sniper needs some changes. we all agree to some degree, i think.

 

I'm gonna make reasonable suggestions and will update it over time as soon as something new comes to my mind or perhaps even one of you got a good idea, i will add it.

perhaps we can give BW a little bit to think about.

 

!don't make this thread into some discussion of which class is more desireable in Brontes NiM etc. this thread is only for suggestions/ideas for sniper talent and/or ability changes!

 

how about some new talent like while being in cover and getting hit by any attack the active CD of Covered Escape and/or Entrench is reduced by XXsec, this effect cannot occur more than once every XXsecs.

something like the PT has with his shield or kolto overload.

 

or how about a little redesign of ballistic shield? make it a raidwide buff that reduces all dmg taken by 25%, no need to stay under it anymore, and give it a debuff like bloodthirst on all affected players.

 

or how about an orbital strike change? make it like the current smash but the opposite, pvp targets are getting the full 100% from it while pve targets will take less dmg from it. ofc the dmg of OS would need to be increased for pvp, the current dmg it makes could be unchanged for pve.

 

or how about a redesign of the talent scatter bombs like instead dropping 5 scatter bombs in a trail behind you, as soon as you go in cover you drop 5 scatter bombs around you that will remain in place for XXsec, also perhaps if you move and go into cover again, you take them with you and they will be still around you in a new place. also give it a CD like scatter bombs or perhaps scatter mines can only be gained every 45secs once they are all depleted and with EMP Discharge you can still ofc reset the CD.

 

or how about a talent change of Engineer's Tool Belt? like adding a crit chance and dmg increase to fragmentation grenade.

 

or how about a redesign of plasma probe? first off, get it a new animation, get rid of the emitting fire and instead give it a shiny blue pulsing emitting plasma animation. i mean it's a plasma probe not a fire probe right?

also perhaps instead of placing 1 plasma probe in a spot, put 5 little plasma probes in a circle and if you place your plasma probe in a spot and people run into it or already staying in it, make the plasma probes stick to a target, 1 probe per target and make the plasma probes follow and dmg their target.

 

more to come...

Edited May 22, 2014 by VdFExarKun

Dear Cryyc,

 

Whilst you are scheming can you also fix:

 

lethality: The 2 point 20% FB accuracy debuff that now only applies to 1 target, not 5. Perhaps bump the debuff (as it breaks on damage) to 50%?

 

Similar for the skill DOTs not ticking on slept targets, as a Lethality Sniper this is zero use.

 

With SR in mind, along with fixing the roll bug that stops you mid way, how about putting in some hard cover points to each map?

 

Yours always in Awe,

 

Arc

 

PS. weakening Blast for ME!! Not the raids low damage tick, same for the poor Sorcs.

My suggestion would be to redesign Cover Screen. Possibly make it an offshoot of Ballistic Dampers, where you keep Ballistic Dampers out of cover and get 1 extra charge.

I'd prefer it if plasma probe stayed the same tbh, I'm all for an animation change as what you said does make sense but the mechanics of how the skill works.....it's good enough as it is imo

 

the extra talent to reduce the cooldown of covered escape and/or entrench would sure be nice. However can you imagine what the other classes would say about that? I just can't see that happening.

 

Your ballistic shield change sounds more like a pve change so if that helps them sure why not

 

Orbital strike....I want my orbital back!!! They haven't finished with the skill yet though as there are changes to come. I'd like to think that it'll come sooner rather than later (ya I know...)

 

Your scatter bombs idea, as long as it doesn't have the same effect as wall/roll bang it sounds ok.

 

Frag Grenade, I like the skill and use it a fair bit depending on the circumstances so aye it'd be nice to have it dish out a bit more damage. I think it might be a tough one to get right though when compared to other skills. We don't want to get into another orbital situation where we'd end up getting nerfed again.

sniper needs some changes. we all agree to some degree, i think.

 

how about some new talent like while being in cover and getting hit by any attack the active CD of Covered Escape and/or Entrench is reduced by XXsec, this effect cannot occur more than once every XXsecs.

something like the PT has with his shield or kolto overload.

 

or how about a little redesign of ballistic shield? make it a raidwide buff that reduces all dmg taken by 25%, no need to stay under it anymore, and give it a debuff like bloodthirst on all affected players.

 

Thoughts on these two ideas.

 

I like the idea of CD reductions on Defensive abilities like with Tactics/Assault, but the CDs on those abilities are 1.5-2x longer (at least) than Covered Escape/Entrench. What is an effective CD reduction/ICD for a covered escape CD reduction skill? 0.5sec/ once every 5s? I guess another way to ask this sort of question would be what is the ultimate CD reduction you would like to be able to get CE down to, 15sec? 10sec? It seems like it could be tricky to balance such a mechanism in such a small time frame.

 

Similar concerns with entrench. 40sec of down time is not as much as ~2min for the PT abilities, and potentially increasing entrench uptime from 33% to 50+% (especially with AoE in PvE encounters) would manage to increase their cheese utility even further.

 

Regarding ballistic shield. I wouldn't like it to be range dependent like Inspiration. For such a good ability, there should be some "use this smartly" component to it. Maybe put some sort of qualifier on it that in order to get the DR, you have to at least be under it for at least x sec, and then you can freely move around as you see fit. Call it "charging your personal shield" or something hokie like that.

Edited May 22, 2014 by JMagee

Another change I would suggest is to make us immune to dots for the duration of Dodge. It sucks to blow a cooldown purging those only to have them instantly reapplyed.

I Play mostly eng so I would like this one to be fix.

Plasma probe its good but I would remove CD from it and make so only one can be active. It would be nice if I could move PP.

Interrogation probe I thing its lame that this can be cleans as this is very important to use with plasma probe if my interrogation probe its cleans then plasma probe should work like Cryyc suggested.

 

I like idea of scattered bombs from Cryyc as this would help with sins and mara.

 

Overload shot should be doing more damage as then this would fix a lot with rotation for PvE

 

Vital regulator its useless at current state. Now it heal you 1% of your total HP but its current HP so if you fighting and your HP drop to 10k you get only 100HP every 3 sec so its rubbish if this would heal 1% of your max HP then it would make more sense as then you looking at 300-380 every 3 sec regardless of how much HP you have at current time.

 

Cluster bombs should explode even if I don’t do damage as its now its good but cluster bombs are useless against good players as they simply go to cover or stealth and this is main dps ability when you play eng. It could stay as it is but I would make it so when timer runs out on them they will explode for xxx % of normal damage so they would do less damage if explode at the end of timer but at list they would be not wasted.

 

Stealth stacks should stay if we go back to cover in next 10 sec. and with 30 stacks I should be able to see everything regardless of what people use when in stealth.

 

I would like to see new ability which is very specific to sniper so they fill like sniper:

 

Basically I would like to see HK-termination, I would make this at list 40m range very long cast time like 6sec but dealing lots of damage, cannot be interrupt but can be line off sigh.

 

Next pure sniper ability would be scope I don’t get why we don’t have it, we should be able to enter scope mode in which our range its extend to let say 50m but we get damage reduction with distance so if you snipe someone at 50m you could let say do only 60% of normal damage, so we would get range advantage but we would lose field of view as in scope mode you would not see much happening around you.

In snipe mode line of sight should be different to as there is no way sniper would not hit you just because you hiding behind something tin, this is how now it works I can see 80% of somebody body but I cannot hit him LOL, come on BW sniper can hit item size 100 mm x 50 mm from 1 kilometre.

I would mainly like for sniper too become sniper as at the moment we are not snipers, on republic side they do not even use sniper rifle LOL.

I honestly would like "Stealth" to be an Imperial Agent class ability and not just specific to Operative. Snipers rely on stealth and camouflage. It's their forte. A sniper waits diligently for that one opportunity, that one shot one kill. Big shot from a long distance. Leading to me to propose a new ability that enables you stealth and a high damage shot that can only be taken at 45m from your target. No less, no more. Once used, you will be popped out of stealth and receive a tremendous amount of threat/aggro because you are now exposed. Snipers are good at what they do. They shoot then disperse. However, things happen and they get caught. My second new ability would be a grenade/stun/stealth that can only be used when your health is below 30%. This would do medium damage and an area stun and automatically put you in an unbreakable stealth for a limited time so you can escape.

I honestly would like "Stealth" to be an Imperial Agent class ability and not just specific to Operative. Snipers rely on stealth and camouflage. It's their forte. A sniper waits diligently for that one opportunity, that one shot one kill. Big shot from a long distance. Leading to me to propose a new ability that enables you stealth and a high damage shot that can only be taken at 45m from your target. No less, no more. Once used, you will be popped out of stealth and receive a tremendous amount of threat/aggro because you are now exposed. Snipers are good at what they do. They shoot then disperse. However, things happen and they get caught. My second new ability would be a grenade/stun/stealth that can only be used when your health is below 30%. This would do medium damage and an area stun and automatically put you in an unbreakable stealth for a limited time so you can escape.

 

So you want god mode for Snipers?

sniper needs some changes. we all agree to some degree, i think.

 

I'm gonna make reasonable suggestions and will update it over time as soon as something new comes to my mind or perhaps even one of you got a good idea, i will add it.

perhaps we can give BW a little bit to think about.

 

!don't make this thread into some discussion of which class is more desireable in Brontes NiM etc. this thread is only for suggestions/ideas for sniper talent and/or ability changes!

 

how about some new talent like while being in cover and getting hit by any attack the active CD of Covered Escape and/or Entrench is reduced by XXsec, this effect cannot occur more than once every XXsecs.

something like the PT has with his shield or kolto overload.

 

or how about a little redesign of ballistic shield? make it a raidwide buff that reduces all dmg taken by 25%, no need to stay under it anymore, and give it a debuff like bloodthirst on all affected players.

 

or how about an orbital strike change? make it like the current smash but the opposite, pvp targets are getting the full 100% from it while pve targets will take less dmg from it. ofc the dmg of OS would need to be increased for pvp, the current dmg it makes could be unchanged for pve.

 

or how about a redesign of the talent scatter bombs like instead dropping 5 scatter bombs in a trail behind you, as soon as you go in cover you drop 5 scatter bombs around you that will remain in place for XXsec, also perhaps if you move and go into cover again, you take them with you and they will be still around you in a new place. also give it a CD like scatter bombs or perhaps scatter mines can only be gained every 45secs once they are all depleted and with EMP Discharge you can still ofc reset the CD.

 

or how about a talent change of Engineer's Tool Belt? like adding a crit chance and dmg increase to fragmentation grenade.

 

or how about a redesign of plasma probe? first off, get it a new animation, get rid of the emitting fire and instead give it a shiny blue pulsing emitting plasma animation. i mean it's a plasma probe not a fire probe right?

also perhaps instead of placing 1 plasma probe in a spot, put 5 little plasma probes in a circle and if you place your plasma probe in a spot and people run into it or already staying in it, make the plasma probes stick to a target, 1 probe per target and make the plasma probes follow and dmg their target.

 

more to come...

 

I think orbital needs it's dps buffed by 40% up from the prior 60% nerf. Scatter bombs are fine by me. Plasma probe to me just needs more burst and less fluff so. I believe the damage of it should stay the same but be over 9s. Then have scatter bombs also make it so that after your plasma probe is through it explodes in a burst of kinetic AOE damage for 1-1.5k base damage. The cooldown could be the same or changed to 9s. It's up to debate the dps numbers and whether you have the bonus effect tied with scatter bombs or plasma probe itself.

So you want god mode for Snipers?

 

Not really, It was in planning for Snipers to have some form of Stealth in the original plan, but i think it was cut out due to time constraints. And it makes sense for them to have Stealth, real life snipers have special suits that help them to blend in with their environments.

Not really, It was in planning for Snipers to have some form of Stealth in the original plan, but i think it was cut out due to time constraints. And it makes sense for them to have Stealth, real life snipers have special suits that help them to blend in with their environments.

 

I don't think he is saying it'd be god mode as it relates to a realistic statement you made. He is saying that because it would make the class too powerful. I tend to agree. If I could stealth and set up my ambush followed by all the instant shots I get from Marksman I could drop people left and right. With the current game mechanics it'd be too much. Maybe you can suggest sniper stealth if you want to drop DPS by X percent.

Random thoughts:

 

I'd like Covered Escape to break roots. Lets face it, there is no kiting as a Sniper especially against multiple targets tunneling you. I know Lethality has a root break, perhaps make this a low tier skill?

 

Some kind of CD reduction for Evasion would be nice, either flat or when you take damage. Perhaps add a small Tech/Force damage reduction as well, like 25% or so for the duration.

 

Would be cool if Ballistic shield followed you around instead of being static. I do not like the idea of making it similar to Marauder raid buffs.

 

Something needs to be done with Scatter bombs.. Add the effect to SoS, rename it to Explosive Rounds or something. Damage would need to be adjusted of course and perhaps reduce targets to 5 (not less!).

 

Do something about Overload Shot, how it works in Engineer is kind of silly forcing you to be out of cover. Seems like they want us to use it as a filler, make it more "available" and do more damage.

 

Make Suppressive fire a decent skill, first of all make it hit at least 5 targets.

 

Plasma Probe is pretty decent, but I'd like it to have a lower CD, 12 sec makes it more in line with SoS rotation and better for target swaps. Adjust damage as needed, but keep the initial burst damage.

 

Engineer would probably be completely OP in AoE with all of this haha

 

PS. Stop suggesting Stealth to Snipers just because "real world snipers" has this, it's stupid. AFAIK Snipers were never intended to have Stealth.

Orbital strike....I want my orbital back!!! They haven't finished with the skill yet though as there are changes to come. I'd like to think that it'll come sooner rather than later (ya I know...)

 

Well, tbh. I don't see a reason why bioware couldn't change it to this:

- Orbital Strike requires a target to cast

- Primary target will take xx% damage of the ticks while any other player/NPC receives the full brunt of the damage (xx% needs to be small so we won't use it that easy on single target)

- Optionally for PvP it could be that the primary target also takes 100% damage so that you can keep those pesky melee off your tail more

 

Basically this is the way how smash got treated so I see no reason why OS couldn't be coded the same (Mind that I have no experience at coding)

Random thoughts:

 

I'd like Covered Escape to break roots. Lets face it, there is no kiting as a Sniper especially against multiple targets tunneling you. I know Lethality has a root break, perhaps make this a low tier skill?

 

Some kind of CD reduction for Evasion would be nice, either flat or when you take damage. Perhaps add a small Tech/Force damage reduction as well, like 25% or so for the duration.

 

Would be cool if Ballistic shield followed you around instead of being static. I do not like the idea of making it similar to Marauder raid buffs.

 

Something needs to be done with Scatter bombs.. Add the effect to SoS, rename it to Explosive Rounds or something. Damage would need to be adjusted of course and perhaps reduce targets to 5 (not less!).

 

Do something about Overload Shot, how it works in Engineer is kind of silly forcing you to be out of cover. Seems like they want us to use it as a filler, make it more "available" and do more damage.

 

Make Suppressive fire a decent skill, first of all make it hit at least 5 targets.

 

I like a lot of stuff mentioned above. Perhaps maybe even a 'Smoke Screen" ability for X amount of seconds which gives a 25% debuff to all enemy tech/force accuracy within an X meter range? I would even be willing to take the same debuff for OP sake.. some damage is better than being dead.

Make Suppressive fire a decent skill, first of all make it hit at least 5 targets.

 

I feel like the could redo the Marksmanship Orbital talents and have them buff Suppresive Fire instead and it would do all sorts of good things. Most obviously it would not only give MM some AoE back, but an AoE that can be better used as burst damage. It would help the uniqueness of the specs, as each would have their preferred AoE. Plus, of all our AoEs, Suppresive Fire is the one that seems to best fit with the MM spec's theme.

 

As to what they can do to buff it, something that might be interesting would be to work on the idea that you can physically only fire so many shots off. So remove the target limit, but set a max amount of damage that can be done across all targets, so that more mobs hit by the AoE means less damage per mob.

 

This doesn't have to scale down linearly, and it can also have a minimum number of targets (i.e. so much damage to three targets, damage decreases per target if there are more than three) to decrease the single target potential. Whatever is needed for balance.

Well, tbh. I don't see a reason why bioware couldn't change it to this:

- Orbital Strike requires a target to cast

- Primary target will take xx% damage of the ticks while any other player/NPC receives the full brunt of the damage (xx% needs to be small so we won't use it that easy on single target)

- Optionally for PvP it could be that the primary target also takes 100% damage so that you can keep those pesky melee off your tail more

 

Basically this is the way how smash got treated so I see no reason why OS couldn't be coded the same (Mind that I have no experience at coding)

 

This is a very annoying mechanic and was only made to Smash because they changed it in PvP so that only the primary target would get hit by a fully charged Smash. There was/is much outrage by making it require a target and I also find it irritating on my warriors as well.

 

BW went way overboard with the OS nerf, seems to me they had the pizza guy decide how to nerf it

 

I want OS to hit like a truck again, the way it used to be with high energy and long CD made it a bit tricky to use without starving your energy. BW doesn't want it in our single target rotation.. fine, but they could've done many things to change it.

 

How about changing it back to original damage (or close to it) and make it Kinetic damage. Maybe change how it reacts to multiple targets or add an AoE resist buff to bosses.. Sorry, I start to rant when I think of what they did to OS hehe

I feel like the could redo the Marksmanship Orbital talents and have them buff Suppresive Fire instead and it would do all sorts of good things. Most obviously it would not only give MM some AoE back, but an AoE that can be better used as burst damage. It would help the uniqueness of the specs, as each would have their preferred AoE. Plus, of all our AoEs, Suppresive Fire is the one that seems to best fit with the MM spec's theme.

 

I was thinking the same thing

 

Hmmm, increase targets hit and make it proc FT and/or make the next Frag Grenade free? A crit boost would be nice as well..

I will update OP soon, stay tuned fellow agents.

My 2 cents worth:

1: As it is with orbitals 45 second cool down,in the same amount of time our grenade does almost 4 times the damage. Look up the cooldown ration and damage vs orbital and you will see what I mean. This needs to be fixed. We do less damage than force storm and we have a cooldown. Admittedly our energy cost is less. I for one would have absolutely no issue with an energy cost increase as long as it came with a damage increase.

 

2:Flashbang. Give us the 5 person mezz back and make it at a range of 10-15 meters. Extend the range (rather than the amount of people as it currently is) for operatives if necessary.

 

These two things would be of immense help in arenas. Most snipers pre-nerf dropped orbital on themselves as a defensive measure in arenas to keep the melee folks away anyways or on the healer (entrench and probe,ballistic shield and orbital). Flashbang set this way would allow us to get some range quickly as well. Thing is these things were nerfed and then the devs stated we needed more defensive cooldowns for survivability in pvp. These things were suggested when they were initially nerfed on the pts (that flashbangs range be shortened since thats what was upsetting folks and that orbital had been nerfed too hard...as in over 60%.) and the devs said nothing at the time to these suggestions. Then they say that we need more CD's. How about fixing the ones we have since an attack from a satellite or a space ship would be far more damaging than a few grenades and the fact that a flashbang effects multiple people in the room? There are times I think the developers need to look up the RL equivalents and what they do before swinging the nerf bat (artillery and a flashbang)

My 2 cents worth:

1: As it is with orbitals 45 second cool down,in the same amount of time our grenade does almost 4 times the damage. Look up the cooldown ration and damage vs orbital and you will see what I mean. This needs to be fixed. We do less damage than force storm and we have a cooldown. Admittedly our energy cost is less. I for one would have absolutely no issue with an energy cost increase as long as it came with a damage increase.

 

2:Flashbang. Give us the 5 person mezz back and make it at a range of 10-15 meters. Extend the range (rather than the amount of people as it currently is) for operatives if necessary.

 

These two things would be of immense help in arenas. Most snipers pre-nerf dropped orbital on themselves as a defensive measure in arenas to keep the melee folks away anyways or on the healer (entrench and probe,ballistic shield and orbital). Flashbang set this way would allow us to get some range quickly as well. Thing is these things were nerfed and then the devs stated we needed more defensive cooldowns for survivability in pvp. These things were suggested when they were initially nerfed on the pts (that flashbangs range be shortened since thats what was upsetting folks and that orbital had been nerfed too hard...as in over 60%.) and the devs said nothing at the time to these suggestions. Then they say that we need more CD's. How about fixing the ones we have since an attack from a satellite or a space ship would be far more damaging than a few grenades and the fact that a flashbang effects multiple people in the room? There are times I think the developers need to look up the RL equivalents and what they do before swinging the nerf bat (artillery and a flashbang)

I was thinking the same thing

 

Hmmm, increase targets hit and make it proc FT and/or make the next Frag Grenade free? A crit boost would be nice as well..

 

Up the damage, increase the # of targets affected to 5, and add in a 25% snare/slow OR increase the AoE by 25-50%

I think Sniper is ok, but only in lethlaty spec. maybe we need fix MM and Engi spec. cause MM spec bad in PVP. and i think we need to give skill for +5 m range(on skill point. max 2 point) for Snipe, Ambush and Followth. that skill should be at high level MM spec tree. MM spec is almost useless in PVP cuase of activation time. so we could give it a little range. It will be ok and dont buff damage. sniper must have ability to attack enemy from range.

 

sorry for bad English. from Russia with love .

Edited June 27, 2014 by ExChilD

MM is down right dirty in PVP - you may be playing incorrectly but the burst is unbelievable.

 

Also i'd like to add a suggestion, give SoS a 70% slow like railshot while it channels. It would give us a chance to keep people in our AoE's just a little longer

1) Orbital Strike does splash damage thus making it truly an AoE skill and not in the single target rotation.

2) Make sniper going into cover grant low grade stealth. The sniper cannot enter stealth in combat and entering combat breaks stealth. Leaving cover also breaks stealth. (i.e. no movement in stealth)

3) Shield Probe can be activated while stunned.

 

While the stealth sounds overpowered, the inability to leave combat or move in stealth significantly impacts its effectiveness. What it will do is make is make it harder for PvP participants to all pounce on the sniper. It also would give a good sniper feel of find a nice position and patiently wait for the right moment to "ambush"