[Class Brainstorming] Snipers & Gunslingers' PVE questions

[Sosajoshua]

If they should do the same average dps on the dummy (and Bioware never said anything about specs staying within 5% of the dummy, they refered to proper fights!), you would simply create overpowered specs (Smash Specs, Advanced Prototype, Marksmann...) and completely unusable specs (Lethality, Vengeance, Pyro...).

 

In what universe is AP Powertech overpowered? Either I missed something or you must obviously mean my 1% elemental dmg boost to HGC.

 

But yeah lets buff the damage of Smash to 15000, so that the rage spec can perform similar on the dummy, let's buff Flame Thrower from Advanced Prototype by 7500 , and so on....

 

Oh well you wanna lower my Shoulder Cannon cooldown and boost my Flameburst and Retractable Blade I'd be happier with that actually.

 

How you would say MM and AP are equal is beyond but yes MM has some very high dps especially over the other sets though I wouldnt say it is broken that it needs a nerf. Nerfing does nothing in this game but piss people off. Balancing other sets to match it as close as possible is needed, like giving Eng better use of Suppressive Fire, Scatter bombs, etc.

[THoK-Zeus]

In what universe is AP Powertech overpowered? Either I missed something or you must obviously mean my 1% elemental dmg boost to HGC.

If AP Powertechs would get similar dummy damage to pyro, the spec would be overpowered.

It's a heavy burst specs (more shoulder cannon ticks, just 1 dot) and a heavy aoe spec (Flamethrower deals more damage then Smash and is a big part of the single target Rotation). If it would do the same damage on a dummy as pyro, there would simply be no reason to play the pyro spec.

 

Why choosing pyro, if you can do the same damage faster and to multiple enemys?

 

Oh well you wanna lower my Shoulder Cannon cooldown and boost my Flameburst and Retractable Blade I'd be happier with that actually.

 

How you would say MM and AP are equal is beyond but yes MM has some very high dps especially over the other sets though I wouldnt say it is broken that it needs a nerf. Nerfing does nothing in this game but piss people off. Balancing other sets to match it as close as possible is needed, like giving Eng better use of Suppressive Fire, Scatter bombs, etc.

That was sarcasm.

 

MM and AP are a similar type of spec (aside from the fact that AP is a heavy aoe spec). Both specs have very good defensive utilities for raids (aoe reduction....), are able to target swap very fast, can deal very high burst damage and have next to zero ramp-up time.

 

These natural advantages of the specs come very handy in an actual Boss fight, but are not at all represented in a dummy parse.

 

There's a reason that the World 1st kills of Scum and Villainy Nightmare Mode and Dread Fortress Nightmare Mode both had an AP Powertech as a dps.

Edited May 1, 2014 by THoK-Zeus

[DieGhostDie]

This idea was suggested to an old guild member of mine a few months back but I think Countermeasures needs some Threat Dropping improvement to nearly as strong as a Marauder's Threat Drop. Since we have the best opening burst overall, we might as well petition for that kind of QoL.

[Ravenxox]

I definitely agree with Surrender/Countermeasures needing a rework, the amout of threat dropped seems very lackluster compared to Force Camo and Diversion/Chaff Flare. While (usually) effective against single targets, it doesnt hold water against a pack of mobs. A class with an AoE heavy (albeit broken) spec like the Gunslinger/Sniper should be paired with a power significant, AoE threat drop.

 

Saboteur/Engineering has been broken for a while now, I personally doubt BioWare placed the issue high on the 'to fix list. To increase DoT uptime and AoE damage, isnt it possible to have the Incindiary Grenade/Plasma Probe either

1. Apply Shock Charge/Interrogation Probe to every target in the AoE during the first X seconds it ticks faster (make IG/PP require a single target, single Target must have SC/IP on it to work)

or 2. Have the AoE from IG/PP apply stack(s) of Blazing Speed/Electrified Railgun DoTs on any target that enters it. This gives us some more 'room' in our rotation for other fluff abilities to boost DPS higher. On my personal parses full ranged Sabotage parses a good 400-500 behind the SS and DF (admitted, 3.7k parses on SS are a rare thing)

 

As for Dirty Fighting/Lethality, here an interesting idea. Feel free to shoot it down, but this is brainstorming right ? Quickdraw/Takedown is currently energy-neutral due to 4-set PvE bonus. Make QD/TD free, Hemo/Weakning Blast cost energy (perhaps same amount a QD/TD?) but reduce its CD. (fit it in the rotation so every WS/Cull can be buffed, as mentioned before in this thread).

 

Oh! Heres a fun one too! Boost the damage done by Sweeping Blasters/Supressive Fire in SS/MM trees, duh. The ability is extremely lacking if you look at the DMG/Energy ratio. Boost it by a good margin to make it worthwhile. I'd rather throw Frags/Thermals nowadays for they are instant and yellow dmg instead of weapon.

 

Yes, I have the tendency of using a lot of brackets. Sorry about that

[DieGhostDie]

Yes, I have the tendency of using a lot of brackets. Sorry about that

 

Brackets....brackets everywhere.

[Sosajoshua]

Why not just make the AoE Suppressive Fire good for the idk AoE Spec Engineering. They already nerfed Orbital Strike so i dont see why for Eng they dont at least 1) boost SE dmg and for Engineering allow it to have reduced energy cost (since it already gets a 15% boost on the Eng tree) or 2) as stated above but differently give Suppressive Fire the Electrified Railgun dot (instead of Overload Shot).

 

Through this we can get more overall use of SE which the first possibly more use for all specs and the both changes for Eng spec

[dinwitt]

Not to risk getting back to the topic, but I feel like at least one of our questions should be crafted to try and get a clearer understanding as to how Bioware balances classes. I don't have in mind an exact wording, but something along the lines of asking what factors (utility, mobility, aoe capability, set up time, etc.) are taken into consideration when balancing classes, what the maximum dps differential should be, and where Bioware currently thinks our specs are at with respect to that differential (especially with the 2.8 relic nerf).

[fire-breath]

Okie ...... 6th of june is closing in on us. I noticed the voting sheet isn't up to date nor is the OP.

I hope you are still around Paowee?

 

I know Angel has done a good job assembling questions but we still must have either more questions to vote on or we must make it a vote anytime soon on the current questions (since we kinda only may ask 3 )

 

Also Paowee needs some time to write his essay after all

[THoK-Zeus]

Okie ...... 6th of june is closing in on us. I noticed the voting sheet isn't up to date nor is the OP.

I hope you are still around Paowee?

 

I know Angel has done a good job assembling questions but we still must have either more questions to vote on or we must make it a vote anytime soon on the current questions (since we kinda only may ask 3 )

 

Also Paowee needs some time to write his essay after all

 

Paowee was not online for over three weeks (in the Forums).

[SamuelAU]

If AP Powertechs would get similar dummy damage to pyro, the spec would be overpowered.

It's a heavy burst specs (more shoulder cannon ticks, just 1 dot) and a heavy aoe spec (Flamethrower deals more damage then Smash and is a big part of the single target Rotation). If it would do the same damage on a dummy as pyro, there would simply be no reason to play the pyro spec.

 

Why choosing pyro, if you can do the same damage faster and to multiple enemys?.

Pyro being buffed in 2.8 should mostly sort this out, and put the AP/Pyro relationship similar to the Rage/Vengeance relationship. You get 1 great single-target spec (think Nefra, Grob'thok, Brontes) and 1 underwhelming single-target spec which excels in AoE situations (Draxus, CZ). That's how all AoE specs should be, and the fact that engineering is not designed that way is one of my biggest problems with that spec.

[THoK-Zeus]

Pyro being buffed in 2.8 should mostly sort this out, and put the AP/Pyro relationship similar to the Rage/Vengeance relationship. You get 1 great single-target spec (think Nefra, Grob'thok, Brontes) and 1 underwhelming single-target spec which excels in AoE situations (Draxus, CZ). That's how all AoE specs should be, and the fact that engineering is not designed that way is one of my biggest problems with that spec.

 

Well yeah the relationship is similar and yes it should be done like that.

For every class that can also tank or heal Bioware has created a burst spec with a maximum of one dot (sometimes this spec deals Area damage in the single target rotation aswell) (AP, Arsenal, Deception, Lightning, Rage, Concealment).

 

With the exception of Concealment (which will probably corrected and get into line with the other burst specs with ~2.9 as they are now giving Operatives the necessary Buffs for melee dps in Operations) all of these specs deal significantly less damage then the other dot dps specs (Pyro, Madness, Vengeance, Lethality).

 

Their easier target swapping and better burst makes them really good for some of the Operation fights, tough.

 

It's pretty much the same with snipers (and marauders). One sustained dot spec (Lethality) with the highest sustained damage on average, a burst spec (marksmann) with good target swapping and additionally an AoE spec (that is not working).

 

It should definitly stay that way for snipers.

 

Offtopic:

But the pyro buffs are more or less completetly unecessary:

For example, currently Pyro Powertechs deals already over 2,7k on Brontes (see the post in the progression thread). When that specs gets the current buffs it will deal consistently over 3k on Brontes, which will put it very far ahead of every other spec in this game (My average as a marksmann sniper on this fight is ~2,8k).

Edited May 14, 2014 by THoK-Zeus

[Sosajoshua]

you know here's an idea for Scatter bomb issue (for both PvP and PvE) of the Engineering tree...why not have the Scatter Bombs drop in place instead of trail in the same fashion that the corrosive mine does. For PvE, this would mean its much more controlled in using Cover Escape to optimize dps. For PvP, it would mean we would have a much easier time fighting melee classes and could even have a more focused AoE effect to our bombs.

 

I would also say that some abilities on the tree should change to the following:

 

Electrified Railgun- When Plasma Probe and Series of Shots deal damage they apply stack.

Electrified Blast- Remove Overload Shot as adding ER stack (as it is an energy cost without Calculated Pursuit)

Imperial Auto Loader- Suppressive Fire also gets the reduced energy cost by 6

**boosts damage of Orbital Strike and Suppressive Fire

 

In this way it is much easier for us to keep our persistent up which is also a must next to Scatter bombs. Overload Shot isn't the optimal move to use even as a filler we have Snipe for that so this saves us from expending energy. The reduction in SF cost now makes it viable for use as an additional AoE in either PvP or PvE (albeit your rotation priorities come first) and with boosted damage to it and Orbital Strike we will be back as a viable choice for PvE and destructive in PvP.

[GrandHighAdmiral]

(I hope you'll cut me a little slack if this is less coherent than usual; I had to drive all night for work so I'm not 100% right now.)

 

One of our questions obviously ought to be concerning the long-standing problems with Engineering that's been otherwise discussed ad nasuem. So you can count me as another vote for whatever Engineering question yall come up with.

 

I think our second PvE question ought to be a little broader. I'd like to ask about what role Sniper is supposed to fill within a raid group, how it ought to compare to other classes, and how the different Sniper specs should compare to each other. A long, long time ago (patch 1.2, maybe?) a developer said in an interview that Sniper was supposed to be the top single-target damage class in the game. Given our lack of utility and survivability at the time, this made sense: we were the glass cannon. However, the addition of Covered Escape and the changes made to Entrench, Shield Probe, Ballistic Shield, and Evasion have made us considerably more useful, mobile, and survivable. The changes made to Orbital Strike, our set bonus, the upcoming relic fix, and the slew of buffs to every other class have made us less of a cannon and more of handgun - versatile, but hardly spectacular. Marksmanship in particular has suffered, becoming below-average even under the best of circumstances as of 2.8, and at a substantial disadvantage under less-favorable circumstances.

 

Several times in this thread and elsewhere, people have called Marksmanship a "burst-damage spec" - but considering that we lost over half our burst-damage to the OS nerf, it's hardly fair to call it a burst-damage spec any more. In fact, with nothing to synergize with Sniper Volley, MM's burst-damage phase is barely 10% above it's baseline which puts it barely equal with what sustained specs are currently running for the entire fight. Certainly in the past the spec had excellent burst-damage - but it's unclear to me whether that's ever been intentional or not. In fact, the only way BW's claim that MM was dealing "too much single-target damage" by utilizing OS makes sense to me is if the spec isn't intended as a burst-damage spec and thus OS was allowing too much burst damage.

 

As others have pointed out, Marksmanship has virtually no useable AoE and its sustained single-target DPS continues to plummet relative to other classes.

 

As we are all aware, Marksmanship's true strength is in target-swapping - where it gains approximately 10% relative to other classes. (Based on comparing "ideal" single-target parses, i.e., ops dummies, where MM is about 6% below average, to Brontes HM/NiM where it's 4% above average, pre-2.8.)

 

Engineering is clearly intended to be an AoE-spec, and probably a utility- and survivability-heavy spec as well.

 

Lethality, as a DoT spec with noticeable ramp-up time, is obviously intended as a sustained DPS spec, but it's also much more mobile than the other two specs, and has better AoE than Marksmanship.

 

My point is to frame the question I'm trying to ask: What are the design goals for Sniper compared to other classes and for each of the Sniper specs compared to each other, and to what degree do you want those differences to show up in action?

 

Marksmanship gains ~10% to best-in-class target-swapping; so how much single-target DPS ought it give up for that? Engineering should have better AoE - but by how much? How much single-target DPS ought it give up for that? As ranged spec, how much - if any - should we expect to fall behind the best melee specs? Is Sniper a glass cannon or an armored turret?

The obvious follow-up question is, "In what ways do you see the class/specs as fulfilling or falling short of your broader design goals?"

 

I hope that makes sense. I'm not trying to spark a debate over whether Sniper needs a buff or not (at least not in this thread). I'd very much like to hear from the class designers as to what they think of the class at a conceptual level. I suspect we aren't all on the same page in regards to that, and I hope an answer could bring clarity and focus to future discussions.

Edited May 27, 2014 by GrandHighAdmiral

[kvandertulip]

We are about one week out from our questions and it looks like Paowee is awol. We should probably get these drafted and voted on.

[DieGhostDie]

We are about one week out from our questions and it looks like Paowee is awol. We should probably get these drafted and voted on.

 

Agreed. We should have someone take over as a back up rep ASAP.

[Vaidinah]

Even though Paowee is in my guild, he hasn't played in over 3 months and has been busy with work last I heard. You guys are best off getting someone else to deal with the questions. I don't remember the other candidates for this position, but they might be best.

[kvandertulip]

The best thing to do right now is come up with a consensus on what topics the community wants to ask about.

 

1) AoE dps/Orbital nerf/Enigineering (lack of) changes

2) Lethality/Marksman/Hybrid sustained damage

3) Marksman rotation QoL changes

4) Set bonuses

5) Other

 

Personally with a little tweaking I would be happy with the AoE question Paowee had drafted at the top of the thread. As for question number two I'm not really sure. My understanding was that it would be one PVE question, one PVP and one other. AoE dps affects both, so I'd be happy with that being the other. We would just need to agree on one PVE question. Start posting your suggestions below.

Edited May 30, 2014 by kvandertulip

[SamuelAU]

I haven't done PvP on my gunslinger in a long time so I can't comment on that side of things. From a PvE perspective, 3 questions aren't enough to address the issues that we're facing in 2.8

 

The problem with marksman isn't QoL in my opinion; the spec operates fine, has great survivability and utility. Once the double-proc bug is fixed, MM will be one of the lowest performing DPS specs, probably ahead of only deception assassins. Lethality and hybrid will fare slightly better, but really suffer in other areas that MM excels, which is why MM turns out to be the superior spec for most nightmare fights. There needs to be something to bring markman's sustained DPS up to par, because every other class is getting buff upon buff thrown upon them to get a 4k spec, and snipers are getting nerfs all round; I can't remember the last actual DPS buff that snipers received. This might tie in to Bioware's plan for Orbital Strike, but I'm 90% sure that the devs don't even know which direction they want to go for orbital strike. The cooldown and cast time for orbital get reduced in MM, so there's no reason why it should hit for 4k if you get one tick to crit. Any other GCD will do similar damage on a non-crit, except for rifle shot. The only strength that MM has for Nightmare Dread Palace coming up is their survivability and ballistic shield, with the DPS output falling so far behind every other class.

 

The set bonus discussion comes with the need to buff every spec up to par. As mentioned previously, lethality and hybrid will fare a little better from a pure DPS standpoint, but something which will bring all the sniper specs up to speed will be a change to the set bonus. Both the 2-pc and 4-pc set bonuses are just glorified energy management tools, which contribute little to the DPS and more to just the fluidity of the rotation (although the 4-pc is a must for lethality, which is a bit crap). There are two things that every spec has in common, being Corrosive Dart and Series of Shots. It'll harm the rotations of all specs in a minor way if either set bonus is changed completely, but I believe that the best chance we have of buffing all sniper DPS is giving some kind of Series of Shots buff. This works especially well for marksman since you get buffs in the tree to SoS, as well as Sniper Volley to reset the cooldown, so you tackle 2 problems (set bonus + MM DPS) in 1 go with some kind of change like that. I can't speak for specifics since I haven't got a clue about the math required to make it a balanced change, there are smarter people than me for that.

 

Touched on this earlier, at least a timeline on the Orbital Strike changes would be much appreciated. The original nerf was (allegedly) the first step in a 3-step process, fast forward a few months and step 2 hasn't even been so much as mentioned. Communication please.

 

I've avoided talking about it much as I've avoided playing it, but engineering is a seriously broken tree. It's good for 1 fight currently (Draxus) by way of its unreal AoE burst, but overall it's a very clunky spec with poor survivability that has been forgotten by the devs. My understanding is that Covered Escape 'rollbang' wasn't supposed to be the backbone of the spec, just a fun little something extra (similar to lethality's version?), but something went wrong along the way and you've now got a RANGED DPS spec which is entirely dependent on being in melee range and exploiting the roll in place bug to be competitive on a single-target fight. I don't play engineering so I can't speak to specifics, but that spec really needs some love.

 

Finally, we really just need some communication. The gunslinger and sniper forums have been quiet since the nerfs starting flooding in, and there's no hope on the horizon for 2.8 onwards. The only buff we've had recently was the shield probe change (nice) and the entrench QoL fix (very nice +++), but in 2.8 the DPS thing will be the biggest issue. YOU NEED TO TALK TO US! I really don't want crap questions to get submitted (think the hilarious Jedi Sage lore questions) that can be used to get a cop-out answer to avoiding addressing any real issues. This feels like the only chance that we're going to get to actually communicate with the devs, so there needs to be some kind of consensus on the questions and we need to make them good.

 

TLDR: MM sucks, SoS love, Orbital sucks, Engineering sucks, let's have good questions.

Edited May 30, 2014 by SamuelAU

[Skotal]

 

One of our questions obviously ought to be concerning the long-standing problems with Engineering that's been otherwise discussed ad nasuem. So you can count me as another vote for whatever Engineering question yall come up with.

 

What are the design goals for Sniper compared to other classes and for each of the Sniper specs compared to each other, and to what degree do you want those differences to show up in action?

 

The obvious follow-up question is, "In what ways do you see the class/specs as fulfilling or falling short of your broader design goals?"

 

i fully agree with GrandHighAdmiral. What the original design for each class was seems to have been changed since the game released and many people view what a sniper is supposed to be differently. The change in OS definitely reflects some design shift. I find it hard to believe that OS could for such a long time maintain its damage and then be nerfed with the idea it was never intended to do such damage.

 

a question should be: What are the design goals for the sniper in relation to other classes and the individual sniper specs, to what extent do snipers and their specs meet or exceed those design goals in both operations and pvp, and what potential changes are in development to meet the design goals? (with special emphasis on engineering and marksman)

which is a more detailed way to ask what is the current status of snipers from the dev perspective? do you like it? what do you have planned?

 

I think a well written status of the class post with design goals would create a large opportunity for player discussion and also move away from the trend of the submitted dev questions being less about wanting information and more towards telling them they are wrong.

 

This would answer all my current questions about the class. Sure i would like to improve snipers in arenas, make OS more powerful, make SoS trigger FT on a tick rather than after all ticks, and improve the set bonuses but theses arnt questions. we could create a snipers QoL list and general concerns list to submit to the devs after we get an answer on who we are.

 

Here is an old post from before the forum reset. dated 11/3/11 from Georg Zoeller. Is this general philosophy still in effect?

It's much worse than you think.

 

No, a Sniper in cover cannot be charged with Force Leap. Yes, your warrior will have to move into melee range to engage the Sniper (or use ranged abilities like saber throw).

 

Marksman specced snipers specifically are a very defensive class.

 

You rarely see them leading the charge onto an objective, but they are masters of area denial. It's not just that you have to bridge 35 meters to them, with them getting the alpha strike. They got tools that will temporarily root you (Leg Shot), the force of impact from their Ambush ability pushes close range enemies back and their cover generator is fitted with the a pulse detonator that pushes attackers out of melee range (Cover Pulse). They can also become faster and faster the more they hit you (Sniper Volley). And did I mention that they can call down a powerful orbital satellite strike to protect the area around them?

 

You really don't want to charge these guys head on. Just like what I said about a Sage going into close range combat with a Melee DPS class, charging a good sniper head on alone will likely result in you dead on the ground and the Sniper mildly irritated.

 

How is it balanced? Carefully... We force you to be smart about moving into the area protected by these guys. If you're not smart about it and think you can charge into the fray, that's the wrong class to try that on. Their weakness is the fact that their most powerful abilities require them to be entirely static, that they have little ability to kite or establish range against a close range attacker.

 

You want to sneak up on them, distract them or eject them from cover (there's a very limited number of abilities that can do that), utilize environmental features to avoid line of sight, hit them with long range DOTs and wear them down, or gang up on them. If you manage to catch them close range without having lost too much of your health, they are in a lot of trouble and without Stealth generator or any kind of active escape ability, they are likely dead.

 

[MeatbagTitan]

I'd agree that the engineering/AOE question is a good 3rd/misc question as the future of that aspect of our class has relevance for both PVE and PVP players (I dabble in engi in reg WZ's but don't have the confidence in it yet to roll it out in ranked).

 

In terms of PVE, I'm not entirely sure what a valuable question would be, however I think that we ought NOT to be worrying about the 1GCD gap and "fluidity" issues in marksman. Orbital is still suitable filler in that sniper volley window, the cooldowns just don't line up perfectly. I know there's some concerns about relative performance in the midst of the DPS arms race we're going through and I think it's important that we're comparing comparable specs to comparable specs. Hybrid/lethality have a high spinup time and don't swap targets readily, whereas marksman can swap seemlessly and keep the rotation moving. Make sure if we're standing snipers up against other spec's its examining specs with comparable styles. The future of engi obviously affects hybrid's performance as well but above all else I'd hate to see us panic and punt with some inconsequential/whiny questions just because of the adversity of our class rep getting busy.

 

In terms of set bonuses, that seems like a decent idea my concern is do we just get the bonuses straight up buffed? Tweaked? Would we have to give up something in those regards to get something? It does seem a little goofy that a 4pc set bonus is needed to make lethality a fluid, somewhat energy friendly spec. That's another question that I think could hold relevance to both PVE and PVP as the PVP set bonuses are undeniably just trash.

Edited May 30, 2014 by MeatbagTitan

[THoK-Zeus]

Ok, I will write my thoughts about Snipers:

 

In Terms of pure dummy parsing, snipers are currently okay. My latest parses on Live (3760 MM, 3870 Hybrid) and Pts (3760 Hybrid should've been over 3,8k tough with proper relics and better rotation) with 4 DF pieces indicate that.

 

Still, raid fights are not comparable to dummy parsing.

 

 

Marksmann:

 

Marksmann will still be the top sustained spec on average for ranged non-dots specs. Additionally the other 2 comparable specs (Arsenal and Lightning) have more issues with target swapping. You can quite easily see that on a fight like Brontes (short phases, fast target swapping...), were Marksmann Sniper overall dps is better then any other class in this game.

 

Marksmann Snipers are the only class in this game, that can instantly at any point during the whole rotation switch to another target (with a 35m range!), without any disadvantage.

The amount of defensive abilities, especially Marksmann Snipers have is not comparable to any other range class and it's also not comparable to some of the melee classes.

With 60% AoE Reduction + Ballistic Dampers and the possibility to resist nearly every damaging mechanic with roll, Marksmann snipers are probably the easiest class to Keep up in a raid.

 

 

The only problem i have with Marksmann is, that a lot of the abilities (most importantly Series of Shot + Followthrough), have 100% Surge and that Marksmann Snipers generally don't do many hits per global cooldown.

Because of these 2 factors, the damage of Marksmann Snipers has a big variety and is really RNG dependant.

 

Additionally this spec doesn't have much possibilities for AoE damage, but that is mostly recognizeable because Engineering is currently not working properly. I always compare Marksmann with Carnage, Lethality with Anni and Engineering with Rage.

 

Still this spec does more damage on average then any other non-dot ranged spec and will therefore continue to be the top chosen spec/class for any fight with target swapping and short uptimes.

 

Overall I don't see any possibility for this spec to receive any buffs (unless you want to massively screw sorcs and mercs) and as this spec has about Zero Quality of Life Issues (did you ever run out of energy with marksmann? ) i wouldn't really make any question about Marksmann.

 

 

Engineering:

Yes, i know that this spec is the only viable spec for Snipers in Yolo Queue.

But: Rolling-In-Place is just not good for PvE. Yes you can currently easily do it, reach very high numbers on any fights, but Snipers are not a melee dps spec.

 

Get rid of Scatter Bombs, put them into Orbital Strike, increase the damage of Plasma Probe (currently Plasma Probe deals about as much damage as Corrosive Grenade over the same amount of time and is not spamable, that's simply a bad top Tier talent).

 

Make Engineering similar to rage. Low single target sustained spec, heavy AoE. That's a spec snipers are really missing currently and should also get.

 

Lethality:

 

I personally play the Lethality Hybrid and I personally think Lethality Hybrid is the stronger spec, but nevermind.

Yes i am aware, that most classes on the pts can do slightly more sustained damage (we are talking about a 5% difference here) on the dummy. Still most of these classes don't have the uptime, the 35m range, the insane multi-dot possibilities...

 

Even without counting Raid-Wide Ballistic Shield, i would say that Lethality Snipers are in the middle of the pack of the sustained dps specs, for raid viability after the 2.8 changes (with Pyro Powertechs leading the pack )

 

But you could argue that some specs are definitly better with 2.8 in terms of damage potential in raids (most notable: Pyro Powertechs).

 

 

As i've read something about Marksmann Quality of Life issues, my 2 Cents: That is completely stupid and completely wrong, marksmann sniper is the spec in this game that has the fewest Quality of Life issues by far!

 

Marksmann Snipers have close to no Quality of life Problems. No Energy Problem, no target switching problem, no uptime problem, 90%+ straight damage....

 

If you ask the delevopers something about reworking "Quality of Life" issues for marksmann snipers, they will just laugh and will not take anything for serious that we actually ask.

 

Top issues of Sniper:

a) Engineering Tree should be completely reworked (that would also be my question 2 and 3 tbh)

b) Viability of Snipers in Ranked Arenas (especially regarding Engineering changes)

c) Very slight changes for Lethality Sniper (especially regarding Pyro Powertechs changes for example)

Edited May 30, 2014 by THoK-Zeus

[Mathemagica]

a question should be: What are the design goals for the sniper in relation to other classes and the individual sniper specs, to what extent do snipers and their specs meet or exceed those design goals in both operations and pvp, and what potential changes are in development to meet the design goals? (with special emphasis on engineering and marksman)

which is a more detailed way to ask what is the current status of snipers from the dev perspective? do you like it? what do you have planned?

 

I think a well written status of the class post with design goals would create a large opportunity for player discussion and also move away from the trend of the submitted dev questions being less about wanting information and more towards telling them they are wrong.

 

This idea has been discussed on several class forums at the beginning of the first question round. The problem with such a question is that it gives us information about design philosophy, but we can't discuss anything that we see as problematic/not working well in such a question. (Thinking about the whole engineering tree)

I'm not sure, if I'm in favor of such a question. It might be very helpful though, because we really want to know where Snipers are heading, given that we seem to have a standstill in an 'incomplete form'.

 

Other questions: I think we need at least one question about Engineering as a whole. This tree faces several troubles in Operations (bad cooldown alignment; specializes in sustained AoE, where Operations usually ask for burst AoE; can't deal well with moving targets).

I think we should have a question that summarizes the problems of Engineering in Operations (and Arenas, if possible) and ask, if and how they would change Engineering to make it a 'more fluid' and spec that is designed for the things that happen in this game and not something it never encounters. I would also like to add whether they would be willing to fully overhaul the spec in order to achieve this, since this has been brought up by several people and I'm inclined to agree. Engineering could use a new setup from scratch.

 

I'll try to write this up over the weekend.

 

As a third question... I rarely look at parses, but given the buffs to many other trees while Snipers have been left untouched: Is Lethality balanced against Madness Sorcs and Pyro Mercs? There is a thread on the PTS that indicates that the average dps of classes might get trimmed down a bit again, so it might be interesting to know, where Lethality is standing in this debate.

This might be covered in the 'general design philosophy' question that I wrote about on top. Just throwing some thoughts around. Take cover!

[Skotal]

Hey Snipers!

Lethality appears to be better single target DPS than the hybrid. However, since a lot of encounters have two or more mobs, the hybrid spec would likely appear to come out ahead of a full Lethality build quite often.

 

That said, we are not completely satisfied with Lethality at the moment. We specifically don’t like that using Orbital Strike and Explosive Probe rotationally as a Lethality Sniper increases your single target damage, but that’s more of a problem with Orbital Strike and Explosive Probe than Lethality. Weakening Blast could probably use an energy cost and, as a result, get a damage boost. Series of Shots and Snipe could probably use some boons to make them stronger abilities in the Lethality rotation – as it stands, they are in the rotation, but not strong enough to keep players from using Explosive Probe and Orbital Strike.

 

While all of this is less than ideal, making changes to Explosive Probe and Orbital Strike could have negative effects on the other Sniper specializations, so it isn’t likely that you will see changes for this anytime soon. But we will certainly be addressing these issues at some point in the future.

We are not completely satisfied with how Engineering currently plays in general. When compared to Lethality or Marksmanship, Engineering feels rather clunky. The strength of Engineering in PvE is definitely AoE damage, while the weaknesses are mostly quality of life issues like energy management, Interrogation Probe’s single target limit, Plasma Probe’s cooldown, and lack of a well-flowing rotation – thanks to the extremely long cooldowns on Explosive Probe and Orbital Strike, along with the unfriendly requirement of using EMP Discharge with Adrenaline Probe to maximize sustained damage.

 

 

is from the last time we had any questions answered.

 

EricMusco

 

For now, we are leaving the design of the skill trees intact, but in the future we plan to focus the bonuses to Orbital Strike/XS Freighter Flyby on the Engineering/Saboteur specialization. That will eventually become the “refuge” specialization for all Orbital Strike/XS Freighter Flyby lovers. These changes probably won’t come anytime soon though, and in the meantime, you can expect Marksmanship/Sharpshooter to remain an excellent specialization for Orbital Strike/XS Freighter Flyby usage.

 

You can consider the 2.6 changes to Orbital Strike/XS Freighter Flyby “phase one” in a series of changes that will eventually come. This first phase is meant to lower every specialization’s dependence on Orbital Strike/XS Freighter Flyby. Future phases will move some things around and improve Orbital Strike/XS Freighter Flyby for Engineering/Saboteur. Judging from the reaction on the PTS forums, many players think phase one has already gone too far, which is part of why we aren’t just pulling the whole rug out from underneath players by doing all the phases at once. It is important for Agents/Smugglers to get used to these changes before we can move onto future phases.

 

is from after the OS nerf. The devs seem fully aware eng is broken and plan at some point to nerf OS further into the ground and alter engineering to improve it. I dont think we should waste a question on engineering that amounts to "still broken when are you fixing it" we will get a slightly more detailed response that amounts to still working on it we are aware of the problem.

 

Maybe i am wrong but i would hope the devs would volunteer their planned changes to engineering when they have them rather than wait for our class questions. I only hope the delay is because it is low on their priority list and still in planning phases rather than deliberately withholding information for a question they know will be asked to appear magnanimous.

[Vaidinah]

In Terms of pure dummy parsing, snipers are currently okay. My latest parses on Live (3760 MM, 3870 Hybrid) and Pts (3760 Hybrid should've been over 3,8k tough with proper relics and better rotation) with 4 DF pieces indicate that.

 

Still, raid fights are not comparable to dummy parsing.

 

Giving your luckiest parses on each spec is not very useful information. Nobody does 3760 on average with MM and due to its higher variation in general than other specs, it has higher high parses and lower low parses. Average parses from top players are what is needed to determine a spec's true damage in general.

 

Marksmann:

 

Marksmann will still be the top sustained spec on average for ranged non-dots specs. Additionally the other 2 comparable specs (Arsenal and Lightning) have more issues with target swapping. You can quite easily see that on a fight like Brontes (short phases, fast target swapping...), were Marksmann Sniper overall dps is better then any other class in this game.

 

This comparison is highly flawed. Lightning uses 2 DoTs, both of which are necessary in order to use some of your highest damaging skills so while I understand that it's the closest thing Sorcs have to a non-DoT spec, that doesn't make it so. Also, it is not as good at swapping as Marksman, but Arsenal is definitely the best ranged target swapping spec in the game due to its superior burst and the fact that armor penetration used on the very first skill (boosting everyone else on your team as well).

 

Marksman overall DPS is not better on Brontes than any other spec; it is just safer while still dealing respectable damage and that is very helpful on that fight. The only DPS checks that matter are the clock phase (where you can use adrenals and still have use for it again at the end) and when Brontes is out for the last part of the fight where there is no real target switching.

 

Marksmann Snipers are the only class in this game, that can instantly at any point during the whole rotation switch to another target (with a 35m range!), without any disadvantage.

The amount of defensive abilities, especially Marksmann Snipers have is not comparable to any other range class and it's also not comparable to some of the melee classes.

With 60% AoE Reduction + Ballistic Dampers and the possibility to resist nearly every damaging mechanic with roll, Marksmann snipers are probably the easiest class to Keep up in a raid.

 

That is incorrect. While Marksman is definitely better on average than other specs at swapping, you will need to re-apply the armor debuff (which does less damage than even your auto-attack much less any other skill) and re-apply your DoT. I know you are assuming that the armor debuff is already there, but that's not a safe one to make as there are more than a few teams and/or situations where the Sniper is the one applying the armor debuff. Arsenal is much better at target swapping than Marksman.

 

The only problem i have with Marksmann is, that a lot of the abilities (most importantly Series of Shot + Followthrough), have 100% Surge and that Marksmann Snipers generally don't do many hits per global cooldown.

Because of these 2 factors, the damage of Marksmann Snipers has a big variety and is really RNG dependant.

 

Additionally this spec doesn't have much possibilities for AoE damage, but that is mostly recognizeable because Engineering is currently not working properly. I always compare Marksmann with Carnage, Lethality with Anni and Engineering with Rage.

 

Still this spec does more damage on average then any other non-dot ranged spec and will therefore continue to be the top chosen spec/class for any fight with target swapping and short uptimes.

 

Overall I don't see any possibility for this spec to receive any buffs (unless you want to massively screw sorcs and mercs) and as this spec has about Zero Quality of Life Issues (did you ever run out of energy with marksmann? ) i wouldn't really make any question about Marksmann.

 

Most ranged specs can and will do more single target damage than Marksman on any fight where there isn't significant target swapping. That's fine since Marksman has generally superior survivability. The only problem is that once 2.8 comes and the relics are supposedly fixed, Snipers in general will be a bit behind in terms of damage, especially since their AoE damage outside of Saboteur is amongst the worst of any ranged spec.

 

Bioware can fix this by with some small damage boosts to keep Snipers roughly where they are at and buff Orbital Strike within the Marksman spec to make it more useful. The developers have stated they have plans to change the Sniper specs, but we have no idea when these changes are happening.

 

Engineering:

Yes, i know that this spec is the only viable spec for Snipers in Yolo Queue.

But: Rolling-In-Place is just not good for PvE. Yes you can currently easily do it, reach very high numbers on any fights, but Snipers are not a melee dps spec.

 

Get rid of Scatter Bombs, put them into Orbital Strike, increase the damage of Plasma Probe (currently Plasma Probe deals about as much damage as Corrosive Grenade over the same amount of time and is not spamable, that's simply a bad top Tier talent).

 

Make Engineering similar to rage. Low single target sustained spec, heavy AoE. That's a spec snipers are really missing currently and should also get.

 

Rolling-in-place is not good for PvE because it requires an exploit in order to do so. The actual concept of rolling in place is actually fun and this is an area where Bioware can modify the skill to allow the player to do this without using an exploit. A simple example of this is to just allow EMP Discharge to improve the player's next roll to not move forward and drops bombs to make this into a 1 minute offensive cooldown instead of just an utility skill to reset defensive cooldowns. From there, they can remove the bombs from the normal roll so that you only get it from the empowered version of the skill. Other changes would be needed as well for the sake of balance to prevent burst damage from being too high, but the overall idea of a roll doing damage is a ton of fun and should be kept for those who actually play Saboteur on a regular basis and play it for that reason.

 

Top issues of Sniper:

a) Engineering Tree should be completely reworked (that would also be my question 2 and 3 tbh)

b) Viability of Snipers in Ranked Arenas (especially regarding Engineering changes)

c) Very slight changes for Lethality Sniper (especially regarding Pyro Powertechs changes for example)

 

I don't know why people think Engineering tree needs a complete rework, but it does not. The rotation works fine for the most part and the main change needed is something like the one I explained above. Engineering just needs one major change and some tweaks to be a balanced, but still enjoyable tree that fulfills its purpose with AoE damage.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Vaidinah

[THoK-Zeus]

Giving your luckiest parses on each spec is not very useful information. Nobody does 3760 on average with MM and due to its higher variation in general than other specs, it has higher high parses and lower low parses. Average parses from top players are what is needed to determine a spec's true damage in general.

I did 2 single marksmann parses in 2.7. I did 4 single parses for hybrid. Very lucky, of course .

Others run dozen of parses until they reach 4k.... I did over 3,8k on average with hybrid after testing it out a bit.

I've not done enough parses with mm to call an average but i suppose it will be around 3,7k.

I don't think you can comment on that anyway, if you think these parses are very lucky. I suggest you get more experience with sniper/gunslinger rotation.

 

This comparison is highly flawed. Lightning uses 2 DoTs, both if which are necessary in order to use some of your highest damaging skills so while I understand that it's the closest thing Sorcs have to a non-DoT spec, that doesn't make it so. Also, it is not as good at swapping as Marksman, but Arsenal is definitely the best ranged target swapping spec in the game due to its superior burst and the fact that armor penetration used on the very first skill (boosting everyone else on your team as well).

 

Marksman overall DPS is not better on Brontes than any other spec; it is just safer while still dealing respectable damage and that is very helpful on that fight. The only DPS checks that matter are the clock phase (where you can use adrenals and still have use for it again at the end) and when Brontes is out for the last part of the fight where there is no real target switching.

If you show me specs that deal more then 3k damage on Nightmare Brontes, feel free to do so.

 

 

That is incorrect. While Marksman is definitely better on average than other specs at swapping, you will need to re-apply the armor debuff (which does less damage than even your auto-attack much less any other skill) and re-apply your DoT. I know you are assuming that the armor debuff is already there, but that's not a safe one to make as there are more than a few teams and/or situations where the Sniper is the one applying the armor debuff. Arsenal is much better at target swapping than Marksman.

Arsenal has heat issues when rapidly target swapping. The dot is just a very minor damage increase and doesn't need to be reapplied.

 

Applying your armor debuff is a dps loss, when the target has less then 100-150k hp. For rapid target switching (on most of the brontes stuff for example) pretty useless.

You can show me the awesome parses of the Arsenal spec on fights like Brontes Nightmare Mode then, if it's superior to marksmann in target swapping.

 

Most ranged specs can and will do more single target damage than Marksman on any fight where there isn't significant target swapping. That's fine since Marksman has generally superior survivability. The only problem is that once 2.8 comes and the relics are supposedly fixed, Snipers in general will be a bit behind in terms of damage, especially since their AoE damage outside of Saboteur is amongst the worst of any ranged spec.

 

Bioware can fix this by with some small damage boosts to keep Snipers roughly where they are at and buff Orbital Strike within the Marksman spec to make it more useful. The developers have stated they have plans to change the Sniper specs, but we have no idea when these changes are happening.

As far as i know Bioware doesn't care about AoE damage, unless the spec has AoE inside his single target Rotation (and not even then they do most of the time).

 

I don't know why people think Engineering tree needs a complete rework, but it does not. The rotation works fine for the most part and the main change needed is something like the one I explained above. Engineering just needs one major change and some tweaks to be a balanced, but still enjoyable tree that fulfills its purpose with AoE damage.

The Rotation is clunky, not aligning and without rolling-in-place Engineering is just a very bad lethality spec without proper fillers.

Edited May 30, 2014 by THoK-Zeus