As a sniper/GS, who am I supposed to be attacking again?

There is a sniper ability that puts other snipers out of cover. I'm not sure if it works while entrenched but it is possible it does, I don't play the class enough to know one way or the other.

If youre attacking someone and their health bar isn't moving it could be a number of things:
1. they are a tank and all your **** is being mitigated by armor and natural defense chance
2. they are guarded and/or you are taunted by a different player who is a tank
3. they have a number of defensive cooldowns activated. In the case of marksman this will almost always be saber ward or deflection, but there are other flat mitigation abilities such as pvp adrenals, blackout and overcharge saber (in the case of assassins). There is also a big glowing bubble the trooper/BH's use that makes then damn near shrug off everything that touches them.
4. you are debuffed with obfuscate/other debuff that isn't a taunt (afaik obfuscate is the only one).

In any of these cases and several others that I'm sure I missed, your damage will be drastically lower/won't connect.
Since you're a marksman sniper almost all your damage is white damage and moves like force shroud won't help against you. Flat mitigations or deflection rolls will still apply though.

I confirm it puts out of cover even with Entrench. Also nice to use to interrupt an Ambush.
A MM duel is often decieded by who made the best use of it.

Please elaborate.

My experience with sniper thus far.

> PvP'ed extensively to level 31.
> Studied MM tree extensively, while only glazing over the other two trees. I feel as is MM is the best tree for me.
> Studied all the abilities that will be available to sniper by level 55.

My biggest lack of knowledge regarding the sniper in MM spec is that I have never used the Roll before, so I haven't been able to strategize/utilize with this amazing ability. The roll is the reason why I finally rolled a sniper (the last class for me to play). A class with zero mobility sounds dull to me; so now that they have mobility I am pretty overtaken by the sniper class and what all they bring to the table.

If I were to make this response a month from now I am sure it would be better, but nonetheless here goes nothing..

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The original post is initially asking from a sniper's perspective; and then proceeds to mention that the logic behind the 'answers' to some of these questions can be applied to all classes.

As someone in this thread has already mentioned, having a set 'rotation' for who you should focus first in a large scale battle is entirely bogus. Anyone that advocates for healers to be the first to be targeted in all scenarios, is speaking from their butt and should be disregarded.


All battles are fluid and are never entirely predictable. This statement means a number of things. If I miss a central idea that could be tied to this, please take care to mention it. Your team's focus target could pop all of their DCD's, in this case you should not continue to focus this target. An enemy could be over extending or LoSing his teammates so in this case your team would be smart to capitalize on this enemy instead of beating on an enemy healer. So yeah, the biggest things to concern yourself with as 'general' ideals go is that you shouldn't stay on a target that has their DCD's up and you should capitalize on over-extenders/LoS'ers before any other target.

Most importantly, all battles are situational! You should always be aware the outcome that you are fighting for and how your actions truly effect the game.

Example: If you are fighting for a side node on Civil War, you should always attempt to wipe the enemy team simultaneously. How would you manage this as any DPS (whether it be by yourself in a Regular match, premade w/ voice comms in a Regular match, or running a Rateds match)? Your first target should be to eliminate any healers, that seems to be the conventional thing to do anyways so that is good. The next part of the situational part of this scenario - if your target is low, you should switch targets. You do not want to kill defenders individually when trying to cap a side node in Civil War. You will never get the cap killing defenders individually, and the outcome you seek is to cap the node; not rack up damage and kills. So in this scenario you would want to avoid any preset order to killing defenders (other than wiping out any healers) and you would want to switch targets until majority of defenders are close enough to death to wipe them all as close to succession as possible.

Example: Your team is in a large scale battle at the first door, as the battles primarily are in this war-zone. Any random Joe will tell you that you should focus healers, and kill anyone that is low on health, etc etc duhh! But thing to really be concerned with during a large scale on battle on VS's is a situational entity. Primary concern should be the amount of ticks on the Defender's door. If it is a 7v7 and you walk up from respawn as an Attacker and you start beating on the Defender with the lowest amount of health without looking at the door, you might as well be running into a brick wall. You should always be aware of such a strong situational element such as the Defender's door on VS.



The fluidity and situational elements of large scale battles should always be taken into consideration when formulating your plan of action, and your possible reactions to the other team's possible actions.



As a sniper, I find myself having a ridiculous amount of tools at my disposal to help turn the game in my team's favor.

> Leg shot
> AoE knock back
> Flashbang
> Shatter shot
> Diversion
> Ambush knock back (MM spec)
> Root/Mez grenade (assuming you have these which I always do)
> 4 second stun (least important out of this whole list but still obviously important)

Then on the flip side, snipers have arguably the best damage and burst capabilities in the game. This is a well known fact and you'll see most if not all snipers focusing on exacerbating this trait. You will not find yourself to be a special and great player if you put more emphasis upon the damage capabilities over the utility of the class. It is much harder to effectively utilize the utility of a class, it is easy to effectively push buttons that turn into stats and kills. If you were to compare the difference between an average and great player with a utility mindset versus the average and great player with only a damage mindset, you would find the skill gap to be manifold the times greater in favor of the utility minded player. Anybody who puts emphasis upon utility/map control/situational awareness can do the DPS/Healing part of the game with their eyes closed.


So with regard to a sniper, if you want to be great; you need to revolve your gameplay around utilizing your utility and not your damage. The damage with come if you have the ability to maximize your utilities.



Enough about semantics; I am going to discuss exactly how I play specifically on my sniper.



The very first thing that I do in any warzone is I put markers on enemies. I typically mark up to 5 players. What is my thought process behind this; who do I mark and why? (Excluding Huttball from this because I mark different players in Huttball for reasons that would require a thread by itself.)

I initially scavenge for any sorcerers and operatives. I will mark them because more often than not they are healers and they are particularly squishy regardless of spec; relative to some of the other advanced classes that is. This is something that I would do even if I were not on my sniper; I do this on all of my other classes.

Next I will mark a minimum of 2 melee classes; I particularly do this on my sniper. Melee classes as in marauders, juggernauts, and assassins; regardless of the spec they are in. Why do I do this, am I an idiot like people scream into chat for marking enemies that are not healers?

Let us review the invaluable tools that a sniper has at his disposal:

> Leg shot
> AoE knock back
> Flashbang
> Shatter shot
> Diversion
> Ambush knock back (MM spec)
> Root/Mez grenade (assuming you have these which I always do)
> 4 second stun (least important out of this whole list but still obviously important)

I put priority into maximizing the potential of all of these abilities before using my damage abilities. You will find these abilities to be on CD before my damaging abilities far more often than not. Let me also be clear on something; I do NOT use these abilities and save these abilities in order to help secure my survival. I focus on using these abilities as tools to influence effect the outcome of the game in my team's favor, and not as defensive abilities for my own survival and for god forbid *1v1's*. (Obviously, I do use them as defensive measures for myself at times but that should not be the priority.)

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I mark marauders, juggernauts, and assassins for good reason! Without mobility, these classes are pretty much sitting ducks. Sure some specs in each of these classes have a root-breaker, but more often than not; if I root one of these guys they will have to eat that 5-second root and then the 70% slow that follows. So being aware of the position of these guys at all times is very important. It sounds simple, but there is huge difference between throwing a Leg-shot a healer with 100% health because you want to pop a GCD him versus rooting that melee class that is harassing anyone and everyone on your team for up to 5 seconds and a great slow after that. You are essentially CC'ing/Mezzing that melee for up to 5-8 seconds, think of it that way. And marking these people just makes the process so much more efficient. I try to use Leg Shot within 5 seconds of it coming off CD; I put so much priority on this ability that I try to be so aware of it's CD when it comes off CD I can pop in on who is deserving immediately after it comes off CD. (Similar to someone who might focus on being aware of the CD of ambush so they can use it right away, I do the same but with abilities such as Leg shot and the AoE knockback.)

I do not mark PT's and Mercs for the purpose of utilizing Leg Shot on them multiple times a game, because they have multiple root breakers. Their ability to avoid controlling effects for an extended period of time every 30 seconds is pretty much a hard counter to the tactic I just mentioned.

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AoE knockback, wow! This ability, wow! If you use this ability for your own self defense then you truly have a lot to learn. Total AoE knockback, that really knocks the ever living crap out of people. It is a huge knockback.

This helps to force LoS issues on the enemy team by purposefully splitting up certain players, knocking enemies purposefully behind structures to create major LoS issues, knocking them all the way down the hill in Novare Coast, roots all enemies effected for up to 5 seconds, peeling for anyone that is being focused, etc. This ability is limitless in its value due to its unlimited targets, 5 second root, and huge knock back. If you use this ability as a 1v1 defensive measure or anything of that nature, you're doing it wrong.

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Flashbang, another amazing ability. I think this ability should be tweaked slightly (and Leg Shot on a longer CD perhaps). Marking people allows you to use this ability more effectively as well. Fighting a team with multiple healers? Well, throw this flashbang at one of them without even having to think about it since you have him marked and you know immediately. In a large scale battle (7v7) where a few of the enemies are clumped up together? Throw flashbang at them and force multiple people to eat up to a 8 second mez or perhaps force them to use their CC break. Refrain from using this ability for your own self preservation! It holds so much more power than that, just like the AoE knockback.

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Leg Shot, AoE knockback, Flashbang. Unmatched in their value when trying to stall enemies from moving throughout the map. If the enemy team is overloaded to a part of the map and your team is capitalizing on that by attacking elsewhere on the map, use these abilities to stall the enemies for extended periods of time! Sacrifice yourself for the greater cause. I find that this is the first step in becoming a great player. Recognize when you need to stall, and become good at it. These abilities make it easy for anyone to effectively stall an unlimited amount of enemies for great lengths of time. Underrated like you wouldn't believe!!!

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Shatter Shot. I watch Rated streams in which snipers have not popped this ability on anyone. I cannot believe it! It has a 45 second armor debuff and 15 second healing debuff. Rated matches usually consist of lengthy battles at particular parts of each map. Why not pop this ability on 5-6 enemies? Why not pop this any ANYONE who has lost a significant amount of health? They have to either die or regain this health at some point, so why not guarantee that they have to work harder to heal them with the 20% health debuff. It has a 4.5 second CD, use it.


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Work on maximizing the potential of these four abilities before you do any others. Meanwhile, mark enemies it really helps all of your thought processes as a player. These tactics and ideals will not influence any part of the scoreboard in your favor as an individual but they will truly, truly influence the outcome of the game. Great players recognize other great players. Disregard the scoreboard.

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Very well thought post. Although I'd recommend a more balanced approach to both utility and damage.
Keep studying and improving your skill. May be when you'll get to level 55 you'll be of some use to your team.

Ouch. I think he's got a better understanding of the class already then most snipers. Obviously, the metagame is different at 55, but I don't doubt he'll be juust fine when he gets there.

I also believe personally that the utility impacts warzone objectives more then damage, although obviously it's not a black/white thing. You can't be captain utility and only produce 50% of the max dpser on your team.

Good to know I'm not entirely talking out of my butt

As I have mentioned in the part that you quoted; I have the firm belief that if you have the capability as a human being to have the competence to be great at the utility/situational aspects of the game, then understanding the DPS/burst part of the game is easy. So when I say you should have an emphasis upon the anything other than damage/burst then it is safe to assume that I expect you to be able implement damage/burst into your gameplay with ease.

I didn't say anything about him being bad for a level 31 sniper. I just expressed my best of wishes to him

Right, being competent at damage dealing is the easier part of the equation.