Engi snipers > Nerf pls.

[Ottoattack]

Reply post #18, not going to quote that wall of bullstuff here.

 

Icy dear, I very much challenge you to learn to play around Plasma Probe. We aren't talking about Snipers here in general, we're talking about one ability, that

1. is relocateable without a cooldown,
   
2. has a 70% AoE slow effect to it,
   
3. once placed, remains there until it expires, ignoring any kind of counterplay,
   
4. has an 8m range.
   

 

We need to have strong AOE. In fact, AOE damage across all classes needs between 100%-200% buff.

 

The lack of CD, damage and range should stay. The slow however needs to die, badly. It should be either completely removed or reduced to 25%.

Edited March 27, 2017 by Ottoattack

[Icykill_]

If you know how to play your range, you shouldn't lose to a marauder 1vs1, assuming everyone has their cooldowns. Not even close.

 

Same for operatives. They depend so much on stuns, and you can go immune to it for over 40 seconds in a row with all your cooldowns.

 

As for vs Marksman, it depends, but you have one massive advantage over them, and its that you have 20% extra defense on about all their attack, while you deal in tech damage, which they have 0 defense over. For the rest you should have roughly the same defensives, altough MM has a slightly better entrench, and a slightly better diversion.

 

Sniper are in a very good place right now, even without their Plasma probe snaring everything at 70% in 8 meter.

 

Keep the radius, keep the 70% snare even, but slap a cooldown on it. Its ridiculous otherwise.

 

And no, sniper's role isnt cc but aoe pressure.

 

Honestly, its a bit glaring that its a massively overpowered snare right now. Its simply is going to bring engi in line a bit with the ammount of spammable snare it can slap on people till they are out of movement impairing break.

 

And merc, 1vs1, tbh at equal skill I'm putting money on sniper. If you know how to handle their dcd correctly, you have the one class in the game that can just keep the dps going through energy shield and reflect without a significant loss, and keep your flashbang for kolto overload.

 

I rarely have issues against snipers when I play my Fury Mara. As I said, hunting snipers is my favourite thing to do. I've only found a few that can beat me in a 1v1 sistuation. So I'm assuming that's the same for most Maras although with the current pvp cadre, it's hard to tell.

 

I did over simplify the engineering role, but I wasn't wrong in saying it has a cc role too.

 

Ops can be killed, but they have the advantage as far as kiting. In a 1v1 it's probably a stalemate if the Operative is smart enough to stop pushing for a kill. That's their advantage, they are the supreme kite class and hard to pin down if they play their class role properly.

 

In the open in a 1v1 with a Merc I think the sniper will win out, but give that Merc even a bit of LoS and the equation flips the other way.

 

I do need to point out that while there is no CD on plasma grenade casting, "Only one Plasma Probe can be active at a time"

So you can spam it left right and centre on everyone you want, but as soon as you do, it deactivates on the last person you put it on.

Edited March 27, 2017 by Icykill_

[verfallen]

I rarely have issues against snipers when I play my Fury Mara. As I said, hunting snipers is my favourite thing to do. I've only found a few that can beat me in a 1v1 sistuation. So I'm assuming that's the same for most Maras although with the current pvp cadre, it's hard to tell.

 

I did over simplify the engineering role, but I wasn't wrong in saying it has a cc role too.

 

Ops can be killed, but they have the advantage as far as kiting. In a 1v1 it's probably a stalemate if the Operative is smart enough to stop pushing for a kill. That's their advantage, they are the supreme kite class and hard to pin down if they play their class role properly.

 

In the open in a 1v1 with a Merc I think the sniper will win out, but give that Merc even a bit of LoS and the equation flips the other way.

 

I do need to point out that while there is no CD on plasma grenade casting, "Only one Plasma Probe can be active at a time"

So you can spam it left right and centre on everyone you want, but as soon as you do, it deactivates on the last person you put it on.

 

Fury is the one spec that has a "leap" that works against sniper in cover, but they have to get within 10 meters. Its entirely doable to keep knocking them back into that then meter, and roll out when they get too close. But with the mix of stun immunity and dcds, you should come out on top, rather easily even. You have a LB snare in SoS every 9 seconds, an aoe KB, your roll out, an instant mez, and a short cd hardstun, as well as a single target root (altough you can obliterate when immobilized, if applied after 10m, they wont be able to break it.

 

Marauder certainly has the tool to attempt to close in, but not as many as you do to keep them out. And for the short while they do get on you, you slap a bunch of aoe right there, hard stun, roll out, and finish the job.

 

I kill mercs left and right with my sin, doesnt mean "mercs are fine".

 

Of course, if you engage someone that have their back to the wall and facetank them, like I see some sniper doing, you won't last long.

 

And the issue is you can apply a permanent 70% snare to anyone, and just keep moving it as they use their defenses to get out of it, and just reapply and again and again. So yes, its an issue, and its an 8m slow walk to get out of it, only to come back straight in the middle of another.

 

And, as I,ve stated before, you are grossly under-estimating the possible mobility of a sniper when moving cover. If they had no mobility, they wouldnt be the ball carriers they are in huttball. Its actually the ONE part of sniper playstyle many player fail to see or use to its full potential. A sniper out of cover is a dead sniper, yes, but not if done correctly.

Edited March 27, 2017 by verfallen

[verfallen]

We need to have strong AOE. In fact, AOE damage across all classes needs between 100%-200% buff.

 

The lack of CD, damage and range should stay. The slow however needs to die, badly. It should be either completely removed or reduced to 25%.

 

They did that in 3.0, result was your single target rotation was an aoe spam with some classes. Not working.

 

AoE is balanced to be a net dps gain at 3 target for most classes, engineering is special as its rotation has aoe in it, so you can keep very good single target pressure and kill the adds around it easily, and if needed use suppressive fire for extra aoe, if energy allows. Roughly, some classes are slightly clunky but I'd say AoE balance is in a roughly good place accross the board right now.

[-Bob-]

There is a lot of TL;DR in this thread.

[Eli_Porter]

Snipers are about as popular as Mercs in the lower ranks, but almost twice as popular in the higher ranks. Source.

[Qwurdilu]

So what I don't get is this class and spec has been here since 5.0 was released. There has been zero buffs or nerfs in that time. But all of a sudden they are OP because more people are playing them and you guys can't deal with it.

What's made them OP all of a sudden after 4 months of play? Why didn't we have these threads 3 or 4 months ago

 

Thats the very essence of the problem this game has, and what killed class balance:

The lack of attention skilled players get when talking about class balance.

Im a very experienced teamranked player (according to leaderboards i played the most games this season) and i made various threads about how broken engi is yet noone cared. Because there is no pro scene like in other competitive games, there is no constant streams and tournaments where average joes can watch what matches on proper level looks like.

Thats why the majority kept complaining about merc because in regs it was a much more obvious threat to average joes than engi. However, to teamranked engi is the dps equivalent of healing sorc. You either have one, or you cant compete. Simple as that. Even worse with gunslinger which still has the aoe bugg (which i believe still goes unnoticed by 99% of the players)

The problem is that such things go completely unnoticed by the vast majority of the playerbase, including devs.

This forum doesnt even have a competitive section, everyone can participate and thats a problem. Of course everyone should have a chance to voice his opinion, but when it comes to class balance, you need to look what the best players can do. And thats something thats not happening here.

 

 

As for sniper:

Im not going into detail about how overpowered engi really is, i did it plenty times and im tired, and to be honest, i dont care anymore. i dont care about overpowered classes anymore because for the reasons described above, this game will NEVER EVER have proper pvp balance. Its just impossible given the circumstances.

 

HOWEVER, since were not talking about a competitive game, which swtor really ISNT, lets at least make it a fun game. And it isnt fun to be snared 70% for a whole match. Its a no brainer. Noone likes to be slowed for 70%. In my opinion, and i say this since 3.0, there should be NO 70% SLOW AVAIBLE TO ANY class. Its not about how strong it is (its really, really, really strong), its about how annoying and joiy draining this is.

 

Step 1: Change the slow to 30% and convert the stun into a root. Step 2: change the dmg. values so this class parse no higher than marksman/lighning. Bonus points for making diversion solo target again OR make it affect melee/range accuracy ONLY

Edited March 27, 2017 by Qwurdilu

[Schoock]

Reply to #23:

 

Let's see what DPS specs you often get to see in queue:

Deception Assassin, Carnage Marauder, Fury Marauder, Engineering Sniper, Arsenal Mercenary. That's 5 out of 18. The rest sometimes pop up, but these are the regular contestants. DPS Sorcs, Anni Maras, Rage Juggs, Lethality Operatives, Virulence Snipers, AP and Pyro Powertechs are kind of extremely rare, that's 8 out of 18, also 2 of the 8 ACs are almost not played as DPS at all, PT almost not played as Tank, either.

 

From that it's obvious you get to see some classes more often than others. I know very well what 3 Maras feel like when in a premade, and I also know that any class and spec, if 3 of them start focusing you, will get you dead in no time. I'll go even further: if any 3 DPS that know their job focus, you go down pretty soon. Nothing surprising in there.

 

I wasn't even talking about focusing premades, I was talking about the average people being on these classes. It creates class stacking, yes, but you get the reasoning in reverse: they're not OP because they're stacked, they're stacked because they're OP. And I do see more Engineering Snipers nowadays than I see Marksman. I wonder why?

 

70% slow is a lot. It's closer to a root than not, it's AoE and it's unlimited. Mercs come close with their Blazing Bolts, which also is annoying (and I would very much like to see it go, along with all these rotational slows), but at least it's single target and has some cooldown. Plasma Probe is/has neither. I don't think Engineering's damage is overly high and should be nerfed, but I do think its ability to CC is a little over the top. And resolve doesn't help you jack****, they can still apply their slow even when you're whitebarred. At least Operatives' root is negated by whitebar, at least Assassins' lolslash is negated by whitebar, but Engineering's infinite slow is not. (Same with Mercs, Blazing Bolts and E-Net ignore resolve.)

 

Another point I was making is that it does not matter whether the player is good in 1vs1 duel or not. Throw in a healer to not have to bother with surviving too much, and some classes simply shine better than others. While Merc has insanely strong defensives, Engineering has overly powerful AoE CC via Plasma Probe. And that's why you see so many of them in warzones. And despite having built-in AoE damage, Engineering's single target burst damage is also very good.

[DarkSaberMaster]

People complaining about an ability that has been in the game forever, but decide to complain about it now? This entire post is lol worthy.

[mmmbuddah]

People complaining about an ability that has been in the game forever, but decide to complain about it now? This entire post is lol worthy.

 

The ability didnt have a 8 meter radius and 70% slow since forever. That is new.

[Purgamentorum]

People complaining about an ability that has been in the game forever, but decide to complain about it now? This entire post is lol worthy.

 

The aoe was made much much larger and the range was increased. so yes now it is a problem, before it was annoying, now with all the snipers knockbacks and defences and the larger area it's down right game breaking.

[Vember]

The aoe was made much much larger and the range was increased. so yes now it is a problem, before it was annoying, now with all the snipers knockbacks and defences and the larger area it's down right game breaking.

 

Plus the influx of snipers now, it's gotten ridiculous. I love seeing snipers with 500k+ healing too, that just tickles me pink. Good thing they took the self heals away from those overpowered shadow tanks!

Edited March 27, 2017 by Vember

[Thaladan]

in a environement where 6/8 players are 30m+ class..even sorcs dps are strong so...

 

terrible pvp

[Kirtastropohe]

Yeah, as bad as the other game breaking things wrong are, ENG snipers are, as someone else said very well, the tops for sucking joy out of the PvP experience and making it entirely intolerable. Nothing like trying to keep pressure on a healer who is running through the perpetual tornado of the ring of fire that the sniper is putting on you.

 

We get it... BW has limited resources and they can't handle everything, but to not listen to the feedback of players before the 5.0 release, especially when it came to how it would affect PvP is what makes players disgusted at the devs and those in charge of this game.

 

As someone else also said, the disparity, in general, between ranged and melee is really bad right now. Yeah, I get it, for the longest time melee had that advantage. I'm not saying some change wasn't needed, but when range is broken, the situation is exacerbated by the fact that a lot of WZs have objectives where melee players have to be within a certain range of them and thus you get voidstars and novare coasts where you see a firing squad of ranged players firing nonstop into a group of melee who have no choice but to be in the line of fire in order to try and stop caps.

 

This is the first thread I've read today, so forgive me if an announcement indicating there will be class balance in 5.2 has been given, but to this point, I've heard nothing about class balance being part of 5.2, and that scares me.

Edited March 27, 2017 by Kirtastropohe

[Qwurdilu]

The ability didnt have a 8 meter radius and 70% slow since forever. That is new.

 

actually it was like this since 3.0 but who cares about facts right? All they did change about this abilitiy is the ANIMATION size.

 

This ability was allways borked, however prior to 5.0 you had the option to just get rid of the sniper because he didnt have tier 1 defensives.

 

Its the defensives that are absurdly OP, thats why all 3 sniper speccs are perfectly viable. Btw. thats a world first, never in the history of swtor OP classes have all three speccs of one class be viable for teamranked. Thats how broken this class is.

 

Engi just puts the cherry on top.

[Ottoattack]

They did that in 3.0, result was your single target rotation was an aoe spam with some classes. Not working.

 

AoE is balanced to be a net dps gain at 3 target for most classes, engineering is special as its rotation has aoe in it, so you can keep very good single target pressure and kill the adds around it easily, and if needed use suppressive fire for extra aoe, if energy allows. Roughly, some classes are slightly clunky but I'd say AoE balance is in a roughly good place accross the board right now.

 

Only class in 3.0 as you described was lightning sorc, and it was only relevant with guaranteed critic. So saying we had it and it did not work is incorrect. Evidence from 3.0 was hatred sins. It worked, but was too much. The key was balance not removal. Also pyro (AP back then) had extremely strong rotational AOE, and was not considered over powered in 2.0. Smash right before it got killed in 2.6, was not even used in ranked. But had strong AOE to prevent WZs from becoming a heal fest.

 

If the AOE damage is balanced that it only net damage if it hits three or more targets, then by definition it is not working. Sit there with warrior spec (or any spec) and spam AOE dps, even hitting 5 enemies, and spam as long as you want, it does not even leave a dent. Only 2 specs with semi decent AOE are veng (not for the spammable aoe skill) and eng sniper.

 

For the AOE to work, it needs to strong and instant application (it can be dot). Of course that will require CD. And it can be rotational. It worked before, in eras where arguably PvP and the game in general was most balanced.

[blodvite]

Just reduce the slow component of Plasma Probe down to 30 percent and boom done.

[AlCorazon]

Engi sniper is fine the way he is .. even tho I don't main the spec, but tried it ... damage is not that large to solo someone, vs a burst class ur screwed. A good mara or a sin will one on one a Engi sniper easily..

[Kirpputori]

A good mara or a sin will one on one a Engi sniper easily..

I'd like to see that

[Schoock]

I'd like to see that

 

Same.

[Qwurdilu]

A good mara or a sin will one on one me on Engi sniper easily..

 

fixed that for you

Edited March 28, 2017 by Qwurdilu

[DarkSaberMaster]

Same.

 

I third it.

[AlCorazon]

fixed that for you

 

Awww... yup, agreed

Edited March 29, 2017 by AlCorazon

[Sargrith]

Just reduce the slow component of Plasma Probe down to 30 percent and boom done.

 

 

I hate to say it and i have a sab gunslinger as my technical main, I really main a guardian but its complicated....anyway that slow really hurts melee bad and the fact they can keep it up endlessly and have multiple knock backs, another pin/slow at range, and a roll you can't stop....at some point it has gotten too much. Removing the slow seems harsh but something has to dramatically change. Right now its just over the top.

[Qwurdilu]

Removing the slow seems harsh but something has to dramatically change. Right now its just over the top.

 

Wouldnt hurt the class to much. Remember that marksman and virulence are perfectly viable, and they dont have such an awesome slow. Its a world first anayway to have 3 speccs viable for teamranked, never in the history of swtor has that been true to another class. Even if they overnerf engi (which will likely happen, we all know they cant balance reasonably) sniper would still have two viable speccs.