[ISSUE] Experienced Marksman: Range/Fast Snipe

[Ivory Ghost]

I am running an assault rifle/devices blaster and decided to slot the "Experienced Marksman: Range/Fast Snipe" enhancement in my sniper rifle power.

After slotting this enhancement I am no longer able to get the "sniper attack" bonus. In addition to this, the sniper rifle power is not being instantly cast.

[ZorkNemesis]

The issue isn't the enhancement; Assault Rifle's "fast snipe" animation is just really bad.  There's not really a faster animation for it so even though you're in "fast snipe" mode, the attack is pretty much no faster than the "long snipe."  Assault Rifle is the only set with this problem too.  All other snipers come out far faster than Assault Rifle, even Beam Rifle has a better fast shot animation.

 

A proposed change, maybe "fast snipe" Sniper Rifle's animation can use the same animation as Slug instead of reusing the sluggish aiming it presently uses.

[marmota]

Same, and the animation bug may be superficial but losing the sniping bonus isn't!
with Experienced Marksman: Range/Fast Snipe slotted, Sniper Rifle on the taskbar permanently has a yellow ring around it and behaves the same as being in combat with reduced range and no bonus.

Edited June 29, 2021 by marmota

[TheZag]

That is what this enhancement is supposed to do.  Assault rifle animation time may be bugged with it,  but getting the yellow ring permanent and not having the snipe bonus is supposed to happen.

[UberGuy]

Yep. That's the point of that enhancement. It keeps you in "in-combat mode" so the behavior of the snipe is consistently the fast version. 

[marmota]

7 hours ago, UberGuy said:

Yep. That's the point of that enhancement. It keeps you in "in-combat mode" so the behavior of the snipe is consistently the fast version. 

I... see. How is it an 'enhancement' to turn my longest range most powerful one-shot-kill attack into just another combat round combo rather than improving it? I thought it would make the actual snipe instant, not nerf it. Apparently I was wrong. That is NOT clear from the description, even misleading given the "Marksman" part. Ok, back to the drawing board on this build. Thank you for the feedback all. I'll try to go be constructively grumpy about it.

Edited June 29, 2021 by marmota

[marmota]

Quote

Blaster/Defender/Corruptor Snipes

• 12 second recharge and 14.352 end cost.
• Base 2.28 scale damage in their "quick" form, down from 2.76 scale.
• Every point of ToHit buffing the player has will increase or decrease this damage, up to a cap of 2.76 scale damage with +22% ToHit buff.
• Slow form will do 4.5 scale damage.

If I'm reading these patch notes correctly I can at least get quick snipe up to 2.76, but still nowhere near the slow 4.5, and there is no way to temporarily switch ExperiencedMarksman fast snipe off, so I guess I need to unslot it.

[UberGuy]

3 hours ago, marmota said:

How is it an 'enhancement' to turn my longest range most powerful one-shot-kill attack into just another combat round combo rather than improving it?

 

Fast mode turns any snipe into a high DPA attack that you can consistently use in your attack chain (assuming you can absorb the cost of doing so), which for a lot of sets can significantly improve their DPS. I don't think it would fail to improve DPS on any set, but some sets get more mileage out of it than others.

 

The original behavior for fast snipe was dependent on your toHit bonus. If you could get to a consistent +22% or more toHit (from Tactics, Kismet, etc.), you simply always had fast snipe all the time. While the new, combat-dependent version of fast snipe is lower damage than the original, you can get it back to its old fast snipe damage if you can still get to +22% toHit. So you can basically get the old fast snipe behavior back - except you always have to open with some other attack (or get attacked) before you can start using it in "fast" mode. Some people prefer having the fast version all the time, because its simpler and can never be interrupted. This is who this IO is meant for - people who liked the old behavior and basically want it back.

 

Edited June 30, 2021 by UberGuy

[srmalloy]

15 hours ago, UberGuy said:

While the new, combat-dependent version of fast snipe is lower damage than the original, you can get it back to its old fast snipe damage if you can still get to +22% toHit.

However, with the last change to combat snipes, the range of the attacks have been normalized to the 'standard' attack range, dropping it from 100+ yards to 80 (in most cases) -- which the Range aspect of the Range/Fast Snipe enhancement does not compensate for; you're significantly neutering your Snipe for the single benefit of getting the attack off quicker as the first shot you make when starting combat. This is not a viable tradeoff, to my mind; if it allowed you to keep the slow-snipe range or damage (one or the other; both would be unbalanced), it could be worthwhile, but as combat snipes stand now, it's utter trash.

[arcane]

19 hours ago, marmota said:

If I'm reading these patch notes correctly I can at least get quick snipe up to 2.76, but still nowhere near the slow 4.5, and there is no way to temporarily switch ExperiencedMarksman fast snipe off, so I guess I need to unslot it.

Yes, if you ever want to see the 4.5 you don’t slot it. If you want to be able to open with a high DPA s/t attack you slot it. 

[UberGuy]

3 hours ago, srmalloy said:

However, with the last change to combat snipes, the range of the attacks have been normalized to the 'standard' attack range, dropping it from 100+ yards to 80 (in most cases) -- which the Range aspect of the Range/Fast Snipe enhancement does not compensate for; you're significantly neutering your Snipe for the single benefit of getting the attack off quicker as the first shot you make when starting combat. This is not a viable tradeoff, to my mind; if it allowed you to keep the slow-snipe range or damage (one or the other; both would be unbalanced), it could be worthwhile, but as combat snipes stand now, it's utter trash.

 

Personally, it wouldn't really bother me - I certainly don't consider it trash. But I also don't tend to rely heavily on snipes as an opener. If one's primary goal is to use your snipe as a high DPA booster to your regular attack chain, it's not especially valuable that it have long range, since you can't use your other powers at the snipe's regular range.

 

Remember - snipes exist on ATs other than Blasters, and not all of those ATs have the damage scales (or an Aim/BU to use with it) to reliably one-shot snipe even just minions (at least at high notoriety). So having it as a hard-hitting opener, while still useful, is less transformative. It really comes down to your character and what your playstyle priorities are.

 

Personally, I don't slot this set because I prefer the bonuses from others. If the bonuses were right for my build, I'd probably give it a good think, especially on non-blasters.

[srmalloy]

17 hours ago, UberGuy said:

If one's primary goal is to use your snipe as a high DPA booster to your regular attack chain, it's not especially valuable that it have long range, since you can't use your other powers at the snipe's regular range.

The problem for me has been that snipes still give a temporary range boost to attacks whether they're used in combat or out; you used to be able to get a little more standoff by opening with a snipe, then using the range boost for the next few attacks, then the in-combat snipe again to refresh the range boost and continue. Letting the range boost expire -- for example, from using non-attack abilities like Aim or Conserve Power, or popping inspirations or whatnot -- didn't matter, because your next combat snipe would refresh it. Now, if you let the range boost expire, the snipe itself doesn't have the range to be usable from where you are, so you have to move closer to bring the combat snipe in range, which also brings the rest of your attacks in range without the snipe's range boost, so it wastes that aspect of the power and exposes you to more return fire.

[UberGuy]

That makes sense to me, but as someone who plays a lot of characters who don't get that benefit from their snipes anyway, and also who has blasters without snipes, that seems like a-nice-to-have rather than something I would unequivocally refuse to lose. But I admit it does sound useful, and slotting this enhancement on a Blaster does make it much harder to leverage effectively.

[srmalloy]

It's not something I refuse to lose, but most of my Blasters have Fly or Mystic Flight, using altitude to stay out of melee while supporting the front line, and the range reduction reduces their engagement circle. It requires a tactical adjustment, and it takes time to retrain the reflexes.