Does sniper have any counter now?

[NoTomorrow]

I know plenty well how to take on snipers. If I have all my CDs and the sniper doesn't, of course I win. If its reverse, of course he wins. My point is, right now, 1 v 1, what primarily determines the outcome of the encounter is the engaging distance. If we engage at 30m distance, I lose big time. If I can engage him at melee range or with a sniper positioned close to a wall / pillar (favorite snipers are those who try to solo guard mid in civil war from the balcony - easy kills ), I will win. With the roll, this completely changes in favor of the sniper. Basically, it makes something which is hard enough (getting close to a sniper while maintaining LOS etc) practically impossible (now you have to do it twice !).

 

Using blade storm without precision + combat trance is a waste, both of which require melee range. If I waste obfuscate / saber ward on just closing the gap, by the time I close the gap and actually start doing some damage, half my defensive CDs are gone, while the sniper has not used a SINGLE cd. And any sniper worth his salt will follow up roll with a root, so closing that 4m to even use obfuscate will be a pain.

 

Basically, I have to hope that the sniper's roll makes him roll up against a wall / pillar. Else I die.

 

well, a good sniper that knows marauder class well, doesn't need the new toys to win. A bad sniper will lose even with the roll available. So we are talking about average skilled snipers that for some reason neglected the rules of engagement with a marauder of just been busy with somebody else.

 

You feel that the balance have been shifted in the sniper's favor. You might be right, but what do you propose to this? Would you rather snipers get a new extra damaging attack, or some defensive cooldown? There are really not much options here.

 

Making roots block this new roll so you can hold him in place? There are too many changes in the entire metagame to come up with a single solution. We also got self cleanse now. We would cleanse the root then sniper roll.

 

The general concept of 2.0 patch is make extreme things in SWTOR even more extremes. Who would have thought that assassins need an extra mobility spell? Now they got it.

 

As for ppl calling sniper FOTM, i learned not to give any credit to them, after every new patch we see the rises of Sniper FOTM incoming! Prophets. It will never happen. It's a specialist class that will rarely be liked by everyone given its stationary playstyle.

Edited February 22, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[tacito]

Complete ballocks. Concealment will dominate snipers as usually. It has A total of +17 stealth levels from talents. Add sneak +10 and a sniper will never detect concealment, even after stying in cover for 30s.

 

Those who say otherwise are simply uninformed. Stop this panic about snipers suddenly countering everything as it is not true.

 

Uh, +17 effective stealth level from talents as concealment? I'm counting 4. Two from Infiltrator, two from Shadow Operative Elite. Where are the other 13 passive levels of stealth increase hidden?

[NoTomorrow]

Uh, +17 effective stealth level from talents as concealment? I'm counting 4. Two from Infiltrator, two from Shadow Operative Elite. Where are the other 13 passive levels of stealth increase hidden?

 

my apologies, there was a mistake taken from swtor spy that stated that infiltrator gave +15. OK, this was false. You can still open on a 30 stacks of detection sniper with concealment hidden strike. Here is the math:

 

The number of stacks the sniper has (visible on the the buff bar) = how close you can come to him (meters) before he detect you. (from his face side). Your stealth levels go against it. You got +4 passive from skills and +15 from sneak.

 

A sniper with full 30 stacks you can approach him as close as 11m distance he will not be able to detect you. You also have the new scamper/exfiltrate, which can cover the rest of the distance for a quick hidden strike and thus successfully opening on them.

 

All this math goes to nowhere the moment when you are approaching the sniper from the back.

 

As you see, Concealment will always be able to open on snipers, no problem.

Edited February 22, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[tacito]

I had a stealthed operative with the stealth increasing talents targeted on my sniper yesterday. Distance as given by UI indication was 30.1 meters. Spotter buff was at 30 stacks.

 

The "stealth detection - stealth increase = detection range" thing is tempting, but by that logic, a stealther with no increases shouldn't be spotted by any character without detection buffs outside of 0 m distance. The distance to spot someone with no stealth increases is actually closer to 8 m.

 

It's not the end of the world, but actual testing is impossible right now (good luck killing a 780k hp MM sniper with 85k cunning), so it's hard to tell if the combined power of Spotter passive + the cover roll are putting snipers in a good spot or in a "nobody will ever touch us again, period" spot.

[NoTomorrow]

there are special modifier to being in front of your victim or behind it.

 

Without sneak, you can come as close as 8m from behind to snipers. with sneak, you will always open on them.

[Mike_Landers]

Behold the new FOTM class....good job Bioware.

What is the counter class to snipers/gunslingers? Oh wait, there's none! All other class are simply free kills.

And don't talk to me about LOS.When you LOS you not gaining any advantage over a sniper, you just escaping death.

LOS has never killed any sniper/gunslinger.

 

Truly disappointing

[iDraxter]

Behold the new FOTM class....good job Bioware.

What is the counter class to snipers/gunslingers? Oh wait, there's none! All other class are simply free kills.

And don't talk to me about LOS.When you LOS you not gaining any advantage over a sniper, you just escaping death.

LOS has never killed any sniper/gunslinger.

 

Truly disappointing

i can see it now! 5-6 snipers per team and hutball where the guy that goes to pick up the ball drops in 1.5 seconds! good times ahead good times:D

[NoTomorrow]

LOS has never killed any sniper/gunslinger.

 

hahahaha Interesting, you seem to be coming from a game where DoTs do not exist.

[Halacs]

my apologies, there was a mistake taken from swtor spy that stated that infiltrator gave +15. OK, this was false. You can still open on a 30 stacks of detection sniper with concealment hidden strike. Here is the math:

 

The number of stacks the sniper has (visible on the the buff bar) = how close you can come to him (meters) before he detect you. (from his face side). Your stealth levels go against it. You got +4 passive from skills and +15 from sneak.

 

A sniper with full 30 stacks you can approach him as close as 11m distance he will not be able to detect you. You also have the new scamper/exfiltrate, which can cover the rest of the distance for a quick hidden strike and thus successfully opening on them.

 

All this math goes to nowhere the moment when you are approaching the sniper from the back.

 

As you see, Concealment will always be able to open on snipers, no problem.

 

^^^

This guy gets it.

[NoTomorrow]

here is a beautiful explanation of sniper stealth detect, as it looks now, with sneak you will always be able to come from behind. It's just that you can no longer walk with complete impunity in their faces like you used to do before:

 

From testing on the PTS, vs. an attentive sniper with 30 stacks of stealth detect, approaching from the front is unadvisable even with sneak up and using the roll. Fully stacked, a sniper can spot a sneaked concealment op who's in his frontal cone at nearly 20 meters. You can roll to 8m, but the sniper is still going to have at least a global's worth of warning. Unsneaked you'll be spotted from nearly 30m.

 

If you can get behind the sniper, tho, then using sneak you can still easily get in range for hidden strike without being spotted or using the roll. Even without sneak if you're behind the sniper you have to be within about 8m to be spotted.

 

A sniper sitting in a corner with 30 stacks of stealth detect ought to be pretty safe from stealth opens and sap/caps. The first room of voidstar has a couple of corners on the first door where a sniper could solo guard effectively. The huts in Novare are probably the same way. Civil war and hypergates I'm not so sure on.

 

also this:

 

I have only had a few games to test because a) my Scrapper hasn't been copied and b) PvP + Bolster = broken, but I had a different experience even against competent snipers.

 

It turns out that, no matter where the sniper sits, the Op CAN get off the opener as long as he gets off a good roll. If the defender is camping in a corner near the door, the Sniper won't see approaches made from the sides (just beyond the pillars. By skirting along the wall near those pillars, you can get within a few meters of the sniper's detection cone. If you strafe around the corner and aim your roll perfectly into the sniper's corner, you end up behind him; as long as you have a slight GCD reduction, this gives the sniper less than 1 second to react, and even good players are not perpetually ready to respond. I won't name names, but I recognized at least two snipers that I succeeded opening on in Voidstar, and they were both good players. But I also mis-angled my rolls and ended up too far in front of the sniper to get the opener off.

 

Alternately, if you think you can win the fight without Dirty Kick, you can just Sleep Dart on approach and then open with Shoot First as you get close. Given how much burstier we are now because of the GCD reductions off of Alacrity, this is also a viable option but might be somewhat gear dependent.

 

The real problem right now are guardians. New Shield chance against Tech + Reflect is a big danger.

Edited February 22, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[SentinelDranoel]

No matter in what version of the game, the sniper always has been a class dependent on his team to peform well. Give me a marauder that can keep the enemy's attention on himself and i will rack up kills. The class was never overpowered, it's our team mates that help in peforming our job.

 

I agree 100%. The class is very situational. Most veteran Snipers/Gunslingers know to pick their spots. For the people that are complaining you can't beat them-you better learn. My Gunslinger is my main, so whenever I go against a GS/Sniper in pvp, I already know their rotation and their defensive abilities.

[JackNader]

Complete ballocks. Concealment will dominate snipers as usually. It has A total of +17 stealth levels from talents. Add sneak +10 and a sniper will never detect concealment, even after stying in cover for 30s.

 

Those who say otherwise are simply uninformed. Stop this panic about snipers suddenly countering everything as it is not true.

 

Confirmed.. I tested this earlier. I can tell you now that with the redesigned opening for conceleament.. their damage is actually greater now on open than they were pre 2.0. Concealment will still faceroll snipers unless they are baddies.

[NoTomorrow]

Confirmed.. I tested this earlier. I can tell you now that with the redesigned opening for conceleament.. their damage is actually greater now on open than they were pre 2.0. Concealment will still faceroll snipers unless they are baddies.

 

the only correction to my original statement: Concealment has access to +4 stealth levels in skill trees. Sneak gives +15 stealth levels.

 

Of course the primary factor her is whether you are approaching the sniper from his face or from his back. The only difference that this stealth detection has made, is that concealment can no longer come with complete impunity herp derp from the front.

Edited February 22, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[MusicRider]

hahahaha Interesting, you seem to be coming from a game where DoTs do not exist.

 

Which snipers can cleanse them now.

[NoTomorrow]

Which snipers can cleanse them now.

 

only once per minute. No sniper will waste his evasion on cleansing dots that you can reapply so easily. It may give some small edge against madness by removing crushing darkness before it fully ticks, but this shouldn't be much of a problem. I'd rather keep my evasion for something more important: a Carnage Mara reaty to tear me apart.

[MusicRider]

only once per minute. No sniper will waste his evasion on cleansing dots that you can reapply so easily. It may give some small edge against madness by removing crushing darkness before it fully ticks, but this shouldn't be much of a problem. I'd rather keep my evasion for something more important: a Carnage Mara reaty to tear me apart.

 

Once a minute is a very viable cooldown. And the only dot that can be reapplied easily is one, the rest have cooldowns and/or casting times. I am afraid that this cleansing skill and the force speed that snipers got were totally unnecessary.

[NoTomorrow]

You can stay in my line of sight for 10 full seconds while the jug ball carrier moving to intercede towards you. The entire metagame is changing. We cannot move into the new expansion with old concepts. The very same jug can now reflect my 5000 ambushes+4000 FT back at me and i have to deal with that. Edited February 22, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[MusicRider]

I'd rather keep my evasion for something more important (i fill in this for you:) than a sage's dots: a Carnage Mara reaty to tear me apart.

You just agreed how stupid fluffy unthreatening sage's dots are that are not even worth of cleansing.

[ChickenEveryday]

You just agreed how stupid fluffy unthreatening sage's dots are that are not even worth of cleansing.

 

Pretty sure the burst from a carnage marauder will do more than 3 dots from a madness sorc.

[MusicRider]

You can stay in my line of sight for 10 full seconds while the jug ball carrier moving to intercede towards you.

Nah, get a stealth shadow to do that. It has always been as such.

The very same jug can now reflect my 5000 ambushes+4000 FT back at me and i have to deal with that.

You are not the only one mate on this. Only one 18s dot will be able to pass on this time. The rest of sage's attacks are reflected too.

[NoTomorrow]

You just agreed how stupid fluffy unthreatening sage's dots are that are not even worth of cleansing.

 

you did get a damage buff on most of your DoTs, didn't you? may be i am exagerrating? Your improved heals will make it much more difficult for me to kill your team mates. I don't know what's the deal with new lightning tree. And i've yet to have a look at madness 2.0. The loss of instacast whirlwind is a sad thing of course.

[MusicRider]

Pretty sure the burst from a carnage marauder will do more than 3 dots from a madness sorc.

 

Of course. No sarcasm needed... if you want to be sarcastic we can always talk in guild. The point is that the dots are NOT even considered as a threat to use the cleansing ability.

[NoTomorrow]

Of course. No sarcasm needed... if you want to be sarcastic we can always talk in guild. The point is that the dots are NOT even considered as a threat to use the cleansing ability.

 

i'll have a look on the madness 2.0, then express my opinions about it.

[IAmViiOLENT]

Not true, good snipers can be brought down.http://www.twitch.tv/devilswtor/b/369970165

From 1:20 - 1:58 in the video, I duel Devil several times, winning a wide majority of them. He's a 2600 rated sniper from Jedi Covenant, and ends up using every single spec that he has. When he first switches to engineering, I lose a few times and then after learning how to combat it come back and start winning. Long story short, he ended up talking trash to a few of the other PvPers from Harbinger in his stream chat and they all came out to DK to duel and beat him.

We ended up getting a dozen or so people out there on DK dueling as well, so you can watch some pretty great match ups. (Creus/Full Heal Sorc Vs Theeopfotm/Carnage Mara) and see how new class mechanics work to counter each other.

[MusicRider]

you did get a damage buff on most of your DoTs, didn't you? may be i am exagerrating? Your improved heals will make it much more difficult for me to kill your team mates. I don't know what's the deal with new lightning tree. And i've yet to have a look at madness 2.0. The loss of instacast whirlwind is a sad thing of course.

 

Weaken mind remains as it is and in factg unless there is a 20% increase in its damage with the 20% increase in time duration it end up doing less damage per tick from what it currently does. Mind crush get a 9% extra damage but it has always been kinetic damage, sever force well it was ridiculous for its damage so a slight increase won't make a penny difference. The only exciting thing is the extra dots when specced from force lightning and distrurbance. If this makes some good damage given its randomness then the tree might be in for some serious business.