Well, I just don't want people to think there's some magical rating where we should stop stacking certain stats. Otherwise we have this pseudo-knowledge being adopted widely, including into guides like the Noxxic one, making silly claims that surge rating drops off above 300 or crit rating drops off above 400. And then we end up with people thinking there are somehow softcaps on these stats, when in reality each one is just a smooth curve with no discontinuities at all. Surge starts droping off above 0 rating, and crit does too. There is a point where power overtakes crit, and it's probably in the 300-ish range, but whether that's at 250 or 350 or somewhere in between we can't be sure unless we consider those other factors.

A common mindset when it comes to managing energy is: "Use energy-cost abilities unless they would take me below 60% energy." One thing you might try is to flip that over, just as a way to practice. Try instead: "Use Rifle Shot unless I will be capped on energy. In practice, you will find youself doing a sort of hybrid of the two: "Use my important abilities on cooldown unless they would drop me below 60% energy, and then use Rifle Shot in between unless it will cap my energy." As an engineering sniper, I would classify "important" abilities as: Explosive Probe Series of Shots Plasma Probe Interrogation Probe Orbital Strike EMP Discharge (with IP active) You can add things like Ambush, CD, and LT Snipe to the list as you find yourself with more energy to spend.

Right, but my point is that alacrity doesn't increase our APM noticeably unless we play sub-optimally. Alacrity's biggest contribution is when we use OS, and I doubt anyone will argue that OS benefits more from Deadly Directive than from Explosive Engineering. My calculations were done without the PvP set bonus. If we add that, it jumps up over 15%. We're talking single-target steady-state DPS (i.e. just like against a dummy). Obviously, none of the operation encounters provide this opportunity for the entirety of the fight, but during each fight we strive to position ourselves such that we spend as much time in this "ideal" state as possible, so it makes sense to use that as a baseline. If we want to consider situations in which we can't use OS or CD, we should also consider the situations in which we can't use SoS or Ambush or when it's actually optimal to use OS or CD. (One example is preparing for when Operator IX's damage immunity is about to fall off -- by prepping an EP, OS, and/or CD, we can actually pre-load some damage and energy expenditure.) Yes, and the Sniper/Gunslinger Spreadsheet takes this all into account -- set bonuses, ability usage, stats, buffs, cooldowns, number of targets, etc -- and each time I try something, it shows cunning as significantly stronger than aim, point-for-point. If you think the existing math is incorrect, I'd love to see yours. Right, agreed. I don't think that we should count to 24 and then use CD throughout the fight. What I mean is that on average, we will be using CD once per 24 seconds of fight length. There will be times when we go 40+ seconds without using it, and other times when we want to dump energy so fast that CD will still be ticking on the target when we want to use it again and so we'll use EP instead. Yes, the assumption is that in the group is at least one arsenal mercenary (i.e. gunnery commando) or juggernaut (guardian), who typically keep the armor debuff applied at maximum strength as part of their regular rotation. If keeping the debuff active is our responsibility, then we'll have to account for 10 less energy every 45s. By the way -- thanks for this substantive discussion. It's good to have a solid exchange of ideas like this once in a while.

Yeah, I admit 20% was a bit high. I was just throwing out an estimate, which is why I wanted to go through and come up with a more realistic number. It's true that abilities with activation times don't respect the 1.5s GCD, but that still doesn't necessarily help us gain any APM, mainly due to the importance of Followthrough and its 6-second cooldown. During a common sequence: 1.5s [FT] + 2.88 [soS] + 1.44 [Ambush or Snipe] = 5.82s or with SV active: 1.5s [FT] + 2.58s [soS] + 1.29s [Ambush or Snipe] = 5.37s There's no time to do anything else during that fraction of a second before FT comes off CD. We could delay the next FT, but that almost always results in a loss of net DPS. Rifle Shot does so little damage compared to all our other abilities that it's just not worth it. This is why alacrity is worth so little for MM snipers. It just doesn't help us very much compared to surge or accuracy.

Over the course of a 6-minute fight, we have 2534 energy to spend, assuming we stay above 60% the whole time: 360 seconds of regen, assuming we spend 60s out of cover: +2100 energy 3× Adrenaline Probe: +150 energy 8× Sniper Volley: +240 energy 110 starting energy × 40% top energy bracket: +44 energy If we use FT, SoS, Ambush, OS, and TD as often as we can, we'll use: FT every 6 seconds = 60× 6 energy SoS 4 times every 51 seconds (with SV) = 29× 20 energy Ambush every 18 seconds (otherwise it interferes with FT) = 20× 15 energy Takedown every 15s for the last 108s of the fight = 9× 15 energy OS every 45s = 8× 30 energy Snipe for every FT minus the number of Ambushes and Takedowns = 31× 20 energy This costs a total of 2235 energy, leaving us with 299 more to spend. That's about enough to use CD or EP 15 times over those 6 minutes, or once every 24 seconds. If we use Snipe in those situations instead, we're doing less damage than we could be. Throw in 36 Rifle Shots to fill up the remaining 54 seconds, and we have a total of 208 ability uses, 23 of which are OS or CD. In my gear, OS hits for 2500 per tick and CD hits for 515 per tick (on average, including crits). With the above ability breakdown and without the 2-pc PvP bonus, I'll get 24 OS ticks and 75 CD ticks, for a total of 98625 damage over 360 seconds, or 274 DPS. Even if I did 2000 total DPS (I don't, at least against a single target), that'd be 14% of my damage coming from tech attacks. Now, taking into account that there are times when we must move and don't have the option to use SoS or Ambush (which is more likely to be due than OS), we'll substitute in CD or EP to still contribute damage without capping on energy. In addition, the vast majority of our AoE DPS comes from OS and Frag Grenade, which are also both tech attacks. I encourage anyone who's interested in their personal results to use the spreadsheet linked in my signature. It has the functionality to go through and see how much DPS would be gained by independently adding +1 in each of the stats and comparing the results. In every realistic simulation I've seen, aim has been at least 25% weaker than cunning overall.

If you're using aim, you're doing less damage than you could be if you used cunning instead. As a well-played MM Sniper/SS Gunslinger, we will have about 20% of our damage come from tech attacks which gain absolutely no benefit from aim: Orbital Strike/XS Freighter Flyby Corrosive Dart/Vital Shot Explosive Probe/Sabotage Charge Each of these abilities deal more damage than Snipe/Charged Burst, and when they will do their full damage, should be prioritized over Snipe/Charged Burst whenever we don't need it for Followthrough/Trick Shot. Together with the fact that aim is not boosted by Gearhead/Streetwise as cunning is, that means cunning beats aim for all attainable gear levels. It's true that the crit chance gained from cunning suffers from diminishing returns (at 2500 cunning we've dropped from 0.0081% per point to 0.0041%); however, compared to the bonus damage we also get from cunning, the crit chance is relatively small -- small enough that its DR doesn't outweigh the benefits we get to cunning and not to aim. If you'd like to see the math on this, it's available at the link in my signature below.

Isn't worth what? I assume you don't mean that it's not worth the time. (That's a valid argument for pretty much any case except min-maxing discussions. ) If we're talking about the trade-off of surge vs accuracy, then it's not a simple answer -- it depends on a long list of factors, not unlike the list below. Four if you count critical rating, cunning, aim, and flat bonuses (such as from skills, buffs, and base crit chance). There are more factors that also influence critical rating's relative value against other stats: Our current crit rating (because of diminishing returns on crit chance from crit rating) Our current crit chance (because crit chance scales additively with itself, but multiplicatively with everything else) Our current crit damage multiplier (because crit damage makes crit chance more appealing) How much "ranged bonus damage" we have (because stronger base damage means crit damage is multiplied by more) How much "tech bonus damage" we have (same reason as bonus ranged damage) How much we use ranged attacks vs tech attacks (because crit chance from aim only affects ranged attacks, and because our base damage is different between the two) Our target's shield chance (because a crit guarantees an attack won't be shielded) Our target's absorption (because it affects how much we care whether an attack is shielded or not) What bonuses to any of these things we have from skills, set bonuses, procs, triggered effects, etc, weighed according to how much each of those sources contributes to our total damage. We could make similar lists for each of the other stats, and calculating it all is another job entirely. That's why there's a spreadsheet.

The argument that "faster activation times equals faster energy usage and therefore should be avoided" is misguided. It should be reworded as: "Faster activation times equals the intermittent possibility of faster energy usage and therefore can be detrimental if misused." That said, here are some considerations about the specific skills you mentioned: Snap Shot -- This skill gives us the opportunity to maintain our MM rotations while re-positioning. Dropping into cover for a split-second to fire off an instant Snipe will then allow the use of Followthrough, all while running to a new spot. The cooldown on Snap Shot's effect lines up perfectly with FT's 6-second cooldown, so it even seems that it's designed to do this for us. Regarding energy, Snipe's cost is simply applied at the beginning of the 1.5-second GCD instead of at the end of its 1.5-second activation time. If that timing difference causes problems, then avoiding that situation is part of the challenge of playing the MM spec -- either conserve more energy before you get to that point, or stay in cover so Snap Shot doesn't trigger (or decide that dipping below 60% energy is worth it at that moment). Reactive Shot -- There's very little drawback to this skill, too. With 2 points invested and a modest 30% crit, we have greater than 80% chance of having an extra second that we don't have to spend activating Ambush (assuming we used 1 SoS and 1 Snipe in the last 10s). Since FT's cooldown is 6 seconds, we have 4.5 seconds between FT's GCDs to Make sure we stay above 60% energy, Use energy so we don't cap at 100%, and Use a Snipe, Ambush, or Takedown so that FT will be usable when it comes back off cooldown. If Ambush takes 2.5s to activate, that leaves 2s left to manage our energy -- that's enough to use just one other ability. (We could use two, but then we'd be delaying the next FT by 1 second, which is a bad idea in most cases.) However, if Reactive Shot is in effect, then Ambush takes only 1.5s to activate, and we end up with 3s for energy management -- that's enough for two abilities without delaying the next FT. Rapid Fire -- I'm not sure what the argument is against this skill. Series of Shots and Ambush are a couple of our most energy-efficient abilities, so having the opportunity to use them more often is certainly not going to cause us to use energy less efficiently. Alacrity -- In general, alacrity isn't a very strong stat for sniper sustained DPS, but that's not because it causes less efficient energy usage -- it's mainly because it doesn't provide more efficient energy usage as all other DPS stats do. (For example, adding power means each of our abilities hit harder, meaning we get more damage from the same amount of energy, i.e. higher DPE.) Alacrity does allow more damage in the same amount of time; however, we still have to wait the same amount of time before we get that energy back. Furthermore, alacrity doesn't affect all of our abilities. Followthrough, Takedown, Rifle Shot, Corrosive Dart, and Explosive Probe all take the same 1.5s no matter how much alacrity we have. Hopefully that helps. Check out the Marksmanship Sniper Compendium linked in my signature for more detailed information.

To those arguing against the inclusion of mouse-over healing because it "makes the game easier": Why should we want the challenge of healing to be in navigating the UI? In my opinion, the challenge of healing should be: Who should I heal? When should I heal them? Which heal should I use? Should I be doing something other than healing right now? Once those decisions are made, the game's interface should facilitate as smooth a translation from your intent to your character's action as possible. As an analogy, the challenge of writing shouldn't be in how you put the ink on the paper, it should be in the words you choose and how you arrange them. (And using a typewriter doesn't take all the challenge out of writing a good book.)

Where did you see this? I haven't seen this claim anywhere before.

Why thank you, my fellow long-range laser launcher. These are fair points. If the total uses of OS (or the number of times its 4th tick will hit) is reduced in a fight, the value of the 2pc PvP set bonus is reduced proportionally. Similarly, if Takedown is usable over more than 30% of the fight, the value of the 4pc PvE set bonus will increase proportionally -- of course, if that time includes periods where we will likely cap on energy (such as running between platforms, being incapacitated for a short duration, etc), then the value of saving energy is diminished. You're right that it's important to consider for each boss. In my opinion, the 2pc PvP bonus is more often more beneficial than the 4pc PvE, in general. Yeah, pretty much. Unless you're a finely-tuned DPS machine, your execution and RNG luck are likely to make a bigger difference than which set bonus you use.

Try looking through the sniper threads at MMO-Mechanics.com/swtor/forums -- there's even the Sniper/Gunslinger Spreadsheet that you can use to find precisely what amount of crit (and other stats) are optimal for you specifically. Unfortunately, the Noxxic guide, like most sniper guides I've seen, simply restates unsubstantiated common "knowledge", and is somewhere between incorrect and too simplistic on a handful of topics. Perhaps I can help by starting with this: There is no crit soft cap, and therefore there's no particular point to which we should look to stack crit and then stop. Most stats do suffer from diminishing returns, so there are points where some stats eclipse others in DPS value -- but that's not the same as a soft cap, and the crossover points are going to change based on your other stats, ability usage, etc. Check out the links in my signature for more detailed information.

I had quite a bit of trouble following your methodology, but I do understand it now, I think. One thing I don't understand is why you think it makes sense to consider the full cost of Takedown, but then only consider the marginal damage of OS. In any case, the damage of Takedown doesn't matter; as a MM sniper, we're going to use it every 12 seconds whether it costs full energy or not. What really matters is what we get to do with the extra 7 energy that we save every 12 seconds (and whether that damage can outpace the extra ~2500 damage we get from an extra OS tick every 45s). In my previous post, I assumed that we're already keeping the following abilities on cooldown: Followthrough Takedown Series of Shots Ambush Orbital Strike So abilities of which we might gain more uses are: Corrosive Dart Explosive Probe Snipe Rifle Shot The best option on the list, in terms of both DPE and DPCT, is Corrosive Dart -- and saving the 7 energy every 12 seconds means we get to use (7/20ths)/12s more Corrosive Darts per second during that execute range, in competition with 1/45s more Orbital Strike ticks per second throughout the whole fight. This doesn't take into account the damage of Rifle Shots that we're replacing by shooting more Corrosive Darts -- so in actuality, it comes out even more in favor of the PvP bonus. If we do take that into account (and assume Rifle Shot hits for 640 average damage), then the 4pc PvE nets 17.0 DPS over a 520s fight, and the 2pc PvP nets 55.6 DPS (using my previous damage numbers).

Oh, but it is. PvP ("Battlemaster") 2-piece In a 31/7/3 spec, with 858 tech bonus damage, Orbital Strike hits for ~2500 per tick. Getting an extra tick every 45 seconds is equivalent to {2500 damage / 45 seconds} = 55.6 DPS. PvE ("Rakata") 4-piece Reducing Takedown's energy cost by 7 means we can afford an extra 7/20ths of a Corrosive Dart every 12 seconds. In the same spec, with the same amount of tech bonus damage, full Corrosive Dart DoT deals ~2580 over its duration. {2580 Damage * 7/20ths / 12 seconds} = 72.3 DPS. This DPS boost only applies for 30% of the fight, though, so 72.3 DPS * 30% = 22.6 DPS. Still looks pretty clear cut, at least for MM. The only time the PvE 4-piece looks appealing is when the sub-30% phase is twice as important as the rest of the fight. In that case, we'd give up -33 DPS over the whole fight in exchange for +17 DPS in the final burn phase. (Also keep in mind that an extra Orbital Strike tick can be more easily concentrated to be stacked with adrenals/relics, whereas an extra Corrosive Dart every ~35 seconds is a bit more spread out -- so if burst DPS in the last phase is really important, the OS benefit might still be the best choice.)

It's as if different players are having different luck playing different specs!

You can see an example one in the SimulationCraft results, under the Action Priority List. (SimulationCraft runs thousands of times, so it only displays one example sequence.) Here's the one for the MM profile at simulationcraft.org: 0 - stim,type=exotech_skill 1 - coordination 2 - snapshot_stats 3 - take_cover,if=buff.take_cover.down 4 - use_relics 5 - power_potion 6 - adrenaline_probe,if=energy.deficit>=44&buff.sniper_volley.down 7 - target_acquired,if=energy.deficit>=10 8 - sniper_volley,if=buff.adrenaline_probe.down 9 - laze_target A - orbital_strike,if=(buff.adrenaline_probe.up|cooldown.adrenaline_probe.remains<2)&energy.deficit>=energy.regen*2*1.5 B - followthrough,if=buff.followthrough.up&energy>=72&energy.deficit>=energy.regen*1.5-6 C - wait,if=cooldown.followthrough.remains<0.9&buff.followthrough.remains>=0.9,sec=cooldown.followthrough.remains D - ambush,if=buff.reactive_shot.up&energy>=81-energy.regen*1.5 E - snipe,if=buff.snap_shot.up&energy>=86&cooldown.followthrough.remains<=4.5 F - ambush,if=energy>=81-energy.regen*2.5 G - snipe,if=energy>=86-energy.regen*1.5&cooldown.followthrough.remains<=1.5&buff.followthrough.remains<=1.5 H - orbital_strike,if=energy>=96-energy.regen*2 I - series_of_shots,if=energy>=86&cooldown.followthrough.remains>=3 J - takedown,if=energy>=81 K - corrosive_dart,if=energy>=86&!dot.corrosive_dart.ticking L - explosive_probe,if=energy>=86 M - rifle_shot,if=energy.deficit>energy.regen*1.5+buff.adrenaline_probe.up*8 N - snipe Sample Sequence 0389E75CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCFBHMGBMIDBMKMGBIDBMLMGBM8IDBKNHBM9IDBMKMGBI DBMLGBMI68DBIKGBHMFBIGBMKG79BDMLBMIGB8DMKCBINCBHDBMKMGBMIFBLMGBMI985DBI KGBMNDBHMGBMMFBIGBKMGBD8MLBIKGBMD79MBIGABDMJ6CCCCCGBIGBDMJ8BIKGBLDMBIGB MJDBM9HGCCCCCCCCBMIDBJ8MGCBIKFBJLGCCCCCBMIDBJMMGBHFBM795I8 ('C' is a wait until FT comes off cooldown in certain situations. All the repeated 'C's are when it goes through and sees that it needs to keep waiting.) By the way, I've stated several times that nothing should be regarded as absolute -- so I'm not sure how you can interpret that I'm saying anything different. Tone is not something that's very well communicated through text, so any tone you're reading from my post is likely based on your own interpretation. (Sorry. I have tried to add emoticons when I think it helps.)

I'm afraid you were the one who claimed to have the log showing flawless execution. I'm just asking to see it. If its results are different from the results of the simulations, don't we want to know why? Edit: This is the kind of comparison I'd like to do to see where the differences lie.

And I'll repeat my question (): where is this combat log so we can see how flawless the execution actually was?

Here's where I think my point is being misunderstood. The simulations are not the observed evidence. They are predictions based on observed evidence. For example, we know that Followthrough's average damage formula is avgDmg = [ (weaponMin + weaponMax)/2 * 1.600 + rangedBonusDamage * 2.390 + 384.79 ] * (rangedCrit * critBonus) * (1 - targetArmor). We know its base chance to hit is 100%, that it can be dodged by targets with defense, and also that this dodge chance can be reduced by accuracy. We know it costs 6 energy and takes 1.5 seconds. We know its cooldown is 6s (with the appropriate skill) and that the Followthrough effect must be active to use FT. We know how energy is regenerated over time and based on skills and abilities like AP, SV, and Sniper's Nest. We know that over any duration of time, the total energy expenditure minus the total energy regenerated must equal the difference in starting and ending energy. We know these kinds of mechanics and details for all of the sniper abilities. We have gathered evidence to verify that knowledge. We created these simulation tools, and then verified in small observable chunks that they are accurately representing the known information. Now what SimulationCraft says is, "Knowing all this about the rules of combat in SWTOR, what if we put these actions together in a way that nobody has done before? We cannot look at the log for this because it has not been done. It's almost impossible that anyone ever will. But it is technically possible. What if?" I disagree with this -- simulations are precisely intended to stand in for observable evidence. But it's important to understand exactly what it is that the simulation is replacing. Simulations are to give expectations for what would happen in situations where it's not feasible to replicate the desired circumstances. Their express purpose is to serve as replacement for thousands of perfectly repeated combat logs using precisely the same spec, stats, target, action sequence, and timing as reported in the sim results. The ideal, stand-still SimulationCraft results are not supposed to be replacement for anything other than an ideal, stand-still fight performed with perfect execution. There are options in the SimulationCraft capabilities to add in imperfections -- things like human error, fight movement requirements, etc -- but those results are not often regarded as quite as representative. For obvious reasons, it's easier for a computer program to simulate another computer program which is being run by a user with computer-like execution than it is to simulate human decision making. For those reasons, the ideal fights are often considered the most representative of their intended subject. The bottom line is that if the observed results in combat log A are much closer to the ideal simulated results than they are in combat log B, it's much more likely that A's observed execution is closer to optimal than B's -- rather than that the ideal simulations are wildly inaccurate. Please do not interpret this as my saying "Lethality is no better than MM" -- in my opinion, there have been enough snipers claiming to see higher observed numbers with Lethality that it makes sense to say that a typical player is likely to achieve higher DPS numbers as Lethality than as MM. What there has not been evidence for yet is that it's because MM inherently cannot compete with Lethality in DPS. It seems to me that Lethality's ideal execution is closer to achievable than MM's.

Agreed. In mathier terms, if two abilities are significantly different from each other in observed crit rate, it's statistically more likely that the ability of which there are fewer occurrences is the more deviant from its expected crit rate.

First, I want to say that I may have misunderstood what you are saying. When you say SoS "does about 10% more damage for me over the course of a raid than FT," I interpreted you as meaning you get something like 22% of your total damage from SoS vs 12% from FT. I realize now that you could have meant 22% from SoS and 20% from FT. If that's the case, then that's pretty normal. If you have the opportunity to use SoS about as often as its cooldown allows, then it will probably be just ahead of FT in total DPS contribution, give or take based on crit RNG. Regarding your consistently high crit chance with SoS, do you have any combat logs that you can share (enough to show the consistency)? We should expect SoS, FT, and Snipe to average 4% higher crit rate than our other ranged attacks due to the MM skill Between the Eyes.

1. Non-snipers, for the most part, just think of snipers as those annoying little guys sitting up on the catwalks and occasionally critting you for half your health. Lethality snipers are even frequently confused for operatives when they adopt a more run-and-gun playstyle. Lots of non-snipers still don't know that Entrench is complete immunity to all CC. More knowledgeable players -- maybe those who have sniper alts or who play with sniper friends -- are aware of some of the ability names and drawbacks for snipers as a class (like bugs with hard cover, or that breaking LoS is killer), but very few know about the finer points. Hell, even... 2. Snipers themselves, who play the class as a main, generally still are unaware of some of the details -- details like how the diminishing returns on stats work, which abilities are mitigated by armor or by defense, or sometimes even what defense means. There are some snipers who are aware of these kinds of details, but there are many more who are not, and these uninformed players go on making very incorrect gearing or gameplay decisions which cause them to perform very poorly compared to those who do know, and they lose enjoyment from the game. Lack of information isn't unique to snipers. In my opinion, there should be much greater effort from BioWare to promote an informed player base. Since launch, there has been almost no forthcoming of information regarding class design decisions or game mechanics. This leads to rampant misinformation belittling of the work that is done by the game developers. Fostering a more knowledgeable community will, I think, lead to much more useful communication between players and developers on the forums and in other game feedback, and in the end lead to a better game.

Right. Agreed. But why does this mean MM is no more demanding than Lethality? If you're arguing that we only really need to keep up with five abilities in order to play MM optimally because those five (FT, SoS, Ambush, OS, Snipe) make up 85% of MM's total damage, then I argue that 85% is not 100%. If we are only aiming to get within 85% of optimal, and we take the sim's 1950 DPS as optimal for MM, then we only need to get to 1660 DPS. Done. If, however, we're aiming to get higher than 85% (or higher than 91%, which is 1770 DPS), then we'll clearly need to do more than just manage those five abilities. I think you'll find my post history disagrees that I've claimed MM is "well ahead" of Lethality. I have repeatedly argued that a well-played MM sniper can compete with a well-played Lethality sniper in DPS. (I've always been very careful about how I make such claims.) Even when SimulationCraft was showing MM ranked higher than Leth, it was not by a significant margin, and as further refinements have lowered that margin of uncertainty, those rankings and DPS numbers have become more accurate and precise. We still cannot say that the SimulationCraft results are undeniably right, but I think it's fair to say that those who have done math, made models, performed testing, updated their models, and then verified them have as strong an argument as anyone. Neither the spreadsheet nor SimulationCraft say anything about what you should do. They simply say that if you did X, then you can expect Y. The results at http://www.simulationcraft.org/swtor/130/Sniper_Raid_Campaign_BiS.html are simply a compilation of the best Y we can come up with, so then it shows all the X of how to get there. By the way, there's a difference between being "refined because it has inaccuracies" and being "ditched because it's wrong" -- one is scientific, the other is absolutist. Again, if anyone has any refinements to suggest, useful input is welcome.

I'm not extremely experienced with DF, so I won't comment on how effective the priorities you've posted above are (although you can see the sniper-equivalent Lethality spec sim here for action priority list comparison: http://www.simulationcraft.org/swtor/130/Sniper_Raid_Campaign_BiS.html). I just wanted to point out that using this abbreviation: Actually takes more typing more than simply "1600 DPS". (Nothing personal -- just found it interesting. )

The sims have been updated some over the last couple of days with some bug fixes. If you see anything specific that's incorrect about SimulationCraft or the Sniper Spreadsheet, definitely bring it up. However, I find it unconvincing to say the sims are wrong because they just don't feel right. (A note about the engineering spec -- it hasn't received the same amount of action priority list optimization as MM or Leth has, so it would need some of that to increase how meaningful its results are in SimulationCraft. If anyone wants to help with Eng's optimization, by all means feel free to share what you come up with. ) The Leth and MM specs have received pretty extensive tweaking to their action priority lists, though -- and according to SimulationCraft, MM trails Leth by just 3.1% of optimal DPS. If highly skilled snipers can't get within that 3.1% reliably, then I argue that supports the notion that MM is more difficult to play optimally than Leth is.