Nice. And that was on Followthrough, not Ambush.

My understanding is if you do more damage than the target has health, then you only get credit for the amount of health the target had left. So if your target has 3k health left and you hit them for 5k, you only get credit for 3k. Also, you need to include your stats in posts like this. I can get 4k crits in champ gear (~10% Expertise), but haven't yet breached the 5k mark. I need to get better at hitting my adrenal+relic at the right time, I think.

OP, can't really help without knowing what you plan to do. Are you going full PvP or a mix or do you hate PvP? For instance, if you won't PvP in warzones, I'm not a big fan of Plasma Probe. Also, I think Electrified Railgun is too weak. And Vitalilty Serum isn't that necessary in PvE (and questionable in PvP).

If you want to go with Kaliyo but don't want to make mostly Dark choices, I'd suggest taking Diplomacy as one of your crew skills. You'll get companion gifts *and* whatever light/dark points you want from the missions. But really light/dark doesn't matter much in the end. I haven't seen any Light/Dark gear I had to have for any length of time. So I'd recommend going with the choices you think will give you the best story. Affection can be handled with gifts/Diplomacy.

I would also agree that Engineering is the best leveling spec. I leveled with it from 1-50 pretty quickly. Hard-hitting 3 second grenades and Explosive Probe will help clear trash even from early levels. Interrogation Probe snare is surprisingly useful against elites when you need to kite. Cluster Bombs + EMP makes energy a non-issue after a certain level. Plus all the explosions are fun. And once you get Orbital Strikes ... WHOA MAMA!

Wow! Great discussion all! I'm tempted to go back and try Lethality again. Just to throw in my 2 cents, I think Snipers need to have an ability to slip away from bad situations better. Assassins have Vanish, Sorcs have bubbles and heals. We need some kind of un-cc'able escape mechanism that lasts for a few seconds as long as we don't engage in any attacks - maybe make it so it doesn't work unless you are under 30% health. Call it Adrenaline Rush!

I do see some of the OP's point, though. We shoot a long gun like a Sniper, but our 5m of extra range (for only some of our abilities - grrr) hardly make us a real Sniper. "Shooter" or "Marksman" is more accurate, but I don't really like those names. "Operative" or "Agent" would be good, but they are taken. I'd feel better about "Sniper" if we lost some of our visibility while in cover. Maybe you have to be within 15m to target us, for instance.

In all, I like your guide. I'd emphasize the non-damage abilities a bit more, though. Flash Bang, Leg Shot, Distraction, and Shield Probe especially. A lot of groups have 2 ranged and a melee. I'll CC one with Flash Bang, then switch to the other ranged and kill him quick, usually with a Frag Grenade to knock him down (if it won't break my CC) so he won't do damage to me. At this point I have taken no damage and one mob is dead. By then the melee is to me and I hit him with Debilitate/Headshot followed by Snipe, Ambush, or Takedown depending on his health and my level. The other ranged then comes off CC and I can usually hit him with a Frag Grenade if it's off cooldown or just burn him down quick. Not much damage taken and 3 dead mobs. Frag Grenade is wonderful for trash mobs while leveling, so I'd recommend Engineer's Toolbelt early on to get the cooldown down to 3 seconds. Taking one mob completely out of the fight while damaging him and possibly the others around him helps a lot with downtime.

I was on a similar path as you and will warn you not to equate damage with success in PvP. Doing slow but wide-spread damage in PvP is annoying, but not really life-threatening with even half-way competent healers. I expect with this spec you'll top the damage meters but not actually help your team as much as you'd expect with those numbers. That was my experience anyhow. It might be better with the gear you have.

I've been actively reading the threads on this forum since before launch and the most interesting arguments always come out of someone asserting that Snipers are either under-powered/broken or, conversely, just fine. Up until recently, I was firmly in the under-powered camp. I tried most every spec out there: Engineering, then Lethality, then hybrid Eng/Leth, and finally Marksmanship. I'd have the occasional good day but most of the time I was just meat for the other team. I'd rarely see other Snipers in PvP and used that as proof that Snipers were generally seen as under-powered. I pushed through to level 50 as quickly as I could, not bothering with Flashpoints or PvP along the way. So I started PvP severely under-geared. I expected to get creamed. But I put in the time in heroics and PvP and got up to Gladiator with a good mix of Champion/Centurion/Tionese/Columi gear. Also, over time, I learned where to position myself, what targets to go after, when to use my CC and defensive abilities. Still, though, I was getting destroyed if anyone so much as looked at me. I'd come on the forums and see people talking about how well they did with Sniper and eventually had to admit I'm just not that good. But about 10 days ago I got another Champion piece out of a gear bag on the same day I'd saved up enough tokens for another piece. I also got the Columi vest the same day. The next day I reached Centurion status. Now I'm almost in entirely Tier 2 gear. And suddenly I actually feel like a force to be reckoned with. I actually relish 1-on-1s now. It's gratifying to see someone come at me with a swagger only to be melted by my onslaught. Certainly, I get my *** handed to me sometimes, but I've 1) killed an attacker in a 2v1 and managed to escape the other, 2) killed an assassin who got the jump on me, 3) carried the ball more than 3 feet in a Huttball game. Even when I lose, I put a hurt on my attackers. And my first instinct is no longer to run which is a big change. This got me thinking about the arguments I see here. Could it be that those in the "fine" camp fit in one or more of these categories? Started PvP early and were therefore always equally geared/experienced to the best out there Are all higher valor rank than the average PvP'er Run with a regular group Could it be that the "under-powered" camp are simply under-geared/under-experienced? Snipers are probably the most complex class to play well. No Vanishing when things go bad, no bubbling or healing your way out of a tough scrap, no Tracer-Missle spamming. I can legitimately use 25 buttons or more in a single game. It's rough! It took me months to get good at it. But I'm very glad I stuck it out. It's gratifying to be one of the few higher-valor Snipers out there. Thoughts?

I did notice that, but a lot of times you'll see people update the date whenever they change any section - even if other sections were left alone and have obsolete info. So Surge may have been nerfed but is still highly desireable to MM Snipers? Everyone here seems to be dropping it completely, but you're saying that, mathematically, Surge (up to 150) should take priority over everything but weapon damage and accuracy?

Has the compendium been updated to reflect the Surge nerf? It still has Surge listed pretty high in the priority list.

With a little PvP you can save up enough Centurion commendations (or even Champion commendations) to buy relics nicer than what the Dark/Light vendors have. They're the cheapest things on the PvP vendors.

It may be that the skill isn't supposed to update your UI anywhere; it may simply reduce damage as it comes in. An easy way to test it would be to duel someone that has an attack that does the same damage every time. For instance, Corrosive Dart will tick for the same amount (barring crits) with each tick. So if he shoots you with it while you're standing, each tick should do X amount of damage. Then if he shoots you with it while you're in cover, it should do (.94X) damage per tick.

The 4% on Vitality Serum is on Endurance rather than Health. Your Health is a combination of base Health and bonus Health. Base Health is the same for all classes of a given level. Bonus Health comes from Endurance. So if you up Endurance by 4%, you are only upping Health by a little more than 3%. I did a big write-up about this in my comments on Vitality Serum on torhead.com. Check it out if you want the gory details. So is 3% more Health all of the time worth more or less than 6% more Health some of the time? That 6% will be wasted if you are at full Health already or if you die before it finishes healing, but it could be situationally useful. To me it's a wash. The thing that might sway me toward Vitality Serum is the fact that the Biochem re-useable Rakata med pack temporarily adds 15% to your max health when you use it. In that case, having a higher max Health from Vitality Serum would make this even higher. In short, I don't think either is going to be that great, but neither are a waste of points either.

Engineering is really a trade-off. You give up some of MM's single-target damage for more defense, faster Adrenaline Probe, and the utility of Interrogation Probe snare and Plasma Probe node defense (the best node defense in the game IMO). Plus the constant explosions are visceral.

We all have to keep in mind that there is no one Sniper that we are all playing. A fresh 50 Sniper is going to have a horrid time until he gets some gear because we are all about damage and not having any Expertise is going to make doing damage and taking damage excrutiating. A Battlemaster Sniper has better gear than at least 80% of the people out there and is going to have a lot of experience as well. Those two things are critical for Snipers to perform well and not many people stick it out that long. Someone who only runs in pre-mades is naturally going to dominate because getting creamed is what makes Snipers so frustrating. If you don't have to worry about that, things will look 100x better. And pre-mades are going to win a lot which always makes your experience seem better than it is. And some people think that topping the damage charts is all that matters. I in my mostly Tier 2 gear (level 38 Valor) I can spec in such a way as to get 300k damage pretty regularly, but I can guarantee I won't really be helping my team win if I do that. I have a much better win percentage when I spec for burst (MM) but only do 100k-200k because I'm killing strategic targets, guarding nodes, using non/low-damage abilities, running ahead of the ball carrier, etc. But if topping the damage charts is what makes you happy, then you can do that as a Sniper and you'll think everything is rosy. Some facts are undeniable, though: 1) There aren't many Snipers out there in PvP. Even people high on Snipers have to admit that. I can count on one hand how many times I've seen another Sniper in my wz group in the last 2 weeks. And I only need the other hand to count how many times I've seen another Sniper on the opposing team. Contrast that with how many Sorcs there are. I'm surprised any time I don't see at least 4 in my Ops group. I'm frequently the only non-Sith, in fact. So the player base as a whole is not playing Snipers for some reason. 2) Huttball, in particular, is not set up for Snipers to shine. There are LoS problems everywhere and the objectives are all about speed boosts and jumping to enemies or being pulled forward rapidly. Snipers don't have any of that stuff so it seems like we're running in molasses. Since Huttball is the most common wz, it becomes the de facto image players have of warzone PvP. 3) Posting that Snipers "suck" or "rule" without any reasoning behind your assessment is useless. If you are in the "rule" camp, help a brother out and add what it is you are basing that on. And also post your strategies so we can all learn. A video would be ideal! And just know that if you are not yet 50, your assessment is going to be ignored by most 50s. It's a whole different ball-game. Same with the "suck"ers. Post a video so we can help you with your technique. Sniper is a hard class to master. I always wonder in these posts if anyone is actually reading them or if everyone just regurgitates their opinion at the end.

I would think you'd get about the same mileage out of either Power or Surge as Lethality. You definitely need crits, but whether you have regular damage or spiky damage probably doesn't matter much.

I've submitted all results from my tests to Bioware. They assure me they have forwarded it to the right people, but that's probably just a form letter.

But ... but ... it was working as intended! It wasn't cheating! Yes, I had to right-click an icon that was clearly meant to keep me from re-using it too often, but some backwater overworked support person said it was "working as intended"!

One thing I realized a while ago that no one has mentioned yet is that it's OK to die if you accomplish something for your team while doing so. Other players see Snipers as easy meat and will swarm to them sometimes. When they are doing this, they are inevitably *not* working toward the objectives of the warzone. In that case, it is simply your job to keep them out of the action as long as possible. I used to just kind of slump when I had more than one person on me so I could respawn faster. Now I try to get them to chase me away from objectives or I use everything I can to keep myself alive as long as possible or I simply lay out as much damage as I can before being defeated. And remember to use Corrosive Dart and Shatter Shot just before you die since those linger after you're gone. Give 'em something to remember you by. Corrosive Grenade is really good for this. And damage isn't everything. I rarely go over 200k any more but I have a much better win percentage because I'm focused on objectives over damage/medals. For instance, if everyone is going to the left in Huttball, I could follow them and farm as much damage as I can, but often I'll go to the right with the objective of getting to the endzone just as the mob does. That way I can either accept a pass (especially if the ball carrier got knocked in the pit) or I can flash bang/leg shot/debilitate potential stoppers.

Of the first 2, I'd go with the first. It has +7 end, +12 cun, and -19 pow. Cunning will up your damage and crit rate while Power will only up your damage. The additional endurance puts it over the top IMO. The 1st and 3rd are a wash on Endurance. So is 95 Cunning/8 Power better than 50 Cunning/34 Power? I would bet it is. So for PvE, I'd go with the first. For PvP, though, that +46 Exp might make it closer. It sounds like you can put each one on and see what it does to your stats at least.

Accuracy is something you have all the time, not something you only have for a few seconds. Power is the way to go.

This makes me want to finally try Marksman. The skills are just so much more complementary than in the other trees. Still, I'm not that interested in watching Snipers in pre-mades with healers and guards. If you can sit in front of the door in Voidstar and just shoot away without much fear, you're not really showing off your skills, you're showing off the skills of your team. Entertaining, in a way, but not something I really learn from.

It's the only speed burst I get, so I use it as I run by someone just to get moving.