So you Think BW will rebalance the Sniper Trees........?

[Zero-Wolf]

Reading all the information up here it seems a lot of people are going to

Leathality Specs for PvE or Pvp. So if a lot of the snipers in this game go Leathality

Then wheres the balance. I mean wheres the variety. So that will mean almost all snipers

will be leathality. So you think BW will rebalance MM at all. Myself was a Full MM but after reading all

these posts and just starting to get into raids as I was mainly solo PVP for awhile. I will be going

Full leathality probably also.

[Ghobe]

Send them feedback. Forums are nice, but if you want to be more direct...

feedbackswtor@swtor.com

[Kryogenique]

More people are choosing lethality simply because with damage meters it is confirmed by many to be the highest DPS spec. With pretty damn good energy control.

 

I don't think the trees will change much. If there a was huge difference in DPS between them, then I'd expect it. But as it is now, I believe there won't be significant changes.

[Jaxtaro]

More people are choosing lethality simply because with damage meters it is confirmed by many to be the highest DPS spec. With pretty damn good energy control.

 

I don't think the trees will change much. If there a was huge difference in DPS between them, then I'd expect it. But as it is now, I believe there won't be significant changes.

 

I'd probably agree with this, particularly considering Lethality has a significant amount of drawbacks to compensate for it's obvious strengths of sustained damage on a single target and the ability to ostensibly eliminate armor/defenses as a factor.

 

- It's burst damage is wanting relative to the other trees. Sustained damage isn't everything.

- The manner of Lethality's damage negates or shortens several of it's forms of crowd control

- It tends to be a little weak in the AE department relative to Eng which is self explanatory, and MM which has a tremendous advantage in cast time and refresh of OS.

- Sustained single target damage range between specs isn't enormous.

 

When there's gains in one area, as long as there's offsetting advantages in others or offsetting losses in others, then things pan out nicely.

[Ghobe]

I'd probably agree with this, particularly considering Lethality has a significant amount of drawbacks to compensate for it's obvious strengths of sustained damage on a single target and the ability to ostensibly eliminate armor/defenses as a factor.

 

- It's burst damage is wanting relative to the other trees. Sustained damage isn't everything.

- The manner of Lethality's damage negates or shortens several of it's forms of crowd control

- It tends to be a little weak in the AE department relative to Eng which is self explanatory, and MM which has a tremendous advantage in cast time and refresh of OS.

- Sustained single target damage range between specs isn't enormous.

 

When there's gains in one area, as long as there's offsetting advantages in others or offsetting losses in others, then things pan out nicely.

Except it's not quite like that. The burst does not leave you wanting. You're just not reading the numbers correctly. Just because it's not popping up a single 4k or 5k number doesn't mean it's not doing equivalent or in this case better damage. My ambush when I was MM barely broke 5k with stim and adrenal(outside of pvp). My cull now that I'm Lethality(same gear mind you) cracks for just short of 7k over its duration, not including dot ticks or explosive. The only crowd controls it doesn't work with are the break on damage types, a.k.a. flashbang, a.k.a. a feature that matters very little outside of solo. And the sustained single target actually is fairly significant. Going from 1050 dps to 1212 dps personally, that's pretty significant(15%!), and the worst part is that it actually excels in fights with 2 targets(a.k.a. half of the boss fights of current content) since it's able to pull out an extra 300-400 dps(that'd be 1500-1600, which then becomes an increase of roughly 50%) with careful energy control while rolling dots on both targets. The only thing I find lethality sucks at is aoe/quick kills(note: not burst, killing the little standard/weak enemies is what I'm referring to).

[psi_overtake]

Reading all the information up here it seems a lot of people are going to Leathality Specs for PvE or Pvp. ...

 

If I could dual spec, I'd go with Leth for PvE and Engi for PvP. If they increased MM slightly to be on-par with Leth (IMO, Leth is better for raids right now), I'd give MM another go and see which one suits my playstyle better.

[Jaxtaro]

Except it's not quite like that. The burst does not leave you wanting. You're just not reading the numbers correctly. Just because it's not popping up a single 4k or 5k number doesn't mean it's not doing equivalent or in this case better damage. My ambush when I was MM barely broke 5k with stim and adrenal(outside of pvp). My cull now that I'm Lethality(same gear mind you) cracks for just short of 7k over its duration, not including dot ticks or explosive. The only crowd controls it doesn't work with are the break on damage types, a.k.a. flashbang, a.k.a. a feature that matters very little outside of solo. And the sustained single target actually is fairly significant. Going from 1050 dps to 1212 dps personally, that's pretty significant(15%!), and the worst part is that it actually excels in fights with 2 targets(a.k.a. half of the boss fights of current content) since it's able to pull out an extra 300-400 dps(that'd be 1500-1600, which then becomes an increase of roughly 50%) with careful energy control while rolling dots on both targets. The only thing I find lethality sucks at is aoe/quick kills(note: not burst, killing the little standard/weak enemies is what I'm referring to).

 

 

Except that it doesn't work that way.

 

Burst damage isn't "Damage all at once", it's "Damage at will". You don't compare an ambush to a Cull, you compare a "drop/SS/snipe/followthrough/SoS/EG/Ambush/FT" to a "CG/CD/WB/Cull", two things which take similar time, with dramatically different results.

 

Whether burst damage is crucial against end-game bosses isn't relevant, the game doesn't consist solely of end-game bosses, nor is the balance the same regardless of situation. There is PvP, where enough burst damage is king, there's levelling, there's random flashpoints, where CC is more crucial, etc etc etc.

 

I absolutely agree that the gap widens if you can maintain a couple of rolling dots on adds, however with that kind of energy management (and if you're rolling dots on more than one add, you're not optimizing your energy management), then you cannot rule out the dramatic AE difference that a 15 second refresh advantage on OS accomplishes.

 

You have to squeeze differently on MM and you'll get there. I've been testing and certainly not noticing a 15% difference, more like 3-9% on single targets heavily dependent on enemy armor and your use of SS, which is vastly more powerful in the hands of an MM sniper than a lethality one.

[Zero-Wolf]

Now Im not that versed in this dmg war or whatever. But I like doing PvP and PvE.

I am just starting to get into raids. And Yes MM may have Better Burst DMG on a single target

Espically in PVP however thats staying staionary. And when you have to stay still for all your burst dmg

People notice and wail on you hard. And snipers are squishy by nature so by the time we get one round off

we can get crowded.

 

I have read a lot on these forums and agree with a lot of peoples opinions.

But being able to move around freely and still do your Dmg seems to be key in this game being

PVP or PVE. So I still see Leathality Being the more Respected DPS. And still the fourms are filled

with people changing to spec Leathality I wanna say like 10%MM 30%Hybrid and 60% are full leathality.

Now in that case I really think soon we will see an over abundence of Leathality speced snipers

So I was just wondering if you think BW will re do the trees again. Maybe give MM even more power

since it lacks being able to move and DPS vs Leathality being able to move and DPS.

 

Im not talking like a huge boost. Maybe a better critical chance I dont know lol just give us a reason

why we sacrafice being able to move and have to stand still like a statue.

[VulcanLogic]

From what I read in the public test server forums , MM will get the most out of the upcoming changes to how weapon attacks are defended. Not sure exactly what that entails but it is lagging behind for sustained DPS now, mostly due to the armor debuff changes in 1.2. Engineering and Lethality just have a higher percentage of damage that bypasses armor.

[Mythicrose]

I honestly haven't taken the time to test the dps difference between MM, Lethality, or a Eng/Leth hybrid spec until this weekend. I actually had some free time so I spent time testing in intervals of 3 mins, 9, 12, 15, and 30 mins. I'm not about to claim to have absolute perfect rotations. All testing was done using the MOX tool on an operations dummy.

 

Gear wise, I'm wearing augmented helm, chest, pants, boots, gloves with the +16 cunning augments, trapper mk-1 belt and bracer, campaign field tech vibroknife, rakata implants and earpiece, rakata power relic, matrix cube, and the headhunter sniper rifle. I also used the rakata cunning stim and had available all buffs except sorc (haven't completed chapter 2 yet with one). Additionally, I've collected all datacrons except for the green shard on Belsavis and have unlocked all companion legacy bonuses.

 

There was an additional variable between the MM spec tests I tried and the Lethality and hybrid. I used the cunning/power mods in my augmented armor over the higher cunning/power mods. The net result was my weapon damage being at 1017-1109 in marksman (up about 100 points min and max from the other specs). The trade off came at about 3% less crit.

 

I ran the 3, 6, 9 minute tests mulitple times on all specs. My marksman spec pretty much averaged 1200 dps for each of the tests. I do not know how much difference 100 less weapon damage and 3% additional crit would've made. I was rather tired of testing by the end of things. Very rarely needed to rifle shot as a filler. My main goal was to keep FT on cooldown as much as possible as well as orbital, SoS, and Ambush.

 

With the Eng/Leth hybrid spec, I was doing about 1250 dps in the tests on average. I will admit I'm not as comfortable with this spec and often did not use int. probe on cooldown. Regardless, it was a slight improvement for me over pure MM. No significant energy management issues. I did use rifle shot a little more frequently but that's probably from my own lack of being comfortable with the spec. I tried to keep my DoTs active, cull on CD but did fail with int. probe from time to time.

 

Lethality was consitently providing me 1300+ dps on my tests. On the 30 min test, I was closer to 1400 dps. Energy management wasn't too bad either. My main goal was to keep the strong versions CD and CG up and cull and weakening blast on CD.

 

I've completed EC hard mode as marksman and a few as lethality this weekend. I'll probably stay lethality for the time being. I believe that both specs are competitive, though, to other dps classes. If weapon damage or defenses are tweaked, it'll be insteresting to see what happens to the marksman damage.

[Boissi]

Burst damage isn't "Damage all at once", it's "Damage at will". You don't compare an ambush to a Cull, you compare a "drop/SS/snipe/followthrough/SoS/EG/Ambush/FT" to a "CG/CD/WB/Cull", two things which take similar time, with dramatically different results.

 

Well correct me if I'm wrong, but your MM rotation looks like it takes around 12 seconds, while your leth rotation takes 7,5. That's hardly a similar time. It's not like the leth sniper will be just sitting there waiting for your "burst" to end. And in pvp, honestly, neither will your target.

 

You are correct about the damage at will part though, but your example isn't very good. Cull does require a big set up that a MM sniper does not need. Just (laze) snipe + ambush + followthrough is a nice burst in 3 seconds , at which time a leth sniper is only just going for WB , and has barely done any damage. In PvE, I really can't say who bursts better, and I can only think of two fights where such a fast burst is needed anyway, so it's not really a relevant point. Only bursting you really need to worry about is in pvp, and even there it's unclear who really is the more useful burster. MM gets it out faster, but leth does get it out with a bigger bang once he's ready.

 

Imho both are very viable in both pvp and pve, but it's obvious to me that Leth is superior in every way when it comes to PvE.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Boissi

[HanzBlix]

I like my MM spec, I'm gonna stick with it. It's fun for me and I seem to be doing good in both PvE and PvP with it. I'm sure lethality may be better, but it doesn't match my play style.

[Vixion]

from what i have ssen with leathality most of the damage does not require ya to go into sniper mode. the damage is slow damage but for the most part ya can just run around shoot and dot shoot and dot. with mm for damage you have to go into snipe mode but if you are constantly forced to move around due to pve mechanics and pvp then your damage is going to suck.

[Altruismo]

The only crowd controls it doesn't work with are the break on damage types, a.k.a. flashbang, a.k.a. a feature that matters very little outside of solo.

 

Actually, it's not just flashbang.

Cover pulse applies a 5s root, that breaks on damage after 2s.

Leg Shot is an 8 second root, that breaks on damage after 2s.

 

Basically, if you play Lethality you're gimping yourself pretty seriously against Marauder/Sentinels because you effectively remove 3 of your best tools for keeping them off you.

This is also why adhesive corrosives is a "must have" talent for a PVP leth build.

 

With Mara/Sents all over the place since 1.2, my opinion is that MM is more viable for PVP than it's ever been, since it's not DoT dependant, has Heavy Shot, Imperial Demarcation, Sector Ranger and more reliable roots and CC.

I look at MM builds and see why Maras really cry about Snipers - as Leth I can kill them at range, and seriously hurt them before dying if they get on top of me, if I was MM they would hardly touch me.

[Ghobe]

You're not giving them enough credit. Unless you go all the way for accuracy, they can deflect your leg shot. As to cover pulse, you can't use it on top of your other ccs. You have Debilitate, Cover Pulse, and Flash Bang....choose 2. Why 2? Because 2 will max out the resolve bar. I'm not 100% positive but Heavy Shot might add resolve too, been a while since I looked at it. And here's the thing, you need all those roots because you have to put distance between you and them so you can drop into cover(making yourself stationary) and use all your damaging abilities. While Lethality doesn't need more than those 2 second roots because cull is only a 3 second cast before alacrity/target acquired, the rest of the damage Lethality does is on the move. And I'll tell you right now, I am NOT in a pvp lethality build, I am in a pve lethality build, and quite frankly, I don't have trouble with melee.

[Altruismo]

Unless you go all the way for accuracy, they can deflect your leg shot.

 

Unless you mod most of the accuracy out of your PVP gear, people basically need to pop a defensive CD to deflect Leg Shot with any reliability. Simply put, it lands far more often than not.

 

As to cover pulse, you can't use it on top of your other ccs. You have Debilitate, Cover Pulse, and Flash Bang....choose 2. Why 2? Because 2 will max out the resolve bar.

 

If you don't need to apply DoTs, leg shot and cover pulse gives you up to 13 seconds of prep-time and distancing. Do you know how long the cooldown on leg shot is with Imp Demarcation? 13 seconds.

Throw Heavy shot into the mix, and Resolve is not a great concern (cover pulse and Heavy will not give a full resolve bar, and even if you manage to fill it, leg shot is off resolve).

 

As Lethality I get 4-5 seconds of roots from pulse/leg shot combined, 6 seconds if I'm really lucky. If you're not seeing how this is far from ideal against someone who can do massive damage in a very short time while in melee range, who can also spam a 50% speed debuff, who also has a gap closer that they can use if they're not rooted while you're trying to make distance and who very possibly starts with 4 seconds of complete CC immunity when they get the drop on you - I just don't know what to say.

Basically once a competent, geared Mara/Sent is on you, it's a race to either get away or pray his defensives are on CD and kill him first at melee range - MM can get away nearly every time while still capitalising on their builds optimum damage dealing, Leth can not.

And here's the thing, you need all those roots because you have to put distance between you and them so you can drop into cover(making yourself stationary) and use all your damaging abilities.

I'm aware of that, which is why I said that running a build that drops 60-80% of it's root duration and ~75% of it's mezz duration to be able deal optimal damage makes you easier for a Mara/Sent to kill.

 

While Lethality doesn't need more than those 2 second roots because cull is only a 3 second cast before alacrity/target acquired, the rest of the damage Lethality does is on the move. And I'll tell you right now, I am NOT in a pvp lethality build, I am in a pve lethality build, and quite frankly, I don't have trouble with melee.

 

Here's a tip, in 2 seconds you can move 6m with a crippling slash debuff on you. No Sniper build does more damage at melee range than a Mara does, and their defensive cooldowns blow ours out of the water. A sniper can't make distance if they DoT the Mara up, and if the sniper doesn't make distance he generally dies.

 

Here's the thing, Leth and MM both mangle a mara at range. I'm in cover - he's 30m away - he's dead, if he blows all his cooldowns he might hurt me a bit before he drops. If a mara jumps on a leth sniper, the leth sniper has to forgo his damage until he makes distance, a MM sniper can pulse, probe, heavy ambush -> rotation and he's already dealing damage at full capacity with an 8 second root and an 8 second mezz up his sleeve and the mara on his back 15m away.

Theorycraft, theorycraft, theorycraft, but can you see the difference?

Edited April 24, 2012 by Altruismo

[Ghobe]

You seem to be discounting the abilities a lethality spec has access to. For example: Slip Away, providing a speed boost to us once they enter melee range along with the stun we applied. To compound on that, Leth also has Counterstrike, the ability to remove snares on themselves. Tell me, how far can you move in 4 seconds with a 30% speed boost and no snare? All the while you're applying your setup(CGrenade, CDart, WBlast) and then you can freely apply your leg shot to keep them locked at that distance while you cull them for over half their health, and then go back to moving while they're stuck way over there with a 50% snare on them. Let's not forget that by the time that they DO manage to catch you, your next cull is ready, drop into entrench and finish them.

 

Oh further prod...are you aware of 10/0/31? Remember those skills that you were saying only mm has? Yea....those are included in it. It doesn't have as much filler burst(familiar with this concept?) as the more popular Lethality spec, but for those more worried about melee, it is undoubtedly the better spec to go. So now that lethality has access to just about every ability you listed..what say you now? You really think your extra 3 second roots(which you aren't dealing damage during, just gaining more distance) is really going to help you that much more? Sure Leth's ambush is 2.5 seconds while yours is 1.5, but it doesn't take much to figure out when that mara is going to get into the 10 yard range and plan accordingly.

 

 

Oh btw, assuming your opponent will not use cooldowns(much less use them properly) is kind of exactly what they say about assuming ^^ (to the point of having to use a cooldown to avoid leg shot)

[Altruismo]

You seem to be discounting the abilities a lethality spec has access to. For example: Slip Away, providing a speed boost to us once they enter melee range along with the stun we applied. To compound on that, Leth also has Counterstrike, the ability to remove snares on themselves. Tell me, how far can you move in 4 seconds with a 30% speed boost and no snare? All the while you're applying your setup(CGrenade, CDart, WBlast) and then you can freely apply your leg shot to keep them locked at that distance while you cull them for over half their health, and then go back to moving while they're stuck way over there with a 50% snare on them. Let's not forget that by the time that they DO manage to catch you, your next cull is ready, drop into entrench and finish them.

 

I don't discount anything in Lethality - I even have Slip away, and counterstrike.

You seem to discount global coodowns a lot.. but anyway, I can tell you exactly how far you can get away in 4 seconds with a 30% speed buff if you perfectly execute a debilitate then counterstrike without wasting even the ammount of time it takes to press one key after the other and then take off in a perfectly straight line.

31.2 m

You won't get that far, in fact you'll probably get about 25-28m in a best case scenario.

Do you know how far a mara can leap? 30m.

 

A couple of tips - that Cull "setup" takes time, and you lose 1-2 seconds of the movement debuff on corrosive grenade in the debilitate duration depending on if you do Grenade or Dart first (tip, Dart first), whether or not you're a machine on the GCD, and it's a 30% debuff, not 50%.

But here's the important thing, our Mara is no longer debilitated if you lead with both corrosives, debilitate has ended and you're on GCD and he's coming - he's angry. You also no longer have debilitate to use when he pops undying rage, if you try to use Flashbang your DoTs will kill it and you'll give him a full resolve bar which means no cover pulse, all you've got left from this distance is is a 2 second Leg Shot root which you can't use anyway because he just hit force camo and cloak of pain and you can't do anything to him for the next 4 seconds and guess how far he can go in that time, even with your corrosive grenade debuff on him.

24m

Meaning that if you don't run he's on top of you again - hope you didn't blow Entrench already - and if you do run he can pop predation, be 10m away from you when camo wears off and slap you with a force choke, followed by a root from a saber throw and if you blow escape on either of them - well, oops! becuase you don't have a full resolve bar yet, you haven't even hit him with WB yet and his leap is gonna be off cooldown any second now and he has not even used unleash yet.

 

From here - well it's not unwinnable for the Leth sniper, but it's not good after expending a lot more effort than, cover, pulse, entrench, probe, ambush -> rotation -> yay! Still have a full 8 second leg shot and I've got an 8 second flashbang and debilitate on hand for when he pops undying

 

Oh further prod...are you aware of 10/0/31?

 

Seriously, you "prod" me with a "PVP" lethality build that doesn't have full Lethal Dose, Lingering Toxins, or Energy Tanks? And it still breaks it's own cover pulse, leg shot and flashbang.

Let me know how far you get with a 2.5 second ambush in a Leth rotation with no Lingering and enemies that know where their cleanse buttons are...

 

Look, you can continue to disagree with me if you really want, and throw out scenarios where Leth Snipers run 50m and use 6 attacks in 4 seconds, but the fact is: DoTs break pulse, flashbang and legshot early and without those DoTs Leth does garbage damage. This leaves Leth with 2 options, have the melee in your face, or do garbage damage trying to maintain distance.

The MM sniper can maintain that distance better, while delivering full build damage.

It's not a complicated comparison.

[Ghobe]

Question. How did the marauder get into melee range in the first place without blowing ANY cooldowns?

Point. I can hold a movement key and press Debilitate at the same time.

Combat Scenario. Assumes the 10/0/31 spec.

0 Debilitate

1.5 Corrosive Dart

3.0 Weakening Blast

4.0 Debilitate breaks (and you claim I'm too far away at this point for his leap since I've been moving since before I used it)

4.5 Corrosive Grenade

6 Leg Shot

7.5 Cull from 35 yards

8.5 Leg Shot breaks to Corrosive Grenade tick

10.5 Cull Finishes and Drop to cover(interrupt immunity) and begin cast Ambush(yes you can do this all in a single gcd, contrary to popular belief there is ZERO delay in activating cover and using an ability that requires cover, the "delay" is the time it takes for the cover bar to appear, thus if ambush is on your bar already, you can instantly start casting from the same moment you hit cover)

11-12 Mara leaps (Side note: Corrosive Grenade slow falls off here)

13 Heavy Shot Ambush launches Mara and corrosive dart is reapplied, as well as the chase begins anew

16.5 Cull Comes off cooldown

17.5 Corrosive Grenade comes off cooldown

Feel free to find a way for them to do something, the only way they really could is if they use their cc break on the debilitate or the leg shot. Though this is all assuming they somehow got to melee range in the first place without using leap.

 

Point. Sorry to say but 10 energy(6 effective) will not break you(energy tanks), especially not in pvp with ease of access to adrenaline probe.

Point. Lingering Poisons only help with emergency culls. Grenade lasts long enough for 2 culls and Dart is easy to refresh without affecting rotation. The damage from lingering dots is absolutely pathetic, there's a reason we reapply before the lingerings fall off or are even applied.

Point. Lethal Dose is more for energy regen than it is for damage. The majority of Lethality burst comes from cull, the dots just bring the dps over a long period of time and enable cull to do the burst. As far as I understand it, Lethal Dose does NOT affect the ticks of Cull.

Point. Lethality does not need long roots to kill.

Point. Lethality doesn't have trouble getting off full build damage unless a cleanser is present(see: healers and assassins).

 

Waiting. You may respond.

[Tunari]

Currently I play marksman in pvp for 2 reasons, first is that any competent player can and will remove your dots making your damage go way down, even if your class can't remove them any healer can. Secondly, using dots can hurt your groups cc abilities, if you throw a corrosive grenade to a group of people then you are not going to use flash bang making cc much harder.

Lethality is stronger spec in pure damage than marksman from my experience, and I can do better with it in 1v1 fights , but warzones are group effort. (rank79 sniper without Ilum farming)

[Altruismo]

Question. How did the marauder get into melee range in the first place without blowing ANY cooldowns?

Point. I can hold a movement key and press Debilitate at the same time.

Combat Scenario. Assumes the 10/0/31 spec.

0 Debilitate

1.5 Corrosive Dart

3.0 Weakening Blast

4.0 Debilitate breaks (and you claim I'm too far away at this point for his leap since I've been moving since before I used it)

[...SNIP...]

Waiting. You may respond.

 

First, I claim you won't make it to 31.2m because you're not perfect.

Second, your range is 30m, you should absolutely know this, but it's nice to see all that awesome stuff you imagine you can do from further than that. This is one of the reasons I've snipped at 4 seconds - you're not doing that magic corrosive grenade from >30m.

Third, the mara wouldn't be able to leap to you at 11-12 because you're already in cover (and apparently 35m from him), you should really know this, but if he could it would interupt, which is why you should Cull a Mara from cover - which you didn't - you should also know that.

Fourth, the other reason I snipped at 4 seconds is because, as I said earlier, this is the point at which he pops Force Camo and Cloak of Pain and you can't do anything to him for the next 4 seconds while he chases you down (he might even be specced for it to last 6 seconds at +50% speed instead of 4sec at +30%) - I think that covers your "find a way for him to do something" request.

As for his CC break - it's called Unleash and I mentioned it already - you're Lethality, he's saving it for when he pops undying rage because it will restore 10% of his health and he doesn't need it for your Flashbang, you'll break that for him if you live long enough to hand him a that full resolve bar.

I'm sorry, but at this point it looks like one of us knows how some basic Mara abilities interact with sniper abilities, and one of us doesn't...

Hey, you seem to be having trouble even working out how far you can shoot.

[Xsorus]

Lethality Benefit to the group is in direct proportion to how many Operative Healers (I don't see many Merc Healers anymore) the enemy team has.

 

If the team you're fighting has Sorc Healers, Lethality is extremely annoying to have to deal with for those Sorcs... Mainly because they cannot cure your dots... and they also can't keep everyone up from those dots either.

 

However, you get 1 or 2 Operative Healers in that same Warfront fighting against ya, you'll see that your dots don't do as much to everyone. Damage wise, if you're still good on single target and you'll be able to kill pretty decently.

 

As for Marksman and Lethality vs a Marauder... The question is no which spec is better, the question is where this fight is taking place.....

 

If it's huttball, both specs don't have trouble dicking over a Marauder on that map....

 

If it's something say like The Civil War, I'm sorry, You're going to be screwed by any competent marauder no matter what spec you choose. All a Marauder has to do is wait for you to pop entrench, then bloody vanish on ya, and you've lost the fight.. Cause the second your entrench is gone, you're dead..

[Ghobe]

First, I claim you won't make it to 31.2m because you're not perfect.

That hard to hold a movement key and press a skill key is it?

 

My range is 35m on shots, 30m on tech. And you'll have to excuse me if I switched Blast and Grenade around.

Though you're right, I don't really know every other classes' abilities like the back of my hand. I know my class fairly well. If nothing else I'm learning quite a bit from this ;p because you know, I've never seen a mara do any of this before even though they have access to it or I should say, they never pop it until they're extremely low on health and don't use it to close to the gap.

 

Though you never answered my question. How did the mara get to melee range unscathed in the first place?

Another question. How is it that the mara apparently one shots me every time he eventually manages to get to melee range? I may not be able to burst him harder than he can burst me, but he's definitely missing quite a bit of health by the time he DOES get to melee range.

[Boissi]

If it's something say like The Civil War, I'm sorry, You're going to be screwed by any competent marauder no matter what spec you choose. All a Marauder has to do is wait for you to pop entrench, then bloody vanish on ya, and you've lost the fight.. Cause the second your entrench is gone, you're dead..

 

I don't quite get this one. First of all, entrench lasts for 20 seconds, the vanish lasts for 4-6 seconds depending on spec, so you don't lose your entrench just because he vanishes, unless you're a bit dumb and decide to start running away. Second of all, why exactly is entrench the deciding factor? All it counters is the marauder's force choke, which is a 3 second stun during which they won't be doing any additional damage unless they've already laid dots on you, so it's more of an interrupt, like if you're channeling cull. That's when you can also use your cc breaker if you really want to. Nothing else to really use it on. I will agree that if a marauder manages to get a charge on you, like if you're just running into position and he charges from behind, then yes, you will almost definitely lose provided he's got his cooldowns up, but if you're in cover and he's just running at you, well, imo your chances of winning are quite high as long as you play well. He can vanish once to close the gap, but you have a rooting knockback and a ranged root, so you will unavoidably get some free damage in. Just have a stun ready for when he pops the 99% dr (guarded by the force on sents, can't remember the marauder version's name..), and if you're pro, you can also get rid of cloak of pain with either a root or a flashbang which causes the marauder to become real squishy. It's sort of an even match up if they don't get the charge imo. Lethality might have a harder time because you can't get rid of cloak of pain once you dot up, and they do break the roots which most of the time I really don't see as a problem. You just want to do damage, and lots of it.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Boissi

[Altruismo]

That hard to hold a movement key and press a skill key is it?

 

I'm not questioning your ability to simultaneously hit one key and take off in a straight line. It's about being able to do this, not miss even a fraction of a second between hitting debilitate on a dancing mara then hitting countermeasures, and then not have to adjust the direction you're traveling in to avoid going off a ledge, avoid an obstacle, not run into a wall, and maintain LOS on the Mara and still be able to "face" him for every attack you throw while running. You're not doing that, and going the maximum possible distance unless you, and the conditions, are perfect. Like I said, you'll probably make it to 25-28m in a best case scenario.

 

My range is 35m on shots, 30m on tech. And you'll have to excuse me if I switched Blast and Grenade around.

 

Yeah, my bad - I mostly stopped paying attention to the abilities you were using at the point you threw CG from >30m

 

Though you're right, I don't really know every other classes' abilities like the back of my hand. I know my class fairly well.

 

More on that at the end of this - regarding your points on my critique of the MM/Leth build you linked earlier.

 

If nothing else I'm learning quite a bit from this ;p because you know, I've never seen a mara do any of this before even though they have access to it or I should say, they never pop it until they're extremely low on health and don't use it to close to the gap.

 

All I'll say about this is that good Maras use their cooldowns to kill you ASAP, not just to get away when they are losing because they didn't use their cooldowns. A key one, especially against a Leth sniper, is Cloak of Pain - essentially if you CG and CD a Mara, cloak of pain will give him 20% damage reduction and deal ~300 damage to you every 1.5 second for 30 seconds and hand him free rage every time your DoTs tick. A MM sniper can just leg shot him and start a rotation after 6 seconds of not hitting him - cloak of pain goes away if the mara isn't damaged for 6 seconds.

A side note on this, there's a lot of whining about Mara/Sents at the moment, but what people forget is that when their awesome cooldowns are down, they drop faster than we Snipers do.

 

Though you never answered my question. How did the mara get to melee range unscathed in the first place?

Another question. How is it that the mara apparently one shots me every time he eventually manages to get to melee range? I may not be able to burst him harder than he can burst me, but he's definitely missing quite a bit of health by the time he DOES get to melee range.

 

Ok, here - I should not have to explain how since a) "It happens" - sometimes you just "come around a corner" and there's a Mara/Sent and b) we're literally theorycrafting "when a mara gets the jump on you".

But I'll humour you, and say that he started with a Force charge - meaning he still has Force Camo on hand at the 4 second mark of your scenario, and he will catch you at which point you've got cover pulse, leg shot, and flashbang on hand, none of them will stop him for more that 2 seconds and he can use force choke and Deadly Throw on you if you pulse because you don't have Sector Ranger, he can keep hitting you while you run if you leg shot him, and flashbang = 100% resolve for him at this stage. Furthermore he still has Saber Ward, Undying Rage, Unleash, Obfuscate, possibly Predation or Bloodthirst up his sleeve.You are in a bad place.

 

Did I also mention that if he's Vengeance spec, he was also immune to all CC for the first 4 seconds of the fight, so you also probably ate at least two ticks of a Ravage before you could debilitate him.

 

Point. Sorry to say but 10 energy(6 effective) will not break you(energy tanks), especially not in pvp with ease of access to adrenaline probe.

Yes, Adrenaline probe is great, but it's a two minute cooldown unless you're heavy engineering. PVP is energy intensive I'll take every point I can get.

Point. Lingering Poisons only help with emergency culls. Grenade lasts long enough for 2 culls and Dart is easy to refresh without affecting rotation. The damage from lingering dots is absolutely pathetic, there's a reason we reapply before the lingerings fall off or are even applied.

Point. Lethality doesn't have trouble getting off full build damage unless a cleanser is present(see: healers and assassins).

I grouped these two together because you seem to have missed the memo on Lingering. When someone cleanses the full strength DoT, Lingering applies the weak one. It doesn't just kick in at the end of the duration. This also works on Ops/smugs that hit evasion to cleanse DoTs then vanish - oops, you still have a DoT on you and stealth is about to break... now. I can go into great detail as to why this is awesome, but I'm guessing a lightbulb just lit up over your head?

 

Point. Lethal Dose is more for energy regen than it is for damage. The majority of Lethality burst comes from cull, the dots just bring the dps over a long period of time and enable cull to do the burst. As far as I understand it, Lethal Dose does NOT affect the ticks of Cull.

This is exactly right about Lethal Dose, and I DoT up everyone I can, I gives me a nearly bottomless Energy pool which allows me to throw out energy intensive damage, and even Frag Spam. Here's my build 0/10/31 perhaps you can get a feel for how energy intensive it is. I dart everyone, It thins out cleanse resources, stretches healing resources, let's me "see thru walls" watching the damage flytext, and if it's left alone it hands me a little over 2 energy every 6 seconds for 27 seconds on average.

Regarding Leth burst... a Large chunk of it comes from Cull yes, but if you actually want to kill someone in PVP gear, you're gonna add Explosive Probe, maybe a SoS, possibly a Shatter Shot in the set-up phase and then maybe a Frag Grenade before/after Takedown, there's that energy I was talking about.

I've seen your sig, and if someone goes down that easy I tell them to go buy some recruit gear because they've got jack for expertise.

 

Point. Lethality does not need long roots to kill.

 

True, and if you go way way way way way back to where this debate started, you'll find me saying something along the lines of "If the fight starts at 30m, MM and Leth can both slaughter a Mara, but if it starts at melee range, Leth is covered in Mara and MM can use a 5 second root, an 8 seconds root, a knockback on a 1.5 second cast ambush and an 8 second mezz.." Obviously I'm paraphrasing, but perhaps now you get my gist?

Edited April 26, 2012 by Altruismo