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Sniper Feedback


JackieKo

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It's clear that all classes get abilities at levels 2, 3, 4, and 5 (and probably more abilities before 10). However, trainers are disabled/not working properly. I dont know if BW will have a PTS testing round for leveling experience (maybe after the Inquisitor/Consular and BH/Trooper rounds), but the current round is *not* for testing the leveling experience, so it is borked right now for sure.

 

Okay, good to know.

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Not sure if it is intended, but if we take the trauma talent for marksman, it seems penetrating blasts also applies trauma. But still, I think "Snipe applies trauma" should be base for all snipers. I like the idea of trauma being a goody for pure DPS classes. I think it was a bit silly tanks were given it for free in their main rotational abilities. In a way, this becomes a buff: Shatter shot used to cost a lot of damage, but snipe is way more powerful.

 

On Countermeasures/Evasion -- Very disappointed this is becoming a Swiss Army Knife ability. Threat dump, Movement speed boost, and Dodge Chance are all so random, and have no real unifying purpose behind them other than a mindless "Oh crap" move. Sometimes I want defense chance while I am stationary, and (although fewer) times I want movement speed but dont need the defense change. Putting these together when they used to be separate really feels bad, like I'm being forced to waste a cooldown. Would prefer these split out again.

 

The remainder of this post used to be a monologue on how no other ability in the game is mobility and defensive and how Countervasion should be reverted immediately to how it is on Live. This is of course, motivated reasoning. Actually, blade blitz and Concealment roll are 2 easy examples of mobility and defense wrapped up into 1 ability, and I dont cry about those.

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Played around with all three combat proficiencies, still mostly the Sniper I remember. I think of the three, Engineering definitely needs some love. Sniper will be disproportionality affected by the loss of DCDs and Engineering is the weakest of the three by far. Given that this class does not have a heal/tank role like the Mara it's hard to create three effective specs. Marksmanship is intuitive and exactly what you would think of as a "Sniper". Virulence has great PvE DPS potential and fills the DoT role nicely. Engineering is just not that great and underwhelming overall. Dependence on Plasma Probe for damage seriously hurts this class.

 

I would recommend reworking Engineering to have full mobility without losing the perks of Take Cover, giving it a niche over the other two specs. Calculated Pursuit at level 80 is a move in the right direction, give Engineering a further boost on top of that to differentiate it. Plasma Probe should be like Interrogation Probe and cling to its target, perhaps still retaining the AoE around the target as it moves around. Allow Entrench and Series of Shots to retain mobility in some fashion for this spec only. With regards to "feeling" like a Sniper, Snipers aren't always stationary, especially when you use the Republic naming convention of Gunslinger. Nico Okarr for example may be a Smuggler, but he is also a Gunslinger. Allowing for a fully mobile dual pistol wielding class on top of Mercenary wouldn't hurt and would allow players to model his iconic style seen in cinematics.

 

Marksmen and Virulence each are very strong in their current state. I wouldn't change much beyond considering how the loss of DCDs will effect the class as a whole.

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Engineering is just not that great and underwhelming overall. Dependence on Plasma Probe for damage seriously hurts this class.

 

I actually just had an idea while reading this about plasma probe. Engineering has always felt a bit weird to use compared to the other 2 disciplines, and I agree that it hasn't been treated as well as the other two especially as it now has to opt in to getting takedown...which puts us right back to square one after complaining about the lack of orbital bombardment baseline.

 

Engineering is harder to balance than marksmanship and virulence because it relies on the target being stationary to do optimal damage, so, what if plasma probe gave targets a debuff if they move through it which stacks to cause more damage each tick - just like how electro net works. That way if a target doesn't move, it takes the full amount of damage as normal and nothing changes. But, if the target starts to move out of plasma probe, they take more damage to compensate for the fact that engineering snipers have to place what is essentially a static dot.

 

Honestly they don't particularly need more mobility, they are already more mobile than virulence and way more mobile than marksmanship which needs to stay in cover for energy regen. The only other thing they could do with is being able to cast orbital bombardment on the move, but they bring down the cast time enough that it doesn't matter that much.

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  • 2 weeks later...

(sorry for bad english)

From a pvp point of view:

 

1. Merging root breaker/speed-boost and evasion in 1 ability is a bad thing. (I know i can choose not ot spec in root breaker tho, still alternative as 15% dmg reduction every 2min15sec not the best thing).

 

PLEASE fix the tech/force dmg reduction for evasion. On live it doesn't calculated properly on some skills (Cell Burst for example)

 

2. We don't have any healing ability. Okay, you can take cover-heal, but bring back roll-heal. 10% isn't something huge, but still vital in ranked and regs. We are in a really bad spot (as it is for now) against dots on pts. Look at sorcs - as dot, they can do damage and self-heal really good numbers. And we will be melting under that dmg without any healing. (yes, in viru spec you can have some dmg reduction, but you want some in other specs)

 

3. If you force us to choose between escape (holotraverse) and defence(shield) at least reduce cooldown on holotraverse to 1 min or 45 sec and shield to 2 min (or better add healing on it). You can alternatively add healing on holotraverse (like 25% of hp) to force us use it as escape+heal.

 

4. What numbers in shield probe? on live there's almost no point to take augmented shields.

 

Summarize. In this iteration you really gutted our defensives and i hope you will reconsider some of them. We still need some healing (i think roll-heal will be best for us). Almost all our cooldowns rather long and combined

lack of healing makes me think about viability of class in general.

 

 

As offensive we need to see all classes. But i feel like engi not doing enough damage.

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Dear SWTOR team,

 

Here is my feedback on 3 sniper specs.

 

Marksmanship Sniper

 

The flow of this spec felt identical to the current live version. I do have few comments about some of the choices. Having an option to make Ambush doing a splash damage is quite nice. There are also some options that increase crit damage for skills like Snipe, Ambush, and Penetrating Blasts. I think that's what really defines marksman snipers.

 

Virulence Sniper

 

The flow seemed to be the same, the rotation is identical. Some of the choices seem to be nice like increasing armor penetration. I have noticed that Laze Target actually has an additional effect that was mentioned in some of the choices on the ability tree. The tooltip for the Laze Target did not specify that effect, so I think it would be good to have it (if you haven't added that yet).

 

Engineering Sniper

 

As for the Virulence Sniper, the rotation seemed similar. As for the Laze Target once again, I found that it gives additional effect that has some nice options in the ability tree.

 

For all three specs, the option to have Countermeasures to have more defense and 200% dodge was really good. You essentially combined Evasion and Countermeasures, which I find quite useful.

Edited by ViShAsh
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1. Yes, it feels like a sniper. The majority of abilities are still there or integrated into others.

 

2. Yes, the tree is easy to read/understand

 

3. I like/play all 3 specs on the live servers, so it was cool to see the different laze target improvements. I really liked system upgrade and its passives for engineering

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  • 2 weeks later...

Question (looking for all range classes now): why we the only one, who losses soft-cc a.k.a. flash bang? Sorcs and mercs still have theirs soft cc.

 

It's like...no heals, no soft-cc. i don't think we will compensate with huge dmg. With gear we have right now, my best hit was 51k (average around 47k on that session) on dummy (and it's white dmg that can be mitigated in many ways). And my merc biggest hit was 46k with heatseaker (average 44k)

 

We need heal-roll at least to be viable in ranked and unranked pvp and reduced cd on phasewalk would be good addition

Edited by Araberen
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There is some serious issues with deffensive on sniper, this is also more focused on pvp and ranked.

 

As someone said, putting evasion (a hard deff) on our root breaker and speed boost where we run away, makes no sense. Also evasion is still bugged and does not reduce every abilities dmg correctly (since shadow of revan...).

 

We have no selfheal, so dots will eat us in a matter of seconds, and with the evasion nerf no hard deff to counter burst.

No cc, to reduce pressure.

 

Some solutions: Give us a deffensive and offensive setbonus. With the deffensive setbonus 10% heal on covered escape and 20% on hololocate; call it ''Imperial Emergency Protocol Armor'' and on gunslinger ''illegal Kolto Contrabands'' or something like that :D

We lose dps and offensive pressure by taking this setbonus but at least we will not be complete pushovers.

Edited by Xestrom
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iampolaris1069

1 second ago

It never Fails. Ive been playing since the game launched and ever since 3.3 SNipers have been getting the shaft. Nowhere in this do we retain the ability to generate heals, it looks like orbital strikes damage has been cut in half AGAIN.. keep in mind , when 65 was the cap, orbital strike did 12-15k . then nerfed to 8-10k, now down to 4-5k. please devs, SOMEONE explain to me how a grenade, a death from above, or a Sorcs lightning storm DOES MORE DAMAGE to an area in total than something that is supposed to be a BOMBARDMENT FROM an ORBITING CAPITAL SHIP? Snipers are like the bastard children of SWTOR. it is the ONLY class with no real MASSIVE damage reduction or outright nullification and once again ZERO heals or way to gain healing. force users can throw rocks, throw light sabers, or LEAP just as far as I can shoot a SNIPER rifle. heres the real kicker. ALL other classes have either a REFLECT, or Significant self heals. Mercs/mandos reflect and get heal to minimum 60% health, Jugs get reflect heal to full and damage nullification, Marrauders/Sents get damage nullification and Dash, and a stealth out. Sorc/sage have bubble and Self heals and teleport. but yeah, Snipers who have THROUGHOUT all time relied on camouflage and blending in with their environment to lie in wait or creep up on targets /get in range.. yeah, thats the ONE class that gets NOTHING for stealth. meanwhile its counterpart class Operative can stealth out. HOW is it that even in the Same field of character class Sniper/Operative someohow doesnt have access to even a simple stealth generator? I have been suggesting a Stealth over time type benefit for years now. Call it Snipers Hide.. where just as a snipers stealth detection increases over time, they can gradually fade from view over time as though they , like a real sniper , blends in to their supproundings if given sufficient time to work their way into the terrain. The feedback I always seem to get is that would make them OP.. keep in mind its always someone with self heals or a force user who says this . LASTLY, how , PLEASE TELL ME HOW. i have LESS ABILITIES and do LESS DAMAGE at lvl 80 than I did at level 60? ( 4.0)? everything we have gained in the ensuing expansions , they are now taking away or nerfing further while most other classes keep nearly all of their abilities or ones that are critical.. crap, I dont even see shield probe in this tree. SEriously ERIC Musco WHy man, I get it you must not ever play this class or you hate us, because there is no class that has been nerfed more than snipers or had all other classes given DIRECT counters to this ONE classes abilities.

ALSO, as our class has NO range advantage , DOT spec classes litterally pop back and forth behind cover and DOT us to death.. while when we do somehow manage to hit them in that 1.3-1.4 second cast time for a SNIPE.. guess what they do.. STAY BEHIND COVER AND SELF HEAL.. meanwhile we have no heal anymore while waiting for our game of WHACK A MOLE, to continue. so we now will just die in pvp whether by Sorc,sage, operative/smuggler, merc/mando, powertech, guardian.. and the list goes on.. why... because ALl of them have spec for DOTS and INSTANT CASTS.. but snipers.. if we want an INSTANT cast, we have to stand and get back into cover, thus dropping stealth detection.. if we even still have that..

With all the other classes having all of these self heals and counters, why not give a class which has focused and relied on accuracy and stealth to have some kind of stealth iE SNIPERS HIDE, and some way to have an ability to overide reflect and hit our target anyway, like you could call it FOCUSED VOLLY or pinpoint precision. so at a minimum the damage doesnt come back at us and at the enemy cant gain health from our attack.. if anything it would end up as a wash if the enemy was reflecting/ health gain from direct damage. or if the enemy wasnt using reflect/health gain, then they take an extra 20-30% crit damage from the shots in the attack..

Snipers are notorious for being focused down as fast as possible by teams. we havent been anywhere NEAR the top of ANY PvP leaderboards for damage in YEARS and here we are 10 years in and now we are even more helpless than we were at 4.0 when we started losing abilities and orbital started doing less damage to a target than a frag grenade. in Summation NO. 7.0 SNIPER feels NOTHING like actually being a sniper .. to actually have a class that FEELS like a sniper at a minimum they need 4 things. RANGE , ACCURACY, CAMOFLAGE, and the ability to call for indirect artillery support.

 

Everythng i am seeing from pts to ability tree choices makes me feel that you really care nothing about even remotely giving our class a fighting chance..

Edited by IamPolaris
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Snipers are notorious for being focused down as fast as possible by teams

 

Losing DCD is gonna make this problem worse. I get other classes are losing stuff too, but when you're a class at the lower end of the PVP food chain.... the loss will impact snipers more.

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iampolaris1069

1 second ago

It never Fails. Ive been playing since the game launched and ever since 3.3 SNipers have been getting the shaft. Nowhere in this do we retain the ability to generate heals, it looks like orbital strikes damage has been cut in half AGAIN.. keep in mind , when 65 was the cap, orbital strike did 12-15k . then nerfed to 8-10k, now down to 4-5k. please devs, SOMEONE explain to me how a grenade, a death from above, or a Sorcs lightning storm DOES MORE DAMAGE to an area in total than something that is supposed to be a BOMBARDMENT FROM an ORBITING CAPITAL SHIP? Snipers are like the bastard children of SWTOR. it is the ONLY class with no real MASSIVE damage reduction or outright nullification and once again ZERO heals or way to gain healing. force users can throw rocks, throw light sabers, or LEAP just as far as I can shoot a SNIPER rifle. heres the real kicker. ALL other classes have either a REFLECT, or Significant self heals. Mercs/mandos reflect and get heal to minimum 60% health, Jugs get reflect heal to full and damage nullification, Marrauders/Sents get damage nullification and Dash, and a stealth out. Sorc/sage have bubble and Self heals and teleport. but yeah, Snipers who have THROUGHOUT all time relied on camouflage and blending in with their environment to lie in wait or creep up on targets /get in range.. yeah, thats the ONE class that gets NOTHING for stealth. meanwhile its counterpart class Operative can stealth out. HOW is it that even in the Same field of character class Sniper/Operative someohow doesnt have access to even a simple stealth generator? I have been suggesting a Stealth over time type benefit for years now. Call it Snipers Hide.. where just as a snipers stealth detection increases over time, they can gradually fade from view over time as though they , like a real sniper , blends in to their supproundings if given sufficient time to work their way into the terrain. The feedback I always seem to get is that would make them OP.. keep in mind its always someone with self heals or a force user who says this . LASTLY, how , PLEASE TELL ME HOW. i have LESS ABILITIES and do LESS DAMAGE at lvl 80 than I did at level 60? ( 4.0)? everything we have gained in the ensuing expansions , they are now taking away or nerfing further while most other classes keep nearly all of their abilities or ones that are critical.. crap, I dont even see shield probe in this tree. SEriously ERIC Musco WHy man, I get it you must not ever play this class or you hate us, because there is no class that has been nerfed more than snipers or had all other classes given DIRECT counters to this ONE classes abilities.

ALSO, as our class has NO range advantage , DOT spec classes litterally pop back and forth behind cover and DOT us to death.. while when we do somehow manage to hit them in that 1.3-1.4 second cast time for a SNIPE.. guess what they do.. STAY BEHIND COVER AND SELF HEAL.. meanwhile we have no heal anymore while waiting for our game of WHACK A MOLE, to continue. so we now will just die in pvp whether by Sorc,sage, operative/smuggler, merc/mando, powertech, guardian.. and the list goes on.. why... because ALl of them have spec for DOTS and INSTANT CASTS.. but snipers.. if we want an INSTANT cast, we have to stand and get back into cover, thus dropping stealth detection.. if we even still have that..

With all the other classes having all of these self heals and counters, why not give a class which has focused and relied on accuracy and stealth to have some kind of stealth iE SNIPERS HIDE, and some way to have an ability to overide reflect and hit our target anyway, like you could call it FOCUSED VOLLY or pinpoint precision. so at a minimum the damage doesnt come back at us and at the enemy cant gain health from our attack.. if anything it would end up as a wash if the enemy was reflecting/ health gain from direct damage. or if the enemy wasnt using reflect/health gain, then they take an extra 20-30% crit damage from the shots in the attack..

Snipers are notorious for being focused down as fast as possible by teams. we havent been anywhere NEAR the top of ANY PvP leaderboards for damage in YEARS and here we are 10 years in and now we are even more helpless than we were at 4.0 when we started losing abilities and orbital started doing less damage to a target than a frag grenade. in Summation NO. 7.0 SNIPER feels NOTHING like actually being a sniper .. to actually have a class that FEELS like a sniper at a minimum they need 4 things. RANGE , ACCURACY, CAMOFLAGE, and the ability to call for indirect artillery support.

 

Everythng i am seeing from pts to ability tree choices makes me feel that you really care nothing about even remotely giving our class a fighting chance..

 

I'm quoting this just so I can make an attempt to read it at some point in the next week, because it appears like a huge rage post that might be interesting to read while sipping a beverage.

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As a Sniper Main I guess I can stomach a lot of the changes. But after waiting to see what you guys would keep or change it APPEARS as though getting rid of Entrench AoE DR is still on the list of changes.

 

I'm willing to hear out every single change I've seen EXCEPT this one. Do not get rid of the AoE DR. That cooldown is already negated in its use by things like Inversion on Tyth. You've introduced mechanics that ignore anti-displacement abilities. So I can't understand how you justify getting rid of the only other use for that ability in a fight like Tyth or many others, Like Terror from Beyond.

 

Sniper has always been about its ability to survive. Taking away AoE DR ONLY hurts the class as a whole. Entrench is our most valuable asset and specifically the ability to survive with it.

 

Like I said I'm ok with keeping an open mind about every change so far except this one. Please put this back on the drawing board.

 

Suggestions?

- Rework the energy regen. Entrench doesn't need to be an offensive cooldown.

- Under no circumstances should the option for snipers to obtain that AoE DR be taken away.

Edited by OrionLives
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  • 2 weeks later...

Level 43 slinger/sniper choice.

 

The first choice out of three at this tier is:

 

'Sabotage deals 20% more damage to targets affected by shock charge'.

 

Seem to be worded funny as sabotage only works with shock charge. Not sure what this passive ability is getting at. It could be just worded as 'sabotage deals 20% more damage'.

 

Maybe there are more changes intended for this choice.

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To preface - the following feedback I provide pertains exclusively to pvp, specifically ranked.

The recommendations I've made serve to both improve the class' survivability and make the ability tree choices more meaningful while staying true to the primary motivation behind these changes - reducing the amount of abilities we have.

 

 

Reestablish Range (our fastest speed boost) and Evasive Maneuvers (our strongest face-tank DCD) are anti-synergistic because they're both triggered by Countermeasures, I would recommend tying Evasive Maneuvers to a different ability such as Shield Probe and increasing its coooldown accordingly. Outside of some niche moments in pvp such as trying to safely trigger Life Warden with Evasion, I can't think of any situation where overlapping Shield Probe and Evasion would be as egregious as overlapping Evasion and Countermeasures. I'd prefer not having to mix traditional DCDs like evasion with any ability, I only recommend Shield Probe in this example in order to conform with your desire for pruning.

 

Make Tactical Retreat baseline and have it increase the duration of Evasive Maneuvers by 2s.

 

Make Defensive Safeguards and Deployed Shields a part of Ballistic Shield by default.

 

Reintroduce Flashbang as a choice and make Maim baseline.

 

Make Vital Regulators baseline for Virulence, Snap Shot baseline for Marksmanship, Ballistic Dampeners baseline for Engineering and instead have the choices in the [60] tier be Evasive Maneuvers/Pillbox Sniper/Calculated Pursuit.

 

Make Stroke of Genius baseline for Marksmanship to account for the fact that making the 3 aforementioned passives baseline would only provide a defensive bonus to Engineering and Virulence.

 

Make Ballistic Shield/Reestablish Range/Over-prepared [68], Hololocate/Flashbang/Takedown if Engi, Orbital if not, [73] and Seek Cover/Augmented Shields/Siege Bunker [78] the choices for the last 3 tiers in the ability tree.

 

 

There's no assurance that these changes will make sniper over-tuned or lacking in the defensive department - it all depends on how the other classes are also balanced going forward. I think reasonable changes in the event

that sniper is still lacking defensively could include making Vital Regulators/Ballistic Dampeners/Stroke of Genius baseline for all specs, making Ballistic Shield baseline (with Defensive Safeguards and Deployed Shields being rolled into a passive to choose in tier [68]) or making other unmentioned utilities such as Evacuate or Hold your Ground baseline.

Reasonable nerfs, if necessary, could include partitioning some parts of Evasive Maneuvers' effects to other passives/abilities; such as having Imperial Preparation, rather than Evasive Maneuvers, reset the cooldown of Covered Escape.

The biggest point of contention I have with Evasive Maneuvers is that its relative importance in comparison to every other DCD/passive I've listed as choices will pretty much always make Evasive Maneuvers a must pick. In order to make the tier [60] choice competitive, it will be necessary to make some part of the passive baseline with Shield Probe, such as the 5s of 200% ranged/melee defence chance and 75% force/tech damage reduction, and then have Evasive Maneuvers provide the roll heal and reset.

 

It's worth to note that I haven't considered the possible impact these changes may have in operations or the levelling experience, and my impression of sniper's current viability in pvp is based only on a handful of matches played on the PTS.

 

Further Comments

 

As it currently stands on the PTS:

Snipers have no choice but to take Evasion over hardstun and have no access to Flashbang.

Marauders are forced to choose between DCD and mobility for its hard stun and similarly lack access to their mez.

Inquisitors on the other hand get hardstun baseline and only have to choose between their mez and one DCD — severing slash is pretty much worthless and volt rush will be relegated to an even smaller niche in 7.0 than it is currently.

Bounty hunters would have to choose their hardstun at the cost of DCD/mobility while having their other stun baseline.

Operatives have pretty inconsequential passives to give up for their hardstun, and their second choice regarding CC ultimately boils down to flashbang/holotraverse.

 

It all seems quite arbitrary, I'd appreciate some clarity on the dev team's rationale behind the decisions they've made regarding stuns so that recommendations can be given that are more in line with the current philosophy behind availability of CC.

Personally I think hardstuns should be baseline for every class. With regards to solo ranked, forcing a choice between an important DCD and a hardstun will only increase TTK.

 

PS: Cover bar is essential for many snipers, I don't understand why it was removed.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Engineering lack of Takedown as baselane ability is a joke.

Give the Virulence and Marksman flashbang as the baselane ability.

Give Engineering Takedown as baseline ability and put flashbang as the choice instead of Takedown.

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I just wanted to echo previous concerns about the loss of Evasion and the choice that's meant to replace it. Slapping Evasion's effect onto our threat management skill is counterproductive for three reasons:

 

1: Countermeasures lowers our active threat, meaning the dodge component will be completely useless if enemies stop attacking the Sniper. Especially in PvE group based content such as Veteran Flashpoints, which are role neutral. Meaning you're more likely to draw aggro due to the absence of a tank in most groups. Also the dodge is useful for mitigating damage from bosses and mobs.

 

2: Re-establish Range also makes use of Countermeasures and is an extremely useful speed boost, putting it in direct conflict with your dodge.

 

3: Overloading an ability like that wouldn't be wise in my opinion because if you want to utilize a certain effect in certain situations then you'll have to sacrifice the others to get it. Need to drop aggro? Alright, but you'll also be using up your dodge. Need to get from point A to point B quickly? You got it, but again, you're losing out on that Dodge which you might need later on.

Edited by validatio
Spelling, grammar, and clarification.
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This is the reason why evasion was merged into countermeasures skill. To be less usefull so other options would become more viable like class only 4s stun or ability to use necessary skill like takedown. If evasion would be separate skill the choice would be much too obvious.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Confused on something after copying my Sniper into PTS...

 

I see Maim in the Abilities list for Sniper. ... But then I see Maim as the middle option in the Style tree for marksmanship at level 35.

 

When I select either of the Passives, I can still use Maim + the passive works as expected (countermeasures reset covered escape cooldown).

 

The other rows in the proficiencies tree are working as expected. Only the one I selected works.

 

Is this a known issue? Will Snipers get Maim always, or is it part of the proficiency choices? Will you be replacing that node in the combat tree with something else?

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