Gunnery versus Marksman

By the letter yes, but in practice ambush and heatseekers are nearly identical. HSM is instant but requires a 1.5 second precast of Grav, Ambush is a cast but is immediately followed by a instant followthrough.

For ideal burst a Gunnery commando will hardcast grav then immediately fire HSM so that the tracer/grav and the HSM hit the target as roughly the same time.
For MM's ideal burst the sniper will cast Ambush and immediately fire a followthrough so that the ambush and followthrough hit at the same time.

In both cases there was a 1.5 sec precast, and in both cases you had two abilities hitting the target at the same time. Reiterating the profile of MM and gunnery are nearly identical, except MM just straight up hits harder.

However the bigger point I was trying to make was the difference in constancy. Ambush has a overall 46% crit rate on average, and this is coming from a sampling of all warzones I've done since 3.1.1.

Now I will admit there is a decent measure of error in play since the parser looks at all logs going back to 3.1.1. This means the averages are polluted by scrubs and people lacking set bonuses and such. Ideally I would use the other part of the program that records the user's outgoing damage and compare, but at this time I only have a slinger and commando, and the offhand shenanigans prevents getting useful information from my slinger.

Although if you look at the sample data from one of the MM snipers that was also linked in that post, that sniper had six recorded ambushes of which 5 of them crit. I can't find a single commando or mercenary that is even remotely approaching that kind of crit consistency.

I'm asking for gunnery to be able to compete on the level of marksman.

Cough, cough, lighting/TK, cough... cough...

I mean, if we're trying to make the ranged burst specs somewhat even...

Can't wait to see the rage responses :P

They have invinci bubble and ridiculous self heals. End. Gunslinger and Commando do not.

Lightning is just screwed for other reasons, although Lightning at least is different. Gunnery is for all intents and purposes, a rather underpowered MM sniper.

L o l.

We're talking about team ranked, not fail solo queue.

Also, the burst healing that a mando can put (on live) in two gcds is more beneficial than a sorc spamming that pitiful heal (IN TEAM RANKED), the only thing a sorc dps brings to table is static barrier (force armor for my sage buddies).

P.S. The whole point of Zoom's post is that Commando's added utility does not justify lower/less consistent burst, if that arguement holds true for Commandos then it also holds true for sorcs.

P.S.S. I've co-dps'd with and tanked for a merc/mando, so don't give me that ******** that they are not viable in team ranked (viable, not perferred, since someone is going to bring that up).

Totally agree with you Zoom, just wanted to bring it up.

For a real reply, I don't think that they can make gunnery 1 for 1 in terms of burst with MM/SS, simply put if you can pack the exact same punch and bring enet/off heals (which can be clutch, and I think you're intelligent enough to recognize that) then gunnery/arsenal becomes the superior spec between gunnery/ss.

Most people whose main character or secondary character is commando don't like other ranged classes.

Lightning sorc is in need of buffs (burst for PVP, and survivability for PVE). Some damage needs to be shifted from crushing darkness to thundering blast. Right now, lightning sorc is barely viable for PVE, unviable for team ranked, unviable for solo queue ranked, and barely viable for regular WZs. Bioware shouldn't have nerfed lightning spec's single target DPS when they nerfed force storm.

I don't see why not though. Commandos may have enet and some heals, but mandos also lack entrench and the the rest of the sniper's defensive toolkit. The compensations are already there, there is no reason for gunnery's damage profile to be so outclassed.

Arsenal/Gunnery versus Marksman! This the most weird comparison thread i ever seen!
For me Arsenal/Gunnery is more like Lightning sorcs. They even have similar mechanics if you look closer.

And with all these nerfs and "buffs" and QoL improvements snipers are so weak... How can you even be angry on them?


My face is:

Defense:

Snipers have:
-Shield probe - okay with 30% utility, but not a "great" dcd.
-Evasion - Solid vs white damage, but the ability seems to be bugged vs force/tech.
-Diversion Great cooldown, outside of covered escape this is the best DCD a sniper has
-Covered Escape - Amazing cool down with two drawbacks: cannot be used while rooted and it is also your movement ability
Cover - Immunity to pulls and leaps, 20% more ranged defense, and interrupt immunity
Ballistic shields - 30% dr for three attacks every 6 seconds provide that you leave and re-enter cover
Mercs:
-Suit FOE - huge vs dot specs, such as hatred.
-30% DR while stunned and 30% AOE DR (with utility)
-Reactive Shield is a flat 25% dr from all sources, much stronger than shield probe (closest ability I could compare it with)
-Absorb stacks on decoy/diversion - amazing versus tech/force, weak vs white damage.
-Kolto Overload - kind of meh, but still there.
-Instant heal that can be used on anyone, another casted heal that can be used instantly via proc/cool down

Mobility: Mercs have a huge advantage over snipers in terms of mobility, many of the abilities that you listed as movement buffs are either not taken, or not used in team ranked:

You do not take seek cover in team ranked, you would have to give up either augmented shields and pillbox sniper, both of which are better utility choices.

Many snipers take reestablish range, however, if you are close enough to use shiv on an opponent is generally a bad idea to leave cover and attempt to run away, a sniper out of cover is extremely squishy

Covered escape is your best defensive cool down, unless you are pushing the enemy's **** in this would present a 20 seconds window were you are very vulnerable.

Utility:
Sniper-
-scrambling field - solid dr utility for your team, very easy to counter since it does move with the sniper.'
-Entrench - Amazing utility, can be used as a defensive or offensive ability; This is a fair trade off considering how dependent on entrench snipers are

Merc:
-E-net: One of, if not the, best offensive utilities in the game, useful as part of focus train or as a method of control when your enemy is whitebarred.
-Cleanse - Huge since you can cleanse your tank/healer.
-Off healing - Possibly huge because you can put out very solid burst heals (if you crit) in 1-2 gcds, which are much more important for clutch saves than weak spammable heals.

Both classes have a knockback, I would argue that mercs is more useful as a defensive ability because there is no pre-requisite (cover), snipers is more useful as an offensive ability because of the root.

I didn't touch on passive DR, but I think I covered everything else. Mercs have better mobility, outside of CE(roll) their dcds are stronger, they have e-net, and they have off heals/cleanse. Entrench is extremely strong, but it is part of the trade off of being so heavily dependent on cover.

The tech cleanse alone is huge, and the passive stun DR (with utility) is extremely strong since since most burst windows occur during stuns. The option to off heal if your healer/tank is stunned can be huge (it has saved me before).

The mobility vs cover mechanics is a hard one, both have the advantages.

Assuming that both classes have the same max burst potential/consistency I think merc utilities would heavily out weight the sniper utilities, and I don't see how you can claim that snipers have a stronger defensive toolkit than mercs, especially in the dot heavy meta of 3.0.

Sorry for any grammer/spelling errors, I was having a conversation while I was writing this and am too lazy to go back and proofread it.