Asking the experts (you)… what to do?

**Shayel**

I just tried the abilities hack and put all my point in focus, I am level 15 so I have focus 25 now.

I did so as I wanted since the beginning to be an SMG, dual wielding expert... if you see my avatar you will understand.

For levelling purpose I used MA till now but I respect as a Gunman using SMGs, however I find I am much less effective in solo missions, and let's face it, is pretty much all I do.

The questions are few so I will number them and if you do reply, please refer to the appropriate one so that I understand exactly what are you on about... I am new to this game and I still do not know the lingo and the status quos.

1. Many seem to prefer MA and other Ranged, however, can you tell me in your opinion why one is better than the other? I understand it all comes down to gaming preferences but so that I get a clearer picture.

2. When I do shoot, the mob gets close and forces me to Close Combat, that makes me think Ranged combat is somehow penalised as a MA can rush in to Melee while a Ranged character is forced himself but he/she is not as good.

3. I often notice that in Ranged, people leave combat and I need to give the order to fire again while in melee when initiated, generally speaking the stay interlocked and fighting till the end. Is that normal? Should I do something different?

4. How to I manage to stay at range all the time to use my range weapon?

5. For MA and Ranged I understand, the key stats are Belief and Focus and Perception and Focus. How would I distribute the points? I mean, shall I max one up first and than the other or evenly distribute them? If I max one out, which one shall it be?

6. There are 4 fighting stands: Power, Defence, Block and Speed; is a specific style of Ranged and MA more appropriate for each stand or they are all good and situational?

7. If I go SMG, is there anything I should bare in mind as far as that specific style? I got the impression SMG is more like a supporting role, less damage to many opponent, suppression fire, etc. Does that mean that SMG solo sucks?

8. Are there any objective pros and cons in each MA style and Ranged weapon? If I want to chose the most effective, which one would it be and why?

9. On a non combat note, at level 15 I have 45 memory slots, which makes me believe that I get one each level and at level 50 I should have 80. Is that about right?

10. I noticed that if I want to have higher tier abilities I need to sacrifice some of the Awakened ones like the Hyper Dodge and the temporary boost ones as well as the concentration and detection one. Is that a good call or shall I stick to less upper tier and use the boosts?

Thank you for your help in advance... SMILEY

**nephillim**

Alright! Smart going guns. You'll love them when you learn how to use them right. For interlock, almost everyone uses the Duelist tree. In fact, almost every tree that a person uses gunman wise will have some gunslinger or duelist moves in there. SMG specialist...hmm...it's good.. but it's not something you ever use alone. It has little moves that really help boost your capabilities in interlock and out but it's not strong enough to fare on its own, which is funny because of how devistating a SMG specialist with some Duelist mixed in is. Perosnally i'd advise using Duelist for missioning and builsing off of that since it's a strong tree with tons of interlock moves and to me, it seems like as a new player you'll be spending alot of time there. The rifle trees are all out of interlock and boast some nice state inflicting abilities. Think of it like this: Duelist = interlock, Rifles = Ranged, SMG's = both. The thing about SMG's is that later on the moves like Full Auto and Full Auto Redux are obscenely powerful. Some people will equip SMG's in the free fire bar for the increased rate of fire (2.5 seconds compared to 3 or 4), for the status effect. They'll interlock, use Full Auto Redux, and finish off the person with a couple of Duelist moves. Now, the speed, power, grab, block moves are all situational. You use which one in freefire that inflict the status effct that you want to set up a special ability, and you use them depending on what your opponent is using. They have natural bonuses as well. Y'know, speed is a lil more accurate, power inflicts alot more damage ( good to be on power for if you want that special to damage more), grab is what you want to be in when you're breaking down an evade sheild, and block is what you want to be in for detecting people in sneak, defending against an attempt to break your evade sheild, keeping people from escaping interlock , regenerating Inner Strength, and taking less damage. Also, if someone is using a speed tactic, they'll be more susceptible to a grab attack, the same goes goes for speed and power, and again with grab and power. You'll have 100 memory when you hit lv 50 because on certain lvs you get 3 slots, etc. Some people prefer using the hyper abilities in a fight, some don't....hmm...what else....oh! Your final stats for guns should proabbly end up with focus at 30, perception at 30, vitality with w/e is left. You can mix this up a little bit if you want a resistance to another class but if you're going for that stat set you should lv focus, perception, and vitality until vitality is at a suitable lv...i don't know..14 for your lv, then dump all the rest in focus/perception until they're topped off. When you get to the point when you can't fill them up anymore, go back to vitality and top it off. It's late here so sorry if I missed any questions or repeated myself. I hope I was some help. I'm out of game for a bit but when I return in about a week or so, i'd be happy to give you a few in game pointers.

**zeroone506**

Ok, I'm not a combat expert but I'll try my best.

First, let me correct a few of your expressions, to avoid any future misunderstandings:
The two forms of combat are Ranged and Interlock.
The different styles, or actually damage or ability types are Melee (like MA or Self Defense), Ballistic (guns), Viral and Thrown (spy). I'm not this terribly sure of the latter one, but the other three are generally used both in Ranged and Interlock.
Thus, the differentiation between MA/Melee and Ranged can lead to confusion, since MA can be used in Ranged and guns in Interlock.

Now some of your points:

1. Many seem to prefer MA and other Ranged, however, can you tell me in your opinion why one is better than the other? I understand it all comes down to gaming preferences but so that I get a clearer picture.
I'm not sure about all the details in PvP combat, but against NPCs I don't think it really matters this much, since they're generally a bit weak and very stupid. You should be able to run medium or even hard missions with both professions -- just don't forget levelling your abilities or getting new guns when you level up.
What I can say with certainty is that gun interlock has lots of animation bugs, while MA has as good as none (except when opposed to guns). If you're out for aesthetics, MA is your choice.

2. When I do shoot, the mob gets close and forces me to Close Combat, that makes me think Ranged combat is somehow penalised as a MA can rush in to Melee while a Ranged character is forced himself but he/she is not as good.
In my superficial experience, you can take away enough health from your enemy in Ranged before he manages to break your shield and interlock you, so you have some of an advantage in Interlock.
Using the Speed tactic in Ranged is certainly helpful to maintain your shield a bit longer.

As of Ranged MA, NPCs don't use them, and players need to stand very close to you to use them against you.

3. I often notice that in Ranged, people leave combat and I need to give the order to fire again while in melee when initiated, generally speaking the stay interlocked and fighting till the end. Is that normal? Should I do something different?
If you're talking about NPCs, in my experience the armed NPCs roll out more frequently than unarmed ones. Now that I'm talking about it, I actually can't really remember any MAs or Lupines/Blood Drunks/whatsoever rolling out...
But people refer to the rolling out as a bug, so I guess it's not supposed to be this way at all.

4. How to I manage to stay at range all the time to use my range weapon?
Use the Speed tactic.

5. For MA and Ranged I understand, the key stats are Belief and Focus and Perception and Focus. How would I distribute the points? I mean, shall I max one up first and than the other or evenly distribute them? If I max one out, which one shall it be?

6. There are 4 fighting stands: Power, Defence, Block and Speed; is a specific style of Ranged and MA more appropriate for each stand or they are all good and situational?
Well, Speed has an accuracy bonus, Power is more damage and Grab stronger Defense.
The same goes for the MA styles: Kung Fu is more accurate, Karate does more damage and Aikido has more defense. (As far as I know, something like also exists for Gunmen, but you'd have to check out the style or weapon details because I don't really know that.)

Also, each of the three offensive tactics causes a combat state (Dazed, Staggered, Off-Balance) on your opponent, which enables you to use certain abilities on them. Before CR 2.0, Kung Fu was based on Speed, Karate on Power and Aikido on Grab (like the bonuses now do). Now, Kung Fu is based on all three, Karate on Power and Speed and Aikido still on Grab.
Again, don't know how it is with guns.

8. Are there any objective pros and cons in each MA style and Ranged weapon? If I want to chose the most effective, which one would it be and why?
Well, this coincides a bit with number 6, thus view number 6. SMILEY

9. On a non combat note, at level 15 I have 45 memory slots, which makes me believe that I get one each level and at level 50 I should have 80. Is that about right?
As my predecessor said, it's 100.

10. I noticed that if I want to have higher tier abilities I need to sacrifice some of the Awakened ones like the Hyper Dodge and the temporary boost ones as well as the concentration and detection one. Is that a good call or shall I stick to less upper tier and use the boosts?
All I can say is that I don't use the Awakened abilities but the higher level ones, and am happy with this. But since I haven't tried it the other way round... scrap it.

Basically, you'd need more info to maintain all the Awakened abilities on your level, while the in higher tier abilities, you only need to upgrade those initiating the classes. That's if you're yet to decide which ones to buy or to use, anyway.

I hope I could help in some way.

**Shayel**

Thank you both... I have a much clearer idea now. SMILEY

**zeroone506**

By the way, sorry for the confusing way of my response. I did use a different colour for my parts, but somehow the forum crashed when I submitted it, and as I submitted (or pasted) my saved text a bit later, the colours got lost.
Hope it wasn't too tricky to decrypt SMILEY

**Vallant**

I'm no expert but let's see...

Shayel wrote:

I just tried the abilities hack and put all my point in focus, I am level 15 so I have focus 25 now.

I did so as I wanted since the beginning to be an SMG, dual wielding expert... if you see my avatar you will understand.

For levelling purpose I used MA till now but I respect as a Gunman using SMGs, however I find I am much less effective in solo missions, and let's face it, is pretty much all I do.

The questions are few so I will number them and if you do reply, please refer to the appropriate one so that I understand exactly what are you on about... I am new to this game and I still do not know the lingo and the status quos.

1. Many seem to prefer MA and other Ranged, however, can you tell me in your opinion why one is better than the other? I understand it all comes down to gaming preferences but so that I get a clearer picture.

MA seems to do a lot more damage than ranged in IL but as a gunner you get the advantage of shooting outside of it from a decent way out and generally deciding when to initiate IL although not always.
2. When I do shoot, the mob gets close and forces me to Close Combat, that makes me think Ranged combat is somehow penalised as a MA can rush in to Melee while a Ranged character is forced himself but he/she is not as good.
Shield up, hindering shot, keep on the move. That's if you're on your own, teaming would probably be easier with bodies blocking the way to you.

3. I often notice that in Ranged, people leave combat and I need to give the order to fire again while in melee when initiated, generally speaking the stay interlocked and fighting till the end. Is that normal? Should I do something different?
Can't say.

4. How to I manage to stay at range all the time to use my range weapon?

Keep on the move and load a shield, it's not always that vital though.
5. For MA and Ranged I understand, the key stats are Belief and Focus and Perception and Focus. How would I distribute the points? I mean, shall I max one up first and than the other or evenly distribute them? If I max one out, which one shall it be?
I usually go both Focus/Perception, leveling them by 5-10 each. Focus is my main one because you get accuracy, resistance to guns while upping your melee defence and damage early on (Self defence vs gun in Interlock early on usually has the higher rolls and damage for the melee side of things, which is my reasoning at least until 10 when you get the handgun IL stance)

6. There are 4 fighting stands: Power, Defence, Block and Speed; is a specific style of Ranged and MA more appropriate for each stand or they are all good and situational?
All useful, I use power with Rifles and Grab/speed with handguns. Since Rifles usually have a bonus to accuracy it's not so much of a hit on the power tactic and handguns stances usually gives good defence so anything works. SMGS I'd use speed more than usual with the accuracy penalty, but compensate for the def loss.

7. If I go SMG, is there anything I should bare in mind as far as that specific style? I got the impression SMG is more like a supporting role, less damage to many opponent, suppression fire, etc. Does that mean that SMG solo sucks?
Eh I see SMG as a middle ground of rifles and guns. Everything's workable solo with the gunner trees from what I've seen. SMGS seem to be a more of a bit of everything tree lets you fall back on IL and out of it with some ease.

8. Are there any objective pros and cons in each MA style and Ranged weapon? If I want to chose the most effective, which one would it be and why?
I personally run both Handguns and Rifles, rifle fighting outside of IL and handgunning inside of it depending on the situation at least from 10 onwards I can leave behind the shield (if i wanted to) and not worry so much about Interlock since I have the gunner style keeping things ticking over.

9. On a non combat note, at level 15 I have 45 memory slots, which makes me believe that I get one each level and at level 50 I should have 80. Is that about right?

100.
10. I noticed that if I want to have higher tier abilities I need to sacrifice some of the Awakened ones like the Hyper Dodge and the temporary boost ones as well as the concentration and detection one. Is that a good call or shall I stick to less upper tier and use the boosts?

Hmm, I drop Headbutt/cheap shot, load up on concentration, hyper jump and hyper-dodge that'll cover it until the memory specs up a gunner soloing won't have too much problems against other gunners and you can usually pick which battles to Interlock from ten on anyway.
Thank you for your help in advance... " />

**Presence**

Necro. The OP doesn't play anymore.