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The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
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The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
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05-02-2012, 12:58 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-12-2012 09:47 PM by felicity.)
Post: #1
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The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
This compendium will no longer be updated. I have since quit SWTOR.
The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium Lethality Snipers revolve around DoTs for sustained damage, crits for energy restoration, and are less restricted by the cover mechanic. This is a guide designed to give advice for end game PVE operations as Lethality. As such, the skill descriptions and whatnots are written with operations in mind. Everything in this guide is written from the Imperial Agent/Sniper PoV. For the Gunslinger equivalents, check out the mirror terminology dictionary. Table of Contents I. Abilities II. Skill Tree III. Priority, Rotation, Energy IV. Stats V. Gear, Items VI. Crew Skills VII. More Reading I. Abilities Single Target
AoE Target
Party Utility
Self Utility
Self Defense
II. Skill Tree Mandatory: Required for running ops as Lethality. Recommended: These skills are more useful than the optional ones. Optional: Many of these skills are PVP skills that don't have applications in PVE. They're what you would look into if you were trying to make a build that works in both PVP and PVE. Lethality Skills
Engineering Skills
Marksmanship Skills
There are many other tier1/tier2 Engineering and Marksmanship Skills, but these are the most relevant ones for dps and running ops. 2/8/31 is an optimal build. It has all of the core Lethality skills, and uses Explosive Engineering for more damage instead of relying on Vitality Serum or Marksmanship for stat deficiencies. Engineering/Lethality Hybrid A spec I would like to mention is the Engineering/Lethality hybrid. Usually some combination of 2/16/23. (Some will say it's 2/18/21, but Experimental Explosives doesn't affect Corrosive Grenade.) The hybrid stops getting Lethality talents after Cull, and trades in Devouring Microbes and Weakening Blast for Interrogation Probe (another DoT) and Cluster Bombs in the Engineering tree. The strengths of the build are the mini-burst from Engineering's Explosive Probe/Cluster Bombs combo, and Lethality's constant internal damage pressure. There's also synergy between setting up poisons and Explosive Probe on a target, then using Cull to trigger the Cluster Bombs. On the downside, it has more setup, and all of the setup required can be energy intensive. It excels more as a PVP spec. Having the burst from Explosive Probe and Cluster Bombs is beneficial for chunking people in PVP. Being more energy intensive isn't an issue for short skirmishes in PVP, but it's definitely a problem for 5min long boss fights. Additionally, some testing showed 2/8/31 Lethality doing 50-60 more DPS than 2/16/23, and that's without Devouring Microbes being accounted for. III. Priority, Rotation, Energy Priorities
Pretty straight forward. Poisons and Cull make up a lot of your damage, Takedown should be used if the boss is under 30% HP, and Series of Shots/Explosive Probe/Ambush/Rifle Shot are always available as filler. Orbital is very strong even if its only hitting one target. Ideally, you would want to use it every time it's available. It was placed second in priority since you should give your tank a few gcds at the start of the fight before you go all out. Situational Priorities
Natural Energy Regen 1-19% Energy: 2 Energy/Second 20-59% Energy: 3 Energy/Second 60-99% Energy: 5 Energy/Second 100% Energy: 0 Energy/Second For the most part, you want to stay within max regen range, but you can afford to drop much lower when Adrenaline Probe is available. The most common time to use Adrenaline Probe for any Sniper regardless of spec is usually after a skill sequence involving Orbital Strike, which consumes 30 energy after activation. Following that up with other skills can easily drop you into lower energy regen. Rotation and Energy Lethality's rotation is essentially to apply both poisons, Weakening Blast, and pop Cull. The idea is simple enough, but you need to do it with some finesse or you'll just run out of energy. Take note of how much energy things cost: Corrosive Dart is 20 energy, Corrosive Grenade is 20 energy, Cull is 25 energy, Orbital Strike is 30 energy, Series of Shots is 20 energy. In order to "sustain" your dps, you would basically want to be able to use Cull every time it's up and have both poisons on your target at all times. Having to refresh both poison effects at once before using Cull can dock you energy. Poison effects running out during Cull's channel will also cost you damage, though the Lingering Toxins talent can help alleviate that. You can space out skill usage with Rifle Shots or Weakening Blast for natural regen during the global cooldown. Also note that your channeling skills (Cull and Series of Shots) consume energy at the start. If you use them while you're above 60% energy, you get the full 5 energy per second regen, and you regen most of their energy cost while channeling. Target Switching The restriction of needing poisons on before you cast Cull means you're not the best at switching targets. Take Soa into example. During phase 2, Soa begins spawning mind traps and you need to blow them quickly to get party members out. Don't bother using poisons or Cull when you have to switch targets - you have other buttons you can press. When it comes to temporary target switches like mind traps, abilities such as Explosive Probe or Series of Shots will do damage without requiring setup. Practice and Combat Logs 5min long practice runs on the dummies help since most operation encounters are around 5min long. Get used to timing your own poisons. Get a feel for how much energy regen you have. Corrosive Dart and Grenade don't have numerical countdowns on them, but perhaps there's a visual cue on the icon you should look for so you know when to re-apply them. Take note of how much each tick of poison does. How much damage do your poisons do? Is there an ideal time to use Weakening Blast so that you buff the highest damaging poison? Training dummies are "perfect" situations where your target doesn't do anything to you, and you don't need to move or reposition or stop channels. The downside of using a test dummy is that it can't be destroyed or brought below 100% HP. This counts against all Snipers because it means we can't use Takedown, but for Lethality it also means that Devouring Microbes won't ever be taken into account. Additionally, you might not need to use Shatter Shot in your ops group, whereas you'd use it on the dummy. Combat logs for boss fights also show you possible spots for improvement. I'll show you an example from my logs. This is a parse from hard mode Zorn and Toth. The parts where my dps suddenly dropped was when they began placing spikes on the ground making it hard to channel Cull and Series of Shots. This is another parse from hard mode Zorn and Toth. I got more channels off during the spike phase and my dps was more consistent. IV. Stats Primary Stats Cunning -> Ranged/Tech Bonus Damage, Ranged/Tech Critical Chance Main stat. Raises both damage and critical chance for your ranged attacks and tech abilities. You get 9% Cunning with the Gearhead Talent. Endurance -> Max HP More HP. Comes attached to all of our gear. You get 4% with the Vitality Serum talent, but it's not recommended you take Vitality Serum unless you just hit 50 and desperately need an HP boost. Aim -> Ranged Bonus Damage, Ranged Critical Chance Aim also increases our ranged damage and critical chance, but there's no reason why you should bother getting any equipment with Aim. Our Cunning is worth more thanks to Gearhead, and you can't stack Aim without losing Cunning. If you're completely obsessed with min/maxing, you can collect the Aim datacrons.  Presence, Strength, Willpower Useless for operations. Secondary Stats Accuracy Rating -> Accuracy %
Critical Rating -> Critical Chance %
Surge -> Critical Multiplier %
Power -> Bonus Damage
All other secondary stats can be ignored by Snipers. V. Gear, Items Gear Slotting
Accessories Accessories are a good source of crit rating since the new Black Hole commendation gear gives +71 crit per piece. Just avoid anything with alacrity or a metric ton of endurance.
Set Bonuses Tionese, Columi, Rakata and Campaign gear come with the same PVE set bonuses. Battlemaster and War Hero come with the same PVP set bonuses.
Relics
Based on log parsing, an on-hit relic plus an on-use is a slightly stronger combo than either plus a matrix cube. Cunning Augments vs Power Augments Augments give +18 [Stat] and +12 Endurance. Assume you are looking at Power vs Cunning augments for your gears. Power gives 0.23 bonus damage, and Cunning gives 0.20 bonus damage. With such a small value as 18, the Gearhead talent, and the 5% Cunning buff from Inquisitors/Consulars, Power's advantage is tiny, and Cunning will also give you crit rating. Buffs
VI. Crew Skills Bonuses
What can I craft?
You can really pick anything and find something to reverse engineer as of 1.2. If all you do is raid, you're better off just taking Biochem for the reusable Rakata items. VII. More Reading
Felicity Lethality Sniper @ Daragon Trail [Armory] |
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05-02-2012, 02:40 AM
Post: #2
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RE: The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
First of all, thank you very much for stepping up and doing the lethality compendium. I'm sure I speak for many of us when I say I've been waiting a month or more hoping someone would do one.
I have a quick question about seconday stats, mainly for critical rating vs power. I'm the only IA in my ops group and as such I've had plenty of excess gear drops and pretty much have the ability to slot any enhancement/mod combos that I woant for my gear. Is there a conensus on whether we should be stacking critical rating for better energy returns, or is there some amount of critical rating at which point it becomes more useful to start stacking power? I'm guessing that the answer hasn't yet been determined, but I figured I would see what others have been doing. Last week I replaced a ton of enhancements on my gear and converted about 250 power into 250 critical rating and I just really haven't "felt" a major difference. |
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05-02-2012, 03:15 AM
Post: #3
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RE: The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
(05-02-2012 02:40 AM)Kithani Wrote: First of all, thank you very much for stepping up and doing the lethality compendium. I'm sure I speak for many of us when I say I've been waiting a month or more hoping someone would do one. I echo this. I will spend the next while reviewing what you have said... It certainly looks good on first pass. Cheers Max |
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05-02-2012, 03:19 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-02-2012 03:21 AM by elaijtslol.)
Post: #4
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RE: The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
@Kithani, oddly enough I've just gone the complete opposite direction, and have been dumping my crit in favor of power. It's hard to tell if that's what made the difference (I've gotten a few gear upgrades over the last couple of weeks), but my dps has increased substantially, and I haven't felt it harder to maintain energy.
You state that cunning augment with the Gearhead-talent would come out ahead, if you do the simple math, thats not true. You convert cunning at 0.20 dps pre cunning, with Gearhead you will have 18x1.09 = 19.62 cunning at 0.20 dps per cunning. 19,62x0.20 = 3,924. Power on the other hand is 1 power = 0.23 dps, 18x0.23 = 4.14 dps. Furthermore, with the change to Lethality tree in 1.2, you should state, that it's a dps increase to leave the lingering poisons, eventhough it's only 15% of the original dmg, just to get the weakening blast + cull of, and thereby saving a lot of energy to, which you can use for more fillers. I managed to hit 1620 dps on annihilation droid EV HM last week, which is as close to a "patchwerk" fight as we get. @Quick edit: Nice to finally have some sort of basic guide, hope to see you continue your work! |
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05-02-2012, 04:02 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-02-2012 04:11 AM by Junowartooth.)
Post: #5
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RE: The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
@elaijtslol, remember to include the +5% stat buff bonus from the Consular/Inquisitor when comparing cunning to power.
Nice to finally see a guide, though done by Imperial lackey  Any DPS numbers on the 16/3/22 build? Junö Stormtooth - Gunslinger Total Aggression - The Shadowlands |
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05-02-2012, 04:34 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-02-2012 04:51 AM by elaijtslol.)
Post: #6
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RE: The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
Even with an added 5% on the cunning, power would still come slightly ontop tho.
19.62 x 1.05 = 20.601 cunning 20.601 x 0.20 = 4.1202 Its super close, I didn't include the 5% at first becaus I'm going off other peoples numbers. Plus, you will eventually have so high cunning, that you wont get the full benifit, as some of the 0.20 dps comes from crit aswell. |
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05-02-2012, 06:48 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-02-2012 06:51 AM by Kithani.)
Post: #7
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RE: The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
I would think it safe to assume (someone correct me here if I am wrong on this) that the game would round 19.62 cunning with Gearhead and the actual bonus would be a flat 20 cunning.
At this point with the 5% buff we actually have: 20 * 1.05 = 21 cunning and 21 * 0.20 = 4.2 dps per cunning augment This would slightly edge out a power augment in theory but I feel like the difference as you have said is almost completely negligible and it really is just a matter of preference/convenience. |
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05-02-2012, 07:33 AM
Post: #8
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RE: The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
(05-02-2012 02:40 AM)Kithani Wrote: I have a quick question about seconday stats, mainly for critical rating vs power. I'm the only IA in my ops group and as such I've had plenty of excess gear drops and pretty much have the ability to slot any enhancement/mod combos that I woant for my gear. Is there a conensus on whether we should be stacking critical rating for better energy returns, or is there some amount of critical rating at which point it becomes more useful to start stacking power? Personally, fully buffed and with no stim, I have 512 power, 271 crit, 210 surge. With my stim, I have 38% crit. Before Lethality, I was actually an Engineer and most my gear had Power on it. 3/5 of my armors had power/surge enhancements, and the other 2 had crit/accuracy. Instead of trying to switch out my enhancements when I switched to Lethality, I got new accessories, and the majority of my crit came from there. This also let me test crit vs power for myself without blowing money on enhancement swaps. I came out with higher dps when I used my crit accessories, and I assume this is surge's doing. elaijtslol Wrote:You state that cunning augment with the Gearhead-talent would come out ahead, if you do the simple math, thats not true. You convert cunning at 0.20 dps pre cunning, with Gearhead you will have 18x1.09 = 19.62 cunning at 0.20 dps per cunning. 19,62x0.20 = 3,924.I was getting the same numbers when I tried switching out my Cunning augments for Power. The "come out ahead" part was intended to be about you gaining crit while also gaining the same damage, but now that I look at it, it's pretty poorly phrased.  elaijtslol Wrote:Furthermore, with the change to Lethality tree in 1.2, you should state, that it's a dps increase to leave the lingering poisons, eventhough it's only 15% of the original dmg, just to get the weakening blast + cull of, and thereby saving a lot of energy to, which you can use for more fillers.Until they fix the bugs with Toth/Zorn, I don't want to recommend it at all since you can potentially cause your raid group to have a bad attempt. Some of the Lethality users in the MM thread were talking about being 25 - 30m away and still getting fearful and killing themselves with Lingering. Felicity Lethality Sniper @ Daragon Trail [Armory] |
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05-02-2012, 07:34 AM
Post: #9
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RE: The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
(05-02-2012 03:19 AM)elaijtslol Wrote: You state that cunning augment with the Gearhead-talent would come out ahead, if you do the simple math, thats not true. You convert cunning at 0.20 dps pre cunning, with Gearhead you will have 18x1.09 = 19.62 cunning at 0.20 dps per cunning. 19,62x0.20 = 3,924. Don't forget that cunning also boosts critical chance for all attacks. It's not a large amount of critical chance, but neither is the difference between power's 0.23 damage ratio and cunning's 0.20. The added critical chance also boosts energy regen slightly due to Lethal Purpose/Fighting Spirit. Using the Sniper/Gunslinger Spreadsheet, which takes into account all these mentioned factors (including skills and buffs), cunning typically outpaces power by 10-15%, depending on spec, other stats, etc. Try it out for yourself using the spreadsheet (here's a link). Tib -- Sniper -- <Silent Council> -- The Ebon Hawk -- @Tibbel_ |
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05-02-2012, 07:49 AM
Post: #10
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RE: The 1.2 Lethality Sniper & Dirty Fighting Gunslinger Compendium
Curious if anyone can post some general EP values for the various stats for Lethality builds. Unfortunately I don't have Excel and thus can't utilize the stat weights section of the spreadsheet to look at this myself.
Obviously the values will change, but maybe some kind of general value for, say, a full Rakata geared sniper/GS? Any help/direction in this would be appreciated. |
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