36/3/7 Sharpshooter Guide [UPDATED]

[namesaretough]

 

XS Freighter Flyby is a little bit iffy in Dread Guards, especially with all the movement in Phase 2 and 3, and in Phase 1 the incidental AoE damage to Ciphas and Kel'sara buffs their damage output. I feel confident about being able to put out better numbers once I become more comfortable with the mechanics and rotation changes required for each fight.

 

If you have a good handle on the size of the AOE from flyby, you can drop it to the side of the bosses in phase 1 so it only hits Heirad (behind the bosses on the pull, further uses depend on exactly where your tanks keep the bosses), but misplacing it is going to make the tanks take a fair amount more damage, so be careful. In Phase 2, the best time I've found to flyby is immediately after Ciphas strangles someone, especially if your tanks move to him when they swap instead of pulling him around the room.

[paowee]

DG Council OS/Flyby we use it on these instances:

 

p1

opener on the boss

after Ciphas' choke

during lightning surge (as soon as he Heirad channels)

 

p2

after choke

 

p3

sometimes on adds (single target the caster first then orbital the other 2 if possible; i think there is an extra mechanic here that i forgot. something about the adds using their overload if you AoE them down...)

after force leech or after green laser beam

[paowee]

Sam you forgot Claimed's new 3100 http://www.torparse.com/a/326841/time/1373213344/1373213658/0/Damage+Dealt Edited July 8, 2013 by paowee

[SamuelAU]

Sam you forgot Claimed's new 3100 http://www.torparse.com/a/326841/time/1373213344/1373213658/0/Damage+Dealt

Fixed.

DG Council OS/Flyby we use it on these instances:

 

p1

opener on the boss

after Ciphas' choke

during lightning surge (as soon as he Heirad channels)

 

p2

after choke

 

p3

sometimes on adds (single target the caster first then orbital the other 2 if possible; i think there is an extra mechanic here that i forgot. something about the adds using their overload if you AoE them down...)

after force leech or after green laser beam

Thanks for that, the only time I was using it was for the opener. I'll have to give it a crack when I get in there again.

[lazerxxx]

What is the benefit of the hybrid spec and whats up with the 79 points in alacrity? awesome thread btw!

[Snarkasms]

Sharpshooter can be a cast-heavy rotation - 1.5 seconds for charged burst, 1.5-2.5 for aimed shot, the channel on speed shot - alac can be helpful here. I don't know what the sweet spot is for noticeable channel reduction vs negative impact on damage, though.

[SamuelAU]

What is the benefit of the hybrid spec and whats up with the 79 points in alacrity? awesome thread btw!

The hybrid is (more or less) equal to the 36/3/7 sharpshooter spec in terms of single-target damage. Sharpshooter is better for switching targets and hybrid is better for AoE. Both specs will suffer from movement, albeit depending on whereabouts you are in the rotation, but hybrid is able to do more (reapply DoTs for example) on the run than SS.

 

I'm not quite sure about the suggested 79 alacrity for SS, personally I strongly disagree. As touched on in the first post, three of your highest-percentage DPS abilities all benefit from buffs to critical chance and multiplier which increases the usefulness of surge over alacrity. Both myself and Paowee take 0 alacrity, 395 Accuracy (99.51%/109.51%) and 395 Surge (71.08%). Paowee has also added one accuracy augment for 427 Accuracy (99.71%) in order to get a bit closer to 100% ranged (iirc, might need validation from Paowee himself). Not recommended if you're a gunslinger because most of your misses come from your offhand weapon which will have 67% accuracy if you're at 100% ranged.

 

Hope this answered your questions and I'm glad you like the thread.

[SamuelAU]

Sharpshooter can be a cast-heavy rotation - 1.5 seconds for charged burst, 1.5-2.5 for aimed shot, the channel on speed shot - alac can be helpful here. I don't know what the sweet spot is for noticeable channel reduction vs negative impact on damage, though.

I didn't see your reply until after I replied myself, but I'd just like to add that even though SS is very cast-heavy, it also has cast time reductions (instant CB, AS reduction), an alacrity buff every 45 seconds (BV) and it's a very quick and fluid rotation.

 

Alacrity was touched-on in the previous incarnation of this thread too.

From what I recall you would need something like 700 alacrity to squeeze another ability into your rotation and would be giving up a lot of your stat budget to accomplish it.

In short, alacrity doesn't have a significant effect until you're stacking it in very high quantities, at which point the surge you're losing drops your DPS by so much that there is no competition.

Edited July 9, 2013 by SamuelAU

[Snarkasms]

Yep, that's basically what I was saying, though perhaps poorly. You'd need a lot to make a dent, and by then you're probably eating through too much of your primary damage stat budget. Edited July 9, 2013 by Snarkasms

[paowee]

Anyway, Claimed vs B'. 5m 14 seconds. Claimed 16 DPS more.

 

ability-claimed-b

fob - 1 - 14 <-- 13 more rifle shots? -_-

SaboC - 1 - 2

FS - 7 - 9

dot - 17 - 14 <-- clipping dot = good

flyby - 6 - 6

as - 19 - 19

cb - 40 - 45 <-- hmm

ss - 26 - 27

ts - 65 - 65

 

Notes:

• Looking back, 13 RS meant i needed energy. When do i need energy specifically? During Orbital Strike when TA/AP is not up. OS in my rotation comes after 2 Snipe + FT. Seeing as i did 5 more snipes that means the RS was spread out over the course of 2 OS rotations. Safe to say i auto-attacked quite a lot towards the end of that 5m 14s .
  
• Following up on that one, BV / SV was always up for his Flyby / OS. This rotation is definitely a good perspective / alternative and perhaps even optimal (Re: 1 autoattack vs 14 autoattacks).
  
• illegal mods he saved until well after the opener. saved it for an OS rotation in the middle of the parse.

09:09:xx:xxx Fight starts

....

09:10:47.141 Claimed activates XS Freighter Flyby.

09:10:48.845 Claimed's Bleeding (Tech) hits Operations Training Dummy for 690 internal damage, causing 690 threat.

09:10:48.948 Claimed spends 30 energy.

09:10:49.441 Claimed activates Illegal Mods (first use of Illegal Mods / Target Acquired)

 

 

The 3126 is a pretty old parse and haven't played with it since then. As we see more parses from other people, it just really solidifies the fact that Corrosive Dart / Vital Shot is strong and should be kept up as much as you can without hindering your Followthroughs and Trickshots. Will probably practice it but don't have the motivation right now ._.

Edited July 9, 2013 by paowee

[paowee]

Added:

 

WATCH THE TRAINING DUMMY

• Single target rotation
  
• Orbital and Flyby rotations
  
• Keeping Corrosive Dart and VItal Shot up
  
• EDIT: For better energy management, try delaying your OS/FB so you can cast it within SV/BV's energy regen buff.
   
  

Edited July 9, 2013 by paowee

[paowee]

I'm trying to do Claimed's rotation:

 

No IM / TA at the beginning.

IM / TA used after the opener (i think with the 2nd Flyby / OS)

BV / SV and then Flyby / OS along the way before the energy regen buff wears off.

 

Needs more practice.. i'm not having any luck lol. Granted i think i am too used to my rotation and doubt i will try to swap over to the one he is using >_<. But for starters it's always a good alternative to combine OS / Flyby with SV / BV. It really helps alleviate some energy issues.

Edited July 10, 2013 by paowee

[SamuelAU]

Looking at your 3126 parse, Paowee, I did notice that you used rifle shot, much more than I did on my best attempts. However, if I do an ability-by-ability comparison in 6m 48s:

 

Ability - Gomerik - B'oarder

FoB - 6 - 15

SC - 4 - 4

FS - 12 - 9

VS - 22 - 18

XS - 8 - 9

AS - 23 - 26

CB - 44 - 50

SS - 31 - 34

TS - 75 - 85

 

I don't think you using rifle shot more is a bad thing if it's necessary and you're pushing your energy. I'm clearly losing almost 20 GCDs over time span of almost 7 minutes, not trying to make excuses but I do play on 250+ ms. I just thought you'd want another perspective on your use of rifle shot.

[paowee]

Looking at your 3126 parse, Paowee, I did notice that you used rifle shot, much more than I did on my best attempts. However, if I do an ability-by-ability comparison in 6m 48s:

 

Ability - Gomerik - B'oarder

FoB - 6 - 15

SC - 4 - 4

FS - 12 - 9

VS - 22 - 18

XS - 8 - 9

AS - 23 - 26

CB - 44 - 50

SS - 31 - 34

TS - 75 - 85

 

I don't think you using rifle shot more is a bad thing if it's necessary and you're pushing your energy. I'm clearly losing almost 20 GCDs over time span of almost 7 minutes, not trying to make excuses but I do play on 250+ ms. I just thought you'd want another perspective on your use of rifle shot.

Oh ok that makes sense... I was just surprised at first when my guildie pointed out i had 14 rifle shots in 5m 14seconds. 250 ms... yea that is going to be a bit difficult. I am playing at 35-90 ms right now in the bastion.

 

Anyway here is a raid parse of NiM TFB last boss in 8-man. I am wearing Full UW gear. Still getting surprised at the DPS gain i get using 36/3/7 >_<. Don't bother looking at the Kephess fight though lol. Our strategy is stop DPS at 51% and then wait for another round of nanites and then burn him into Phase 2.

Edited July 10, 2013 by paowee

[Falver]

Yeah. I use a bit of an unorthodox style for my rotation. Ideally, I myself would like to cast my OS/XS on cooldown if at all possible, but I push it back one rotation in favor of doing:

speed shot -> trick shot -> speed shot -> (filler if XS is on cooldown, most likely vital shot or flourish shot) -> flyby -> trickshot

 

The 30 energy consumption topped off with a 5 energy trickshot and with burst volley gives me about 5 seconds to maximize my energy regeneration without a massive need to use cool head or illegal mods. I treat both as my absolute emergency energy refill.

[Whojoo]

Gotta admit, great build this. Altho I do ignore FS. Having to think wether to use or not to use it is to muhc different rotations for me to get used to. (It might be a small difference, but for my head it turns into a complete new rotation to remember).

Besides, most of the time one of my teammates does this armor debuff anyway.

 

It surprised me how easy it was to get used to this. Altho I tend to forget a VS every now and then

Thx for all the hard work you guys put into this ^^

[paowee]

Gotta admit, great build this. Altho I do ignore FS. Having to think wether to use or not to use it is to muhc different rotations for me to get used to. (It might be a small difference, but for my head it turns into a complete new rotation to remember).

Besides, most of the time one of my teammates does this armor debuff anyway.

 

It surprised me how easy it was to get used to this. Altho I tend to forget a VS every now and then

Thx for all the hard work you guys put into this ^^

 

On the dummy yeah you can ignore FS altogether since someone is bound to keep it up in the raid anyways (hopefully you have a jugg or an arsenal merc .

 

On forgetting to use VS...... ok on the dummy it may happen because you are constantly trying to squeeze and "perfect" everything. But in a raid VS should have a very high uptime and there should be no excuse to forget using it! lol. This is why...

 

There is a lot of "downtime" in actual raids. You can not just sit and turrent and tunnel on your rotation. When NiM SnV comes everytime you move to dodge a circle on Titan 6, Thrasher, Olok, and all the movement required for Cartel Warlords, all these open up a chance to cast, refresh and even clip Vital Shot. A perfect example of "downtime" that helps your Vital Shot uptime would be NiM TFB last boss and Operator IX.

 

1. Op9 invulnerability phases -> pre-DoT and hard cast Aimed Shot

2. TFB last boss in phase 2 -> when tentacle slams, jump out, refresh Vital Shot. While jumping around platforms you can also DoT TFB boss himself as well!

 

Pretty much everytime you are forced to move is an "ok" time to clip and cast your Vital Shot. But ofcourse it all depends. You don't really want to clip your DoT 16 seconds in just because a circle suddenly appeared on your feet

Edited July 10, 2013 by paowee

[Whojoo]

On the dummy yeah you can ignore FS altogether since someone is bound to keep it up in the raid anyways (hopefully you have a jugg or an arsenal merc .

 

On forgetting to use VS...... ok on the dummy it may happen because you are constantly trying to squeeze and "perfect" everything. But in a raid VS should have a very high uptime and there should be no excuse to forget using it! lol. This is why...

 

There is a lot of "downtime" in actual raids. You can not just sit and turrent and tunnel on your rotation. When NiM SnV comes everytime you move to dodge a circle on Titan 6, Thrasher, Olok, and all the movement required for Cartel Warlords, all these open up a chance to cast, refresh and even clip Vital Shot. A perfect example of "downtime" that helps your Vital Shot uptime would be NiM TFB last boss and Operator IX.

 

1. Op9 invulnerability phases -> pre-DoT and hard cast Aimed Shot

2. TFB last boss in phase 2 -> when tentacle slams, jump out, refresh Vital Shot. While jumping around platforms you can also DoT TFB boss himself as well!

 

Pretty much everytime you are forced to move is an "ok" time to clip and cast your Vital Shot. But ofcourse it all depends. You don't really want to clip your DoT 16 seconds in just because a circle suddenly appeared on your feet

 

Yea I know. Been SS from 10 till 55 and never used VS. So it takes some getting used to Luckly my guild is not that active in ops atm so I have some training time

Thx again for the build ^^

[SamuelAU]

Yeah. I use a bit of an unorthodox style for my rotation. Ideally, I myself would like to cast my OS/XS on cooldown if at all possible, but I push it back one rotation in favor of doing:

speed shot -> trick shot -> speed shot -> (filler if XS is on cooldown, most likely vital shot or flourish shot) -> flyby -> trickshot

 

The 30 energy consumption topped off with a 5 energy trickshot and with burst volley gives me about 5 seconds to maximize my energy regeneration without a massive need to use cool head or illegal mods. I treat both as my absolute emergency energy refill.

That's how I previously used XS Freighter Flyby and it's a lot easier on energy and you get the added bonus of the alacrity buff from BV being applied to the cast of XS. I can't yet say whether there is an obvious best place to drop XS Freighter Flyby, but no doubt where you drop it has an effect on your energy level and damage output. I probably need to look into it a bit more.

[Falver]

Yeah, there are two trade offs:

You cast flyby on CD and don't necessarily time it with burst volley, forcing you to auto attack more in general.

You delay flyby or burst volley to align it with the other, delaying your CDs (and lowering dps) but using less auto attacks.

 

That is what it comes down to ultimately, pick your poison.

 

As you can see in my and B'oarder's parses, both are very viable dps wise.

Edited July 11, 2013 by Falver

[paowee]

Check out 8-man NiM Terror From Beyond in torparse! It has been updated with my last NiM TFB run from this week... still wearing full UW with no void disturbance, and ofcourse using Samuel's 36/3/7

 

http://www.torparse.com/statistics

 

Sorry.. Just savoring it while it lasts before people get KD gear (i am on LOA from this game) and before the website goes down on July 27th

Edited July 12, 2013 by paowee

[dahyle]

----- Edited August 26, 2021 by dahyle

[SamuelAU]

Jumped into NiM S&V the other day and realized quickly that Sharpshooter is awful for Dash'roode. The 5/18/23 hybrid is easily the best spec for that fight. Having more AoE options that hit harder (I saw a 9.3k Flyby hit during inspiration, made me giddy), being able to DoT up Dash'roode on the move between shields, and having your DoTs continuously ticking while you change targets is fantastic. I had one 2100 DPS attempt on SS (very poor by any standards) before switching to the hybrid and pushing 2.9/3k consistently. Just a PSA that 36/3/7 isn't the be-all and end-all!

Hello guys, anyone tried this for dot-oriented MM/SS ?

One more tick for CD/VS, and still one point on lucky double tick. Maybe a good one too.

Have to say I doubt adding 3 seconds to the duration of vital shot will outweight the ~40+ DPS lost from halving your double-tick chance. Getting into the habit of proactively refreshing vital shot should be ideal over increasing its duration.

Edited July 13, 2013 by SamuelAU

[Saacius]

So I'm currently gearing up my sniper.

 

But nearly all pieces of black market gear, either sharpshooter, or mender, come with crit and surge with no power, except for like 2 pieces.

 

I can't really afford to spend 1.5 million credits per mod for any of the pieces to replace all the crit. Should I replace the ones I don't need with the level 53 artful mods? I lose a bit of cunning end, but gain power. Would It be wise do that, or just leave all the crit mods as is?

[Falver]

http://www.torparse.com/a/340415/time/1373996466/1373996786/0/Damage+Dealt

3088 DPS; 33.17% crit

http://www.torparse.com/a/340436/time/1373997569/1373997883/0/Damage+Dealt

3099 DPS; 29.67% crit

While this isn't the highest DPS parse I've done, I think this is probably the best one I've done in general. Notice the lack of auto attacks and 5 sabotage charges in the first and 6 sabotage charges in the second.

The second parse in particular is interesting, the crit percentages are all sub-par and is by far one of my highest parses.

More to come! With the additional 60~70 DPS of having sabotage charge, you have consistently more parses in the 3000 range.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Falver