So my 50 Gunslinger was copied to the PTS with 1.3.

Does anybody have any questions they want answered? Any clarifications of things in the patch notes?

I'll open this up to anything and answer them if I can.

Are you a Twi'lek? If so are hats still a mess?

How do you like the change to Illegal Mods?

Do you like your new rotation with a 3sec reduction to the cool down on Aimed Shot and Speed Shot?

Does the new Burst Volley work the same way with regards to not triggering a cool down on Speed Shot? The patch notes make it look like it finishes the cool down and increases Alacrity and power regen, but doesn't make the next use of Speed Shot not trigger the CD.

Does Defense Screen really absorb more damage? A comparison between PTS and live with a friend shooting you in a duel would be just awesome.

Have I pestered you with enough questions?

Does the new Burst Volley work the same way with regards to not triggering a cool down on Speed Shot? The patch notes make it look like it finishes the cool down and increases Alacrity and power regen, but doesn't make the next use of Speed Shot not trigger the CD.

I'm curious about the same. Are triple Speed Shots gone?

i have a question on the defense screen as well. mainly confirmation on which stat it based on and how much does it scale. cmiiw, but afaik it already scaled even before with healing bonus, but to a really marginal effect.

also more unimportantly, how is the new quickdraw?

edit: nvm about the first one, just read your post on the sniper forums.

The damage absorbed by Defense Screen now scales properly based on character stats. Buffed

Defense Screen scales properly with stats now. Before it was around 1750 and only with the 30% in middle tree could you actually make it better. Even with massive difference in stats, it didn't change by more than 100 hp absorbed or so. I made a post in this thread explaining how it worked http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=442249&page=3. We can assume it will now give much more damage absorbed, perhaps even putting it in line with the sage's shield. So around 2.5-3k.

if it really does sit in line with sage's shield, pretty awesome. i can burst people upfront and sabotage and get my 5k-6k damage padding. whee.

edit 2: if the 2.5k-3k you stated were without the 30% saboteur tree bonus. the damage absorb would then be too good to be true and almost ridiculous with one. i am now being cautious about the changes.

i played some 10 wzs on the test server and i feel quite castrated on my SS build.

no more on use relics, no more dmg boosting via wz adrenals & instead the defense boost they give now. even if they already told they gonna nerf burst, thats quite a hefty one.

my biggest hits dropped to 4k-4,5k and my dmg per wz to 150k-250k. im nearly full war hero so im used to 5k-7k crits and 300k-400k dmg per wz. things may get better when they fix augment slots and relics though.

will try DF today to see how dots do in 1.3

also some really annoying bugs, knockback animation doesnt work, instead the guys around u will stay there for some seconds then teleporting to where they got knocked backed and taking cover sometimes feels like slow motion. but yeah testserver and all so i wont rant here.

atm i would say 1.2 SS gunslinger is a lot more powerful and fun to play than the 1.3 SS gunslinger, but they might still change some stuff.

1. A Twi'lek on the server told me the hat situation has not changed at all.

2. Personally I enjoy the illegal mods for tanks and such. Before it was just a way to get off speed shots faster, but now your second speed shot is guaranteed to be faster if you use Burst Volley to reset it.

3. More aimed shots is better, but I'm not sure if I enjoy the lower cd on speed shot too much. I never used rapid fire before, but I suppose I'll be using Burst Volley a lot now.

4. The new Burst Volley will reset the cd on your speed shot and give you the energy and alacrity. So ideally, you use it once, then hit Burst Volley, then use it again then use your rotation. It gives you two back to back Speed Shots, not three like Rapid Fire did before.

5. I did some very rudimentary testing of the new Defense Screen, and it doesn't seem to do much more. We don't have access to the new formula, but I think we are looking at around 2k with 1600-1700 cunning. We don't have access to the new formula though, but we can hope it goes up to at least 2500 in full campaign.

6. The new Quickdraw is really cool. You hear a crack similar to the Aimed Shot, and the two shots of bright light fly at the enemy. It still leaves a trail of smoke and is fired from the waist. Similarly, the new Trickshot is very VERY fun to use. It's almost the same as Quickdraw, but very bright lights. Also, the new Charged Burst is super fun now that it shows your crystal color. It's fun firing globs of different colored paint at people now ;p.

7.As to the guy who saw some damage reduction, that's to be expected. Currently on the PTS there is a bug with orange gear and all augments slots were removed, meaning no augments on any of the gear. My guy has significantly less HP, and does less damage because of it. So it's hard to get any sort of metric on the damage we will be able to do, especially since they have not put in the new relics (the NPCS still sell the old ones from what I saw, yet we can't use them in PVP) and we don't have any of the crafted adrenals from biochem to use yet (although I think the new expertise adrenals will only give you defense, not damage).

Yes, our burst took a hit, but so did everyone else's. (All non-WZ adrenals are gone now, btw, and the crafted ones, like the old ones, are now defense-only.) Scrappers were much harder hit because all they have is burst.

And with our counter-class (tank Shadow/Assassin) taking a big kick to the groin, I'm sadly sure that Slinger will be FOTM sooner rather than later.

And with our counter-class (tank Shadow/Assassin) taking a big kick to the groin, I'm sadly sure that Slinger will be FOTM sooner rather than later.

1. A Twi'lek on the server told me the hat situation has not changed at all.

2. Personally I enjoy the illegal mods for tanks and such. Before it was just a way to get off speed shots faster, but now your second speed shot is guaranteed to be faster if you use Burst Volley to reset it.

3. More aimed shots is better, but I'm not sure if I enjoy the lower cd on speed shot too much. I never used rapid fire before, but I suppose I'll be using Burst Volley a lot now.

4. The new Burst Volley will reset the cd on your speed shot and give you the energy and alacrity. So ideally, you use it once, then hit Burst Volley, then use it again then use your rotation. It gives you two back to back Speed Shots, not three like Rapid Fire did before.

5. I did some very rudimentary testing of the new Defense Screen, and it doesn't seem to do much more. We don't have access to the new formula, but I think we are looking at around 2k with 1600-1700 cunning. We don't have access to the new formula though, but we can hope it goes up to at least 2500 in full campaign.

6. The new Quickdraw is really cool. You hear a crack similar to the Aimed Shot, and the two shots of bright light fly at the enemy. It still leaves a trail of smoke and is fired from the waist. Similarly, the new Trickshot is very VERY fun to use. It's almost the same as Quickdraw, but very bright lights. Also, the new Charged Burst is super fun now that it shows your crystal color. It's fun firing globs of different colored paint at people now ;p.

7.As to the guy who saw some damage reduction, that's to be expected. Currently on the PTS there is a bug with orange gear and all augments slots were removed, meaning no augments on any of the gear. My guy has significantly less HP, and does less damage because of it. So it's hard to get any sort of metric on the damage we will be able to do, especially since they have not put in the new relics (the NPCS still sell the old ones from what I saw, yet we can't use them in PVP) and we don't have any of the crafted adrenals from biochem to use yet (although I think the new expertise adrenals will only give you defense, not damage).

Thank you for all the details, including the animation changes. I'm looking forward to appropriately colored blobs of paint flying everywhere.

Too bad about getting two Speed Shots instead of three. I suppose in the grand scheme of things it will be fine since there's other improvements to balance it out. I did like using Rapid Fire to drop it three times in a row with Illegal Mods running though...so many blaster bolts down range.