If they increased our range... would that solve our problems?

[Serisno]

Before you say no, give it some serious thought. Go play for a day in PvP battles, and as you're playing imagine how the battles would have panned out if you had another 10 or 15m of distance to toy with in range? Imagine where you 'would' setup on the battlefield and if that would help mitigate our drawbacks.

 

So I've been thinking about it recently. And yes we have a lot of drawbacks. And it doesn't seem like the 'perks' quite add up well enough to offset all the drawbacks. The devs had to have realized this while they were creating us, so they had to have added something to us to make us really stand out. Some big perk that we're supposed to get that would offset all these negatives...

 

I think that they intended for the extra 5m of range to really give us an advantage on the playing field. What I don't think they realized is that you can cover 5m of distance in about .5 seconds. Less if you have sprint, even less if you have force speed abilities.

 

So the question is, if they increased our range to say... 45m... would that make us viable in PvP?

 

At least that way you could sit way off in the back of a fight, avoid notice, and do what you're supposed to do... snipe people.

 

And then if someone notices you, at least they have to push through the front lines, and come get you.

[Jazzlok]

That would be insanely amazing and probably OP; I already love being in the back shooting at max range anyway, I can only imagine what kind of frustration other people would feel if I could be even further away on top of a ledge.

 

It would certainly be fun xD

[Serisno]

Well, if 45m is OP? Does 40m work?

 

I think that we can already get 40m range with that one set of PvP gear right? (I haven't researched it much yet, but I thought it was a set bonus on one of the orange sets.)

 

So the question is... What could they increase our range to in order to offset all our drawbacks? (If increasing our range would help at all that is.)

Edited January 25, 2012 by Serisno

[PhantomClutch]

Whats the draw backs to being a sniper again?

[Noctournys]

Whats the draw backs to being a sniper again?

 

Low mobility

 

low armor/mitigation

 

extremely easy to LoS (all of the high-damaging abilties are on extremely long casts or channels)

 

extremely poor group utility (no hard CC, our CC that we do have (Flashbang) almost entirely fills a resolve bar in one go and breaks on a pin*****)

 

extremely poor damage against heavy-armor targets. poor damage against medium armor targets. Absolutely useless damage against tanks. We have the only damage in the game that is mitigated by asbolutely every defense in the game. Having a killshot "deflected!" is about the most frustrating thing in the entire world.

 

cant out-damage a single healer, and have no ability to shut down enough healing casts to actually gain traction. In a multiple-healer situatuon, you do no appreciable, game-changing damage.

 

You can work around some of these by being lethalith:

 

as lethality you can avoid armor mitigation, but your overall damage goes down. You do less damage, but do it equally to everyone, at least.

 

as lethality you can avoid being immobile, but it comes at a price of being energy starved and having even less utility than other builds.

[RicR]

As a level 50 Battlemaster Sniper, I feel there are some points vs other classes that could make us feel UP however this doesn't make us a weak class. We aren't the lowest in damage/kill ratio, sometimes we're the highest. I've managed to accept the skills I'm limited to and improvise my play style to make myself effective in any warzone. It actually takes skill to play our class not that it doesn't in others but maybe more so in ours. Sure like all classes some abilities need to be fine tuned but over all, I love my class and find it an exciting challange to play.

[vimm]

We can instantly Snipe, Followthrough and Takedown are insta-cast - you can use them while you're moving, and the damage is great. Yes, you have to enter cover for Ambush and Series of Shots, but you can reduce the cast time on Ambush by Laze+insta-Sniping, and utilize Leg Shot, Cover Pulse, Debilitate and Flashbang to prevent people from breaking line of sight. Edited January 26, 2012 by vimm

[Zunayson]

We can instantly Snipe, Followthrough and Takedown are insta-cast - you can use them while you're moving, and the damage is great. Yes, you have to enter cover for Ambush and Series of Shots, but you can reduce the cast time on Ambush by Laze+insta-Sniping, and utilize Leg Shot, Cover Pulse, Debilitate and Flashbang to prevent people from breaking line of sight.

 

WHAT? Someone who uses legshot like they should? PREPOSTEROUS! That being said, Yes, yes YES! Out of every class I've played, the sniper has the most CC with a ranged AoE Mezz, melee stun, ranged immobilize, and "Melee" Aoe Knockback + Snare.

 

Use these to your advantage. Kiting is amazing when paired with cover pulse, leg shot, then knocking back with ambush's Heavy Shot talent.

 

extremely effective when used right, just my 2 creds.

[vimm]

WHAT? Someone who uses legshot like they should? PREPOSTEROUS! That being said, Yes, yes YES! Out of every class I've played, the sniper has the most CC with a ranged AoE Mezz, melee stun, ranged immobilize, and "Melee" Aoe Knockback + Snare.

 

Use these to your advantage. Kiting is amazing when paired with cover pulse, leg shot, then knocking back with ambush's Heavy Shot talent.

 

extremely effective when used right, just my 2 creds.

 

+fun!

[Irenicus_Jon]

Even a 5m increase would change a lot. It wouldn't fix LoS problems but it would give a much greater choice of ground to setup cover points.

[sobin]

Range increase would be cool, however I think it would be useless in pvp. That just gives the enemy more stuff to Los us with.

[shooowan]

As a level 50 Battlemaster Sniper, I feel there are some points vs other classes that could make us feel UP however this doesn't make us a weak class. We aren't the lowest in damage/kill ratio, sometimes we're the highest. I've managed to accept the skills I'm limited to and improvise my play style to make myself effective in any warzone. It actually takes skill to play our class not that it doesn't in others but maybe more so in ours. Sure like all classes some abilities need to be fine tuned but over all, I love my class and find it an exciting challange to play.

 

qft. pretty much how i feel about the situation

[vimm]

Range increase would be cool, however I think it would be useless in pvp. That just gives the enemy more stuff to Los us with.

 

How do you mean?

[Delease]

Even a 5m increase would change a lot. It wouldn't fix LoS problems but it would give a much greater choice of ground to setup cover points.

 

Honestly more range would lead to more LOS issues.

 

I do think the class should have more range. 5m is nothing when someone can cover that in two steps practically. 10m is a different story. Which would make perfect sense considering the class is a sniper. It would also give us something unique over other classes. Since most other classes can do what we do now but better & with more utility.

 

Alot needs to be adjusted with the class that is for sure.

[DestyOwn]

First of all , an ambush shouldnt put a BIG TARGET on the enemy, We are supposed to get our Initial Burst without being LOS on purpose.

 

That's retarted IMO

[KseriousEG]

Low mobility

 

extremely easy to LoS (all of the high-damaging abilties are on extremely long casts or channels)

 

extremely poor damage against heavy-armor targets. poor damage against medium armor targets. Absolutely useless damage against tanks. We have the only damage in the game that is mitigated by asbolutely every defense in the game. Having a killshot "deflected!" is about the most frustrating thing in the entire world.

 

 

I agree completely with these two. pros know to LoS a sniper at every opportunity. a pro sniper always tries to be in the right position but it is never easy. think pillars near first doors on voidstar. healers LoS me all the time on those.

 

shots deflected or evaded by their defensive abilities is a major problem too. having a bunch of single shot high damage abilities that can be deflected or interrupted is too great of a disadvantage.

 

attempting to out dps a healer's heals is an exercise in frustration. target acquired + mixing in distraction / flash and burning down 80 energy won't outrun a pro merc / sorc.

[Jiav]

It would be enough if they would give ALL of our other range spells a range of 35. It kinda sucks that some are stuck with 30 meter range and other 35m derpaderp.

[Infalliable]

Low mobility

 

low armor/mitigation

 

extremely easy to LoS (all of the high-damaging abilties are on extremely long casts or channels)

 

extremely poor group utility (no hard CC, our CC that we do have (Flashbang) almost entirely fills a resolve bar in one go and breaks on a pin*****)

 

extremely poor damage against heavy-armor targets. poor damage against medium armor targets. Absolutely useless damage against tanks. We have the only damage in the game that is mitigated by asbolutely every defense in the game. Having a killshot "deflected!" is about the most frustrating thing in the entire world.

 

cant out-damage a single healer, and have no ability to shut down enough healing casts to actually gain traction. In a multiple-healer situatuon, you do no appreciable, game-changing damage.

 

You can work around some of these by being lethalith:

 

as lethality you can avoid armor mitigation, but your overall damage goes down. You do less damage, but do it equally to everyone, at least.

 

as lethality you can avoid being immobile, but it comes at a price of being energy starved and having even less utility than other builds.

 

I think these are all bigger issues. Range really won't fix what's holding the class back. Even 10m is only 1 extra GCD worth of attacking on someone who notices you.

 

People say how many CC powers we have, but the CC powers are actually so-so in terms of effectiveness.

• Flashbang is just an interrupt for Lethality and Engineering. It's worthless as a CC power. Both those specs rely on DOTs (corrosive gren, dart, and int. probe), so flashbang naturally gets canceled almost immediately.
• Legshot takes too long to actually immob someone and is very short lived.
• Cover pulse is buggy but effective enough when it works.
• Debilitate is great, but you really want people to stay at range so it's mechanically less than optimal.
• Headshot & the melee version don't work in PvP.

 

Armor mitgation seems to be hitting us pretty hard.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Infalliable

[JoyProtocol]

Yes please. I find it quite often that the best spots to set up a sniper's nest in are JUST outside the main action. having to inch closer to have the abilities light up is not fun.

 

Give me 45 range on rifle shots, 30 range on other abilities, and we are set.

[LaVolpex]

one word....no

 

to explain better...

 

in pvp, it doesnt matter, as seldom you will be able to succesfully use the range for more than one shot most of the time someone will head in your direction in wich case you already better be flashbanging him (sounded dirty i know lol)

 

in pve, range just helps you prevent damage not deal more, wich is where our problem lies..

 

better solution would be to give us better ways into speccing some armor penetration on more of our abilties, mainly , the marksmanship tree could use some of that on snipe and perhaps takedown

 

unless you are going lethality in wich case, your single target dps is going to be crappy because it needs multiple dots on multiple targets to get back energy and do good dps

 

engineering is more fire and forget, its more reliant on tech damage but again, doesnt have a very big singe target dps either, so on boss fights with just one target , you will fall behind, but its excelent for pvp and aoe fights

 

marksmanship is all about single target, yet one stat completely cuts in half our damage potential = armor , and we have no way of countering that, specced or otherwise, its only with the help of mutliple armor debuffs on a boss that we can pull good dps

 

- my 2 cents

Edited January 26, 2012 by LaVolpex

[PhantomClutch]

Are all snipers just using Snipe and Ambush? Not the instant casts that do as much or more dmg then Snipe like Take Down or Fallow Through?

 

Are all snipers not using Leg Shot, Flashbang, Cover Pulse or Debilitate to keep those pesky no gooders away?

 

Have all snipers forgotten Shield Probe, Evasion, and Diverson as ways of keep dmg off u?

 

Keep ur energy up by using Rifle Shot between moves because as we all know, all agents regenerate energy faster the more energy u have.

 

If a sniper is having trouble taking down someone with armor why not use Shatter Shot to take away 20% of that targets armor?

 

So whats the problem with Snipers?

[Kryzen]

Just some ideas for MM... I dont think we need a range increase

 

1) we are a powerhouse DPS. Give ambush (or maybe another/add an attack) a knockdown that affects players. This is like getting hit by a 50cal in the face. it should put you on your ***.

 

2) Series of shots a mini knockback. Im not saying give it the distance of our current KB but say it pushes the target back 1 or 2m every time you hit with SoS... though rapid fire may cause issues with this.

 

3) Give snipers higher base accuracy... Snipers dont miss and they can shoot the wings off a fly. It should be harder to dodge, block, what ever a snipers shot. We aint no BH shooting slow *** rockets.

 

4) Snare... I mean, come on. Are snipers the only ones without one? Its not like its going to make us a kiting god or anything, all our good crap we still need to be stationary for. Interrogation probe is too deep into Engi.

 

Now im not saying give them ALL of this, but 1 or 2 would be a very nice addition.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Kryzen