SWTOR: Meet the Sniper (PVP)

Alright so my main character on SWTOR is a Sniper and I've really enjoyed the playstyle despite it being a bit odd for me to play a ranged class in an MMO as I am typically an assassin. But yeah, the sniper is a heavy ranged DPS class that utilizes a cover system to demolish opponents in both PvP and PvE without taking any damage, ideally. The particular specialization I chose to pursue is the Engineer, a spec that focuses on explosions and other area of effect skills (AoE).

The sniper's role in PvP is definitely in the vein of covering your teammates as well as blowing up high priority targets before they have a chance to do their thing. An Engineer is focused on putting a dent in a large number of players to change the tide of larger fights by using things like grenades, probes, and even an orbital strike to inflict massive damage on other players. Snipers also have some damage mitigation skills that allow us to either absorb damage with a shield or dodge it altogether which makes us viable even at close range. Our ideal distance is between 20 and 30 meters since most other classes need to be closer than that to do the majority of their skills. We're also given skills that slow other players down or immobilize them completely in order to kite (the act of maintaining distance from a target by use of slows and strategic movement) melee classes that can close distances quickly.

Despite the value of our ranged combat, Snipers can still be useful at close range if we use our skills properly while paying special attention to the placement of your area skills. If you see a warrior or two...or three (there are lots of warrior classes) coming at you its not a bad idea to pop whatever defensive buffs you have and put area skills down right over yourself. Nothing is more hilarious that watching three frustrated melee classes chase you around in a circle while being hit by an orbital strike, burned by a probe, and having grenades chucked in their faces every few seconds. Snipers can be extremely effective in a sort of one vs. many scenario provided the player knows what they're doing it is possible to drop three or more people at once as an engineer due to the extremely high AoE damage you can put out.

I'll just briefly mention the other two specializations you can choose from. First you've got your basic marksman spec which, as the name implies, is entirely focused on ranged skills and your fundamental sniper skills. The spec's main benefit is that it powers up critical hits on a lot of your skills and offers a very high amount of chain-able skills such as instantly cooling down "Series of Shots" and allowing you to use two more without a cooldown. So basically that means you can put heavy dps on a target for a solid 20 seconds without consuming much energy. My favorite part of the marksman tree had to be the skill "Followthrough" which, again as the name implies, follows up one of your snipes or ambushes with a powerful shot that takes no time to prepare and does extremely high critical damage. This spec, as well as the other two, is very viable for PvP and PvE alike.

Next is the Lethality spec. This is a tree focused on dealing damage over time with your poison skills and is widely regarded as the "best" spec for PvP, an opinion with which I strongly disagree. However, this is still a great spec for dealing with a lot of the heavier classes under the label of "tank". It's very possible to tag a target with multiple DoT (damage over time) skills which just pile up damage and is very difficult to out heal or even get away from. If a lethality sniper has you in it's sights then you better focus on killing it quick.

Engineers like making things go boom and so do I. It's a perfect fit. That's pretty much all I've got to say about Snipers for the time being. I'll probably do a Meet the Operative after I finish mine and they get nerfed.

Thanks for reading!

-Fest

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Star Wars the Old Republic: Overview

Alright so this will just be a moderately brief look at the overview of the game discussing things like various classes/roles and gameplay as well as some aspects of what makes SWTOR a good game and also some things that need touching up. I'll start with the class system.

Classes: SWTOR takes a pretty typical approach to an MMO class system. You start out as a basic class and advance to one of two advanced classes at level 10. To add more depth to this fundamental system Bioware added specialization trees to each advanced class which essentially changes your playstyle based on what spec you choose to pursue. You can also mix and match to create your own spec that suits your playstyle the best. People will always try to figure out the "best" one but that is totally subjective and most specs are viable in PvP. The class list goes as follows

Imperials: Agent, Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor (Mage-ish), Bounty Hunter

Republic: Smuggler, Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Trooper

Imperial Agent: Sniper, Operative

Sith Warrior: Juggernaut, Marauder

Sith Inquisitor: Sorceror, Assassin

Bounty Hunter: Powertech, Mercenary

Smuggler: Scoundrel, Gunslinger

Jedi Knight: Guardian, Sentinel

Jedi Consular: Sage, Shadow

Trooper: Commando, Vanguard

I personally play a Sniper as my main character so I'll discuss that in depth in my next post. The cool thing about all the classes is that there are multiple roles that each can fill based on which skill tree you pursue (same as a spec). For example, the "Assassin" class has a basic DPS (damage per second) spec that makes for a great PvP tree but it also has a spec for tanking that is filled with defensive skills. What kind of assassin can tank stuff? Point being, SWTOR has pushed some classes that are, by themselves, very traditional into very non-traditional roles. There are also options to turn your character into a healer for three of the four basic classes meaning that depending on your group's needs you can fill the role of healer if need be. This also makes things interesting in PvP because you can have a mercenary who sits there firing missiles off his back and another one healing. It makes it difficult to determine target order until you're part way through a match. That's enough about classes for now though I'd like to move onto some of the aspects of the stories that make SWTOR stand out.

Story: Story? In an MMO? Nonsense! Is what many people might say about your typical MMO since, by in large, MMOs have basic lore and not much else in the story department. But even the lore in most MMOs is shaky at best and eventually it develops into something really, really stupid. Like pandas. Yeah, thats right WoW I'm looking at you. Thank the lord I never touched that game. Anyway, WoW's megafail isn't my point here. SWTOR's story is actually quite well done and plays out in a similar manner to it's predecessors, KOTOR and KOTOR II. Each class has a unique story that follows the same underlying plot and it takes you from level one right to level 50. My Sniper's story quest was actually the last quest I completed that leveled me right to cap which I found to be quite amazing that they pieced together a three part story for every class that brings them straight to the level cap and through all the different planets SWTOR has to offer. So lets think about that real quick. There are eight classes in total with their own unique story that lasts, if you did them all in a straight line without stopping or factoring in your level, about 15-20 hours in total. Multiply that by eight and you've got the content that Bioware developed just for the story.

Having a story you can experience by yourself is a strange concept to me since most MMOs focus on the group aspect of playing. However, this was incredibly nice since my satisfaction was not based on how many of my friends were playing at the time, I didn't have to wait for a group to get on to experience content. In reality the story plays out more like a single player game with the option of inviting friends along for the ride but you can complete the story all by yourself if you want to. Giving players the option to play and level their characters solo or questing with a group is a nice change of pace from other MMOs.

Leveling: The typical grind of an MMO is not present in SWTOR. There are hundreds of quests and a large amount of content you can use for leveling via questing but that isn't the only way to level. You can also level using space missions which essentially play out like a Star Fox 64 level where you fly around in your spaceship on a pre-determined course shooting down baddies for experience and commendations to buy things for your ship. Any space mission of "heroic" mission will also reset every morning allowing players to repeat content at their leisure to gain significant experience without having to log on for five hours a day just to get a level.

Yet another way to gain experience as well as money and even gear is the instanced PvP or "Warzones" which net you the average quest experience for your level and it scales up as you level as well so it remains a constant option for leveling, money, and gear. Warzones also buff up your stats to that of a level 50 character which allows for equal play in the non-50 bracket despite the level gaps.

So that went a bit longer than I expected...more later as I do a sort of "Meet the Sniper" kinda thing.

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