Sniper Buffs!

[VulcanLogic]

Yeah, I was going to say something about the RNG. It seems a bit of an aberration, even compared to his other parses from the night. I have to ask, though, how is this sniper gearing? The magnitude of the crits seem much higher than I ever get, and I'm full rakata except trinkets and offhand.

 

EDIT: Ah, armor debuffs still stacking. That would make sense. If he's got 5 debuffs, the difference between one debuff and that is approximately 40% on kinetic/energy/weapon attacks. Your sniper would be well below most Lethality parses were the debuffs not stacking.

Edited April 26, 2012 by VulcanLogic

[FallenViking]

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.

 

Aye, my post was not to imply that the role does not change by the build or team, or to reflect sniper as a whole, but to speak on the MM burst spec for warzones specifically, since it is getting a lot of gate on the forums. Thats why I specified MM so many times in my post

 

I have tried the other specs and they are all nice in their own ways and own teams, I was just speaking on how my rated team uses MM burst sniper for competitive warzones. We tried both lethality and MM, and the choice was made to run MM because the burst is unmatched for taking down squishies. Yes, MM can be countered by shields and deflects, but my job as a rated MM Sniper is not to attack the shielded and deflecting targets, but to go after sages and folks like them. Our team already has enough DPS who is designed to counter the other classes. I guess what I was getting at is, the MM spec IS still viable and desired, if you know how to play it right, spec it right and have a team that can support it. Everyone in our team has a role, and the Snipers role is healer-death. IF we were to run a 2nd sniper for any reason, it would be lethality to spread the love around more, since they are powerful in their own way. Obv the roles/builds would change based on the team and if you had to *shudder* pug!

 

In summary, all the Sniper builds have their place and can be viable, even marksman, if the player is skilled enough to know when/where to use it and has a team who understands how to use a sniper and not try to send you out to solo 6 guys like some kinda assassin.

Edited April 27, 2012 by FallenViking

[Noctournys]

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 ****.

 

Considering it is laughably easy to make it through an entire boss fight as Marksman without EVER dropping below 60% energy and using Rifle Shot only in the rare case when every other ability is on cooldown..

 

Marksman only has energy problems if you're terrible at the game.

 

Im fully willing to believe that its DPS is sub-par to Lethality, but energy regen is not something marksman has a problem with.

[Totaltrash]

After 1.2, my sniper lost about 4% in overall damage and around 700 hitpoints (same gear, same tree).

Now I have gained 5% damage back - I consider this just a refund, not a true buff.

 

I'm MM spec and doing both pvp and pve equally, but I noticed the buff more in pve ops than in pvp (with the exception of the 5K medal, which I couldn't get at all anymore after 1.2).

 

By the way, I never have energy problems in PVE - that's what the probe is for, to hold you over when you really need to burst and burn all cooldowns.

 

Overall not bad, but I'm really hoping for a cover rework someday....

Edited April 27, 2012 by Totaltrash

[Mythicrose]

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.

 

You don't give us much to go by here but here's some general advice for pvp, getting BM or better gear is a start. Get your crit multipler up to at least 70%. If you are comfortable with your accuracy rating and crit rating, get more power mods/augments/enhancements. Shatter shot and stims/adrenals/relics should be used. Doesn't hurt to waste some time to collect the cunning and aim datacrons at the very least either (not really needed, but every little bit helps right?).

 

Play with Tibbel's spreadsheet on the sithwarrior website. I'll give you a good idea what you need accomplsh to achieve 5k crits.

[Lithy]

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.

 

My highest recorded hit post 1.2 is 6.1k on an ambush, I've hit take downs over 5k as well... . i've had SoS single tick crit for 2k in some circumstances.

 

I use a battlemaster power relic, and when its poped is usually when my crits jump over 5.2k. My 2nd relic is a crit/surge champion. haven't upgraded it yet.

 

I play full MM.

 

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j12/BloodHawk7/MMOs/Screenshot_2012-04-25_20_24_14_506234.jpg This was done on a battlemaster sage. No adrenals were popped, as I was out at the time. *which u can see in the screen shot*. Stack power once ur crit and surge are soft capped.

 

Edit: posted wrong faction lass name...corrected

Edited April 27, 2012 by Lithy

[aesirize]

i wish someday they'll change shield probe to scale from cunning and not power/tech power ; ;

[ButterStrawKid]

so as i was fooling around in EV norm cause i was bored i decided to do infernal council naked. im leathlity/engineer hybrid. There was a full columi geared sniper in my ops marksmanship specced. i out dpsed him. his marauder was only down to 30% hp by the time i finished with my marauder. he then asked me " are you MM spec?" then im like "god no, why would i purposely gimp my dps with MM". true story. Reason why people play MM they like seeing big numbers that get their sausage hard.

[mrgascoyneuk]

Reason why people play MM they like seeing big numbers that get their sausage hard.

 

hehe 6.8k crits in PvP with my mm/eng hybrid make my sausage hard

[Tibbel]

So as i was fooling around in EV norm cause i was bored i decided to do infernal council naked. im leathlity/engineer hybrid. There was a full columi geared sniper in my ops marksmanship specced. i out dpsed him. his marauder was only down to 30% hp by the time i finished with my marauder. he then asked me " are you MM spec?" then im like "god no, why would i purposely gimp my dps with MM". true story. Reason why people play MM they like seeing big numbers that get their sausage hard.

 

In summary: One Lethality sniper did better than one Marksmanship sniper one time.

[ButterStrawKid]

In summary: One Lethality sniper did better than one Marksmanship sniper one time.

 

not one time, several times. there have been countless occasions where i outdps a MM sniper pve or pvp. in fact i have yet to see a MM sniper outdps me

[Tibbel]

not one time, several times. there have been countless occasions where i outdps a MM sniper pve or pvp. in fact i have yet to see a MM sniper outdps me

 

Good! Keep doing great DPS.

 

Meanwhile, recognize that this is anecdotal evidence, and that pretty much all scientific data suggests that no spec's DPS is "gimped" in comparison to the others'.

[NotRonin]

The problem for MM sniper in EV NM is the knockback. I'm not saying it can't be overcome, however an unexperienced MM sniper will probably get interrupted a lot.

 

We have 2 snipers in my guild. After wiping many times to HM EC first boss last night, we both went to our ship to improve our rotation/spec. Both are similarly geared, with me being full Lethality and him full MM. When we compared our DPS, mine is pretty consistent at around 1350~, where as his dps will jump all over the place : 1250 in one parse, and 1450 in another. MM damage jumps around a lot, and you can't really say which one is better.

 

(In case you're wondering, both of us does about 1k dps in HM EC, We're trying to figure out how to get it to 1.2k in order to beat enrage.).

 

Personally, I believe it's more important to align your spec with your playstyle. After changing through all the specs, I come to the conclusion that I am most comfortable with a Leth/Eng build because of Frag Grenades. As a person who level up in full Engineering, it simply feels 'wrong' to play a sniper without a 3 second cooldown and the +30 AoE critical. While not so useful in boss fights, 4 tick orbital strike (modded Champion gear) and grenade spam is great for trash clearing. Sometimes, you should ignore the DPS meter and play the game the way you like.

[Infalliable]

so as i was fooling around in EV norm cause i was bored i decided to do infernal council naked. im leathlity/engineer hybrid. There was a full columi geared sniper in my ops marksmanship specced. i out dpsed him. his marauder was only down to 30% hp by the time i finished with my marauder. he then asked me " are you MM spec?" then im like "god no, why would i purposely gimp my dps with MM". true story. Reason why people play MM they like seeing big numbers that get their sausage hard.

 

Large portion of that may have to do with the huge amount of interrupting that the marauders do and how little it would effect a leth/eng in comparison to a MM. That fight is an absolute pain, not because of the difficulty, but simply b/c of how many times you get interrupted / knocked back / have to re-enter cover / etc.

[ButterStrawKid]

Large portion of that may have to do with the huge amount of interrupting that the marauders do and how little it would effect a leth/eng in comparison to a MM. That fight is an absolute pain, not because of the difficulty, but simply b/c of how many times you get interrupted / knocked back / have to re-enter cover / etc.

 

meaning MM snipers aren't that great when boss fights involve moving and if not, they are at best doing the same dps as a lethality sniper

[Infalliable]

meaning MM snipers aren't that great when boss fights involve moving and if not, they are at best doing the same dps as a lethality sniper

 

Somewhat, but the fight referenced in EV is the worst offender of them all in terms of the frequency of interrupting knockbacks. The maruaders do it constantly. There have been instances that I just DOT'd and rifle shotted him to death for a portion of the fight b/c I was sick of the interrupting and he's got almost no chance of beating you.

 

Most other fights have a relatively short "run around" phase and you can stay put and DPS for a substantial amount of time in between. Even lethality is impacted by this as it's 3 big hitters are still 3 second channels (SoS, Cull and OS). It's just not as bad.

Edited April 30, 2012 by Infalliable

[Symptomsandcures]

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.

 

Bad energy regen? are you having a laugh? with the new sniper volley i have energy to waste! It was easy as hell to keep my energy topped before that, and keep my rotaion/damage going good and strong. the main reason behind it i feel is the amount that amour decreases marksman damage more than it does Engi/Lethality

[NotRonin]

I just saw the DPS numbers from a fully geared sorc on NMM KP : 2000 DPS. It's kinda pointless to argue about sniper builds here.

[bard-]

If you have energy regen issues as MM you are doing it wrong.

I play lethality now , but never had to even look at energy when I played MM.

 

I agree with you, I have a 50 gunslinger and a 50 sniper. In lethality/dirty fighting I am constantly managing my energy but it marksman i never even use my energy regen skill.