• Edit (#3): The following is a list from what I wrote on the 1.2 Sniper Changes thread. It is discussed in much greater detail there.
  

• Target Acquired now additionally reduces the global cooldown by 0.2 seconds and increases energy regeneration by 20% for the duration of the ability.
  
• Shatter Shot has had it's healing debuff duration increased to 15 seconds, up from 9 seconds.
  
• Shield Probe has been fixed to scale off of Cunning for the Sniper. Currently a Sniper's Cunning did not affect their Healing Power attribute of which Shield Probe used for scaling. This essentially made it so Shield Probe only benefit from the Power and Tech Power attributes. Now a Sniper's Cunning is applied to the Healing Power calculation and thus Shield Probe now benefits from Cunning.
  
• Rapid Fire changed to a passive talent that now increases the damage of Series of Shots and Suppressive Fire by 20%.
  
• Heavy Shot talent additionally changes it so Ambush can no longer be dodged or deflected.
  
• Precision Ambush talent changed to 25% / 50% Armor Penetration for Ambush, up from 10% / 20%.
  
• Razor Edge changed so that Shiv now causes the target to take an extra 10% / 20% damage as internal poison damage instantly, based on the kinetic damage that Shiv deals.
  
• Devouring Microbes additionally gives Corrosive Dart and Corrosive Grenade a 33% / 67% / 100% chance upon being dispelled to deal half the remaining internal damage instantly to the target and refund 10 Energy to the Sniper.
  

 

• Edit (#1): I encourage people to read the entire thread. A lot of great suggestions and ideas are littered throughout it.
   
  
• Edit (#2): The top now has a condensed and updated list of issues that the community seems to agree on and a list of possible changes I personally would believe to address those issues. I still don't believe we need significant buffs, but I do believe we need quality of life improvements and utility buffs.
  

So I've created a more updated list of what it seems everyone would want changed if we do need changes. What do you think? Any major additions I didn't cover?

 

• Target Acquired, Deadly Directive, and Sniper Volley needs a change, becuase Alacrity is counter-intuitive.
  
• Laze Target should have a great function for all types of Snipers including Marksman, Engineering, and Lethality.
  
• Rapid Fire, Plasma Probe, and Weakening Blast needs an improvement, becuase 31 point talents should be the capstone of a tree and highly desired.
  
• Snap Shot, Stroke of Genius, and Calculated Pursuit need to be changed becuase they are boring talents that all seemingly do the same thing.
  
• Experimental Explosives should literally apply to all AoE effects, becuase that is what it claims to do.
  
• Imperial Demarcation, Vital Regulators, Precision Ambush, and Razor Edge should be improved becuase in their current forms they feel too weak.
  
• Takedown, Ambush, and Weakening Blast should bypass the Defense Chance due to their long cooldowns and unreliability in PvP.
  
• Marksman Snipers could use some mechanics to better counter armored targets and have slightly enhanced mobility.
  
• Lethality Snipers could use slightly better energy efficiency, slightly reduced cooldowns, synched duraiton dots, and needs dispel protection.
  
• Engineering Snipers could use slightly better sustained damage, slightly reduced cooldowns, and sustained energy efficiency.
  
• Snipers could use some more PvP/PvE utility becuase we lack offspec Healing and Protection. Popular suggestions are Healing Debuffs and/or Increased Damage Taken Debuffs.
  
• The Cover Mechanic could use some tweaking in some form to be more intuitive, fluid, and free of possible ability lag and bugs in addition to working against all types of Ranged Attacks.
  
• Shield Probe should be fixed to scale off of Cunning as well as Tech Power and Power.
  
• The PvP Medal system should give every class a fair shot at the same number of medals. This includes tweaks for Healers, DPS Hybrids, and Pure DPS.
  
• The energy system needs some tweaks whether it is just simple fixes to how Energy Tanks works or make it much less punishing for those that do make mistakes when using their abilities. It has inherently anti-fun properties and seems counter-intuitive when you consider trying to balance the class on the resource system. Fighting a group with healers can be next to impossible since our energy mechanic can run dry if unchecked in less then 10 seconds.
  

 

My personal list of updated possible changes that I think would work with the list we came up with above. Remember this is a sampling of suggestions, not something I'd ever hope all was implemented at once without a similar quality of life pass over every other class at the same time. I believe these suggestions solve most of our quality of life issues with each spec and grant us more utility:

 

• Target Acquired additionally lowers the global cooldown to 1.0 seconds and gives you 2.0 extra energy regen per second during the duration.
  
• Shatter Shot now additionally applies a 20% Healing Debuff for 15 seconds and is no longer on the global cooldown.
  
• Laze Target is now a debuff that causes the target to take an extra 15% Damage over 10 seconds.
  
• Takedown, Ambush, and Weakening Blast are now no longer able to be dodged or deflected, but can still be shielded against as normal.
  
• Abilities that require cover automatically place you in cover if you are not in cover. Additionally crowd control that doesn't move your position does not prevent or dispel cover.
  
• Shield Probe fixed to scale off of Cunning as well as Tech Power and Power.
  
• Energy system has been revamped for Imperial Agents. 100% to 30% now grants you the fastest energy regen (5.0/sec). 0-30% is now at the slowest energy regen (2.0/sec). (I know the UI breaks things up by 20%, but I think 20% is too low and 40% too high.)

 

• Rapid Fire is now a passive ability that grants Series of Shots an extra attack over the channel duration and allows it to be used out of cover while moving.
  
• Precision Ambush improved to grant Ambush 25% / 50% Armor Penetration.
  
• Snap Shot buff is no longer removed if the Sniper leaves cover and grants the Snipe an additional 20% / 40% chance to perform a critical hit.
  
• Imperial Demarcation additionally increases the duration the root cannot break from damage by 0.5 / 1.0 seconds.
  
• Sniper Volley now grants the Marksman Sniper 10% / 20% / 30% Armor Penetration for 15 seconds after using Ambush.

 

• Plasma Probe has an additional effect on player targets per pulse, adding a debuff that has the target take +15% Damage from Plasma Probe. This stacks up to 3 times.
  
• Deployed Shields additionally reduces the cost of Snipe by 3 / 6 Energy.
  
• Electrified Railgun additionally reduces the cooldown of Series of Shots by 1.5 / 3.0 / 4.5 seconds.
  
• Stroke of Genius now grants a 50% / 100% chance to cause Cover Pulse to deal high kinetic damage in addition to knocking the target back.
  
• Calculated Pursuit now lowers the energy cost of Overload Shot by 3 / 6 and grants it an extra 10% / 20% Damage.
  
• Vital Regulators now causes you to heal 10% / 20% of your health when Adrenaline Probe expires.

 

• Weakening Blast grants an additional Tech debuff. If a target with this debuff is dispelled it causes the target to take a large burst of internal damage and refund 10 energy to the Sniper.
  
• Corrosive Grenade has had it's cooldown reduced to 9 seconds.
  
• Corrosive Microbes additionally reduces the cost of Corrosive Dart by 3 / 6 Energy.
  
• Targeted Demolition additionally reduces the cost of Corrosive Grenade and Fragmentation Grenade by 3 / 6 Energy.
  
• Razor Edge changed so that Shiv now causes the target to take an extra 20% / 40% damage as internal poison damage instantly, based on the kinetic damage that Shiv deals.
  
• Deadly Directive now grants all activation time abilities and channel time abilities +2% / 4% damage.

 

Personally I think it's too early for significant changes to any of the classes. I'm even of the opinion that we are perfectly fine as a class overall. We do not need significant buffs of any kind. The only changes I think we need are making everything useful, work together, and feel good. I'll admit we have a lot of gunk that seems useless or counter-intuitive. That doesn't include all of the bug fixes for cover and ability lag, as I admit that is something we need a lot of work in. The experienced players have learned to work around it or with it, but it still needs fixing.

 

Ideally, I'd like it if every class in the game had this type of pass on their talent trees and abilities. Nothing should feel bad or nearly worthless, and no talents should be meaningless to take. Everything should tie together and make things feel unique and serve a purpose. Remember I don't think Snipers need to be buffed in comparison to other classes. That is for you and BioWare to decide. The goal here is to do a pass over the class and make everything good. It's my own opinion that this should be done with every class at the same time, essentially giving everyone a small unity and usability buff at the simultaneously.

 

I've come to create this list of Sniper changes on the principal that if we were to receive any changes, we should get the right ones. The talent trees shouldn't have dead weight that serves no purpose and that each ability should have a feel good use somewhere. You might mock me for bringing it up, but it's something that WoW was very good at doing most of the time. There is a lot of bloat in the Sniper trees and I aim to point them out and offer possible suggestions to them. An important aspect I feel is that the top 11 points of a talent tree should be glorious, and it shouldn't even subject to debate if a hybrid is better. I know BioWare has voiced the same opinion, thus many of my changes are based on this logic. The talent builds should 31+ points in one of the three trees and there should be 3 viable kinds of Snipers out there.

 

There is one exception I have to my previous logic I’d like to mention. I have recently come to the conclusion after being adamantly against it, that we need some more utility. Right now in terms of PvP we have generally the same CC options as others, the most unique and notable one is Leg Shot. Our best utility is Ballistic Shield. Essentially, the reason to take us over another DPS that has access to heals or taunts is nearly non-existent. I feel this should be the same for the Marauder as well, but I'm not familiar with them enough to make suggestions for them. Thus some of the suggestions below are based on adding additional utility. I get taken to PvP because I'm great at it, but there is a slight nagging voice in my mind that says I pretty much bring only damage to this game.

 

Also keep in mind, that even if lightning struck me twice and any of these changes were to happen, I wouldn't intend that they all be done at the same time. This is mostly just suggestions I have to changing things the right way, by making the talent trees flow together more and our class just feel better. We don't need significant buffs such as +25% damage or anything ridiculous, we just need changes that unite the class and make it feel better. Yes, it's also intended the Gunslinger and his mirror abilities have the same changes before anyone jumps on me for that. To be frank, I just enjoy coming up with suggestions for classes I play and find it intellectually stimulating to do by examining the pros and cons of my class.

 

A note on my opinion about energy use...

When I first began to play the Sniper I loved the mechanic of negatively scaling energy regen. Actually I still do the vast majority of the time. It separates the good Snipers from the bad. I think it's the reason most Snipers are just absolutely terrible. I like the mechanic, but I do not understand it’s presence here.

 

I do not understand why this mechanic is in an MMO for the Sniper. The only reason I like it is because when I'm playing right, I feel like I'm doing great. However, what do you balance a Sniper on? Do you pretend they always have full energy or make mistakes? How often do they make mistakes? Are any of those answers the correct way to balance? Look at this way, if you balance a Sniper based on always being at maximum energy regen, then anyone who screws up puts themselves in a position to be deemed underpowered. If you balance it based on someone screwing up some of the time, if you never screw up you are essentially overpowered. So how does a developer balance someone using Energy? I really don't know and that scares me as a member of the class.

 

It's odd though, because I actually love the mechanic. I like it because it makes me feel good when I use it correctly, with a sense of elitism. It’s important to note though, that the mechanic itself is inherently anti-fun. The feel good portion only comes at a stopping point in the action if you never made a mistake. On the other side, you can get punished multiple times during combat and that in its own way isn't much fun. To me it gives us choice and I like that, but I'll admit sometimes the choice isn't even clear. The main thing I worry about is how you balance a class upon it, because somewhere someone is going to be either benefiting too much or being punished too severely. It's not fun to be punished severely by not being good at the game and I've heard of many Snipers quitting because of that mechanic.

 

General Sniper Changes

• Hold Position passive decreases damage taken by ranged Tech and Force attacks in cover by 10%.
  
• Cover Screen (Tier 1 Marksman) additionally reduces the damage you take from ranged Tech and Force attacks by 10%.
  
• Target Acquired no longer available for the Sniper.
  
• Sniper's Mark Added at level 50 for the Sniper. Target takes 15% more damage over 15 seconds, 3 min cooldown.
  
• Series of Shots cooldown reduced to 9 seconds.
  
• Shattershot now applies a 30% Healing Debuff in addition to now being a 30% Armor Debuff.
  
• Laze Target may be consumed by Snipe or Corrosive Dart. When consumed by Corrosive Dart, applies the effect twice to the target.
  
• Ambush can no longer be dodged or deflected, but may still miss or be shielded.
  
• Shield Probe now scales properly off of Tech Power. Previously it scaled off of Bonus Healing which wasn't available on the Sniper from Cunning.
  
• Evasion now works as 100% Resist versus Force and Tech attacks in addition to Dodge.
  

 

The majority of these changes are to simply make the class intuitive, fun, and feel like everything weaves together or makes an obvious difference. That sometimes feels like one of the core complaints I see about the Sniper class. Many people as an example view cover as something that is just a disadvantage, when it comes with so many useful things that people don't even notice. So that is the primary goal I have when I created a list of changes for the Sniper. To make some changes that would give the Sniper a feeling that all the skills were useful and not counter-intuitive.

 

Right now Tech Attacks and Force Attacks disregard Defense Chance and Shield Chance. If it is to stay that way, I think it'd be nice to see a small bonus versus those types of ranged attacks by granting 10% Damage Reduction to them. This way it always feels useful against ranged attacks, regardless if they are white or yellow damage.

 

Target Acquired in its current state is just a poor finishing talent for the Sniper. Alacrity is just not a straight forward stat when it comes to increasing our damage. By simply working against your energy regeneration it has enough confusion among the general crowd as to how to even use it effectively. I know it can be used quite effectively, but it does have some counter-intuitive properties. Alacrity also works against us by giving us dead-air time between cooldowns and often doesn’t actually increase our sustained dps at all. It takes an insane amount of Alacrity to actually give us an extra Rifle Shot woven between “rotations”. I would honestly suggest that Alacrity be removed from a Sniper's toolset altogether. Since we are talking about the capstone level 50 Sniper ability, why not give the Sniper some extra utility here? The new Target Acquired could essentially be a mark we place on the target that causes the target to take extra damage. Simple and effective - a reason to bring the Sniper so you can focus a target down or burn a boss quicker.

 

Series of Shots is for most classes their energy efficient filler. For Engineering it's one of their primary sources of damage. Since one of the major problems a Sniper has is energy efficiency and an Engineer having consistent sources of damage, I see no reason why this wouldn't be one of the first places to improve in. Especially since it’s just a cooldown tweak and not a damage tweak.

 

Utility is something that I'll admit, Snipers tend to lack as a Pure DPS class. We need something useful to bring to a PvP environment or PvE environment and I believe that is the Healing Debuff and superior Armor Debuff. It just feels natural that both the Marauder and Sniper should have something like this to make up for the inability to heal or protect. Even without speccing into their respective Tank or Healing trees, other classes have a strong ability to be useful in those areas. This would be designed to make up a bit for that. Heck we could probably use a two medals for using the ability properly too, similar to how easy it is for a DPS Juggernaught to pick up two medals for taunting.

 

The last three changes are mostly just quality of life cleanup and making things useful to every spec. Currently Snipe isn't used by Lethality so it seems silly to have an offensive cooldown tied to it. It would feel more intuitive to have it tied to something with Lethality and available before level 10. Thus I'd say a double application of Corrosive Dart would be a unique and fun way of using the skill. Ambush is a 15s cooldown ability with a long cast time. While I personally think Tanks should be able have their defensive chance and shield chance against much more than they do now, completely avoiding an Ambush is a crushing defeat for a Sniper. If there are things out there that can't be avoided, Ambush should be among them. Also a fix to a curious bug that I don't think anyone has realized Shield Probe scales off of Healing Power. Snipers don't have Healing Power scale off of Cunning. I think an easy fix would be to have it scale off a Tech Power, allowing it to scale for both Operatives and Snipers. Evasion doesn't work because defensive stats don't work correctly versus Tech and Force abilities. If that is to remain, then Evasion should at least offer immunity to those abilities specifically.

 

Lethality Tree Changes

• Lethal Injectors (Tier 2 Lethality) now additional reduces the cost of Corrosive Dart by 6 Energy.
  
• Corrosive Microbes (Tier 2 Lethality) now requires the Lethal Injectors Talent.
  
• Corrosive Microbes (Tier 2 Lethality) redesigned. Now causes Corrosive Dart to tick in 2 sec. / 1.5 sec. intervals over 18 seconds, but with 15% / 25% reduced damage per tick.
  
• Corrosive Grenade (Tier 3 Lethality) now does its damage over 18 seconds and its cooldown is reduced to 9 seconds.
  
• Targeted Demolition (Tier 3 Lethality) additionally reduces the cost of Fragmentation Grenade and Corrosive Grenade by 2 / 4 Energy.
  
• Weakening Blast (Tier 7 Lethality) is can no longer be dodged or deflected. Additionally, a target with Weakening Blast charges remaining is struck for (damage near that of a full Corrosive Dart) internal damage when a poison removal ability is used upon them. The user of this ability is also struck for this damage, but it is not triggered if the target and the user are the same character.
  
• Razor Edge (Tier 1 Lethality) now increases Shiv's damage by 25% / 50% for the Sniper.
  
• Deadly Directive (Tier 1 Lethality) redesigned. Increases damage of activation time and channel time abilities by 2% / 4%.
  

 

Lethality in its current state is the spec we take for mobility, dots, and internal damage. The changes are focused on taking a little of the energy costs off as well as making everything fun, useful, work together. These changes are aimed at making things more convenient, and the only slight buffs are found in the improvements for the DoTs. Also to be clear, although the Operative Lethality tree likely needs changes (and could easily use some of these) I do not intend for any of these to be changes to be used by an Operative as I have no experience playing one.

 

You might notice the Tier 2 Lethality chain of Lethal Injectors into Corrosive Microbes. Taking all 3 talent points would give you a Corrosive Dart that ticks 12 times over 18 seconds. Rather than relying on the double tick, this makes the skill more noticeable and fluid. The goal is to improve the damage overall (even if the individual ticks are lower) and increase the frequency of the ticks for our talent Lethal Purpose. The cheaper energy cost gives us the ability to switch targets easier without being punished as severely as we were before.

 

This energy cost also is applied to Fragmentation Grenades and Corrosive Grenades within the Targeted Demolition talent, as right now using these grenades as a Lethality Sniper feels like it bottoms out your energy a little too quickly. The goal is to enable target switching in a much more fluid method again, because Lethality lacks in that ability perhaps too harshly. Synchronizing the duration of the Corrosive Grenades only makes it nicer to manage in PvE with Corrosive Dart as well as slightly increase the DPS that it has.

 

Currently a lot of people question whether they should even get Weakening Blast as a Lethality Sniper. I think it only makes a subtle change for this to cause opinions to differ on it. Long cooldown abilities like this probably shouldn't be avoidable similar to Ambush, and it's mostly the effect you want anyway. It seems overly punishing to have this ability to be dodged or deflected. The change to the effect gives us an option for a 15s cooldown dispel protection. It’s still advantageous to dispel the dots because of the way our damage stacks up, but by giving us some dispel protection it will at least give us some compensation to having our DoTs dispelled. Lethality's biggest weakness is someone dispelling, which reduces the damage of the combo to around nearly 1/5 of its usual damage. 4.5 seconds of setup and a 3 second channel all negated by a single 1.5 instant cast. Thus I think some dispel protection is needed, and this may not even be enough. This is the appropriate place for dispel protection as well, being the capstone of the Lethality tree. People will get better at the game and will realize that dispelling a Lethality Sniper completely ruins them.

 

Now to discuss the cleanup at the bottom of Lethality talent tree. Shiv is not primarily a Sniper ability and is only slightly better than Overload Shot on the move. Thus I really think the Razor Edge talent should seriously jack up the damage on Shiv, and thus I've suggested as much. Deadly Directive was changed because Alacrity is such a counter-intuitive attribute for Snipers as I illustrated earlier. Thus I gave it a similar effect in damage increase for all abilities that were affected by it previously.

 

Engineering Tree Changes

• Plasma Probe (Tier 7 Engineering) now applies a debuff that increases damage taken by Plasma Probe by 15%, stacks up to 3 times and lasts 6 seconds.
  
• Deployed Shields (Tier 6 Engineering) also reduces the cost of Snipe by 3 / 6 Energy.
  
• Stroke of Genius (Tier 4 Engineering) has a 50% / 100% chance of causing the next Snipe to be Instant, cost 0 Energy, and have it's damage increased by 40%.
  
• Calculated Pursuit (Tier 2 Engineering) redesigned. After using Overload Shot you gain a buff for 6 seconds causing Overload Shot to do 25% more damage and cost only 10 Energy.
  
• Explosive Engineering now affects Orbital Strike and Corrosive Grenade as well.
  
• Experimental Explosives now affects Orbital Strike and Corrosive Grenade as well.
  
• Vital Regulators (Tier 2 Engineering) now causes you to heal 10% / 20% of your maximum health over 3 seconds.
  
• Vital Serum (Tier 2 Engineering) redesigned. Now causes you to regenerate 1% / 2% of your health every 3 seconds permanently.
  

 

Engineering in its current state is a spec we take for aoe damage, utility, and a mix of mobility and cover damage. It has an extremely unique feel with EMP Discharge doing some crazy things with cooldowns and energy costs. The goal here is to improve some of its sustained prowess and clean up a lot of the talents that seem to be frankly, useless in comparison to others.

 

In line with improving the capstone of each tree, Plasma Probe honestly feels like it doesn't do that much damage. It's possible I've way overdone it here in terms of PvE, but in terms of PvP this ability could use a unique feel. Staying in the effect longer should punish you as I admit I safely ignore it right now when it's been used on me. Essentially I aimed to give a little kick to this ability and promote going deep in the Engineering tree.

 

Engineering relies on Snipe to do damage when its cooldowns are down and it lacks an ability that makes it efficient to use. Again to reiterate the advantage of going deep into the tree, going this far in Engineering would make your Snipes more efficient as a source of damage. It's the only spec that would have to spam multiple Snipes in succession, and thus it's the best place for this kind of talent. They deserve the ability to have efficient sustained damage.

 

The two conditional Snipe talents are to be frank, insanely boring. Way too much like Snap Shot in terms of design and it seems odd to ever want to combine them. With Stroke of Genius, using Cover Pulse is generally a rare thing so the talent should be much more effective than a simple instant cast on the ability that is already inefficient and weak compared to most other abilities. Thus I'd propose that given the cooldown of Cover Pulse, this Snipe should be awesome. No energy and extra damage. When it comes to Calculated Pursuit, another Snipe boosted talent just seems off. I really think we lack improvements to Overload Shot, and this seemed the appropriate place for it and fits with the Engineering theme of a mix of cover damage and mobile damage. Making it efficient enough and damaging enough to use on the move after the first shot was the goal with this change.

 

Explosive Engineering and Experimental Explosives to me are just a bug fixes, nothing more. It would only make sense that a talent that increased AoE damage would affect all of your AoE abilities. I'm unsure if this would be too much of a buff to the potential on Corrosive Grenade, but it's needed in terms of what the way the talents are written.

 

In my opinion, the last two talents I looked at changing in Engineering were the most oddly designed. Sure Endurance is great in PvP, but it's boring. Changing it to a regeneration effect would make it feel much more noticeable and fun and impact the game more often. Vital Regulators is just weak. Sure you could heal 12% of your HP with Adrenal, EMP, and Adrenal... but that's 12% of your HP. Not a big deal. Increasing this was one of the first things I felt was needed and gives Engineering a unique utility / defensive feel I think it needed.

 

Marksman Tree Changes

• Rapid Fire (Tier 7 Marksman) is now a passive talent that adds an additional shot to Series of Shots over the channel duration.
  
• Sniper Volley (Tier 5 Marksman) redesigned. After casting Ambush, you gain a buff that causes the next two Snipes to do an extra 8% / 16% / 24% Damage within the next 15 seconds.
  
• Precision Ambush (Tier 2 Marksman) increased to ignoring 25% / 50% Armor.
  
• Imperial Demarcation (Tier 2 Marksman) redesigned. Now increases the duration the Leg Shot is unbreakable from damage from 2 seconds to 3 / 4 seconds.
  
• Snap Shot (Tier 3 Marksman) no longer has a 6 second internal cooldown.
  

 

Marksman in its current state is a spec we take for maximum cover damage, both burst and sustained. It also comes with a bit of small amount of defensive utility. The changes here weren't needed as much as in the other trees as its energy efficiency is already top notch, the only problem is a few key talents that just seem off or inappropriate. Quality of Life buffs mostly, and encouraging deep tree access rather than a hybrid setup.

 

Rapid Fire sounds like a pretty cool talent on paper. It also puts out decent (not amazing, like it seems many people think) damage when used with the current Alacrity version of Target Acquired. I dislike Alacrity however, and I don't like that it simply lets us use our sustained DPS option 3 times on a long cooldown. I'd rather Rapid Fire simply increase the damage of Series of Shots by 20% passively and make it a much more effective skill to fall back on for a Marksman beyond Ambush, Snipe, and Followthrough. It's a capstone talent and deserves to be great. The extra shot is better than the damage increase because it synergizes better with Reactive Shot, making the tree feel more complete and unique.

 

Sniper Volley is another talent that I dislike not only because it's the Alacrity stat on a Sniper, but because it's backwards to how Reactive Shot works. The talent itself is somewhat counter intuitive because you gain 9% Alacrity at the cost of using two Snipes you likely didn't need to, and thus actually lost damage on the way of building that Alacrity. It feels like this should be a PvE talent as well, although I'll admit that's just my own opinion. Thus just to increase the sustained damage I think after using an Ambush that until the next Ambush cooldown, two Snipes should gain a bonus in damage and be more efficient use. The goal would still be to use Snipe to gain Followthrough, but it would be a steady increase in the damage done and suited for a PvE environment.

 

The rest of the changes are again, clean-up of odd designs. I don't understand why Precision Ambush only ever did 20% Armor Penetration on the single ability, when the 50% Armor Penetration seems to be so widely thrown about. Thus I gave it that boost, as Marksman Snipers are terrible against armor in general anyway. Imperial Demarcation felt like it needed a utility boost, and thus I improved the break on damage duration in an effort to make this talent more desirable. It also gives a Marksman a unique feel, or something to actually strive towards in comparison to Ballistic Dampeners when looking at reaching this Tier with another build. I also removed Snap Shots internal cooldown as to be blunt, it is extremely unintuitive in the game as it is right now. Snipe by itself isn't that great of an ability to want to use constantly, and allowing it to be instant cast by juggling cover should be allowed, reliable, and intuitive.

 

Conclusion

I'd love to hear your opinions on this subject as well. This thread should not be about Snipers are OP, UP, we suck, we rock, I top warzones, or I suck in warzones. This should be about suggestions to what you think would improve this class and why you think that specific suggestion would be nice. My personal suggestions aren't aimed at buffing the class, even though they do that. It's the idea of making everything useful, intuitive, fun, and tie together. I want to eliminate the gunk in the class. Keep in mind also, I'm not even that tied to the numbers more the idea of the change. It's not like I can test this stuff out on my own personal admin SWTOR server in my backyard.

 

So that's it. What are you opinions on my suggestions and what are your own suggestions on the subject?

Edited March 19, 2012 by Ayestes

You know this is the internet...

Indeed, I like writing about a situation I've analyzed myself. It helps me learn by looking over it multiple times. If not a single person read this, I'd still be happy I did it for myself. A TLDR wouldn't work in this case, due to the sheer amount of information presented here. Best thing to do if you don't feel like reading would read the suggestions and comment on that. Edited January 20, 2012 by Ayestes

From my experience, I'd change the following

Talents:

- Rework Snap Shot, Stroke of Genius and Calculated Pursuit. They are poorly designed and/or buggy (how about buffing Overload Shot with bonus damage, stun and more bonus damage, in that order of abilities)

- Rework Sniper's Volley (maybe give it a chance to trigger GCD-free rifle shot)

- Rework Rapid Fire (make the next ambush instant?)

- Relocated/rework either Razor's Edge or Deadly Directive. Those are mostly useless, but one has to be taken. (swap it with flash powder)

 

Gameplay

- Give us 5-10 more range

- Allow us to take cover in "natural cover" without a target selected

- Give us blaster pistol as an off-hand, special ability only, weapon (as seen in cinematics)

- Perhaps add camouflage options - less shiny mobile cover, chameleon effect in natural cover

 

That's what comes to mind off the top of my head. Overall, the class plays well in my hands, I just want it to be finer tuned.

Edited January 20, 2012 by JoyProtocol

Wall of text, over 9k etc etc etc.

 

Laze target having different effects based on the next cast could be interesting. example: laze target+cull causes each tick of cull to cause any poison effect on the target to tick. Laze target + SoS resets the CD of ambush. IMO make it a lower level talent similar to stance talents other classes get. put it in place of god awful cover screen

 

I would like to see a +dmg buff similar to what marauders get. Maybe a "hunter's mark" type ability that increases all dmg the target takes for 15 sec or something like that so that they are not exactly the same. Marauder buffs the raid, sniper debuffs the target.

 

I think we do need a better defensive CD. we cannot heal, and our only defensive ability only really works against other snipers.

Edited January 20, 2012 by bodatious

Very interesting ideas. Making our skills unique and flavorful is exactly what I was looking for. Giving us a defensive heal seems odd though, I'm not sure about that as it seems contrary to what a Sniper class would have. It would solve the problem involving our lack of potentially obtainable medals though.

Change cover system really,i hate it,the concept is good but i hate the mechanism and occupies 2 of my buttons (Take Cover and Take Cover in place).An automatic cover when i cast ambush or any skill would work.As it is right now + lag we take a lot of time to do something.I hope people from BioWare reads these complains about our class tho...or even an concern of this problems...

Change cover system really,i hate it,the concept is good but i hate the mechanism and occupies 2 of my buttons (Take Cover and Take Cover in place).An automatic cover when i cast ambush or any skill would work.As it is right now + lag we take a lot of time to do something.I hope people from BioWare reads these complains about our class tho...or even an concern of this problems...

 

try keybinding cover and removeing it from your hotbar. it has been shown to decrease the lag associated with getting into cover.

 

for me i use mouse 5 to take cover in place and shift+mouse 5 to roll into cover.

I have both on my mouse but this wasn't the point. Edited January 20, 2012 by ALEXANDRU-

Make cover abilities put you into crouch cover. I.E. hit pulse disruptor have it fire instantly but put you in cover.

 

After that fix a lot of lag and animation issues. Make ranged defense do something in PvP, rather than being completely worthless, make dodge defend against force attacks as well as ranged, tech, and melee. If I can dodge a blaster, I can dodge pebbles, and I can dodge a lightsaber.

 

Fix the channeled CC ability. If I interrupt a channeled slow, I want a sorc or sage to have a real meaningful CD on it. No CC should be spammable. Also if I break that slow it shouldn't reapply on the next channel tick as it does now.

 

After that it might only be a few ability tweaks like the 31 point sniper, and the 21 and 31 point engineer abilities. They are a bit lack luster in some regards.

I'd just be happy with a change to make folowthrough kinetic (or tech) damage.

Interesting points. I concur that the class is by no means "broken" but does definitely need some serious polishing. Hell, I bet most 50s feel that way about their respective classes at this early stage in the game. What I can't for the life of my figure out is why all of the classes that have heals are the ones that also got solid PVP usable long duration CC(Mezz). While ours is completely useless in PvP and in many PVE situations as well.

 

I think there is alot to be said for the lack of utility arguments, and that one design difference would have gone a long way in preventing them. (To say nothing of how in my opinion, the DPS specs for the other classes that can also heal AND Mezz is just too much utility for one toon, shame I didn't have any interest in playing one of them because those kinds core of class design "OP" issues tend to live on throughout the lifespan of an MMO...but I digress.

 

It doesn't matter at this point anyhow there is no way they could(will) give us a sorc/bh type CC and they damn sure won't remove the ability from them. I just wanted to vent about it. Bugs, abilities that need tweaking (shield probe), and lame talent trees aside..it is the only real complaint I have about the class.

 

 

 

Speaking of shield probe, it would be nice if it actually told you how much it shielded for. "Moderate" is a pretty subjective adjective....

Rapid Fire (Tier 7 Marksman) is now a passive talent that adds an additional shot to Series of Shots over the channel duration.

 

This is my favorite part of this thread. I would love to see this.

 

 

What about a MM talent that increased our defenses the longer we are in cover, possibly make it 360 degrees in pvp too. While I enter/exit cover all the time in pvp, I think this would help make us less squishy without being tanks and it would require better planning and forethought on where we decide to set up.

Edited January 21, 2012 by BlindRapture

Remove the cover requirement from all abilities. Stop forcing cover. Make cover good and i'll want to use it, don't make cover entirely necessary to function at all.

 

Give cover a useful defensive bonus, not 20% ranged defence which only works against snipers.

If it was 20% to ranged force, tech and weapon abilities it would solve a whole bunch of issues.

Alternatively completely overhaul avoidance so it works for all classes.

It's pretty dumb that tank stats do nearly nothing for pvp tanking.

It's pretty dumb that snipers and knights are the only ones affected by a whole host of deflect/shield/dodge cooldowns and high base deflect for Jedi classes.

 

Make evasion useful, again because dodge is garbage.

For its massive 3 second duration it should do more than mildly inconvenience people into switching to a force/tech attack for at most 2 gcds.

 

Give snipers an escape ability.

A sprint, vanish, leap or a version of evasion which is 100% to everything. Anything that makes an assist train on a sniper less of a guaranteed kill.

Either that or make the cover protection bonus good enough that we are a very poor target for a ranged assist train and leave us with the melee train vulnerability.

 

Dispell protection for lethality. Currently our only dispell protection is that the UI sucks and people are ignorant of how many class mechanics rely on a debuff existing.

Either that or take a long look at non lethality specs pvp damage as you lose a lot of punch against armor without exactly destroying cloth classes.

I'd like to see this change:

 

Prone position (stance): increase range of attacks from sniper rifle by 100m

Kneel position (like the current cover stance): increase range by 25m

Stand position (default): same range as current

 

Right now, a sniper is not really a sniper. Just another person with a gun. I'd like to see real sniper implementation.

I really liked hearing about Evasion. It is pretty useless against most classes/specs in it's current form.

1) Make it so we can go into cover while rooted.

2) Make it so we aren't so severely punished by defense, armor, and absorption; especially compared to other ranged dps.

i like all of these ideas a couple of them could obviously use some fine tuning..but id like to see them polish off the class with some of these ideas for sure .

I just don't want to be pulled from cover by a root.

I think that the cover system is just too severely punished by abilities that pull you out of it. For example root, etc.

I think that the cover system is just too severely punished by abilities that pull you out of it. For example root, etc.

i would like to see them change it so that all the dmg type we do is internal like from the leathailty tree, so that we can choose the spec we want to in pvp and pve and not feel pigeon holed into having to run 1 spec for each to be viable.

Oh, and the top tier box for Marksman is garbage, even with the update you mentioned.

I would really like to see a "Show target of target" option so I can plan ahead how to controlly heal/force ration far ahead (judging by the enemy health), also toggle between enemy health and player/party health is much preferred.

 

Being a healer in SWTOR is in many ways much more tedious than a Healer in WoW, and it had some pretty good (non-modded) options and interfaces I feel I lack.

I'd like a long lasting CC like the druid slicing I can use on non-droids. I'd also like more abilities to be usable outside of cover.