Sniper Buffs!

[charlitoH]

Useless buff is useless... Marksman is not viable for PvE-operations due to their bad energy-regen and Lethality-Snipers are still 100-150 DPS behind Sorcs in raids.

If anything they need to buff Cull, Weakening Blast and Corrosive Grenade.

 

I lol'd when I read this message.

[Sleak]

Not gonna lie. I started laughing as well when I read that MM has bad energy regen too.

 

That is definitely a you need to L2P issue lol.

 

On a side note I had my first 6k crit with ambush in a raid as well. Before the changes I rarely saw anything over 5k.

[Infalliable]

Well, Lethality still uses SoS and Takedown on cooldown, and uses Ambush as filler. Checking back on my logs these three abilities make up about 20% of damage, so buffing those 5% is about a 1% increase.

 

Again, it's pretty minimal. I'll take the poster above you as an example as they provided some data on DPS tests. In the 3 tests conducted, the standard deviation in the DPS data is 3.4%.

 

The overall increase from the buffs in on the order of 1%. Or put another way, it's about 10-16 DPS depending how well geared you are. The fact that you're human and are optimal is on the order of +/- 33-53 DPS.

 

Any bonus is nice, but it's hardly anything spectacular. 1% is not something I would call significant as it's clearly within the normal human error in carrying out an optimal rotation.

 

 

(Even though the build the poster used was from a MM build tested {DPS=1181,1112,1117}, it's not an unreasonable error between different tests based on some of the data that's floating around on the forums...so we'll run with that for the sake of argument and putting some real comparative numbers up.)

Edited April 25, 2012 by Infalliable

[Tenacity]

I have worked a rotation where i also use Ambush every cooldown:

 

SS (if no debuff previously applied) then CG>CD>WB>Cull>SoS>Ambush>Cull>RS

 

By trying to maximize on the buffs we just got, this rotation can be pulled off BEFORE your strong dots downgrade to weaker versions, and is very sustainable...pulled a 5-6 min parse without blowing adrenaline probe.

 

You should be working orbital strike into your rotation, even if it means you have to skip an ambush now and then. Orbital strike will make up a much greater portion of your damage output.

 

 

Here are three combat logs from Karagga hardmode (two failed attempts and one successful, we were running with a lot of newer players this week):

 

Attempt 1 (Got karagga to like 3% I believe):

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/af18fcc5-8534-4a18-8f3b-7cfa553030eb#d=0

1100.7 DPS over the duration of the fight (I died >.<)

Cull: 21.2% of total damage dealt

Orbital Strike: 16.1% of total damage dealt

Series of Shots + Snipe + Ambush: 20.2% of total damage dealt

The buff with yesterday's patch would've improved that by about 1% overall.

 

Attempt 2 (Cant remember the percentage):

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/a704f208-bd19-4dbc-b3ff-b555679c250f#d=0

1260 DPS over the duration of the fight

Cull: 25.1% of total damage dealt

Orbital Strike: 12.9% of total damage dealt

Series of Shots + Snipe + Ambush + Takedown: 22.9% of damage dealt

The buff with yesterday's patch would've improved that by about 1.1% overall.

 

Attempt 3 (Successful kill):

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/4e8ef51f-01e9-44cb-ad27-87e1ddc094bc#d=0

1237 DPS over the duration of the fight

Cull: 22.4% of total damage dealt

Orbital Strike: 14.7% of total damage dealt

Series of Shots + Snipe + Ambush + Takedown: 19% of damage dealt

The buff with yesterday's patch would've improved that by about 1% overall.

 

 

All three attempts were done with the following build:

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

[Tenacity]

Just a couple of quick dps tests on the dummies today:

 

Marksman spec

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/3a36d222-3178-46f4-9bee-6237014a0f3f#d=0,t=1

 

Lethality spec

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/4738b5ab-e2fd-4966-ac29-bccb436241ae#d=0,t=1

 

Still pulling 150-200 dps more with lethality than I do with marksman, even after these buffs.

 

 

Marksman has it's advantages, primarily energy efficiency (literally never run out with a decent rotation) and burst damage. Lethality simply cannot pull off the burst that marksman can without access to followthrough or the +crit damage talents. Marksman doesnt hold up over any significant duration, though, it cant keep sustained damage up - if your target doesnt die within one or two attack rotations, lethality will be doing more damage.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Tenacity

[Crankyhobo]

I welcome the adjustment, we did just lose 3% crit in the patch..... 5% is not that big of a deal, if you're posting 1300dps and 80% of your damage is from the abilities that were buffed that is about 50 dps. I guess i haven't factored crit damage 75% on top of a 5% larger base = some more. But yeah. Edited April 25, 2012 by Crankyhobo

[Jaxtaro]

A good way to buff marksman, and marksman only, would be to have rapid fire also increase the damage of the next two SoS's by X amount.

 

Why would they want to buff marksman only? The idea is to compensate for the armor debuff changes, so they targeted all attacks which are affected by armor. MM gets the most benefit because they use those the most, but it's really amazingly presumptive to think that this was done to buff marksmen somehow.

[Sylriana]

Good start but we are still the weakest class defensively. Way to easy to lock down a sniper.

 

I doubt they'll do much to change that, that seems to be core to the class' design.

[clearsighted]

Not gonna lie. I started laughing as well when I read that MM has bad energy regen too.

 

That is definitely a you need to L2P issue lol.

 

On a side note I had my first 6k crit with ambush in a raid as well. Before the changes I rarely saw anything over 5k.

 

What part of your brain is malfunctioning, to believe that a 5% buff can take your damage from 5k to over 6k?

 

It was a very modest, hardly noticeable buff, and it only came because parsing revealed that snipers were doing lower DPS than most other specs.

[Xyleya]

To those laughing about my statement about energy-reg problems with MM...

 

Let me tell you something. I'm playing since beta and I've tried every damn spec for Snipers so far. MM is good for burst-damage in PvP or for Bursting adds in OPs etc, but it isn't viable for 6 minute boss-fights as the energy-regen doesn't cut it for this extended fights.

 

With Lethality tho, you have 50+% Crit for your DoTs regging 2 energy when critical and they do crit alot. Also notice, that the additional damage done by Cull also procs the energy-regen for critical DoTs, so you'll never run out of energy, even if you're spending 70 energy on your first three skills (CG -> CD -> Cull).

 

And those speaking about PvP... you're ruining the game for us PvE-players, so ****.

[pureeffinmetal]

I don't play a Sniper so I won't pretend to know how the class works. But the majority of you seem to think MM is bad.

 

Last week on Karagga 8 man nightmare the Sniper in the group pulled 1512 dps.

 

Just tonight he pulled 1756.

 

I really didnt feel Snipers needed a buff. As they were all ready top/near top of the DPS Charts with Marauders.

 

He's full marksmen btw.

 

For Comparison as a Lightning Sorc I pulled 1646. So I don't see how you Snipers still seem to think you're weak on damage.

 

Not everyone has uploaded yet but here is the parse from tonight.

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/786e6b7a-ea0f-4dea-b42d-3dd2cd6cdfed#d=0

Edited April 26, 2012 by pureeffinmetal

[Katrasle]

I don't play a Sniper so I won't pretend to know how the class works. But the majority of you seem to think MM is bad.

 

Last week on Karagga 8 man nightmare the Sniper in the group pulled 1512 dps.

 

Just tonight he pulled 1756.

 

I really didnt feel Snipers needed a buff. As they were all ready top/near top of the DPS Charts with Marauders.

 

He's full marksmen btw.

 

For Comparison as a Lightning Sorc I pulled 1646. So I don't see how you Snipers still seem to think you're weak on damage.

 

Not everyone has uploaded yet but here is the parse from tonight.

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/786e6b7a-ea0f-4dea-b42d-3dd2cd6cdfed#d=0

 

That is very impressive, it's too bad there is no video of him doing his rotation. The damage for his abilities is not far off from what I do on my sniper, I find it pretty crazy / weird that he is able to do 500 dps more on a live boss than I could do on a training dummy. Looks like I need to go practice some more.

 

The big thing I see from his logs is his followthrough damage, that seems to be where I am failing at, we shall see.

[pureeffinmetal]

That is very impressive, it's too bad there is no video of him doing his rotation. The damage for his abilities is not far off from what I do on my sniper, I find it pretty crazy / weird that he is able to do 500 dps more on a live boss than I could do on a training dummy. Looks like I need to go practice some more.

 

The big thing I see from his logs is his followthrough damage, that seems to be where I am failing at, we shall see.

 

We were running Jugg, Sorc, Sniper x 2, and Merc for DPS which equals a total of 80% armor penetration. Since debuffs are stacking you see increases in DPS over Target Dummies as long as the fight is more of a tank and spank. (which most of the bosses in KP are for the most part)

 

I couldn't tell you what you're doing wrong or what he's doing right. I've never played a sniper. All I know is, in the right hands they won't lose in DPS to anyone except maybe an equally geared/skilled marauder. But seeing as both are pure dps classes, it would seem natural to share the top spot.

[Drungus]

That is very impressive, it's too bad there is no video of him doing his rotation. The damage for his abilities is not far off from what I do on my sniper, I find it pretty crazy / weird that he is able to do 500 dps more on a live boss than I could do on a training dummy. Looks like I need to go practice some more.

 

The big thing I see from his logs is his followthrough damage, that seems to be where I am failing at, we shall see.

 

I find it more interesting that he used a followthrough for almost all snipes and ambushes. There's a 9 second cooldown on followthrough, so he's focusing on using one for each snipe or ambush. I'm curious what he's doing in between. His DPS is 1665 on Bonetrasher.

 

I pulled 1734 DPS on EC Warlord Kephess pre previous patch according to the Mr. Robot website and I used a lot less followthroughs. I used snipe 102 times, ambush 34 times and followthrough 38 times.

[cyadra]

I think one thing that the snipers who are having a hard time need to understand is WHAT OUR ROLE IS! I run with a very powerful pvp guild, I run premades exclusively and am on the team to run Rated. I am a solid choice and was selected, not because I can top the damage charts every game as a MM (which I generally can, but I also run with other powerful players who can pull 700-800k), but because I am the best single-target burst nuker to take down healers and support marked-fire targets.

 

A MM sniper is not designed to run around and rack up damage, if you are doing that, keep enjoying getting your butt kicked. A MM sniper at its true max potential is one that runs with team support and keeps the healers dead all game so the rest of the team can do their jobs. It's not the best damage numbers, because you are killing them too fast for them to heal up and whittle them down again, but you are still killing them! A good MM sniper will be the one who might only have 350-400k damage, but out of 60-70 kills will have 30-40 killing blows from keeping the healers dead the whole game.

 

Anyway, just my observation on MM snipers, I love mine and I enjoy playing it, and the biggest thing I see other snipers doing wrong is trying to fill roles they were not meant to - you are the best at nuking healers and providing cover fire, do that and win the game, don't worry about who has the best score!

 

And back on topic, from the point of view of a support-nuker healer killer, the buffs were a very pleasant surprise! I already killed sorcs in under 3 seconds, now it's down to 2 seconds! Consistently getting 5.5k-6.5k hits now in warzones since the patch, and that is with just my self-buffs and cooldowns, not with the damage buff you can find in-warzone.

 

Truth be told, our role changes as well depending on what you are running and your spec. If I am running a MM WZ generally my role is take people out in order to buy time to win the match. Consider that in Huttball or Voidstar you can take someone out of the game for up to 30 seconds or even more, that is a huge advantage to your team. In Civil War I plant myself on a ramp and I am the node killer, and in War Games I am a runner, I go from base to base taking out targets. I will cycle my targets to get the lowest health bars out not because I want to rack up a million kills, but you are more apt to win when 4 people are waiting to respawn instead of 1. If I am running ENG my job is most likely to DOT away. Weaken the enemy and perhaps allow another sniper or DPS to take out targets. I will cycle targets for the opposite reason, pick the healthiest and weaken them. Lethality to me is just run and gun, keep a target occupied, generally a good healer, and bug the heck out of them. Snare is my friend in Leth.

 

For a Flash Point, we know we are the burners, its just a matter of how to do it.

Edited April 26, 2012 by cyadra

[theangryllama]

We were running Jugg, Sorc, Sniper x 2, and Merc for DPS which equals a total of 80% armor penetration. Since debuffs are stacking you see increases in DPS over Target Dummies as long as the fight is more of a tank and spank. (which most of the bosses in KP are for the most part)

 

I couldn't tell you what you're doing wrong or what he's doing right. I've never played a sniper. All I know is, in the right hands they won't lose in DPS to anyone except maybe an equally geared/skilled marauder. But seeing as both are pure dps classes, it would seem natural to share the top spot.

 

The armor debuffs don't stack any more. That was the major change that hit MM snipers hard and the entire reason behind this 5% buff was primarily to counteract this change.

[Lithy]

I find it more interesting that he used a followthrough for almost all snipes and ambushes. There's a 9 second cooldown on followthrough, so he's focusing on using one for each snipe or ambush. I'm curious what he's doing in between. His DPS is 1665 on Bonetrasher.

 

I pulled 1734 DPS on EC Warlord Kephess pre previous patch according to the Mr. Robot website and I used a lot less followthroughs. I used snipe 102 times, ambush 34 times and followthrough 38 times.

 

My followthrough is on a 6 second cooldown. Recoil Control reduces the cool down by 3 seconds. Something you can do is time a series of shots so the Followthrough buff is just about to expire when SoS ends and it comes off cool down at the same time. Followthrough needs to be spammed whenever its off CD, should never be off CD.

 

It appears the use of OS everytime it was off CD is what made the diffrence up, as primarily pvp i should look into that for PvE I think it would bring my parses up to similar levels once I get better PvE gear, my PvE gear sucks.

Edited April 26, 2012 by Lithy

[Kelderek]

I don't play a Sniper so I won't pretend to know how the class works. But the majority of you seem to think MM is bad.

 

Last week on Karagga 8 man nightmare the Sniper in the group pulled 1512 dps.

 

Just tonight he pulled 1756.

 

I really didnt feel Snipers needed a buff. As they were all ready top/near top of the DPS Charts with Marauders.

 

He's full marksmen btw.

 

For Comparison as a Lightning Sorc I pulled 1646. So I don't see how you Snipers still seem to think you're weak on damage.

 

Not everyone has uploaded yet but here is the parse from tonight.

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/786e6b7a-ea0f-4dea-b42d-3dd2cd6cdfed#d=0

 

With careful analysis there is a lot of good info that can be gleaned from a parse like this.

 

For the Karagga fight you have to remember that there is an AOE phase for the droid adds -- this inflates your DPS numbers overall. You can account for this by selecting only Karagga as the target and in this case you see the sniper did about 1606 dps (which is still quite impressive).

 

The fight lasted 283 seconds and if we assume Followthrough is talented down to 6s CD, then in a perfect world the sniper could have had as many as 47 FTs in the fight. As you can see from the log it was 39. This is still very good, it probably accounts for a few seconds here and there where the Snipe-FT or Ambush-FT combo is delayed due to movement or perhaps even waiting for the tank to get agro at the start of the fight.

 

Likewise, Series of Shots was used 18 times which is the maximum number that can fit in a 283s fight, so the sniper was nailing that perfectly. Ambush was used 16 times, which means at most 2 were missed -- still very good.

 

I find it interesting that in a fight that lasted almost 5 minutes, Shatter Shot was only used twice.

[Lithy]

I find it interesting that in a fight that lasted almost 5 minutes, Shatter Shot was only used twice.

 

if armour debuffs no longer stack like is being said Shatter shot is mostly a waste of a GCD and energy in group PvE play. The time to use Shatter shot in these situation would be immediately after the fight starts before mercs/jugs can stack theirs up and when those said buffs fall off accidentally.

[hamugoroshi]

With careful analysis there is a lot of good info that can be gleaned from a parse like this.

 

For the Karagga fight you have to remember that there is an AOE phase for the droid adds -- this inflates your DPS numbers overall. You can account for this by selecting only Karagga as the target and in this case you see the sniper did about 1606 dps (which is still quite impressive).

 

The fight lasted 283 seconds and if we assume Followthrough is talented down to 6s CD, then in a perfect world the sniper could have had as many as 47 FTs in the fight. As you can see from the log it was 39. This is still very good, it probably accounts for a few seconds here and there where the Snipe-FT or Ambush-FT combo is delayed due to movement or perhaps even waiting for the tank to get agro at the start of the fight.

 

Likewise, Series of Shots was used 18 times which is the maximum number that can fit in a 283s fight, so the sniper was nailing that perfectly. Ambush was used 16 times, which means at most 2 were missed -- still very good.

 

I find it interesting that in a fight that lasted almost 5 minutes, Shatter Shot was only used twice.

 

 

(edit: Removed my commentary on EP and CD ticks vs. casts. This is just a quirk in how askmrrobot represents the Explosive Probe and Corrosive Dart abilities. There are 4 CD casts and 7 EP casts recorded in the "Other Effects" tab.)

 

On top of that, we may be seeing the most fortunate sniper log ever!

The disparity in the crit rate between SoS (40%) and Followthrough (59% !!!) is insane. Both should have the same crit rate (base + 4% for Between the Eyes). Assuming that his modified crit is 49% (which is crazy to begin with) the chances of observing a 9% deviation on an N of 57 (SoS) is only 5% and a 10% deviation on an N of 39 (FT) is only ~6%. The chances of observing both in the same battle is only 0.3%; Add in the Ambush rate of 56% (!!) and this battle is literally one in a thousand (well, 1 in 2083 actually).

 

All in all, a very impressive performance, but I think it's possible Mr. Robot might be misrepresenting the facts a bit.

Edited April 26, 2012 by hamugoroshi

[herdofcaribou]

I don't play a Sniper so I won't pretend to know how the class works. But the majority of you seem to think MM is bad.

 

Last week on Karagga 8 man nightmare the Sniper in the group pulled 1512 dps.

 

Just tonight he pulled 1756.

 

I really didnt feel Snipers needed a buff. As they were all ready top/near top of the DPS Charts with Marauders.

 

He's full marksmen btw.

 

For Comparison as a Lightning Sorc I pulled 1646. So I don't see how you Snipers still seem to think you're weak on damage.

 

Not everyone has uploaded yet but here is the parse from tonight.

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/786e6b7a-ea0f-4dea-b42d-3dd2cd6cdfed#d=0

 

Man this is very impressive. It wouldn't be too much trouble to ask him his rotation would it ?

[Synavix]

Everything I have been reading on Sithwarrior is stating that even post 1.2, contrary to what was believed, armor debuffs are still stacking.

 

Since I've heard everything from only one per target, to one per class, to up to 5 of any class, if anyone can point me towards any accurate information to the contrary I'd love to know for sure which is correct.

[Tibbel]

Everything I have been reading on Sithwarrior is stating that even post 1.2, contrary to what was believed, armor debuffs are still stacking.

 

Since I've heard everything from only one per target, to one per class, to up to 5 of any class, if anyone can point me towards any accurate information to the contrary I'd love to know for sure which is correct.

 

http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/Thread-Boss-armor-values?pid=20487#pid20487

[Delease]

I think one thing that the snipers who are having a hard time need to understand is WHAT OUR ROLE IS! I run with a very powerful pvp guild, I run premades exclusively and am on the team to run Rated. I am a solid choice and was selected, not because I can top the damage charts every game as a MM (which I generally can, but I also run with other powerful players who can pull 700-800k), but because I am the best single-target burst nuker to take down healers and support marked-fire targets.

 

A MM sniper is not designed to run around and rack up damage, if you are doing that, keep enjoying getting your butt kicked. A MM sniper at its true max potential is one that runs with team support and keeps the healers dead all game so the rest of the team can do their jobs. It's not the best damage numbers, because you are killing them too fast for them to heal up and whittle them down again, but you are still killing them! A good MM sniper will be the one who might only have 350-400k damage, but out of 60-70 kills will have 30-40 killing blows from keeping the healers dead the whole game.

 

Anyway, just my observation on MM snipers, I love mine and I enjoy playing it, and the biggest thing I see other snipers doing wrong is trying to fill roles they were not meant to - you are the best at nuking healers and providing cover fire, do that and win the game, don't worry about who has the best score!

 

And back on topic, from the point of view of a support-nuker healer killer, the buffs were a very pleasant surprise! I already killed sorcs in under 3 seconds, now it's down to 2 seconds! Consistently getting 5.5k-6.5k hits now in warzones since the patch, and that is with just my self-buffs and cooldowns, not with the damage buff you can find in-warzone.

 

How in the hell are you getting 5+k hits? Seriously, I would love to know this. I am MM and at best my high since the patch was 4300 . My damage i seen during play is anywhere from 800 to 3k. I think I seen my SoS hit for 1200 once in a stream.

[pureeffinmetal]

Everything I have been reading on Sithwarrior is stating that even post 1.2, contrary to what was believed, armor debuffs are still stacking.

 

Since I've heard everything from only one per target, to one per class, to up to 5 of any class, if anyone can point me towards any accurate information to the contrary I'd love to know for sure which is correct.

 

This. Armor debuffs are still stacking.

 

Also I'll try to get my Sniper guildie on here to talk to you guys. lol.