MM snipers and SS gunslingers suffer too much when fighting tank type enemies.

[Ulmius]

Snipers and gunslingers need a tech attack that can be regularly used to help offset the massive damage loss when an enemy shields their attack which is often. People say, "Snipers hit harder than any other ranged, so they don't need it." But is that really the case? I wrote down the damage range of my abilities of my commando and sniper to demonstrate how that statement isn't true. Note that I am not calling for a nerf for commandos, I'm simply showing how it doesn't make sense that snipers have all their attacks susceptible to shielded attacks. I don't have a sorc or sage leveled to 50 so I can't compare their numbers. But as you know, they have a total advantage vs commandos and snipers because none of their attacks can be shielded.

 

With these numbers keep in mind that my sniper has a lvl 50 purple crafted gun and 313 bonus damage. My commando has a lvl 50 purple crafted gun with 312 bonus damage. To show I'm not just making up numbers, I'll post a screen shot.

 

Commando

http://i42.tinypic.com/pcc52.jpg

 

Sniper

http://i39.tinypic.com/fa0i68.jpg

(note: helm and gloves are not equipped to help match the bonus damage stat because my gear is based more towards power)

 

Snipe - 1407-1514

vs

Grav Round - 1423-1473

 

Ambush - 2365-2545

vs

Demo Round (25% dmg bonus added to number) 1818-1927

 

Followthrough 1520-1644

vs

Charged Bolt 1400-1744

or

HIB (30% dmg bonus added to number) 1639-2042

 

Series of shots - 2982-3208

vs

Full Auto - 2778-3462, when procced for 25% more dmg 3472-4327

 

So as you can see, the only attack that has an advantage is ambush vs demo round, both on a 15 second cd however DR cannot be blocked or evaded unlike ambush. Every other attack they are either on par or stronger for the commando. However commando has the added benefit of having at least some moves that can bypass the shielded and evasion mechanic. Not to mention they have the ammo round that bypasses armor by 35% so their white moves do even more damage than the sniper that is listed.

 

Anyway, my point is NOT to nerf commando, my point is that snipers need a move they can rely on when fighting tank type enemies. The only attack they have is explosive probe which is on a 30 sec cd and a dot that deals 1300 dmg over 15 seconds. As you can see, it's not like the sniper does a ton more damage than the commando in the first place, in reality it's actually less aside from ambush and snipe which do a bit more dmg, but after the armor pen round they deal less dmg.

 

Maybe make a talent in the mm tree that turns snipe into a tech based move. That way they can have at least one move they can rely on when fighting tank npcs or players. I really doubt people would consider that OP since it's one of our weakest moves in the first place. I dunno, but do something because I feel the sniper is getting shafted when it comes to tank npcs or players.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Ulmius

[Roiz]

Your sniper has crappy gear, even doesn't have head slot at all, what you suspect testing damage naked.

 

Sniper as a commando are ranged easy mode classes, they definetly deserve a big nerf. Actually their mechanics is the same, tracer missile/grave round or snipe spam.

I can give you a good news bioware are going to nerf commando in 1.2.

 

Finally, i can tell you an advice put something in your head slot on your sniper, get some BM gear and enjoy.

[genesiser]

Your sniper has crappy gear, even doesn't have head slot at all, what you suspect testing damage naked.

 

Sniper as a commando are ranged easy mode classes, they definetly deserve a big nerf. Actually their mechanics is the same, tracer missile/grave round or snipe spam.

I can give you a good news bioware are going to nerf commando in 1.2.

 

Finally, i can tell you an advice put something in your head slot on your sniper, get some BM gear and enjoy.

 

I love it when people show they don't know how to read.

[Ulmius]

Your sniper has crappy gear, even doesn't have head slot at all, what you suspect testing damage naked.

 

Sniper as a commando are ranged easy mode classes, they definetly deserve a big nerf. Actually their mechanics is the same, tracer missile/grave round or snipe spam.

I can give you a good news bioware are going to nerf commando in 1.2.

 

Finally, i can tell you an advice put something in your head slot on your sniper, get some BM gear and enjoy.

 

If you had read my post you would have seen that I said I don't have helm or gloves on so I can match the damage bonus to compare the numbers.

 

Also, on your point about snipe spam, snipe costs 20 energy. It cannot be reduced or have energy regain after a crit unlike grav round or tracer missle. Under 60 energy your energy regen takes a dive. Casting 3 snipes in a row brings you down to 40 energy so it's not like we would be spamming it. It would however give us an attack that we can rely on, not spam, but rely on when fighting tank npcs or players. Your argument is invalid because of the energy system and how it acts with snipers.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Ulmius

[moltig]

Your accuracy on your sniper is 97 percent... read the stats, learn to play.

[Lymain]

The problem is mainly just that Grav Round is too powerful. Make it white damage like Charged Bolts, and then your numbers would look fine.

[Ulmius]

Your accuracy on your sniper is 97 percent... read the stats, learn to play.

 

Accuracy has ZERO effect on attacks being shielded. The shield percent is calculated after a hit lands. Accuracy only effect a hit or a miss, not if your attack gets shielded or not. Before you base your post around a concept, at least make sure your concept is accurate.

[Ulmius]

The problem is mainly just that Grav Round is too powerful. Make it white damage like Charged Bolts, and then your numbers would look fine.

 

Grav round isn't the problem and I have not said it is. If you look at the numbers you see pretty much all their non tech attacks are just as strong, if not stronger than the sniper attacks. The problem is that snipers and gunslingers if marksman specced have no moves to help with fighting a tank type npc or player. All your moves are subject to shielded attacks which drastically lower the damage of your moves. I'm not saying every attack needs to be tech, just one that we can have on a relatively short cd (while snipe has no cd, the energy restrictions of the class give it one) that we can rely on.

[Lymain]

Grav round isn't the problem and I have not said it is. If you look at the numbers you see pretty much all their non tech attacks are just as strong, if not stronger than the sniper attacks. The problem is that snipers and gunslingers if marksman specced have no moves to help with fighting a tank type npc or player. All your moves are subject to shielded attacks which drastically lower the damage of your moves. I'm not saying every attack needs to be tech, just one that we can have on a relatively short cd (while snipe has no cd, the energy restrictions of the class give it one) that we can rely on.

 

You haven't said it is, but it actually is. Snipers are only supposed to do, at most, 5% more damage than other DPS specs. Tanks complain that their defensive stats don't make enough difference in PvP because too many attacks bypass them. The solution here is just to make Grav Round do white damage.

 

EDIT: Also, Grav Round is simply too powerful relative to the other Commando abilities. Even if it did really poor white damage, there would still be incentive to cast it for buffs/debuffs. As it is now, you can be too effective just spamming that one button.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Lymain

[Ulmius]

If you look at the damage numbers of skills, you see that they do about the same damage (except for demo round vs ambush). For example, grav round does a bit less than snipe, but full auto does quite a bit more than series of shots. Add in the 35% armor bypass and they end up doing more. Even still, that's not my point - its just showing you how snipers don't do more damage.

 

You say tank complain about pvp and lack of abilities they can shield or evade in pvp. To that I say, what are they complaining about? Aside from sorc/sage spells and dots, they seem to be just fine. Are they mad about grav round? Just interrupt it and they can't use it for 4 seconds, aside from demo round they can evade and shield a majority of the commando moves. Besides, if they made grav round white damage then they'd be in the same boat as snipers - just another target tanks can look at and laugh them off. Heck, they can dodge, shield, and parry a target and not even have to be facing that target, how much easier do they want it?

 

Also, I'm not just talking about pvp. There are plenty of tank npcs out there that greatly diminish the effectiveness of a mm sniper or ss gunslinger. Every one of our attacks are effected by shields. Having snipe turned to tech dmg, a move that is far from being the strongest attack and is the least energy efficient would help with it. With the limitations on energy it wouldn't even come close to being OP.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Ulmius

[Rebelatto]

Your sniper has crappy gear, even doesn't have head slot at all, what you suspect testing damage naked.

 

Sniper as a commando are ranged easy mode classes, they definetly deserve a big nerf. Actually their mechanics is the same, tracer missile/grave round or snipe spam.

I can give you a good news bioware are going to nerf commando in 1.2.

 

Finally, i can tell you an advice put something in your head slot on your sniper, get some BM gear and enjoy.

 

Sniper spam? Seriously? Are you level 20 or something?

 

.

.

.

 

Snipers have pro and cons. As a sniper I would love to kill tanks with a couple of shots, but you have to realize that in order to the game keeps balanced one class can't easily kill all the other classes,we need "rock, paper and scissors". Snipers would broke the game if our damage was tech, becouse we are already ok:

 

As MM we can easily kill all classes but heavy armor users and shadow/assassin tanks. And we can have honest fights with those heavy armor users when they are dps speced. If you feel your weapon damage sucks, you can always move to lethality that melts any class in this game.

 

Seeing your sniper it's clear that you haven't played enough with him, learn the small details and tactics of your class, gear him up and you will see that sniper aren't that bad.

 

Imho the cover system is great and makes us very strong in pvp:

Makes us immune to interrupts, immune to any cc with a 1min cd, 45 secs if speced. Also if speced give us damage mitigation, ranged mitigation and instant snipes (to use our ft that hits HARD). The "natural" cover when well used allows us to kite melees, to avoid ranged damage.

 

We have a ranged interupt with a low cd, pushbacks, stuns, aoe cc, bubble, 100% dodge chance, elemental aoe, 45% accuracy debuff, instant ranged slow...

 

 

Well, tl:dr: I think we are ok, the changes you ask would make us unstoppable, learn to play and accept you can't be a god... well, you can: if you want to kill everbody go vanguard/powertech.

[subrosian]

You have it backwards. Shields should be made to affect Tech and Force attacks. The reason Tanks gear in DPS gear in PVP is that everyone but Snipers ignores their Shield. If Shield was made useful against everyone it would be balanced and Tanks could actually gear as Tanks.

[Tibbel]

Shields should be made to affect Tech and Force attacks. ... If Shield was made useful against everyone it would be balanced and Tanks could actually gear as Tanks.

 

This and force/tech resistance. It exists in the game, but only extremely rarely.

 

Classes that deal primarily force or tech attacks have a much lower base miss rate than other classes, so don't have any desire to invest points toward accuracy:

• Sorcerers/Sages
  
• Mercenaries/Commandos
  
• Operatives/Scoundrels

This also happens to be the list of advanced classes that have been or are going to be nerfed.

 

Hopefully the class balance changes are done in a smart way that allows scaling differences to be minimized across classes as well.

[genesiser]

You have it backwards. Shields should be made to affect Tech and Force attacks. The reason Tanks gear in DPS gear in PVP is that everyone but Snipers ignores their Shield. If Shield was made useful against everyone it would be balanced and Tanks could actually gear as Tanks.

 

If tanks could shield all types of attacks, there would be no paper to their rock. Think about it, currently tanks look at snipers and if he sees that sniper is a marksman spec, he just laughs it off because he knows that character is no threat to him. Add shields to all attacks and now he doesn't just do that with snipers, but he does that with every type of enemy. Tanks already have an advantage, it's called high armor. They take 20-30% less dmg when in tank stance compared to other classes. So you think that now they should take their 55% dmg reduction and now have the ability to add another 25-55% dmg reduction from shields? That's crazy talk. Maybe if they actually had to be facing their target to parry or shield an attack I'd be for it. But not when you can do it without even having to try.

 

What the OP is talking about wouldn't make a sniper or gunslinger overpowered and anyone that thinks that it will doesn't know what the word overpowered means. He's talking about an attack, a weak attack mind you, but an attack on a short cd - because let's face it, with the energy restrictions there is a short cd and you can't spam snipe - that they can rely on knowing that it won't get shielded. I think that's a fair thing to ask for. Why should every single one of a sniper's abilities be effected by shield when they don't even do much, if any more dmg than another class?

[Ulmius]

This and force/tech resistance. It exists in the game, but only extremely rarely.

 

Classes that deal primarily force or tech attacks have a much lower base miss rate than other classes, so don't have any desire to invest points toward accuracy:

• Sorcerers/Sages
  
• Mercenaries/Commandos
  
• Operatives/Scoundrels

This also happens to be the list of advanced classes that have been or are going to be nerfed.

 

Hopefully the class balance changes are done in a smart way that allows scaling differences to be minimized across classes as well.

 

The biggest advantage of force and tech attacks isn't so much the lower accuracy required to hit a target, it's more that their attacks cannot be shielded. When you have a move that does say 2,000 dmg and you fight a tank with 55% dmg reduction that move is down to 900 dmg. That's fine, it's a tank - they should have higher damage reduction. However when you add in them shielding that attack and reducing it by another 40%, that 2,000 dmg move ends up doing 540 damage. In other words, all of the mm sniper attacks have a good chance to have their dmg reduced by almost 75%. That's why a sniper needs at least one move on a short cd that can bypass shields and evades because when a mm sniper fights a tank, it's over before it even begins.

[Tewnam]

This and force/tech resistance. It exists in the game, but only extremely rarely.

 

Classes that deal primarily force or tech attacks have a much lower base miss rate than other classes, so don't have any desire to invest points toward accuracy:

• Sorcerers/Sages
  
• Mercenaries/Commandos
  
• Operatives/Scoundrels

This also happens to be the list of advanced classes that have been or are going to be nerfed.

 

Hopefully the class balance changes are done in a smart way that allows scaling differences to be minimized across classes as well.

 

I don't think you understand how the resistance works. Internal and elemental damage are the ones that aren't affected by armor and only have a few sources of resistance. As it stands, most force and tech abilities deal either energy or kinetic damage, which is affected by armor. There are certain abilities and certain specs with more of these abilities that are focused around being able to bypass armor, but that's a different topic.

[hadoken]

I don't think you understand how the resistance works. Internal and elemental damage are the ones that aren't affected by armor and only have a few sources of resistance. As it stands, most force and tech abilities deal either energy or kinetic damage, which is affected by armor. There are certain abilities and certain specs with more of these abilities that are focused around being able to bypass armor, but that's a different topic.

 

He's not talking about resistance, but chance to hit. Tech and Force attacks bypass ranged defense and shielding entirely. You don't need accuracy with those attacks because they're almost guaranteed to hit (they also ignore the benefits of baseline sniper cover too - being a ranged defense boost).

Edited March 9, 2012 by hadoken

[arcadeboredom]

A commando can be easily interrupted. A sniper/gunslingers attacks cannot be interrupted.

A commando is the easiest class to shut down in the game.

[il-jumper]

A commando can be easily interrupted. A sniper/gunslingers attacks cannot be interrupted.

A commando is the easiest class to shut down in the game.

 

 

A commando is god mode due to heavy armor

A commando does more damage then Sniper

A commando 1 button gives energy/armor reduction and tech damage at once

A commando cannot be shutdown. 4 seconds interupt they will tank all your damage with godly heavy armor then kill you in 4 GR/TM despite you are wearing BM Gear.

[Azrienov]

Accuracy has ZERO effect on attacks being shielded. The shield percent is calculated after a hit lands. Accuracy only effect a hit or a miss, not if your attack gets shielded or not. Before you base your post around a concept, at least make sure your concept is accurate.

 

Critical chance pushes shield chance off the table. Tank woes? Stock up on critical strike for that shield.

[Azrienov]

If tanks could shield all types of attacks, there would be no paper to their rock. Think about it, currently tanks look at snipers and if he sees that sniper is a marksman spec, he just laughs it off because he knows that character is no threat to him. Add shields to all attacks and now he doesn't just do that with snipers, but he does that with every type of enemy. Tanks already have an advantage, it's called high armor. They take 20-30% less dmg when in tank stance compared to other classes. So you think that now they should take their 55% dmg reduction and now have the ability to add another 25-55% dmg reduction from shields? That's crazy talk. Maybe if they actually had to be facing their target to parry or shield an attack I'd be for it. But not when you can do it without even having to try.

 

What the OP is talking about wouldn't make a sniper or gunslinger overpowered and anyone that thinks that it will doesn't know what the word overpowered means. He's talking about an attack, a weak attack mind you, but an attack on a short cd - because let's face it, with the energy restrictions there is a short cd and you can't spam snipe - that they can rely on knowing that it won't get shielded. I think that's a fair thing to ask for. Why should every single one of a sniper's abilities be effected by shield when they don't even do much, if any more dmg than another class?

 

High armor accounts for little in this game, as elemental and internal attacks ignore it. There happens to be alot of elemental and internal damage flying around. Read taugrimm's assessment of damage and tanks.

[Lexster]

Unfortunately, both of the pure dps classes were designed to be mostly kinetic damage. Sents/maras also face a similiar situation against tanks. With what was said during the guild summit, I dont see this changing any time soon. Tanks are supposed to be the sniper/mara nemesis, while we are meant to destroy the lighter armored targets. Is this how it currently works? Not really, but with upcoming changes things may move this way.

[hadoken]

High armor accounts for little in this game, as elemental and internal attacks ignore it. There happens to be alot of elemental and internal damage flying around. Read taugrimm's assessment of damage and tanks.

 

No there isn't. There's a couple nasty class combos that capitalize on them (lethality sniper, annihilation marauder - go figure two classes tank defenses actually work pretty well against otherwise) but the vast bulk of the damage you take is reduced via armor.

Edited March 15, 2012 by hadoken

[Tamanous]

Well in case some missed the feed back from Bioware recently:

 

It is a design element for the pure dps classes to largely use mitigated damage types. The so called hybrid classes use more non-mitigated damage types because Bioware wants their damage scaling to soft cap out earlier. Mitigated damage can further be scaled through the use of the accuracy stat. The main issue however is that current itemization and certain abuses in talent design have not directed players within the scope of design.

 

It is the nature of mmo's that players head in the direction of least resistance (hence fotm characters and builds) and 1.2 is "supposed" to correct some of the concept vs implementation faults the game suffers from now.

 

In short, the way the game is supposed to be played is:

 

Pure dps classes: Superior damage scaling through accuracy and other stat itemization vs scaling defence choices for players.

 

Non-pure dps classes: Lower soft cap limit for dps through itemization vs limited defence choices for players.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Tamanous

[Game-Hermit]

Accuracy has ZERO effect on attacks being shielded. The shield percent is calculated after a hit lands. Accuracy only effect a hit or a miss, not if your attack gets shielded or not. Before you base your post around a concept, at least make sure your concept is accurate.

Once you're at the hit cap it starts reducing armor and spell resistance. The thread is about damage VS tanks and armor reduction is quite relevant to that.