Slinger's best AoE spec?

[KubaYellow]

Like in title, looking for best AoE spec for Gunslinger (and some utilities ) Right now I use Sab with Incendiary grenade + Flyby + Sweeping Blasters (sort of) but I heard Sharpshooter has very good AoE. Any advice?

[Faardor]

saboteur has better AOE than SS. Just keep on trucking.

 

I think whoever told you that sharpshooter has very good AOE probably didnt mean *BEST* aoe of the class.

Edited September 9, 2015 by Faardor

[BaineOs]

Like in title, looking for best AoE spec for Gunslinger (and some utilities ) Right now I use Sab with Incendiary grenade + Flyby + Sweeping Blasters (sort of) but I heard Sharpshooter has very good AoE. Any advice?

Saboteur (imp mirror Engineering), no question about it.

 

Marksman may have access to flyby and sweeping blasters but both of those have issues. Some people might even consider sweeping blasters good (personally I don't rate it that much although I admit it have it's uses). Saboteur is far superior in every conceivable way in regards to AOE and utility as a result.

Edited September 9, 2015 by BaineOs

[MarcRFC]

It is not that easy.

First of all, II prefer Saboteur for almost all fights.

Saboteur has two AOEs you are using in your Rotation (Incendiary Grenade, XS Freighter Flyby) without crushing your energy. Unfortunately both AOEs needs 9s for doing their damage. Sweeping Gunfire needs 4.5s.

 

If you need to fire many AOEs and kill adds very fast, you should consider SS / MM for two reasons:

- SS / MM regenerates one 1 energy per second in cover. Since Sweeping Gunfire has the same costs for all specs you will end up with more energy using SS / MM vs. Sabo. This will give you the opportunity to spam more Sweeping Gunfire.

- More Important: If you combine Sweeping Gunfire Burst Volley (2 more energy per second for 15 sec) you can spam 3 Sweeping Gunfire attacks for almost free.

 

- Sabo provides an amazing Single Target dps combined with decent AOEs

- SS / MM provides either a good Single Target dps or a nice AOE burst using Sweeping Gunfire

[wadecounty]

Is this a PvE or PvP question? Either way the answer is not that simple.

 

Sabo has the most burst AOE potential of the 3 specs. However, it has the most energy issues if you want to spam Sweeping Blasters between the 3 specs, so for sustained AOE it suffers.

 

SS has the best Sweeping Blasters, both in terms of damage potential and spammability without setup. This actually makes it superior to Sab in a lot of endgame PvE fights thanks to the humongous radius from sweeping blasters. Endgame PvE fights generally call for mid level sustainability from AOE, which is perfect for just spamming sweeping blasters a couple of times, and the radius is a huge boon on fights like Torque and Underlurker where you can hit an extra target the other AOE abilities just can't hit.

 

DF is the opposite end of the spectrum from Sabo... its definitely the slowest to build up of the 3 for AOE damage, but its overall sustained AOE potential is huge with both dotspread, and dots on multiple targets raising energy regen enough to spam sweeping blasteres.

 

So yeah, all 3 have great AOE potential, better than any spec for most classes, so it more depends on what you need. I can tell you that in general, for 1 reason or another SS or DF outperform Sabo on every endgame PvE fight even in the ones where AOE is a big part of the fight.

Edited September 10, 2015 by wadecounty

[Elracor]

MM has insanely good AoE but only in bursts. The combo is to use Sniper Volley (and possibly Penetrating Blasts) before spamming Suppressive Fire. Sniper Volleys alacrity bonus gives you great burst and the extra energy regen makes sure spamming SF won't kill your energy.

 

For sustained AoE it's either Engineering or Virulence, though Virulence is mainly for when you can spread your DoTs to at least 4-5 target and use the 2 energy per DoT crit to keep having energy for Suppressive Fire spam.

Edited September 10, 2015 by MFollin

[BaineOs]

MM has insanely good AoE but only in bursts. The combo is to use Sniper Volley (and possibly Penetrating Blasts) before spamming Suppressive Fire. Sniper Volleys alacrity bonus gives you great burst and the extra energy regen makes sure spamming SF won't kill your energy.

 

Suppressive Fire does not a good AOE make

[Elracor]

Suppressive Fire does not a good AOE make

 

Incorrect. Sniper Volley boosted SF is solid burst AoE, especially because of the crit chance and multiplier bonus passive in MM - and of course with the +25% damage Utility.

Edited September 10, 2015 by MFollin

[BaineOs]

Incorrect. Sniper Volley boosted SF is solid burst AoE, especially because of the crit chance and multiplier bonus passive in MM - and of course with the +25% damage Utility.

Wahoo! I can repeat my earlier statement if it would help?

[Elracor]

Wahoo! I can repeat my earlier statement if it would help?

 

Repeating it won't make it correct though but if it makes you feel better then go ahead

[BaineOs]

Repeating it won't make it correct though but if it makes you feel better then go ahead

 

Cool, Suppressive Fire does not a good AOE make

 

Damage isn't and never has been everything.

[Elracor]

Cool, Suppressive Fire does not a good AOE make .

 

Good for you

 

Damage isn't and never has been everything.

 

For burst it is.

[BaineOs]

For burst it is.

You need to think outside the box, burst is also known as damage and as I said....Damage isn't and has never been everything.

[Elracor]

You need to think outside the box, burst is also known as damage and as I said....Damage isn't and has never been everything.

 

Or you need to review how good Suppresive Fire is under the right circumstances rather than repeatedly showing how clueless you are.

 

Burst damage is also damage but the circumstances are different.

Burst damage usually has a window where you want as much damage as possible (e.g. to make sure adds die before they finish a cast) and at that point more burst damage is pretty much always better.

The faster you can take out the turrets@Torque or underlings@Underlurker, the less damage your tank/raid will be taking.

That kind of burst is available in Marksmanship with Sniper Volley.

Edited September 10, 2015 by MFollin

[shyroman]

Suppressive fire in marksmanship is extremely good for short periods of time while sniper volley is up. The underlurker fight is a very good example of this. Sniper volley lasts about as long as the adds and the damage potential is one of the highest in that fight with marksman. Same with torque.

[wadecounty]

You need to think outside the box, burst is also known as damage and as I said....Damage isn't and has never been everything.

 

Are you referring to PvE or PvP? If PvE, damage is almost everything in many cases, its very much about mathematically producing the highest output you can while of course still performing mechanics and reducing damage taken.

 

Based on your sig, I'm guessing you mean PvP, where AOE is an entirely different ballgame. OP never clarified which he was referring to, but you should probably specify you mean PvP as it would be misleading to a new Sniper that thought Engineering was the go-to raiding spec for fights with adds.

Edited September 10, 2015 by wadecounty

[BaineOs]

Are you referring to PvE or PvP? If PvE, damage is almost everything in many cases, its very much about mathematically producing the highest output you can while of course still performing mechanics and reducing damage taken.

 

Based on your sig, I'm guessing you mean PvP, where AOE is an entirely different ballgame. OP never clarified which he was referring to, but you should probably specify you mean PvP as it would be misleading to a new Sniper that thought Engineering was the go-to raiding spec for fights with adds.

 

And we have a bingo

 

Sometimes a dude just needs to have a bit of fun! Besides, my sig does kind of make it obvious imho.

 

I could of course turn your argument around and say for pve'rs to say marksman has insanely good aoe could be very misleading for those new snipers who go into pvp.

 

In truth being in a rather jovial mood at the moment that comment he made about marksman has insanely good aoe (admittedly referring to burst only) struck my funny bone given my perspective

[Elracor]

And we have a bingo

 

Sometimes a dude just needs to have a bit of fun! Besides, my sig does kind of make it obvious imho.

 

I could of course turn your argument around and say for pve'rs to say marksman has insanely good aoe could be very misleading for those new snipers who go into pvp.

 

In truth being in a rather jovial mood at the moment that comment he made about marksman has insanely good aoe (admittedly referring to burst only) struck my funny bone given my perspective

 

As much as I'm not really surprised a PvP'er can't look beyond his own little PvP minority world, there's not a lot pointing towards OP talking about PvP.

With a quick look at OPs latest posts you'd see zero mentions of PvP but instead mentions of soloing, Operations and PvE guild. Therefore there's not really any reason to talk about PvP when OP is not specifically mentioning it.

Edited September 11, 2015 by MFollin

[BaineOs]

As much as I'm not really surprised a PvP'er can't look beyond his own little PvP minority world, there's not a lot pointing towards OP talking about PvP.

With a quick look at OPs latest posts you'd see zero mentions of PvP but instead mentions of soloing, Operations and PvE guild. Therefore there's not really any reason to talk about PvP when OP is not specifically mentioning it.

 

Ahhh yes my little minority world. It's a fabulous place, you should come visit sometime.

 

Marksman/sharpshooter snipers/slingers are shot on sight whilst virulence snipers/slingers are accepted/tolerated. Engineering/saboteur Snipers rule supreme and beautiful plasma probes lie everywhere which really lightens the place up!! The few marksman/shooters that slip through the net are captured and imprisoned with a steady supply of scatter bombs, pvers are put under constant surveillance and everyone marvels at the sight of the lovely plasma seas.

 

It's not realistic to look up someone's post history every time you make a post. The fact there are not many playing my spec anymore in pvp makes it even more important that the value of the engineering/saboteur AOE is mentioned, especially when the op doesn't make it clear which one he's interested in. If he is indeed interested in pve then lovely he now has both sides and is more informed than he would have been.

 

It's very telling when you get discussions on my spec when all the pver's make lovely suggestions that would severely hinder my spec simply because they don't understand the spec fully. PVE folks need to understand the other side just as much as pvpers do.

 

Now if you excuse me I'm going back to my world of engineering.....ahhh what a beautiful place it is too

[Lalainnia]

Ahhh yes my little minority world. It's a fabulous place, you should come visit sometime.

 

Marksman/sharpshooter snipers/slingers are shot on sight whilst virulence snipers/slingers are accepted/tolerated. Engineering/saboteur Snipers rule supreme and beautiful plasma probes lie everywhere which really lightens the place up!! The few marksman/shooters that slip through the net are captured and imprisoned with a steady supply of scatter bombs, pvers are put under constant surveillance and everyone marvels at the sight of the lovely plasma seas.

 

It's not realistic to look up someone's post history every time you make a post. The fact there are not many playing my spec anymore in pvp makes it even more important that the value of the engineering/saboteur AOE is mentioned, especially when the op doesn't make it clear which one he's interested in. If he is indeed interested in pve then lovely he now has both sides and is more informed than he would have been.

 

It's very telling when you get discussions on my spec when all the pver's make lovely suggestions that would severely hinder my spec simply because they don't understand the spec fully. PVE folks need to understand the other side just as much as pvpers do.

 

Now if you excuse me I'm going back to my world of engineering.....ahhh what a beautiful place it is too

 

There really is no point to Eng/Sabs other than the plasma probe to stop a cap. Eng/sab can beat SS/MM in sustained aoe if the target sits in everything other wise its beyond obvious that SS/MM beats in the burst aoe department and that's really all that's needed in a pve situation. As for pvp MM/SS crush both eng and virulence simply because their burst is more effective and easier to set up and get off while being the least effected by los one of a snipers main weakness on top of that they have the best target swapping power of all ranged spec dps in the game. O and best def talents in the tree of the 3 specs I would prob argue this tbh if sab still had the resets on it's def cds but that's gone. No problem with loving eng/sab at all it's a fun spec but it's not better then MM/SS in anything other than sustained aoe and that's if you can even get everything to stay in it.

[BaineOs]

There really is no point to Eng/Sabs other than the plasma probe to stop a cap.

Ohhhh there's more to engineering/saboteur than just plasma probe have no fear about that

 

Out of pure curiosity seem as I'm a pve noob do you use that aoe burst on purely just the trash mobs or on the bosses as well?

 

Although I have to say the comment about marksman/sharpshooter being the least effected by los is laughable to say the least. Forums can sometimes have comments taken the wrong way so I mean no disrespect when I ask this but do you know the engineering class at all? Under what circumstances can you possibly say marksman is the least effected by los out of the three sniper specs?

[Burrowa]

As much as I'm not really surprised a PvP'er can't look beyond his own little PvP minority world, there's not a lot pointing towards OP talking about PvP.

With a quick look at OPs latest posts you'd see zero mentions of PvP but instead mentions of soloing, Operations and PvE guild. Therefore there's not really any reason to talk about PvP when OP is not specifically mentioning it.

 

You're the one that can't read a sig. His bright colors are not colorful and bright enough for you?

 

Go PvE more, it's so exciting!

[Lalainnia]

Ohhhh there's more to engineering/saboteur than just plasma probe have no fear about that

 

Out of pure curiosity seem as I'm a pve noob do you use that aoe burst on purely just the trash mobs or on the bosses as well?

 

Although I have to say the comment about marksman/sharpshooter being the least effected by los is laughable to say the least. Forums can sometimes have comments taken the wrong way so I mean no disrespect when I ask this but do you know the engineering class at all? Under what circumstances can you possibly say marksman is the least effected by los out of the three sniper specs?

 

Non taken and yes I do it's a wonky spec and its taken nothing but beatings losing its defensive resets and gimmicky as it was its rollbang, If there is a point to Sab it would be to stop caps amazing for that in warzones otherwsie it does nothing special. As for my reaosning of why i saw MM is the least affected by it is that upon being line of sighted they can immediately go into sweeping and apply enough instant pressure to force the target to move also with MM's entrench on roll they can use this ability offensively to break los without fear of being immediately stunned or using the actual ability. Lastly they have the resources to sustain using multiple aoes on a moving target using los and with the plethora of movement immunites in the game this is a very big deal. So again fun spec but it serves no real purpose other than stopping a cap in pvp and maybe applying the overwhelm debuff on multiple ppl at a faster pace than sorcs if you wanna push that.

[Elracor]

You're the one that can't read a sig. His bright colors are not colorful and bright enough for you?

 

Go PvE more, it's so exciting!

 

Oh I can read his sig but his sig is 100% irrelevant when it's not his thread. It's OP asking for tips on spec, not him.

 

It's not realistic to look up someone's post history every time you make a post. The fact there are not many playing my spec anymore in pvp makes it even more important that the value of the engineering/saboteur AOE is mentioned, especially when the op doesn't make it clear which one he's interested in. If he is indeed interested in pve then lovely he now has both sides and is more informed than he would have been.

 

Except you're using more time posting rubbish than it'd take to skim the titles of his last 5-10 posts.

 

If he wants value in PvP then point him towards a Sorc/Sage

Edited September 11, 2015 by MFollin

[BaineOs]

Non taken and yes I do it's a wonky spec and its taken nothing but beatings losing its defensive resets and gimmicky as it was its rollbang, If there is a point to Sab it would be to stop caps amazing for that in warzones otherwsie it does nothing special. As for my reaosning of why i saw MM is the least affected by it is that upon being line of sighted they can immediately go into sweeping and apply enough instant pressure to force the target to move also with MM's entrench on roll they can use this ability offensively to break los without fear of being immediately stunned or using the actual ability. Lastly they have the resources to sustain using multiple aoes on a moving target using los and with the plethora of movement immunites in the game this is a very big deal. So again fun spec but it serves no real purpose other than stopping a cap in pvp and maybe applying the overwhelm debuff on multiple ppl at a faster pace than sorcs if you wanna push that.

Hmm, sounds like to me you have more experience in playing marksman than you do engineering. There's more to the spec than what you describe and engineering has it's own tricks to combat los which in my view are much more effective than what you describe. For a start (but not limited to) engineering has to my knowledge the only direct damage skill that can be activated with no line of sight on the target whatsoever. You appear to be looking at engineering through the eyes of a marksman sniper not engineering as an engineering sniper.

 

From the way you talk about multiple aoe on a moving target it sounds like you are using the same thing that got orbital strike nerfed. If you recall the reason for the nerf was the way marksman snipers (primarily but not limited to) were making use of orbital strike within a single target rotation. Engineering was the sole spec within the game in the devs eyes that should be using OS on a single target. By using sniper volley to provide that little boost as you've described, an argument could be made that marksman is repeating past mistakes.