What I heard is that if you wish to romance Aric, you have to promote him, but not the other way round. I can't verify that completely as on both my male vanguard and female commander I promoted Aric,

Well, you can tell from this thread that I'm not the expert here on hybrid. But I looked briefly at your longest parse which was 3 min and found the following issues with your rotation. - you are using illegal mods after wounding shots, meaning that you spend like 4-5seconds in lower tier of regen. You need to hit illegal mods before your first wounding shots (I like to do it between shrap bomb and vital shot) - coolhead needs to come direclty after your 3rd charged burst. - So your opening (which you can see in Thok-Zeus' other sniper thread, should be Flyby AS SC SS (IM) VS WS SS CB CB WS CB (CH) etc....

Yea, coming from a sniper switching to slinger, this is very very annoying.

Thanks so much, that's exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. I will work on my rotation for a couple days and see if I get better, hoping to get close to 3600. On the other hand, we consistently got to the second last phase in NiM Draxus tonight, thanks to DPS improving. I've been averaging close to 3k with hybrid on those pulls, so I'm pretty pleased .

I got some gear upgrades, now I can hit near 3.6k in full DF. However my hybrid is at 3.4k. It seems consistently 200dps lower. I know I made some mistakes (delaying WS by 1 GCD for sab charge for example), but I can't see anything I did that would make such a huge difference. Updated AMR Hybrid - 3400 + Full DF - 3595 Edit: to answer the question above, I'm on JC with about 70ms of ping. I do feel that I get affected more by it in hybrid though. I do OK compared to the other DPS, but we are struggling on NiM Draxus now for lack of overall dps.

I will work on getting a video. Do you think the DF parse is the top level I can achieve with my gear? The highest I have ever parsed was a tad over 3.5k.

I've been practicing both DF and Hybrid for a while now, and I can't seem to get the numbers I expect from my gear level (pretty much bis 180s). As far as I can tell, rotationally I'm not doing too much wrong. The following parses are representative of what I can pull, once in a while I can do up to 100dps more, but this following parses are more normal. Is this what I should be expecting? I seem to remember that in the 2.6 days, people were regularly hitting 3.5+. What am I missing? Full DF Parse - 3476 Hybrid Parse - 3275 AMR

Randle, do you know if there is a difference between 69/66/58 and 69/58/66? Wouldn't you want the enhancements to be secondary level since, to my understanding, the secondary mods (power, surge etc) are not bolstered but mainstat/end are? It would be nice to see a breakdown of how bolster treats those stats individually. Thanks!

You are replying to a thread that was before the level cap increase. Nowadays 12k heal crits are mundane for scoundrels, and sages get more with deliverance.

This is extremely poor advise. Optimum 78 gearing requires 350+ crit and 500+ alacrity.

Crossposting from sniper forums:

Paowee, you've done an excellent job as a rep so far but I really think you should get on BW's case more on this. Its not simply a matter of a single target dps nerf (which seems to be what you've been focusing on), but really a removal of a key capstone ability for the class. Orbital strike IS THE defining ability for the class and cannot be nerfed down to below grenade damage levels. This is effectively removing this iconic ability from us and giving us some crap AoE filler (yes its jsut going to be a filler between grenades now even for AOE situations). That these changes are even being considered demonstrates Bioware's complete inability to link numerical changes to actual game play. The 2.6 changes are especially inane for the following reasons: 1. At some point no amount of cost and cooldown reduction cannot make up for a damage nerf. Sniper AOE dps is not greatly boosted by either, because we have no other particularly good option that we can use the extra energy for, and no raid fight is benefits enough from the 15s reduction in cooldown in terms of add waves. Halfing the cost and dps of an abiility is not a neutral change - because there is no comparable ability to fill the opportunity cost. 2. Far from being just a single target dps nerf to OS, this change fundamentally alters the role of a sniper withing the raid. From being the go to aoe burst down role, we now barely do more than a warrior. If that is the balance intention, fine, but don't say its merely to "remove it from the single target dps rotation." It clearly is not, and there are other ways to do the latter, which brings me to: There are so many ways to remove OS from the single target rotation without removing its AoE utility and the feel of the ability. The key question to bioware is, what exactly is the rationale for removing it? Is it just a matter of certain specs using it on cooldown for single target dps (i.e, hybrid). Is it all specs? Or is it also deemed out of proportion as an AOE ability. All of the above have the option to be adjusted without destroying it as a cool, iconic ability. Consider the following possibilities: 1. Nerf its damage but make it do multiplicative splash damage that increasses in damage the more adds it hits. 2. Keep its 2.5 dmg and cost but let it give a damage resistance to subsequent orbital strikes to the target (so its only good for the first precast orbital and for adds that will die after a cast).' 3. Increase its cost and cast time so that it is unreasonable as a single target ability. Can also slightly decrease its damage if it is deemed OP as a aoe dps burst move. (increase cost to 45, increase cast time to 4.5s, reduce damage to 80% of current damage). 4. Similar to 3, but possibly change it to a long cast-time channel ability like force quake (same damage as live but damage is channeled over 6-9s). 5. Make it cost 65 energy, but refund some energy per mob hit for each tick. All of the above would let you move it out of the single target rotation and also tune its AOE utility without removing it as the capstone add killing ability for the class. The 2.6 nerfs are especially unacceptable to me because it is now changing OS as a AOE FILLER ability between grenades. This simply makes no sense at all, and if sniper were my only raiding toon this is the change that would make me unsub (I've been playing non-stop, subbed, since beta). So please. please, consider this change more seriously as our rep. It has far deeper implications on our enjoyment and aoe utility as a class than just a simple single target PvE dps nerf.

I would like to see some of the 1.2 nerfs rolled back (not all). A review: I think a fair way would be to have the supercharge cells change rolled back (refund 16 energy cells, increase dmg and healing by 10%, and kolto bomb reduce dmg taken by 10%). I'd like to see the Kolto Bomb grant 5% healing buff too again. You could probably also have the cost of Medical Probe reduced by 16 energy cells during supercharge cells only, for the complete old Supercharge cells effect.

Merc heals should not be going 0 crit. That is objectively a HPS loss. You want ~300 crit at the UW/Kell Dragon tier of gear. At that level of gear you will need 300ish surge and the remaining ~500points into alacrity. Now, if you are really adamant about 0 crit (possibly for overhealing reasons, but I think that is not a well founded argument), that will naturally decrease the value of surge, so that you are better off going closer to 200 surge and a corresponding more points into alacrity. Going Power/Surge simply makes no sense both from a HPS standpoint or a reducing overheals standpoint.

When are you guys looking to start? Edit: nvm I learnt to read.

I can tank on Thursdays.

Only just got home now....damned work >.<

Anyone interested in doing some ranked arenas on the PTS between 5-7CDT (this is 6-8 server time for us)? I think I might be hoping on a little bit just to get the chance to play some devs. Would be nice if we could field a JC team.

I have not seen this huge disparity in either gear or skill. We are picking up a lot of people who have no idea what to do in ranked. And as for gear, I'm still rocking majority partisan with mk6 augments. Also, in the few nights I've run on, the pub record vs imps have been almost consistently around 50%. We've run into quite a few bona-fide guild groups with a lot of people from one guild and you can't really claim impside is watered down. I think right now pub side right now has neither the depth nor the flexibility to sustain a separate kickball night.. I'm all for keeping kickball fair and not have any guild vs pug team trashing, but what you are asking would divide the pvp communities on both factions and probably restrict rep teams to running ranked guild pvp.

I was on that team and I just want to say us not responding to ggs was in no way indicative of our lack of respect or whatever. A lot of us don't even enable general chat or whispers so on my chat tab I don't see it at all. Also, I personally rarely respond to comments after ranked because in my experience some one will always take something the wrong way. Its much better to restrict communication to voice comms to avoid drama. As for the second point - to try to separate pub and imp side kickball - I'm afraid I can't agree to this, at least not at this stage. What you are suggesting will completely destroy pub side kickball. Most of the time forming more than one team is a challenge on pub side, and the only motivating factor is the idea that there might be a pop against imp teams. Even getting a reasonable comp is a issue at times. a Sometimes a second team does manage to be formed up after a few games, but then the first team disintegrates soon and there is a very short period of overlap. If we need to get a full 16, nothing will get off the ground at all. Now, a question to other PvP guilds - do you guys forsee a second GvG night you could commit too? For my main group Sunday is difficult to achieve due to different commitments / raids. We should at least have a weekday to make things happen.

Sorry, we couldn't get the ppl to run. Please take our queue times off the list until we figure this out.

I'll be honest, I rolled a combat medic for the green beam alone. I would be extremely PO'd if they removed it due to unwarranted PvP qq. Any decent healer will be focused anyways, and you should have the tools to deal with that. If the dps is really that unskilled that the green beam makes a difference, you should be able to outheal them green beam or no green beam. Commando healers do have their issues in PvP, but the green beam is a poor argument used by weak players.

Tried to form up for ranked but we had trouble getting 8, and its hard to convince ppl to join when it doesn't seem like anyone else is running rnaked. If any guilds want to queue up tonite let me know in game and I can try to form up again.

Yea, I'd like to see some of the other TBD guilds give some indication of availability. It makes it easier for the server to organize this.

Back on topic: <Tranquility> and <Prime Defense> will be putting together a team on Tuesdays and Fridays, starting ~9pm EST. We will be starting this next week Tuesday. We are a mixed group but you can treat us as a full guild ranked team. POC: Xider / Vasyel