Sniper PvP Guide by Express

[NoTomorrow]

With engineering i would consider keeping target acquired for diversion if you cannot flashbang the MM player. Especially because diversion is 9 seconds acc debuff, not 6.

Also the question arises if shatter shot is worth one gcd.

Edited January 17, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[ZipZep]

About the spec's for your turnament I think you are pretty straight on all of em.

 

Vs. Assassins you will in my opinion need to be Engineer as you also seem to be thinking already. Deception assassins will simply do to much burst without the extra shield and their lowstrikes is a pain. Deflection also hurts MM alot more than it hurts us.

 

A trick for Engineer snipers when fighting assassins is this.

 

They will at some point during the duel use shroud. Usually when your orbital starts ticking. They will by the time shroud is about to end vanish. Trick is this. After shroud is activated if you fire SoS on em, the dots from electrified rail gun will still be applied. This will cause them to loose stealth soon as Shroud goes away and your dot's are no longer resisted. SoS needs to land after Shroud has been activivated though.

 

Tested this with a mate and for me it works 100% of tiems if i get timing right.

Otherwise keybind suprissive fire convieniently and you can get lucky/be good at find him pretty fast anyway.

[NoTomorrow]

About the spec's for your turnament I think you are pretty straight on all of em.

 

Vs. Assassins you will in my opinion need to be Engineer as you also seem to be thinking already. Deception assassins will simply do to much burst without the extra shield and their lowstrikes is a pain. Deflection also hurts MM alot more than it hurts us.

 

A trick for Engineer snipers when fighting assassins is this.

 

They will at some point during the duel use shroud. Usually when your orbital starts ticking. They will by the time shroud is about to end vanish. Trick is this. After shroud is activated if you fire SoS on em, the dots from electrified rail gun will still be applied. This will cause them to loose stealth soon as Shroud goes away and your dot's are no longer resisted. SoS needs to land after Shroud has been activivated though.

 

Tested this with a mate and for me it works 100% of tiems if i get timing right.

Otherwise keybind suprissive fire convieniently and you can get lucky/be good at find him pretty fast anyway.

 

So you are saying we have a reliable way to kick them out of stealth if they force shroud and we have been using SoS on them?

1. They will want to force shroud when they eat the Explosive probe
   
2. Series of shots comes immediately.
   
3. If they dont use their stealth now, they should not be able to use it later because i will have my interrogation probe on them
   

could this be a reliable way to kick deception out of stealth by forcing them to waste force shroud? I mean why would an asassin eat en entire EP+SoS combo? Defection is not an issue because i will have target acquired.

 

Now te problem is not to scarry him too soon be poping up entrench. Here is the problem folks:

If he sees you entrench before SoS he just combat stealths.

If you SoS before entrench, he just stuns, or lw slashes you. Without having to use force shroud.

 

How to deal with this?

Edited January 17, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[ZipZep]

As far as I have been able to see, it only works if shroud is already activated when i cast SoS. But yes, this WILL cause the ticks from electrified railgun to be resisted, but only till shroud ends, meaning he will waste his vanish and you will be guarenteed to win the fight.

 

I never, ever ever ever, use Explosive Probe until after his shroud is out of the picture. Its simply to risky, and I know he wont be able to hold shroud forever. Soon as Entrench and Orbital goes up he pretty much have no choice.

[NoTomorrow]

How do you plan to bait his force shroud? Does ths. Mean you will postpone any ep and sos until it? He will be dpsing you pretty hard all this time. You still need to win the dps race before execution opens up.

 

All this time, you will be subjected to stun and low slash which has a 15s CD, all these are a free maul or two for him. If you pop up entrench he just vanishes, and we havent yet solved the vanish problem, if he has force shroud available.

 

How about we try to describe an usal scenario and rotation of the asassin? Lets suppose the asasin will adopt this tactics:

• Everytime before he opens from stealth he will wait until whatever buff you have expires, entrench, shield probe,
  adrenals, rakata medpack, ballistic shield.
  
• If you pop up entrench, he will go into stealth
  
• If you try to SoS, he will stun/low slash you.
  

Edited January 17, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[ZipZep]

Now te problem is not to scarry him too soon be poping up entrench. Here is the problem folks:

If he sees you entrench before SoS he just combat stealths.

If you SoS before entrench, he just stuns, or lw slashes you. Without having to use force shroud.

 

How to deal with this?

 

 

Wish i know more about the actual skills in deception tree, cause as it stands i cant really give a good detailed description of what happens in my duels.

This should be taken with "a grain of salt" cause assassins have so many ways to open duels that you cant really have 1 game plan agianst them.

 

They open, knock you down ---> I eat this wanting to pop my first shield probe soon as possible.

I put Int. Probe up and instantly knock him back

Now, some assassins pop sprint, so you gotta be fast with your plasma probe and catch him.

If above part somehow failed you are pretty ****ed.

 

Now, all the DoT's and AoE means he wont be rooted for more than 2 sec which is ok though. Ill Laze target + snipe and by now he's gonna be pretty close. Since I dont want to be knocked down by Low strike I will pop entrench now (+ orbital + evasion) The 3 sec cast time is alot of free time for a deception assassin, i prefer evasion here.

 

Since Int. Probe is already on him, he needs to shroud to go stealth.

When he pops Shroud i will SoS him. This WILL break his stealth soon as shroud ends.

 

If SoS tactic fails, you are still doing ok though. Just remember to reset shield with EMP before shroud ****s that up. Your Explosive Probe + shield for "2nd round" will make you capable of winning even if you are way behind on HP.

 

Sorry Tomorrow, cant really do much better and this aint much use. But i assure you. The SoS thing will work

[NoTomorrow]

I understand, but if you want to SoS him without entrech he will stun you.

If you entrech and SoS without ep, he might just eat entire ss the forve shroud and wait for entrech to expire.

If you decide to entrench, ep sos,you are giving him one extra gcd to react and froce srhroud vanish before sos

[Zoidrinali]

With engineering i would consider keeping target acquired for diversion if you cannot flashbang the MM player. Especially because diversion is 9 seconds acc debuff, not 6.

Also the question arises if shatter shot is worth one gcd.

For me personally I find it's worth it because it helps with that extra bit of damage, never done any number crunching on it but started using that rotation because I was noticing a noticeable difference in damage.

 

Of course it's very situational. That particular rotation of mine is what I do if I know I'm not going to get interupted because it's a waste of time doing shatter shot if you know there's a good chance you'll be interupted with diversion. On any other class I pop entrench before hand, still works with mm but only after diversion has already been used. Hence why in my earlier post I said for me the earlier they use diversion the better. More often than not diversion will be one of the first things a mm spec will do.

 

Lets face it sniper duels never last that long anyway and you can normally get a feel for how the duel will go in the first few seconds so whether you have shatter shot in any rotation is entirely situational. Surprising how often it does come in handy.

[ZipZep]

At the moment, I dont think alot of assassins are aware of this "weakness".

 

Besided the fact the Shroud is horribly bugged and broken as it stands no assasin will expect to be pulled out of stealth by a dot after activating shroud.

 

I will be entrenched with Ballistic Shields by the time i use SoS. I dont see the assassin having much of a choice but using is shroud when Entrench/Orbital goes down. If they dont, the AoE will destroy them. If they stay at distance, my Snipes/ambush will also detsroy them. If they PoP both shroud and Deflection they will be very very voulnarable later.

 

Deception assassins can pretty much wreck a sniper in seconds i know, but i find that most often their opener really doesnt hurt me alot before the time i can pulse em back. From that point they wont touch me agian before they have to use shroud.

 

Sounded wrong....My duels with the Assassins i duel most are very very even. basically you can say its a cointoss. guy with most crits wins. 1 mistake from either side, and duel becomes like 70% hp left to 0%.

 

Assassins are hard class to deal with for sure.

Edited January 17, 2013 by ZipZep

[NoTomorrow]

Ok, lets storm ths from a different point of view, lets say our aim is to have entrench after he wastes his combat stealth and opens again. An asassin doest want to fight uou with entrench on, he needs his low slash a nd stuns to disrupt your dps.

 

Lets suppose our poping of them out of stealth is impossible without SoSig them the verynmoment when they force shroud is impossible., We need to force them to stealth asap, so we can have more uptime with our entrench when we go into a dps race. To win this race we need quite a lot of hp, the later they vanish, the less hp we will have to win the dps race.

 

So how can we force them to vanish without using entrench? Orbital strike opening? Ok, can we activate it before they stun us? We might need our own CC to guarantee that.

 

Now here is the interesting deision tree branching:

1. If he stays decides to fight and not use frce shroud, he will take quite a lt of damage from os.
   
2. If he uses force shroud and vanishes immediately to wait os expire, we have just saved our entrench for when he pops out and enter the dps race with cc immunity.
   
3. If he force shrouds but doesnt go immediately into stealth, then there is another decisional tree branching out
   

 

What will appen if pt 3 is the scenario? If you pop entrench, and he stays. Sos should be able to pull him out if he deides to stealth, but f doest stealth? Then you need to have interogation probe the moment his force shroud ends so he cannnot stealth. If you dont entrench, he will just force shroud and stun you whie not taking aoe damage for 3s

And deliveing mauls to you.

 

And all this while having compketely no idea how much damage they can deliver.

Edited January 17, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[ZipZep]

I dont see how you can save entrench until after combat stealth. For me its a trade. Im trading my entrench for their Force Shroud and combat stealth. This is what I want. Its the best situation I can give my self against a class that has so many oppertunities and possibilites in duels.

 

One thing i sometimes try is to only cast Ballistic Shield then attempt to cast Orbital.

many players seem to think link the visuals of Ballistic Shields to entrench, this way im sometimes able to cheat an assassin into combat stealthing away and saving entrench. Not gonna work twice on the same guy though

Edited January 17, 2013 by ZipZep

[NoTomorrow]

Problem is, that those stuns and low slashes give him way too many mauls while disrupting our DPS, i really don't see us winning without dealing with these. I won against deception with my Marksmanship by geting a lucky streak of him actually missing them after i used my diversion.

 

I think we should really push for baiting his combat stealth with our OS without entrench. I think this is the key to win this duel.

 

Anybody else has an opinion on this one?

 

Edit: i had a new look at asassin deceptiom tree, with dark embrace 25 % universal DR, and 30% AoE DR, 10% from class buff DR againt elemental, i dont think asassins are in any way scared about Engineering AoE attacks. I a not sure if we can bait their combat stealth with OS alone, if they can reduce a 4500 OS crit to somewhere like 2000, or a non crt to almost nothing.

 

They cam basically have automatically 25% DR when they come out of stealth, then use blackout for another 25% DR for 6 seconds, after combat stealth they can do that again for another 12s of 25% DR.

 

I really dont see us winning against a deception sin using all these. I dot even have a plan what exactly i should CC, because all those attacks are instant. I dont know, with such a low CD on forces speed, you cannot really hope to keep him at distance woth a cover pulse and with a flashbang later.

Edited January 17, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[Jenzali]

I spent all of last night duelling a couple of Assassins (one Darkness, one Deception) and I think it is very difficult to bait a good one into using their Shroud and combat stealth without you using Entrench. I think it's a decent trade-off that puts both classes on fairly equal footing - I would rather be sure that my debuffs aren't cleansed so I can make use of Explosive Probe and Plasma Probe's stun. At the same time, versus Deception if you are very quick and can anticipate their Force speed it is somewhat possible to kite them with your roots and Plasma probe stun. Perhaps this may have just came down to the player though - most Assassins wouldn't expect a Gunslinger to try and kite them so they may not have used Force Slow.

 

With a bit more experience perhaps I could offer more ideas on the strategy and counter-play at work here but so far to me the matchup seems to be quite a bit of a toss-up that depends greatly on luck/crits or whoever makes a fatal mistake.

 

The trickiest thing for me was dealing with the Darkness Assassin's Harnessed Darkness. A good Assassin would cast it from 10m range so you can't Debilitate him. I found it best to save the Plasma Probe for this moment or hope that they accidentally casted it from too close so you could knock them back with Cover Pulse. At the same time, the Assassin can just wait for you to use your key moves before countering with his and all the while dishing out some devastating damage. It's a tough matchup.

 

In either matchup there was only one logical place for me to use my CC breaker, and that was on their 4s stun (Electrocute).

Edited January 17, 2013 by Jenzali

[NoTomorrow]

Can you provide us with some combat logs of your duels? I got some amazing wins with MM by timing my evasion and diversion. It was huge amount of luck though, he missed his discharge, shock and even assassinate. all these to a 45% acc debuff.

 

It's incredibly hard though especially when they get to their bursty attacks in the later stages of a duel. It can whipe your entire hp in an instant. Btw, how much HP can sins get from harnessed darkness on average?

Edited January 17, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[D-niceHJ]

Problem is, that those stuns and low slashes give him way too many mauls while disrupting our DPS, i really don't see us winning without dealing with these. I won against deception with my Marksmanship by geting a lucky streak of him actually missing them after i used my diversion.

 

I think we should really push for baiting his combat stealth with our OS without entrench. I think this is the key to win this duel.

 

Anybody else has an opinion on this one?

 

Edit: i had a new look at asassin deceptiom tree, with dark embrace 25 % universal DR, and 30% AoE DR, 10% from class buff DR againt elemental, i dont think asassins are in any way scared about Engineering AoE attacks. I a not sure if we can bait their combat stealth with OS alone, if they can reduce a 4500 OS crit to somewhere like 2000, or a non crt to almost nothing.

 

They cam basically have automatically 25% DR when they come out of stealth, then use blackout for another 25% DR for 6 seconds, after combat stealth they can do that again for another 12s of 25% DR.

 

I really dont see us winning against a deception sin using all these. I dot even have a plan what exactly i should CC, because all those attacks are instant. I dont know, with such a low CD on forces speed, you cannot really hope to keep him at distance woth a cover pulse and with a flashbang later.

 

Well for starters Snipers/Gunslingers have the best ranged and burst DPS out of all the classes. Even better then those Sent/ Marauders that right i said it lol. But in my opinion 2 of the biggest reason why Snipers/Gunslingers have a hard with a shadow/assassin is LOS and ya count on Entrench. Which we use to our advantage.

[NoTomorrow]

Well for starters Snipers/Gunslingers have the best ranged and burst DPS out of all the classes. Even better then those Sent/ Marauders that right i said it lol. But in my opinion 2 of the biggest reason why Snipers/Gunslingers have a hard with a shadow/assassin is LOS and ya count on Entrench. Which we use to our advantage.

 

No, sniper MM or engineering burst is slower than carnage.

[Jenzali]

The tournament just happened today and overall I was quite happy I entered on my Gunslinger, ending up with the highest ranking for a non-stealther. The winner was a Shadow, the next 3 spots were Operatives. Apologies for hijacking the thread if this is not supposed to be about 1v1s, but I think recounting my experiences with the tournament as well as extensive duel practicing beforehand may be valuable to some readers. I also believe that 1v1s are the best way to improve your skill with a class even though warzones are team-based environments.

 

First off, Marksmanship handily took care of all Marauders and non-tank Juggernauts with lots of hp to spare (the lowest I got was about 35%), including the Carnage Marauders. Versus Rage I finished with above 80% health in both circumstances due to Siege Bunker talent. The Marauder matchup is all about patience. A Sniper has all the tools to deal with every single one of the Marauders most important abilities, and can simply save them until the Marauder uses his while still dishing out comparable damage in the meantime. It was very simple to use Evasion in direct response to Ravage (have your Esc key at the ready to cancel your current ability) and Debilitate in response to Undying Rage. Even with LoS obstacles the Marauder has no advantage over the Sniper because they can't heal unless they get out of combat, and suffer from having to close the gap again. Most opened with Force Camo. Once they got into melee range I would immediately Entrench and knock them back (if they were Carnage I would wait until they used Gore before knocking them back), get a few more pot shots in, Leg Shot, etc. and then Flash Bang once they get back up close. At this point if they do not use their CC breaker I used the backloaded burst rotation of Explosive Probe, Orbital Strike, Ambush, Followthrough which would bring them to execute range, game over. If they did use their CC breaker, immediately use Diversion and take almost no damage for the next 9 seconds. The key to this matchup is to Entrench right away and Flash Bang once they get back into range after your knockback. They'll be forced to use their CC breaker and won't have it up when you Debilitate them during Undying Range, so no miraculous comebacks for them.

 

Switching to engineering allowed me to beat all other classes that were not stealth. Probably the most dangerous opponents were fully itemized tanks (the Shield Probes helped me stay alive a long time against them and win through a battle of DoT attrition), although those were rare, other Snipers, and Madness Sorcs. I was actually able to beat the Madness Sorcs even with the presence of LoS obstacles because I could save the Plasma Probe until they tried to LoS and throw it behind the pillar forcing them to come out into the open. The rest of it was just interrupting Force Lightning wherever possible and staying mobile except to Hunker Down when you think they will stun you. Sniper vs. Sniper was just such a toss-up that no matter what combination of specs are facing off against each other anything could go wrong. In several duels I actually lost because my Diversion missed - that's right, if they use their Diversion against you it can cause your Diversion to miss. Overall, in the presence of LoS I favored using Lethality in Sniper vs. Sniper and simply hiding as much as possible. Sniper vs. Sniper was also the only matchup where I found Lethality useful.

 

I was expecting to be able to fight a few Assassins/Shadows but the brackets never put me against one. After practicing against a lot of Assassins I am confident that a Sniper can win against them provided you make no fatal mistakes (which was hard not to do due to the lagginess of the area where the tournament occurred). Predictable Assassins are quite easy to beat, but smart ones who change up their tactics each time are incredibly difficult to beat. I feel like the Sniper's key abilities have to be used proactively in this matchup, as opposed to the Marauder matchup where you can them reactively and bide your time. The idea situation in this matchup is the DPS race after you've burned your Entrench and your opponent has burned his Shroud/Evasion and combat stealth.

 

Here's the kicker. If you accidentally use your Interrogation Probe just as they use Force Shroud then you might as well forfeit the duel right there, since it will go on cooldown and you're a sitting duck for the next 18 seconds, being unable to stun them or use your EMP Discharge (if they cleanse with Shroud after you've applied it, the cooldown will reset. But in this case it doesn't). Fear of this situation caused me to be unnecessarily nervous a lot of the time, or hesistant to use it because I thought they were going to use Shroud causing me to eat way too much damage before I could set up my burst rotation. In hindsight, the best thing to do when they open from stealth is immediately enter cover, knockback, Entrench, and use Corrosive Dart on them (you can do all 4 of these things in 1 GCD). The Corrosive Dart is important since they will need to burn Shroud to stealth, and you don't want to risk wasting your Interrogation Probe and screwing yourself over.

 

Against both Operatives and Assassins, assuming the player is smart, there is absolutely no way to bait them into using Shroud/Evasion and combat stealth without first using your Entrench. Any time I tried to bait it through various methods without first using Entrench (for example using a hard-casted Ambush hoping they'd pop Evasion, or trying to trick them with the visuals of Ballistic Shield + Orbital Strike) was met with being stunned and dying shortly after with my opponent still having 90%+ hp. I made this mistake in the tournament and lost twice to the same opponent. I am certain that popping your Entrench right off the start is the best trade-off you can make because it resets the fight and when they re-emerge they'll have no way to avoid your key burst abilities and your knockback.

 

I lost terribly to a very good Operative. The ability to dispel my debuffs coupled with Evasion cleansing everything made it impossible to set up anything to control him. In hindsight, perhaps it may have been just to stay mobile and try to kite him - I sat there in cover and melted very quickly while doing minimal damage to him and being unable to stun him with Plasma Probe because he would cleanse right away. Come to think of it, kiting may have been the best option because they have no gap closer, plus they usually do not bother using their slow when opening on a Sniper. Even then it would be difficult to stop them from simply healing themselves up out of LoS. I tried a match as Marksman as well but simply died too quickly. My mistake for not using Diversion right off the bat.

 

TL;DR: In conclusion, Snipers handily beat every class one on one except Assassins and Operatives. Assassins can be beat if you do everything right and can guess correctly what they will do next. A good Operative who makes use of their cleanse, heals, line of sight, and combat stealth is probably the hardest class by far to beat. Versus both stealthers your best bet is to simply pop Entrench right off the bat and force them to combat stealth. I really think there is no other option.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Jenzali

[NoTomorrow]

Very nice post! I always liked analyzing the 1vs1 aspect of snipers. So by all means, sharing your experience is very much welcomed. Would you consider reviewing the 1vs1 section in the guide? I suppose there are things you could share with us about fighting individual specs.

 

Do you have the combat logs of your duels? I would like to have a look at them.

 

Also what sort of line of sight obstructions did the duels have? how bad was that? I suppose too many of them could make your duels incredibly difficult.

Edited January 21, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[Jenzali]

Very nice post! I always liked analyzing the 1vs1 aspect of snipers. So by all means, sharing your experience is very much welcomed. Would you consider reviewing the 1vs1 section in the guide? I suppose there are things you could share with us about fighting individual specs.

 

Sure, I will take a look at it when I get the time.

 

Do you have the combat logs of your duels? I would like to have a look at them.

 

Sorry, no. It never actually occurred to me to log them.

 

Also what sort of line of sight obstructions did the duels have? how bad was that? I suppose too many of them could make your duels incredibly difficult.

 

The tournament took place in an area on Voss that was very good for Snipers (although laggy for everyone). The LoS obstacles were basically just trees that were thin enough that you could AoE to hit someone behind them.

 

http://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/1621089/pics/original/1297717.jpg

 

Even if the obstacles were much thicker, it probably wouldn't have made as much of a difference in most cases. I had been practicing before in the Pit in the Outlaw's Den as well as the canyons there that have very big rocks that are many meters across. The only time a LoS obstacle is lethal is when you are Marksmanship and for some reason decided to Entrench right next to a pillar Also, there was a rule that the duels should start at 30m which IMO heavily slanted most matchups in favor of the Sniper. But it also would be odd if someone could just run right up to you while the duel countdown is still ticking if the 30m rule is not enforced.

 

Edit: Edited my giant post above and added a few more observations.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Jenzali

[ZipZep]

hehe, im gonna nod at the "using probe at forceshroud". Thats a guarenteed loss right there and so so very annoying.

 

Very nice post mate, interesting read.

[NoTomorrow]

If you accidentally use your Interrogation Probe just as they use Force Shroud then you might as well forfeit the duel right there, since it will go on cooldown and you're a sitting duck for the next 18 seconds, being unable to stun them or use your EMP Discharge (if they cleanse with Shroud after you've applied it, the cooldown will reset.

 

yeah i need to mention this in the guide. I wasted enough interrogations probes to this crap.

[paowee]

yeah i need to mention this in the guide. I wasted enough interrogations probes to this crap.

 

Wait let me clarify...

 

IP -> ASSASSIN - (FORCE SHROUD) = will cleanse your IP and reset its cooldown (?)

 

(FORCE SHROUD) - IP - ASSASSIN = will "resist" your IP but not reset its cooldown (?)

[CJNJ]

Wait let me clarify...

 

IP -> ASSASSIN - (FORCE SHROUD) = will cleanse your IP and reset its cooldown (?)

 

(FORCE SHROUD) - IP - ASSASSIN = will "resist" your IP but not reset its cooldown (?)

 

Yep. And keep in mind this pretty much is the exact opposite of the SoS dots too lol

[NoTomorrow]

now you got me confused.

 

Please tell me what will happen with engineering SoS:

• SoS -> After SoS finishes, Force Shroud while SoS DoT still active.
  
• SoS -> Force Shroud during SoS cast.
  
• Force Shrourd -> SoS while Force Shroud still active
  

[ZipZep]

now you got me confused.

 

Please tell me what will happen with engineering SoS:

• SoS -> After SoS finishes, Force Shroud while SoS DoT still active.
  
• SoS -> Force Shroud during SoS cast.
  
• Force Shrourd -> SoS while Force Shroud still active
  

 

1: His shroud will instantly remove the SoS DoT.

2: I think shroud also removes the DoT's here, or maybe I just never get the assassin back out of stealth because shroud lasts long enough for SoS to go away first? Will try test this tonight.

3: This I think is the only time when SoS tactic is gonna work.