the dot from retracable blade can do it

mando used this on me while i had my root immunity up, then he tried to stumble 3 feet away and offheal himself, without spcced cast time reduction on medical probe. i felt so sorry for him i went away.

crushing blow reduced cost and/or increased damage. this alone would make a huge difference sweeping fury: change the active cooldown to apply to force choke instead of enrage (or anything instead of enrage, really) and have vicious throw be part of the effect backhand: shorter cooldown

id like to add that the reason snipers, compared to other rdps, are so vulnerable to los is not only the emphasis on casts/channels, but the fact that they are loooong casts/channels. default ambush is a 2.5 cast with a warning animation, giving targets ample time to duck behind a wall or pop a cooldown, series of shots and cull are both 3 second channels, a heads-up player with good positioing can avoid 3/4 of their damage. compare this to the other rdps skills: sorcs have force lightning with a 3 second channel, but even madness sorcs will generally have some alacrity (as they don't use accuracy) to make it quicker, it's on a very short cooldown (ambush and sos are more than twice as long), and is not as important to either sorc dps build. crushing darkness is a 2 second cast, but is procced to be instant in madness, as is the default 3 second chain lightning from the lightning tree. only other cast/channel damage skills used by sorcs are lightning strike, a 1.5 second cast that is virtually impossible to los due to latency (and madness will only use it with an insta-cast proc, if ever) and thundering blast, a 2.5 cast that is indeed los and interrupt bait- the capstone ability of a turret tree that very few serious pvpers use in full, because it has the weaknesses of a sniper without the benefits. mercs meanwhile have unload at 3 second channel, but that's the only really big, rotational one. death from above is long, but channled as an aoe. the compareable sniper aoe, orbital strike, is a cast instead of a channel and gives more warning than any other move in the game, taking nearly 10 seconds after the cast is finished to finish dealing damage. only other casts are tracer missile, fusion missile, and power shot, all quick casts that are prone to interrupt and pushback, but not los. this is not to say snipers are inferior to mercs/sorcs (lol), but just to illustrate why los is such an issue for us, not rdps as a whole, as ive heard some (melee) claim that yes, but we're better than other things: dps pts, dps juggs, dps mercs/sorcs, especially arsenal/lightning ones. between entrench and our various ccs, a sniper against any one stealth can usually at least live long enough for help to come, even if surviving is a long shot. quite right: bear in mind that leg shot doesnt root until the animation hits the target, so dont throw it out and except a warrior to not jump into your grill a second later. (wtb leg shot 40 meter range as part of 4-piece field tech bonus instead of distraction) against a sniper, the best thing to use it on is series of shots- for all specs its one of the highest dps abilities that is evadeable, plus- for mm, it stops them from getting a quick-cast ambush via sos crits, for engineering it hits particularly hard due to electrified railgun, but only if it actually deals damage, and lethality rarely uses ambush rotationally, while the internal damage from cull will still hit you even if the white damage aspect misses, and the white damage of cull isn't nearly as bad as sos. if an arsenal merc gets the jump on you, you can be embarrased since we can't interrupt tracer missile often enough to truly ruin them-evading full auto usually fixes that roots only apply from white damage- not that you should be in the habit of it, but if you have to walk a fire trap, evasion avoids roots (off topic, but before attempting a firetrap crossing, throw some suppressive fire on the other side in case of stealth) ravage really hurts if you get stunned/knocked around while ballistic shield is active, you will lose it. ideally you'll always use entrench just in case. Did you know it works on non-snipers/slingers!? a lot of people don't seem to. never ceases to amaze me how many will use diversion on me-then immediately after flashbang and then shift to someone else. that said, it is particularly powerful against your fellow snipelingers, since it effectively reduces them to a level 50 imperial agent/smuggler (and, as of a couple patches ago, break entrench and ballistic shield). however, engineering and lethality are far from boned by it if they have target acquired available, as both have plenty to do for 6 seconds without cover. of course its generally simpler to just los through it- so don't just throw this out when you see a cover screen. that's not tactical. that's not how snipers play. engineering does indeed have crazy burst, but not often. much too often you'll find all your hard hitting attacks on cooldown, which is something you almost never find with mm or leth. grenades are small consolation. on the other hand, circle of fire!!!! i take armor pen on ambush over ballistics. i find that engineering's weakness is not survivability but single-target sustained damage output. also i like my 5k medals in pvp, half the time i end up having this proc expiring on me, having popped emp for that extra burst of energy and defense in a close fight, and not having to reapply plasma/interrogation probe. i'd really love to see this turn into a passive energy management effect like the dot-proc and increased-in-cover ones of leth and mm, respectively. taking damage reducing the cost of next sos, takedown, or ambush, fore example, emphasizing the tankiness of the tree. in the meantime, i dont take it. in full agreement, it was ok back when it was broken and didn't have a rate limit- now that it has a 20 second one, its garbage. another engineering idea, to help increase that single target damage, again, is to turn it into an autocrit on ranged attacks when leaving cover (but not in cover). so you get autocrit takedown (not the only tree to have an autocrit execute, btw) and autocrits on a bunch of crud: rifle shots, overload shot, leg shot, shatter shot, oh yeah and suppressive fire... isn't that an aoe? which engineering has 30% critical bonus on? my mouth just watered at the thought of those poor wretches trying to defuse the bomb... dont forget that this does improve the internal damage of cull, giving some more burst. sometimes i like to spec full lethality just so i can make people squirm by culling fully dotted/debuffed targets

about 2/3 of helmets will dissapear the lekku.

force lightning. madness almost never uses lightning strike, only time really is when you have a wrath proc but crushing darkness is on cooldown and youre moving

whats wrong with corso dying? when he does, or gets low on health, just unsummon/resummon.

2piece field tech is one of the best in game, and i get mileage out of the 4piece virtually every game. enforcer is complete garbage, dps scoundrels should get at least 2piece field tech. if you don't adore a 4th tick of flyby, you're not playing the class correctly.

i'd like to add: mortar volley slows affected targets and/or loses the minimum range pulse cannon (talented, as part of stockstrike root/kb likely) places a stacking accuracy (and not just melee/range) debuff on affected targets. i like this because of the little dance it theoretically forces, rewarding the player who best controls movement to stay out of the channel/ keep enemies in the channel, or at least force the enemy to use an interrupt/stun on it instead of a more rotational move concussion missile instant cast for arsenal grav round 3 or 4% slow per stack, possibly as a replacement of the full auto one the reduced cast time on avanced medical probe being separate from the HiB buff. and of course the classics like disengage and threat dump forcing a loss of target upon near enemies

like this? http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=570414

rupture and the deadly saber dots are both fast, 6 second duration, so its not like most sorcs or snipers where an early cleanse can really negate a lot, especially coupled with the 'next 3 melee attacks' nature of deadly saber and cleanse cooldown meaning at best you'll negate maybe half of the potential damage, and at the expense of not straight healing whatever moves theyre using to place the dots. its kind of like the powertech 100% proc of combustible gas from flame burst. theres just no real defense against it (except resilience)

plasma probe is one of the highest priority moves, bad habit to pick up from pvp is to think of it as a quirky little cc thing, but its potential damage is crazy., far better than interrogation probe. also be sure to maintain corrosive dart, its far better than snipe as filler, also it seems youre not keeping ambush on cooldown.

a heal is a bit much, especially if its a freebie ala the new sage one. los-ing is part of the game, and the 'proper' way to beat snipers. what i could see is a self cleanse of some kind, to prevent total rapeage by los-ing dot specs, but nothing more. i would also love to see the 'cleanse' be a quick swig from a flask, just cuz.

agree fully with op, rate limit definitely needed

dont underestimate the power of incendiary grenade. it does more than 2/3 of its damage in the first couple seconds and it does potentially quite a lot, so ideally kept in cooldown, the trick is putting it in good spots. near/on objectives, on myself, on my healer, voidstar hallways and fire traps (50% slow oh my) and of course anything with a red nametag are my favorites. shock charge probe sucks (comparatively). for an 18 second single target commitment, its damage isnt great. its not something you just throw out at the first enemy you see, you save it for a target youre going to focus. same thing with sabotage charge. youre a sniper. snipe more. (oh wait your a slinger... darn) point is sab/eng is very energy efficient, and the minute reset on cool head allows for a little more recklessness than the other specs, and indeed it needs to be in order to be more than a novelty look-i-can-throw-fire-on-the-ground show. get used to throwing out a fair amount of charged burst and regretting blowing 'sabotage' on resetting cool head when you could have used it to interrupt the voidstar cap from inside spawn later (hint hint).

a talent that immediately grants 1 upper hand. minute cooldown. gives healers something comparable to the sage's force potency or the commando's tech override and reserve powercell minor cooldowns, gives dirty fighters an alternative to heaven forfend staying in melee range when i can throw out dots from a perfectly safe distance! (i kid, they seriously do need an additional proccer, even if its just an occasional one) and gives scrappers, well more damage. healers get an additional slight energy regeneration when activated (the only weakness of the sawbones being group spike damage due to how it can screw energy without a way to recover like the similarly gimped commandos) and dirty fighters get a reduced cooldown. only question is should it be called 'sleight of hand', 'the element of surprise' or 'ace in the hole'.

vicious slash is the perfect comparison. virtually every other single-target rotational ability has a reason for usage, ie sunder, ravage, choke and even push either build rage or due to lack of cost help management, scream grants sonic barrier and retaliation grants blade barricade. crushing blow has threat, and jack else, and we already have smash and the occasional free backhand for that. so that leaves vicious slash/throw. and wither. and of course 'unstoppable' from vengeance, since that's the basic trade you get for dropping crushing blow.

the easiness is only partly due to the 'few buttons' aspect. the bigger thing imo is that the basic rotation has built in utility such that one doesn't have to think much beyond the basic rotation, namely the slow on force crush, the obliterate root, the multiple methods of building shockwave and the braindead resource management that comes from having free smashes with a full stack.

no way am i ever gonna stick it out when im pulled into a loser with a bunch of hopeless idiots (unless its loooong gone i always give these matches a chance, but 50/50 i leave shortly). i also often leave a match before it starts when i see that there's no healers, which for uncoordinated pugs in anything but huttball isn't something i generally want to see. again, not always, but if theres nobody i recognize and no healers in alderaan im gone. and sometimes i just ragequit, plain and simple. i stick it out in blowouts against the big name premades every day, that's what i get for solo queuing, and as long as im enjoying myself ill never leave, but sometimes i just get too exasperated. dont want to see punishment for leaving, though a ban on groups larger than 2 in unranked and allowing ranked queuing for groups of four, at the very least, would be welcome, and i think would do more to reduce quitters in unranked than punishment.

tiered gear doesnt belong in pvp. ideally should have mod vendors like the planetary ones. purchaseable for warzone comms or at a lower amount of ranked to encourage it.

speaking purely from a logical standpoint, there shouldnt be set bonuses, because they are not standardized enough to be balanced, therefore some classes get a much greater advantage from them than others. that said, if some of the cruddier bonuses were improved, neither that nor the loss of the ability to feasibly get pvp bonuses into gear if you dont have them already would matter so much. granted id find it hard to give it my 33% stronger orbital strike, but still.

probably got smashed. force crush+lolsmash+full ravage+a critical execute will kill even a geared sage. thats why you should cleanse, stun/knockback ravage, and qq about smash being op until its fixed.

like the above poster points out, we still have shiv. problem with leth is not so much a lack of potential culls/ta proc/dps, but the awkwardness of still being reliant on a melee attack as a quasi midrange class. id like to see leth be more effective outside of 4 meters, but not fully, like a pt. good parallel i think is the ap build of pts. they have two strong melee attacks that ideally they use, and both have a a chance to proc an autocrit railshot, which is certainly nice. but ap isnt the railshot tree, its the flamethrower tree. i can be 75% effective without my melee attacks or an autocrit rail. leth on the other hand, without regular shivvage, is what 50%? if that.

lethality has the simplest rotation, so long as you dont get greedy and run out of energy its the easiest tree imo. not sure what you mean by having trouble with interrupts, unless youre saying you routinely use cull out of cover in pvp, which is just plain wrong. lethality becomes great at 30 with cull, mm at 36 with series of shots, and engineering at 40 with plasma probe

definitely dorky. works for me though since the cheesiness of the assault cannons are the main reason i rolled a commando