Sniping in 'dat Warzone.

[FeralJim]

So does anyone else feel Snipers are garbage in Warzones? particularly in Hutt Ball?

 

The way I figure it we have a class that, to do any sort of non-terrible damage, needs to spring into cover, and then ambush or snipe. All of that is going to take a you a good 4-6 seconds depending on how buggy cover is being today. During which you have no moblity at all and your target has a very good chance of just LOSing you.

 

Even so, the damage you get after going through all that is pathetic.

 

I just did a round of Huttball where I came 4th overall on damage and went 29 kills 4 deaths but I swear I only ever noticed killing two people and felt I was doing terrible. The whole match was very frustrating and I felt neutered and useless.

 

Cover is a really interesting thing, and it's balance obviously has huge implications on the class. Within cover we really need to be pulling some massive numbers. I would say something like 50% more damage than EVERY other class considering our cast times.

 

Outside of it we do 50% less. But is that really fun for anyone? Ugh. I don't know.

 

What I do know is that charging up Ambush and hitting 1/10 times due to LOS isn't very enjoyable and I don't feel nearly powerful enough considering my disadvantages and lack of a tank or healing spec in PvE. *shrug*

 

What does the rest of the community think?

[Strah]

I find my sniper as mobile as my bh, but shooting from farther away.

 

So no.

 

 

 

Cover is a really interesting thing, and it's balance obviously has huge implications on the class. Within cover we really need to be pulling some massive numbers. I would say something like 50% more damage than EVERY other class considering our cast times.

 

 

And that is absolute nonsense.

 

1.5 k second snipe, instant followthrough, instant takedown and 1.5 s ambush if you use it properly.

 

Doesn't look too long.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Strah

[dekey]

Spec Lethality.

[FeralJim]

You understand you can't snipe unless your in cover right, and that there is a delay between when your hunkering down and able to cast?

 

Go get a stopwatch and time it for yourself. My snipe takes 3 seconds from hitting cover to going off. Ambush (without the proc) can easy take 5 seconds. That's a long time.

 

I feel like the Sniper probably needs some damage or survability buffs, an extra 5-10m range on the other classes when your in cover would go a long way. But even with all that cover just doesn't seem like it will ever be a very fun PvP mechanic. It's too crippling.

[Purlana]

Hutt ball is the worst, especially if you need to chase after the ball carrier...

 

All you get to do is set up on a crosswalk and snipe at people in the middle. Just pray that they don't grapple you down. And I almost never handle the ball unless someone passes it to me.

 

I would rather be on my powertech durring those matches

Edited January 10, 2012 by Purlana

[iMakesh]

I'm playing as a MM Sniper and I'm loving it despite it being quite immobile in order to do any significant damage. In Huttball I think us Snipers are great to pick off people attacking the carrier, since they¨re usually stuck on him while leaving us free to dish out massive amounts of damage. The only thing they could do to improve Snipers are making cover a bit more responsive, and to make us able to cover when snared.

[Strah]

You understand you can't snipe unless your in cover right, and that there is a delay between when your hunkering down and able to cast?

 

Go get a stopwatch and time it for yourself. My snipe takes 3 seconds from hitting cover to going off. Ambush (without the proc) can easy take 5 seconds. That's a long time.

 

I feel like the Sniper probably needs some damage or survability buffs, an extra 5-10m range on the other classes when your in cover would go a long way. But even with all that cover just doesn't seem like it will ever be a very fun PvP mechanic. It's too crippling.

 

not for me.

 

In my case it takes less than 0.5 seconds until i start casting my ambush.

 

I agree on the range however.

[Purlana]

Also we are probably one of the worst possible ball carriers hehe

[Storum]

A sniper in warzones seems somewhat average, in some situations we can ****, but if we get caught off guard by decent players we might get a rough time..

 

HOWEVER, today I faced 3-5 seconds delay on Take Cover everytime, no lag, that is gamebreaking... And Right after taking cover the first ambush ALWAYS gets cancelled right after I finished the cast..

 

Fix the bugs, and we are fine, the cover system is a new system, therefore it takes time to get used to it for both us and opponents and use it together with our talent/skill tree, to get some defensive/offensive advantages.

[dekey]

 

HOWEVER, today I faced 3-5 seconds delay on Take Cover everytime, no lag, that is gamebreaking... And Right after taking cover the first ambush ALWAYS gets cancelled right after I finished the cast..

 

Dont use Take Cover to simply get into cover, use crouch. The elaborate animation will always delay your next action (sometimes even interrupt it)

 

The only time you want to use Take Cover in pvp is to get out of an area quick, like avoiding incoming AoE.

[Ayestes]

We are terrible in terms of moving the ball according to our will. We have no charge, sprint, enemy pull, or friendly pull. That said, we are pretty good in Huttball if you go on the rafters and burn the healers down. While you are in cover you can't be charged or pulled, so people cannot manipulate your position to their advantage.

 

Marksman is pretty darn good at killing the squishies extremely fast and has the highest damage output while not moving. Engineering is great for the other two Warzones because of Plasma Probe and not in Huttball, but that's not to say it's burst damage is bad it's just worse then the other two specs. Lethality excels and burning down groups on the move and ripping tanks and healers apart while being able to keep up with the fast pace of Huttball.

 

It's up to you how you want to work in Huttball. I've personally made the switch from Marksman to Lethality. Both specs are viable in my opinion, I just like Lethality for the ability to harass objectives much harder and the ability to burn down tanks as well as kite anything. I've single handedly delayed a group of 4 capping a point in Alderaan for over 400 points in damage to their ship (holding two points), completely alone. It's pretty fulfilling to feel like you've won the game on your own, of course it's also frustrating that you had to die over and over because no one would come and help, but at least you were effective.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Ayestes

[RagNoRock]

You understand you can't snipe unless your in cover right, and that there is a delay between when your hunkering down and able to cast?

 

Go get a stopwatch and time it for yourself. My snipe takes 3 seconds from hitting cover to going off. Ambush (without the proc) can easy take 5 seconds. That's a long time.

 

I feel like the Sniper probably needs some damage or survability buffs, an extra 5-10m range on the other classes when your in cover would go a long way. But even with all that cover just doesn't seem like it will ever be a very fun PvP mechanic. It's too crippling.

 

Are you using the actual ability "Take Cover" (something on your quickbar) or do you actually have a key bound to the Take Cover action or Take Cover in Position action?

[Xytron]

Hutt ball is the worst, especially if you need to chase after the ball carrier...

 

All you get to do is set up on a crosswalk and snipe at people in the middle. Just pray that they don't grapple you down. And I almost never handle the ball unless someone passes it to me.

 

I would rather be on my powertech durring those matches

 

No, all you do is sit on the crosswalk and snipe people in the middle.

 

Every other smart sniper moves around and uses our great CC to either stop the ball handler in their tracks or slow the other team from harassing our ball handler.

[FeralJim]

Are you using the actual ability "Take Cover" (something on your quickbar) or do you actually have a key bound to the Take Cover action or Take Cover in Position action?

 

 

I use the Take Cover ability, the Take Cover action and the Take Cover in Position action. I mix and match but I haven't really seen much of a difference between them.

 

Am I doing it wrong?

[Purlana]

No, all you do is sit on the crosswalk and snipe people in the middle.

 

Every other smart sniper moves around and uses our great CC to either stop the ball handler in their tracks or slow the other team from harassing our ball handler.

 

Okay so you snare / stun the ball handler for a short time provided that he doesn't break it. (Or pass it to someone in a better position)

 

(After that you are exposed and need to defend yourself from the ball carriers support)

 

If they pass the ball foward good luck chasing them down with no gap closers...

 

While on the other hand my powertech can grapple the ball carrier to a position of my choice and has a gap closer.

 

 

Yeah....

Edited January 10, 2012 by Purlana

[SpectreVII]

I use the Take Cover ability, the Take Cover action and the Take Cover in Position action. I mix and match but I haven't really seen much of a difference between them.

 

Am I doing it wrong?

 

I think what he's asking is do you have it hotkeyed?

 

A bit of advice if you don't already have these keys mapped is to use a button or 2 on your mouse for the cover abilities. What I do is map my mouse wheel so that if I roll up, I take cover in place and if I roll down I do the regular take cover. This helps immensely with take cover reaction times and allows me to be a much more mobile sniper.

 

Also, don't forget that we have an entrench ability. On the rare occasion I run that ball and see a group of enemies running towards me, I go into cover, hit entrench, wait for them to spam their CCs(which I am immune to thanks to entrench), hit cover pulse to root the melee, flash bang the ranged, shield probe and score the goal(depending on how close I am). It's a lot of micromanagement, but at least we're better than Mercs and Operatives.

[Raxingar]

Honestly they should remove the 'in cover' mechanic for all of our abilities, going into cover to knock back, and just plain do damage is extremely clunky in a pvp setting. Cover should be there for if we find ourselves in a situation where we can freely snipe and want to have some more defense from other ranged classes. Also, the drop shield could be buffed a bit against said ranged classes, in concept that should protect us a little more than some bonus to dodge or w/e it is now (outside of ballistic dampers).

[Raxingar]

Oh and a little advice that seems to have helped me a little bit (dosent change my opinion on cover) is that spamming your keys, like I was so accustomed to when pvping in...that 'other' game...generally bugs out cover REALLY badly, as well as snipe, ambush, and many of your CCs.

 

It seems like Biowares engine is not designed around repeated inputs, and pressing a key only once (which I do in pve, hence why I dont have this problem as much while questing) typically makes PvP much more playable, but dammit if its not hard to break that habit =\

[aphexed]

Ya agreed above we're crap ball carriers so dont snag the ball, but other than that you can really kick arse in a warzone as a sniper...

 

I didn't really start doing well till I re-did my build to fit the situation of PVP instead of the other way around trying to fit into those top DPS builds.

 

Some of my tips:

 

- Ambush/Snipe delay and/or stopping, even if its just a comman FPS problem means you should focus on ways to push them to the back of rotations

 

- Bunchings in PVP happen alot so the Flashbang, and Frag grenade are two tools I'm always pounding away on since we can use them on the run.

 

-Taking a knee and popping back up increases your defense by quite a bit if you went into the marksman tree, so rely on snapshot, explosive probe and followthrough as your versatile tools that work quick.

[FeralJim]

Just PvP'd for seven hours straight. Hit 20, got entrench (which I didn't have for most of that) and did all of this with three 50 friends.

 

Not feeling like Sniper is as terrible as when I started.

 

Entrench is pretty incredible and our burst is second only to Operatives, but we have many more ways of surviving an attacker than an OP does and can generally just kite a guy with leg shot/debilitate/cover pulse/flash bang and run away. Entrench again and shoot some other squishy to death. 4500 damage Ambush crits are pretty good for a level 20 eh?

 

I do think Sniper may be boring though. Left to our own devices our ideal DPS rotation really isn't very advanced at all. At least not at my level.

 

Either way I'm enjoying my Sniper a lot more now. Picked up the entire level 20 PvP set. Should dominate the hell out of people in Balmorra.

 

PS: I will say though that Sorcerors are clearly superior to Snipers, and pretty much all the other classes. I just played 100+ games and I paid very close attention at the end of each match to the scoreboard. Sorcerors were topping damage and healing by huge margins all the time, and often doubling the medals of every player. Something is wrong there.

 

Personally, I can beat them into the ground because I have more burst and CC but in terms of winning the game a Sorc contributes much more than I ever could.

 

And they get PvE flexibility. Seems like a pretty good deal.

Edited January 10, 2012 by FeralJim

[XplaguesX]

ive found that leg shot is awesome in hutt ball. pin a ball carrier on a fire pit its fun!

 

Also, flash bang and the smoke nade are very usefull. we wont ever be flag carriers, but hand back on a walkway, and you can drop people pretty fast.

[Obelith]

I have found using my portable cover, even whilst the animation is going I can start my skill - as it is off the GCD. Meaning I hit Snipe / ambush straight after I press the keybind for cover and have little - no issues. Huttball is my preferred WZ as a sniper, as it's easier to set up cover behind a trap, or on a ledge and rip people apart. Games like VS are a lot more difficult as I am on the same vertical level as everyone and LoS / easier ganking plays a bigger part.

 

As for being the worst ball carriers, maybe we are, but There's nothing like Flash banging a whole group of people as they run over a fire trap and waving goodbye - being on a higher level usually means that I am quite often passed to and end up scoring if you sit in the right place with no hassle.

[iMakesh]

I like picking off attackers from the high ground, and Interrogation Probe with slow is really useful against carriers. I usually try to burst down the people going in to position for a pass and healers, since most others will be nuking the carrier. Enjoying Huttball alot actually, my favorite warzone of the bunch (Civil War is fun aswell, but Voidstar is a cluster**** and it wrecks my FPS).

 

The only things I don't like about Huttball is that sometimes when I kill the carrier, I don't notice I get the ball so I get swarmed and I struggle to get a pass off between the CC's before I die horribly. Same thing goes for when I'm doing my usual target shooting, and some random passes me the ball out of nowhere for no good reason.

[Maldol]

I have to say, as it is right now, fighting geared 50's in warzones is a real challenge. Come Tuesday it will be a totally different story.

 

In Huttball, against 50's I do ok. I LOVE pulsing them off the catwalks when they are looking to score / aid the ball carrier. Honestly, just having good positioning and situational awareness is the key to doing well. Against sub 50's I do great damage at level 23 (with my 20 pvp gear). Leg shot is the most detrimental ability in a huttball match. Slow the carrier, slow their teamates, slow everyone you see. Your ability to slow their progress to the goal is how you gain an advantage. (well, that and knocking them into hazards / the pit via pulse)

 

At least until Tuesday, you won't be the top damage (although I have gotten 3rd in damage or killing blows), but you can have great utility and help your team win. Hutball isn't about killing, it's about scoring. Help your team score, and you're a good huttball player.

 

Oh yeah... and PASS THE FRICKING BALL. Just pass it. That is all.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Maldol

[Strawbx]

not at all. Positioning is the most important thing as a sniper, in these vids im usually pumping out top dmg (if it means anything.) or in the case of the #3 Aurelia, MM spec tops.

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/Strawbzx