If We Need Changes... What Would You Change?

[Maniigoldo]

everything....this class is broken.

[Hollingdale]

This is going to be a PVP oriented post, but I think some of the stuff I suggest has to do with making the class funnier to play in general.

 

-Cover should be optional or completely removed, its far too bugged and ruins pvp. Tbh it's an idiotic mechanic to implement in an mmo anyway.

 

However, If cover isn't removed it needs to provide better benefits in general. Rather than add a dodge chance against ranged attacks it should reduce ALL dmg by a certain percentage. Furthermore, the instances in which the ''unknown effect'' prevents players from taking cover needs to be reduced drastically, and the message should read something that makes sense when it does appear. As it is now all I can read from ''Unknown effect'' is ''poorly implemented mechanic'' and ''sloppy game design''.

 

-Lack of mobility means the class suffers in pvp and is frustrating and boring to play. Cast mechanics should change:

 

-Casts shouldn't be interupted when opponents run out of line of sight, because there is a chance that the opponent might run back into sight before the cast has finished. If not then: Allow snipers to charge given abilities against certain targets. For example say that a sniper charges an ambush against an opponent only to have this opponent randomly run out of sight at the 0.1 seconds of the cast. Let the sniper save the time he spent charging his ability against that opponent so that he can, when his opponent reappears fire his ambush with a mere cast time of 0.1 seconds. This effect obviously needs a time limit but wth.

 

-Snipers should be able to walk while casting (not run but walk) so that they can at least slightly alter their position to prevent frustrating line of sight issues.

 

-The cast mechanic in general should change, allow snipers to charge some (or just 1) of their abilities beforehand in order for them to thereafter instantly fire given ability.

 

I'm not saying all of this **** should be implemented, in fact a lot of it is unnecessary if you just remove the godawful cover mechanic or make it optional. It just doesnt *********** work when character responsiveness is as **** as it is, and pvp requires mobility.

[Delease]

I do like the sound of a dropped snare ability that people can run into, as with the spurs idea mentioned above.

 

I forget what game i was playing a while back but that was one move the ranged class had. It was pretty decent too. You were able to toss them and whoever ran into them would fall down, get back up, fall back down again.

[Hollingdale]

Just remembered one thing which needs to be changed without any real further motivation because its obvious to anyone who has a mind and some pvp experience:

 

-Cover pulse needs to be usable without cover.

[Carbonated]

corrosive grenade considered an aoe. maybe switch interrogation probe and corrosive grenade as it will make more sense with the trees.

[Revotz]

Make cover optional as someone post it in another thread but those dmg abilities with 10% lower dmg, return that 10% while in cover and no chance for enemies to deflect our shots while in cover. Leave only ballistic shield in cover, every other defensive cd usable out of cover.

 

And for christ sake...remove that neon sign while we are in cover...

Edited January 27, 2012 by Revotz

[KseriousEG]

I think the OP is spot on in many ways.

 

in my mind the proposed changes would clear up what I feel our some of the biggest issues for a MM:

 

Scattershot:

has diminishing returns vs. high armor rating. I've tested this with a jugg buddy and when he has 44% mitigation, scattershot removes 3.1% of it. when he has 28% mitigation, scattershot removes 4.3% of it. This is because of how they coded the diminishing returns on armor rating. Scattershot needs to be linear. 44% mitigation before scatter? then take 8.8% off. Currently, reducing the target's armor rating from 6400 to 5100 only takes 3.1% off.

 

Deflection:

a well geared tank will have more than 20% defense chance. a well geared sniper will have approx 110% tech accuracy resulting in a 10% chance of deflection. If by chance an ambush or takedown is deflected, it puts a massive whole in our dps. If a sniper tries to shoot for something like 115% tech accuracy... they'll be giving up too much power/crit/surge. ambush should not be able to be deflected period. maybe snipe too.

 

No counter for opponent defensive abilities:

target acquired can actually be harmful to a sniper. I do believe that energy recovers quicker with alacrity, but here is the problem. Say a jugg activates invincible and has 40% damage reduction for 10 seconds. If I execute a series of attacks that takes 12 seconds, the last two will strike after his ability has finished. But if I activate target acquired, then all of my attacks will fall within the 10 seconds and be reduced by 40%. Here is the scenario I tested:

 

spending 107 energy in approx. 12 seconds on SoS, laze + ambush, 3x snipe, 2x followthrough. 66 energy was recovered during this time and put me at 69 energy at the end of the attack.

 

- no cooldowns activated: ~12k damage for a net cost of 41 energy over 12 seconds

- invincible activated: ~9k damage for a net cost of 41 energy over 12 seconds

- invincible + target acquired: ~7k damage for a net cost of 41 energy over 10 seconds

 

this is so broken it is ridiculous. snipers need a massive offensive buff to counteract the defensive buffs of others. Something along the lines of 30% damage, or 20% damage and cannot miss. If squishys can be 3 shotted with it, once every 2 minutes, then oh well that is what they get for being squishy... but burning down to 40 energy, hitting probe, then burning the rest all to get a heavy down to 30% is a load of crap

 

scattershot needs to be linear... I would say it should also be 30% vs heavy but then it would be OP for focus fire. I think that only the sniper needs help vs heavy so that leads me to believe we need built in armor piercing vs heavy.

Edited January 27, 2012 by KseriousEG

[KseriousEG]

against pros, ballistic shield is useless unless entrench is active

 

otherwise they'll just pop you out of cover and cancel it. although I almost always try to activate both... I'd guess that more than 50% of the time, when I activate ballistic shield without entrench, I get knocked out of cover.

Edited January 27, 2012 by KseriousEG

[Irenicus_Jon]

-Some sort of accuracy boost specific to channelled shots as skills in marksman tree.

-LoS should not break a shot if it's started channelling (similar to running out of range, yes I mean a shot should go through a wall if it has to, this is a game where lightsabers remain switched on when thrown and turn back to the user, I'm sure a shot from a high powered sniper rifle penetrating a wall is not going to break the suspension of disbelief).

 

About cover:

I think it's working fine when it's not bugging, what I want to know is whether this is intended to create a delay for snipers or not. Are we supposed to be delayed by 0.5-1 secs before using our cover only abilities? If yes, things seem to be working as intended, if no:

-Make cover-only abilities automatically force you into cover when you try to use them (less button smash).

-Make "when you enter cover" skills "every x seconds you remain in cover". I'm talking about things like snapshot and ballistic dampers. If "but you didn't waste time getting up and going down again" is a problem, make x longer. If entrench is a problem, make it so they don't refresh during entrench.

 

 

I have a somewhat radical idea about entrench but it's not a serious suggestion, just something I wish that could be tried and tested. Make it so that snipers do not leave cover while cc'ed and make entrench a passive that activates while in cover and makes your resolve bar fill up x times faster. Snipers lose the initiative but at least this version does not punish the sniper for repositioning after using entrench.

[vimm]

I forget what game i was playing a while back but that was one move the ranged class had. It was pretty decent too. You were able to toss them and whoever ran into them would fall down, get back up, fall back down again.

 

Haha, it would certainly be handy for kiting.

[Pinworm]

Evasion should offer 100% immunity.

 

Laze Target should benefit all specs. Not sure how to change it. Making next snipe instant cast/with no energy cost would be nice, but maybe too powerful, and not really fun. Maybe leave it as it is, but give a new ability that benefits the other specs - like, gives your next 5 dot ticks a chance to tick twice, or your next 5 dot ticks all crit, something like that. They can share a cooldown.

 

I would REALLY like some kind of sprint or emergency stealth. I know they want stealth to be the operative thing, but an emergency stealth for a sniper fits the class still and would be really great. We don't have any "OH GOD LET ME GET AWAY" abilities (only indirect ones, like flashbang and run, or leg shot and run, etc. An emergency cooldown would be nice).

 

Change rapid fire. I hate that talent so much that I rarely even ever use it. I know it's decent, but It's basically worthless in pvp (what I mostly care about) and it's just not that interesting. I like the idea of adding another tick to series of shots.

 

I don't think any drastic changes are needed. I enjoy my class, especially my new spec (2/16/23) and I enjoyed Marksman too, it was fun, although I find my current spec way, way better.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Pinworm

[Trashfactory]

My proposed list of changes for sniper class:

 

Increase our base accuracy to 95% (105% for special attacks).

 

Engineering Tree

 

#1. Change Vital Regulators to heal for 2%/4% max health per second for 3 seconds.

#2. Change Calculated Pursuit to either be allowed to take advantage of Snap Shot or cause it to reduce the cast time of the next Snipe by 0.25/0.50

#3. Increase Plasma Probe's maximum amount of targets to 5. Lower base damage by 10% to compensate.

 

Lethality Tree

 

#1. Make Devouring Microbes provide a 15%/30%/45% chance for the agent's posion resist a purge effect in addition to it's current effect.

#2. Reduce energy cost of Cull to 25 energy.

#3. Reduce Weakening Blast CD to 12 seconds.

 

Marksman Tree

 

#1. Change Imperial Demarcation to reduce movement speed by 10%/20% for 4 seconds when root effect ends on Leg Shot.

#2. Change Sniper Volley to provide a 5% armor penetration buff for the Sniper per stack instead of alacrity.

#3. Change Followthrough to deal internal damage. Reduce base damage by 20%.

#4. Add a 20% damage bonus to the next Series of Shots on Rapid Fire, in addition to it's current effects.

[vimm]

My proposed list of changes for sniper class:

 

Increase our base accuracy to 95% (105% for special attacks).

 

Engineering Tree

 

#1. Change Vital Regulators to heal for 2%/4% max health per second for 3 seconds.

#2. Change Calculated Pursuit to either be allowed to take advantage of Snap Shot or cause it to reduce the cast time of the next Snipe by 0.25/0.50

#3. Increase Plasma Probe's maximum amount of targets to 5. Lower base damage by 10% to compensate.

 

Lethality Tree

 

#1. Make Devouring Microbes provide a 15%/30%/45% chance for the agent's posion resist a purge effect in addition to it's current effect.

#2. Reduce energy cost of Cull to 25 energy.

#3. Reduce Weakening Blast CD to 12 seconds.

 

Marksman Tree

 

#1. Change Imperial Demarcation to reduce movement speed by 10%/20% for 4 seconds when root effect ends on Leg Shot.

#2. Change Sniper Volley to provide a 5% armor penetration buff for the Sniper per stack instead of alacrity.

#3. Change Followthrough to deal internal damage. Reduce base damage by 20%.

#4. Add a 20% damage bonus to the next Series of Shots on Rapid Fire, in addition to it's current effects.

 

I like that Sniper Volley idea.

[JarenVestrit]

I feel that we need a little bit of extra range. Maybe another 5 meters, 10 at the maximum.

 

Also, most of our skills should work at Sniper Range. Having to get closer to use most of our abilities defeats the point of having extra range. Of course, Melee-skills should be excluded.

 

Those are my thoughts.

[Seriasx]

give us 10 more meters on auto attack and snipe

give us 5 more meters on every other ranged attack

Once the ability is halfway through its cast it will go off without LoS needed.

 

thats all we need imo.

[MiPwnYa]

give us huttball abilities to make some points ! all classes have something weird to make quick points, we not

 

and pherhaps stances for every spec, as example armor penetration for marksman, runspeed on engineering and something else on lethality

 

i really would love to use the marksman SNIPER STANCE

[Narcith]

Some great ideas here.

 

First time poster - long time reader and Sniper.

 

My suggestions would be the following without changing a great deal of the Marksman mechanics -

 

Target Acquired - changed from a cooldown based 20% Alactrity buff to a passive buff at the top level in the Marksman tree that adds an additional 5m ( maybe even 10m ) range to all rifle based attacks whilst in cover.

 

Cover in general should be changed to the following -

 

- Upon entering cover the Sniper/Gunslinger enters stealth ( Invis )

- Becomes visible after a shot is fired or ability is used

- automatically re-enters stealth after 5seconds of inactivity ( whilst in cover )

 

Personally I think the above would make the Marksman feel more like an actual Sniper. If we have to use cover and be immobile it may as well be really worthwhile for us.

 

I like the idea of making Follow through and Series of shots Tech based damage instead of weapon damage

[Nainai-Okami]

First thing, this thread should be sticky!

 

I read a lot of good ideas in hear so far.

It is certainly true that the 31 point talents in the tree are by far too weak, they have to be changed. At the moment it is better to go with a mixed set of all trees to do the best dmg or have the most usability. That is at least my experience.

 

I would like to propose a change to more general utility of the class. We are just dps like the marauder and every other class has a second spec like tank or heal. Why not make the Sniper and Marauder a little bit more group friendly by adding more group utility with special buffs. Nothing gamebraking just a nice thing to have. I dont know the first thing about the Marauder so that would be to the designer.

For us:

Why not give us a permanent group buff. Something like every group/raid member gains a shield of 500 points (on level 50). The shield regenrates itself by 10% per 2 seconds. The numbers are just for the imagination, the actual reduction should not be static but tech based!

 

That way we would be less squishy in pve, and pvp. In pvp the damage comes most times faster, so that it would not brake the game. This could be further upgradeable in the engineer tree far in the tops to increase regenration or max shield. Put this skill instead or our areal shield and everything would be all right, why making shield probe on cd wich maximises the shield by 3 or increases regeneration by a lot.

 

Other ideas might be enhancing our coordination buff with other things in the talent tree like +5% surge rating or alacrity or power rating. One in each tree far above and meaningfull to the passive abilitys in the whole tree.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Nainai-Okami

[Xizari]

Fix armor in PvP and provide Marksman with a bit more in the way of Energy Talents.

v

v

v

 

We use weapon damage, so almost all defensive benefits apply to us. I've seen myself crit for 1k on a Juggernaut before in a Warzone...that's lame -____-

[Dasamukha]

I like a lot of the changes that are recommended. I also want to compliment the community for not turning this into a flame thread.

 

My 2 cents.

 

Especially in PvP, I feel underpowered. My shots simply don't hit hard enough to make a difference. My survivability is next to nothing. I have a cool down or two, but they are a temporary fix that just prolong my death. It does not prevent it. I also have a big red flag that screams, "Target me, Target me, I am a sniper." I don't feel very sniper like when anyone with a ranged attack can target me and blast my doors off.

 

My suggestions:

 

Cover: I would redesign cover to fix a number of issues.

 

1. Being in cover provides camouflage after 3+ seconds. Camouflage makes to sniper undetectable at 15+ meters. The basic idea making it easy to be in cover in PvP. Camouflage breaks when first shot fires. (This allows us to actually set up our attacks and not immediately receive focus fire, and encourages us to stay in cover. Once we have fired, we will need to stop firing for 3+ seconds.)

 

2. Cover provides a proximity mine. The mine has a 4 meter range, explodes for 300 to 500 damage and stuns the target for 4 seconds. Deploys only in cover and can't activate more once every 30 seconds. (Provides a little defense to melee. Combine it with escape and evasion and a talent to boost speed coming out of cover and we have the tools to get away).

 

3. Have cover mitigate all damage when I am behind actual cover and concealment. I have no real defense against ranged damage dealers except other snipers. Let the cover mitigate some ranged attacks, give me a chance to fight back. Kiting is a good idea in concept but is not always a viable option.

 

Ambush

 

1. Ambush scales off of the amount of energy. Damage increases 100% at 100% energy and reduces to 50% damage at 0% energy. (Yes I know we can't get to 0% but you see the point) This rewards to the big shots that we plan and executes and punishes the sniper for poor planning and execution.

 

Series of Shots

 

1. If the target has a sniper applied armor debuff, SoS provides a further 5% armor reduction for 15 seconds. Can't be active on more than one target. Until I started doing a lot of pvp, I did not know the value of SOS. (This is the ability we would use against heavy armored targets, follow up with a high energy ambush and we have the ability take an opponent apart if we set up our shot, which in IMO is what we should be able to do).

 

Edit:

 

I saw one other ability change that I would like to see as well. Give us the ability to drop spurs to cover our escape. Last 8 seconds, or will disappear if we go into cover. Simply put, we have problems when chased, and no real ability to fight back. Slowing the target, gives us some extra utility

Edited February 1, 2012 by Dasamukha

[Ogadai]

2 Major changes:

1)If an ability is more than halfway through charged it can not be LOS'd

2)More APen on shots or snipe and ambush are tech damage

[Thug-Ra]

I'd make simple changes. Such an elaborate list is nice, but it'd never happen. Too many things on developers' plates at the moment, sadly.

 

(1) Give Snipers stealth and a "vanish" move. Add a debuff associated with stealth that causes ranged attacks from stealth to do half damage (in addition to breaking stealth when you attack). In this way you can't open from stealth with a huge Ambush crit from 35 yards away.

(2) Double the damage of Series of Shots. It's literally not worth having on your toolbar in its current state. At best, it's a low-dps energy refill that full MM builds can use -- but, to the same end, 25 MM/16 Engy provides better energy management with far more DPS thoroughput.

(3) Add a proc that can reset Ambush and make it free when you take damage. This doesn't have to be something with high uptime -- maybe a clickable cooldown, or a special condition. It'd actually make MM builds viable against melee in PVP.

(4) Stop making cover so easy to break in PVP! This requires nerfing other classes or buffing our ability to stay in cover, but being able to chain anti-cover moves is exactly the same as the days in WoW when one could chain disarms. No other class can have 80% of their offense taken away for 12 seconds at a time. None. Why should we?

Edited February 1, 2012 by Thug-Ra

[Idali]

What i would change...

 

Longer range for our rifles, 40m at least.

MErke ambush and snipe into one skill. When triggering combat with snioe, it gives the ambush damage. Otherwise snipe damage+10%.

 

Cover provides us with invisibility/stealth until we chose to attack.

And we get a mobility skill so that we can actually move and not laisure suit larry all over the place.

 

We get to buy the shown outfit from the progression video, fully moddable.

[Stranden]

More tech damage, or remove the powerful penalty on white damage.

 

Make the crit talent for snipers and gunslingers cost 3 points instead of 5, as it is with all other classes. The rest got 3 points for 30% or 5pts for 50%, and thats on "All force attacks".

 

Or you could make the crit talent (Imperial Assasin) count towards all white damage attacks, and not tech damage.

 

Get rid of alacrity, or remake energy and effect on GCD for it to be useful. A yeah, remove sniper volley and make something else instead. 9% more damage.

 

Dispell protection on DoTs for future PvP atleast.

 

Thats all i could think of now atleast

[Kalliadies]

Any thing to do with Alacrity needs to be replaced with something thats actually usefull

 

Unless they make Alacrity effect global Cooldown.

 

More armor pen to spec into is needed.

 

Cover Bugs need to be sorted out AS A PRIORITY