Yeah, it's quite unfortunate. You literally can't buy anything from the vendor with the tokens from the pass alone save for the cartel armors and trophies. It's going to be a pain to get two weeklies done (three in one week as well) for 12 weeks to have a chance to buy rewards that used cost 1-5k ranked tokens, which you could've grinded in a week or so. Not to mention its actually 4 weeklies a week, with 6 weeklies in one week to get all the tokens before the season is over.

https://imgur.com/vuC9nLJ Literally no one in this match got 8 medals, 1-2 huttball (no surprise...) match that went to TIME, and it was one big waste of time for everyone. Like really, guy with 7,550 objectives has 4 medals, dude with 8,850 has 6. I had a performance that would get me around 8-10 medals, got 4, sucks being a sniper because we can't get the healing medals. Way to go bioware, the execution is in anthesis to your intent. Y'all caused this, and hope will make changes in the future.

Is it just me or are these times absolutely crazy? Like Destiny 2, which isn't a full mmo, but has a pvp section, has time outs after quitting 2 competitive matches, and the timer is only 15 mins... and stays 15 mins. Granted, they made their casual control playlist competitive, but Jesus Christ, up to 6 hours, for 3 matches? This is a great way to keep people out of the playlist, and the population down. What are they thinking? Is 20 minutes really to short of a time to think about your actions? (pfft actions -_-) When the FP timelock out for quitting a group is like 15, and that doesn't go up after multiple quits I think? If it does, I'm usually just done for the night. Jeez, I wonder what goes on on the inside, would've loved to be a fly on the wall when the developers who greenlit this thought it was a good time frame. Like obviously quitting is bad, and negatively effects your team, (I mean usually people quit/leave when they're already going to lose. I usually left games, just to speed up the process and get into a match where I had a better chance of winning/enjoying myself, I don't really care anymore now, so I rarely leave), but man these times are long... not even giving credit to those whos internet drops out, including mine sometimes.

I just don't get why we can't get an 8 v 8 TDM match, so people will have a map to number farm on and be happy with, or you know, be able to select maps before we hop into matches like Vet FPs. What a novel idea. Like literally, it's like the intention was to make this as convoluted, and difficult to progress as possible, just to artificially increase player retention. I've voiced this in a different thread, but people are going to stop queuing because of this, irrespective of the "incentive" of the pass. Either they won't get their medals and won't feel a desire to even try if they can't get full rewards, (we also haven't gotten a statement I believe why MVP votes were removed), or they won't queue because the most effective way is to stack, so if you don't have friends on, maybe just want to try pvping to get some semblance of rewards by just pvping, you'll get rolled, irrespective if you're playing objectives or not. Literally, its so funny to me this quote: "Another goal is to discourage players from number farming in Warzones." I'll have that emblazoned on my tomb stone, because it's literally what premade stacks are doing now. Rather though, it's not number farming, it's win farming, (while also number farming ironically). Like it's just disheartening, because I pretty much have to group up, if I want to get through my weeklies without being just dogged down by casual regular pvp. I also love the logic of removing damage/tank/healing medals, but it's nearly impossible to get the medal requirements by playing objectives this season despite the intention. You're still better off trying to farm, if I'm at the basis that I know I won't get the medals required, I guess I'll just try to have the most fun the way I play, which is you know... Player versus Player fighting. Reducing the players incentive to PvP by removing the rewards for PvPing is just very counterintuitive. Why not keep the old medals and simply add in these new medals? What's the harm in that? That way you'd make your medals from both: healing/damaging/or tanking players, and playing objectives. Everyone wins no? Or again, make a TDM mode/map. You guys could literally remove the objectives from all the current maps we have, and just have them be a 'clash' mode, where its based on kills, with a tiebreaker on cumulative performance of the team (so much damage gets a player 1 point, so much protection gets a player 1 point, healing so on so forth, soft example is like 1mil damage is 1 point, so if you get 3mil damage you get 3 points, blah blah blah, it's oversimplified, but I can expand it if neeed. I hope that's clear enough, essentially a kill could be 3 point, your respective performance based on your class also gets you points or just say screw it and make it TDM), so a player who is maybe less skilled can still be made up for by a better performing player. Now you might say that's the intention of Arenas, but majority of arenas are only completable with full medals if you completely stomp the opposing team. Meaning premaking your group, is the most viable way. Meaning, if I try to play solo, and want to try to you know PvP, I just get ganked by 3dps and a healer versus my 4 dps, or 3 dps and a tank. Why queue against a group in queue, if I know I'm going to lose? (any answer is just more justification for bringing back solo ranked, which isn't going to happen.) hence the population will die.

It's this way because its meant to increase progression time to have the most people in the queue as possible. There's a reason there's no MVP votes anymore, that would give you valor, and more progression. They made the new scoreboard as convoluted and confusing as possible for a reason, so you're unable to pick apart or nitpick where you could've (or should've in the past) received medals. They kept medals at 8, while reducing the amount you are able to obtain, to again: increase the time it takes to progress. Once people start finishing up the seasonal path in a month or two (or three or four, it's so ridiculously gated that I can't even tell), they will now have zero incentive or reason to play pvp, and the playlist will die. It will just be filled with people who are stacking regs, or just farming, for the sake of farming, because there's little to gain, and as this skill creep eventually takes place, more and more people who want to jump into the playlist will get hammered out. It's what happens with no rank and ladder matchmakking, and also happens when there is a lack of incentive to play. PvP is a horrible gear progression path, so there's no reason to play, once that PvP season pass is over. If they reduced medal requirements (making the weeklies easier, hence making progression easier), the playlist will die out, just as it did before due to stagnation of rewards and incentive to play. The same thing happened to ranked, when seasons took around a year to finish, rather than months, coinciding with granked also dying. The PvP track we got was laughable at best, with it being capped at 4 weeklies to progress, multiple of which were tied to medal progression. Also like I really wished there was just "more" on the path. We get, I think 12 tokens, and 8 from achievements this season, one of which to get the big 5 medals (and the 1 medal from this specific achievement), is to complete 25 weekly arena quests... Yeah it's almost impossible to get medals in arenas unless you stomp the metaphorical paste out of a team (hence one of the only viable ways is to premade, besides that, unless I'm cooked, that should take around 12 weeks to do right? 2 arena weeklies a week?). We also get one armor set which is duplicated on the pass, the decorations are nothing like flags of old, and a title that used to cost 1,000 ranked tokens now costs I think 12 seasonal pass tokens on a vendor, and more. Majority of stuff on the vendors price wise is asinine, starting at like 12-16 tokens for basic rewards. This doesn't even go into, how most "PvP rewards" have been just reused stuff (replicas). Trust me, it's intentional, and its not going to change. If it does change the playlist will die out sooner rather than later, so now it's just a necessary evil forced on us. The way I would love them to fix it would be expanding the PvP seasonal pass rewards, next season, rather than just a duplicate set, and again not even enough tokens to buy much on the vendors, and give us the old medals back. But they didn't listen to PTS feedback, ability culling hurting class balancing, and haven't really done much. I mean, I initially quit this game to play Destiny 2, and their recent PvP update was just as much of a flop for similar reasons, and I can't believe I let myself get conned again. This isn't me blaming casuals or whatever, trust me since I've came back, I've been more casual than ever when it come to my pvp goals. (Hah, invalidates any and all points!), but seriously, its really disheartening when companies (not even developers) are given feedback, and there is such a resistance to change, despite the stated intention being positive change. Anyone who played on the PTS could say, that it wasn't going to live up to par. I could make a magnum opus post like everyone else here on the forum, but really when 95% of your forums are directed to how you made PvP worse off from an actual playability standpoint (I really do enjoy that I can now actually play pvp and get something, but I mean a morsel of food isnt going to stop me from starving over the long term), leading to an overall "mixed" at best reception, you'd think there would've been more internal discussion of the ramifications this update could have. You'd think they'd do focus groups, testing, or such, but considering PvP is such a low population of this game, it comes down to just green numbers versus red numbers on a sheet, irrespective of their long term viability. They got my money, they got everyone who has posted on this forums money, and the rest is all just piss in the wind.

Check the very bottom of legacy titles. The title should be there if you have playeyd 1000 mattches. It is quite cutt off tthough, and seems tto be tthe very bottttom one.

Reset your active phases probably. You can do this by right clicking your character portrait and selecting "additional commands" > "phases" > "reset all active phases"

I mean, it does get old, but BioWare literally knew about these problems and still released it anyways. That's why I personally, don't mind. When a studio just doesn't listen, on top of a delay, then like people can voice their opinions. I don't even mind how lackluster the story is, I just hate how damn buggy this game is now. It's almost impossible to play.

Yeah, don't know how BioWare managed to mess this up, but its impossible to complete crisis of umbara solo because after the first boss, the two invincible god turrets above you auto aggro onto Theron Shan who can't stealth and automatically aggros the turrets, who will never lose aggro after the first boss fight. What even gives? I mean I hate the Zildrog storyline, it's poorly written and executed, but I pretty much am now forced to skip it unless someone has a fix, and I mainly just wanna experience Zash as an inquisitor and the Lana scene after. Like yeah, if there's no fix I'm just going to move onto Ossus, but I've tried resetting the flashpoint, doing it in a group, I've tried death resetting, /stucking, everything. Drop a horrid expansion and break everything else. This doesn't even mention the purifier droids being impossible in the Iokath chapter in KOTET, the Guardian Droid boss fight on Iokath being bugged and soft locking, the Onslaught FP not working, the Nathema Conspiracy getting soft locked, the Ruins of Nul not working either, OR me getting locked out of the new damn expansion on the pub side because I walked off the edge now all the doors are locked. How is this even possible?

I personally think it has to do with bioware being unable to fix class stacking so I get tossed into matches with 1 sin and two ops, and I got 2 juggs and a sorc, and I know that the second I run out of entrenched I'm essentially screwed, because none of my dcds can mitigate the damage sins and ops do since it's white whatever. Because bioware big dumb meme, and can't class balance. I mean look at the ranked leaderboards for season 12, there are 10 snipers with 100 wins, (one's got 99 atm so he counts bite me), 3 of them are within range of gold (1500) for solos (ones got like 1400 rating, maybe Scoob hit 1500), there are 6 total with 1500+ ratings, currently, highest is 1578. There are 15 sins with 100+ wins, 11 have 1400+ ratings, there are 19 with 1500+ ratings, highest rated is 1710, with a 1706 on his tail. (I mean even tho we know the 1710 qsyncs, he streams it and wintrades but owo bioware won't ban him because why would they, pve is more profitable.) See something? Sins are beyond easy to play, and are brainlessly OP in 6.0 because they can and do hard counter pretty much every class. It's rigged and nor do I have the effort to put into this game just so I can get class stacked. If I go against a same skill sin, I'm basically screwed because there's no realistic way to beat them when they can stealth out twice, switch tacts, heal to full health, while putting out some of the highest burst damage, while having 3 stuns, a root, and a slow, a speed boost, and a gap closer. Like unless they're brain-dead, a sin should be winning all 1v1s unless it's against an Op. Also not to mention that the main dps they put out is unmitigatable in the first place because it's done while the target is stunned, and only 4 dcds can be popped while stunned, ED, Rebuke, Merc reflect, and sorc bubble. And rebuke is the only dcd that is worth using at the start of the fight. Any non-brainlet solo squad would open on any non-stealth class, then switch to a sniper once entrench wears off. It's a dumb gamemode now that has no fun unless you reroll as a sin or op or by happen stance get a classic mix of 1T 1H or 2DPS, which can actually be fun. See, I wish that solos wouldn't pop unless the classic mix was in queue but bioware has butchered the gamemode over so much that there's like no population, so rarely are there anything but sins and ops in queue who beg for "dps Q solos" So, yeah that's why there are like no snipers in ranked right now. Lack of balance, and an unwillingness to be globalized in this stealth meta.

You just need to be able to read the bars. I mean, I know that's not exactly the best advice. But in all actuality, look at class guides and be able to pick up the pictures. There are a lot of unique buffs/debuff images you can readily pick out. For example, knowing that ferocity for a carnage mara is a guy with two lightsabers with a pink background. It also plays into knowing other classes rotations. See, at this point in my "career" as cringy it is to say that. I've played every class to at least a profiecent level, so I know the rotations and habits that I don't really even need to look at the bar. Operatives always open with volitile substance, carnage maras usually have to hit you with slash to proc Ataru form, mercs should open with primer and tracer missile so heatseekers do max damage. Battle awareness is something that is forged in regs and perfected in ranked. Being vigilent and aware of what debuffs are going out, what buffs they have is a thing you need to pick up as you go on. That's why I stress broadening horizons and playing more than one class. Unlucky for me that both mains I play get the meta (and metaphorical) shaft from bioware, but I know my rotations because of it. Utilities, using roots and play style. Two utilities that are absolute necessities for snipers is the countermeasures purging roots and giving a speed boost, and when you leave entrenched cover you get a speed boost and root immunity. It allows me to play a mobile sniper decently. Also using roots and slows effectively. Roots are also very important. Hotkey your leg shot, or whatever the abilitiy is that movement impares people, use it on chasers, also cover pulse roots as well. If I have two on me, cover pulse and book it and hope your teammates aren't trash. Slows as well are also good, there's a utility where penblasts slows targets. Ranked is a high mobility, high damage game if you're not quick you're going to be beaten. I'll also say, having an escape play at the ready is always useful. Wherever you find yourself have two possible ways to get out of said situation. Be willing to peel from situations, and don't get greedy. Another thing, move with your mouse, not your keyboard. You're snappier and quicker to move with your mouse, since you can snap turn and not slowly glide turn when pressing A or D. Essentially, there are two (technically four, but PTs and Juggs shouldn't even think about queuing ranked this season) classes who are immune to your cover pulse. Fury/Conc maras/sents when they have stun immunity up and Mercs/Mandos with HO/HTL. Use cover pulse to root, then run. If you're getting 3 banged, your biggest thing is to push back and reestablish range with roots. Say for example, I'm get opened on and 3 banged by 2 sins and a Carnage Mara in Makeb Mesa up top and I have my hololocate up top. All of them are in melee range. I'd first: cover pulse, roll away (so I'm out of gap closing range of the sins because thats the one way they can break the root) and see if the mara used preditation to break the root or Mad Dash, if so, root him again with leg shot, and break entrench, and with the speed boost and root immunity, drop down below. Sins have no realistic way of breaking roots outside of using their gap closer or burning a DCD, so they're stuck up top, for cover pulses duration, and the mara is stuck being double rooted. Now, you've established a range of height, along with having the advantage of having hololocate. Say one of the Sins and a mara follows you down below. You could handle the 2v1, or you could just bait them by using your hololocate. Now, two out of four enemies are stuck below, the mara doesn't have preditation or mad dash because he used it to break the root. Sin probably used force speed to get below quicker, now it's a 4v2 up top while the two below slog to try and catch up. By this time, leg shot is off CD, mara comes up the ramp to join up top, root him with legshot and push him off with pen blasts. Playing sniper is hard because this is all very complicated and hard to do. If you mess up, a sin will catch you, stun you and you're a sitting duck for the duration of their OP maul spam. Hell the use of focus target and focus target modifiers is a big thing to use if you want special control of the situation. Using the focus target modifer if I wanted to root the mara without even looking at him I just hold down the modifier button and root that way. Realistically, if you are using BT-0 in an offensive capacity you can get 3 LT'd ambushes in. Precast before the fight starts, use on the roll, cast LT again, hololocate, 3rd LT you use on a roll. The big thing about PT is that it's not really the 3 LTs it gives you its the reduction in cool downs the set gives on Target Acquired and LT. Allowing you to use those more often than not. PT also fits my play style better since because I'm getting ganked a bunch in ranked, and need to establish range, I'm always on the move and while Established Foothold is nice, I rarely find myself reaching at 15% damage bonus, even though it does have it's benefits being based around entrenched. I need to work with it more.

Copy and paste from the other thread. I play a ton of sniper, so here's my tips and tricks. I'm proficient in all three specs, but I'd say the best for PvP is probably Marksmanship, second being Virulence and third being sweet, sweet Engi in 6.0. Marksmanship is good just because of it's burst ability. Yes, Viru parses higher, and does more damage in AoE situations with the Airborne Agents tact, but it doens't have the "insta kill" potential that MM does. See, MM is a spec that can zap someone at around 30% health. I've hit 70k ambushes in the new update, so it's very effective in both Ranked and Regs in killing low health players. You got a sage healer your team is focusing but can't nick below the 30% health mark? Ambush her thot butt. That being said, this will mainly be a Marksmanship guide for PvP, along with general tips on how to be a good sniper in general, no matter what spec you are. Personally, I run a very mobile Marksmanship sniper, and it works well for me, however you can run a stationary one and I'll get into that way, even though I think it's better for PvE rather than PvP, as ranked is very tailored to kiting and mobility so I see staying still very disadvantageous as a sniper, despite a decent amount of our abilities requiring cast times. So that means, I run the Precise Targeter's set bonus (which gives you 3 Laze Target charges, which also has their CD reduced by 10 seconds, and Target Acquired gives back energy) with the BT-0 Tact (20% damage boost on Ambush when you covered escape or use hollowlocate) for instant Ambushes every ten seconds or so. Along with running snapshot. Theoretically, with the PT set bonus, you can get 4 Laze Targeted, instant casted Ambushes with a 20% damage boost, by the time you use all 3 of your initial laze targeted ambushes. This along with 100% crit chance, means that you're going to be hitting the hardest a sniper could. Realistically you won't be doing this, as you'll be switching off laze target priorities but whatever. You can run MM two ways, mobile or stationary. Stationary MM would be using the Entrench Damage boost set bonus and the Refract tact (Pen Blast does splash damage, and with a full cast, Followthrough also does splash damage, it's wicked crazy when people stack in regs). Stationary essentially means you plant yourself out of the way, and free cast on people. It's alright for preventing global as if 4 people stack on you, you will be doing 4 Pen Blasts on 4 different targets along with 4 FTs at a 15% damage increase as long as you're entrenched. If you use sniper volley, you essentially double that. It's alright, but it really hampers your damage output on ambush, and kind of leaves you exposed when your entrench runs out. However, it's totally up to personal preference, I've been successful with both, however, I like higher damage numbers. For the whole thing on Laze Target priorities you have two options basically. You could use laze targets on non BT-0 affected ambushes (hard casted ambushes), or use them on BT-0 Ambushes. This is up to prefrence on how you want to spread your damage. If you want maximum dps spread you would Laze Target hard casted ambushes, and use the 20% damage increase on ambushes to basically stretch your overall "damage" on your ambushes, it extens your ambush hits, but doesn't give as much downing potential as LTing BT-0 affected ambushes. Personally, I use Laze Target on BT-0 ambushes and take the slightly less hard hitting hard casted ambushes. Basically, this is my rotation: Enter combat: Corrosive Dart > Pen Blast > Followthrough > SV > Pen Blast > FT > Snapshot snipe > Reg Snipe > TA/1st LT > Armor Pen Proc FT > Roll > Ambush > FT > Pen Blast > FT > Snapshot Snipe > (exit and reenter cover) Snapshot Snipe > Armor Pen Proc FT > Hardcasted Ambush > FT > Reapply Corrosive Dart > Pen Blast > FT > 2nd LT > Roll > Ambush > FT > lather, rince and repeat. If their not dead like halfway through that then your min-maxing is off, or you gotta stop free casting into DCDs. Hololocate, in my opinion should be used to either cause level disparity or allow you a breather. There are people who use it offensively, but I do not suggest it. Place it behind an object, or place it up. If your team rushes low, go high, if your team goes high, go low. A big thing in ranked is that you should not be in the thick of the fight. Snipers are the type who will get globaled, and it sucks becuase were not sorcs who are the only ranged turrets who rarely get focused. However, let your teammates run into the frey and use your cover as an anti gap closing ability. If the other team has a lot of stealth, plant yourself in the back and DO NOT move. You get stealth detection the longer you stay in cover. Usually, I give it about 15 seconds, and if you see the flash of stealth detection, cast entrench to prevent a stealth stun or CC. The worst thing you could do is get yourself CC'd as a sniper or get stunned by an operative or sin as if you get stunned you're going to lose 70% of your HP because bioware can't class balance. Another way to play MM sniper is to run the Evacuation Executioner route (aka the "park it and spark it"). Essentially you take the Evacuate and Executioner utilities (Evacuate reduces the cooldown of maim and flashbang by 15s, Executioner basically allows you to use Takedown at a 15% damage buff on any health target when you use maim or flashbang on an enemy). Essentially it's an amazing option against opposing snipers or melee classes even though snipers already are great counters to melee classes. You essentially slot the takedown then FT after your ambushes. Remember too that if you ambush a target under 30% health with MM I believe takedown gets a 20% (?) damage boost, so if you use a stun ability on a target after an ambush like that you'll be hitting 35% damage boosted take downs after a 20% damage increase, 100% crit chance ambush. Essentially you'll hit around a 60k (on average) LT, roll ambush, a 15k (roughly I'e seen them hit for 20k) FT, followed by a 30k takedown, and a 15k FT. It's a solid 4 GCD burst if you do it right. Also it allows you to control a bit more, and have a higher chance window or avoiding a DCD. When stunned most classes cannot cast DCDs, the big ones being evasion out of operatives and Saber Ward or reflect out of juggs. Maras, sins, Enraged Defense out of Juggs, and Merc reflect can be casted while stunned so watch out for those. You said you're having problems counter certain classes so I'll give you some tips. Operatives are not hard if you watch your debuff bar. Even though we don't have 2 rolls any more since Imp Prep doesn't refresh covered escape, you need to be mindful of your bar. Concealment Operatives have a VERY hard hitting 3 GCD burst window. If you see volitile substance pop up on your bar, you need to know that the next ability they cast will be veiled strike, and then backstab. You can essentially neuter their burst window by casting evasion. Evasion will dodge Volitile substance while still bursting it and the backstab. This leaves them sitting ducks as they cast the tactical advantage knives on you. The big thing with Operatives is baiting them. Playing sniper requires a lot of baiting. Baiting is essentially what it's definition is, just casting abilities to try and force certain DCDs out of certain classes. Baiting evasions out of Operatives, baiting reflects out of Juggs, bating the invulnerability bubble out of Maras, hell I've baited Sorcs out of bubbles. 8 times out of 10, if you hard cast ambush a target is going to cast a reflect or evasion. If you're running BT-0, hard cast the ambush, have them pop their DCD, cancel the ambush, wait for their DCD to run out, then roll and their a sitting duck. Another thing is keeping distance from melee classes. What makes snipers so annoying to face is their ability to keep melee classes at a distance. You should be running the pen blast knockback utility so you have 2 knockbacks with sniper volley, and your large knockback with cover pulse. I just hotkey cover pulse to one of my mouse buttons and just keep up your rotation uptime. Other snipers are your only real main counter. That's because of diversion. Diversion, as you now probably, basically makes you leave cover and allows you to be stunned, basically you'll get your *** chewed if you stand in a diversion. This is where hololocate comes in handy. Hit with a diversion? Spam the hell out of hololocate. You can't roll out of a diversion, but you can hololocate out of one. So, at the very least, if you do get stuck in a diversion, you can reasonably get out. Another thing is that if you don't have hololocate up, and you get diversioned, no matter what, activate evasion. Evasion can be used to negate a stun like maim or flashbang allowing you to exit the diversion and reestablish cover. If you see any of that green dust come up around you, just run. Another thing is you need to be looking out for diversions and roll to avoid them. For the most part, you can see the red circle come around you, and you should always have a LOS on the enemy sniper. The only classes that cast circles are as big as diversions are snipers with Orbital Strike or a diversion, or Sorcs with Lighting Storm. Most snipers have diversion bound to a button that when double tapped basically throws it AT your character, not many press it once and manually place it. So, reasonably if you see the diversion canister coming at you, and you roll as long as you don't roll into cover, you'll make it out of the diversion radius. This is where running BT-0 could mess you up, as you are kind of a sitting duck after you roll. This is why I usually run the Pen Blast knockback util, as that gives countermeasures a 75% movement speed increase, after rolling, I usually pop counter measure and book it away from a diversion canister. Another thing is knowing the rotations of other classes, their DCDs and varying up your own rotation. The big thing about PvP in general is that people are human. Humans are variable. Were not Operation bosses, we make mistakes, we do rotations out of order, and we are not robots, for the most part anyway. I made various ranks on various characters, but I'd consider my main a sniper. Still, I make sure to play other classes so I know their habits. For example, in my basic rotation, I gave off the rotation habit of snipe > snipe > ambush. Usually, if you see a double snipe you know that a FT > Ambush > FT will be heading your way. So, obviously you'd use evasion. Same as I brought up with Concealment operatives, if you see them cast volitile substance, for their OP tactical to activate, they need to hit you with veiled strike. So, since most Concealment Operatives cannot vary up their rotations as they could burst the VS, you can reasonbly hit evasion and they either have to avoid you while you free cast on them, or just try to burst through it. Same with Sorcs. Did you know you can interrupt force leach and thundering blast? And that Thundering Blast almost always comes after a crushing darkness cast? Just interrupt the TB and they're sitting ducks. AP PTs will almost always use energy lode at 4 stacks, so if you see that they go for 3 to 4, cast evasion or shield probe and keep them at a range. This ability also causes people to be cocky. I've baited snipers out of evasion by using two snipes, because they think they are smart by expecting me to be a robot and cast ambush right after a double snipe. Well, no, usually I would throw a flashbang into them if I'm running evacuate executioner, then prepare my main burst rotations. It's also good to know other classes tacts. If I know an opposing sniper is running BT-0, then I'll probably watch for a double snipe then a roll, as I know they will probably try to instant cast an ambush into me. That's about it for marksmanship. Sniper is I think the class that requires the most skill to play. So if you see a good sniper it's good to see. It's not exactly a class you can hop into and become a gold rated player overnight. It takes time and practice to know how/when to use your abilities correctly. It's easy to learn, hard to master. I can also tell you the basics of the other specs if you want, I would mainly say if you want to run another spec, run virulence. Engi , even though we have a love hate relationship, is not in a good spot right now when it comes to PvP at least imo . If you have any questions feel free to ask.

I play a ton of sniper, so here's my tips and tricks. I'm proficient in all three specs, but I'd say the best for PvP is probably Marksmanship, second being Virulence and third being sweet, sweet Engi in 6.0. Marksmanship is good just because of it's burst ability. Yes, Viru parses higher, and does more damage in AoE situations with the Airborne Agents tact, but it doens't have the "insta kill" potential that MM does. See, MM is a spec that can zap someone at around 30% health. I've hit 70k ambushes in the new update, so it's very effective in both Ranked and Regs in killing low health players. You got a sage healer your team is focusing but can't nick below the 30% health mark? Ambush her thot butt. That being said, this will mainly be a Marksmanship guide for PvP, along with general tips on how to be a good sniper in general, no matter what spec you are. Personally, I run a very mobile Marksmanship sniper, and it works well for me, however you can run a stationary one and I'll get into that way, even though I think it's better for PvE rather than PvP, as ranked is very tailored to kiting and mobility so I see staying still very disadvantageous as a sniper, despite a decent amount of our abilities requiring cast times. So that means, I run the Precise Targeter's set bonus (which gives you 3 Laze Target charges, which also has their CD reduced by 10 seconds, and Target Acquired gives back energy) with the BT-0 Tact (20% damage boost on Ambush when you covered escape or use hollowlocate) for instant Ambushes every ten seconds or so. Along with running snapshot. Theoretically, with the PT set bonus, you can get 4 Laze Targeted, instant casted Ambushes with a 20% damage boost, by the time you use all 3 of your initial laze targeted ambushes. This along with 100% crit chance, means that you're going to be hitting the hardest a sniper could. Realistically you won't be doing this, as you'll be switching off laze target priorities but whatever. You can run MM two ways, mobile or stationary. Stationary MM would be using the Entrench Damage boost set bonus and the Refract tact (Pen Blast does splash damage, and with a full cast, Followthrough also does splash damage, it's wicked crazy when people stack in regs). Stationary essentially means you plant yourself out of the way, and free cast on people. It's alright for preventing global as if 4 people stack on you, you will be doing 4 Pen Blasts on 4 different targets along with 4 FTs at a 15% damage increase as long as you're entrenched. If you use sniper volley, you essentially double that. It's alright, but it really hampers your damage output on ambush, and kind of leaves you exposed when your entrench runs out. However, it's totally up to personal preference, I've been successful with both, however, I like higher damage numbers. For the whole thing on Laze Target priorities you have two options basically. You could use laze targets on non BT-0 affected ambushes (hard casted ambushes), or use them on BT-0 Ambushes. This is up to prefrence on how you want to spread your damage. If you want maximum dps spread you would Laze Target hard casted ambushes, and use the 20% damage increase on ambushes to basically stretch your overall "damage" on your ambushes, it extens your ambush hits, but doesn't give as much downing potential as LTing BT-0 affected ambushes. Personally, I use Laze Target on BT-0 ambushes and take the slightly less hard hitting hard casted ambushes. Basically, this is my rotation: Enter combat: Corrosive Dart > Pen Blast > Followthrough > SV > Pen Blast > FT > Snapshot snipe > Reg Snipe > TA/1st LT > Armor Pen Proc FT > Roll > Ambush > FT > Pen Blast > FT > Snapshot Snipe > (exit and reenter cover) Snapshot Snipe > Armor Pen Proc FT > Hardcasted Ambush > FT > Reapply Corrosive Dart > Pen Blast > FT > 2nd LT > Roll > Ambush > FT > lather, rince and repeat. If their not dead like halfway through that then your min-maxing is off, or you gotta stop free casting into DCDs. Hololocate, in my opinion should be used to either cause level disparity or allow you a breather. There are people who use it offensively, but I do not suggest it. Place it behind an object, or place it up. If your team rushes low, go high, if your team goes high, go low. A big thing in ranked is that you should not be in the thick of the fight. Snipers are the type who will get globaled, and it sucks becuase were not sorcs who are the only ranged turrets who rarely get focused. However, let your teammates run into the frey and use your cover as an anti gap closing ability. If the other team has a lot of stealth, plant yourself in the back and DO NOT move. You get stealth detection the longer you stay in cover. Usually, I give it about 15 seconds, and if you see the flash of stealth detection, cast entrench to prevent a stealth stun or CC. The worst thing you could do is get yourself CC'd as a sniper or get stunned by an operative or sin as if you get stunned you're going to lose 70% of your HP because bioware can't class balance. Another way to play MM sniper is to run the Evacuation Executioner route (aka the "park it and spark it"). Essentially you take the Evacuate and Executioner utilities (Evacuate reduces the cooldown of maim and flashbang by 15s, Executioner basically allows you to use Takedown at a 15% damage buff on any health target when you use maim or flashbang on an enemy). Essentially it's an amazing option against opposing snipers or melee classes even though snipers already are great counters to melee classes. You essentially slot the takedown then FT after your ambushes. Remember too that if you ambush a target under 30% health with MM I believe takedown gets a 20% (?) damage boost, so if you use a stun ability on a target after an ambush like that you'll be hitting 35% damage boosted take downs after a 20% damage increase, 100% crit chance ambush. Essentially you'll hit around a 60k (on average) LT, roll ambush, a 15k (roughly I'e seen them hit for 20k) FT, followed by a 30k takedown, and a 15k FT. It's a solid 4 GCD burst if you do it right. Also it allows you to control a bit more, and have a higher chance window or avoiding a DCD. When stunned most classes cannot cast DCDs, the big ones being evasion out of operatives and Saber Ward or reflect out of juggs. Maras, sins, Enraged Defense out of Juggs, and Merc reflect can be casted while stunned so watch out for those. You said you're having problems counter certain classes so I'll give you some tips. Operatives are not hard if you watch your debuff bar. Even though we don't have 2 rolls any more since Imp Prep doesn't refresh covered escape, you need to be mindful of your bar. Concealment Operatives have a VERY hard hitting 3 GCD burst window. If you see volitile substance pop up on your bar, you need to know that the next ability they cast will be veiled strike, and then backstab. You can essentially neuter their burst window by casting evasion. Evasion will dodge Volitile substance while still bursting it and the backstab. This leaves them sitting ducks as they cast the tactical advantage knives on you. The big thing with Operatives is baiting them. Playing sniper requires a lot of baiting. Baiting is essentially what it's definition is, just casting abilities to try and force certain DCDs out of certain classes. Baiting evasions out of Operatives, baiting reflects out of Juggs, bating the invulnerability bubble out of Maras, hell I've baited Sorcs out of bubbles. 8 times out of 10, if you hard cast ambush a target is going to cast a reflect or evasion. If you're running BT-0, hard cast the ambush, have them pop their DCD, cancel the ambush, wait for their DCD to run out, then roll and their a sitting duck. Another thing is keeping distance from melee classes. What makes snipers so annoying to face is their ability to keep melee classes at a distance. You should be running the pen blast knockback utility so you have 2 knockbacks with sniper volley, and your large knockback with cover pulse. I just hotkey cover pulse to one of my mouse buttons and just keep up your rotation uptime. Other snipers are your only real main counter. That's because of diversion. Diversion, as you now probably, basically makes you leave cover and allows you to be stunned, basically you'll get your *** chewed if you stand in a diversion. This is where hololocate comes in handy. Hit with a diversion? Spam the hell out of hololocate. You can't roll out of a diversion, but you can hololocate out of one. So, at the very least, if you do get stuck in a diversion, you can reasonably get out. Another thing is that if you don't have hololocate up, and you get diversioned, no matter what, activate evasion. Evasion can be used to negate a stun like maim or flashbang allowing you to exit the diversion and reestablish cover. If you see any of that green dust come up around you, just run. Another thing is you need to be looking out for diversions and roll to avoid them. For the most part, you can see the red circle come around you, and you should always have a LOS on the enemy sniper. The only classes that cast circles are as big as diversions are snipers with Orbital Strike or a diversion, or Sorcs with Lighting Storm. Most snipers have diversion bound to a button that when double tapped basically throws it AT your character, not many press it once and manually place it. So, reasonably if you see the diversion canister coming at you, and you roll as long as you don't roll into cover, you'll make it out of the diversion radius. This is where running BT-0 could mess you up, as you are kind of a sitting duck after you roll. This is why I usually run the Pen Blast knockback util, as that gives countermeasures a 75% movement speed increase, after rolling, I usually pop counter measure and book it away from a diversion canister. Another thing is knowing the rotations of other classes, their DCDs and varying up your own rotation. The big thing about PvP in general is that people are human. Humans are variable. Were not Operation bosses, we make mistakes, we do rotations out of order, and we are not robots, for the most part anyway. I made various ranks on various characters, but I'd consider my main a sniper. Still, I make sure to play other classes so I know their habits. For example, in my basic rotation, I gave off the rotation habit of snipe > snipe > ambush. Usually, if you see a double snipe you know that a FT > Ambush > FT will be heading your way. So, obviously you'd use evasion. Same as I brought up with Concealment operatives, if you see them cast volitile substance, for their OP tactical to activate, they need to hit you with veiled strike. So, since most Concealment Operatives cannot vary up their rotations as they could burst the VS, you can reasonbly hit evasion and they either have to avoid you while you free cast on them, or just try to burst through it. Same with Sorcs. Did you know you can interrupt force leach and thundering blast? And that Thundering Blast almost always comes after a crushing darkness cast? Just interrupt the TB and they're sitting ducks. AP PTs will almost always use energy lode at 4 stacks, so if you see that they go for 3 to 4, cast evasion or shield probe and keep them at a range. This ability also causes people to be cocky. I've baited snipers out of evasion by using two snipes, because they think they are smart by expecting me to be a robot and cast ambush right after a double snipe. Well, no, usually I would throw a flashbang into them if I'm running evacuate executioner, then prepare my main burst rotations. It's also good to know other classes tacts. If I know an opposing sniper is running BT-0, then I'll probably watch for a double snipe then a roll, as I know they will probably try to instant cast an ambush into me. That's about it for marksmanship. Sniper is I think the class that requires the most skill to play. So if you see a good sniper it's good to see. It's not exactly a class you can hop into and become a gold rated player overnight. It takes time and practice to know how/when to use your abilities correctly. It's easy to learn, hard to master. I can also tell you the basics of the other specs if you want, I would mainly say if you want to run another spec, run virulence. Engi , even though we have a love hate relationship, is not in a good spot right now when it comes to PvP at least imo . If you have any questions feel free to ask.

So we got some damage increases and meta shifts in the update, so I’ve been queuing ranked lately and trying to get a sense of new overall damage you should be taking or at least shooting for in a 4v4 DPS match. Been running on my Jugg, averaging around 900k and a few games with 1 mil damage taken, but I’m usually around the 900k side with full DCD usage no resets etc. I don’t know if that’s exactly good or not or if I need to change my DCD rotation around since Juggs are just bottom tier in ranked now and just glorified 5.0 PTs with laser swords since ED never got scaled to 6.0 and I need all the survivability I can get. FYI I think I have two (one blue, one green) en guard amps but nothing to serious in that department. I know the baseline in 5.0 was trying to at least take 300k damage as an average player, or maybe 400k depending on the class. Anyone got some thoughts?

Name: Not Bankzy Spec: Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Guild: Shield of Destiny Record: 9098.02 DPS and Biggest Hit for 85,922 Link: https://i.imgur.com/AHml2as.jpg (DPS) https://i.imgur.com/szKKeR6.jpg (Biggest Hit)