I want my Sniper to go Marksmen, naturally, but is leveling in Engineer or Lethality a easier ride?

From my own personal experience on my little lvl 26 sniper alt go Engineering at first and then swap to lethality or marksman once you are past level 30.

 

Followthrough (and series of shots) for marksman and Cull for lethality really are the staples of the trees and they really don't flow very well without them. Where as until that point you can just frag grenade/suppressive fire your way through most things throwing cluster bombs and a slowing interrogation probe on anything large.

Marksman or engineering are both good leveling builds.

 

Engineering clears trash quickly with frag grenade spam.

 

MM is a bit more defensive and has good single target damage.

 

I wouldn't level with lethality.

I've been levelling through the marksman tree without any real problems.

 

I think your tactics and playing style are something you want to consider too.

Besides, if you find a particular tree is'nt working out for you, it's easy enough to re-spec.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Tautha

Marksman is great for taking out one enemy at a time. Amazing for bosses.

Engineering is good for AoE

I want my Sniper to go Marksmen, naturally, but is leveling in Engineer or Lethality a easier ride?

 

 

I created my IA to AC as a Marksman Sniper but put my first 4 pts into Engineering's Energy Tanks and Engineer's Tool Belt for the faster cooldowns and Energy bump. Just dinged level 15 and am about to enter the Dark Temple on Dromund Kaas--the only enemy I could not defeat were Grathan's Inquisitors but will chalk that up as a L2P issue and go back at em before I leave the planet. From what I recall of the Temple going through it as a Merc it's not all that bad...so far the MM Sniper has been fun, Kaliyo's tanking makes things a lot easier and the SL is GREAT--certainly I have no complaints

Engineering until level 30, then marksman - you dont want to spec marksman until you get followthrough, that one talent brings the whole tree together. You can opt to go back to engineering at 36 when you get series of shots, or you can stay marksman (high-end engineering doesnt get good until series of shots, but marksman does ok with or without it).

 

Dont go lethality until level 40 minimum, you want access to weakening blast and cull to make it decent for soloing (and even at 50, I've found that lethality sucks compared to marksman or engineer for soloing - it just cant handle multiple targets as well and lacks burst damage).

 

The main issue with lethality while levelling is that it takes a lot of build-up time. You have to sit around doing almost no damage while you apply both of your DoTs, shatter shot, explosive probe, and weakening blast, and then you finally get around to firing off cull for some decent damage - problem is your companion will probably have killed the target off by then. Lethality is awesome for boss fights or other long-duration targets at endgame, but not so much for levelling where enemies are numerous and die quickly.

Engineering is the only way to go while leveling. Frag grenade spam that hits twice for 30% more critical multiplier (and plasma probe from 40-40) is win against the 3-4 packs of mobs you'll face while doing missions. For endgame, Lethality is currently the best. On stuff that doesn't die in 20 seconds, lethality's DoTs and Cull hit very, very hard.

I'm currently leveling both a Sniper and Gunslinger using the Engineering/whatever it's called for GS trees.

 

I'll probably switch one to Lethality at lvl 50, though.

 

I'm soloing with my Sniper and I've had no real issues so far at lvl 28.

NOT lethality!

 

MM really starts to shine when you get followthrough (level 30 at the earliest). So up until that point i would probably say Engineer for the frag grenades and explosive probes.

 

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/imperial_agent/sniper/#::f46e2f4e2fe4f

 

This type of set up will help you hit harder up to level 30 ish