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which IA subclass is the most heavy-hitting?


ARavingLooony

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so I'm nearly done on my BH playthru and am playing as Arsenal and love how quickly I can down enemies and I was wondering which of the IA subclasses is the closest? I dont like classes that have mostly damage over time abilities so which IA subclass has most heavy-hitting instant-cast ability along with decent AoE.
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so I'm nearly done on my BH playthru and am playing as Arsenal and love how quickly I can down enemies and I was wondering which of the IA subclasses is the closest? I dont like classes that have mostly damage over time abilities so which IA subclass has most heavy-hitting instant-cast ability along with decent AoE.

 

I assume IA means imperial agent. Marksmanship sniper is definitely the most similar to arsenal. Both virulence and engineering rely on damage over time. And both operative dps specs have poor AoE.

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I assume IA means imperial agent. Marksmanship sniper is definitely the most similar to arsenal. Both virulence and engineering rely on damage over time. And both operative dps specs have poor AoE.

 

ah, I see. Everybody keeps telling me that the IA has the best storyline but gameplay-wise theyre so lackluster. By the time I've cleared a group of mobs on an IA I wouldve cleared at least 2 groups on any of my other characters. I tried playing one a few weeks ago but I almost fell asleep during combat. I hardly manage to complete Dromund Kaas before they bore me.

 

I already try to rush thru combat whenever I go to Belsavis as I absoloutly despise that planet with every fibre of my being and the idea of combat on that accursed place as an IA? blegh

Edited by ARavingLooony
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ah, I see. Everybody keeps telling me that the IA has the best storyline but gameplay-wise theyre so lackluster. By the time I've cleared a group of mobs on an IA I wouldve cleared at least 2 groups on any of my other characters. I tried playing one a few weeks ago but I almost fell asleep during combat. I hardly manage to complete Dromund Kaas before they bore me.

 

I already try to rush thru combat whenever I go to Belsavis as I absoloutly despise that planet with every fibre of my being and the idea of combat on that accursed place as an IA? blegh

 

IA does have an awesome story. I play all mine as operatives as I prefer melee. Granted at max level I generally heal

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so I'm nearly done on my BH playthru and am playing as Arsenal and love how quickly I can down enemies and I was wondering which of the IA subclasses is the closest? I dont like classes that have mostly damage over time abilities so which IA subclass has most heavy-hitting instant-cast ability along with decent AoE.

 

Marksman for sniper or if you go operative, lethality. Both are fun.

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Marksman Sniper is one of the hardest hitting disciplines in the game, if not the hardest. However, be aware that Sniper is a turret and you will stay in one spot in order to do 98% of all of your dps. They have a lot of channels and casts but cannot be interupted. With entrench they can get 20-23 seconds of cc immunity.

 

Operative’s hardest hitting spec is Concealment. Lethality is a DoT spec and imo does very little damage. However, Operative is a melee class.

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Lethality is still one of the highest parsing single target specs in the game, and it's not really a dot spec, if played as one, then yes, it does very little damage. Marksman, on the other hand, has been at the bottom for quite some time.

 

I'd say:

Single target: Lethality > Virulence > Concealment > Engineering > Marksman

Multiple targets: Engineering > Virulence > Marksman > Concealment > Lethality

Mobility: Lethality > Concealment > Marksman > Virulence/Engineering.

 

You can't just look at the numbers, the playstyle is very different, ranging from highly mobile to turret, if you enjoy mobile specs like Arsenal, sniper can be quite annoying. Marksman is okayish but as someone who mains Lethality, Arsenal and Tactics, I quickly get tired of engineering or virulence. Sitting still just isn't my thing.

Edited by Mubrak
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No it doesn't.

 

Note to OP: this should be read as evidence that "it's a good story" is a subjective judgement. I really didn't like the Agent story.

Yes it does. Best story out of all of them where choices actually matter at the end. None of the other stories do that.

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No, it really is subjective. I really disliked the IA story. I have two operatives and three snipers and only finished the story on one; I just get so bored with it.

 

As to the OP's question, both are good dps, the question I'd say is do you prefer ranged or melee? For myself, if I'm dpsing I prefer sniper, but if healing I like operative healing better than sorc or merc.

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If you have any interest in anything beyond the story, then probably you want to lean towards Sniper. Operative dps is a very specialized class. You will do fantastically well on some fights, but many fights you fall behind. If you ever plan on doing NiM ops you will face a severely uphill battle in both dps and survivability terms when playing an operative.

 

A skilled sniper in PVP is very very dangerous, as is a skilled operative. Both can be very annoying. However my strength is in pve and that’s what I’ll talk about.

 

Sniper will outdo operative on almost every fight that matters. And will take less damage doing so. Concealment and lethality both suffer from horrendous target switching. Their insane dps prior to a few patches ago (or rather lethality’s insane dps) allowed them to compensate for those, but unless you are at the absolute peak level, you can’t really maintain those numbers. Lethality is fine for HM/Sm ops, but in serious raiding, neither spec is ideal. Most other

Classes and specs will do better.

 

For snipers: engi is the 2nd most mobile ranged dps spec in the game. Marksman is the single least mobile. Marksman’s immobility comes not from a lack of instants (almost every other ability is instacast) but because they need to be in cover for optimal energy regen, unlike other specs. Virulence is quite mobile, for short periods of time, but constant target switching or mobility will cause the spec to suffer greatly. To be the best sniper you can be you should master all three of them. Doing this will also prolong your enjoyment of the class because if you don’t feel like playing one spec you can always switch. Most other classes do not have this luxury anymore with all the nerfs.

 

All three specs possess incredible aoe. On the other hand, aoe as an operative has been a joke for a very long time..

 

Neither specs have the God Cd’s of a Merc, but have a number of small cd’s which when used properly can negate some of the largest hits in both pvp and pve.

 

On a dummy lethality may pull ahead of snipers, but in reality, snipers are more valuable to a raid team.

 

For leveling purposes Mm or engi sniper will be fastest. Suppressive fire melts through most enemies.

 

As for the story, it’s purely up to you. If you like intrigue, the spy game, bond or Bourne movies, then you’ll probably like the agent story. My personal recommendation is to play as a chess: you get some extra dialogue here and there.

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No, it really is subjective. I really disliked the IA story. I have two operatives and three snipers and only finished the story on one; I just get so bored with it.

 

As to the OP's question, both are good dps, the question I'd say is do you prefer ranged or melee? For myself, if I'm dpsing I prefer sniper, but if healing I like operative healing better than sorc or merc.

 

No a boring story well 3 of them:

Jedi Knight, Sith Warrior and Trooper. BORING as sin. Smuggler started ok but majorly petered off after chapter 1.

 

BH was decent. JC, started out slow but picked up to be a good story. SI was pretty good start to finish, but IA, was a good spy thriller from beginning to end. And your choices at the beginning had far reaching choices later on in the IA story.

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No a boring story well 3 of them:

Jedi Knight, Sith Warrior and Trooper. BORING as sin. Smuggler started ok but majorly petered off after chapter 1.

 

BH was decent. JC, started out slow but picked up to be a good story. SI was pretty good start to finish, but IA, was a good spy thriller from beginning to end. And your choices at the beginning had far reaching choices later on in the IA story.

 

Story is fundamentally subjective. For instance, my favorite sorry is one you listed as boring. Jedi knight (specifically guardian). To me the knight story is the closest thing to kotor 3 we'll probably ever get and is simply a very typical good guy vs evil star wars type story. Which is what I came looking for.

 

The IA story was one I found surprisingly enjoyable. It really does play out differently based on your choices which makes it quite interesting.

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No a boring story well 3 of them:

Jedi Knight, Sith Warrior and Trooper. BORING as sin. Smuggler started ok but majorly petered off after chapter 1.

 

BH was decent. JC, started out slow but picked up to be a good story. SI was pretty good start to finish, but IA, was a good spy thriller from beginning to end. And your choices at the beginning had far reaching choices later on in the IA story.

 

And there's that subjective bit again because I would put the SW at the top of all the class stories. I consider IA as one of the bottom three, above trooper and consular.

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If you have any interest in anything beyond the story, then probably you want to lean towards Sniper. Operative dps is a very specialized class. You will do fantastically well on some fights, but many fights you fall behind. If you ever plan on doing NiM ops you will face a severely uphill battle in both dps and survivability terms when playing an operative.

 

A skilled sniper in PVP is very very dangerous, as is a skilled operative. Both can be very annoying. However my strength is in pve and that’s what I’ll talk about.

 

Sniper will outdo operative on almost every fight that matters. And will take less damage doing so. Concealment and lethality both suffer from horrendous target switching. Their insane dps prior to a few patches ago (or rather lethality’s insane dps) allowed them to compensate for those, but unless you are at the absolute peak level, you can’t really maintain those numbers. Lethality is fine for HM/Sm ops, but in serious raiding, neither spec is ideal. Most other

Classes and specs will do better.

 

For snipers: engi is the 2nd most mobile ranged dps spec in the game. Marksman is the single least mobile. Marksman’s immobility comes not from a lack of instants (almost every other ability is instacast) but because they need to be in cover for optimal energy regen, unlike other specs. Virulence is quite mobile, for short periods of time, but constant target switching or mobility will cause the spec to suffer greatly. To be the best sniper you can be you should master all three of them. Doing this will also prolong your enjoyment of the class because if you don’t feel like playing one spec you can always switch. Most other classes do not have this luxury anymore with all the nerfs.

 

All three specs possess incredible aoe. On the other hand, aoe as an operative has been a joke for a very long time..

 

Neither specs have the God Cd’s of a Merc, but have a number of small cd’s which when used properly can negate some of the largest hits in both pvp and pve.

 

On a dummy lethality may pull ahead of snipers, but in reality, snipers are more valuable to a raid team.

 

For leveling purposes Mm or engi sniper will be fastest. Suppressive fire melts through most enemies.

 

As for the story, it’s purely up to you. If you like intrigue, the spy game, bond or Bourne movies, then you’ll probably like the agent story. My personal recommendation is to play as a chess: you get some extra dialogue here and there.

 

There is so much wrong with what you said here...

 

First check this out: http://ixparse.com/rating/

Operatives actually do better as far as DPS than snipers across all bosses. In fact, the only one that snipers do significantly better on that I can find is Revanite Commanders, and I'm just not fussed about a glorified trash pull. And there are plenty that operatives do significantly better at at every tier.

 

Since they changed the aoe spread to toxic haze, target swtiching on lethality has not been bad, as you can drop that and get your dot going on whatever you are swapping to early. And concealment is, generally speaking, about the same on target switching as any other melee dps. Sure, it's not the same as Engi or Marksman which can do insane aoe, but I'd put it level with Virulence. And besides, there are actually so few fights that AOE is a important component anyway.

 

Snipers in fact do have the insane god gcd's of mercs. Shield probe, evasion, entrench (and cover alone gives a nice boost that other classes don't get), roll, and sniper shield, and then you can reset them all and do it again giving you double that number (except for sniper shield) every 2 minutes or so.

 

Snipers add the shield, which is very useful don't get me wrong. Operatives add off-heals, cleanses, a stealth rez, and a class buff. I'd tend to think Operatives are the better off as far as group utility goes...

 

Honestly, it sounds like you either haven't played operative, or the class just didn't agree with you when you tried. And that is totally fine, but there is clearly a lot about operatives that you just aren't aware of so you should be careful about giving an opinion on it.

 

To OP, as far as story goes, yes it's subjective. But basically every (admittedly informal) poll that has asked people favorite class, IA has definitely won (with usually Consular and Trooper coming in last). You'll also find that when you ask what's the best, the most people will respond "IA". That doesn't say anything about your personal feelings, but it's a decent guide on what to try next, though nothing replaces trying them all :)

 

Now if you want to play like a Arsenal Merc, go with Marksman sniper for sure. Your aoe will kill basically any trash mobs pretty quick during solo play. You can also play engi, which will let you use Flyby more often (weeeee best attack ever) and a couple other AOEs.

 

The advantage for playing a operative for story is that you can stealth past all the trash, so you'll actually do the story faster by playing an operative since you won't actually have to kill anything. But if you do want to kill things, than Marksman is probably the way to go.

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  • 2 weeks later...
so I'm nearly done on my BH playthru and am playing as Arsenal and love how quickly I can down enemies and I was wondering which of the IA subclasses is the closest? I dont like classes that have mostly damage over time abilities so which IA subclass has most heavy-hitting instant-cast ability along with decent AoE.

 

Don't play Gunslinger !

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