Snipers in PvP?

[Mournblood]

Wondering if anyone has played a Sniper in PvP, and if so, what are your thoughts about relative strengths/weaknesses versus other classes?

 

I really enjoy the concept of killing things from a distance, but having done some fair amount of PvP on my other character, I noticed that it is very rare to see Snipers in PvP. I'm guessing part of the reason for that is most (Imperial) players are gravitating toward the FotM classes, such as Operative and Sorcerer. I want to stay away from that because it's only a matter of time before some nerfing comes their way, and I'd rather play a style I enjoy over something that is more powerful.

 

Some objective input on Snipers in PvP from players who have some experience playing them would be appreciated.

[Easelman]

Maybe you don't see them because they are 30+m away They make less of a visual impact.

 

On a side note, I find the marksman have the best opening burst damage but are incredibly boring to play for me. Get cover- hit buttons 1-5... target is dead.

 

But the engineering and lethal builds are A LOT of fun, cause more havoc and are more fun to play. Their burst damage is usually back loaded... for example, weakened blasts sets up more damage for your dots, drop your dots and then cull is your finisher so you damage ramps up. but you don't need cover and you can run around.

 

I almost quite because Marksman was repetitive, but now with an eng/lethal hybrid i can't play another class.

[Desgarden]

Maybe you don't see them because they are 30+m away They make less of a visual impact.

 

On a side note, I find the marksman have the best opening burst damage but are incredibly boring to play for me. Get cover- hit buttons 1-5... target is dead.

 

But the engineering and lethal builds are A LOT of fun, cause more havoc and are more fun to play. Their burst damage is usually back loaded... for example, weakened blasts sets up more damage for your dots, drop your dots and then cull is your finisher so you damage ramps up. but you don't need cover and you can run around.

 

I almost quite because Marksman was repetitive, but now with an eng/lethal hybrid i can't play another class.

 

I had the same experience plus I was fed-up by seeing my snipes get chain: deflect, block, deflected and my damage sucked vs guys in heavy armour....

 

However, as I said in another thread, the spec is dead in the water once someone dispels your dots which is a bloody shame.

[frdrake]

If you're serious about pvp why not go pure engy, not reliant on dots and you get AE pvp objective denial and a chain castable 18 second snare that refreshes adrenaline/shield probes. Pick up the accuracy and crit talents from the other trees to round you off. Opening with an Ambush+Eprobe is still significant damage even if not MM spec.

[Mazikeen]

Snipers are not terribly popular, largely because of the cover mechanic (which can be circumvented with certain builds). Also, yes, due to the distance the good ones maintain from the big melee groups

 

Snipers are pure DPS. No heals, no stealth, utility is minimal. Right now there's a bit of a balance issue between tank/utility/healing classes with DPS specs and pure DPS classes (Marauder and Sniper mostly)

 

They ARE good for long-range damage, though, and contrary to what many will say they can hold their own if caught by melee. You just have to have half a brain to be good at your job. I consistently rank at the top of the objective, medal and damage charts in warzones when I actually put some effort into the game

 

One thing to keep in mind, though, is if you play to win (as opposed to being a medal hog and just killing people) you may have some boring moments. I frequently guard a door in Voidstar, guard a turret in Civil War or position myself to kill ball carriers in Huttball and see little action for one reason or another. But I'm doing my job, and that's why I play. If I want to mindlessly kill people I'll PvE...

[Narfwak]

Snipers are quite strong when the game is being responsive. Most of the time the game is not being responsive, and will:

 

-Ghost cast skills, making you think you're about to ambush someone's face off only to find out that cast was client-side only and you've been standing around like an idiot for the last two seconds for everyone else.

 

-Create extreme lag on instant cast abilities, to the point where you have to hit the same skill 3-5 times for it to actually cast.

 

-Make cover simply refuse to work; I cannot even tell you how many times I've lost a fight that should have been an easy win because the game simply refused to let me crouch. Even when it does finally let me crouch, trying to activate instant cast cover requiring abilities like entrench and ballistic shield often have lag times in excess of 1-2 seconds (sometimes more!).

 

Trust me, there's nothing more maddening that seeing someone clumsily setting up to CC you and timing your crouch=>entrench perfectly only for the game to decide that it's just not going to let you.

 

That said, if they do ever fix some of the hair-pullingly frustrating ability delay issues snipers are going to be pretty solid. Operatives/scoundrels are still going to tear your face off, of course, but they're flat out broken and can do it to just about anyone.

[Wolfsfable]

Snipers are just broken atm, thier DPS is way off par with other ranged DPS Classes. Mercs for instance can out DPS you all day not to mention they can go healer if they wanted too. For a pure DPS class snipers are lack-luster. The cover requirement on skills is aweful it doesnt protect you from anything and its more of an nusance than a skill or a tactical advantage over another class.

 

I for one play a Lethality/Engineer spec. I will drop into cover for only a split second to call in my explosive probe then continue my rotation of corrosive dart/grenade/cull. With my spec you can hit someone with dart/grenade and get 2 culls off before they are done. Explosive probe is nice burst damage when its not on cooldown will crit a target for 4K and has cluster bombs attached. I skipped getting Weakening Blast its just too much of a set up to start DPSing a target.

 

You gott hit them with corrosive, duck in cover drop probe, lob a grenade at them take away thier armor with scatter shot then you can cull. So adding in weakening blast over taking explosive probe seemed not such a hot idea. Besides by time 10 dots have ticked on a target in PVP its either dead or getting healed or your stuff has been dispeled.

 

I continue to hold out Bioware will give snipers some lovin they so need. Until then min-maxing my toon as best I can.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Wolfsfable

[Wingfoot]

I find that since I switched to Lethality, it is a lot more fun. It is a much more mobile spec. I don't have the burst right away from the first shot, but once I get my dots up the burst follows a couple seconds later. I use cover when I need to, mainly to use Series of Shots, or to use entrenched so I don't get CC'd when my other CC abilities are on cooldown. I've been running this spec for PvE as well and find it much more conducive to a lot of the boss fights which require a lot of movement. Sometimes I face energy issues, but not that often. I run with two crit/surge relics so I pop them every time they are up so I get more dot crits and energy back. The damage is much more sustained, I tend to do more overall damage and my killing blows/total kills are up as well, even though I don't get 4k+ crits since I am hardly ever in cover... Edited January 20, 2012 by Wingfoot

[Narfwak]

The cover requirement on skills is aweful it doesnt protect you from anything and its more of an nusance than a skill or a tactical advantage over another class.

This is another fairly important point. Crouch and cover only give protection against ranged attacks (and charge/pull from the front), but only other snipers and a handful of merc/commando attacks are actually considered ranged attacks. Cover does nothing against tech and force spells. This is a bit of a problem, as the vast majority of ranged attacks for merc/commando and essentially all sorc/sage ranged attacks are considered tech and force, respectively.

 

If cover could mitigate those abilities snipers would be far, far stronger than they are currently.

[Wolfsfable]

BTW dont forsake your Orbital Strike if the enemy is dumb enough to stand there and take it. Great to drop on yourself if you have a melee trying to beat on you. In full PVP Champion gear mine will do 8-12K damage. Takes a lot of people by suprise. Edited January 20, 2012 by Wolfsfable

[Reryn]

Snipers are just broken atm, thier DPS is way off par with other ranged DPS Classes. Mercs for instance can out DPS you all day not to mention they can go healer if they wanted too. For a pure DPS class snipers are lack-luster. The cover requirement on skills is aweful it doesnt protect you from anything and its more of an nusance than a skill or a tactical advantage over another class.

 

This^^^ We get out DPS'd by another DPS class that has much better mitigation and more utility. We are also out DPS'd by sorcerers and to top it off, they don't have to use a cover system that delays everything for them also.

 

When you look at it from this perspective, there is really no reason to play a sniper, when you can simply roll a BH and do the same damage but take less damage when hit or a sorc that does more damage and doesn't have to deal with the broken cover mechanics.

 

Also snipers and gunslingers are the only class in the game that other players have abilities to keep you out of cover. A disabling ability only usable against one class? Really? It's bad enough that we have to go into cover, wait for the pvp lag then hit an ambush that sometimes stops casting at 2 seconds for no reason at all.

 

The class is just broken as all hell, BW needs to just remove the cover mechanic until they can get it right. If you read the upcoming patch notes for the test server, you will see that BW isn't even planning on addressing the buggy cover system and our abilities that stop casting at 90%, not to mention the handful of other disabling bugs and imbalances our class has to deal with.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Reryn

[Fumanchu_Fow]

I haven't had much trouble in pvp as a sniper. I target soft targets first (healers) then move on to the hard targets since I'll never kill them with that healer spamming. Usually top or very close on kills/damage/killing blows and solo kills. Average 7-10 medals a match. I will say I'm pretty well geared in a mix of champ gear and rakata.

[Desgarden]

I haven't had much trouble in pvp as a sniper. I target soft targets first (healers) then move on to the hard targets since I'll never kill them with that healer spamming. Usually top or very close on kills/damage/killing blows and solo kills. Average 7-10 medals a match. I will say I'm pretty well geared in a mix of champ gear and rakata.

 

Once more: this is no solution because the othe dps classes mentioned before, BH and Sorc, do not have this restriction.

 

We are restricted in...

 

- our target selection because of the mitigation system

 

- our use of cc because they are either linked to cover or you have to run to the target - which is a bad idea for a sniper

 

- dps output because of the energy system (heat is more easily vented by BHs thanks to skills and gear and I still wait to see a sorc run out of energy)

 

 

 

I know many people don't like to hear bad things about their shiny new toy but the sniper AC is in really deep water compared to sorcs or BHs because it is outperformed by those classes in so many areas.

 

 

And this is without including the crippling cover bugs

 

 

We were proclaimed as an area denial AC. Quite the opposite seems to be true: people love to rush the sniper as soon as they are aware of him.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Desgarden

[heyscot]

I have a very good time playing my Sniper and I mostly PVP when I play the game. I'm not fantastic at PVP but I'm getting better and better.

 

Snipers hang back from the crowd during PVP and pick off their targets. We can also help with our crowd control abilities and I feel we're very useful when it comes to preventing the enemy from capturing objectives by interrupting them when they're trying to take a gun battery or plant a bomb on a door/remove a bomb. In Huttball we've got plenty of spaces from which to snipe and on a good team we get the ball passed to us a lot because we're usually up on the rafters.

 

I haven't mastered the class at all and I'm having a lot of fun playing it. I played a Jedi Sentinel until level 31 and got frustrated with the amount of tracking I needed to do of my abilities, lack of crowd control, and squishiness. I was "doing it wrong" so I re-rolled Sniper and I've had the best time with it.

 

About Sniper squishiness: We're a little bit squishy. The thing is, you're immobile for much of the game because that's where your best shots come from, but it doesn't bother me in the slightest. I am Marksman spec and when someone comes up to me in melee I have 4-6 options I can immediately use to get away from them, re-crouch, and continue sniping. I don't think we're meant to stand toe-to-toe with people but I definitely feel like we aren't so squishy that we're unplayable. If you get jumped by melee classes you'll get smooshed, but like I said, you have options for escape, and the more difficult you make it for them to chase you the better--use the terrain and line of sight to your advantage, it's fun.

 

There's also some serious combos you can use. When you snipe or ambush, there's a brief moment in the last 1/2 a second or less where you can press another button, so I've learned to press it at that right moment and it causes me to do a huge amount of damage to my target. I can't remember the name of the ability but there's a single-target grenade you get from the very beginning. Snipe, then just when it's about to go off, hit that single-target grenade, and get some popcorn. Normally when you launch the grenade you have to fire again to make it go off, but in this case, the grenade drops just as your snipe goes off and the snipe detonates it.

 

Snipers are not overpowered in my opinion. I can't do godlike damage. But I definitely make a big difference in the tide of battle and it's fun!

 

Hope this helps! Look me up on Ven Zallow if you want to PVP together!

 

Swish

[Terrahero]

There are alot of bugs with the Sniper class atm. Its frustrating and these should be fixed really fast.

 

-Lag hurts us twice as hard. Why? Because first you get lag when you crouch and the game needs to recognize you are in a cover position. And then another serving of lag when you want to use an ability. This makes Cover Pulse for example rather pointless in even a moderately laggy situation.

 

-Abilities not firing, just... not firing. You spend long cast times to charge something and it simply doesnt happen.

 

-I cannot crouch when im rooted. So any simple root is pretty much the same as a STUN. Only, thesy come with low cooldowns and resolve does nothing. Especially bad is the Inq./Couns knockback. It knocks me out of cover and leaves me rooted, unable to enter cover.

 

-Crouch randomly not working. Or due to terrain being "incompatible".

 

And then there is the issues that i see as a major flaw. Such as. I get knocked out of cover with childish ease. This even ends defensive cooldowns, anyone with half a brain waits for the Entrench/Ballistic Shield and then knocks me out. To simple to counter such abilities.

[heyscot]

There are alot of bugs with the Sniper class atm. Its frustrating and these should be fixed really fast.

 

-Lag hurts us twice as hard. Why? Because first you get lag when you crouch and the game needs to recognize you are in a cover position. And then another serving of lag when you want to use an ability. This makes Cover Pulse for example rather pointless in even a moderately laggy situation.

 

-Abilities not firing, just... not firing. You spend long cast times to charge something and it simply doesnt happen.

 

-I cannot crouch when im rooted. So any simple root is pretty much the same as a STUN. Only, thesy come with low cooldowns and resolve does nothing. Especially bad is the Inq./Couns knockback. It knocks me out of cover and leaves me rooted, unable to enter cover.

 

-Crouch randomly not working. Or due to terrain being "incompatible".

 

And then there is the issues that i see as a major flaw. Such as. I get knocked out of cover with childish ease. This even ends defensive cooldowns, anyone with half a brain waits for the Entrench/Ballistic Shield and then knocks me out. To simple to counter such abilities.

 

 

Some of the stuff that other snipers have written about the cover mechanic being broken are somewhat true for me, too. I've had situations where I get knocked out of crouch and for some reason I can't crouch for way too long after that and I'm not sure why. But overall I don't have too many problems like that.

[Terrahero]

Some of the stuff that other snipers have written about the cover mechanic being broken are somewhat true for me, too. I've had situations where I get knocked out of crouch and for some reason I can't crouch for way too long after that and I'm not sure why. But overall I don't have too many problems like that.

 

Because its a knockback and root rolled into one. You get broken out of cover by a knockback, and then you are rooted. And when you are rooted you cannot take cover untill it wears off.

 

Its a terribly frustrating bug, not being stunned yet unable to really do anything because you are stuck in a root while the other guy is re-arranging your face.

[Fumanchu_Fow]

Once more: this is no solution because the othe dps classes mentioned before, BH and Sorc, do not have this restriction.

 

We are restricted in...

 

- our target selection because of the mitigation system

 

- our use of cc because they are either linked to cover or you have to run to the target - which is a bad idea for a sniper

 

- dps output because of the energy system (heat is more easily vented by BHs thanks to skills and gear and I still wait to see a sorc run out of energy)

 

 

 

I know many people don't like to hear bad things about their shiny new toy but the sniper AC is in really deep water compared to sorcs or BHs because it is outperformed by those classes in so many areas.

 

 

And this is without including the crippling cover bugs

 

 

We were proclaimed as an area denial AC. Quite the opposite seems to be true: people love to rush the sniper as soon as they are aware of him.

 

It may be no solution for you but while you cry I'm turning their ******es inside out.

[QseftJohn]

Personally, I just throw fragment gernades into the mobs and watch the AoE damage add up. I don't use the cover system since it is clunky as a sith worrior trying to kill a commando.

[Xkwizito]

This thread is like music to my ears, in that I am not the only one experiencing these issues in PvP. Everything that was mentioned here are things that I suffer from ALL OF THE TIME. It's extremely frustrating and I really hope they fix this class.

[Troubs]

I rerolled from a L23 Operative to a, now, L35 Sniper.... *cries helmet full of tears*

 

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[MysticGryph]

Sniper is good for damage output, a good sniper finds a good spot/vantage point and takes chunks out of people while they're distracted with melee players... Only problem is, if you're not careful and someone manages to get up close to you, you're pretty much dead. Good variety of melee and ranged stuns, also having slice droid is really useful in pve. Yeah, it's up there as one of my favourite classes.

[DrIzzt-DoUrden]

There are alot of bugs with the Sniper class atm. Its frustrating and these should be fixed really fast.

 

-Lag hurts us twice as hard. Why? Because first you get lag when you crouch and the game needs to recognize you are in a cover position. And then another serving of lag when you want to use an ability. This makes Cover Pulse for example rather pointless in even a moderately laggy situation.

 

-Abilities not firing, just... not firing. You spend long cast times to charge something and it simply doesnt happen.

 

-I cannot crouch when im rooted. So any simple root is pretty much the same as a STUN. Only, thesy come with low cooldowns and resolve does nothing. Especially bad is the Inq./Couns knockback. It knocks me out of cover and leaves me rooted, unable to enter cover.

 

-Crouch randomly not working. Or due to terrain being "incompatible".

 

And then there is the issues that i see as a major flaw. Such as. I get knocked out of cover with childish ease. This even ends defensive cooldowns, anyone with half a brain waits for the Entrench/Ballistic Shield and then knocks me out. To simple to counter such abilities.

 

Yup pretty much.

[heyscot]

Because its a knockback and root rolled into one. You get broken out of cover by a knockback, and then you are rooted. And when you are rooted you cannot take cover untill it wears off.

 

Its a terribly frustrating bug, not being stunned yet unable to really do anything because you are stuck in a root while the other guy is re-arranging your face.

 

I'll have to be quicker about looking at the debuffs on me at the time it happens, but you're absolutely right, it's terribly frustrating and I get owned when it happens, heh.

[Phlaago]

I have never had problems with skills failing to cast.. aside from the coverbug that was fixed back in 1.02, im on a lowpop server and have a good connection and pc so while it smacks of crappy gamecode the lag is probably in some way a culprit for some of you.

 

1) Our limted targetselection: sure our weapons get mitigaded by kinetic damage reducion.. but for people who like to use sorcs to compare to, guess what.. energy damage reduction is the same as kinetic.. on both my sniper and sorc I use 1 internal damage DoT and multiple kinetic or energy dot's/attacks.. granted my sorc is lower level and does not have all toys yet.. but If i want to i can spec lethality on my sniper again and do mostly internal damage, for now i let the elecrified railgun talent for my SoS serve as a 2nd source if armorbypassing damage since Im currently engi specced.

 

I also feel the role of the sniper is to pick his or her targets wisely.. in a pvp game we cant be the 1 hit killers we think a true sniper should be, but we can and do burst people down when they are weakened by our teammates... we do this quickly and across a decent combat area since we have long range.. speccing lethality removes some of this targeting flexibility in favor of more versatility in 1v1 and greater mobility, but consider that Arsenal BH's have to spam 1 attack repeatedly to get their big hitter to do its job, their damage is great sure but they cant switch target anytime they choose without losing a considerable chunk of dps. also if they can stomach that kind of repetetive gameplay.. good for them.

 

2) When attacking sorc or bh in 1v1 engagements open with ambush from 33-34m.. i usually try to move back and forth to outrange them.. they move forward to cast a spell, i pop corrosive dart and move back.. if they are now outside 30m i legshot and drop to cover for explosive probe + whatever attack i have available at the moment.

this works on alot of oppnents.. especially sorcs, probably because the preferred 1v1 rotation for some is crushing darkness, afflicion, force lightning (relic+consumable on).. this means the opener has a few seconds castingtime... the intelligent ones will go straight to afflicion to get a dot on you as well while the ones who fail to adapt from their ganking rotation end up with dot+root on them and a chunk of hp gone and no damage dealt to you so far, this is when LoS will become a problem.. because if he has a cc breaker up or survives your attacks he will try to LoS you... if hes not supported you should be able to follow him and finish him off as long as you watch out for any dirty tricks such as knockback into hazards..

 

 

And last but not least: FOR THE LOVE OF THE EMPIRE, USE YOUR INTERRUPT!

(I see alot of people forgetting they have an interrupt/lockout skill that is instant and on a very fast cooldown, use it whenever you see a BH fly up to pop their 1m cooldown big AOE attack among others... that BH will be pissed because you just messed up his attempt at a new scoreboard record)

Edited January 22, 2012 by Phlaago