Gonna ask the mercs the same but just curious which makes a better "shoot'em up" dps. Wondering for both pvp and pve! Thanks guys! Happy New Year

If you are speaking purely DPS wise, Snipers have the edge DPS wise.

If you are talking ease of play, Mercs are easier to play than Snipers.

If you are talking about survivability, Mercs have better survivability, but, Snipers have amazing survivability as well, in fact, they are without question the two most survivable DPS classes in the game. In Effect - Merc>Sniper>every other DPS spec in the game.

In 5.x Mercs and Snipers are considered the alpha classes in the game, a.k.a FOTM.

In PVP Mercs and Snipers are top dogs, and even in PVE, while they may not put out the most DPS their survivability, ease of DPSing, lower skill set [in the case of Mercs], forgiving playstyle, and mobility still make them sought after DPS for many raid groups.

Snipers do tend to require more skill to play optimally than Mercs do. Merc's can be played well by monkey's pretty much, and not the smart monkeys even. That said, they aren't "hard" to play either, just speaking in comparative terms to merc.

With Tank like DCDs, self healing, high DPS for ranged, surprisingly good mobility [they even had certain mobility buffs, in fact] for what one would normally consider a non-mobile class [that's pretty much just one of the specs I believe at this point], and possessing even greater range than mercs, Sniper's really don't have any downside.

Very strong class.

Where Merc's have some greater measure of survivability over Snipers, Snipers have a greater measure of damage potential over mercs. Even still, their survivability is better than the rest of the other DPS classes/specs.

This is the generally held opinion, there may be some who might disagree for other reasons,but this is where the bulk of consensus lays.

I've only been back to the game for about 2 weeks and have spent most of it between sage commando and GS and recently decided the GS is what I want to push progression with. That said I haven't seen a ton of the fights in this endgame and so I'm largely basing my decision off of what I always liked having available during my mythic wow raiding pushes.

The biggest thing I saw from GS over the others wasn't just all of the defensive CDs but the fact that you can dps and hand your raid group a 20% damage reduction zone that lasts 20 seconds. Now as I said I don't know if this next part is of much importance in swtor but in wow progression there were things that needed to be soaked by dps and if i had the ability to hop into cover and say goodbye to damn near half of that unavoidable damage every 6 seconds I would be a godsend for pesky people who don't want to be on the soak rotation. It's not just the defensive CDs of the class but the fact that once you get down all of the ways to deal with damage you can mitigate almost everything thrown at you every time. Plus like I said... 20% damage reduction for everyone in a 20 yard radius for 20 seconds. That is probably my favorite spell in the kit both defensive and offensive.

Not to mention you have 3 situational and viable specs. I have played a good 12 hours with each now and have to say sab/engineer is my favorite. So much cleave damage it's insane. All 3 specs are fun and competative.

As for merc/commando. Honestly the thing that really makes me go back for more is the fact that it has a healing spec.

I've only been back to the game for about 2 weeks and have spent most of it between sage commando and GS and recently decided the GS is what I want to push progression with. That said I haven't seen a ton of the fights in this endgame and so I'm largely basing my decision off of what I always liked having available during my mythic wow raiding pushes.

 

The biggest thing I saw from GS over the others wasn't just all of the defensive CDs but the fact that you can dps and hand your raid group a 20% damage reduction zone that lasts 20 seconds. Now as I said I don't know if this next part is of much importance in swtor but in wow progression there were things that needed to be soaked by dps and if i had the ability to hop into cover and say goodbye to damn near half of that unavoidable damage every 6 seconds I would be a godsend for pesky people who don't want to be on the soak rotation. It's not just the defensive CDs of the class but the fact that once you get down all of the ways to deal with damage you can mitigate almost everything thrown at you every time. Plus like I said... 20% damage reduction for everyone in a 20 yard radius for 20 seconds. That is probably my favorite spell in the kit both defensive and offensive.

 

Not to mention you have 3 situational and viable specs. I have played a good 12 hours with each now and have to say sab/engineer is my favorite. So much cleave damage it's insane. All 3 specs are fun and competative.

 

As for merc/commando. Honestly the thing that really makes me go back for more is the fact that it has a healing spec.

It's a very good point actually. That 20% damage reduction 'globe' is something you see all the time in PVP, and it effects a lot of people. Considering that a taunt might already have one's damage reduced by 30%, add that Sniper globe which than pushes it to 50% damage reduction than throw on the effects of guard that people just love to throw on Mercs and Snipers to add insult to injury heh, that's some insanely high damage reduction.

So yeah, it's another think that certainly adds to selling the class. It isn't only about DPS when it comes to group content.

Gonna ask the mercs the same but just curious which makes a better "shoot'em up" dps. Wondering for both pvp and pve! Thanks guys! Happy New Year

Depends on the sniper tree ... MM / sharpshooter .. yes it's a straightforward dps burst spec

The other two not so much particularly engineering / sab whose speciality is node guard / defending and shutting down enemy healers ( and those abilities use up match time and will never be shown in final results at end of match but it's also a lot more actions per minute and have to think verses marksman /sharpshooter which is face roll easy

To those that will say yeah but ... engineer / sab can have huge numbers at end of match but requires all enemies to sit bunched together for a lot of match to be aoe attacked and if an engineering/sab is doing this they should just play mm/SS if they want big numbers