It's called an Imperial Agent.

Shatter Shot does stack, but there is a limit to how many Armor Debuffs will stack. Not sure what it is though. I noticed then running 8 mans with one Juggernaut, and then 16's with multiple classes that also had Armor Debuffs, I wasn't hitting any harder then I was with just the one other Debuff in addition to my own. This needs further testing though. Corrosive Dart is only worth using if you have to move. I tend to use it on a fight where I have to run somewhere, or re-position. Explosive Probe is NOT a main component of a MM priority/rotation. That being said, EP should be used if you need to quickly convert Energy into Damage. For example, if you just used Followthrough, and Ambush/SoS/Rapid Fire/Orbital Strike happen to be on Cooldown, AND you have plenty of Energy, then it is perfectly acceptable to use Explosive Probe. Though, it is NOT something you should be using constantly. For PvE, on all Bosses/High HP mobs, you should be opening with Shatter Shot. A. it allows you to start regenerating energy right away B. it is better DPS because your first real move (SoS/Ambush) will hit harder

OP isn't necessarily wrong though when saying Cover can be clunky. It's generally fine, just could use some smoothing out.

This is true. I guess it comes down to what you consider to be PvP success. This game isn't WoW where if you were good at killing, you could be Gladiator and claim bragging rights. It comes down to Objective Points. Kills/Damage done are secondary. At the moment the game gives us freedom which is proven by the fact we can sit here and argue the PvP viability of all 3 of our trees. I'm slightly curious to see what emerges as the top choice once Ranked Warzones come out. There are scenarios where Marksman can be viable and even better, but the best way to put it is that Marksman is situational. For team play (coordinated pre-mades) it can be great, but it has weaknesses. For solo queues, Lethality tends to be much more versatile with the fact that you get a ton of snares/stuns/slows/dots . I find Lethality to be a better spec for going on the offensive. If you want to push objectives, run around, kill people, etc...Leth or Leth/Eng is far superior. If you want to say ... defend on Civil War or Voidstar, then Marksman is great. You can set up somewhere and torch people (as long as they aren't tanks). Oh and Ballistic Shield is sorta ****** in PvP. There are SO many knock-backs in this game, all it takes is someone with half a brain to use one and knock you out of cover to end your Shield (though sometimes i see the shield stay up even though I'm out of cover, not sure if that's a bug or not). Until Entrench is fixed to grant us immunity to knock-backs I would hesitate to claim that Ballistic Shield is great in cover.

I wouldn't be surprised to see BioWare fix our Accuracy-fetish in an upcoming patch.

Our itemization is atrocious at the moment. Field Tech for example on a piece by piece basis is inferior to Enforcer. Our set bonuses are mediocre at best, terrible at worst. Our accuracy cap *as Marksman* is ENTIRELY too hard and DRs make it ridiculous to hit the soft cap of 108%. Our Rakata has NO Surge on it anywhere, and an abundance of crit. I'm at 41.95% self-buffed and I have 0 Surge Rating (I'm 5/5 Rakata, with both Rakata weapons, bracers, belt, and ear piece). Example - Rakata Enforcer Leggings: +122 Cunning +48 Crit +51 Accuracy Rakata Field Tech Leggings: +112 Cunning +48 Crit +51 Accuracy To tweak your stats to maximum effectiveness at the Rakata level, you need the mods/enhancements. Which are rare, and expensive. The solution to our stat issues is to buff the Core Stats on Epic Gear (The "Armoring" that you cannot look at or tweak) and nerf the mods and enhancements. You will ultimately get the same stats, but if the best Mods/Enhancements could be crafted by Cybertech and Artifice, that would serve the dual purpose of fixing the uselessness of both crafting professions, and at the same time allow people to more easily and efficiently modify their stats.

The issues with cover are the following: A. Natural Cover is awkward placed in Operations and to a lesser extent Flashpoints. B. Take Cover is a clunky system and can occasionally make it difficult to go where you want to go. C. Artificial Cover is much simpler and easier, and in a raid, there's really no reason to use Natural Cover (Annihilation Droid has some opportunities). D. Every class seems to have a knockback, and it is ENTIRELY too easy to knock a Sniper from cover. E. The Sniper cover defense bonuses are negligible most of the time and don't work on things like "Grav Round."

What a smart *** question... Everyone knows a PvP talent when they see one, so don't act like you don't know what that means. Lethality has: Hold Your Ground, Counterstrike, Adhesive Corrosives, Vanish, Slip Away, and Flash Powder. None of those have enough worth to be used in any serious PvE build. Marksman has some PvP Talents such as Imperial Demarcation and Heavy Shot. They are positioned low enough for a reason, and that is so that other trees may access them. Cover Screen and Ballistic Dampers have SOME worth in PvE (though not a lot) and we can't skip them even if we tried. Sector Ranger + Pillbox Sniper are not PvP talents because they have worth to PvE builds. Marksman uses Orbital Strike as a core component of it's DPS rotation/prioritization. Engineering is sort of the bridge between the two and has the mix of AoE/PvP/PvE. ALSO, Lethality is the most mobile. Don't try to tell me Mobility is not a huge help in PvP... At the end of the day you're arguing semantics. The Sniper community's general consensus is that Lethality or Lethality/Eng is THE PvP spec and Marksman is the PvE. This is evidenced by playing either spec. Regardless of whether you agree or not, Lethality is the PvP focused tree at the moment, though this could certainly change. It's obvious that the emphasis on Marksman was for PvE. If they wanted us to PvP primarily as Marksman, they'd have made us mobile and gave us a ton of talents involving move speeds, stuns, and snares. And yes there are people who PvP as Marksman (Such as me...) but they are a minority. The majority of PvP Snipers are rocking Lethality or Lethality/Engineering hybrid. Series of Shots is an ability marginalized in PvP. Just read what other people, even in this thread, have said about it. SoS is primarily a PvE ability (I'm not saying it's NEVER used in PvP), and is a main weapon for a Marksman Sniper. Rapid Fire is a talent designed to increase it's use in a Raid Scenario. There is no counter argument to this, no matter how hard you try. Summation: All 3 trees can be used for PvE or PvP. Lethality or Lethality/Eng are the BEST PvP specs we currently have available, while Marksman is the worst. Marksman is also the BEST PvE tree we currently have available. You do realize: A. Marksman burst is AWFUL against any class with mitigation or heavy armor? B. Big deal we do the most burst, we also have the least survivability, and the least mobility. Damage is not always the most important...just look at how good Juggernauts are in PvP or how Warlocks were in early WoW when they used SL/SL. Damage =/= Good at PvP. C. Easily dispelled? It's not that easy to dispel if you're a competent Lethality sniper... ^^^ Exactly. Thought as a Marksman Sniper I wouldn't exactly call us energy efficient either... This is all off topic though. The point is, that people complaining that Marksman doesn't have more PvP talents are people who are in their own world. As long as this game follows the WoW-esque style of talents/talent trees there will always be specs that do things better then other specs. If you changed Rapid Fire to a PvP talent, then you'd be saying that all 3 trees have equal emphasis on PvP. It is close to impossible to make 3 trees with different play styles and yet are all equally viable in all forms of game play. It's not going to happen... so get used to there being certain PvP-centric specs/trees and certain PvE-centric specs/trees.

Are you looking for PvE or PvP with this build?

Well Lethality is the black sheep of our PvE specs. It's do-able but not really the best, and the set bonuses reflect that. In fact our 4 set is obviously geared at Marksman especially as MM has all the Takedown talents. In a Marksman rotation having the DPE of our execution move saves us a good amount of energy over the end course of a fight, especially if it has a burn phase like Annihilation Droid. THOUGH, you are right about Enforcer set but for the wrong reason. Enforcer set is statted out better than Field Tech. Example: Rakata Enforcer Leggings: +122 Cunning +48 Crit +51 Acc Rakata Field Tech Leggings: +112 Cunning +48 Crit +51 accuracy Overall, I do agree. Our set bonuses are lackluster and I'm currently wearing mostly Enforcer gear as well, at least until I get doubles and can rip Enforcer mods into Field Tech pieces.

You serious? Read the trees. It's OBVIOUS Marksman was designed with a more PvE-centric focus then say Lethality. Anyone who has ever played a Sniper in raids will tell you that Marksman is currently our most PvE related tree. Whether or not BioWare says they have "PvP Specs" or not, they do. And right now our PvP specs are Lethality or Lethality/Engineering. People want everything to be viable without thinking of what you're asking for. If the OP gets his wish and they change Rapid Fire to a PvP skill, thanks you just broke Marksman. All of us Marksman Snipers now have to redo our builds because you have us talented into PvP abilities. This game is not solely designed around PvP. There WILL be PvP Specs/Trees and there WILL be PvE Specs/Trees. If you read the Engineering or Lethality (especially Leth) trees you'll see PLENTY Of PvP talents for you to choose from.

I'm not sure it's viable. Just a cursory glance leads me to believe it would have horrendous energy issues and the Marksman tree seems like an after thought. Marksman gets a LARGE % of it's damage from Followthrough/Imperial Assassin/Orbital Strike. You don't have any of the talents that relate to those. Meaning you're using a Lethality rotation with SoS/Ambush thrown in. Also you didn't pick up Gearhead in the Eng tree which I personally think is a must have for everyone. I'm just not sure your damage output would match your energy consumption. The only way to find out is to try it in game and report back how it looked.

Sniper DPS (assuming you play a MM PvE Spec) is a little bit more RNG then Merc. Marksman does almost ENTIRELY Weapon Damage (calculated as Kinetic). Kinetic Damage is affected by Defense which is why we need 108% accuracy in order to never miss or be dodged; but I digress. Kinetic Damage is also hit HEAVILY by Armor. Raid composition has a strong effect on whether or not you are doing your optimal DPS as a Markman Sniper. If your raid group is high in Armor Reduction debuffs, you'll notice a gain in your damage per attack and that will average out to higher DPS. I would say right now Mercenary is a much more stable source of damage (NOT necessarily better), they have more ways to manage their resources and their itemization is better done than ours. Snipers have to work much harder to obtain any meaningful amount of Accuracy or Surge. I guess I can sum it up with: Snipers are much more gear dependent and affected by raid composition/individual encounter then a Mercenary is. A good Sniper will make the best of it and manage to pull good DPS on almost any encounter, but there will be times where a Mercenary will beat us.

Um... Rapid Fire isn't supposed to be for PvP. Clearly that's the PvE tree. If you want PvP Talents go Eng/Leth.

BUT, much of our accuracy comes off the Rakata enhancements. I'm in almost full Rakata and I'm at 107.64% Accuracy (i know it's not 108 -_-). It's not easy to have the space to swap to Surge. Something needs to give with our Accuracy, it occupies way too much of our gear. If we're going to need 500+ Accuracy Rating to be PvE Soft Capped, then they need to give us a Surge boost somewhere else.

You mean 108%?

Lethality PvE has issues that's why. Marksman when played correctly outweighs it as well. Lethality does solid damage and has good mobility, but it has awful energy issues in PvE, in fact it makes Marksman look efficient. Combat Log/DPS Meters are confirmation. Our research now has nothing to prove whether or not it's accurate. We have a good IDEA of what is the correct way to do things, but I'll guarantee when Meters come out we will have to tweak some things.

He's right it's useless. Any incentive for Natural Cover is far outweighed by how clunky the system is and how poorly placed the Natural Cover is (at least in Operations). People going OH YOU CAN AVOID MISSLES IN EV that's again useless. That's a fight mechanic, thus your raid should have an answer for it. If my survivability in an Ops group is dependent on my choice of cover, then we need to find new healers. ^Exactly. If you're doing Hard or Nightmare, most guilds just heal through it. My guild LoS it when we're feeling lazy, but even then I usually just DPS through it anyway because my healer told me he could he solo heal the whole raid through it lol. Plus, ONE fight where it has SOME use, doesn't invalidate the entire argument of it being generally useless.

You can get an Epic one in Heroic Boarding Party that isn't terrible until you find some Ops gear.

It's not personal opinion, it's fact. We play a DPS class, the best companion is the one that fulfills a role you cannot yourself fulfill. That being said Kaliyo has had varied complaints here on these forums about survivability, and Scorpio is entirely too difficult to gear out while leveling up (at 50 you could do it if you wanted to invest the time). That leaves the healer...which also reduces the downtime between pulls. You would want a healer with Eng too because with all your AoE you're likely to pull aggro anyway. I could see a Lethality specced Sniper using a Tank, but that also seems unlikely because I see very few people leveling as pure Lethality. If you have trouble killing something as Eng or Marksman while leveling, then you're probably not playing right. Second. I don't suck because I use Lokin... Lokin allows me to pull 5-6 things at a time and kill them all, then I don't have to wait because he heals me as I move to the next pull. Explain to me how using a healer means I suck? I also can use Temple but that's because both her and Lokin are in full Columi+ (1.4k+ cunning on a companion ftw). So next time you want to counter something I say, how about you use some logic and reason instead of feeble trolling.

I want a Bantha mount.

My word of advice to you is, QUESTION. If you are serious about being a good healer, do your homework, make sure you understand the mechanics and nuances of the class. Talk to other Operative healers and pick their brains. I play a Sniper, and I'm constantly talking to other DPS, and reading the Sniper forums just looking for new insight on how to become a better player. Most bad players are bad because they either A. don't realize they're bad (I feel bad for them) or B. don't care enough to try and learn. Operative DPS is much rarer. Snipers + Operative DPS are the rarest agents. Almost all of the Ops I see are heals. Though I guess it might depend on server...

Not ugly just not very inspired. I think BioWare needs to make different gear for different ACs simply because we do different things. Operative is the Stealth Assassin/Ninja, I'm a Sniper...thus I don't want to look like a villain in an old Karate movie...

So true. I see a decent amount of Gunslingers though. don't see ANY Operatives, the few I do come across are usually heals and are sitting around complaining about Sorcs (I see you Xira) being OP. Though I'm a fan of Operative HoTs so I tell them to be quiet...

Techstaves are practically non-existent and Droid Parts are extremely rare. I'd be surprised if many people were actually gearing Scorpio, as it would be time consuming and potentially expensive. Plus, as a Sniper, your best companion is Lokin.