I am pretty sure my level 42 marksmanship sniper, equipped with the level 40 panther gear, and a level 42 rifle, does more than 1032 per second. However that is amortized over a bursty rotation, not snipe spam, since my snipe is only at about 1.1k right now. I am currently only at 500 max damage total and the Tier2 sniper rifle does like 450 max *weapon only* so with bonuses from Tier2 gear I expect it to be at least 700, probably closer to 800, and maybe higher. Extrapolate and I think a lvl 50 can spam snipe all by itself for more than 1600 damage per shot. BUT I do get very frustrated when I see half my life disappear due to a series of grav rounds, since they sneak up on you with that stacking. I don't blame it on OP I just blame it on me being stupid and not putting up my shield and/or interrupting them in time. That just makes it more satisfying when I actually kill a commando doing it!

I agree with this. Coming from SWG, which was admittedly an abysmal game in most respects, I really miss the ability to change sides *and* interact with people on the opposite side who weren't flagged. I think it is utterly stupid that we can't send whispers to players on the opposing faction. I think it is utterly stupid that as a sniper I can't ever help out republic players. In SWG you got this really great pvp community on each server where players would switch sides based on politics and friendships, people would congregate in the major cities and duel and taunt each other or just have massive battles all the time, guilds would raid each other's built up towns, etc. This game is so different -- there are no guild headquarters to raid, I can't talk to rebels except in general chat, I can't switch sides to fight against the a-holes I don't like in my own faction... I enjoy the systems of this game but I really think they are missing the ball by enforcing this strange notion of what pvp should be in an MMO rather than just letting players do what they naturally want to do -- act like social human beings.

I would like to weigh in: 1) I like getting more valor from each match, since I just want to hit battlemaster and get my elite sniper rifle more than anything in the world. 2) However I realize that less motivated people will be able to do the same now, which will likely devalue my own elite sniper rifle *meh* 3) I don't really care what the idiots do in pvp, I am an old-school pvp player who plays for the respect of those who learn to recognize the names of my toons. And it seems like many of those I consider a nemesis, who are really the ones I enjoy fighting against battle after battle, feel the same way. So any change to the reward system doesn't impact my enjoyment in that context at least -- we continue trying our hardest to impress each other regardless. 4) I didn't see a problem with the side turrets, although last night I didn't even notice the 3 second delay mentioned in the patch, so *meh* 5) However making DOTs not interrupt turret/bomb usage *does* really improve gameplay

I hear so much complaining about sniper but I don't have the same issues. Yeah most of the DPS abilities require being in cover -- so what? I setup my control scheme to be identical to how I play FPS games and instead of "duck" I have "cover". Works great -- I naturally go to cover whenever I would have ducked in any other game, after 15 years of playing games I am used to it. And who cares if you have to move anyway -- you get out of cover instantly as soon as you try to move anywhere, it is just as fast as if you were standing up and try to move. It isn't like being in cover requires this lengthy departure animation that locks you in place as mobs run up to gank you. Furthermore any ability that requires you to be in cover is available virtually instantly after you press the cover button, you don't need to wait for the animation to complete on your client machine. In fact the only disadvantage to leaving cover as often as you want is that you can't queue up snipes -- so what, if you queue up snipes you are gonna run out of energy before long anyway so you might as well mix it up to be more efficient with DPS. And that is a moot point anyway since as a marksman you get an instant snipe every few seconds if you leave then reenter cover. And who uses snipe at later levels anyway, outside of the free instant one and maybe the lazed target one -- you shouldn't be merely spamming snipes to get max DPS at later levels, you should be using other stuff as well. And what is all this about being owned by melee? With the marksmanship tree you get leg shot every 7 seconds and you can use it on the run, couple that with all the other control abilities ( imperial detonator knocks back and you get that like ever 4 seconds, ambush knocks back, cover pulse knocks back, stun locks them in place for 6 seconds, the list goes on and on ) and I don't see how getting out of the sticky situations where a tank forgot to taunt a tough mob is any issue at all. You just need to learn to use all the tools the game developers give you. Finally, obviously if you get tired of watching your toon shoot stuff then sniper isn't for you. I see all these posts about people having more fun as an OP, well fine, if you prefer that gameplay then you shouldn't be a sniper. However I don't mind just watching my toon hold a gun as long as herself and blasting stuff like crazy, that is the class and I knew that when I rolled it. I will sit there all day and watch my toon blast stuff with a huge gun because it is bad***. What about not having enough interesting abilities? Huh? If you get bored with the ususal max DPS cycles then vary it up -- sometimes I get bored and I run up and shiv dudes as a deathblow just for fun. Often I run up and do a knockback ambush followed by an instant snipe because man it is fun to see my toon snipe a guy in midair from the knockback. Or I will sit there with the AOE channeling abilities and just mow less powerful mobs down because it is fun. And none of that is even a problem at higher levels because you better be using every ability available to you or else you aren't playing right. Think you need to sit at 34 meters in cover and just dps? Wrong. Your group needs you to mezz stuff with your flashbangs, smoke the main mob, leg shot dudes that are causing trouble to the raid, whatever. They need you to run up and use your melee stun ability when you have it -- why not, on a big mob every 6 second stun really helps. Just run up and get close enough to do it and drop into cover right there for a bit -- who cares, the tank will still be the one taking damage. I really don't see how people can play the game without using all of these interesting abilities that really really really tip the odds of any encounter in your favor. Heck you should even run up and drop into cover just to dump your cover pulse if you have it, why not you can legshot the mob immediately afterwards and buy the tank a few seconds of break time. PvP is a separate issue, I don't want to get into that because I haven't spent much time figuring out how best to play sniper there, but even in that case I wager people just aren't playing the class like it should be played. Has anyone complained about snipers always loosing a fair duel with every other class? I haven't seen those complaints, the complaints I see are that snipers get gang banged by 4 jedi -- well what do you expect to happen against 4 other players, if you didn't get owned then there would be a problem. Or I see complaints that OPs are killing snipers with stealth, well what do you expect to happen -- if an OP can get the drop on anyone I would want him to win the fight, otherwise there is no point to stealth. Or that snipers can' t take out powertechs because of how much HP and armor they need to get through -- well has it occurred to anyone that if you are in a group battle and you are trying to kill the tank, then you are being just as dumb as the enemy AI when it does the same thing? Why would you try to kill the tank first in PvP? In summation, please try to just think rationally about this stuff. I love the class for what it is, I still think it has the highest DPS on the imperial side if you learn the cycles right, and I don't agree that it just isn't as fun as some other classes. Any class is only as fun as you are willing to make it.