DPS: Snipers have it better?

[Sharee]

This post was inspired by the following conversation:

 

Honestly, what majors differences are there between the sniper and gunslinger that prevent the gunslinger from reaching the potential of the sniper.

 

Gunslingers need the offhand damage to hit, which requires accuracy to be on par. Sniper needs less accuracy so can stack more crit/surge/power.

 

exactly. Also since they have 2 handed gun, it's base damage is much higher and they can use off hand for stat booster only.

 

Even if GS stacks accuracy (and BM gear seems to lack it greately), offhand gun still has very low base accuracy so in practice we loose some of our damage potential.

 

 

The reasoning made sense, so i thought, how could BW overlook something so obvous? And then: "Maybe they did not". And i started digging around for some data. The result follows:

 

A sniper rifle of the same level (rating) does exactly 20% more base damage than a blaster pistol. This can be checked at the armstech trainer.(interesting side note: same is true for blaster rifle and assault cannon. Blaster rifle and blaster pistol average damage is equal).

 

This 20% damage advantage snipers get is supposed to be balanced by the gunslinger firing two blasters simultaneously. Since without any further adjustment this would make the GS more powerful(two blasters=100% extra damage), the damage of the second blaster is reduced, and it only does 30% normal damage.

 

This would still make the GS more powerful than sniper(30% vs snipers 20%) so the GS offhand damage is further reduced by giving it an accuracy penalty. So let's count:

 

Base offhand damage: 100%

Offhand damage reduction: 70%(resulting in 30% of base)

Base offhand accuracy: 67%

 

Final damage bonus of offhand blaster: 1.0*0.3*0.67=0.201, in other words 20%.

 

 

TLDR: Snipers do not have any DPS advantage over gunslingers due to having a single more damaging weapon.

[Dulwaithe]

Interesting. I'd still like to be able to aimed shot -> sab charge like snipers can, but w/e.

 

I guess gunslinger burst is larger than snipers then, assuming the offhand hits.

[durvas]

Yes, the damage percentages and formulas work out to approximately even. The dual weapons does make it harder to reach the 5k medal in PVP (as the ambush damage is split) and there are some annoying animation things like the stun and explosive probe, but overall sustained dps between the mirror classes is the same. Edited March 11, 2012 by durvas

[Synavix]

Correct. Most people who claim snipers do more damage based off of their weapon choices were always uninformed. Snipers have slightly more consistent damage, while gunslingers fluctuates a little more depending on RNG, but over a long fight it will generally even out.

[Kellias]

Nice research there - this should quiet down those silly "snipers are better!" threads in these forums.

 

Abit tired of seeing the sniper hate on here - we're mirror classes, snipers and slingers are together in the same struggle, blood bros!

 

We should organize and push for better damage, and specially push towards "Let me cover while rooted damn it!"

 

We stand together!

[Ravzar]

Snipers will do consistent and reliable crits and most of the time they will have slightly better burst but the average DPS is the same. However, a GS can get very lucky and say have every single offhand proc for a number of attacks in a row, bringing it ahead of the sniper in that instance. One of the snipers main advantages though is just less animation lag. Aim shot + sab charge after is better than sab charge then aim shot because it removes the possibility of wasting your sab charge if they LOS.

[Tibbel]

Snipers do not have any DPS advantage over gunslingers due to having a single more damaging weapon.

 

This is true when calculated at the accuracy soft cap (i.e. 100% chance for main-hand special attacks to hit). However, snipers are better off when below the accuracy soft cap, and gunslingers are better off when above the accuracy soft cap.

 

In short, accuracy matters more for gunslingers than for snipers.

(Honestly, that seems like common knowledge at this point, but here's the math behind it.)

 

(Reference this post on SithWarrior.com):

 

How does the weapon damage contribution scale with accuracy?

 

To find this, let's do a little calculus... we want to differentiate weapon damage contribution with respect to accuracy.

 

The average sniper rifle damage is exactly 1.2 times the average pistol damage at the same barrel rating.

 

In the equations below:

C_s = weapon damage contribution for sniper

C_g = weapon damage contribution for gunslinger

W = average weapon damage for pistol at given barrel rating

a = net accuracy [%], i.e. actual chance to hit the target

 

For snipers:
C_s = (1.2 * W) * a

dC_s/da = 1.2 * W


For gunslingers:
C_g = W * (a + .3 * (a - .33)) 
   = W * (a + .3 * a - .099) = W * (1.3 * a - .099)

dC_g/da = 1.3 * W

 

This says that gunslingers scale about 8.3% better with accuracy than snipers do.

 

According to our current assumptions -- that the base off-hand accuracy for special attacks is exactly 67.0% -- gunslingers are slightly more penalized for not being at the accuracy soft cap than snipers are. (The accuracy soft cap is the point at which no special abilites are dodged by the target.) The spreadsheet follows this current assumption.

So basically, up until the accuracy soft cap, gunslingers are behind snipers but narrowing the gap. Then at the soft cap (or actually, a tiny bit before) they catch up, and any extra accuracy beyond that helps them more than it does snipers.

 

Hopefully that's helpful.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Tibbel

[Sharee]

Tibbel, i believe your calculation for gunslinger is incorrect. The yellow part, specifically:

 

For gunslingers:

C_g = W * (a + .3 * (a - .33))

= W * (a + .3 * a - .099) = W * (1.3 * a - .099)

 

dC_g/da = 1.3 * W

 

If, in your calculation, a is a very small value, then you actually end up with negative accuracy for the offhand(because you applied the offhand accuracy penalty by subtracting a static 0.33 instead of multiplying by 2/3).

 

What i think it should read is:

 

For gunslingers:

C_g = W * (a + .3 * (a * 2/3))

= W *a* (1 + .3 * 2/3) = W *a* 1.2

 

dC_g/da = 1.2 * W (equal to the sniper)

 

From the tooltip, we know that if the mainhand accuracy is 100%, then the offhand accuracy is 67%, a 33% accuracy penalty. This however does not suggest that the offhand penalty will be the same flat 33% even if the mainhand accuracy is not 100%(as your formula assumes).

 

I think it is reasonable to assume that the offhand penalty is not a flat 33%, but rather a 33% reduction relative to the mainhand accuracy(as my formula assumes). Meaning, if the mainhand accuracy is 60%, then the offhand accuracy will be 40%(a 1/3 reduction compared to the mainhand) and not 27%(a flat 33% reduction).

 

The reason i think this is the case is that if the character is attacking a target with very high ranged defense (like a boss) where the base chance to hit is below 33%, then using your formula the gunslinger offhand would not hit at all, giving the sniper a significant 20% DPS advantage. I consider it very unlikely that BW would design the mechanic with such a huge inbalance in mind.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Sharee

[Tibbel]

I think it is reasonable to assume that the offhand penalty is not a flat 33%, but rather a 33% reduction relative to the mainhand accuracy(as my formula assumes). Meaning, if the mainhand accuracy is 60%, then the offhand accuracy will be 40%(a 1/3 reduction compared to the mainhand) and not 27%(a flat 33% reduction).

 

This is easy to test.

 

Check your character sheet. Is your off-hand special attack accuracy exactly 2/3 times your main-hand special attack accuracy?

If it is, then your formula is correct, and for every 1% accuracy you gain with your main hand, you gain 0.67% accuracy with your off-hand.

 

However, if your off-hand accuracy is 33 percentage points lower than your main-hand, then the original formula is correct, and gunslingers' weapon damage scales faster with accuracy than snipers' does.

 

 

The reason i think this is the case is that if the character is attacking a target with very high ranged defense (like a boss) where the base chance to hit is below 33%, then using your formula the gunslinger offhand would not hit at all, giving the sniper a significant 20% DPS advantage.

 

That's true, but the only time such a high miss chance is likely in-game is against a player with a defense cooldown active. Operation bosses, the toughest of the NPCs in the game, only have about 8% defense chance, and that's before any accuracy is applied.

 

 

I consider it very unlikely that BW would design the mechanic with such a huge inbalance in mind.

 

It's not a huge imbalance. It is an imbalance, but in all reasonable situations (e.g. not attacking a target 10 levels higher than you), the difference is small.

[JoyProtocol]

For a simple comparison, see the thread I made here:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=323258

 

This is comparing Battlemaster gear from both Sniper and Gunslinger. Believe it or not, we come on top. There is a LOT more chance involved... but hell, we ARE smugglers!

 

As a bonus, your off-hander can be moddable, and crafted - therefore, COULD crit and end up with an augment. And it actually has a model.

 

Now don't quote me on this one, but I'm fairly certain that if you shoot Leg Shot, and the main shot gets deflected.. BUT the off-hand hits... the effect still applies. Seen it happen.

[Ricktur]

lol. . .. you guys and your calculations. . .

 

we're smugglers, we dont care about math, only money.

[verfallen]

Got a sniper, and couldn't help noticing this thread. I think you guys overlooked a small thing working in the Gunslinger's favor. What is the last time you saw an orange or purple vibroknife?

 

So I believe GS have a much easier time getting offhand stats higher, at least until endgame gear.

[GingerMagician]

Any decent sniper will own the equivalent level gunslinger.

 

It just seems to me that their damage occurs faster than us and I think its mainly down to animations.The sniper has a far smoother and quicker animation of going into cover and using the equivalent of aimed shot for example.

 

A lot of times in a straight out damage fight between me and a sniper in cover its not even close.

 

Ive seen quite a number of snipers do 4 or 500k damage in warzones lately.Needless to say Ive never seen any gunslinger do the same.

[LordXalas]

Any decent sniper will own the equivalent level gunslinger.

 

It just seems to me that their damage occurs faster than us and I think its mainly down to animations.The sniper has a far smoother and quicker animation of going into cover and using the equivalent of aimed shot for example.

 

A lot of times in a straight out damage fight between me and a sniper in cover its not even close.

 

Ive seen quite a number of snipers do 4 or 500k damage in warzones lately.Needless to say Ive never seen any gunslinger do the same.

 

have a lvl 50 sniper so when i was lvling my gunsliner i felt the favor was for the gunslinger imo. Charge burst i feel is actually better then snipe for one reason. When im casting charge burst i'm still in cover while casting snipe makes your sniper stand up and gets riddled with blaster bolts.

 

Both sab charge, and the probe feels the same to me. The throw for smugglers is the same animation time as the probe (since the agent points at the target with moving his whole arm)

 

The rolling was exactly the same so i don't know what you are talking about the rolling was quicker and smoother for agents (same exact animation).

 

Ambush and aim shot are the same as well. Ambush you are standing (same animation as snipe to be honest) and shoot. Gunslingers twist their body and shoot. You may think ambush has the upper hand because of the standing animation is the same as snipe compared to our aimed shot and charge burst, but its actually balanced.

 

I feel like gunslingers get the upper hand just because when casting charge burst keeps you in cover compared to agents snipe that doesn't keep you in cover for the cast.

 

In pvp i don't know for you but i hit just the same as my sniper. It truly is a mirror class except for that snipe/charge burst cover problem (first thing i noticed when i went from sniper to slinger, also thought it was unfair).

Edited March 13, 2012 by LordXalas

[Sharee]

This is easy to test.

 

Check your character sheet. Is your off-hand special attack accuracy exactly 2/3 times your main-hand special attack accuracy?

If it is, then your formula is correct, and for every 1% accuracy you gain with your main hand, you gain 0.67% accuracy with your off-hand.

 

However, if your off-hand accuracy is 33 percentage points lower than your main-hand, then the original formula is correct, and gunslingers' weapon damage scales faster with accuracy than snipers' does.

 

Unfortunately, that does not work.

 

There is no way to force the character sheet to show you what your mainhand/offhand to-hit chance would be against an opponent with non-zero ranged defense. Thus it is not possible to check whether (for example) the offhand chance would be 40% or 27% when your mainhand chance is 60%

 

It is possible to raise the chance over 100% with bonuses, unfortunately accuracy bonuses are added

after

the offhand accuracy penalty is already applied(a 3% overall accuracy bonus shows as "67%+3%" for the offhand on the sheet). So the mechanic of the offhand reduction cannot be deducted from raising accuracy through bonuses(because the reduction already happened before those bonuses were added).

 

I have to admit, however, that since accuracy bonuses are added as a flat number(independently of the offhand penalty mechanic), there is reason to assume that accuracy penalties are handled the same way. This would mean that the offhand would always have its accuracy reduced by a flat 33%, plus whatever the mainhand accuracy was reduced by.

 

In this case, the penalty the gunslinger faces compared to the sniper(worse DPS when to-hit chance is below 100%) would be compensated by accuracy giving a higher benefit to the GS than to the sniper. (extreme case: a GS with 33% accuracy bonus would always offhand hit a target without ranged defense, giving him a 30% damage bonus, whereas a sniper would still only have a 20% rifle damage bonus)

 

It's an interesting topic to wrap your head around for sure.

Edited March 13, 2012 by Sharee

[Tibbel]

Unfortunately, that does not work.

 

...

 

It's an interesting topic to wrap your head around for sure.

 

It seems that you talked yourself into the realization that it doesn't matter whether the base special attack accuracy with off-hand is defined as 67% or as 0.67*main hand. The factors that modify it (accuracy rating / defense rating) all scale independent of the base chance.

 

One bit of info suggesting it's defined as simply a deficit and not a fraction is that the base off-hand basic ranged attack accuracy is 57% rather than (67% * 0.90) = 60.3%.

 

Like you said, though, it doesn't matter how they defined the base, since it doesn't affect added accuracy or defense chance (aside from soft caps).

Edited March 14, 2012 by Tibbel

[Ravzar]

Any decent sniper will own the equivalent level gunslinger.

 

 

What?

[Cuautehmoc]

This is true when calculated at the accuracy soft cap (i.e. 100% chance for main-hand special attacks to hit). However, snipers are better off when below the accuracy soft cap, and gunslingers are better off when above the accuracy soft cap.

 

In short, accuracy matters more for gunslingers than for snipers.

(Honestly, that seems like common knowledge at this point, but here's the math behind it.)

 

(Reference this post on SithWarrior.com):

 

 

So basically, up until the accuracy soft cap, gunslingers are behind snipers but narrowing the gap. Then at the soft cap (or actually, a tiny bit before) they catch up, and any extra accuracy beyond that helps them more than it does snipers.

 

Hopefully that's helpful.

 

I have to disagree with you on this. I think accuracy is the gunslinger's least concern that's because we have advantage in alacrity rating than snipers.

 

So even if the snipers are more "accurate", gunslingers makes up for it by faster fire rate so in the end it all evens out in terms of damage output.

 

I haven't rolled a sniper class so I might be bias here but that's my opinion on this.

Edited March 14, 2012 by Cuautehmoc

[LordXalas]

What?

 

he's just stating something thats false

[Sharee]

It seems that you talked yourself into the realization that it doesn't matter whether the base special attack accuracy with off-hand is defined as 67% or as 0.67*main hand. The factors that modify it (accuracy rating / defense rating) all scale independent of the base chance.

 

Not exactly. It does matter whether the base special attack accuracy with off-hand is defined as 67% or as 0.67*main hand, because the two result in different DPS for the gunslinger.

Also, we know that some factors scale independent of the base chance(item/skill accuracy bonus) because the character sheet shows us this. We do not know whether all factors follow the same rule(like target defense rating lowering accuracy). That is just a guess at this point.

 

I am not entirely convinced the offhand penalty is a static 33%, i just admit the possibility can't be completely ruled out. I still find it hard to believe BW would design mirror classes with a difference that would, under specific circumstances, result in a large(20%) disparity in damage output.

 

There may currently not be a boss in the game with 66% ranged defense, but who says there won't ever be a boss mechanic making use of extremely high defenses rates? What then? Will they change core mechanics for the GS offhand? By giving the sniper a 20% damage advantage over the gunslinger in such a situation, they would be setting themselves up for some serious balancing headaches, for no good reason.

Edited March 14, 2012 by Sharee

[Bilirubin]

lol. . .. you guys and your calculations. . .

 

we're smugglers, we dont care about math, only money.

 

IOW, never tell me the odds

[JoyProtocol]

There may currently not be a boss in the game with 66% ranged defense, but who says there won't ever be a boss mechanic making use of extremely high defenses rates? What then? Will they change core mechanics for the GS offhand? By giving the sniper a 20% damage advantage over the gunslinger in such a situation, they would be setting themselves up for some serious balancing headaches, for no good reason.

 

Obviously, that boss will quickly increase their defenses to be 100% immune to weapon & tech damage, but 100% vulnerability to lightsabre damage.

 

Yep, working as intended

/sarcasm

 

That idea is quite silly. GS and Sniper are statistically equivalent.

[Sharee]

Obviously, that boss will quickly increase their defenses to be 100% immune to weapon & tech damage, but 100% vulnerability to lightsabre damage.

 

Yep, working as intended

/sarcasm

 

That idea is quite silly. GS and Sniper are statistically equivalent.

 

I was talking about a specific situation where the mainhand to-hit chance is 33% or less. If the gunslinger's offhand accuracy always suffers a static 33% penalty(as Tibbel thinks) then in that situation the GS would completely lose his offhand DPS(offhand would never hit), which would put him at a 20% disadvantage compared to the sniper(who keeps his 20% bonus damage from using a sniper rifle).

 

Under these specific circumstances, and assuming Tibbel is correct(which i am not sure about), GS and sniper would in fact not be equivalent.

[Tibbel]

I was talking about a specific situation where the mainhand to-hit chance is 33% or less. If the gunslinger's offhand accuracy always suffers a static 33% penalty(as Tibbel thinks) then in that situation the GS would completely lose his offhand DPS(offhand would never hit), which would put him at a 20% disadvantage compared to the sniper(who keeps his 20% bonus damage from using a sniper rifle).

 

Under these specific circumstances, and assuming Tibbel is correct(which i am not sure about), GS and sniper would in fact not be equivalent.

 

Here's the current understanding of hit chance:

 

Hit Chance = Accuracy - Defense

 

Accuracy we can see on the character sheet, both for basic and special main-hand and off-hand attacks.

 

Defense for operations bosses isn't confirmed (testing suggests it's likely about 8%), but our understanding of defense's interaction with accuracy can be (and has been) supported by testing.

 

We don't have any data that suggests accuracy is displaying incorrectly on the character sheet, nor that NPC targets' defense works fundamentally differently than defense for players, which doesn't distinguish between main-hand or off-hand incoming attacks.

 

Like I say, just because we haven't seen any reason to suggest it's any more complicated than this doesn't mean it's definitely not. The nature of theories, though, is that they have been tested rigorously and not disproved. Mechanics are not something that can ever be confirmed (absent developer confirmation, which happens sometimes), but for the most part they're to the point where we can make reliable conclusions using them.

 

That of course doesn't mean that all skepticism and testing should cease. If you have doubt, the best way to address it is to do some testing.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Tibbel

[Sharee]

 

Defense for operations bosses isn't confirmed (testing suggests it's likely about 8%), but our understanding of defense's interaction with accuracy can be (and has been) supported by testing.

 

This is not just about operation bosses tho. I used the "what if a boss has 66% defense" argument just to bring the point across.

 

The disparity of your formula for offhand reduction will also impact everyday gameplay. For instance, take a common scenario of a sniper and a gunslinger taking shots at each other from behind their cover screens. Cover screen provides 20% ranged defense.

 

Sniper damage: 120% * 0.8 = 96%

GS damage: [100% * 0.8] + [30% * (0.8-0.33)] = 80% + 30% * 0.47 = 80% + 14.1% = 94.1%

 

This means IF you are correct that the offhand accuracy is always reduced by static 33% penalty (that does not scale with target's defense), a simple high-noon duel between a sniper and a gunslinger would result in an almost 2% damage difference in favor of the sniper.

 

This is why i suspect your assumption that offhand accuracy penalty is always a flat 33% reduction is incorrect. I just can't believe bioware would design the offhand mechanic in such a way that goes against everything they were saying about mirror classes being equal.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Sharee