1. Are they easy to use? The only difficulty is watching for procs. It's about as hard as any other class really. 2. Are they fun in PVP (for most people)? Depends on what part you find fun. The AoE damage is incredibly satisfying, but I often miss the ridiculous burst damage my Sniper can put out. 3. Do they have a lot of utility? Depends on the spec. They generally have more offensive utility then most classes though and have the ability to throw out heals when the situation demands it. Sorcs are Huttball kings with Extrication. 4. Does everyone assume they are healers? No. I might get asked if I am, but no. 5. Does all the lightning get old? All classes have repetitive animations. The Sorc does have a lot of lightning themed ones, but the Sniper has a lot of laser shot themed ones. So really it doesn't bother me. Lightning is quite satisfying initially though. Heck it still remains that way with Recklessness.

A mix of Surge and Alacrity is optimal. You will have a lot more Surge then Alacrity, however. The reason being is Surge tends to be so terrible after a certain point that even Alacrity becomes better. Since you can only really choose between Alacrity, Accuracy, and Surge you are just picking whatever is the least terrible at this point. I don't know the exact amounts offhand especially since it's variable with gear, but more then 1 Alacrity Rating is most likely optimal in full Tier 1.3 sets. Obviously with iLvL 56 Power / Surge mods replacing most of the Power / Alacrity mods, but not all of them. I personally cap out at 297 Surge and 153 Alacrity with a full Battlemaster Set. You can plug your own things into the Sorc SimCraft program and generate your own results or you can try to do some of your own math. Alacrity is a terrible stat to strive for yes, but as long you cast Force Lightning it will improve your DPS.

Most PvE mobs have 8% Defensive Chance, in which case 108% mitigates that. Players typically have a base of either 5% or 10% Defensive chance so it also fits decently well with that. Having 113% Accuracy means you mitigate up to 13% Defensive Chance. This will work against Tanks in PvP that have that much. However it's ineffective against all other classes and these Tanks often have cooldowns that can increase their Defensive Chance by more then 50%. What it boils down to is in most cases having more then 108% Accuracy in PvE is a waste and having more then 110% (can be debated) in PvP is a waste. In your case dropping down to 108% (PvE) would give you the same results.

If it was purely a single target question then 31 points in Madness would be quite comparable in terms of damage. However the PvP utility and enhanced AoE damage that is a part of your single target rotation is what makes a Hybrid Spec more useful in the eyes of many.

It can certainly happen, that's true. However the context of the statement had to do with Operatives and Mercenaries in comparison. They have a much smaller pool of reserves in this case then we do and would even negatively affect their regeneration mechanic by dipping into those reserves without their Vent Heat or Adrenaline Probe cooldowns.

As long as you enjoy it, it's worth it.

It's a rough estimation based on numbers thrown about on SithWarrior.com. Generally, you should want a Power Relic anyway and just gather 200-300 Surge baseline. If you want more exacting information, Tibbel has a wonderful thread on SithWarrior.com.

Changing our "cover-only" buffs such as Ballistic Dampeners, Ballistic Shield, Entrench, and Snap Shot to not be dispelled when leaving cover would be a great idea as well. These buffs wouldn't be "active" when out of cover and as such their effects would not be in effect, but this would allow you to leave cover and reenter cover to regain their effects as long as their duration was still intact. This would give us a little more flexibility with the Cover Mechanic in general.

Exactly my opinion. I think people are opening up the front page and seeing a massive list and thinking that the Sniper community wants all these changes done ASAP. Which at least for me, I certainly would never ask for. I don't even agree with some of the "problems". Personally and from what I can tell the Sniper community itself only wants a few small fixes and doesn't believe we need to be stronger in the conventional sense. Most of my suggestions were aimed at polishing the class in conjunction with a similar polishing of every other class in the game.

Thank you for doing this for us Daellia.

In the end it's quite opinion based. I've talked about it among others and they think our 31 pt talents are overpowered, which to me is absolutely ridiculous. Perhaps my viewpoint as a Sorc and Sniper skews this, because the Hybrid builds for the two classes have some great options. I have heard similar conversations on vent about other classes though. I still think this game needs a good chunk of polish though and that goes for every class including Snipers.

It's energy damage and mitigated by armor.

Champion Bags have around a 5% chance to get a Token. It's not something you count on. Battlemaster Bags still have a 25% chance to get a Token.

I'm sure there already has been.

To be fair, this a similar problem among most classes. The game lacks a lot of polish, but that's to be expected in any new MMORPG.

You 'might' want 2% Accuracy for PvP if you fight a whole metric ton of Assassins, Operatives, Shadows, and Scoundrels that pickup their 2% defense talent. Probably still not even close to worth it though. It's best just to ignore Accuracy and focus on some direct DPS upgrades that apply to all situations.

I'm curious, are people searching for a way to overall buff the class or are they searching for small fixes?

If you have over 100 Surge then you should have a Power Relic and Power Adrenal. If you have less then 100 Surge then it's possible you could use a Crit / Surge Relic, but honestly you should just get Surge Enhancements as quick as possible and fix your Surge deficiency.

Mercs have much more practical AoE, more AoE abilities, and effectively do more AoE damage then Snipers. However that is only one small piece of the puzzle. Mercs and Snipers have many other advantages and disadvantages over each other. Also since this is a Sniper thread I don't see why we are arguing about a thread comparing Mercs and Snipers from a Sniper perspective. Would you rather post it in the junk heap that is the Classes base forum and get trolled for hours? Cut out the drama, we can discuss things here there pertain to our class.

I'm still of the opinion that a well-geared Sniper and experienced Sniper is a force to be reckoned with. Just like it is with any other class. Snipers in the conventional sense are just as good as every other class when played to their strengths. The only issue I find that Snipers have (and thus the reason I don't main one anymore) is their weaknesses are much more severe then the weaknesses other classes have. Running low on energy is crippling, getting dispelled as a Lethality neuters your damage output, defense chance cooldowns completely counter Marksman, and Root effects completely counter Cover. In comparison, my Sorc can be interrupted, but to be honest I can juke interrupts and I still have a lot of things to cast while interrupted. A Sniper can avoid a lot of the above situations as well, but if they fail to it's just punishing compared to making a mistake on my Sorc. I'm of the opinion the Sniper does not need major changes. It needs only a few tweaks right now to make the weaknesses not as damaging to the player. In my changes thread I've detailed a lot of suggestions and possible problems we have, but I'd honestly only ask these all be even considered if every other class was getting a similar overhaul. Snipers don't need to be any stronger - I'd never ask their damage be increased in their currently optimal situations. They just need to be a little less weak when they are in their sub-optimal situations.

I took Talos personally as a Wrath + Chain Lightning + Lightning Effusion spec. I never ran out of force, and I never got low on health either. It's also quite safe in case I pulled an extra group or two. Andronikos would certainly do more damage and would allow more elaborate kiting. It's a debate in whether killing the creatures faster would compare with the reduced downtime and safety of a healer companion.

I'll wait for Daellia to give you a much more detailed explanation because I lack the ability to explain as clearly as Daellia. However, most of what you just wrote is simply untrue. Sorcerers have a sustainable rotation and heal just as much if not more then Operatives and Mercenaries. Each one has advantages and disadvantages in certain situations, but for the most part they are pretty close in healing ability after the fix goes through.

I'll admit I made assumptions and I likely didn't need to post. What did you intend on relaying to everyone here with that post though? I actually do not understand what that post was about if wasn't intended to have self-serving qualities. Sorry for coming out hostile, I really didn't need to be. I just grow tired of similar posts all over the forums in which the intent behind them is extremely unclear and appear to be only self-serving.

A Marksman Sniper would burst harder in a 3 globals then a Mercenary as long as they aren't using a Defense Chance cooldown. A Lethality Sniper would burst harder then a Mercenary over 5 globals in general on almost all targets. A Mercenary's advantage is they actually have better sustained damage due to a much lower cost on their "Heat" with Tracer Missile compared to us using our abilities as even a Marksman Sniper, but are also very vulnerable to interrupts. Also when multiple Mercenaries hit the same target their damage is amplified by leaps and bounds.

I agree, but that doesn't mean you can't learn to use it in it's current form. BioWare didn't make a mistake here, this was a completely intentional thing. They have other abilities that do the same thing but also block % Force and Tech attacks as well. It's unlikely to change, so instead of complaining about it being worthless you should learn to use it properly instead. It's not hard to do a little research into what every other class can do and their typical ability use patterns. Knowing the enemy in this game gives you way more of an edge then most people realize anyway. You will improve your play by leaps and bounds just by realizing how each other class works in addition to being able to block some of their more heavy hits.