FlyinFungi's Marksman Sniper PvP Guide: More Pew Pew, Less QQ

[Flyinfungi]

FlyinFungi's Marksman Sniper PvP Guide: More Pew Pew, Less QQ


Self Introduction
I am FlyinFungi, I am a funguy. My guild is *Karma* on Belgoth's Beacon. We are a PvP guild hoping to compete in cross server warzones when it becomes available. I have been playing MMOs since EQ 1 growing up to Vanillia WoW where I was pretty serious about my fire mage, then on to Warhammer, Aion, DC Universe and many more.


About this Guide
This guide is intended for all Snipers who have some experience with the class. If you need help in understanding all the abilities of the sniper go check out the PvE guide by Tibbel. In fact go read it anyways right now. I will be pulling tidbids from it, referencing it, and its something you should know anyways if you want to be a serious PvP sniper.

Thats right PvPers, you should know PvE to PvP.

This guide is incomplete, but I submit it to the public as a first draft for feedback and additional information. I have some formating, grammer and linking modifications or additions that I need to do as well as some areas where the advice could be better communicated or I now disagree with what I wrote. If the admins of the site could install/enable a WYSIWYG editor I would appreciate it. Hand writing myBB formating is slow. If someone could point out a better way to display the images then hardcoding the resolution I would appreciate it.

This guide is over 6,000 words long and more then 40 images and multiple videos I created. If people have additional topics or things they would like to see let me know.

To Do:
More analysis on skills and talents.
Full PvP games (my rig sucks at having high FPS, video card bottleneck)
GCD damage analysis
PvP rotation and energy managment
Internal linking
Edit images
Other general cleanup
More dueling analysis
Add some missing information I have on other classes
More entertainment
More stuff as it comes to mind...

Mirrored Terminology

Sniper Advanced Class	Gunslinger Advanced Class
Adrenaline Probe	Cool Head
Ambush	Aimed Shot
Ballistic Dampers	Ballistic Dampers
Ballistic Shield	Scrambling Field
Between the Eyes	Slick Shooter
Calculated Pursuit	Hot Pursuit
Cluster Bombs	Contingency Charges
Corrosive Dart	Vital Shot
Corrosive Microbes	Mortal Wound
Countermeasures	Surrender
Cover Pulse	Pulse Detonator
Cover Screen	Cover Screen
Deadly Directive	Black Market Mods
Debilitate	Dirty Kick
Distraction	Distraction
Diversion	Diversion
Efficient Engineering	Dealer's Discount
Energy Tanks	Bravado
Engineering Skill Tree	Saboteur Skill Tree
Engineer's Tool Belt	Saboteur's Utility Belt
Entrench	Hunker Down
Escape	Escape
Evasion	Dodge
Experimental Explosives	Arsonist
Explosive Engineering	Independent Anarchy
Explosive Probe	Sabotage Charge
Flash Bang	Flash Grenade
Flash Powder	Flash Powder
Followthrough	Trickshot
Fragmentation Grenade	Thermal Grenade
Gearhead	Streetwise
Headshot	Headshot
Heavy Shot	Percussive Shot
Imperial Assassin	Deadeye
Imperial Demarcation	Trip Shot
Imperial Methodology	Insurrection
Interrogation Probe	Shock Charge
Inventive Interrogation Techniques	Sapping Charge
Laze Target	Smuggler's Luck
Leg Shot	Leg Shot
Lethal Injectors	Open Wound
Lethality	No Holds Barred
Lethality Skill Tree	Dirty Fighting Skill Tree
Marksmanship	Sharpshooter
Marksmanship Skill Tree	Sharpshooter Skill Tree
Orbital Strike	XS Freighter Flyby
Overload Shot	Quick Shot
Pillbox Sniper	Lay Low
Precision Ambush	Sharp Aim
Rapid Fire	Rapid Fire
Razor Edge	Holdout Defense
Reactive Shot	Quick Aim
Recoil Control	Recoil Control
Rifle Shot	Flurry of Bolts
Sector Ranger	Spacer
Series of Shots	Speed Shot
Shatter Shot	Flourish Shot
Shield Probe	Defense
Shiv	Blaster Whip
Slice Droid	Slice Droid
Slip Away	Dirty Escape
Snap Shot	Snap Shot
Snipe	Charged Burst
Sniper Volley	Burst Volley
Sniper's Nest	Foxhole
Steady Shots	Steady Shots
Stroke of Genius	Pandemonium
Suppressive Fire	Sweeping Gunfire
Takedown	Quickdraw
Target Acquired	Illegal Mods
Vital Regulators	Cool Under Pressure
Vitality Serum	Underworld Hardships

Introduction

Snipers are the kings of ranged burst damage. The marksman sniper (MMS) in particular shine at burst damage where their back to back simultaneous hitting abilities can burst harder than any other class in the game. If you time your abilities properly you can damage a single target for 10,000 damage in an instant.

The abilities Bioware has given snipers make uprooting and displacing a sniper a nontrivial task in the middle of combat(but we suck at defending points!). MMS are designed to hold our ground and deal massive amounts of damage to anyone who gets within range of us. Snipers are the bane of any class that tries to jump or grapple which includes...

• Juggernaut (all specs)
• Marauder (all specs)
• Tank Assassins
• Tank Powertechs
  

Even starting in the lowbie levels 20’s-30’s you can push out 200k-300k damage and it only gets better once you pick up your other key abilities.

While MMS have several strengths we have some weak points, damage is mitigated by armor, low survivability out of cover, LOS hits us harder than any other class, and mobility. Snipers also require a high skill level to play due to energy management juggling (which is harder in PvP then PvE), high positioning learning curve, and the requirement to press an extra key anytime you move and want to kill somebody.
Because of these factors there are not many exceptional snipers in SWTOR. I can count only 3 other snipers that may fit the definition of an exceptional sniper. I use and abuse the fact that snipers are underrated in PvP and not seen often to my advantage.


What damage should I expect as a marksman sniper?
Huttball
In huttball you should be putting out 350k – 450k damage on average during a full duration game.


Civil War
This one is a crap shoot on how much damage you will do. Anywhere from 100k – 300k with the rare 300k – 450k games where middle is contested for a long duration.


Voidstar
A warzone that is all about doing damage and eliminating the opposition, a full duration voidstar where I am able to shoot the entire time with can net me close to 700k damage. You should be doing more damage in Voidstar then Huttball with the typical full game being between 400k – 600k .


But I Have Seen Bigger Numbers From *INSERT CLASS HERE*
Ah, yes. There are other classes including madness sorcerers, lightning hybrid sorcerers (pre 1.2), lethality snipers, and hybrid powertechs (pre 1.2) that can compete or exceed the damage I do as a marksman sniper. However you need to remember all damage is direct and bursty. Marksman snipers do NOT have abilities that you will consistently use to aoe or dot up multiple targets with. The only exception of this is Orbital strike which should be used liberally.

I Like Big Numbers, How Big Can a Sniper Hit For?
Snipers can crit big! This is especially true on squishy targerts. My largest crit with ~6500 followed up by a ~4k followthrough. On the average target you will be getting 4k – 5k critical. However about ¼ of the time you are backing this up with another instant ability that hits at the same time as the first ability and will crit anywhere from 3k – 5k adding up to 7k – 10k damage burst at the same time. A fresh 50 will have ~13k hit points where as a battlemaster/champion will have ~16k hit points and 10% - 12% expertise mitigation. If I crit just right I can take off 50% of an opponent’s hitponts in 1.5 seconds. If you want bigger numbers, do less damage, and flails a glowstick roll a warrior.



Speccing your Marskman Sniper

I like to spec my sniper in any combination of 31/5/3 +2 for flavor, I wouldn’t blame you if you preferred leg shot, engineer belt, vital regulator or the typical choice of extra damage from explosive probe. Sniper volley is useless for us (until 1.2) and the alacrity from deadly directive is negligible.
The build I typically go is...



For my spare 2 points I go for leg shot, as it is extremely useful in huttball. Stopping anyone in fire is almost an instant kill.

Why Rapid Fire?
Even though rapid fire is a lackluster 31 point talent rapid fire can be useful in PvP during the first conflict in a match with all your CDs up and target acquired activated you will be burning through all your abilities. Additionally rapid fire becomes useful over long drawn out fights where every “better” alternative you have is on cooldown or not energy efficient enough.

Alternate MMS Build
The alternative is to pick up interrogation probe. I have not used this spec and therefore wont comment on how viable it is. I don’t think it is worth giving up 6% crit.



Come 1.2 however I think a mms engineer hybrid build is the way to go with the lethality talent nerf, probe buff, and talent point reduction to imperial assassin. Lots of play testing will be needed!

Marksmanship Talent!?!?!
Accuracy rocks, look at the stats section for more info. I wouldn’t hold it against anyone who moved these points. The accuracy you need isn’t hard to get.

Gearing your Sniper
Snipers gear just like any other class with a good balance of crit, surge and accuracy with as large of doses of cunning (primary attribute) power, and expertise. Never get alacrity it sucks and doesn’t reduce the global cool down on instant abilities. Your target acquired fills any alacrity role you could need by turning your snipes into 1.1 second casts!
Remember stats have a true hard cap in this game which you can never reach and a point of diminishing returns where adding additional points into an attribute is questionable vs. other alternatives. This is where people use the term “soft cap”.



Crit and Surge are the primary burst generators. You may want to add an additional weight to these abilities.

Because of the diminishing returns from stats except cunning and power, you will be juggling stats around to find a happy middle ground. I find the PvE recommendations a great guide to follow. They are gearing for damage, you want to deal damage, this is an area I feel PvE and PvP work well together. There are a few issues though for a 1:1 relations between the PvE stat weight to PvP.

1. It is not practical to maintain the optimal PvE rotation.
2. You have multiple aoe targets.
3. Spreadsheet doesn’t account for expertise
4. Variable amount of armor/defense/health on targets
5. You won’t be shooting 100% of the time
6. You need to manage energy much differently
   

Now stop here, go read the PvE sniper guide if you didn't earlier. Its full of awesome information and I will pull several references from the guide. I’ll go grab snickers while I wait on you.






Whew, that was an enlightening read. Key points you should take from the guide regarding stats.

• “Due to diminishing returns and the interaction between stats, stat weights cannot be accurately generalized for all MM snipers across all gear levels.”
• Main-Hand Weapon Damage is the best upgrade you can get.
• Accuracy: “Our base chance to hit is 90% with Rifle Shot and 100% with all other abilities”
• Crit value is greatly increased with higher surge.
• You should be mixing stats for the greatest damage output.
  

Accuracy
Oh accuracy, how underrated you are even after being told by developers at the guild summit that you are an awesome stat. It’s true; accuracy is an awesome stat. You don’t want every 10th shot at a sorcerer missing because you didn’t pick up any accuracy. In SWTOR there is a two roll system where FIRST you roll to hit, then you roll to do damage.

“First is a hit roll, accuracy versus defense, and if the attacker misses then no damage occurs. If the attacker rolled poorly enough to miss even discounting the target’s defense then a “Miss” result occurs. If he misses because of the defense then the result varies based on the attack type, the cover state of the target, and the target’s equipped weapons. All the possible results – Dodge, Parry, Deflect, Resist, Cover – are mathematically the same, but they can trigger different effects and are visualized in different ways.
If the attacker hits, then a second roll is made with the crit chance of the attacker versus the shield chance of the target. If a Crit or a Shield occurs then the damage is adjusted up or down (based on Surge/Absorb), and then it goes through to the armor and damage resistance. A critical can never be shielded, and an attacker with a high enough crit chance can push the target’s shield chance off the table. It shouldn’t be possible to get your passive crit chance high enough to start pushing off the target’s shield chance, but there are short-duration buffs that push these chances high enough to come into conflict”
(references: 1 2)

Given the following class defenses you should aim for 10% accuracy, more if you want to be a tank killer. Because of talents and the scaling system of stats this is not hard to achieve with minimum loss to other stats that make big numbers. Plus it will help you when classes use their defensive cool downs.

Need some help figuring the average defense for classes.

Marauder
5% base defense
Juggernaut
5% base defense
Tank:
DPS:
Operative
5% base defense
Sniper
5% base defense
25% base defense with cover
Assassin
10% base defense
Tank: 27.78% in Tank Gear
DPS:
Sorcerer
10% base defense
Powertech
5% base defense
Tank:
DPS:
Mercenary
5% base defense

Crit and Shield Rating
“[An] attacker’s Crit Chance can push Shield Chance off the table. There are a lot of buffs (e.g. talent-based, from Relic, etc) that boost Crit Chance, and the implication is that when you most need to Shield heavy incoming damage, your Shield Chance may be reduced significantly or completely. Given that, and the fact that Shield Chance is calculated after the hit roll, Shield Chance is not a strong mechanic in PVP.”

If you missed it in the accuracy section…
“A critical can never be shielded, and an attacker with a high enough crit chance can push the target’s shield chance off the table.” This however is hard to do.

Now go read this article on PvP tanks by Taugrim, the bane of your sniping existence. They have high defense, armor, and shield, and make your bullets sad.

Share This!: Avoidance and Shield-related talents do not work against Force and Tech attacks. Go tell all your tank buddies.

A Note on PvE Gear
Regardless of what gear you are going to get you are going to want to use the PvP gear. Come 1.2 any use of PvE gear (I suspect) is going to be inferior as they are changing the expertise equation.

In your 1.2 Warhero gear you will be chilling in a mighty fine 1291 resilience with a 23.95% bonus.


PvP Set Bonuses
Our set bonus is pretty good.
Two Piece:
(2) Increases the duration of Orbital Strike or XS Freighter Flyby by 3 seconds.
An extra 3 seconds of stopping objective capping and more kinetic burst damage. Awesome!
Four Piece:
(4) Increases the range of Distraction and Takedown or Quickdraw by 5 meters.

Some extra range for taking down fleeing people is nice. The extra distraction range is ok as you are probably as you are using it in a confrontation and not when they are running away. Still useful though.

Chaining Abilities (not just for the bedroom)

The following are ways in which you can chain abilities for ridiculous results. Not all are easy to pull off in a warzone.
Ambush --> Followthrough



Explosive Probe --> Ambush --> Followthrough/Takedown



Flash --> Explosive Probe --> Orbital Strike --> Snipe --> Debilitate --> Ambush --> Followthrough
Assassin Tank



With Power Ups Assassin Tank(Missing Explosive Probe):



Assassin DPS



Sniper




Cover Pulse Combo Snipe
You can cast your snipe or another instant cast attack right after cover pulse and it won’t break their root. That’s the reason why snipe is an instant ability if you spec it in engineering. You can still do the combo as a MMS.

Shatter Shot and Why It Sucks in PvP
Consider the following using fuzzy math.
A PvP geared Sorcerer with an armor rating of 18% (2479 armor) and 16k hp with scatter shot applied will have their armor reduced to 15.51%.
That means if you deal 16k damage to a target you will have done extra 398.4 damage. Not very good.
Now against a tank target.
Juggernaut with 20.5k hp goes from 47% to 43.9% after scatter shot applied (I expected more of a drop!).
That means if you deal 20.5k damage to a target you will have done extra 635.5 damage. Still meh.
None of these factor in the extra HP a healer could provide.
The point I am trying to make is the GCD for using scattershot isn’t worth it most of the time. I believe an extra snipe or series of shots is a better use of your energy and GCD. Go ahead and use shatter shot on ball carriers which the entire team is focusing and may be getting heals (but why aren’t you shooting the healer then?).

Resolve and You
First, go read this: http://taugrim.com/2012/01/04/understand...-mechanic/
Snipers have 4 abilities that cause the resolve bar to rise.

1. Cover pulse (400)
2. Ambush Heavy Shot (400)
3. Debilitating Shot (800)
4. Flash Bang (600)
   

Cover

Cover is what makes or breaks a sniper, ESPECIALLY a marksman sniper. It is the most powerful class defining ability in the game. This is a BOLD statement, which I shall backup.

Cover is a free ability that can do the following:

1. Give you a slight movement speed increase while you roll into cover and the ability to roll to ridiculous locations.
2. Makes you immune to interrupt
3. Makes you immune to pushback
4. Makes you smaller and less conspicuous.
5. Gives you a COVER dodge. This works against all ranged white damage as far as I can tell.
   
   • 100% in real cover
   • 20% in portable cover
   • 20% cover bonus while popping out of cover because you talented into cover screen.
     
6. Gives you an instant shot snipe every 6 seconds going into cover VIA snap shot specced.
   
   • Snap shot makes you sad when you pop target acquired as it doesn’t affect global cooldowns
   • Snap shot makes you sad when you want to chain abilities against a soft CC’d target.
     
7. +1 energy regeneration specced
8. Reduce the next 3 hits against you (1.5s cooldown per hit) by 30% damage
9. Stops enemy warriors/tank powertechs from leaping at you
10. Stops powertechs/tank assasins from grappling you
    

If you are not moving you are in cover, if you are not moving you are shooting. If you are rooted you should be in cover (post 1.2). If you are shooting while you are moving you should be popping into cover for an instant snipe and then run with an instant follow through.


IF YOU ARE A CULL SNIPER CHANNELING WITHOUT COVER YOU SHOULD BE BEATEN WITH A SACK OF DOOR KNOBS.


Rolling into Cover

Rolling into cover is a tricky mechanic that takes time to get used to. You can use it as a speed advantage and a buff to ranged white damage attacks against you.


An extreme example of manipulating cover:



You can also jump from the ground floor up a level in huttball.

You can keybind to force yourself to deploy portable cover instead of ever rolling into cover. You should have your primary keybind deploying cover and a secondary keybind rolling into cover.
Force deploy cover is called “Crouch”.
Roll into cover is called “Take Cover”.

Natural Cover “Cover Dodge”
When you are in natural cover and not popping out shooting at people you receive a 100% “Cover Dodge”. This means any white damage attacks will not work on you. Funny enough even AOE white damage attacks are coverable.




Notice how I can still cast attacks that are not white damage such as corrosive dart and frag grenade.




Natural cover with dodge up allows both dodges and cover. I don’t fully understand the mechanic about whats going on here. I assume its based upon a table where dodge and cover cover the entire table.



I am unsure if it is possible to stack enough accuracy to shoot through cover. Regardless it wouldn’t be worth stacking accuracy to shoot through cover.
Natural cover is however directional, shots in your front 45 degree angle will give you a cover bonus. Shooting from below still give a cover bonus even if you are behind an opponent, but behind at equal level does not.




Countering Cover – Pay Attention non Sniper Classes
Knock back, CC, and stuns are an excellent way to mess a sniper up. Times you should use these abilities is when a sniper is channeling. NEVER (almost) use these abilities when the sniper is not casting. Always wait for them to wind up their snipe/ambush/series of shots before stunning/knockback. Also never use these abilities when entrench is up. Snipers are immune to all CC and knockback when entrench is up.

When you do knock a MMS out of cover you have effectively canceled the following effects from the above. 4, 5a, 6, 7, and 8, 9, 10.
**Announcement** Knocking snipers out of cover for the sake of knocking them out of cover is dumb. Be tactical and practical.
The last way to counter cover is by using Diversion. Which can be obtained as the 11th skill point in the marksman tree. Diversion knocks a sniper out of cover for 9 seconds and even goes through Entrench as it is a debuff. This is effectively an interrupt for 6 seconds for almost all of a MMS’s useful abilities.

Diversion also debuffs your target when the animation starts, not when it hits.





I hate this mechanic. A MMS is speced to counter a MMS >_>. So what should two MMS do when they run into each other, throw a diversion to negate cover/cast and shoot. That should lead to both MMS throwing diversion at the other and just isn’t fun for either sniper. I concede that diversion can add a little flavor during MMS duels.


Cover Glitches
“Zombie kneeling” is a bug where your character will be standing ½ way up and you can’t go into cover. You look like you’re floating and half kneeling. In order to fix this you need to jump from a high height.
“Unknown Effect” bug is when you are on the VERY EDGE of a ledge and try to go into cover or on top of some odd terrain. To fix this move back a slight amount and try again or get off the odd terrain.




“Switcharoo” is a bug where you cast the ability on your non cover action bar vs your cover bar. Example: #2 is bound to corrosive dart while out of cover and explosive probe while in cover. Player presses his cover button and immediately presses his #2. I blame the rapid button pressing we do and client to server communication.
Expected result: Explosive probe is cast
What Happens: Corrosive dart casts

“Super Style” In rare situations right before falling you can go into cover and can cast cover abilities while falling. Looks badass. A favorable bug! Its hard to tell from the video as this is a short fall.








Playing in Warzones
When you play in warzones you are playing the objective with your secondary goal of killing anyone foolish enough to stray within LOS of you.

Huttball
Huttball is a great map for snipers to take advantage of their range and cover mechanic, but horrible for them to directly play the ball objective.

MMS Role
Contrary to bad player belief huttball is not a zerg game. You don’t horde your team following the huttball. A series of control, positioning and good passing will win the game vs. zerg teams. You have two primary roles as a MMS and two secondary roles.

PRIMARY

1. Control the middle
   
   • This is your PRIMARY objective. Against a good team the ball will move around too fast for you to always keep up with them. If you control the ball the entire game you win. Simple as that.
     
2. Kill enemies
   
   • a. Target priority is VERY SUBJECTIVE given the dynamic nature of PvP, your LOS, HP of enemies, etc.
     
     • Healer
     • Squishy ball carrier
     • DPS
     • Ball carrier
     • Anybody
     • Anybody with defense cool downs activated
       

SECONDARY

1. Control your rafters.
   
   • What I mean by this is if there is a person on your side in the rafters and you don’t control the ball then you need to do everything in your power to knock them down, kill them or force them to withdraw. An opponent on your side of the map can mean any of the following. Tanks, marauders, sorcerers/assassins are incredibly deadly to score a goal if they are positioned.
     
     • A target to pass the huttball.
     • A pull of the huttball carrier from the bottom level to top.
     • A target the ball carrier can intercede to.
     • A superior vantage point to dps/heal from.
       
2. Passing the ball
   
   • You should never ever run the ball, at least not any considerable distance, you suck at running the ball and you will die against any competent team. However you can act as a hardened vantage point sometimes to pass the ball forward or for a goal.
     

Upper Rafters


It’s good to be king. This is where you should be 95% of the game. Gaze upon those below you with pity and headshots.

The top level offers superior protection from melee as it is hard to reach and easy knock people off. It also offers a form of LOS defense against ranged classes. The top also offers superior vantage point for snipers to nearly every part of the map.
The downsides: LOS LOS LOS LOS. Line of sight can sometimes be a pain and any smart person will use that against you. When this happens you have to choose a new target. It is not your job to play ring around the pillar. Leave that to classes with slows and instant cast attacks. You should primarily be in the middle ring positioning yourself accordingly to treats.

Rough kill zone from any given point in green. Purple is where you can pew pew to.


We also have quite the range. You can hit all the way across the rafters.








The Pit


You should never be down here except for two cases.

1. Either your team or the enemy team is turtling the ball in a tied game. In this case superior LOS will take priority over position.
2. You just got knocked down.
   

Ground Level


You should not be down here. You are down here only if…

1. You got knocked down.
2. There was a target that so important you had to jump down. THIS SHOULD BE RARE.
3. The huttball is spawning, there are no team members around and you can get the huttball with low probability of dying then pass it off to a team mate quickly before heading back to the upper rafters.
4. You need to LOS juke people to survive.
5. You have low hp and require the healing buff. Also RARE as you should be running to your healer, unless you’re soloing.
6. The middle is clear and you feel like getting an adrenal that is very far outta the way and usually not worth the effort as you should only get them if you have an immediate target and if you had an immediate target then why are you leaving and not killing him.
   

Lower Rafters


You should never be down here except for...

1. You got knocked down.
2. There was a target that is so important you had to jump down. THIS SHOULD BE RARE.
3. A quick jump down to knock multiple enemies or the ball carrier into the pit turning the tide of battle!
   

Goal Area


You should never be down here except for...

1. The game started/you died.
   

Watch Those Hazards Frogdogs!

In Huttball hazards are GREAT for snipers. Fire is an uncrossable wall (mostly) that vanishes ever _______ seconds which you can always shoot through! Use this to your advantage as well as the acid pool (but why are you on the ground flood?) for the following...

1. Pushback into fire with cover pulse or ambush heavy shot.
2. CC/Orbital Strike those waiting to cross
3. Stun/Leg shot/Blind
   
   • Remember leg shot goes through white bars!
     

Fire does tons of damage and it will kill you in 4 seconds.




Acid you can survive for 10 seconds.




You must obey the law of gravity
Right over the pit on the center ramp to the goal connecting to the upper rafters is a great knock back where you can use the knock back to inflict a large amount of fall damage. From the highest point it inflicts 21% damage.




When you HAVE to carry that Damn Effing Ball

When you absolutely have to carry or grab the ball because your team is unavailable to get the ball or you killed the ball carrier finding yourself in position of ball carrier you reference the flowchart…
[IMG=1000x1000]http://i.imgur.com/qB0pQ.png[/IMG]

Alderann Civil War

MMS Role

Contrary to popular belief snipers are not good at defending points. An assassin, operative will do a better job. Stealth classes are way more annoying to deal with as they have a CC ability they can use in cover and can pop back into stealth after stopping a cap. I also feel that heavy armor tank/healer classes or even a marauder can do a better job with all their defensive cooldowns. This doesn’t mean we can’t defend civil war points (we can!), we just don’t do it as well as other classes because a good pair of stealthers will insta kill you before help arrives. On top of this there is no natural cover in Civil War as far as I can tell.
Remember when defending a point your objective isn’t to kill the enemy (although that helps). The objective is to survive until help arrives and prevent caps.

Therefore we should not be solo point defenders but instead try to counter the zerg. Kill targets as fast as you can, focusing on squishes and healers first. Secondarily CC the speeder landing if possible.

Defending the Center Point

If you are defending a point you should defend the middle. You are given a ledge and a superior vantage point. Here is an excellent spot to defend from while getting a good view of where the enemy is going (remember to set your camera to max zoom level).


If you own two points on the side position yourself closer to the point you own in case you need to break off.

I also find that the ridge here can make it a pain to knock people off the ledge. Therefore you may want to chill in the middle point where the ramp comes up.

Defending the Side Point
The side points suck to defend as a sniper. LOS obstacles everywhere, there are no terrain advantage for the most part.


Therefore the best thing you can do is jump on the middle of the objective, this will give you the greatest terrain advantage and deny the middle from becoming an LOS disadvantage.


Voidstar
*YAWN* Voidstar. You can make big numbers but it is an uninteresting game to play. There is not much to say about voidstar. It’s a bunch of people running into a bunch of other people. High DPS wins the game by killing everyone at the same time when the spawn respawn counter clocks to 30seconds again. Follow this up with some CC. We should see much more interesting games and strategy once 8v8 matches come out. You shouldn’t loose the point by two stealthers insta killing you as a solo defender if you have a half decent team and you shout loudly.

MMS Role
Kill EVERYTHING, and use your CC/shield. You’re annoying as you’re in the back and it’s hard to see your abilities.
Orbital Strike

This map makes orbital strike shine. Orbital strike the door and area next to the spawn after they jump down. Door number 1 is the easiest one to do this. Door number 2 has both alleys intersect at a point that is a wise area to also AOE. Also any place where the opposition is forced to run through your aoe in order to defend the door.


Deterring People on the Bridge
Use the bridge to your advantage. Position yourself near the middle of the bridge, pull out entrench once anyone get close and try to knock em off. You have two abilities to try this, cover pulse and ambush. Beware of assassins who try to stealth and knock you off! Have your finger on the entrench button to counter this.
Here I knocked two people off. One was the gunslinger in front of me on the first cover pulse and a healer and tank after the cooldown was up again.


Defending the Door
See Civil War for what I think about sniper objective defenders. Otherwise I find the following a good location.


ALWAYS KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE DOOR!

Dueling
I really like dueling, you learn a lot about yourself and other classes. I really wish Bioware could open a duel area in CLOSE proximity to the fleet. Except sorcerers, those guys are pushovers and need a lot of love.

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Dueling a General Guide
Be flexible and change your tactics up. Dueling is about trying new things and there is no hard answer to any opponent. The following is a general guide and is very subjective to the situation.

Start in cover, if LOS isn’t involved you typically pop entrench and shield probe when the duel starts if you are not fighting a stealth class. Use dodge during the beginning of the duel against big abilities. If possible throw down an orbital strike atop yourself if facing melee. At this point melee has two choices, run away or eat your orbital strike. Liberally use your flash bang and try for one of the combos described above, many people won’t break their CC for the soft stun in a duel. Use your knock backs on melee when appropriate. Don’t damage them right away after using cover pulse, they will be rooted there for 5 seconds for you to replenish your CDs, summon an orbital strike, or wind up your big attacks. Remember if facing melee classes to root through their white bar.

The numbers below for dueling are based upon the PvP players on my server. Not players who can’t play their class. Please take a look and study your opponent’s big abilities as it is important in warzones as well.

Definitions
Full cool downs: Every ability is up, med kit, stims, everything for both duelists.
Random stuff up: Several duels played in a row including the initial full cool down.

Marauder
Full cool downs: 50%
Continued: 70%
If marauders don’t have their big defensive cooldowns up they are squishy. Else they are hard to kill with stealth, 100% miss cast, 20% damage reduction and 99% damage reduction. They will mess you up. They have an invisibility that lasts for 4 seconds.


Cloak of Pain
Reduces all damage taken by 20% and deals 134 energy damage to attackers. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds. Lasts 6 seconds. Cloak of Pain refreshes to its full duration when attacked, but this effect cannot last more than 30 seconds in total.


Saber Ward
Increase melee and ranged defenses by 50% and reducing the damage taken from Force and tech attacks by 25%. 12 seconds.


Undying Rage
Spends 50% of current health to grant 99% damage reduction for 5 seconds.


Frenzy
Immediately build 30 stacks of Fury.

Juggernaut
Full cool downs: 50%
Continued: 70%
Juggernauts are not squishy to kill and take a while. They are hard to kill with their cooldowns up.

Saber Ward (Image is a murauder, but it is a shared ability.)
Increase melee and ranged defenses by 50% and reducing the damage taken from Force and tech attacks by 25%.

Operative
Full cool downs: 20% - 30%
Continued: 50%
If the sniper does not have his CC breaker up and the operative has his cool downs up you will lose 100% of the time. I hardly ever win against the best operatives with all their abilities up. Don’t shoot when dodge is up, instead fire explosive probe or corrosive dart.


Dodge
Increases your chance to dodge melee and ranged attacks by 100% for 3 seconds.


Shield Probe
Absorbing a moderate amount of incoming damage for 15 seconds.

Sniper
Full cool downs: 50% (duh)
Continued: 50% (duh)
I think you can figure this one out. Be sure to use diversion and try to find natural cover if possible. Save your dodge for their big attacks or when you are hit by diversion. Orbital strike when they entrench. Don’t shoot when dodge is up, instead fire explosive probe or corrosive dart.


Entrench
Immune to all CC and knockback, lasts 20s.


Shield Probe
Absorbing a moderate amount of incoming damage for 15 seconds.


Ballistic Shield
Deploys a ballistic shield that spans 10 meters around you, reducing the damage taken by all allies that remain inside by 20%. Lasts 15 seconds.


Dodge
Increases your chance to dodge melee and ranged attacks by 100% for 3 seconds.

Assassin
Not enough data
Tank assassins are a nightmare against MMS as they can push their defense into near 30% mark.


Deflection
Increases your ranged and melee defenses by 50% for 12 seconds.


Force Shroud
Removes all hostile removable effects and increases your chance to resist Force and tech attacks by 100% for 3 seconds

Sorcerer
Full cool downs: 100%
Continued: 100%
Sorcerers need help regardless of their spec. I don’t lose duels ever against dps sorcerers. Lightning specced sorcerers are easier to kill then madness. Healing sorcs would be easy too if they had trauma debuff and didn’t just run away from me. Against healing sorcerers I don’t have enough data and usually leads to a long game with massive amounts of kiting.


Static Barrier
Surrounds the target in a lightning shield that lasts 30 seconds and absorbs a high amount of damage.

Powertech
Not Enough Data.


Energy Shield
Reduces all damage taken by 25% for 12 seconds.


Explosive Fuel
Increases ranged and tech critical hit chance by 25% for 15 seconds.


Kolto Overload
Restores 15% of maximum health over 10 seconds.

Mercenary
Not Enough Data
Mercenaries hate good snipers. Makes sense, we have cover bonus against some of their abilities and can interrupt where they cannot. A good interrupt to their tracer missile will leave any bad mercenary confused. A good mercenary will still fire while if possible, LOS you, pop out damage, and LOS again.
Rotations on a PvP Sniper
They are subjective and really require learning how hard you hit against what and how fast you want to bring a target down. Go check out the PvE guide on burst damage and sustained damage to get an idea of what you should use. A combination of both of these should be done throughout a warzone. I find myself using snipe a lot more than the PvE guide mentions because of its low cast time.

I need to get their coodldowns and images. I think they have a shield that makes them uninterruptable.

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Save Area 1

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Save area 2

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I capped the local images allowed in a single thread. A raise in the cap would be appreciated, otherwise I cannot easily edit the post for fixes.

[Pander Beers]

Howdy! Great guide at first read, and when I get some more time soon, I'll send you a PM with some comments. If it's alright with you, I'd like to copy some of the images you have for the Imperial defensive cooldowns in your Dueling section. I'll also see what I can do about getting Republic versions up for us.

[Flyinfungi]

Feel free to use the images/guide. I would appreciate any other images as coordinating with the opposing faction is difficult.

[Tibbel]

(04-02-2012 09:05 AM)Flyinfungi Wrote:  There are a few issues though for a 1:1 relations between the PvE stat weight to PvP.

...
• Spreadsheet doesn’t account for expertise
  ...
  

It actually does now!
(Both your own expertise and that of your target -- It's only factored in if you set your target to be a Player.)

Of course, expertise is getting rebalanced in 1.2, so we'll see how that affects things.

[frmorrison]

In the images of class cooldowns (which is great), you listed Saber Ward twice.

I personally didn't see the usefulness for pictures 2 and 3 (at the start), but it is your guide.

[Masterkiller]

WYSIWYG editor installed.

[Redsun]

Not a big fan, I suppose as a compilation of information taken from the PVE pages, and right out of other peoples posts it's not to horrid, but most is plagiarized full copy and paste action. His own personal coments thrown in are extremely exaggerated as shown by his own videos. Most his damage is lower than it should be regular attacks and cover fire are way low, not critting for as high as his claims of the average 6500 crits with 4k follow throughs more like his 1800-4200 on hard attacks critting. Most his Wz dmg seems from mainly AOE wich is higher overall dmg less kill power wich explains his high overall dmg claims. Would like to see this refined and maybe site the sources, can also do without some of the random pics and him trying to sound cool comments.

[Flyinfungi]

(04-03-2012 06:06 AM)Redsun Wrote:  Not a big fan, I suppose as a compilation of information taken from the PVE pages, and right out of other peoples posts it's not to horrid, but most is plagiarized full copy and paste action.

I do have some source clean up and some additions I need to add. You may of missed some of my source links as the shades of the link are very close to the text. The vast majority of this guide is my original work, all of the videos, all images but the graphs, and most of the analysis. If you have some areas where you think I didn't reference correctly please PM me and I will fix this.

(04-03-2012 06:06 AM)Redsun Wrote:  His own personal coments thrown in are extremely exaggerated as shown by his own videos.

Can you please let me know something that was extremely exaggerated? Maybe the combo section as the big one is extremely hard to pull off in a WZ. I am going to remove the humorous images/gifs per a recommendation.

(04-03-2012 06:06 AM)Redsun Wrote:  Most his damage is lower than it should be regular attacks and cover fire are way low, not critting for as high as his claims of the average 6500 crits with 4k follow throughs more like his 1800-4200 on hard attacks critting.

I think you mistyped, but I take your point. 6500 crit is my largest crit I ever had backed by huge 4k followthrough. I think further analysis of what you hit for against targets of different armor and specs would be an excellent addition. My numbers may be a little high in that section by 10% -15%, I should think on that and test it on some people or at the very least widen the margins.

(04-03-2012 06:06 AM)Redsun Wrote:  Most his Wz dmg seems from mainly AOE wich is higher overall dmg less kill power wich explains his high overall dmg claims.

Most of my damage, 90%+ of it is single target damage. I completely disagree with your point.

(04-03-2012 06:06 AM)Redsun Wrote:  Would like to see this refined and maybe site the sources, can also do without some of the random pics and him trying to sound cool comments.

See above.

[NeXican]

Very nicely put together. I think this post leaves alot of the emotion out of it,
where as many of the other posts on the SWTOR forums do not. Though some of the
damage numbers are a bit inflated (seem to be more against group’s that are not
full BM) the actual ratio's and math seems to be pretty accurate.

The rotations and philosophies behind the game play in PVP are dead accurate, and what
needs to be done by all snipers to compliment any successful group.
Even if (and some of it is, since i've read pretty much any sniper topic out there)
it is taken from other posts this one actually compiles all of the data into a
single source document. Cheers for that.

I think the only difference between our builds is I dropped 3 points into the
explosive engineering vice the leg shot and rapid fire (which I may pick back
up for the overall dmg increase). I enjoy the bonus to explosive probe since
this seems to cut right thru the more heavily armored guys (it's an easy 3-4k
dmg stack on ambush).

Another theory for my as it pertains to hutball is that typically I am already running
the rafters and with the 4 piece BM bonus (5 meter bonus), therefore, if I
can't get to them in time with cc its probable to late... sooo I push back into
middle to clean things up for the ball carriers.

All in all, great write up Flyin (one of the best I’ve seen to date). You know where
to find me if you need any help.

-NeXican

[Torque]

Hi I play a 50 GS almost exclusively in PVP (but now play on aussie server and haven't transferred my GS yet)... anyway pretty good guide here are my comments:

I agree with redsun on your single damage crit numbers, they seem pretty high. I've never been able to get over 4800 crit (I've never got the 5k crit medal) but I'm not in full BM yet and missing a few items so I can see that damage could go up... BUT, I think it would be a better representation of what to expect under standard circumstances, for example: You can expect crits in the range of 2.5k-3.5k vs similarly geared non-tanks, and if you catch a fresh 50, you might score in the high 4k's and WITH your CD's up, and a debuffed target, you could see up to 6.5k crits.

Next, my personal philosophy differs in WZ in terms of targets of choice. I really like to remove weak players from the mix. My personal philosophy is that the war of attrition is best played with lightning quick precision, regardless of AC class, or class in general. For example, if I set up on the rafters of huttball, the very first thing I'll do is scan the scene: without fail, one of the sprinters will have opened a lead and got the ball. This is almost undeniably asking for a trip to reclaim, and, if anyone is paying attention that person will be stunned (all CD's up on all sides), and, will be in reclaim fast as you can imagine. The second target is KEY. What I'm getting at here, is that for a smart sniper the first kill on the carrier buys time. It gives you about 5-10 seconds to scan opposing players in range, and choose one who is in a compromised field position and not a tank. These are my first prioirities. 2-3 people on a DPS/healer and they drop like rocks. I choose the sentinel/marauder, the operative/scoundrel, the DPS/heal sorc/sage, whoever is in the middle and ungaurded. I find this to be the ideal target. I will open hard on them and they will immediately become the NEXT target of the zerg. If someone has already chosen a good target, then just destroy them on a hard burst, and repeat.

This leads to my next point: I find there are two extremely different ways to play, and both have merits: one is to lead the zerg (start kills so that tabbing teammates easily find the next most damaged person, and direct their attention on them), the other is to make crucial kills and CC while the zerg (your side) is scattered and getting slowly picked off by an organised opposing team. Clearly, the sniper in this case must play situationally, depending on the strength (or weakness of his team). In my experience, this is the role that snipers/GS play most effectively: A quiet unannouced killer who leads his team to victory or defeat without their team knowing. It is an obscure role, but it works wonders when performed properly.

Lastly, I wanted to mention that you had some nice 1 on 1 discussions and tactics, but I wanted also to say that I felt you played down (or didn't mention) the importance of refreshing ballistic dampers in conjunction with 20% range defence for 6 seconds defence (forget name). I found, in general, that my survivability went up significantly when I started to up and move on a regular basis. If I ever found myself under pressure (for example while playing in mid in civil war when a dude runs up the ramps and starts harassing me) that just relocating (or popping out of crouch and back into crouch) every 6-8 seconds or so to refresh dampers made my defensive capability a lot stronger, this works really well against low to average strength melee/ranged players who are not yet capable of launching a significant attack on the move. Against a well manipulated sentinel/marader, however, is just a death sentence... but they'll kill you anyway if you don't root em coming up the ramp so it's irrelevant.

On damage advertising: I've never been able to put up damage numbers the way you have taken screen shots of, but, I also usually achieve a significantly greater kill count. Some of those screenshots seemed to advertise damage capability without justification of the damage. IMO, the true strength of the SS/MMS class is producing kills, not producing damage. therefore, A better representation of this classes strength isn't an advertisement for damage, but, perhaps a warzone where you only did 200k damage, but had a kill count of 50+ which would exemplify the obvious ability of this class to QUICKLY burst down lowish/mid HP targets already undertaking damage before healers can recover. <-- extremely important.

Other than that, pretty informative, good read. I would like to see more discussion on other potential builds too in the future (not saying you should do it, just I'd like to read more).