Gunnery versus Marksman

Flop, I play a Mercenary too. It was my first class. He's valor 70, all done as Arsenal (except for a few games as Assault). On our server, actually (I can log on him and whisper you if you want proof). I just don't bring him out much anymore since playing an Operative.

In all honesty, I don't think the core problem of why Snipers and Mercenaries are weak in solo is strictly a class issue. I think it has more to do with the fact that the matchmaking system is cruddy - 4 dps vs. 4 dps is a horrid way to play.

That said, I think both our classes are in a troubled state. I think Mercenaries have it worse, too. But I don't think trying to create this "us vs. them" mentality between MM and Arsenal is a very good way to go about it. You guys don't want to be like us. You guys want your own niche like Sorcerers have. A kind of mobile run-and-gun style play instead of our turret-behind-cover style.

EDIT: Also I think Sorcerer is more attractive because Barrier will always be a greater tool in 4 dps vs. 4 dps than anything either of our classes can bring.

I belive you thats not necessary... and you are right the match making system is very much part of the problem. Let me be clear, I'm not trying to create an us vs them either, i also play a sniper so i get both issues. I guess what im trying to say in simplest terms is that i dont think snipers are weak anymore than i think mercs are weak... both classes have issues, but it isnt in being weak. Others can simply do more or have less weaknesses which is why they are part of the OP FOTM class, and we are not.

The damage from engineering is pitiful. I stick to its mirror on gunslinger, but I have no illusions about our damage being great, it would be nice if the abilities matched the damned tooltips damage at least. Sabotage is supposed to hit for 4500-5000 damage for me at the moment, and it CONSTANTLY only hits for 3200. ***...

I've got a merc and a commando...don't really know how to play them though. One of the main issues with snipers is it takes a while to get used to using your defensive skills. There are decent snipers all over the place but when it comes to the the right defensive choice at the correct time...that's something else entirely. When you look into that side of things there's a whole serious of reasons why that's the case.

What you tend to have are a bunch of snipers that can kill mediocre players fairly easily but have serious problems against skilled players. More skilled snipers will fare easier against those same skilled players but it's still an uphill battle. The offensive skills of other AC's combined with their defensive skills basically outgun what a sniper has.

There are multiple classes out there that are able to survive for a respectable time against multiple players, a sniper on the other hand cannot. As has already been said, our defensive skills are very short in duration and not are not designed to provide us with decent anti focus abilities. Every form of defensive skill can help, of course it does but that doesn't mean to say what we have is suitable.

You can gain seconds in which you can do something yes but in a lot of situations it's not enough. There's a reason why classes have been given cc imunity buffs, to help mobility. What hasn't happened is for our defenses to evolve to cater for that. We are very mobile when we want to be but what we don't have are decent defences to help that mobility.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of the sniper I find is a sniper cannot under any circumstances just sit in the same spot for the entire warzone/arena, we have to move around and that is when we are at our most vulnerable. We can use our defences in those situations but then we don't have them for when we have reached our new position. Every time we move we have to make a judgement call on whether it's worth doing so and do we have to use some defensive skills to allow us to move in a way to that won't open us up to a trip to respawn.

Do we have better defenses than mercs/commando's? Meh from my extremely limited knowledge....probably. Are they any more effective than a mercs/commando's? Well that's the real question and one that is quite difficult to answer. It depends heavily on the skill level of the sniper for a start and then you have to think about the situation and what's going on. Our defenses can work really really well to aid other players and even ourselves but there are then many other situations where they're not really that helpful at all, you can blow all your defences against one skilled player and still not come out on top.

Obviously all of this is from an engineering sniper....

We need some sort of solidarity avatar or something for Sab/Eng. May be just as boring as MM now for less damage but I'll be damned if I want to sit there and channel, proc, channel, proc, channel, proc, proc, proc all day long!

I just want the old EMP on just the probe to do the stun and it reset the CDs like it used to. Think I would be a happy camper then.

You know I'm with you on that dude

However I've been thinking about that. Lets just say we get the old EMP discharge back. Do we keep the damage it currently does? If we do then it presents a problem on whether we use EMP discharge to do damage or to reset, if it doesn't then we essentially loose that damage and need something else to make up for it.

With the loss of ambush, I don't know about you but the spec already feels empty, we would need either a brand new damage dealing skill or a broken skill that does both damage and resets which wouldn't be in our interests. What I would favour is to have those resets placed on countermeasures instead. Have one of our engineering passive skills put the resets on that instead of EMP discharge.

That or why we didn't get a new ability like the other specs is beyond me. Really; losing armor piercing hurt damage and it looks like they intended to boost AOE damage with overwhelm to compensate but how much AOE do we really have that is practical to use? Its all ground based and nade lost its AOE. I wouldn't mind a SOS to have a new version with explosive rounds that do AOE damage.

Not PvPing until 3.3 because I don't wanna grind out gear after coming back. But if you think Sniper and Merc are the same in PvE you're wrong. For phases that require a lot of movement, you can have potentially 2 instant TMs, Priming Shot, Blazing Bolts on the move, HSM instant, and Rail Shot instant. Sniper is going to be AAing and maybe you have a Followthrough up or the boss is low and you can use Takedown. IO is of course the higher damage spec, but suffers from poor target swapping so respeccing to Arsenal for some fights may be better.

Marksmenship could and SHOULD always beat a merc. I don't care what yall have to say. Equal skill MM vs Arsenal merc = MM hands down. Hell I even hunt MERCS on my sniper for easy kills and laughs at DCD.

EVERYONE hunts Mercs, we are easy kills to almost anyone that truly gets it, but the statement shows the differences in the DCD issues quite nicely if even a class that is considered on the same "tier" goes out of their way to hunt us.

That having been said, a good Merc is not an easy kill.. you may get us, but it wont be easy unless you catch us without and cooldowns and you have all yours.