Cover/Cull builds are good for PvE. That's originally what I designed them to do (i.e. high damage without much gear support). They can be used in PvP, but I've found that I tend to prefer pure Marks (and full PvE gear for the set bonus) for that. Any spec can perform well when supported by a team. Eng/Lethality and other variants may be more fun for you in PvP (especially if you are pugging frequently) -- but it depends on your situation. Gear is only one part of what I'd need to know about your playstyle to make a relevant suggestion. Don't hesitate to experiment with other builds. Mine tend to change (for better or worse) once or twice a week. Personal note: I like Marksmanship's high level of consistency and enjoy the thoroughly predictable priorities. Cover/Cull is good if you need to push your DPS (i.e. your raid is still clearing content and every bit of DPS is essential). Marksmanship is perfectly fine if your raid is farming content. You can guess which one I am. Heh. Really. The sniper skill trees have supported a surprising amount of skill combinations.

They take full Gearhead instead of Energy Tanks and drop one point out of Razor Rounds. 16/2/23 is braindead-easy energy management (and high DPS) for snipers who have no gear. 16/3/22 will allow you to benefit from the increased Cunning -- assuming you're comfortable managing your energy without energy tanks. 16/2/23 was my attempt to take ALL of the relevant energy-related skills without sacrificing damage. 16/3/22 is a modification of my basic Sniper's Nest / Cull build that changes the balance away from "totally safe" energy management to "moderately safe" energy management with a potential damage gain. Snipers with higher crit ratings (i.e. more gear) will find 16/3/22 easier to use than will Snipers with less gear and lower crit ratings.

The highest sustained damage spec is literally too close to call without a parser. And it varies based on the characteristics of the fight. The highest sustained damage spec for you, personally, will be the one in which you properly manage energy and have a knack for prioritizing skills. YMMV.

Let me offer a handful of corrections. People in the beta were divided about Sniper's Volley as well. For most of beta I never took the skill. Toward the end of beta I spent more time using it and continued to use it as I leveled at launch. Now that I have quite a bit of gear? I find that at a certain point it just doesn't matter in a significant fashion. Sniper's Volley is about equal with the other possible choices in most builds and makes a fine choice while leveling. RE: Overall Raid DPS? I don't notice much difference between taking it and ... not taking it ... in exchange for something else. MM's primary damage abilities are still Followthrough, Takedown (especially with a 4pc PvE set bonus), Series of Shots, Orbital Strike, Snipe (to activate FT) and Ambush. Pillbox Sniper has nice synergy with Ballistic Shield and the Sector Ranger skill, but that's about it. Sniper's Volley slightly changes the pace of your ability usage. There are times when I feel like using it and times when I don't. Sniper's Volley is by no means an awesome/essential skill ... but it's not irredeemably bad, either. YMMV, so play to your individual strengths. Most Sniper skill trees (despite what the math people may tell you) will pull approximately even with topflight gear. Lethality may pull a little ahead before you have the gear to support Marksmanship. --- The most likely reason that "top" raiders are using MM is that: it has the most intuitive ability priorities (Engineering has relatively long cooldowns in comparison), the least mysterious skills, and is the easiest to use while successfully managing energy to produce high DPS (full Lethality can be challenging, and full Engineering can feel a little clunky). Simply put, Marksmanship probably "feels" most right. Avoiding blanket mandates is a good idea. And try, when making recommendations, to consider the following points: Player experience Character level Gear level Playstyle preference (particularly PvE vs. PvP and mobility vs. survivability)

Shatter Shot...?

I stopped reading about there. Ignore armor? Nonsense! Tech attacks still do kinetic damage unless otherwise specified (i.e. their damage is mostly mitigated by armor, too). "Energy" damage is also mitigated by armor. It helps to read the armor tooltip ingame: "Reduces the damage you take from kinetic and energy attacks." The only damage that 'bypasses' armor is stuff like elemental and internal damage (i.e. anything for which you have a specific 'resistance' stat of its own). BH abilities also do not penetrate damage shields (which is what I think you're talking about, but it's hard to tell...). You might also try using Diversion. It makes that 'unavoidable' attack a little more avoidable (it reduces accuracy across the board, including tech accuracy and caster accuracy). Keep in mind that BH's Tracer Missile must first stack to five to provide 20% armor reduction. Sniper can apply the same amount of armor reduction in one GCD via Shatter Shot (and a Sniper's armor debuff lasts 45 seconds in comparison to the BH's 15). I would also advise you to consider Ballistic Dampeners in your assessment. That's a 30% reduction to incoming damage. It can proc every 1.5 seconds (or every cooldown) and I can reapply the effect every six. Only a stupid Sniper eats Tracer Missile spam without either mitigating it or using Distraction/Diversion in some form or fashion. Distraction is probably the funniest, tbh. A few of the newer BHs/Troopers have no idea what to do when they can't spam Tracer/Grav. Merc is not much better than Sniper at anything but clearing trash mobs -- they are avowedly and markedly better at that. The only people I have trouble with as a Marksmanship Sniper are: tank-spec'd tanks, anyone with a temporary shield up, and in rare circumstances stealth classes.

Merc DPS is not that much different from Sniper DPS. They do damage in different ways/flavors. Sniper DPS is also about 100x more interesting to play imho.

Well said. I have a feeling that the misconception occurred as a result of the multidimensional nature of the armor and defense ratings, themselves. Armor rating makes a significant contribution to defense chance (the previously mentioned chance to parry, dodge, deflect, etc.). What you may not know is that all of these ingame outputs are different in name only. A Jedi's ability to "deflect" blaster fire is mechanically identical to a Sniper's chance to "dodge" attacks. The text that is displayed/output varies according to class and certain other effect conditions. In that sense, I have to shake my head a bit at the threads complaining about Jedi parry/deflect. One of these days I'm going to make a diagram for Sniper stat inputs. Text can only accomplish so much!

Back in beta Operatives were able to use portable cover. Think about that a moment. The portable cover shield is Sniper's class flavor trademark in much the same way that stealth belongs (in a flavor sense) to Operative and Assassin. For a brief time in beta Snipers even had access to Operatives' group stealth field. Now, instead of that, we get the really cool Ballistic Shield. I consider the shield (our nicest native "raid utility" ability next to shatter shot) an excellent trade. --- Sign me up as a supporter of "active camo" on our gear, though! I would love an armor set designed to make snipers less noticeable. I'm looking at you, art team.

Neither. Please don't stack stats (hint: you want sufficient amounts of accuracy, power, crit, and surge!). You will, however, enjoy the effect of Power relics and adrenals.

Be patient while you learn the cover system. More to the point: invest some time in learning the cover system.

Most stats you'll find will come in pairs on gear (i.e. acc/power and crit/surge, respectively). You want a balance of all four. "What do I want for X?" only becomes more relevant as you reach the higher levels and have to start making more significant tradeoffs. Power is ... surprisingly powerful ... once you've got the "bases" of your other ratings covered.

If you aren't Biochem and you're suffering in PvP, you should really try Biochem.

The tooltip in beta was also more descriptive. Cull's said something like "makes each DoT on the target tick for "X" amount of additional damage. So in that sense base Cull damage was unaffected by Weakening Blast. I seem to remember saving my WB for closer to the mid-endpoint of fights in order to stack WB's effect onto Cull with the Corrosive Microbes 30% DoT damage buff in play.

Do you have the cooldown/cost reduction skills for Followthrough? You'll get a six-second CD out of that and it'll be basically free to use. torhead.com - use skill calc - and link build here please. Hard to make suggestions with something I can't see.

Snipers can use Blaster Rifles (it's base Agent weapon thing). I'm not really understanding why you'd RP a Sniper with a blaster rifle, though? Why not be Operative with stealth? More interesting character story to be sure. (Sniper: First I used a Sniper Rifle but then I took a bullet to the knee and now I use a Blaster Rifle. - Backstory? )

Blargh. Hate when I do that. I "speak" fluent Gunslinger and Sniper and sometimes ... mixups like that happen.

On that note, please do not neglect Accuracy or Power. Power is ... surprisingly effective at 50.

Shatter Shot, anyone? Please tell me you aren't forgetting to apply this to heavily armored targets. (Also Corrosive Dart to stealthers.) Edit: See I fixed it.

I think so. The best way to find out, though, is to experiment with builds on your own.

Use Adrenaline Probe at about 35-45% energy, incidentally. It only gives you back half of your bar. Using it at the bottom will only put you into middling energy regen and if you try to burst there you'll only run out of energy again. If you're MM with Sniper's Nest, also remember that your energy regen is dependent on staying in cover (i.e. staying in the same place as much as possible). If you're Biochem I suggest a Rakata Attack Adrenal. Have you been leading with your shatter shot? It's easier for Sniper to manage energy in shorter fights. In order for fights to be shorter your target needs to be debuffed (so everyone does more damage) and you should probably be using stims/adrenals to get the most out of your abilities. --- On ability order: have you tried just waiting slightly longer than the GCD to regenerate your energy rather than using Rifle Shot? Rifle Shot is essentially a waste of a GCD unless you 'need' to mix it in. A lot of abilities like Series of Shots regenerate the energy they cost during their channel. ... speaking of. What are you building? I should probably have lead with that question.

There are about five skills that I've been finding situational/negotiable on Marksman (i.e. you can split your points to get to 31 between them any way you like): 1. Sniper Volley 2. Imperial Demarcation 3. Cover Screen 4. Pillbox Sniper 5. Sector Ranger It's a sort of "build for what you want" situation. The more I play, the more I'm not not noticing much of a difference when taking any combination of any of the above. My current 31/7/3 has points in Cover Screen (certain Operations fights) and Pillbox Sniper (more Entrench is handy for PvP and at certain points in PvE). I pretty much change my build every week or whenever I get gear upgrades. Just to see if my skill preferences have changed. --- Regarding Target Acquired: bear in mind it also impacts Ambush and Orbital Strike.

But only against basic ranged attacks (i.e. blaster fire, a particular type of kinetic damage). Jedi Shadow / Sith Assassin? Internal and Kinetic (non-ranged). Scoundrel / Operative? (Concealment) Tech and Kinetic (minor ranged) (their primary damage abilities are non-ranged) Scoundrel / Operative? (Lethality) Internal and Tech (minor ranged) Trooper / BH? Tech and kinetic (some ranged) (their primary damage abilities are tech) Jedi Consular / Sith Sorcerer? Elemental and internal damage. Gunslinger / Sniper? Kinetic and tech (primary damage ranged kinetic) The only people that you're really protected against are other players of your class. I take this talent while I'm leveling because of the frequency of Gunslinger/Sniper enemies and then drop it when I hit 50.

Maybe and maybe not. Need to do some personal testing. At one point it wasn't ... and now I'm hearing it is. So! Time to check.

Yeah ... don't do it. Construct your builds based on ingame damage and experience only. Some of TORhead's numbers are still fantastically inaccurate for a level 50 Sniper.