Question for HM/NMM Snipers

[Tenacity]

My sniper hit 50 three or four weeks ago. I'm in the top raid progression guild on my server, and as of last night got my first Rakata gear on this character. Since level 45 or so, I've been heavy marksman spec (click here for link to spec).

 

My current stats, with only my 5% crit chance buff, are as follows:

1476 Cunning

1402 Endurance

7476-8336 Primary Damage

364.6 Ranged Bonus Damage

102.22% Accuracy

38.96% Critical Chance

67.03% Critical Multiplier

16,520 Hitpoints

3478 ARmor

24.36% Damage Reduction

 

 

 

Now that that's all out of the way, here's the deal... last night during a hardmode Eternity Vault cleanup, on Infernal Council, I was around 5-10 seconds behind our other damage dealers killing my target. Some of that can be chalked up to using shield probe/ballistic shield to reduce the damage I was taking, but I still think there's a DPS issue here.

 

I'm looking for input from other hardmode/nightmare mode raiders on alternative talent specs, gear, or rotations that might improve my damage output, even if only slightly. I've been looking into trying an engineer or lethality build to see how that works out, but cant really do that during our progression raids.

 

[TaiRevant]

For a start your cunning is a little low. should be in the 1600 range, and u could have a bit more surge, aim for 72% or so.

Judging from your ranged damage you need a better weapon and off hand.

[KennehBE]

your primary damage seems low, i have close to 10000 with my pve gear

do you use buff from biochem?

[Tenacity]

I'm using the sniper rifle drop from soa normal, cipher twenty's energy blade for my offhand, a cybertech earpiece and two biochem implants.

 

I'm working on upgrading the earpiece and implants to rakata, just takes a while with daily commendations. The implants I'm using have slightly lower cunning and a bit lower endurance than rakata, but are better in other stats, especially since both have cunning augments.

 

I'm only at 1/5 rakata right now, the rest is columi, all of it is field tech as well which could be why my cunning is lower (I've heard a lot of snipers are going with the enforcer set for higher cunning even though the set bonuses arent intended for snipers).

[genesiser]

Your crit chance is very high. I would suggest losing about 3% which will free up around 200 or so points and apply it to power. That would give you about 47 more bonus damage. To give you an idea what that would do, I unequipped a few pieces of gear so the bonus damage would show what you have and what you would gain. I'm using the same damage range rifle.

 

Snipe: 1515-1623 would go up to 1668-1716

Ambush 2546-2729 vs 2703-2886

Followthrough: 1645-1770 vs 1753-1878

SoS: 3210-3440 vs 3409-3638

 

I guess the best way to go about it would replace some crit based enhancements with power surge enhancements. By doing so you'd lose 3% crit, or 3 shots out of 100, but all your shots would hit harder and your crits would also hit harder. Of course, you don't have to do that, but I think that would up your dps by a good amount.

 

An example of your crit damage is currently your ambush crits for ~4251-4557 (before armor, numbers are number x 1.67) and the new numbers if you had some power/surge figure your crits would be 72% would now be 4649-4963. Or an increase of 398-406. If you only added surge and went from 67% to 72% and no power at all, your crit number would be 4379-4693, or an increase of 128-136.

Edited March 16, 2012 by genesiser

[XisscVekno]

On your hit chance is that 102% acc. on your paper doll or 102% on specials. The reason I ask is 100% acc. on your paper doll is refering to normal attacks mainly (IE rifle shot). You don't need that to go over 100% if you look at your specials it should say 110%, or in your case if it's just 1-2% from not even scrolling over accuracy 112%. This will free up some stats to stack power as well.

 

For the most part as a DPS your MH weapon is your life line, what I mean by this is no matter how much or little your stats are you weapon is the biggest upgrade you can get.

 

I try and get surge to 75% crit around 36-38% and over 1800+ cunning (at least thats where I'm at now currently). that with running 1/5 rakata, 2/5 field tech Champ gear (33% dam increase to Orbital strike is better than both the 2pc and 4 pc on our pve set) and Rakta MH/OH as well as the Rakata belt and bracers.

 

As someone mentioned above, some times it's better to go with enforcer or medic items over our tech (some medic items have better stats than enforcer). The main thing is to know what you need and balance to that.

[Noctournys]

FWIW on the gear numbers:

 

Rakata belt is sub-par in every single possible way to an orange belt with a rank 56 armoring/mod.

 

Unless you are surge/crit capped on your other pieces of gear, a Crit-crafted Expert Bonded Mesh Argmguards is better than the Rakata wrist by miles.

 

Rakata Wrist: 103 cunning, 11 power (114 total)

Crit Expert Bonded Mesh Armguards: 78 cunning/25 power (103 total) - +20 crit, 25 surge. (with 28 cunning in the aug slot)

 

The Rakata implants are awful. Period. I have Expert Nano Optic Skill Package x 2 - crit crafted.

 

Rakata Implant: 85 cunning + 51 power (136 total) + 51 surge.

Crit Nano Optic Skill Package: 90 cunning + 40 power (130 total) +40 surge, +25 crit, +29 accuracy.

 

People see "Rakata" on the item name and assume it is better, and often, they are not.

 

With NO Rakata gear and almost no Columi gear (mostly oranges with level 51 armoring, 56 cunning/power mods and 51 crit/surge enhancements) , i sit at:

 

1578 Cunning, 443 Power

8498-9408 weapon damage

441.8 bonus damage

99.12% accuracy (so 109.12% specials)

39.03% crit

75.64% surge

 

Moving up to Columi would net me about another... ~145 cunning from the upgraded armoring, and going to Rakata would add another 55 or so cunning on top of that.

 

Edit: Also, the point you have spent in Rapid Fire makes me cry.

Edited March 17, 2012 by Noctournys

[XisscVekno]

Diversion is useless in Ops, Rapid Fire is useful if you know how to use it properly.

 

Edit: BTW the Rakata Medic Bracers are better than the Enforcer bracers. IIRC the Medic bracers have 90 cun, 32 power.

 

Also cunning and power don't convert the same. So adding them together like they are equal is not a good idea.

 

Cunning to dam is .20 per point

Power to dam is .23 per point

 

So as you can see, when you are near your surge and crit goals/caps power is better than cunning

Edited March 17, 2012 by XisscVekno

[Tenacity]

Diversion is useless in Ops, Rapid Fire is useful if you know how to use it properly.

 

Edit: BTW the Rakata Medic Bracers are better than the Enforcer bracers. IIRC the Medic bracers have 90 cun, 32 power.

 

Also cunning and power don't convert the same. So adding them together like they are equal is not a good idea.

 

Cunning to dam is .20 per point

Power to dam is .23 per point

 

So as you can see, when you are near your surge and crit goals/caps power is better than cunning

 

Power suffers from diminishing returns (as far as bonus damage goes) though, cunning does not.

[Noctournys]

Power suffers from diminishing returns (as far as bonus damage goes) though, cunning does not.

 

No it does not.

[NicWester]

Now that that's all out of the way, here's the deal... last night during a hardmode Eternity Vault cleanup, on Infernal Council, I was around 5-10 seconds behind our other damage dealers killing my target. Some of that can be chalked up to using shield probe/ballistic shield to reduce the damage I was taking, but I still think there's a DPS issue here.

 

Which one were you fighting? Some of the mobs are your freaking bane, like the guy with the knockback (forgot his name, I just know that I refuse to fight him again and have married myself to the Sithsassin mob instead).

[Tenacity]

No it does not.

 

Hm... I'll have to look again once I swap another piece out for power, could've sworn I heard somewhere that power suffers DR just like other secondary stats.

 

I know that cunning has been offering the same 1 bonus damage per 5 cunning since I started the character though.

 

 

As far as build, what do you suggest I do to replace rapid fire?

[Tenacity]

Which one were you fighting? Some of the mobs are your freaking bane, like the guy with the knockback (forgot his name, I just know that I refuse to fight him again and have married myself to the Sithsassin mob instead).

 

Oddly enough I noticed that the knockback didnt seem to happen in hardmode. I remember that being a real issue when fighting the marauder guy in normal, he knocked me back every 5-10 seconds, was a pain to keep in cover - but I didnt get knocked back once when fighting the same guy in our hm raid.

[NicWester]

Fair enough, I fought the knockback once in normal mode and raised a hissy-fit when they asked on hardmode (Jokingly, of course, we're all friends in-guild ). I didn't expect the fight to change that much between modes, let alone get easier. *shrugs*

 

As for what to use with your newly freed-up point when getting rid of Rapid Fire, you might just finish off Explosive Engineering. Another 5% on Orbital Barrage helps quite a bit, especially in this fight since you can start casting it before the fight starts and get a nice bit of front-loaded damage.

[TheRealCandyMan]

Power suffers from diminishing returns (as far as bonus damage goes) though, cunning does not.

 

No it doesn't...

 

It scales up on a linear scale infinitely

http://www.jedilace.com/2012/02/02/primary-and-secondary-attribute-scaling/

[Tenacity]

I've seen a lot of people using a hybrid build that sacrafices imperial sniper for more points in engineering. I just dont get how cluster bombs and interrogation probe make up for 30% crit damage loss.

[Kelderek]

I've seen a lot of people using a hybrid build that sacrafices imperial sniper for more points in engineering. I just dont get how cluster bombs and interrogation probe make up for 30% crit damage loss.

 

It's not so much the damage as it is the energy gains you get. Between Efficient Engineering and Imperial Methodolgy you gain 19 energy every 30 seconds assuming you always use explosive probe every cooldown. The added energy means that you are less likely to need rifle shots in your rotation, allowing for more higher damage abilities.

 

The cluster bombs damage + interrogation probe + a more powerful explosive probe + more energy available for other abilities = an overall gain in DPS over an Imperial Assassin build -- in theory anyway.

[Tenacity]

Guess I'll give it a shot for next week's raids then.

[XisscVekno]

Hm... I'll have to look again once I swap another piece out for power, could've sworn I heard somewhere that power suffers DR just like other secondary stats.

 

I know that cunning has been offering the same 1 bonus damage per 5 cunning since I started the character though.

 

 

As far as build, what do you suggest I do to replace rapid fire?

 

Power does not suffer DR's Cunning does, well the crit part of it does, the power part I think is linear but if you go over to Sithwarrior.com they have a stat graph that shows the progression of each stat.

[Irenicus_Jon]

On the council fight your dps will suffer because of only 1 armor reduction (shattershot) and lack of any real armor penetration (ambush only has 20%). Arsenal mercs and gore marauders can ignore armor comfortably and do not suffer as much from lack of armor debuffs. If you want to come ahead in the council fight spec Lethality/Engineer to get better explosive probe and internal damage.

 

For your Rakata gear try to get the piece with the highest cunning in their armoring slot (ignore what set piece they are). Also, try to use the modding that has lower cunning but higher power (47 cunning 38 power) because it provides better DPS.

[Tibbel]

I've seen a lot of people using a hybrid build that sacrafices imperial sniper for more points in engineering. I just dont get how cluster bombs and interrogation probe make up for 30% crit damage loss.

 

It's not quite a 30% crit damage loss. It's 30% off the crit damage bonus.

 

For example, if with Imperial Assassin you are critting with Followthrough for 4000. If you have 70% surge from surge rating, then FT is dealing double damage on crits (100% base + 70% surge + 30% Imp. Assassin). So the base non-crit FT is 2000.

 

Now take away Imperial Assassin. A FT crit is now 2000 * (100% + 70%) = 3400. So it's actually only a 15% loss in crit damage. If we have over 70% surge, then the number is slightly lower.

 

If we have a 33% crit chance, then half our damage is coming from crits, while the other half is coming from non-crits. The percentage of damage lost by not taking Imperial Assassin is = 15% * 50% = 7.5%. If we have over 33% crit chance, then the number is slightly higher.

 

The abilities Imperial Assassin effects are:

Followthrough = ~28% of our total damage

Series of Shots = ~22% of our total damage

Takedown = ~5% of our total damage

So that's around 55% of 7.5% = 4.1% total damage lost by not taking Imperial Assassin.

[BongoFrenzy]

What do you guys think of this build for HM and NMM PvE?

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#400rsrbbRoRMZbI0rRo.1

[Tenacity]

What do you guys think of this build for HM and NMM PvE?

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#400rsrbbRoRMZbI0rRo.1

 

That's the build I've been considering, though I'm not sure if pillbox sniper or experimental explosives is better.

 

Experimental explosives would improve burst damage when using orbital strike, and would improve general AoE damage (getting more than 2k crits per target with frag grenade with it), but it's a loss in overall orbital strike DPS compared to pillbox sniper.

[NoTomorrow]

The Rakata implants are awful. Period. I have Expert Nano Optic Skill Package x 2 - crit crafted.

 

Rakata Implant: 85 cunning + 51 power (136 total) + 51 surge.

Crit Nano Optic Skill Package: 90 cunning + 40 power (130 total) +40 surge, +25 crit, +29 accuracy.

 

People see "Rakata" on the item name and assume it is better, and often, they are not.

 

 

The only true advantage that Crit Nano Optic Skill Package offers is the augment slot. If we disregard the +29 accuracy, you get +25 crit for 11 less power and 11 less surge.

 

As for Rapidshot, putting that extra point ANYWHERE else in other skill trees will not give you anything of extra relevance.

 

what do you suggest me to do when my Ambush, Explosive probe, SoS and FT are on CD? Spam snipes? You very much seem an elitist to me.

Edited March 18, 2012 by NoTomorrow

[NoTomorrow]

It's not quite a 30% crit damage loss. It's 30% off the crit damage bonus.

 

For example, if with Imperial Assassin you are critting with Followthrough for 4000. If you have 70% surge from surge rating, then FT is dealing double damage on crits (100% base + 70% surge + 30% Imp. Assassin). So the base non-crit FT is 2000.

 

Now take away Imperial Assassin. A FT crit is now 2000 * (100% + 70%) = 3400. So it's actually only a 15% loss in crit damage. If we have over 70% surge, then the number is slightly lower.

 

If we have a 33% crit chance, then half our damage is coming from crits, while the other half is coming from non-crits. The percentage of damage lost by not taking Imperial Assassin is = 15% * 50% = 7.5%. If we have over 33% crit chance, then the number is slightly higher.

 

The abilities Imperial Assassin effects are:

Followthrough = ~28% of our total damage

Series of Shots = ~22% of our total damage

Takedown = ~5% of our total damage

So that's around 55% of 7.5% = 4.1% total damage lost by not taking Imperial Assassin.

 

explain the math behind the last 4 lines. why 28% from FT? why 22% from SoS?