Non-Marksman PVE/Ops

[DenonSix]

There have been a number of discussions on this forum regarding the advantages/disadvantages of all 3 specs when it comes to PVP, but i'm curious of player's experiences when it comes to PVE for non-marksman specs. In particular, i'm wondering how Snipers fare in Heroic FPs/Operations.

 

I know Marksman and its variations do well, but does anyone have opinions from their experiences using:

 

- Full Engineer

- Full Lethality

- Eng/Leth Hybrid

 

Do they hold up to MM on boss fights in EV/KP or are you gimping yourself not sticking with MM?

 

I know this is hard to gauge until we get logs/dummies to theorycraft further, but might as well discuss opinions/general experiences of how they fare for those who have tried to switch it up.

[Tenacity]

My experience with the 3 specs so far (havent done a hybrid build yet):

 

Marksman offers the highest burst damage, which is useful during tougher trash pulls or on bosses that enrage quickly. I've only got 2 pieces of columi gear so far (everything else is slotted with daily rewards) and I'm running with a 38% crit chance, 70+% crit multiplier, and frequently critting for 3-4k.

 

Marksman has some severe issues on fights where you arent able to keep in cover, however (which, right now, is a lot of encounters, refer to my 'Bioware: define 'immune' thread). You've gotta stay in cover to be effective, and it can be frustrating to play when enemies keep knocking you around.

 

 

Engineer has the best AoE potential from what I've experienced, but a lot of it's single target damage is based more on damage over time effects and you still need to be in cover to use your most powerful ability (series of shots). It does fare better out of cover than marksman does, because you can replace snipe with frag grenades, doing almost as much damage and only on a 3 second cooldown.

 

 

Lethality gets cull, which can serve as an alternative to series of shots when not in cover, giving Lethality probably the best out-of-cover effectiveness of the three specs. Lethality has better AoE than marksman due to corrosive grenade, but it's less powerful in the aoe department than engineer. Overall it felt like lethality and engineering were pretty similar in terms of single target DPS, lethality may be slightly higher - but neither of them had the burst potential marksman does, making them less effective on non-boss fights.

 

The only issue I really have with lethality is that cull costs too much energy, it should be brought down to 20 like series of shots or ambush, IMO.

[SageH]

My experience with the 3 specs so far (havent done a hybrid build yet):

 

Marksman offers the highest burst damage, which is useful during tougher trash pulls or on bosses that enrage quickly. I've only got 2 pieces of columi gear so far (everything else is slotted with daily rewards) and I'm running with a 38% crit chance, 70+% crit multiplier, and frequently critting for 3-4k.

 

Marksman has some severe issues on fights where you arent able to keep in cover, however (which, right now, is a lot of encounters, refer to my 'Bioware: define 'immune' thread). You've gotta stay in cover to be effective, and it can be frustrating to play when enemies keep knocking you around.

 

 

Engineer has the best AoE potential from what I've experienced, but a lot of it's single target damage is based more on damage over time effects and you still need to be in cover to use your most powerful ability (series of shots). It does fare better out of cover than marksman does, because you can replace snipe with frag grenades, doing almost as much damage and only on a 3 second cooldown.

 

 

Lethality gets cull, which can serve as an alternative to series of shots when not in cover, giving Lethality probably the best out-of-cover effectiveness of the three specs. Lethality has better AoE than marksman due to corrosive grenade, but it's less powerful in the aoe department than engineer. Overall it felt like lethality and engineering were pretty similar in terms of single target DPS, lethality may be slightly higher - but neither of them had the burst potential marksman does, making them less effective on non-boss fights.

 

The only issue I really have with lethality is that cull costs too much energy, it should be brought down to 20 like series of shots or ambush, IMO.

 

I'd agree with most of this. Though cover doesn't create any issues in any fight (Operations specifically) in the game. There isn't a single fight where finding cover or crouching is a problem, and realistically its actually beneficial given how much damage ballistic dampeners mitigates.

 

In the end, Lethality just isn't as energy efficient as the other two when you need a lot of damage fast. Engineering on the other hand has a lot of damage mitigation and utility cd reduction built into it which directly helps you and your raid. I've specced both full Marks and full Engineering and I enjoy both, though Engineering has a bit more to offer in terms of AoE potential and utility.

Edited March 11, 2012 by SageH

[BambulaGTS]

No damage meter = no truth.

 

Only popular belief.

[NotRonin]

For those looking to gear up using HM flashpoints, a full lethality or lethality hybrid build is amazing for beating the rage timer with only have a 126 weapon. As the FP bosses only have 100k-200k hp, once it's down to 30% you can go 'all out', pop adrenaline probe, and take down the last 30% hp in 2 Cull cycles. This does not work as well in operations where the mob have over 1 million hp, and energy management with lethality is more challenging.

 

For normal mode operations. Assuming you're not being carried by others in Rakata/Columi, you need to squeeze as much DPS from your gear as possible. The best build is probably the MM/Lethality 16/2/23 : you basically play like a MM except that Followthrough is replace by Cull. Lethality/Eng (2/16/23 and variant) is also good for the mobility. If your tank is not familiar with the battle, the boss will move around a lot. I recommend these builds until you get your 136 weapon.

 

Once you move to HM mode operations, you no longer need to squeeze every single DPS to beat the rage timer. Then it's a matter of preferred playstyle, utility and not dying.

[TaiRevant]

eng/leth hybrid does steady damage and can be energy effecient so long as u stay away from spaming cull, just pour on the 3 dots and watch the bosses burn.

full lethality is somewhat like a sorc madness line, except its 30% per tick vs 20% from deathmark for sorc.

[Ulmius]

I played full lethality for the first time today and it's not too bad. It puts out great damage but the problem is... I don't know what spec does more dps, this or full MM. MM has the big burst and giant numbers. For example this is what I'll see. Use relic (225 power) and pop auto crit snipe for ~2400 dmg, follow through for 1800-3600 depending on crit or not, ambush for 2700-4900 depending on crit, use move for 20% haste and use SoS which hits 4 times for 1200-2000 a tick over 2.2 seconds, follow through for 18-3600, use move for 2 more SoS. So basically in the span of ~12.6 seconds I do anywhere from 23,100 - 38,500 depending on how many crits I get.

 

On the flip side, lethality has some great burst too when you have your dots up and use cull along with that move that makes dots hit 30% harder. From what I was seeing whenever I use cull along with the dots, I was doing about 2-3k dmg per tick of cull (adding up cull and dots) So basically that's like 6-9k dmg over 3 seconds. When I use sos (which seems to me the tree is based around dots + cull and sos) It would be ~5-8k dmg when all was added up over that 3 seconds. When cull or sos wasn't up, depending on energy I would use basic attack or snipe.

 

Anyway, both trees put out fantastic dps and they are both fun to use. The question though is which one puts out the most damage. Until we get logs we won't know, that is, unless we frap it then look at it but I don't like doing that. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Either way, no matter which spec I use, I know for a fact that I am enjoying my sniper over my old commando and I'm pretty sure the damage is a great deal higher with my sniper.

[Irenicus_Jon]

Bear in mind that this is from personal experience, I cannot put up definitive numbers to support any claim, and in the end you have to make your own mind about it all.

 

Pure marksman: Has the biggest opener with the highest burst in the shortest time (instant snipe/followthrough with 1.5 sec ambush and explosive probe). Performs well in HM flashpoints and perhaps even better and operations. Because all armor debuffs stack, has slightly higher compared to lethality in operations. Reliance on cover is not a gamebreaker in flashpoints or operations. Reliance on cover is extremely annoying when you are PvE'ing solo (far too many mobs in end-game areas have abilities that knock you out of cover, some of which ignore entrench). Contrary to what many believe this is the ideal PvP build. The burst damage is high, it doesn't realy on dots that can be dispelled, benefits from the low cooldown on legshot, etc.

 

Pure lethality: Burst damage is comparable to marksman but somewhat delayed. Possibly better damage than marksman in flashpoints since majority of your damage ignores armor. Requires time to setup the dps rotation (application of dots in preparation for cull) which requires you to act quick (for example, third phase of Soa where you have to do dps quickly with his shield down). There are times, both in flashpoints and operations, where you cannot use corrosive grenade which is a big dps hit (bonetrasher comes to mind).

 

Hybrids with cluster bombs: Cluster bomb hybrids almost always do better in PvE. Not because they pick up interrogation probe (which is nice) but because explosive probe becomes extremely energy efficient.

 

I regularly switch my build (sometimes twice a week) so I ahve some experience with almost any build except ones focused on engineering.