I think the closest thing is going with one of the two hand weapons with the block property, that's the only thing I see that can help boost your AC.
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Diversity of action. Different effects in each hand. Possibly ranged side arm and melee in the other. Haven't looked too much but maybe cost savings?
Some maneuvers like grapple need a free hand.
Been talking with a friend about doing a small arm in one hand, taclash in the other with opening volley and improved disarm. Gives a pretty good opener in certain scenarios.
But yes, in general if you're going melee, two-handed is going to be the better option in a lot of cases.
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Smoke grenade. Yes grenades are terrible weapons for the price but a level 1 smoke grenade provides concealment, is a fairly cheap item to use after a little while, and you can pick up blindfight easily as a soldier. I think the miss chance will save you from more hits than anything else will. And after you toss or drop it you can use the hand for a shield upgrade or two handed weapon.
Another reason to use the smoke grenade is the cover it provides against laser weapons. Honestly I think this is some really good advice as 40 cr is pretty chump change when recharging a battery is 30 cr.
Not to mention that if you take Bombard as a secondary fighting style, you can have a free smoke grenade for every fight that you're in.
Blindfight only helps melee members of the party though is the problem though.
In a 4 person party, theres a strong chance that only one person will have any use from Blindfight, otherwise everyone will have difficulty with the smoke grenade.
Unless everyone in party buys X-Ray Visors.
Blindfight only helps melee members of the party though is the problem though.
In a 4 person party, theres a strong chance that only one person will have any use from Blindfight, otherwise everyone will have difficulty with the smoke grenade.
Unless everyone in party buys X-Ray Visors.
Convince everyone else in your party to be a phrenic adept. They can then use their emotion-based blindsense to target the people who are feeling bewildered and annoyed at the cloud of smoke suddenly appearing.
By the time you could take the bombard as a secondary fighting style 40cr isn't very much. I don't think it would be a compelling reason to pick bombard over another style unless it was what you wanted already. Especially since you're grenade isn't ever going to be great.
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Tactical Knife with the Entangling and Shock (or Flaming or Frost) fusions and take the Deflect Projectiles feat.
Alternately, a LFD Pulse Gauntlet (already B & So; although it requires batteries) with the Entangling and Spellthrower fusions (magic missile, reflecting armor, supercharge weapon, and wisp ally may be useful Spell Gems to load) can also work with the Deflect Projectiles feat against both kinetic and energy ranged attacks.
An even better choice (once you can afford it), is a Sintered Starknife with the Called (or Returning), Shock, and Spellthrower fusions (as a level 8 weapon, can use Spell Gems with 2nd-level spells; mirror image, of course) to use for ranged attacks, as well as for Deflect Projectiles.
Never use a one-handed weapon as a melee-focused character (who isn't an Operative, of course) unless that weapon is a Blue Star Plasma Sword (since it's better than the highest level two-handed plasma melee weapon).
As a backup weapon, though? Yeah, I suppose a one-handed weapon could be serviceable for that, considering you could swift action change grip to hold your (obviously two-handed) gun with one hand and move action draw your Dueling Sword or Longsword.
Granted you're still more than likely better off braining the bad guys with the biggest 2her you can find, but diversity in playstyle keeps things fresh.
Yeah, with the lack of buffing, debuffing, and battlefield control options, Resolve limits, very limited usefulness of HP healing, and the fact that enemies have a very good chance of hitting you (discouraging tank builds, if such a thing is even possible yet), Starfinder kind of seems to encourage DPR Olympics. I think they're trying to focus on battlefield positioning and cover, but I'm not sure how well that will work.
Healing HP in combat was already considered pretty limited in its helpfulness (though obviously not useless), and Starfinder has Stamina. Starfinder gives you more Stamina than HP (with no way to increase your maximum HP aside from leveling up) and Stamina is always lost first. A healing-focused Mystic is going to be either moderately bored or very overtaxed.
Don't get me wrong, though: I do appreciate trying to encourage teamwork. I think that's a very good intention and they could expand on it to make this a very teamwork-oriented game if they included more mutual benefits for doing so.
Well, I think you've proven your argument invalid since you clearly haven't read what you're trying to counter OR my post in the other thread you're referencing.
I never said that healing was useless nor that you never need to heal. In fact, I actually pointed out that the healer would be very overtaxed if they had to keep healing during combat.
I also never complained that casters get other class features. Ever. And I specifically pointed out in that thread that I was not complaining about not having pure casters in Starfinder. Multiple times.
I have a melee blitz soldier who started with the assault hammer and a returning starknife. I wield both during combat. Hammer for melee, returning starknife for range. Later levels I will stick with Longswords (and it's variations) and returning starknives. I will get better damage with 2 handed melee weapons, but I designed him off of Space Marine assault troopers from Warhammer 40k, so one handed weapons fit the idea better.
Tarik, those usually are "hero" units. I most likely will use some 2-handed weapons down the road. But heck, my character is only 2nd lvl and doesn't even have jump jets yet. So, plans may change. Lol
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I suggest a small person that your opponent likes.