Engineering Sniper (Saboteur Gunslinger) Compendium

[Maximumbob]

Fantastic work, i've been dying to read about this for a while...

One thing however - and its probably and editing/formatting problem, but in section "II.1.1. Attacks" which discusses each attack in relation to Eng spec.. it doesnt have the names of the skills. Hope you can fix this to ease readability

Max

[Haliit]

(03-26-2012 03:35 AM)Maximumbob Wrote:  Fantastic work, i've been dying to read about this for a while...

One thing however - and its probably and editing/formatting problem, but in section "II.1.1. Attacks" which discusses each attack in relation to Eng spec.. it doesnt have the names of the skills. Hope you can fix this to ease readability

Max

Quote:The missing skill names is an issue with the site. See the Forum Announcement labeled "Forum Ability Tooltips" which should be at the top of every forum.

Forum Ability Tooltips

[Maximumbob]

Thank-you. I missed that!

[Leafblight]

(03-25-2012 12:59 PM)felicity Wrote:  The way it's worded right now, "juggling" implies you have to make a choice between using Series of Shots to detonate Cluster Bombs and using it for something else which doesn't seem to be defined.

Alright, hopefully definitively cleared up the wording in that section. Lemme know what you guys think now. Went ahead and patched up a few minor typos I noticed as well with fresh eyes.

Thank you Haliit for fielding that one for me. Additionally, it looks like the ability tooltips are back in action so that should be hopefully the end of those concerns.

If anyone is holding their breath for me to update/complete the stat weights section, you might wanna rethink that approach. Due to the upcoming release of a major re-balancing patch and my own issues using Tibbel's spreadsheet (opensource can't do Excel macros so well, apparently), I won't be putting in the time to sort it out till things settle after the update.

Finally, I've been hearing reports that Plasma Probe is not only getting reworked ("front-loading" the pulses, stun when in combo with IP), but is also getting a straight overall damage buff? Anyone able to provide a source on this? I'm personally unable to turn up anything other than unsupported rumor-mongering posts.

[Tibbel]

I spent some time on the PTS last night, and one of the questions I set out to answer was with regards to this statement in the patch notes for 1.2:

Sniper
	Engineering Plasma Probe has been improved. It ... now deals more of its damage in the first few seconds...

I aimed to find out what that means.

Firstly, none of the stats I observed (power, tech power, cunning, surge) have been re-balanced at all. Power and tech power still give precisely 0.23 "bonus damage" per point, cunning still gives 0.20, and my 280 surge still gives me 74.66% bonus crit damage.

Additionally, Plasma Probe's ticks now have no range of variation. Each tick can be predicted precisely (barring crits) and has no random component to it at all.

Finally, Plasma Probe's ticks are two different sizes -- the first four ticks, which tick every second for the first 3 seconds (including an initial tick), are about 120% stronger than each of the next five ticks, which tick every 3 seconds for the remaining 15 seconds.

To get a range of "bonus tech damage" values, I did 8 trials in varying degrees of undress (for science!), with bonus tech damage values ranging from 269.9 to 751.1. Then, I used Plasma Probe on a training dummy in the Imperial Fleet and recorded the non-crit tick damage, both for the first four stronger ticks (I called these ticks 'A') and for the last five weaker ticks (I called these ticks 'B'). The data is attached in a .xlsx file at the bottom of this post.

The tick damage values can be related to a Coefficient and a StdHealthPercent using the following formula (from here):

TickDamage = Coefficient*BonusTechDamage + StdHealth*StdHealthPercent

Since there is no variation in tick damage, StandardHealthPercentMin = StandardHealthPercentMax = StdHealthPercent.
Also, since the damage type is elemental, there is no mitigation from the target's armor.

(The calculations and a graph are provided in the attached file.)

This results in:

• 'A' ticks use a coefficient of 0.44 and a StdHealthPercent of 0.044. (These are the same tick size as currently on live.)
• 'B' ticks use a coefficient of 0.20 and a StdHealthPercent of 0.020.
  
  

  Time (s)	Tick Size	Coefficient	StdHealthPercent
  0.0	A	0.44	0.044
  1.0	A	0.44	0.044
  2.0	A	0.44	0.044
  3.0	A	0.44	0.044
  6.0	B	0.20	0.020
  9.0	B	0.20	0.020
  12.0	B	0.20	0.020
  15.0	B	0.20	0.020
  18.0	B	0.20	0.020

[Twenynge]

(03-28-2012 11:45 PM)Tibbel Wrote:  I spent some time on the PTS last night, and one of the questions I set out to answer was with regards to this statement in the patch notes for 1.2:

I'd like to request a little help for us laypeople. Standardhealth is based on the level that the ability is trainable, but plasma probe is an ability learned through a skill tree, meaning that it's level would be equal to... what exactly? Alternatively, a numerical value (i.e. StandardHealth = XXXX) would be just peachy.

That said, I was under the impression that plasma probe's overall damage was increased. I don't know where I got that impresson, nevertheless based on your post it appears that the damage was frontloaded, but overall it actually decreased. I'm making some gross assumptions when I say this, mind you. Namely, I assume the live version ticks seven times using the larger coefficient/standardhealth values.

Am I crazy or did the overall damage drop?

P.S. Great guide. I disagree with your assesment that efficient engineering is "important", particularly for PvP, but overall great guide.

[Tibbel]

(04-01-2012 01:58 AM)Twenynge Wrote:  

(03-28-2012 11:45 PM)Tibbel Wrote:  I spent some time on the PTS last night, and one of the questions I set out to answer was with regards to this statement in the patch notes for 1.2:

I'd like to request a little help for us laypeople. Standardhealth is based on the level that the ability is trainable, but plasma probe is an ability learned through a skill tree, meaning that it's level would be equal to... what exactly? Alternatively, a numerical value (i.e. StandardHealth = XXXX) would be just peachy.

Abilities learned through the skill tree use a StandardHealth at your current character level. For level 50, SH = 1610. For other levels, reference the table in the SWTOR Formula List.

For abilities from the trainer, the StandardHealth is based on the trainable level of the most recent rank. This is why nearly all of our damaging abilities had a final trainable rank at level 50.

Quote:That said, I was under the impression that plasma probe's overall damage was increased. I don't know where I got that impresson, nevertheless based on your post it appears that the damage was frontloaded, but overall it actually decreased. I'm making some gross assumptions when I say this, mind you. Namely, I assume the live version ticks seven times using the larger coefficient/standardhealth values.

Am I crazy or did the overall damage drop?

Yes, the overall damage decreased slightly (from a total coefficient of 3.08 to 2.76).

However, PP should hit for an average of more damage in using it against a moving target (especially one that can be stunned).

[Leafblight]

(04-01-2012 01:58 AM)Twenynge Wrote:  

(03-28-2012 11:45 PM)Tibbel Wrote:  I spent some time on the PTS last night, and one of the questions I set out to answer was with regards to this statement in the patch notes for 1.2:

I'd like to request a little help for us laypeople. Standardhealth is based on the level that the ability is trainable, but plasma probe is an ability learned through a skill tree, meaning that it's level would be equal to... what exactly? Alternatively, a numerical value (i.e. StandardHealth = XXXX) would be just peachy.

That said, I was under the impression that plasma probe's overall damage was increased. I don't know where I got that impresson, nevertheless based on your post it appears that the damage was frontloaded, but overall it actually decreased. I'm making some gross assumptions when I say this, mind you. Namely, I assume the live version ticks seven times using the larger coefficient/standardhealth values.

Am I crazy or did the overall damage drop?

P.S. Great guide. I disagree with your assesment that efficient engineering is "important", particularly for PvP, but overall great guide.

The live version has six ticks, not seven. I just checked on some poor Bogwing on Belsavis and Tibbel's sheet reflects that as well (or at least did a few weeks ago). So that should change your gauging of it some.

As I said in the intro, the guide is mostly directed towards PvE with a few PvP tips thrown in, as that's how I play; raid for the most part and do some WZs when I get the bug. I've considered making just a PvP portion of the guide, but that's a decent amount of work for an area I'm only moderately qualified to comment on. Feel free to present your own if you feel you can help the community.

Now, as for it doing less damage, I'm not getting that. I have about 675 tech damage right now with zero buffs. So:

• α & Live ticks = 368
• ß ticks = 167

Thusly:

• Live Dmg = 368 * 6 = 2208
• 1.2 Dmg = 368*4 + 167*5 = 2307

Not a huge difference, but at least it isn't a nerf. And as Tibbel said, if you hit them with the stun, you're going to hit a moving target with a lot more of the pulses.

[Tibbel]

(04-01-2012 12:36 PM)Leafblight Wrote:  The live version has six ticks, not seven.

I could have sworn it had 7. I haven't tried it on live in a long time, though.

But yeah, with 6, it's actually getting a slight damage buff with 1.2 too. (Total coefficient going from 2.64 --> 2.76)

[Rozerum]

I leveled as Engineering and I really liked it, but swapped to the MM/Eng hybrid (modified a little) shortly after hitting 50. This makes me wanna respec and check out some Eng again. Thanks for all the info.