Rifleman AP class still hopeless

[waldov]

Its PR 1.1.6.0 now and lots of things have changed, one thing that hasn't is how utterly useless the Rifleman AP kit is. The only exception would be for insurgents defending caches because that's its only purposeful use, as far as fast moving, hard hitting conventional factions are concerned its totally worthless. I wouldn't be bashing on the kit if i hadn't tried myself and i sure did, wasting hours to get just a handful of kills. As a kit and as a game the rifleman AP kit and PR don't mix, while admittedly PR is a far slower game then Bf2 (which is a good thing) the maps are many times bigger, there isn't 5 meter choke points anywhere and it encourages teamwork not sitting by yourself waiting for a hapless wanderer to walk in front of your claymore.

The real bummer about all of this is that the kit could actually be useful as well, whether it be capable of planting victim detonated mines (as would be justified in any hypothetical world war) or carrying AP/ Anti bunker rockets, but as it is at the moment the rifleman AP kit really is just worthless kit for conventional factions. Obviously outright removing it wouldn't serve any actual purpose but I really think its a kit that should be something purposeful but isn't. Whats the rest of the community's take on it?

[Pronck]

It is useful in defensive positions, but even then it's most of the time useless.

[Finrar]

Ap kit can be prety usefull in defending. The fact you can place 10 of them per colour and it will kill people 40m away is prety nice. You just need to be smart where you place them and when to blow them up. Claymores can be used offensively aswell, like clearing some cavecaches if its straight enough you can kill quite many defenders with that . You can even ambush trans/logis in some maps quite well if you know where to place them.

The unconventional factions mortaried in ap kit is prety nice, since you can effect on larger area with 1 ied. You can use it for fobhunting aswell since it will instacollapse the fob. The thing with mortaried in ap kits i would like to see is to give it 2colour triggers like the old artyied/claymores.

[Careless]

There are good spots, many of them, it's just a matter of how you work with it.

Most people (99%) still want fast gameplay in PR. They bunch up like retards and just rush flags. Makes use of that.

Even on maps like Khami, Black Gold or especially Kashan it's easy to get kills from it, just patience. (it's even easier than smaller maps because they have more places where more retards bunch up, whilst on maps like Gaza or Ramiel they tend to split up and use smaller alleys, therefor their path in unpredictable)


If people don't know how to use it, it doesn't mean the kit is useless.

"Me and some other people feel insecure working with the SMAW, therefor the HAT kit should be removed"

[waldov]

There are good spots, many of them, it's just a matter of how you work with it.

Most people (99%) still want fast gameplay in PR. They bunch up like retards and just rush flags. Makes use of that.

Even on maps like Khami, Black Gold or especially Kashan it's easy to get kills from it, just patience. (it's even easier than smaller maps because they have more places where more retards bunch up, whilst on maps like Gaza or Ramiel they tend to split up and use smaller alleys, therefor their path in unpredictable)


If people don't know how to use it, it doesn't mean the kit is useless.

"Me and some other people feel insecure working with the SMAW, therefor the HAT kit should be removed"

I know there are a few situations in PR where the AP kit is useful (and by few i mean very few) and as i mentioned before i think its a worthwhile kit as far as unconventional factions are concerned. The difference is that whether you know how to use the HAT kit or not, it still gets used well in most games by somebody, the same cant be said for the rifleman AP kit. In all my years of PR i actually honestly think ive never been killed by a claymore let alone kill many people with it myself.

Hypothetically the AP class is useful for defensive purposes but hypothetically is as far as it goes, with the exception of cache defense the rifleman AP kit is extremely limited as an integral part of a squads defense. I really think the kit would be best equipped with AP mines such as the bouncing betty and such that way you can still be an effective part of your squad and have a useful defensive function at the same time.

[Mongolian_dude]

It's been a while since I got some purposeful gameplay out of an AP Rifleman kit, so my facts are probably outdated.

I think something that would make the AP rifleman infinitely more appealing would be an ability to simply pick up the claymores you've placed by pressing G, like a breacher and his rope. It at least means that the AP rifleman doesn't any longer become a liability once he has placed his claymores and the Squad needs to move on.

I can't remember if he has any, but a good amount of trip flares would make him useful, even when not necessarily coupled with Claymores. I imagine 6-8 would do nicely, as any fewer are just not enough to properly cover a meaningful area of forests or fields.

Other than this, the kit needs a 2, maybe even 3 frag grenades.

[IINoddyII]

Just loving these motivational thread titles...

My useless input into a useless thread

[Rymosrac]

It's easy to hate on the Rifleman AP, but I honestly get really good use out of him. All you lose from a regular rifleman is the ammo bags, and if we're honest, those don't get a ton of use unless you've got a heavy weapon in your squad.

One of my first games in .8something, I killed three logi trucks with two claymores on muttrah.

[Pvt.LHeureux]

Like Mongol said, I think the kit needs a couple more frag grenades, some claymore that you place and kill by proximity direction (like in BF2) instead of remotely detonated and that can be picked up. That, plus a bunch of tripflares.

[ComradeHX]

Probably need to give this class more claymores.

Or just remove claymores/mon-50 and add LAT's rocket launcher but with Thermobaric(or just anti personnel) warhead.

I can see claymores having some uses in smaller maps with chokepoints/buildings that can be meaningfully defended; but in open maps(which conventional faction aas tends to be on) it's quite useless to sit on one claymore unless you can create a perimeter full of it(even then detonating all of it at once probably won't kill many people).
Also, they are ALL green...can't people put down yellow claymore in more sand-covered maps?

Thermobaric warhead-equipped launcher, on the other hand, would be so much more useful for clearing out enemy infantry in cover(in lieu of a tank's HE round) from a safer distance(unlike grenade). OR just shoot light vehicles so squad's LAT guy can save LAT for APC...etc.

Best option is probably to keep claymore with ironsight/no magnification sight kit and give scoped kit the launcher with thermobaric warhead. One for more open maps/longer range engagement, one for smaller maps/building defense...etc.

[Truism]

As I've always said, I just want the claymores to have their real life properties and the class would be useful as fuck.

[LAWolves]

What would be it's real life properties?

[Frontliner]

The biggest downside to using the AP Rifleman is the lack of grenades. Even when defending, most of the time it's more useful to throw grenades at other players(being mobile, adopting to the situation) than to sit and blindfire the claymores. I would love to see the kit get an upgrade of some sorts, grenades would certainly be nice, but something along the lines of a shotgun(perhaps standard with grenades/alternative with shotgun) would be a reasonable addition in the context of the class.

[tankninja1]

Be nice if the rifleman AP kit had a wrench or something to pickup deployed claymores. Also range of claymores seems a bit low.

[Truism]

What would be it's real life properties?

People wildly underestimate the destructive power of a lot of weapons. Claymores are one of them. Remember, this was a weapon intended to allow a Western infantry company to repel Soviet human waves of virtually limitless size. Claymores are a truly terrifying weapon that are weaksauce in PR presumably because of fear of what unleashing a mine that puts people black and white out to 100m would do to the poor pubbies clustered in their 8 man hug box squads that use no formations or real tactics to ensure dispersion. Giving an individual something so powerful is probably seen as anti-teamwork.

When you let off a claymore you see the terrain in front of it pockmarked out to easily over 100m with puffs of dust from shrapnel impact, with very good density even at great distance. It's awe inspiring. It's one of those things that you literally look at and say "I'm totally not OK with assaulting a position defended with them through their EA dismounted under almost any circumstances." In PR I don't think about Claymores - they don't scare me, they don't concern me, they're not even a consideration, and they really should be.

[Truism]

Simple maths shows how terrifying this weapon is. It fires 700 .22lr sized projectiles at a velocity of about 1200m/s in a 60 degree cone with a height of 2m for the spread. That means at 50m each 1m square will be hit by approx 7 projectiles and at 100m each meter square contains about 3-4 projectiles.

This weapon is just utterly uncool to be in front of.

[ComradeHX]

People wildly underestimate the destructive power of a lot of weapons. Claymores are one of them. Remember, this was a weapon intended to allow a Western infantry company to repel Soviet human waves of virtually limitless size. Claymores are a truly terrifying weapon that are weaksauce in PR presumably because of fear of what unleashing a mine that puts people black and white out to 100m would do to the poor pubbies clustered in their 8 man hug box squads that use no formations or real tactics to ensure dispersion. Giving an individual something so powerful is probably seen as anti-teamwork.

When you let off a claymore you see the terrain in front of it pockmarked out to easily over 100m with puffs of dust from shrapnel impact, with very good density even at great distance. It's awe inspiring. It's one of those things that you literally look at and say "I'm totally not OK with assaulting a position defended with them through their EA dismounted under almost any circumstances." In PR I don't think about Claymores - they don't scare me, they don't concern me, they're not even a consideration, and they really should be.

So moderately effective means critically injured(black and white) to you?

[Mahis]

Awesome kit, just learn how to use it. For some reason my squad has been defending alot lately and i've been using that kit. Just hide the claymore outside the entrance, faceing in. 1st detonate will kill most of the sq, 2nd will kill them when they try to revive = easy 6-8 kills. I dont think that kit actually needs any improvements.

If that was selfdetonated, it would be way too OP.

[Truism]

So moderately effective means critically injured(black and white) to you?

NATO measures of effectiveness are against prone, armoured targets with heavy winter clothing in light foliage. A standing man in a field wouldn't be in fighting shape.

Incidentally, even with those criteria a claymore is supposed to effect a 10% incapacity rate at 100m.

[ComradeHX]

NATO measures of effectiveness are against prone, armoured targets with heavy winter clothing in light foliage. A standing man in a field wouldn't be in fighting shape.

Incidentally, even with those criteria a claymore is supposed to effect a 10% incapacity rate at 100m.

At 100m it was 10% hit rate...
30% at 50m...

If you wanted a sure kill(which is what PR can actually model); it would have less range in-game.