Hmm, I could at least see some idea in using Aim stim when playing SS/MM, just for that bit extra crit.

Well, it affects Ambush and Explosive Probe in the other specs, and while I haven't dummytested it, I've yet to notice Ambush and Explosive Probe not critting when using Laze in combat.

But isn't Pulse a 1 GCD move, and GCD being 1.5 seconds, the same as the activation time on Snipe?

Looks good That would make Flashbang really good, the question is just the price. What about: Standard Flashbang: Mezzes one target, gives -20% acc to enemies within X meters of the target Skillful Utility Flash Powder: Accuracy debuff increased to -45% acc (or a bit less since you can move out of Diversion AoE?) Heroic Utility, replaces Crippling Diversion: Flashbang mezzes up to X targets in a radius of Y meters. With this Flashbang becomes a really good skill, but not without a cost. Hmm, that is a good point :/ What about my suggestion in this post, where the AoE Mezz is something you can choose rather than something mandatory to the skill?

Hmm, I think I know what you mean with it, but there's still some issues between "You get 5 charges for entering cover" and how charges are replenished every 8 seconds. What about: Revamped Skillful Utility Ballistic Dampers (GS) / Ballistic Dampers (S) : Passive You gain a stack of Ballistic Dampers every X (8?) seconds, stacking up to Y(5?) times. When in cover, each charge absorbs 25% of the damage dealt by an incoming attack. This effect cannot occur more than once each second. Something like "Entrench/Hunker/something-else adds Z (e.g. 3) charges of Ballistic Dampers" would be a nice addition too to go along with this change. Ah ok. I wouldn't be against moving the -45% acc to a different skill, but I'm having a hard time seeing which skill could gain this boost and still be as useful as Diversion currently is. The only trade I can think of that I'd like would be to remove Diversion and -45%acc and instead make Flashbang AoE blind again (and then we have the -20% acc from Utility if you want).

What part of my suggestion requires the player to enter and then exit cover? If that's your goal then your suggestion seems really odd to me: Your suggestion very much suggest moving out of cover and then back in as that will give you 5 charges, especially when the alternative is to wait 10-15 seconds (which is a lot in an Arena IMO). Your thread is about Survivability issues and you want to remove a skill that gives your opponents -45% accuracy? If they remove the Cover part of the skill (so we aren't "forced" to use it on other Snipers) it's IMO a really powerful DCD, and even a DCD we can use to help our allies if they're being attacked.

I think "force sniper in and out of cover" is exaggerating. Rather, it leaves the Sniper with a choice of playing it safe and slowly gain charges or take the chance for a quick extra set of charges. Either way, I still think gaining charges at any rate while in cover will be a boost to what we have now.

I like the idea of Ballstic Dampeners (and Snap Shot too? :P ) renewing itself without having to exit+reenter cover. I'd suggest you "only" get 2-3 charges when entering cover and then charges build as you stay in cover with a cap of 5-8, e.g. 1 charge added every 2-4 seconds.

Removing the "cover part" and letting the rest of Diversion be as it is now would be perfectly fine with me.

The problem here is that it's all down to one ability + team communication. It's a matter of timing Diversion with your teammates so you can watch them nuke their Sniper while the opponents are nuking you after you got hit by their Diversion. Having a Sniper on both teams is basically reducing the 4v4 fight to a 3v3, the Sniper players' skills apart from using Diversion are pretty much irrelevant as you'll be nuked (if the other team is any good that is) out before you get to use other skills.

I just think that utility would become pretty much mandatory and surely we have enough of those already? The only spot I can see for it is if it becomes a Skillful utility (and a Skillful is then moved to Virulence), but it seems way too strong to become a Skillful.

Apart from Hybrids I really don't see what we're "missing so much" from skill trees and their "choices". Most of the "choices" were superior to the others and created "cookie cutter builds". Some of the 'choices' were stance specific, meaning you'd have no gain at all from picking them as your main tree required a different stance. Some of the choices are still available through Utility, and new choices were added as Utility. The rest were things like +x% accuracy and +x% mainstat/endurace which are largely meaningless.

All of this builds on one huge assumption: That hybrids would have survived in 3.0 skill trees. Through the Dev streams I saw lately it seems pretty clear that Bioware didn't want hybrids, and I think it's safe to assume Bioware would have implemented something to kill hybrids even if they'd kept Skill trees.

Are you talking about the Anodyne stims? Those don't seem to require Biochem, at least not the purple Skill/Resolve ones.

Well, given their , I don't see how they'd be able to join us, at least not Lana.

Agreed. Altered OP a bit to reflect this Ah yeah, that'd be nice too

Yeah it is, but Mara/Sents used to have a talent for increasing offhand damage significantly. Mercs and GS never had that.

After the 12x period I've ended up with quite a few alts, and I'd guess the same goes for many others. Therefore I propose adding more columns to the character select screen (perhaps as an Option in User Interface?) so more than 8 characters can be shown at a time. I'd also like to see additional options for sorting, e.g. sorting after name, to supplement the current latest-logged-in sorting of characters. Obviously this is not critical changes, but QoL stuff I'd like to see in the future.

I can't talk for that_Spartan_IV, but capes clipping through mounts bothers me quite a bit. I practically never use capes partly because of this issue (many armors with capes also make very odd glitches in 'cinematics'), or I use mounts like the STAP so capes won't clip. As for the amount of troubling animations bugs I know they exist, but I don't see that as an argument for introducing more of them. Lastly you have the issue of size. The smaller your make the crossguards the less visible they will be, and IMO the main reason to use crossguards like that is intimidation. Of course the movie might reveal additional functionality, but atm I don't see what you get from lightsaber crossguards that you wouldn't get from metal crossguards like Malgus' saber. So far it mainly reminds me of Eowyn vs the Witchking in the Return of the King film, where he uses a massive flail and you can see how it intimidates Eowyn.

Actually, we do:

I think the main issue with a crossguard lightsaber in game would be animations. Especially Jedi Knights Master Strike animation would probably render moments where the crossguard is carving up the ribs of the Jedi Knight. Sorc/Sages Trash/Double Strike could also end up being more fatal for the attacker than the target.

They're rare now, but given 3.0 Mercs have been given quite a few extra instant attacks (Priming Shot is instant + makes next Tracer instant) it might change. I think Sorcs got a few as well. Then there's also the combination of Ballistic Dampeners, as they run on the same 6 second cooldown IIRC. Haha

It depends on the situation, e.g. situations where your opponent moves in LoS, hits you with an instant attack and moves out of LoS before you can really hit him back (e.g. an Arsenal Merc). Even there DoTs are higher priority of course, but SoS and Cull IMO falls short in those situations since you often won't get to finish much of the channel before your target is out of LoS again. Instant Lethal Shot can be useful there. With that said, Lethal Shot is probably the lowest priority in Virulence "rotation". It wouldn't surprise me if that happened. Hopefully leveling + gearing up will take enough time for the Devs to figure out what needs to be done before we're too far into S4.

Again, it depends on the situation. Obviously you don't do a exit+reenter if there's a bunch of melees ready to jump you. I've also seen you play on Twitch, and there's plenty of times where you could easily drop out of cover + reenter without any risk. Rolls also proc Snap Shot, and I know you use that a lot as well Of what I can see so far, survivability has gone down quite a lot. Diversion and the -75% inc damage from Evasion+Cover are useful, but over a full fight they don't really make up for what was lost.

What's your point? You think they nerfed Dodge in order to boost Snipe?