Slinger needs work before Season 15....

[xXSchmedlyXx]

A few nights ago I qued sniper into a Satele Shan solo ranked q and was very disappointed with the current condition of the class. Now please note that I am by no means a particularly talented sniper so please take everything I say with a grain of salt.

 

Last expansion snipers were known for being the class with the highest skill cap in solo ranked. If you were exceptionally bad at sniper, you were practically dead in the first 10 seconds taking your healthbar. However if you were exceptionally good at sniper you could easily take 600-700k+, and, even though I misplayed a lot, sniper was still one of my favorite classes, and arguably the most fun class I played in season 14. Point is, you could make it work. And when you made it work, you felt like a *********** god.

 

Fast foward to 7.0 and it's now dead. Sniper has lost 10% heal when you activate your roll, as well as the option to spec into the passive 2% healing every 3 seconds. Essentially removing all self heals available to a sniper. This simply doesn't work in solo ranked. Every other class has the option to either heal themselves or stealth out and regen out of combat. And even then, Jedi Shadows/Sith Assassins, Operatives/Scoundrels, and Annihilation Marauders have self heals and can stealth out to regen! So why does sniper not have anything. And yes, I know, you do still have your passive heal when you activate Ballistic Shield, but for an ability with a 3 minute long cooldown, this heal adds up to essentially nothing.

 

Now granted I was qing sniper into, arguably, a very bad q to be playing sniper in. There was a lot of Marauders and 2 Powertechs. However that doesn't much matter. Every Marauder qing that night was very bad at chasing and I could have easily outkited and lived them if it was 6.0. But it's not possible to do in 7.0. Even if you get away from them, then what? Sit behind a tree and pray that you get out of combat? In 6.0 we could heal for 30% in 3 gcds. and 2% every 3 seconds. Let's do some math real quick. Average health in 6.0 was around 270k if I'm rembering correctly. 2% of 270k gives us 5,400. Let's say you lived for a minute and a half. Assuming you were in cover for that entire minute and a half you would have healed for 162,000 health! Now granted you wouldn't have been in cover for that full minute and a half but I'm sure you could see my point. Pair that with 3 rolls and you get a total of 243,000 health. Nearly a full extra healthbar! And now we can heal for 0% no matter how long we live. Am I the only one seeing a problem with this?

 

This is turning into a rant. Essentially my point is that sniper needs work in order to make it competitive again. I'm not asking for a lot, but at the bare minimum add back in passive 2% heal every 3 seconds. To be honest, it's beyond me why that was not incorporated into crouch. A lot of other basic passives were integrated into other classes abilities, I do not quite understand why that one wasn't. But that has to happen before sniper becomes competitive again in solo ranked pvp. At the minimum add back 2% heal every 3 seconds while crouched. At the maximum, add back 2% heal + 10% heal every time you activate roll.

Edited March 4, 2022 by xXSchmedlyXx

[Enticy]

As much as I hate to play devil’s advocate here, I’m going to have to say that I’m glad for the changes to Sniper/Gunslinger. Their insane survivability and self heals were spectacular overpowered, to the point where you could face tank anything if you layered your DCDs properly. Now, survival actually depends on positioning and outmaneuvering your opponents rather than just pressing the right button.

 

Yes, I know you said that you tried to outmaneuver people and failed. But you also only played one match. Give it time. Figure things out. Update your skills before simply saying “it’s bad” and moving on.

Edited March 4, 2022 by Enticy

[xXSchmedlyXx]

Actually I played 7 matches on my sniper. 3 of them were healer games, 4 of them were all dps games.

 

In the healer games you can get stuff done. Sniper dcds are still very good in healer games and I expect them to be very good in tank/heal games as well. You can still use stlinger shield and div to peel for your team quite a bit and that's going to be where sniper shines in 7.0.

 

The problem though is all dps games. With the lack of any self heals playstyle is either going to be run in circles constantly for the game. And try your best to juke them while putting 1-2 roll ambushes out Or just die.

 

Also sniper positioning and outmanuvering was very key in 6.0. It was what set good snipers apart from bad snipers. That and knowing when to prepop dcds to mitigate burst.

Edited March 4, 2022 by xXSchmedlyXx

[Xienive]

I think Sniper/Slinger definitely at least need more survivability than they've got right now. Low survivability was particularly noticeable today just doing the Zakuul arena for the Seasons weekly. Granted some of those fights are a lot more melee friendly, and I'm still improving as a sniper, but even so it was like a night and day difference switching back to PT to get that done. Barely even had to watch my health as PT, but as a sniper some fights were just a total struggle because I barely had anything to help keep me alive. There needs to be some form of self healing at least.

[Jarbarian]

You're weeks late to what I've been saying.

 

You also missed that they took away heals AND a lot of defensive options to say alive.

 

This class is so bad it should be removed from the game.

 

It's not competitive in PVP, no one is playing it anymore, the class is dead.

[KumbayaGOD]

You're weeks late to what I've been saying.

 

You also missed that they took away heals AND a lot of defensive options to say alive.

 

This class is so bad it should be removed from the game.

 

It's not competitive in PVP, no one is playing it anymore, the class is dead.

 

if in warzone not arena , sniper is still good , but in very close arena if you are focused then your only option is run like forrest gump

[Jarbarian]

Been complaining about this since 7 was released.

 

So far, BioWare doesn't care what we think. They took very little away from Operatives (they still heal INSANELY) but took away most of what Slingers/Snipers needed to stay alive.

 

I don't even play with my Slinger anymore in PVP. You shouldn't either unless you like being a punching bag in every WZ.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Jarbarian

[Xestrom]

I think the 10% heal on covered escape is more important. In ranked you run so much that you won't get a lot of value out of vital regulators, pve is a different question.

How about entrench gets 1.5% every 2 seconds health recovery when in cover. This would fit to the skills identity and we had a 15% heal over 20 seconds with a cooldown of 1 minute. Seems fair enough to not make it broken.

[Jarbarian]

I think the 10% heal on covered escape is more important. In ranked you run so much that you won't get a lot of value out of vital regulators, pve is a different question.

How about entrench gets 1.5% every 2 seconds health recovery when in cover. This would fit to the skills identity and we had a 15% heal over 20 seconds with a cooldown of 1 minute. Seems fair enough to not make it broken.

 

Since when does Bioware listen to payers like us AND actually cared about PVP?

[Xestrom]

ok agreed, the 10% is already coded just put that back xD