I will give the PvP question some more thought too and will see if I can reach PvP slingers on TRE for some help with it.

first off, I like what you have done with the questions, voting etc, you got my respect.

 

secondly, if you want some thoughts on the pvp question, perhaps you should pay me a visit on ToFN.

you can reach me on my sniper Cryyc, I have played almost 1k arena matches so far, I am on place 1 in arena for snipers and all advanced classes. i am playing my sniper for almost 2 years now on a daily basis. I played every spec in warzones, ranked warzones and arenas.

I think I got some experience and could be of help.

Regarding the sabo/engi question, do you think it would be possible to add something that hints to the devs that it would be good if they opened an official discussion/suggestion thread on the matter (one which could contain some proper back and forth between the community and bioware, similar to some recent pts threads)? It feels to me like they're looking at making a big overhaul to the spec, and I'm kind of scared that if they do it solely from internal ideas we will end up with something that is far from what we want the spec to be.

Hey guys, thx again for the input. I have changed the 1st question which is now focusing more on what PvE3 intended to be.

 

Also per Ruarcs request I made less than subtle hint that we would like a focused feedback thread for saboteur/engineer where we can brainstorm together. I don't believe the hint needed to be subtle since I have no doubt whatsoever that bioware wants communication now a days. I see a clear change in policy if I look back into SWTORs past.

 

PVE Question:

The coming patch 2.8 will bring a few changes to the double proc relicbug and several buffs to other classes. We fear that in the recent patches preceding 2.8 and 2.8 itself the DPS gap will be widened between several classes.

We do understand that gunslingers are bringing some defensive capabilities for ourselves and a great cooldown for the raid in the form of scramblingfield. These defensive capabilities and the universal playstyle of the gunslinger might have the potential to keep us in the raiding teams. But taking a gunslinger in a raid team will lower the raid DPS and we might get changed out for higher level content just like shadows, sages or even commandos in the past.

The only exception to this is playing Engineering/Saboteur and exploit gamemechanics to drop all Scatterbombs on one location which is a highly controversial playstyle.

Question:

Does the combat team believe that a gunslingers defensive and raid utility capabilities are enough to compensate for the relatively low sustained single target damage and overall AOE damage without "exploiting" Scatter Bombs? If not, what changes do you have in mind and what timeframe can we expect those changes to occur?

 

PvP Question:

I can't write a background/introduction for this one myself since Macewindy is strictly PvE and I would hate to see it go to waste. If a PvP'er could write this for me I would be thankful. Please discuss it in the PvP-thread and I will copy paste it + edit it if needed.

It is a well known established fact that gunslingers have survival issues in arena's and most classes see them as a free kill or at the very least the class to focus first. We know and understand that essentially you feel we need a new button and that you're hesitant to create new skills at this time. Unfortunately this puts our class in a difficult situation and we don't feel as if that is a suitable situation. For example what kind of time frame would a survival boost be implemented, by your comments so far it's going to be later rather than sooner.

Question:

How will you address the survivability issues which gunslingers currently are facing in Arenas?

 

Wildcard question:

In the previous round of questions for Snipers, the combat team stated their dissatisfaction with the Engineering/Saboteur specialization. Noting long cooldowns on core abilities, single target limit on Interrogation Probe/Shock Charge and the energy management mechanics which all contributed to a clunky rotation and playstyle. Furthermore both in PvE and PvP Scatterbombs are highly controversial. PvP'ers are capable of one-shotting people with 10 mines but have to sacrifice their survival hightail for damage. PvE'ers face the issue of scatterbombs making up for about 20% of all damage done and a melee requirement. While the damage output is nice for the saboteur gunslinger, the combat team stated it was not intended to be used as such.

What has the combat team drawn up since the previous set of answers for resolving these issues present in the Engineering/Saboteur specialization while keeping the AoE-ness of our spec? Related to this, can we expect an official brainstorm thread where devs and the community can work together to discus possible changes?

 

Some random notes and concerns:

- MM/SS is currently lacking decent fillers while we are still being forced to use Flyby/OS on single targets

- DPS wize MM/SS is feeling to dependent on critting. (Even when considering its our burst dps tree)

- Both PvE and PvP setbonuses are feeling lackluster and mostly are considered to be non valuable

- The usefulness of alacrity is better after 2.0 but somehow the impact still feels small

- DoTs and Wounding Shots by other gunslingers and scoundrels are consuming the casters stacks of Hemoorhaging blast

- The marker on an enemy player by aimedshot is to much a dead give away that a gunslinger/sniper is targeting you (Question: Should we mention this bulletpoint since I haven't seen that many people naming this issue. FYI: On my sage I love this marker. Means I must scram to LOS him )

Final Questions are up. Check the OP for the final version.

Nice job, fire-breath.

 

In the 3rd question you ask for community brainstorming, I'd like that for the 2nd one as well or rather just in general

If theses questions are meant for Gunslingers, then we really should copy and paste it over in the Gunslinger forum. I know Gunslinger and Sniper are the same class, but they still got separate forums.

That's a technicality Ashuranrx. I hope we can trust bioware to have read this thread. Since somehow our questions were not sended to the combat team yet I will PM Eric later this weekend (not sure how many PM's he gets and I don't want mine to drown in the weekend).

 

Meanwhile we got ourselves a bit more time to modify the wording of our questions since I don't assume Eric will send the questions before Monday.

I'm pretty sure, Eric won't see any of our PMs before Monday. He needs his weekends.

But taking a gunslinger in a raid team will lower the raid DPS and we might get changed out for higher level content just like shadows, sages or even commandos in the past.

 

Over the dead body of "melee sucks for NiM content" will snipers be dropped.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Gyronamics

Over the dead body of "melee sucks for NiM content" will snipers be dropped.

 

Only a shadow is melee in that grouping, commandos and sages are ranged

Only a shadow is melee in that grouping, commandos and sages are ranged

 

Totally missing the point.

 

Ranged > melee.

 

Sniper > other ranged.

 

All classes right now do plenty enough dps to clear all content. The reason you dont take a raid of operatives is not because their dps sucks, because it doesn't. But because their abilities to deal with PVE content are much worse.

Ranged > melee.

 

Sniper > other ranged.

 

This is true, but only in PvE. Assuming you want to keep a semblance of balance in your ops team (taking equal melee and ranged DPS into an operation), the versatility of the Gunslinger/Sniper in my opinion trumps both Sages and Commandos. While it is true that Gunslinger damage lags behind the DPS of melee classes, this can be said for all ranged DPS really and I think they should be evaluated separately.

 

Gunslinger burst spec (Sharpshooter) does similar or slightly higher damage than comparable ranged burst specs (Gunnery, Telekinetics - the burstiness of which is up for debate). Gunslinger sustained DoT spec (hybrid) does similar or slightly more damage than comparable ranged sustained DoT specs (Assault Specialist, Balance). However, I believe the difference in terms of raw damage numbers is small enough for player skill to be the major determining factor.

 

Where Gunslingers do have a noticable advantage over other classes is the fields of mobility, utility and defensive abilities:

- Hightail It provides mobility similar to Force Speed for Sages and flat out trumps Hold the Line. They have the same cooldown I think (20 seconds) and while the movement can be executed with one button, it does not allow for directional change. Sharpshooter Gunslingers, however, have further access to passive speed boosts (e.g. after Hunker Down ends). IMO, this makes SS one of the most mobile specs in the game.

 

- Hunker Down makes the Gunslinger immune to physics and lasts twice as long as Hold the Line in Gunnery spec. Snipers have a definite advantage here over both Commandos and Sages, especially considering that Force Barrier's cooldown is 3 minutes and forces Sages to completely stop any previous activity.

 

- While it is not % based, the cooldown of Defense Screen is essentially nothing (20 seconds), as opposed to Reactive Shield's 2 minutes. This allows Gunslingers to use it very often and requires far less conscious timing. Activating it during the fight is not a strategic decision (like Reactive Shield or Force Barrier). While it absorbs less, you can use it more often, which should equal to more damage being mitigated in the long run. Dodge can act as a self-cleanse and fully mitigated melee/ranged damage. Gunslingers have access to further damage reducing talents in Sharpshooter tree (Holed Up, Ballistic Dampeners). Because Crouch is not on the GCD, the perpetual crouch/uncrouch every 6 seconds can indefinitely maintain Ballistic Dampeners for a continuous 15% damage mitigation. Furthermore, the strategic cooldown of Scrambling Field reduces party wide damage by 20% for 20 seconds. Lastly, the careful use of Hightail It can also act as a defensive ability, negating all damage for the duration.

 

When you take all of this into account, I'd say that Gunslingers are more desirable than either Sages or Commandos but not primarily because of their damage. They have very good effective DPS but they bring considerably more mobility, utility and defensive abilities to the table. The only notable disadvantage is that they don't have on demand, instant heals (like Force Mend or Kolto Bomb) and they cannot cleanse themselves as frequently as Sages and Commandos can. The former issue is almost non-existent if the operations group has competent healers, while the latter only applies on one boss (Nefra).

Edited June 8, 2014 by CommanderKeeva

And the devs have said in one of the last Q&A that dps balancing and utility balancing are 2 different things. They also said utility balancing isn't that good right now, but it should not interfere with dps balancing. So snipers need to stay good while they find a way to boost utility of other classes

Guys please keep this thread on topic.

Any discussions about gunslinger/sniper PvE and/or PVP should be done in the brainstorm threads started up by Paowee. Lets contain all information in those 2 threads please.

 

In this thread please ONLY respond about the WORDING of the questions. Any other qualm should be voiced elsewhere.

 

Thx for your understanding

i read the op answers so figured i put my predictions in early.

 

1. We feel that gunslingers/snipers are currently in a pretty good place for endgame PvE content, as their raid utility and survivability is higher than that of many other classes – so currently, the idea is that what slingers and snipers may lack in DPS, they make up for in their raw ability to survive or raid utility. In a distant future update, we will be adding some DPS for slingers/snipers in exchange for some of that utility, but we are not yet ready to discuss the details of these changes.

 

We feel that the scatterbombs is being used in an unintended manor but do not wish to remove the wall bang from pvp. We have plans to fix engineering/Saboteur and will be nerfing OS further soon but are not yet ready to discuss them.

 

2. we are aware slingers/snipers lack survivability in arenas and we were going to implement a better version of evasion but that was too OP. we are currently working on new defenses but are not ready to discuss the details. It may be a new ability tho we don’t like doing that outside of large releases.

 

3. We will be implementing phase 2 of make sure no one uses Flyby/OS ever again soon. This update will remove all abilities buffing OS from every tree but engineering/Saboteur and attach them into the engineering/Saboteur tree. We are not yet ready to discuss what if any additional talents will be used to replace the removed ones. After phase 2 has been implemented phase 3 will re-work engineering. You can discuss potential changes below.

Snip

 

^All of this. I have my pitchfork ready if that happens.

----- Edited August 26, 2021 by dahyle

So, any answer ?

 

Yea, it's been a week... where's our answers? Operatives got theirs! We want ours! I want to see what you will do with Engi, it's my favorite spec, but i'm getting tired of using the Wallbang just to deal decent DPS...

Answers are taking quite some time. Kind of gives me the feeling that they are taking this serious since the engineering question is in there as well.

I expect a good read soon

Answers are taking quite some time. Kind of gives me the feeling that they are taking this serious since the engineering question is in there as well.

I expect a good read soon

 

well the OP questions were picked up on 5/27 and posted on 6/16 14 week days

 

sniper is at 6/9 so 14 week days puts it at 6/27

 

tho guardians was 10 week days

Edited June 25, 2014 by Skotal

Really? Thought the Op questions were faster... Appearently I haven't been paying muhc attention. Thanks!

(still expecting a good read with the engineering stuff)

Meanwhile, for your viewing pleasure...

 

will there ever be any consideration given to sabotage?

no piece bonuses for pve, i mean thats way overdue getting perma nerfed instead of a piece bonus seems very punishing to me? and make the aoes back to what they were for sabos.

if you want to keep the fly by nerf give sabo a piece bonus to boost it back up to normal.

and those cover roll grenades are crap for pve as a 55 ability for ops, compared to the other classes.

Seems like sabo is totally ignored...

and wheres that "something" you wanted to give us since you didnt the last patches and nerfed us

and undid the dodge, our only hope for cleansing ourselves, with cleanses needed in hm ifnot you die in one shot in ops thats kinda cheap to do that for the pvp whiners and remove it,

I know bioware likes killing its players but cmon thats really cheap, couldnt you have added a cleanse then if you didnt boost our dodge!

every patch theres some sorc, jugg or marauder crap but never any word about sabotage,

i smell an emperor with a conspiricy to nerf sabos by making others stronger and doing nothing about it for them lol. So sick that the devs play so much jedi or should i rather say sith same as swg there all sith freaks the devs or bounty hunter... Seem to forget in this old rep world stuff, without a smug at the end of the movie the jedi would have never gotten the death star down... So the empire should fear smugs rightfully.

Stop just focussing on jedi and give me my guns back, jedi dps pvp is a horrible idea anyways.

Its becomming like a rave in the 90s full of glowsticks but the freaks are raged murderers instead of loving ravers lol and theres way too much melee in the ops now!

they die much more in ops, like 1 or 2 sents is enaugh.

Untill something is done about sabotage the rest is all hot air to me and am sick of false hopes.

Im not a sith i dont beleive your lies rofl.

And last but not least, what about giving us smugs some smuggling missions... im not really smuggling much as a smuggler... feels abit superficial being a smug without the risk of a smuggling mission.

 

"this deal is getting worst all the time!"

calls his android to remove the empires weapons

Edited June 26, 2014 by ODTONE

no piece bonuses for pve, i mean thats way overdue getting perma nerfed instead of a piece bonus seems very punishing to me?

How is an extra energy regain and lower cost of our execute ability a punishment?

 

and wheres that "something" you wanted to give us since you didnt the last patches and nerfed us

and undid the dodge, our only hope for cleansing ourselves, with cleanses needed in hm ifnot you die in one shot in ops thats kinda cheap to do that for the pvp whiners and remove it,

You know that dodge had and still has a cleansing effect?

 

And last but not least, what about giving us smugs some smuggling missions... im not really smuggling much as a smuggler... feels abit superficial being a smug without the risk of a smuggling mission.

While it would be fun, it should be something in the smuggler storyline and not something repeatable. It still has to be fair for others you know.

 

I have skipped the sabotage/saboteur stuff. We all want changes to that tree. Thing is they have to rework the whole tree. That is a lot of work and in the background they are working on expensions and other new content as well.