Aim/Cunning And Snipers

[Wynn]

This is a subject that's been baffling me and it's why I came to the forums. The IA codex says that Cunning is the IA's main stat, however, there's little to no explanation as to what exactly cunning is increasing in the codex. Up until I saw that little note, I was decking my IA out in mostly aim mods and armor, but once I read that, I couldn't figure out why aim wouldn't be the logical stat to increase. This is what I see as a big problem with the stats currently - there are too many stats that are similar and naturally seem like they'd co-exist. In that other mmo and most any rpg, you have clear cut stats - strength is always melee, dexterity/agility is always dps, willpower is always magic/mana/force. I don't know why there had to be a aim stat AND a cunning stat. It's quite confusing. They could have just had one stat and have it do different stat increases for different classes. Like I said, the way it is currently, it's just confusing.

 

If you mouse over the stat it will tell you all it does, also there are no armor or weapons we would want that come with aim on them so you got to go out of your way to to go for aim.

Edited December 16, 2011 by Wynn

[Mhak]

Think it's worth mentioning that OP missed the mark a bit when he said Aim is a super-stat for "Agents."

 

Not quite. If your math is accurate, and I don't disbelieve you but I'd like to see solid pics of math first from a level 50 sniper, it would still only mean Aim would be beneficial to Snipers spec'd in Marskmanship...that's about it. Certainly not all Agents.

 

Engineering/Lethality Snipers rely heavily on tech attacks, as much if not more so than ranged attacks. Aim might be useful then to add some DPS to a few of their skills, but only at the cost of lessening the effectiveness of their other skills by replacing Cunning with Aim. Similarly, Operatives rely nearly entirely on tech attacks, only using ranged-damage attacks sparingly or for filler damage. A Lethality spec'd Operative or Sniper stacking Aim just for Cull would be massively gimping their DoT potential, which is a huge portion of damage for that spec.

 

Thus, Aim is far less important than Cunning to 100% of Operatives and nearly all Snipers. A Marksmanship Sniper who stacked Aim - and again this is all pending the accuracy of Aim giving more a benefit to ranged attacks for Agents than Cunning - might see solid benefits to their Snipes, Ambushes, and Series of Shots. Although at a huge cost in efficiency for all their other skills really, because while Agent's ranged attacks benefit from Cunning, our tech attacks get nothing from Aim.

Edited December 16, 2011 by Mhak

[Mackuss]

Final Update:

 

I experimented quite heavily and found that they did finally fix it from BETA! Cunning is now the exact same as Aim (contribution wise). It turns out that what I found during BETA was a bug and they reduced the over-all contribution from Aim. Funny to note though that - upon switching out mods from my chest piece - I found that, maybe in an attempt to counter act unforeseen problems in the future, we now benefit MORE from cunning than Aim.

 

Anyways, thread closed!

[Jovant]

This is what i dont understand about aim & cunning stats... people is saying cunning is better then aim and others are saying aim is better then cunning, so i said fuk it and brought the OFFICIAL strategy guide. Which stats and I quote: (although its under Bounty Hunter)

 

“2. Load up on aim and cunning whenever you apply attribute bonuses. They both increase tech damage and tech damage critical chance. Although aim is superior because it also increases your range damage bonus and range damage critical chance.”

 

/end quote

And this is coming from the official guide that I brought from gamestop! (Starwars the old republic explorers guide)

 

so unless your telling me that they either 1) made and error 2) made the guide before game release and didnt anticipate the change or 3) just out right lying... which would you really stack overall? >.>; the answer is there in the guide this shzt you can look up yourself if you dont mind paying the 25$ or u can go to barns & nobles and see it for free!

Edited December 25, 2011 by Jovant

[Skouros]

Cunning for Agents

Aim for Bounty Hunters

 

This is the intended effects of the stats:

 

- Aim adds to Ranged damage and tech abilities for BH

- Aim adds to Ranged damage for IA

 

- Cunning adds to Ranged damage and tech abilities for IA

- Cunning adds to Ranged damage for BH

 

I'm pretty sure, anyway, I don't have a BH. The point is, though, that even for a sniper who is mostly focused on ranged shots for damage, we use tech abilities all the time. There is zero advantage to using aim.

 

HOWEVER: If you have an item that has more aim than another item with cunning (such as something 5-10 levels higher) you may benefit from using it. You may also benefit from using a sniper rifle with aim on it if the rifle has significantly more damage (the damage range, the part that says 95-127 etc)

 

----

 

Even if there is a bug or design oddity, this is how the stats are intended to work, so going for anything besides cunning as an agent is not a good idea.

 

Aim is usable while leveling, nothing more.

[Riftmaster]

So far as I can tell, Aim is for BH/Troopers, and Cunning is for Agents/Smugglers.

 

Although if you somehow got a piece of armor for your agent that boosted both cunning AND aim, the bit of extra ranged damage couldn't hurt...

[Sydth]

can someone tell me this for sure? As an Agent is it okay to completely nerf the Aim stat? Can I ignore it to the point that my Aim is zero or less?

[pjskull]

Whoa, this post was necro'd. This has been settled with the math in another thread.

 

IA's use Cunning.

 

You can verify this yourself by opening the dropdown menus on your Character screen ©. The math is shown in those dropdowns...

 

Every base class has its own stat and the IA/Smuggler uses Cunning. Aim is for BH/Trooper.

 

Look at your base numbers on a noob toon... Why would the game give you so much more Cunning than Aim from the get-go if you didn't use Cunning?

[Riftmaster]

can someone tell me this for sure? As an Agent is it okay to completely nerf the Aim stat? Can I ignore it to the point that my Aim is zero or less?

I'd say rather that you should make cunning a priority if you want max dmg/healing, and perhaps Endurence a priority if you want more survivablity in PvP.

 

 

Aim is really completely unnecessary for an agent, but you're bound to pick up a small amount.

[Sydth]

I'd say rather that you should make cunning a priority if you want max dmg/healing, and perhaps Endurence a priority if you want more survivablity in PvP.

 

 

Aim is really completely unnecessary for an agent, but you're bound to pick up a small amount.

 

very true. but as I leave the starter zone and am completing the 2nd zone I'm finding that I am wearing gear and using weapons with Aim. Now, replacing the old gear with new gear I'm losing TONS of Aim. Just wanted to see what everyone says before I spend the credits.

[Xizari]

I believe Cunning still > Aim for for Snipers. Aim itself might increase our pure rifle shots and such, but that's it. It won't scale out Crit or Tech abilities nearly as well as Cunning would.

So look at it like this

 

 

Aim = Ranged DPS

 

Cunning = Ranged DPS/Crit

+ Tech DPS/Crit

+ Healing/Crit

 

If say Aim gets a rating for 8 on rifle DPS

Cunning might get a 7... but Cunning also gets a 7 or 8 for Tech + Healing. If you stacked Aim you would notice that your Crit is far below what it would be if you stacked Cunning.

 

 

While Aim might outdo Cunning solely on rifle attacks, once you factor in the fact that Cunning buffs other stats as well, you will see that Cunning comes out better for us.

 

 

 

Now allow me to throw the disclaimer that without combat log parsing much of this is theory and needs to be worked out, and I could be completely and UTTERLY wrong; but in my experience as a Marksman Sniper, Cunning is still way ahead of Aim in terms of viability.

 

 

 

very true. but as I leave the starter zone and am completing the 2nd zone I'm finding that I am wearing gear and using weapons with Aim. Now, replacing the old gear with new gear I'm losing TONS of Aim. Just wanted to see what everyone says before I spend the credits.

 

I never once needed to use a weapon or piece of gear with Aim on it, so maybe you should look hard. Between Flashpoints/Commendations/Quest it is super easy to find the properly statted gear.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Xizari

[Vatigu]

1 point of cunning is worth .2 ranged damage at level 50.

1 point of cunning is worth 0.0067744252873563% crit

1 point of cunning is worth .2 Tech bonus damage

_______________________________________________

1 point of Aim is worth .2 damage.

1 point of aim is worth .008 crit.

 

Considering that for a marksman specced Sniper, our only regularly used 'tech-based' ability is orbital strike (ambush, snipe, overload shot, series of shots, followthrough, takedown) are all based on "weapon damage" So unless I'm missing something here OP is actually spot on. For Marxsman snipers aim is the superior stat. I have 1392 cunning. It is worth 9.43% crit. If I had 1392 Aim I would have 11.13% crit bonus.

[OperJeff]

dont discount the +9% cunning (3-point talent) which scales as it is a % based modifier. Taking that into acount, + the gear available to us it seems wiser to go after cunning even as a marks sniper. We are all pretty much capped at 30% crit (curved scale/diminishing return) anyways so if you use the 3pt. talent to reach the cap than you can focus on power and surge and not waste so many mod slots chasing AIM stats.

[Legibryn]

At the end of the day you will not match the amount of Cunning with Aim after changing out all your stuff. We get Cunning bonus from talents for a reason. So you could say ya it would be better if i had 1356 aim instead of cunning but GL getting that high without the extra from the talents and not to mention Snipers and Operatives get .9 Aim per level and 4 Cunning per level. So your base Aim will be far less then your Cunning. You will never be able to top the total amount of cunning you can get.

 

 

he base stats at the moment are Aim, Cunning, Endurance, Presence, Strength and Willpower.

 

Aim improves ranged/blaster attacks, and is an inferior stat for Smugglers/Imperial Agents, increasing by 0.9 Aim per level on average. It is the dominant stat for Bounty Hunters. Note: Aim is not to be confused with Accuracy, a wholly different stat, which is discussed below.

 

Cunning improves tech attacks, and is the dominant stat for Smugglers/Imperial Agents, increasing by 4 Cunning per level on average.

 

Endurance improves health, and is an auxiliary stat for Smugglers/Imperial Agents, increasing by 3.5 Endurance per level on average. Every point provides 10 health points, and every 5 points provides 1% health regeneration.

 

Presence improves Companions, and is an auxiliary stat for Smugglers/Imperial Agents, providing 3.5 Presence per level on average. Every 1 point provides 2 health points to Companions, and every 20 points provides a 2% bonus to Companions' damage.

 

Strength improves melee attacks, and is an inferior stat for Smugglers/Imperial Agents, increasing by 0.9 Strength per level on average. It is the dominant stat for Sith Warriors.

 

Willpower improve force attacks, and an inferior stat for Smugglers/Imperial Agents, increasing by 0.9 Willpower per level. It is the dominant stat for Sith Inquisitors

[Mackuss]

Whoa this thread was "necro'd".

 

Yes, it's been settled. This is OP. At what point this was the case during BETA at some point (I did the math myself, just wish I had taken screen shots), but it is definitely not the case anymore. Repeat, this is not the case anymore. Cunning is for Agents/Smugglers.