Like Mind Shot 2 or Head Shot 3. They were the same skill, they just cost more and did more damage. There is one other set of abilities that were available to ALL novice marksmen. Point Blank Single and Point Blank Area. You could use these skills at close range with NO accuracy penalty. The catch? Could only use them at point blank and they only really did as much damage as an auto-attack (Because you used those skills instead of auto-attacking). If nothing else was to be considered to add, I would add those two as they would benefit every class but rifleman would especially want it.

Honestly, it's kinda hard to balance. Rifleman has high numbers on it's side. Too much and those numbers become ridiculous. Too little and rifleman becomes useless. In it's current state however it is very usable, if a bit encumbering to have to run so far out of range at times.