Hello

I was hoping to find out what the solo experience with a sniper is compared to a Merc. What did you find more fun and why?

What was quicker?

What do you find better for PvE endgame?

Thanks so much

Hello

 

I was hoping to find out what the solo experience with a sniper is compared to a Merc. What did you find more fun and why?

What was quicker?

What do you find better for PvE endgame?

 

Thanks so much

Solo experience I found more fun as a Merc as the sniper really can be frustrating in the early 30's (especially as marks)

Sniper has way better story, Merc has way better survivability.

Merc was quicker as they have better survivability, starting companion, and less bugs in the class storyline.

Endgame depends on your style... I enjoy both but very differently. If you are looking for damage and mobility go merc.. . High damage when stationary go Sniper. There are benefits to both and fights that are easier for each. .. it really is preference.

I'm leveling both mirrors right now.

Merc will be worlds easier, but for my money the Sniper has more fun & involved gameplay.

You'll do well with either, but popular opinion is that the IA storyline is hands down the best in the game.

That doesn't really help you, but I'd suggest rolling both until you get a few AC abilities, and then making your choice. At least then you'll have a bit of direct experience & will have a better idea which playstyle suits you better.

I've got a Sniper and Merc both just going into Balmorra, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

My experience is that the Merc has more survivability and is pretty easy to get the hang of. Snipers are tons more fun when you're grouped in a heroic mission or flashpoint, you can hang back in cover and let the rest of the buffoons in the party pull all the aggro while you pick off things one by one.

The bounty hunter story is pretty good (I have a friend who has a Merc main, so I've seen most of it already), and I haven't seen enough of the IA story to make a call yet, but the consensus is that it's great.

All in all, I'd recommend a Merc, but both classes are fun to play.

I have a 50 arsenal merc and my MM sniper just hit 41. Here's my take:

Story: IA wins easily. BH story had some fun parts, but was pretty generic - go kill this person type of stuff. IA is just overall fun.

Gameplay: Merc is easier to level hands down. Heavy armor, simple rotation, CC, good damage healer companion from the start. Snipe is much more difficult. Your only really long CC is droids only, you do good damage, but much squishier, very complicated rotation (I have about 25 keybinds already) and you get companions really slowly.

Fun: Its all subjective, but I prefer the gameplay of the sniper. I do find it frustrating at times because I have to really work hard to do content the BH just blew through. If I get a patrol add, especially a strong, its usually lights out, whereas on my BH, I could just CC and then deal with it later.

Hello

What did you find more fun and why?

What was quicker?

What do you find better for PvE endgame?

sniper was more fun in the mechanics because there's just so much stuff to do. fights end too quickly on my sniper, i never, except on bosses, get a chance to use all the moves i want. people badmouth cover, but its a blast to just hunker down and go to town for pve. merc isn't bad in this department, but it can feel a tad facerolly at times with all the tracer missiles, which is why i ended up switching to heals pretty early on. this turned out to be a wonderful decision, as two of my 3 favorite companions were bh tanks, and it was just plain fun to roll around with them and a similarly great and hilarious dps pet. story-wise they're both great, easily my two favorites, only difference is bh is more hardcore while the agent has some more conceptual, weirder elements.

i dont think either moves noticeably quicker than the other for the most part. however it may be worth noting that bh's get their healer companion at the beginning, which is nice for the first few planets, but you dont particularly need healers that early on anyway and it's really faster typically to use dps pets no matter your role (although sometimes that 'faster' is b/c youll die, but that notwithstanding...).

snipers are great for groups in general and ops especially, they have a number of useful and unique talents at the expense of nothing more than a little mobility, and really its not much less than a tracer missiler will use as he stands there spamming.

I have a 50 arsenal merc and my MM sniper just hit 41. Here's my take:

 

Story: IA wins easily. BH story had some fun parts, but was pretty generic - go kill this person type of stuff. IA is just overall fun.

 

Gameplay: Merc is easier to level hands down. Heavy armor, simple rotation, CC, good damage healer companion from the start. Snipe is much more difficult. Your only really long CC is droids only, you do good damage, but much squishier, very complicated rotation (I have about 25 keybinds already) and you get companions really slowly.

 

Fun: Its all subjective, but I prefer the gameplay of the sniper. I do find it frustrating at times because I have to really work hard to do content the BH just blew through. If I get a patrol add, especially a strong, its usually lights out, whereas on my BH, I could just CC and then deal with it later.

I'm just going to borrow your format .

I have a 50 (pyro) merc and am currently leveling a 45 (mm/eng hybrid) sniper.

Story: I agree IA story is way better. BH is all about tracking down marks and bringing them back for bounty (or killing them). Which is cool if you dig that. IA is more about plots/subplots in the empire and general spy-related things, more my cup of tea.

Gameplay: Merc is indeed much easier to solo with. You have a generic cc (IA only has a droid-only cc) and heals and heavy armor. Sniper has no heals and medium armor. Big difference. Merc (pyro) is about settings things on fire, generally the RS-Unload-RS-PS combo kills most things. Sniper is more, like the name implies, about precision shots. I feel like I really need to pick my targets and take them down one at a time, much more so than my Merc. I generally soloed with Torian (melee DPS) on my Merc without much problems, on my Sniper I NEED to use Lokin (Heals) or face a lot of downtime after each pull. Before I got Lokin I used Kaliyo and the downtime sucked.

Note: I just started PvP on my Sniper, and it's actually easier than on my Merc because on Huttball I just sit on the ledge and take out everyone from a distance, and people hardly ever bother me (and when they do I use my aoe knockback to push them back off).

Fun: About even for me. Merc is a lot of fun because of the general survivability, and you can enable heal-stance for Heroics to act as healer (even in dps spec you can be a good enough healer for most heroics). Sniper is fun because you focus on 1 target, and take it down really fast (when all your skills are up), but when you run out of energy you're a sitting duck.

If I had to give each a difficulty rating (higher means more difficult) I would give Merc a 2/10 (I think only Sorcs are easier) and Sniper a 8/10.

Great responses,

Thank you all for you input.

Hi,

Just wanted to add my +1

50 merc, 48 sniper atm. Had more fun along the way with the sniper.

Merc tracer spam just kills stuff.

And actually the sniper feels pretty defensive with ballistic dampener, cover screen, defensive probe.

I feel like my sniper is better defensively equipped than my merc or my jugg.

Very fun playstyle. And the three trees are all very different and are all lots of fun

(Oh, p.s. i couldnt solo anyone on my jugg for the life of me, and im not great with my merc. In the under 50 bracket i can 1v1 ANYONE. I often come accross a group of two and i can kill one off before i finally die. Pvp is a lot of fun)