I'm also on Shae Vizla, I think I know who you're talking about but then again there are a few. The engi - Ionic Discharge setup is the meta sniper spec for arenas and is fairly popular. It's the easiest sniper spec to do well with in arenas. I main a virulence sniper and I also hate dealing with them as virulence cannot match engi's burst and viru's dots are partially negated by snipers passive heal. Some general tips could be: - LOS and stay back if you know you're going to be targeted. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your team is run/kite/los etc until your team can hopefully kill one of theirs, doing damage is great but not at the expense of survival. DO NOT leap into the enemy team and separate your self from your team. Yes you are DPS but timing is everything. You can't use force leap on the sniper but you can on other classes to move around the arena. Also don't forget intercede, this and force leap can give you some mobility to LOS/evade the sniper. - Accept that certain classes are good against certain classes but bad against others. Snipers are tough for juggs but easier for PTs, some mara specs, madness & lethality. (Assuming similar gear & skill levels). If you have some of them on your team let them pressure the sniper first and hopefully get the snipers attention before you engage. By then the sniper may have used some of their defences. Some specific tips/notes regarding engi: - their big boom is roughly once every 16 seconds, in between their damage is fairly weak. Try to time your defences for these big hits as you won't take much damage in between. Keep an eye on the debuff icons appearing on you. As soon as you see the icon for the interrogation probe you know the sniper is setting up their big boom on you (you can also hear the noise it makes). Once you see the icon for explosive probe on you you're probably going to get hit with the big boom instantly or within the next few seconds. Try to time your defensive ability to just after they place explosive probe on you but just before EMP discharge. If you activate your defensive too early the sniper may notice and wait it out. - when moving toward the sniper pay attention to the exact distance. As you get close stop just outside of 10m, they may use their knockback (cover pulse) thinking you're coming closer but this will waste it. Also If they're using series of shots on you stay outside of 10m until the last shot otherwise you'll get knocked back. - snipers movement abilities are in built into their defensive abilities (unlike sorc & merc which are separate), if you can LOS/hide and make the sniper use these abilities to chase you, you're effectively making them waste their defensives. - engi is the trickiest sniper spec in terms of energy management and plasma probe is expensive. I know it's hard but if you can keep moving around to force them to re-deploy plasma probe it will get expensive for them. Although this won't help much in the short term, it becomes more apparent in a longer match. - use force push on them (when they're not entrenched) and push them into or near a wall. Force leap to them and position yourself in between them and the wall. They won't be able to knock you back - keep an eye on the snipers buffs and learn to recognize the symbol for countermeasures which will grant them evasion. A yellow icon with a person surrounded by a few floating balls. It only lasts for 3 seconds but while this is up all of your big rage crits will miss. Snipers often activate this as a last resort when a melee class gets too close. If they're not entrenched use force push or force choke - pay attention to series of shots. It's the engi filler ability that has an 8 second cooldown and is channelled for 3 seconds. Typically the sniper will use this twice in between big booms. While this is being cast the sniper cannot move or activate any defenses. This is the time to use your big rage jugg crits. Keep in mind the last shot will knock you away if you're within 10m. - be aware that the timing for the big boom can be really hard to predict, they start off being around 16 seconds apart but this may change as the match goes on and their explosive probe and EMP discharge fall out of sync. Due to things happening during the fight - activating defensives, moving etc the sniper may cast explosive probe on you but their emp discharge still has another several seconds or something before it's ready. For this reason, classes that are good at recovering after taking damage (madness, leth etc) can generally survive better against engi than classes that use more defensives that must be activated BEFORE receiving damage (assassins, concealment, other sniper specs) Hope this helps, please don't flame if you disagree. We get enough of that here and I'll freely admit I'm still learning and am not the best sniper. Constructive criticism welcome.

From Keith's post here: https://www.swtor.com/info/news/article/20231115?fbclid=IwAR3r2QzC7pc9ITEoWPDAerMxnyVByPK6DbzqDlWBPYBCxRxp4wZdRTk6xsE "Shae Vizla will be a new server with no transfers available at launch. This will allow us to monitor the health of the server’s economy and simultaneously provide a space for players who want to start on a clean slate or who have never played before. In essence, opening a new server this way will feel like a new launch. Our established players can enjoy the nostalgia of the game, build new communities within APAC, and offer guidance to new players. Those who will be starting their adventure for the first time will have over 12 years of content, stories, and fun to enjoy in their Star Wars™ journey. " It doesn't look like there will be server transfers at launch. He lists some reasons why. Maybe they'll allow it later?

I got one and I live just north of Sydney

I can't remember all of them but here's a few I do remember: (my exact wording could be wrong) Does SWTOR feel like a real game/experience to you? Name another computer game you're currently playing that you consider is what a gaming experience should be? What sort of games do you usually play? Do you more often play solo or in groups? How important is being in a guild to you? Do you feel like you're a part of the Star Wars universe when you play? Do you have a connection with the characters you create? Describe a time you have a great experience in the SWTOR story missions Describe a time you had a not so great experience in the SWTOR story missions Was there a time you were confused about where to go next regarding story progression? How often do you purchase items (from cartel market)? What is more likely to make you purchase items? What is less likely to make you purchase items Put the following items in order from what you're most to least likely to purchase - the items were all just cartel market cosmetic items, weapons, pets, mounts, hairstyles etc All of the other questions were to do with the feel of the SWTOR experience and the story missions and purchasing from the cartel market. There were no questions specifically asking about PVP, I'm confident in recalling this because I was specifically on the look out for any PVP related questions but they never appeared. Only the very last question on the last page which was 'Tell us about your experiences playing SWTOR' was open ended enough for me to mention PVP. So I gave my 2 cents worth but I'm definitely not holding my breath. TL/DR - There were no questions asking about PVP. PVP was never mentioned. All questions were related to the overall STWOR experience, the story missions and purchasing choices in the cartel market.

As soon as I login lag goes to 2-3k within a minute then eventually moves up to 25-50k where I get booted from the server. The error 'your connection to the server has been lost...' appears and in the select server box there are no servers listed. A moment later they appear and I try to connect (to Satele Shan). But then the whole cycle repeats once I've logged in. I'm unable to stay logged in long enough to submit an in-game ticket There is nothing wrong with my home internet. I'll say it again THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH MY HOME INTERNET. I'm getting about 250Mbps download. Do not say 'cHEcK yOUr HomE IntERnEt seTtINgs'. All other websites open fast and stay connected. Yes I went to www.swtor.com/support but they don't have anything for lag/disconnect issues. No this hasn't been happening since upgrading to 64-bit. It's worked fine since the 64-bit update was released until now. Yes I checked my firewall settings to confirm SWTOR is allowed. No I'm not running SWTOR in compatibility mode. I never was.

Exactly, if snipers aren't a main character and therefore can't be top tier then how are leth operatives and AP PTs top tier right now? Are operatives and powertechs main characters? Notice how the really dumb comments always come from fotm/meta spec defenders? The quality/intelligence of their comments make it obvious why they mostly/only play fotm/meta spec. It's like: tell me you're crap at classes that aren't over-performing without telling me you're crap at classes that aren't over-performing. #toohardforyou

Exactly, it's the only thing kinda meta about snipers. I've started calling it the 'idiots guide to engi' or 'engi for dummies' tactical. Seems to more accurately describe it. Meanwhile viru & MM are no where near meta.

If sniper is meta, then every class is meta. No heals, no stealth and when you take damage - you stay damaged (excluding kolto pack). Is there any other class in this situation? Sniper is the counter class to nothing right now, they can be decent against melee but still don't have the survivability or the single target dps that rage, carnage and deception have. Not to mention AP PTs. They absolutely destroy sniper as powertechs have leap, pull, stuns, immunity to knockback & neural dart tactical. Sniper cannot recover from AP burst or get away. Phase walk is useless as they just follow you and finish you. Best you can do is run away and hope they attack someone else. Sniper is terrible against other ranged simply because mercs and sorcs can heal. A sorc or merc of equal skill of the sniper should always win. Esp madness. At some point they'll just LOS then spam heal. Madness doesn't even to LOS, that class is so broken they can almost face tank. With any of the classes that can heal defeating a sniper is really just a waiting game as snipers cannot recover health and as sniper DCD's are often tied to their movement abilities (roll & countermeasures(evasion)) - if you can make them use them to chase you you're effectively making them waste some of their defences. Unlike operative, sorc & merc DCD's that are mainly seperate from their movement abilities. Sniper is poorly designed in this way. The only thing that's kinda meta about snipers is the Ionic discharge tactical. Which yeah I agree is kinda broken and needs a revamp. No I don't use it - it's kinda like the 'idiots guide to engi' tactical. I still prefer marksman but it's in such a bad state right now. There is no way you can say marksman is meta. Almost totally white damage & most attacks are either charged or channeled making it the most turret-like ranged class. Not to mention the same crap defenses, no heals and low parse/dps. It's solid D tier.

So wrong, nope, not even close. Did this sound better in your head? Or did you not think before you wrote? Premades don't teach anything. Do you know what it actually means to teach? Imagine two football teams verse each other. One team has been playing together for a while and they know the game well. The other 'team' is random people who were placed in a team moments before the game began and don't know each other. Some are experienced others are new but either way they don't know each other. Which team has the obvious advantage? Do you honestly think this, THIS, is the best learning environment for that other team? Especially the new players? I mean, really? Really Really? Wake up. 'wiHToUt pReMAdeS pVP WiLl deScEnD IntO tOTaL ChAos' - honestly the most rubbish comment I've read in a long time. It's absurdity actually made me laugh. The only PVP that will descend into total chaos without premades it YOUR pvp because now you can't queue with a pocket healer/tank for guaranteed protection while you roll your fotm dps. And that 'chaos' is what pugs usually deal with, it's actually normal. The chaos of not knowing who's going to be in your team when you queue. And if you're trying to say it's 'chaos' because new players don't know what they're doing well they can't learn objectives play from premaders because most premades just farm numbers. How does the presence of a number-farming premade help the 'chaos?' * Anyone who thinks the Elephant analogy is an accurate representation - google the definition of false analogy fallacy and have a think.

Holy mother of false analogies this is bad!! And of course it attempts to sound clever but misses the point. Exactly This is 100% correct

Just a few from 2022: Premades ruin the game but - Page 3 - PvP - SWTOR | Forums Suggestion: dealing with damage farmers - Page 2 - PvP - SWTOR | Forums Do you hate premades? Feeling is mutual. - Page 2 - PvP - SWTOR | Forums There are plenty of others from 2022 that don't start out specifically discussing premades but the conversation brings them up as a contributing factor. Here's a few: I've never seen a pvp mode more unbalanced (Rant) - PvP - SWTOR | Forums This is going to take for ever to get gear - Page 2 - PvP - SWTOR | Forums This is why we hate PvP - Page 4 - PvP - SWTOR | Forums BuT nOBoDy hAd cOMplainS iN THe pAsT yEAr - epic fail What? No! there are plenty of people apart from the people here who have commented on this in the past year before the rewards were introduced. Read the names. Seriously? beCAuSe peOPlE cAn'T ReAd aNd unDeRStAnD sIMplE teXT - oh the irony Actually it was both. Because before you could only get the weekly and daily completed (which was needed for gear) if you won and premades often made it harder for solo players to do this. Remember those day? Oh wait, probably not because you were probably in a premade, no doubt telling solo pugs to 'git gud' while on your fotm dps with your pocket healer protecting you. BuT PRemadEs...aRe gOOd, I cAN't REad PrOPerLy, I wANt mY poCKeT hEAlEr, 400 pAGeS iS sCAry No, just No. Some premades may play objectives but a lot do not. They just damage farm. Because that's all they care about and the rewards aren't worth it. C'mon admit it...you obviously queue in premades. Feels good to know you guildies are protecting you while you stomp everyone doesn't it? When one of you calls out a target in voice chat and you all burn them down then move on to the next target. Running around in a group of 4-6. Having a pocket healer and/or tank to run to if you need. C'mon just admit it, stop pretending you or the others like you really care about points or rewards. This right here is the real reason you want to keep your premade.

Umm no, do a search in the pvp forum for the word 'premade' and you'll see 400 pages of comments/posts going back to 2016. Yeah I dunno about this, many of the premades I come across don't even care to win. 4-6 of them will zerg rush a pylon and won't even bother to cap it before running to the enemy spawn point to farm kills. I don't think they care about free points. (And who really needs free points? I got to level 25 easy queuing solo, really wasn't that hard.) They clearly only care about farming numbers. Do you really think the main/only reason premades are forming is because bioware will give you bonus points? Really? I mean really really? When you message your guildmates to see if anyone wants to group up for pvp you're mainly doing this because you need points to get to (lol) level 25? Wow. Is this really what bioware intended? Brave of you to assume you know their intentions, most likely what they intend is as fast queue pops as they can with as many people. As stated by Musco when he talked about the PVP changes in 7.2 and why they were making pvp f2p and removing ranked. And everybody is definitely NOT queuing as a group. Most people still seem to be solo. Your attempts to make out like we who disagree with you here are a minority who have only recently expressed a dislike for premades in the same queue as solos isn't supported by evidence.

Do you think you'll PvP more or less than you did before the update? Probably more Do the rewards on the reward track make you want to PvP specifically to earn them? I don't care about pvp rewards, I just play to enjoy the game Do you think you'll queue for 8v8 Warzones or 4v4 Arenas equally? Just 8v8s. I hate 4v4s Do you feel the new Warzone medals will encourage objective play? Possibly, maybe from pve players new to pvp Is it clear how to earn PvP points and progress the Season reward track? Yeah What is your overall impression of the changes to the PvP season system? SWTOR devs cutting out the dead weight and disincentivizing some of the worst people who play this game and appealing to casual players. Cheating, toxicity, gatekeeping...where are these things almost exclusively localized? The answer: to the smallest player base in the game. Therefore just get rid of them. What do you like the most about the changes to the PvP season system? The removal of ranked pvp. I really hope the hardcore ranked pvpers uninstall now. They have spent years delighting in cheating, toxicity and gatekeeping and as a result their numbers haven't grown. And now ranked is being removed all together. They brought about their own downfall and it couldn't be more hilarious watching them cry about it. Removal of battle flags - they should never have been introduced in the first place. What other purpose do they serve except to rub it in someones face after they've died? Battle flags are not used as a sign of respect. Not sure why they were ever introduced. Stupid idea. Ranked pvper's love using battle flags to troll people they've beaten. Battle flags often 'earned' by wintrading and or using fotms. For instance when a stealth class puts their battle flag on me when I'm using my sniper. Wow, you beat a class that can't stealth or heal, slow claps for you. Do you think they're putting their battle flag on me because they respect me? Or is it a way of saying 'haha, you lost?' The easy access to pvp rewards - this should further disincentivize hardcore pvpers because now their precious rewards are available to everyone and much easier to get so it means a lot less having them. What do you like the least about the changes to the PvP season system? The removal of scoreboards - but not sure if this is really happening. What is one change or adjustment you would like to make on the new PvP Season system, what would it be, and why? Make premades only get a match if there's another premade in queue. Fair's fair. Same with healers & tanks. They ruin matches. The best matches are 2 pug dps groups. This should also help keep ranked pvper's away who like to queue with a pocket healer while they endlessly battle flag everyone on their fotm. No one enjoys this, even when they're on the same team it makes it boring. Note really a pvp season thing but class balance needs another look. The difference in survivability is ridiculous. Fury has the highest parse with insane survivability compared to marksmanship which has the worst parse with rubbish survivabliity.

Why don't you guys just meet up somewhere and duel? Then put it on youtube. Aren't you both on SF?

It's a shame all your internet tips aren't more visible to Aussie SWTOR players. Or maybe they are somewhere else? I'm in the SWTOR Players Club group on FB and there are definitely other Aussie SWTOR players with ping/internet issues that could benefit from this information. Cheers!

I'm in VIC. We have no kind of connection to our home. I'm tethering my phone at the moment. All the houses around us have NBN but due to screw-ups in the rollout they skipped us. We contacted NBN and long story short we're probably going to have to go to the TC Ombudsman. Thanks for your advice, I'll give superloop a call and see what they say. I've never ever had ping less than 240 but I've always used Telstra, iinet, Optus or TPG. WTFast seems to help stop the random DCs but it hasn't improved my ping much. It would be good if there was some way the devs could tell when someone has left a match early due to internet issues. Maybe they're worries people will abuse it? For example pulling the internet cable out of their PC to pretend they dc'ed so they can just log back in and re-queue.

Australian internet is even worse. If I have ping less than 300 it's a good day. I've lost connection so many times for unknown reasons then copped a 15min lockout each time. I've also started using WTFast which seems to be reducing the random DCs and brings my ping down to 270 which is nice.

Marksman is the best for Ranked. Anything goes for regs. For PVE they're all viable but apparently Virulence is really strong right now. I think it's the highest parsing sniper spec right now.

It's so utterly disappointing to know something I really want to succeed and really enjoy is in the hands of people like this and there's nothing I can do about it. When this game eventually dies and the servers are closed it will be such a bitter disappointment thinking about the game and what it could have been and a great source of frustration to know they had so many chances over the years but kept making things worse and not listening. So poorly managed, so poor...whatever these people are being paid, it's too much for their quality of work.

Yeah which seems unfair because there seems to be little accountability at SWTOR PVP. I think there are a number of hard questions that need to be asked. For example: - When they implement changes in PVP, by what measure do they consider them successful? - Do they even measure? - Where are they getting their information from? - Does the opinions of the PVP community matter in their decision making? - How do they respond to overwhelmingly negative feedback? Why do they think there is so much negative feedback if they think their decisions are good? - When the logic behind their PVP decisions isn't obvious or lacks clarity, are they required to justify the logic behind their decisions to anyone (eg - their management)? - Can they arbitrarily make decisions in PVP without any regulation (with free reign)? Or must they submit all proposed changes to PVP to someone for approval before it is accepted into the game? - Do they have some kind of agenda they're working towards that the player base can't see yet? - Has management noticed the issues with PVP have been going on for some time now with little improvement (in fact they almost seem to be getting worse)? How are the devs responsible for this justifying their performance? - Are the devs subject to any kinds of performance evaluation? - Has management considered hiring new staff? (With the pandemic there are a number of people out of work who could be suitable). - Given the failures of Anthem, is placing members of that dev team at the head of SWTOR PVP really the best option available? - Given the PVP devs don't seem to be demonstrating how they got their jobs by the quality of their work, is the reason they have their jobs because of cronyism? Is this really the best thing for the game? None of these questions have been answered and they probably never will be. They make poorly thought out decisions with seemingly no accountability then can't handle the criticism that comes their way. I wish I could have that in my job. Or anywhere else in the real world. Unfortunately in the real world if you screw up, it's on you and you get told. Simple as that. And if you screw up enough (and keep hiding from criticism/feedback with your head in the sand), your product/game gets cancelled eg Anthem. I work in IT next to a development team that maintains software for scientific purposes. Where I work, there is no way a situation would deteriorate like SWTOR PVP (and it's reckless disregard for the end users) without the above questions being asked and without heads rolling. Our team is very sensitive to customer satisfaction because users can very easily go elsewhere resulting in us losing money. What I get out of SWTOR PVP I cannot get out of SWTOR PVE, it's just not the same. So if the PVP suffers, I have to go elsewhere. I imagine this is the same for many other SWTOR PVP'ers. It's disappointing when people who are actually passionate about this game and really want it to succeed are subject to developers who only seem interested in collecting a pay check and who by their actions, don't actually play the game. Or if they do play, their view of the game is so skewed & warped, they become completely disconnected from the player base. Resulting in decisions many people don't like or even understand.

Sharpshooter is the best for ranked. For regs anything goes. You may wish to try the repositioning armor set for extra mobility. One of the biggest problems with sharpshooter is most of its offensive abilities are charged or channelled. Meaning you have to stand still. (This is not the case with dirty fighting or saboteur. In fact saboteur only has 1 ability in the main rotation that is channelled, the rest are insta cast.) Also most good PVPers know when Aimed Shot is coming and to avoid it and most know Sharpshooter can be LOS'ed easily. Much easier than Gunnery or Telekinetics. Usually Commando and Sage will beat sharpshooter because of their better mobility and heals which is why slinger has the lowest survivability of the ranged classes in PVP and the rarest ranged class in ranked. But level of skill can change this. Operatives are every other classes bane. All things being equal a concealment operative will beat every other class/spec in 1v1. (Assuming skill levels are even). They are the best duelling class and have been for ages. You can stay alive longer against them and maybe make them retreat by paying attention to their buffs and knocking them back. In your interface editor, enlarge the size of the buffs/debuffs of your target so you can clearly see when they have dodge and/or evasion up. When these are up they can't be hit with white damage. Most of the damage from Sharpshooter is white damage. Use your teleport to escape/create distance if you have to and if you can stay near allies. Operative players love to pick off lone stragglers. Put diversion on yourself to reduce their accuracy when they come in close. Rotate your dcd's and use them as you need them. Don't pop them all at once. If you have just knocked them back, save your evasion & shield for when they get in close etc Your gear isn't too bad, maybe a few tweaks for more crit & slightly less acc. As far as a rotation, you don't need to begin with flourish shot. The healer debuff is handy but it only lasts for 10 seconds and your opponent probably isn't going to heal themselves much that early in the fight. Even is you have the utility point that causes it to reduce movement speed by 50% there are other offensive abilities that should get priority. I would start with vital shot (for the debuff it applies), penetrating rounds, trickshot, burst volley, penetrating rounds, trickshot. (This will prob be your highest dps burst window). Then charged burst X2, trickshot, Aimed shot, trickshot, penetrating blast, trickshot....etc. Use quickdraw on CD then trickshot. Vital shot and flourish shot can also be cast while moving so they are good to use when you're kiting as a filler. In between all this you may need to use dcds and/or move. Take the Heads Up utility point so you get 6 seconds of plus 50% movement speed and immunity to movement impairing when hunker down ends. Take Reset Engagement so surrender purges movement impairing and increases movement speed by 75%. I personally love Plan B & C for the low CD on stuns. These utility points should help you control your opponent and also move around. I hope this helps, I'm definitely not a master slinger in PVP. I only did ranked for one season and got silver with saboteur. Check out this guy, he's really good and uploads new sniper stuff often, he has achieved gold in ranked on multiple classes. This is his marksman guide -

I wouldn't say it's OP. Sniper is definitely one of the harder classes to use well in PVP. However for PVE sniper does very high damage from far away and with great AOEs. Snipers can clear trash mobs much faster than most other classes.

Great post, I wish there was a dev brave enough to respond to this. And in detail, not just with an empty 'yes, we're listening' response. I 100% agree with your 'big stick' approach comment. They don't really seem to fine tune anything or consider details. They just slap a blanket solution on a problem that doesn't really address the root cause of the problem and also causes other problems. I sometimes wonder if they actually take PVP seriously at all. SWTOR PVP feels like a mini-game or side-quest compared to PVP in other MMOs. The attention the devs seem to give PVP is like they consider PVP to be an afterthought. Their 'fixes' seem poorly thought out and kinda like band-aids on a broken arm. I would love it if they actually explained the rationale behind their PVP decisions by showing how they arrived at a particular decision. Just out of curiosity, I'd love to know how the staffing/job processes works at SWTOR. Eg - Are there separate teams/people that work on just PVE or PVP? If they're both managed by the same team how much lower priority are PVP issues given after PVE issues? (Clearly, they don't get the same priority and I get it - PVE make more money). Are PVP decisions made by the same person or very small group of people? Are PVP issues just jobs/projects assigned to random devs from a queue/management? (I work in IT and have seen IT infrastructure set up like this). Sigh, I guess it doesn't really matter because come to think of it....this game has many areas where it's lagging behind other MMOs. I really shouldn't be surprised SWTOR PVP gets only this much attention and is poorly managed. If not for the Star Wars brand label I often wonder this game would still be in operation at all.

Yes concealment operatives are definitely the best duelling class. Between the stealth, heals and rolls they are an unbeatable combination in the right hands. The rolls give them 1.5 seconds of dodge which they can use (with good timing) to dodge big hits. 1.5 secs doesn't sound like much but with an 8 second CD that's pretty good. Also their evasion can have it's CD reduced to about 30 secs and it removes dots. Stim boost CD can be reset to effectively make it last for 30 secs now with Tactical Overdrive and with the Revitalizers Utility point it can restore 50% of health over that time while granting 20% damage reduction for the duration. On top of this they have heals and stealth. The heals are an obvious advantage and the stealth enables them to escape before they can be finished off if their health gets low. Or they can sap you, regen then finish you off. I've lost to operatives many times like this and yeah it feels really dirty losing like this when your class can't stealth. I've seen duelling tournaments where operatives are in a separate bracket from all other classes, even sins. It's no shame losing a duel to a skilled operative if you're using another class. We've all been there lol