Make Marksmanship Great Again

[AjentWashington]

It's been almost 5 months since the last "balancing" occurred and marksmanship has been at the bottom of the barrel for that whole period. The spec is so bad in operations now and yet it is needed on some bosses due to our other specs heavily relying on dots and have poor target swapping. Marksmanship used to be overpowered before 4.0.3, and I definitely do not think it should be restored to this point, but it should be returned to about the level it was during 3.0. There are a few possible ways to fix MM, although the best one depends on how the devs want this spec to play.

 

Option 1: Buff Ambush and Penetrating Blast

Marksmanship is defined by its target swapping ability, and that is very lackluster right now. Penetrating blast was nerfed by around 5.5% of its damage in 4.0.3, a very unneeded nerf for MM. If Penetrating Blasts was buffed by about 15%, that would yield about 210-225 dps increase. This would help our currently suffering burst and increase our sustained to a less awful level. An Ambush buff I believe is also needed. If Ambush were given an additonal 20% surge, it would gain ~100-110 dps. With these two buffs, Marksmanship would gain roughly 325 dps, putting it at approximately Lightning Sorc's level. This is where I feel Marksmanship should be rather than at the absolute bottom.

 

Option 2: Corrosive Dart Refresh

Obviously we have awful sustained DPS, and if Marksmanship were made to play somewhat closer to AP PT that could be alleviated. If Corrosive Dart was refreshed by ambush, It would free up a number of other GCD's in our rotation that could be replaced by snipe. With some napkin math I estimate that this would increase our overall dps by around 300-350, putting us around the middle of the pack. Followthrough would be an ideal ability to reset it due to it being used frequently in the rotation and would allow us to swap targets and refresh it when we return to a boss. Buffing Corrosive dart would leave our target swapping unaffected, however, which i feel is the worse option of the two I have listed. But if Bioware does not want us to have this decent burst, it should at least let us more acceptable sustained DPS.

 

If you have other ideas for a way to Make Marksmanship Great Again™ please post them as well.

 

Disclaimer: I make no promises that the number i have provided are correct, I used a small data set for damage numbers.

[alexhimbur]

I think we should have bigger Entrench walls and that we should make the devs pay for it.

[DarthScruffy]

For PvE, they need to add a second DoT. The core works pretty well, it just needs slightly more in terms of numbers. It either needs another offensive CD or a second DoT. The DoT added to the spec would actually be better because it would not disrupt rotation rhythm. Have it come off of either ambush or snipe automatically (much like the vigilance/vengeance burn that is applied).

 

As far as PvP, I'd rather virulence get a buff. I'm still holding out for a talent that specs a mobile cull.

[THAT_EPIC_GUY]

You say MM is needed on "some operations bosses" but let's face it, virulence can comfortably meet every burst check and the only case of MM being warranted right now is NiM calph orbs and there's a bunch of classes who can do that check better than sniper so it's doubtful you have to do it anyway

 

In regards to your proposed changes. I felt immediately from the nerfs that Penetrating Rounds needed a buff and I'd agree there. Ambush buff probably isn't warranted. MM is already a really strong spec for hardswap comps in PvP because of how rough that auto crit ambush is and buffing it more isn't the smartest way to fix PvE whilst having minimal effect of PvP. Corrosive dart refresh could work perhaps but I feel having corrosive dart rotationally makes more sense than all the extra snipes, but I wouldn't be opposed. I did think for a while that MM burst is kind of lackluster when you can't get a laze target ambush on the target and a small PR buff wouldn't really fix that issue completely. I feel MM should have a more reliable burst like carnage does for example. I thought that perhaps you could tie a weak ticking stacking, short duration dot to PR ticks, similar to carnage ravage. It would boost sustained by a small amount, and it gives some more reliable burst.

[khaos-theory]

Any boost to damage for MM would be welcome... that nerf did hit rather hard.

[MusicRider]

+1 for option 2. Also sages mental alacrity alike would help on top of the rest. No game breaking in pvp and helpful buffs for pve.

[RikuvonDrake]

I feel like the conundrum for developers is to ensure that the buff for MM is only for PvE content while it's performance in PvP stays more or less the same as in my opinion, it's performance in PvP is satisfactory. I agree with the buffing of Penetrating Blasts, that feels like a good first step, however I disagree with the buff the MM sustain aspect, that is not the intention of the specc and was the main reason it was nerfed in the first place. However one option would be a buff to Charged Burst, like either a flat damage increase or a increased critical chance.

 

Edit: One option would be do do the ambush refreshes corrosive dart and then add a utility for flyby to increase the damage dealt if the target it hits is affected by corrosive dart, cause with auto refresh on corrosive you free up a global which can be used with flyby if the damage tradeoff is enough.

Edited April 27, 2016 by RikuvonDrake

[AlrikFassbauer]

I feel like the conundrum for developers is to ensure that the buff for MM is only for PvE content while it's performance in PvP stays more or less the same as in my opinion, it's performance in PvP is satisfactory.

 

The problem, imhop, is, that even in PvP, Sharpshooter Gunslingers are already "outclassed" by almost everything, especially by PTs.

But that's just my personal opinion. Because in the PvP forums, there is / was lots of talk about ... even tank lasses being able to produce as much damage as pure DD classes are able to produce.

[Thaladan]

state of the sniper is really sad..

 

the MM nerf (and engi) just killed the class.

 

sniper can be good 2 month max before nerf, that's the only thing to understand with BW.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Thaladan

[RikuvonDrake]

The problem, imhop, is, that even in PvP, Sharpshooter Gunslingers are already "outclassed" by almost everything, especially by PTs.

But that's just my personal opinion. Because in the PvP forums, there is / was lots of talk about ... even tank lasses being able to produce as much damage as pure DD classes are able to produce.

 

I admit the level of PvP I play at is far from the top but I personally don't think that the problem for Sharpshooter in PvP isn't it's sustain or burst damage but more it's overall survivability despite the new ability it gained in 4.0 and maybe the damage output outside of Burst Volley and Auto-Crit Ambush windows.

Edited April 27, 2016 by RikuvonDrake

[Zarathax]

Yes. Having to awkwardly stop my rotation just so I can hit them with toxic dart is really annoying, especially when the 5% damage bonus applies to force damage.

[Gyronamics]

Yes. Having to awkwardly stop my rotation just so I can hit them with toxic dart is really annoying, especially when the 5% damage bonus applies to force damage.

 

No it doesn't.

 

Marked = 5% more damage from Ranged Weapon attacks aka white damage, only done by tech classes.

 

A Sorc is "ranged" but all their relevant damage is Force aka yellow damage.

 

The only thing you do for force damage is the armour debuff from Penetrating Blasts which allows Force Kinetic damage to do more damage.

 

Apart from that, why are you salty that your debuffs increase the damage of someone else on your team.

[THAT_EPIC_GUY]

Yes. Having to awkwardly stop my rotation just so I can hit them with toxic dart is really annoying, especially when the 5% damage bonus applies to force damage.

 

Not sure what you mean by 'stop your rotation' corrosive dart is part of the rotation.. it's a stronger gcd than snipe (even if you factor in the FT buff).

[betaku]

can we have a base of 3% alacrity like mercenary and marauder ?

[Skotal]

Marksman and snipers in general have several issues that are by design or working as intended. While i disagree with the methodology they are more or less where the devs want them to be.

 

This was stated in one way or another by the devs to more or less be how they think dps should rank

Sustained Melee +5%

Burst Melee/Sustained Ranged 0%

Burst Ranged -5%

+or- 1% snipers are at -5% from mid.

 

The general thought is that sustained has a dps loss due to target swap and ramp-up time and melee has to deal with range and movement to a greater degree than ranged. This would be valid way to balance classes in a practical environment. A ranged burst would need to have 10% more up time on the boss than a melee sustained to have equivalent dps. This is not the case on current operation bosses.

 

Many ops bosses some worse than others require constant movement this hurts mm snipers that need to be stationary 60% of the time to attack and any interruption during the casting periods is a dps loss more so because FT could not proc. So in actuality sniper uptime is less than 100% and melee sustained uptime is typically greater than 90%. While it has been some time since I played a veng jug i expect they could use a dps boost or change to prevent breaking of ravage.

 

Other issues include:

Oddly BW seems to have a mentality that sustained dps needs to be DoT based/target based. A sustained direct damage class could buff himself overtime to create an internal ramp-up (if desired) that allows target swap. But I digress.

 

Snipers mm especially a turret class. In order to make operations interesting they have started adding in lots of movement and added abilities that bypass entrench.

 

In fights with adds the balance is off. It is more practical for dps to use mass aoe than to single target. The bonus to some classes aoe abilities are massive and far easier to sustain than suppressive fire. OS is horrible and grenade doesnt work in operations as the splash only hits weak and standards. Long story short the target swap abilities of mm are negated by the super powered aoe.

 

BW seems to have forgotten about solid cover points. No operation boss has solid cover. At this point it is a pvp utility and a pve curiosity.

 

In pvp the mobility requirement of ops bosses goes out the window. In reg you can sit and free cast and in arenas the strat seems to be burst and move and go for the executes.

 

I dont want to see MM with more DoTs unless they are proc by existing abilities. I wouldnt mind seeing MM start to look more like combat in creating the equivalent of gore windows or generating something similar to combo points or a secondary resource that could be spent to buff attacks.

 

TLDR

MM is a turret in a raid environment that doesnt allow turrets, a burst/target swap where neither is highly useful, and given a dps penalty that is not equivalent to its advantages to allow for equal dps in practical situations.

[ybdron]

Many ops bosses some worse than others require constant movement this hurts mm snipers that need to be stationary 60% of the time to attack and any interruption during the casting periods is a dps loss more so because FT could not proc. So in actuality sniper uptime is less than 100% and melee sustained uptime is typically greater than 90%. While it has been some time since I played a veng jug i expect they could use a dps boost or change to prevent breaking of ravage.

 

Other issues include:

Oddly BW seems to have a mentality that sustained dps needs to be DoT based/target based. A sustained direct damage class could buff himself overtime to create an internal ramp-up (if desired) that allows target swap. But I digress.

 

Snipers mm especially a turret class. In order to make operations interesting they have started adding in lots of movement and added abilities that bypass entrench.

 

TLDR

MM is a turret in a raid environment that doesnt allow turrets, a burst/target swap where neither is highly useful, and given a dps penalty that is not equivalent to its advantages to allow for equal dps in practical situations.

 

I agree with most of the points in this post. Personally I enjoyed playing marksman/sharpshooter before it was nerfed to the ground, killing most bosses both before and after 4.0 with nightmare buff etc. I wish for a buff that makes it viable again compared to Virulence, and I wouldnt mind to add some sort of proc to make the rotation more interesting. I like the example of having Corrosive Dart being refreshed up to 1 time or something by aimed shot. I dont think Aimed shot/Ambush should be buffed to what it used to be at the start of 4.0, because of pvp balance.

 

Its just sad that you would choose a Virulence sniper 100% on all bossfights compared to MM/SS. Something should happen to the spec, because if you use MM in a bossfight, it is either (1) because you are missing a classbuff, (2) someone is messing around to prove a point or (3) you just dont have a clue what you are doing.

[BaineOs]

Option 2, Option 1 is a complete no, no.

 

It's also worth noting that every class/spec in the game needs balancing but BW seemingly unwilling to do anything about it I wouldn't waste your time thinking about it.

 

Marksman doesn't need to be made great again any more than Engineering or Virulence. In fact from a PVP perspective I'd say Marksman is third on that priority list with Virulence taking top spot (I grudgingly admit).

[Steefr]

Option 2, Option 1 is a complete no, no.

 

It's also worth noting that every class/spec in the game needs balancing but BW seemingly unwilling to do anything about it I wouldn't waste your time thinking about it.

 

Marksman doesn't need to be made great again any more than Engineering or Virulence. In fact from a PVP perspective I'd say Marksman is third on that priority list with Virulence taking top spot (I grudgingly admit).

 

While for pvp you're probably right, the op (and the thread) is mainly talking about pve, where marksman has been rendered completely useless for any actually hard content. The current dmg gap between marksman and the two other specs is so big, it's extremely rare one should go marksman and even then they're probably better ways to adress the reason for the swap.

 

For my money, i'd undo the nerf on penetrating blasts but leave ambush alone. I think having a refreshing corrosive dart would render the spec even more brain dead then it already is so i'm not in favor of that from a gameplay perspective. I'd probably just make sniper a little bit stronger, just a tad more base damage there. Both buffs combined would improve both burst and sustained slightly. I wouldnt touch ambush as i think the burst is at the right place now for pvp (dont think small penetrating blast buff will make it too strong there).

 

But yeah i'd say we need about a 300 dps increase to be even considered as a viable alternative to engineering/virulence. While the top parse atm is close to 6,5k, the average when parsing in full 224 gear is closer to 6,1-6,2. A 300 dps increase would put us at that 6,4-6,5k range where i feel ranged burst specs should be. I dont mind arsenal overperforming that much but i just wish they would buff io.

 

This way lightning sorc, arsenal mercs and marksman snipers would be relatively close together, each still with it's own strengths and weaknesses.

 

Here's hoping bioware aims to put out a series of smaller balance patches and the current one is the first of several to come.

[benficakungfu]

Yes yes 4 months is nada since burst sage has been in that spot since 4.0 so if mms gets a buff so should burst sorc/sage at least this class has a viable spec.

 

It is just an opinion but pure dps classes should be top.

[BaineOs]

... the op (and the thread) is mainly talking about pve...

 

Yes and it's all about making proposals for marksman and as there are no separate trees for pvp & pve, any change you make is going to affect PVP. Hence in these types of threads to think purely about pve without taking pvp into account will not get you anywhere.

 

For pvp penetrating blasts and ambush cannot be buffed to the extent you want, it's that simple. Even if you buff one of those skills not both I'd still say exactly the same thing.

 

It might come as a surprise to some people but there are some snipers out there that were pleased to see MM being nerfed, the difference between MM and the other two specs in PVP was just insane. Might have caused issues with PVE from what I read so aye that sucks but that doesn't mean to say the changes they made were not justified..

 

Out of both options the OP provided us Option 2 is the one that suits things the best, you say about marksman being more braindead than it already is...well....I can't see how it's going to have a dramatic effect in that sense, the spec is already braindead to play.

[AjentWashington]

Seeing other peoples ideas/concerns with a buff, I've started thinking about a possible way to fix mm without to much of a burst gain. Penetrating blasts needs bit of damage increased still I believe, so undoing the pure damage nerf to PB would give back about 75 dps on average (I used non-napkin math to achieve this number). My other idea is to increased the maximum stacks of honed shots to 5. I calculated that this change would grant us about a 115 dps increase. These two changes would very minimally affect the burst that marksmanship has while increasing its sustained potential by about 190 dps. I still find this to be a little too low to compete with engineering/virulence still, and propose a possible 1% alacrity increase to add another 65 or so dps, possibly tied to rapid fire in the skill tree. This small amount of alacrity would not greatly affect burst but would substantially increase sustained damage while retaining the same play style. With a slight change to min-maxing, dps would increase a little more than these values predict. With these changes the rotation would still be the same, as corrosive dart would still do more damage than the average snipe by quite a bit.

[kvandertulip]

It might come as a surprise to some people but there are some snipers out there that were pleased to see MM being nerfed, the difference between MM and the other two specs in PVP was just insane. Might have caused issues with PVE from what I read so aye that sucks but that doesn't mean to say the changes they made were not justified.

 

MM being nerfed doesn't suddenly make the other two specs any more appealing for PVP. They still suffer from they same problems they always have. Suggesting that they nerfed MM because it was better in PVP in relation to Virulence and Engineering is ridiculous. They rarely, if ever, make dps adjustments for pvp performance. The nerf was purely because of how it was performing on the dps charts in 4.0. But of course moderate adjustments aren't really Bioware's thing, so they nerfed it with a sledgehammer.

Edited May 24, 2016 by kvandertulip

[BaineOs]

MM being nerfed doesn't suddenly make the other two specs any more appealing for PVP.

MM was way too good over and above the other two specs since even before 4.0 came out, it was sickening to see the vast majority of snipers do nothing but Marksman. There might be some truth in what you say I can't deny that, the spec has been, still is and always will be the easiest sniper spec to play. However with that said, you can't deny that since 4.0 came out and the nerf in question Marksman hasn't been quite so dominant (insofar as the amount of snipers/slingers playing the spec, I'm not referring to a comparison to other classes).

 

Suggesting that they nerfed MM because it was better in PVP in relation to Virulence and Engineering is ridiculous.

Please re-read what I said because in no way did I even hint that I believed MM was nerfed due to Virulence and Engineering. I said that some snipers were happy that MM got nerfed. I also said that there was an insane difference between MM and the other two specs. There's a huge difference in what I actually said and what you are saying I've said.

Edited May 24, 2016 by BaineOs

[kvandertulip]

Please re-read what I said because in no way did I even hint that I believed MM was nerfed due to Virulence and Engineering. I said that some snipers were happy that MM got nerfed. I also said that there was an insane difference between MM and the other two specs. There's a huge difference in what I actually said and what you are saying I've said.

 

It might come as a surprise to some people but there are some snipers out there that were pleased to see MM being nerfed, the difference between MM and the other two specs in PVP was just insane. Might have caused issues with PVE from what I read so aye that sucks but that doesn't mean to say the changes they made were not justified.

 

Re-reading what you said, it really does look like you were implying the changes were justified based on its standing in PVP. My bad for misunderstanding.

 

Regardless, the changes had nothing to do with pvp, and honestly didn't really affect pvp at all. It did make NiM raiding totally unplayable as MM.

[DarkDoz]

I have been playing Sniper Marksman since beta 2012.

I would like to see the Bioware Dev respond to our post on an ETA bug fix.

 

Bioware please give Snipers MM some love

 

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Holiday 5/30:)