I have a level 47 gunslinger. I do well against all other classes except other snipers. For some reason, all my attacks either miss or get absorbed when I shoot them whereas they're damage me relentlessly. Even if I was fighting against a level 15 sniper I'd be in trouble.

I roll into cover and assume they are. I have my shield up...I do everything I can think of but it's no use.

I'm wondering if the calculation against cover got left out in the snipers attack whereas the gunslingers still have the penalty...it's the only thing i can think of.

No. First of all wait till 50, i dont like speculations below 50 where you dont even have 100% accuracy. Second, random is random, unlucky miss streaks happen. Especially if you went for SS whie the enemy sniper is anything but MM, thus hiting you more often with their tech attacks.

Also the accuracy debuff on diversion is longer and stays after you regain capability to take cover. You are missing with your offhand quite often, but sniper rifle only does less damage than 2 blasters if they both hit.

Are they behind regular cover and not the shield? When you roll into cover and an enemy is in front of you (they'll have a green shield above their head) all attacks miss when not doing anything like casting or doing the animation for an ability.

At least that's what I read somewhere, I don't pay attention to things like that in PvP.

Pop CDs. Hunker down, Burst Volley (If you have it) and burn them. Watch for respectable abilities. If they gun off Dodge, throw an explosive probe or a grenade. My opening rotation starts with Smuggler's Luck (don't use Charged Burst though), Speed Shot, 1.5 second cast aimedshot with instant charged burst, trick shot, burst volley, speed shot, charged burst, trickshot, aimedshot again (If off CD) and throw in a few flurry of bolts, explosive probe, stuns and what not. Quickdraw on CD.

If you want to rub it in their face, go full Sab. Rotation is pretty simple. Shock Charge, Incen. Grenade, Sab charge (explosive probe) Speed Shot, Smuggler's Luck Charged burst Quickdraw. Dead. Simple.

Dirty fighting is also pretty simple. Shrap bomb, Vital shot, Hem. Blast, Wounding Shots, Speed Shot, Filler, Filler, Wounding Shots, reapply dots, Hem blast, Speed shot, filler, Wounding Shots. If they aren't dead, Quickdraw.

Hope that helps, feel free to mix it up a bit.

If you're playing Sharpshooter you're going to want to use Diversion on them, this stops them from going into cover for 6 seconds and decreases their accuracy by almost half for 9 seconds. You should be killing easy if you manage to get this off.

When you use Diversion, I would suggest having Hunker down active. This way, they can't flashbang you so that you've wasted the opportunity with them out of cover.

TLDR warning: I kept adding to it at work over short breaks in work.

It comes down to the other player knowing when to use their defenses better. Remember that some critical defenses come at higher levels for this class. Once you get into your 40's you are pretty much fleshed out and can learn your defense cycles.

Just off the top of my head:

When you load up aimed shot he is likely hitting his energy shield which blocks all white damage. Keep an eye out for this. If it goes up stop your build up and use an alternate damage type (nades, etc that aren't weapon damage). You can also simply los them until the shield drops if possible. Typically I change my damage type asap every time I start seeing damage absorbed with most classes. Of course this doesn't always work depending on the defense. If you don't see an improvement that signals a good time to los or snare and get out of they optimal ranges in order to wait out their defense duration. Slap on attacks that don't advertise first prior to unloading easy to interrupt or see attacks.

If you see a target on you you can do the same as above or also throw your diversion to kick them out of cover. Your interrupt can be used for this but sometimes it depends on their spec. If engineer you may want to save it for series of shots as it is back loaded with non-white damage due to electrified railgun.

He will pop his shield probe which as MM only absorbs a moderate amount of damage. Do not front load your damage against an MM spec sniper. Keep energy up and feather in the damage to eat up the probe. Once it is burned you can unload. Shield probe is a must each and every time you see a probe/charge on your. It begins the main dps rotation of any slinger/sniper and a pure death rotation for sab/engineers. For them you need to absorb the probe and manage to interrupt series of shots and still manage a way to get out of the plasma probe under your balls with a snare.

Remember that you gain a bonus to defense in cover. Although rare you will miss the odd white damage attack unless you have some accuracy. This stat is very hard to raise prior to level 35'ish unless stacking early augments.

Watch out for his version of hunker down. If not up use a flash bang to interrupt at the very least ... even if it is wrecked by a dot or break free. Try time a real hold mind you. If you know you won't get knocked out of cover and will use hunker down don't be afraid to get into melee range as you have another stuck and tech damage type option and a knock back can interrupt an attack too.

In the end the one who still has their aoe shield available might turn the tide. Who ever gets their orbital attack in pre-50 will likely tip the scale as well. It is a massive advantage for engineer due to their snares.

IMO engineer/sab has a distinct advantage over MM/SS. If you see an engineer, for the love of god don't get caught out is the open with cool downs going. You will die a horrible, horrible death very fast. You have to find a way to get some of their primary rotation powers on cool down, burn their first half of defensive powers and then take them down. If they front load you you will die. This will change entirely once the new roll power gets in game I imagine. It is the one major weakness of the sniper again large aoe snare attacks. If I know a good engineer is on the map I wait to see them burn off some long cool down powers and then launch my attack ... no matter what build I am.

One last thing: Playing this class is always about position and getting your attacks off first. If a sniper gets the jump on you first push aside your ego and los and run the hell away to set up elsewhere. When two good players meet and one has the tactical advantage of first strike and position the other will likely die most of the time.

Right now I am spending my time in Sab spec and learning all the tricks. It matures late but I prefer it overall. I find it counters more classes than SS/MM does even considering it's short comings. It's optimal rotation does more damage in a shorter damage and is a mix of damage types. The aoe and shares make life grand at times too. I typically have an easier time against other snipers as well as most are typically SS/MM. I currently have zero lethality/DF experience as I won't touch it until I have full talent points.

Hello all,

I came to this forum with a mind to ask the exact same thing as the OP, but instead I found this thread. I have the exact same problem as the OP, I'm a level 48 slinger that can do well against other classes, but snipers, even low level ones simply best me by far. I was assuming that is because they only use one gun and slingers use two, with the accuracy of the second one being very very low, so I invested heavily into accuracy, even to the detriment of other useful stats. But still to no use. Like the OP said, most of my attacks miss, get absorbed, dodged and whatnot, while the snipers chew through me even with all my defenses up.

I understand the class mechanics and I know when he pops dodge or whatever the imp version is called, but that only lasts 3 seconds, while I miss my attacks against him pretty much the whole fight. And this has happened to me many many times. I believe there is a huge difference between these so called mirrors, I just haven't found it yet. My bet is on the fact that snipers only use one gun and so they miss less often.

The differences between snipers and gunslingers are very minor, and actually favor the gunslinger in almost every case. Although the gunslinger has lower base accuracy on their offhand attacks, the class is balanced around them only hitting a % of the time. This means that although you'll do less dmg when you miss your OH, you also do more when it hits. That gives gunslinger a very slight advantage in possible burst, but overall sustained damage is equaled out. The OH mechanics also give gunslingers a slight benefit when using Target Acquired/Illegal Mods against a target without a defensive cooldown up, since the accuracy bonus will give you a short duration of more hits with your OH, whereas the bonus accuracy is largely wasted on a sniper who is near or at accuracy cap.

Hybrid DF/Sab gunslingers also have a minor advantage in that their Shock Charge will count as an extra DoT for Wounding Shots if they don't apply a third (or if it gets cleansed), but otherwise with normal DoTs up it acts no differently than a sniper.

Another difference which has no affect on PvP (I just find it interesting) is that the sniper's Orbital Strike does a knockdown affect on PvE mobs (often knocking them out of the radius), whereas the gunslinger's XS Freighter is a direct stun affect (last time I played it, anyway).

As for accuracy I have only seen a very few times where I flat out missed a sniper in cover. Of course this can be devastating. I however started my slinger out in a rocking outfit (2 legacy slotted pieces and the rest slotted gear I like for looks). I soon augment slotted all pieces with mk-6 kits (pointless wasting money on lesser ones as you will want these later anyway). I put in low level accuracy augments which can be found rather cheap.

Even the slight bonus to accuracy I got from these augments made a huge difference. The only snipers who beat me are high level twinks and they will beat anything anyway.

Another difference which has no affect on PvP (I just find it interesting) is that the sniper's Orbital Strike does a knockdown affect on PvE mobs (often knocking them out of the radius), whereas the gunslinger's XS Freighter is a direct stun affect (last time I played it, anyway).

If still true then thank the Star Wars gods for that. I can't tell you how many times I have knocked enemies out of the aoe because of that stupid knockback on my operative.

Personally I don't believe there is a difference in mirrors, never seen anything which led me to believe otherwise whilst leveling my slinger. It's probably a combination of evasion and shield probe timed effectively. A lot of the time in my experience most lowbie snipers and slingers are still learning and a key thing about the classes is when to use the defense cooldowns.

Explain how reactive shot works on sligers: do you get to crit with offhand? If you crit with offhand but not with mainhand. Do you still get reactive shot 1,5s aimed shots? If this is true, the you have double the chance compared to snipers. Well not double because offhand misses more often but its still a higher change.

Explain how reactive shot works on sligers: do you get to crit with offhand? If you crit with offhand but not with mainhand. Do you still get reactive shot 1,5s aimed shots? If this is true, the you have double the chance compared to snipers. Well not double because offhand misses more often but its still a higher change.

Not sure if this answers you entirely but for some special attacks of slingers they don't do two attacks (ie. both guns). The damage is single just like from a sniper rifle. The attack description says the attack does more damage if an offhand weapon is used with it.

I've played both classes and once you start getting all stats adding up on gear in later levels both classes feel exactly the same in function. Differences become nearly purely cosmetic. There may be a couple pve differences like possibly the fly by aoe vs orbital but nothing that makes one more potent than the other.

Not sure if this answers you entirely but for some special attacks of slingers they don't do two attacks (ie. both guns). The damage is single just like from a sniper rifle. The attack description says the attack does more damage if an offhand weapon is used with it.

 

I've played both classes and once you start getting all stats adding up on gear in later levels both classes feel exactly the same in function. Differences become nearly purely cosmetic. There may be a couple pve differences like possibly the fly by aoe vs orbital but nothing that makes one more potent than the other.

Tech abilities just take your MH and OH tech power. I am talking about ranged attacks. Does offhand Crit? Is the crit calculated invidividually per weapon? IF the OF crits but MH not, does that proc reactive shot?

These are my questions.

in later levels both classes feel exactly the same in function.

That's the thing, to me the slinger feels sooooo different to the sniper. They should feel the same...except for me they don't.

That's the thing, to me the slinger feels sooooo different to the sniper. They should feel the same...except for me they don't.

I guess I meant in function ... at least for me. Their animations differ enough that I do gain a sense of difference in that sense. I simply enjoy my slinger more than my sniper I stopped level with (around 37). As far as laying out damage rotations I doubt I would notice the difference if not paying attention to my own toon though once I get near caps of secondary stats.

My answer - you got crappy gear and since bolster benefits are big for them (if they low lvl) or they have updated gear on mid-high levels they just blow you up.

The second answer will be probably you bad, they know that are they doing - e. g. using smart natural cover/evasion.

Very simple.

I wanted to update my OP because I wanted to test this out a bit.

I have re-rolled a sniper, currently level 31. I have absolutely ZERO problems using the same abilities against other snipers that are a struggle with the gunslinger. This would be the snipe/charged burst and aimed shot/ambush (ranged).

Whereas the gunslinger abilities for those constantly "miss" against snipers in cover...when I use them as a sniper against other snipers in cover they consistently hit.

Most of the suggestions in this thread are to use tech abilities against snipers. While I agree this helps because you don't miss; it completely misses the point that GS's are paying a ranged penalty against snipers that snipers do not suffer for which completely kills the SS to fight against their counterpart Marksmen.

I also am fully aware of the ballistic dampers, shields, dodge, etc. and what I am telling you is that this is for normal ranged attacks against snipers in cover not even using those previously mentioned skills.

i think its the "diversion" well the imp one that gets you,

if a sniper "diverts" and gets you out of cover from the start hell have a big advantage untill you can recover etc..

usually if they dont manage that you can pretty much get them, well as sabo u can make them move fast with aoes,

and aoes placed right will hit them behind the cover.

As I suspected it may be the accuracy differences due to dual wielding. I still feel this goes away once you get into end game gear and can get above 100% accuracy. As mentioned I set up a suit of gear at level 10-11 that I really liked and augmented it right away with mk-6 kits and slapped in low level accuracy augments while leveling. I believe this is why I saw fewer issues against snipers.

It is something to be aware of while leveling and a crutch slingers may very well have to put up with unless Bioware does some serious looking into the matter. I suspect that if the math evens out at end game they will do very little. Someone who loves the math should look into it however to ensure there isn't a flat penalty that makes slingers always inferior like trooper vs BH.

I've also been meaning to test stacking some defense in pvp gear and taking the first tier defense ability. Might be a slim benefit but very curious of the impact against the white damage heavy hitters. May not be worth it but who knows.

As I suspected it may be the accuracy differences due to dual wielding. I still feel this goes away once you get into end game gear and can get above 100% accuracy. As mentioned I set up a suit of gear at level 10-11 that I really liked and augmented it right away with mk-6 kits and slapped in low level accuracy augments while leveling. I believe this is why I saw fewer issues against snipers.

 

It is something to be aware of while leveling and a crutch slingers may very well have to put up with unless Bioware does some serious looking into the matter. I suspect that if the math evens out at end game they will do very little. Someone who loves the math should look into it however to ensure there isn't a flat penalty that makes slingers always inferior like trooper vs BH.

 

I've also been meaning to test stacking some defense in pvp gear and taking the first tier defense ability. Might be a slim benefit but very curious of the impact against the white damage heavy hitters. May not be worth it but who knows.

I too, would like to know some of these answers.