Imperial Agent: Operative or Sniper?

[Hockeyhacker]

Both are fun, I am round robin leveling one of each AC until I choose what I want for a main and so far of the 8ACs (republic and sith have mirror ACs just with different animations and spell names even to the point where the talent trees are identical) of the sith the only 2 I have removed as possible mains is the Warrior ones, but thats just mainly its the one play style that I find meh personally.

With that said as for the cover mechanic on my sniper I flat out took the "take cover" spell off my main bar and just put the "crouch" one on instead because any time you crouch as a Sniper you create cover and so crouch is just as useful without those "woops I just rolled into an additional group while trying to take cover" moments. Every one in a while I will use "take cover" just for the fun roll, but since crouch does the same thing mechanic wise without the chance of rolling you into adds or facing you the wrong way that's what I mainly use and it doesn't feel clunky at all.

[Deleted]

Agent anything doesn't really seem like FotM >.> *looks at inquisitors*

Lol, one of them is nammed Badwolf. If anyone gets that reference, you are a friend for life in my book.

Also I'd going operative on my agent when I get around to creating him that is.

[Migey]

I suppose IA is the least played Empire class, but all of them are played alot so you don't notice it. There are certainly plenty of Snipers - it is rare that you see an Operative though - Op is definately the least played out of all ACs, except maybe for Powertech.

I went Operative, but disliked it and rerolled Sniper. Operative is the only melee class that doesn't swing around a glowstick - however, the reason i disliked is because it's not fun at lower levels - it's only fun once your at a certain point and have most of your tools, because until then you feel like a bastard mix of hunter, rogue, and a half-assed healer. It's not fun. But when you get alot more of your tools it starts to come together and to be enjoyable - the stealth is certainly a big thing - you can skip alot of things with it, etc.

Sniper and Operative use the same gear mostly - do NOT go for power, at least as a Sniper and i'd presume for Op as well. Sniper hits per ability for the hardest in the game, and more power is redundant - surge rating and crit are whats important. However Snipers obviously use Sniper Rifles, wheras Operatives use Blaster Rifles and most of thier damage comes from Vibroknives.

Your choice should be based on which you prefer - stealth or cover, as they are respectively the dominant mechanics of the two classes. I like cover, it feels unique and it works, however it is quite buggy - hopefully this will be fixed but you will occasionally have to fall prey to your character not going into cover when you ask him to, abilities cancelling themselves when you cast, etc. Quite annoying but on the whole once you get used to it and can avoid it, it's playable, and these should be fixed soon.

If your going Sniper, then go for Marksmanship.

To be honest, i think Operative would be much better if there was NO ranged side to it - thats what made me dislike it - i like playing a Rogue. They should have given it a melee auto-attack, and more use-from-stealth abilities.

Also, am i the only one who thinks that the Lethality tree looks fucking useless? It seems based on DoTs, but the Sniper doesn't have a single DoT, and if you focus on the tree as Sniper, you still end up with about 2 DoTs total. I think you get one or two more as Operative but it's still a terrible tree. I think they should have added a few more DoTs to the tree itself and maybe to the Operative and made it an Op only tree, although then there would be no shared tree (the shared tree idea is nice but i think it's flawed tbh - they should remove that). It would be good as an Ops second damage tree, but to make it a shared tree they need to add more DoTs to the actual tree, and make it viable for both Sniper and Op - maybe add effects like Snipe causes the enemy to bleed, etc. It's pretty fucking useless, and it should be removed from Sniper, changed for Op so they can add a Sniper personal DoT/Bleed tree.

If any spec was to be shared, i'd say it should be the Engineering one - for blowing thingz up. I havn't looked at it in depth but i can see very little in it that seems Cover is crucial for, or that seems it should be specific to the Sniper, except for Explosive Probe, which i don't think should require Cover - well, i can understand why it does, but i think it should be useable in Stealth as well.

[rol3x]

I will say I was dissapointed that engineering was sniper only, I agree it should be shared. It makes sense for the operative who heavily uses droids for healing to have access to that tree.

[Migey]

With that said as for the cover mechanic on my sniper I flat out took the "take cover" spell off my main bar and just put the "crouch" one on instead because any time you crouch as a Sniper you create cover and so crouch is just as useful

NO. NO NO NO.

How many times have i had to explain to fellow Snipers who don't look at fly text, understand their class mechanic or read tooltips for passive abilities?

You do NOT create your own cover as a Sniper. The red shield you see is a passive Sniper ability that increases ranged defense by 20% - in other words, if you lack any better cover, then at least you have SOME buffer (cause Snipers are pretty flimsy). However if you take cover behind an object (the green projection shows where, it appears if your facing in the general direction of the cover spot and have an enemy targeted) then while you will take damage when your standing and casting, and get hit (i don't know if the 20% Sniper defense bonus applies here, il have to test it), when you're down, you take 0% damage from ranged - except from some explosives. Seriously, try it. Aggro some ranged mobs, take cover behind an object and stay down - you won't take damage. Your completely covered. When a ranged attack hits the flytext will say 'Cover'.

Not to say sometimes Crouching isn't better, if the cover position is awkward, doesn't give proper LoS, will roll you into a pack, etc. If you Crouch down behind a suitable cover object, then sometimes you will get the cover effect anyway.

I'm getting really annoyed by this crucial misconception of the most impotant mechanic to the Sniper by alot of people. Being in proper cover has saved my ass countless times on low health while my companion is out - if you have aggro, you can use it to tank abilities like Series of Shots or the similar ability that alot of republic elite trooper style mobs use, or similar abilities. I've often stayed down, taking no damage against just one or two enemies left on about 4% health, waiting for Flashbang to get off CD so i can chuck it, and use an Ambush/Snipe combo, maybe with Takedown or Followthrough now i have it (which deals more damage then anything except Ambush) to take them out without dying.

Do not underestimate Cover.

[Deleted]

I’m a lvl 33 Sniper and so far I’ve enjoyed it a lot. I’ve been very slow at levelling through questing (I’ve done a few flashpoints, with lots of rested exp) and I do lots of space missions. As a result I’m only starting Alderaan now, and still only have Kaliyo so far.

I’m a bit overlevelled for most places, except I did the Nar Shadda bonus series at 30. I found that Kaliyo is a good tank (threat) but takes more damage than I’d like (I have orange chest armour and always take the quest rewards for her) so she will often be down at the end of a fight with an elite, and at ½ health against a strong (even though the fight is only a few seconds). If you are unable to mount up to heal her, then you can spend a good amount of time recuperating.

I have a feeling that many people will play Sniper to mid 20s and get fed up with the simple rotation (you don’t have follow through or series of shots yet) and will wonder why they didn’t go for a class that can do more than just dps, or they will get annoyed with the constant need for cover.

Like: The apparent slow pace to the class, every attack feels deliberate, calculated.
Like: A pack of 4 normals, or a strong + a normal is reduced by one member before they have a chance to do anything. If the group is standing close together, then suppression fire is so much win
Like: Sending enemies flying backwards with ambush, then pinning them there with a leg shot.
Like: The trench coats you get to wear.
Like: 35 Meters Range, my god that’s such a long distance

Dislike: When doing a flashpoint, trash is annoying with the constant requirement to reposition yourself before you can fire, while other classes simply charge in.
Dislike: The need to keep watching your buffs for crit snipes (flytext seems to only have a 25 meter range), so you can use ambush.

[Daswolfen]

I play a sniper and I love it. Then again, I play a mage in WoW so I am used to just standing in one place and opening up cans of ranged whoopass.

[Deleted]

I'm level 40 sniper im loving it well pve/leveling, I did some pvp and pvp isnt my forte but it's abit of a pain to shake melee off you , if there good because of the cover mechanic can be hard to do damage because they wont let you. also there is a few bugs that dont let you to go in cover if on funky rocks etc. very frustrating when you desperatly need a knockback.
soo far in leveling against strong and gold mobs you can blow them up pretty easy just use kaliyo as a meat shield some times she will die just to get the job done.
my rotation soo far is bos,bos,bos,snipe.followthrough and ambush on procs. I havent been using the explosion granade often because it costs alot of energy so i try to keep my energy as high as possible. but yes very fun to play sniper
sorry for poor grammer and would be greatfull if players could tell me there rotations and ideas to max dps.

[iggie]

If you intend to pvp, operative for sure.

There aren't many good ones out there (I play the scoundrel mirror as scrapper), but a good one will chew up nearly anyone. If I could only figure out how to record, I'd make a quick pvp video of my sick 3 on 1's. The melee spec is absolutely absurd right now. Don't underestimate stealth for pve either. It's nice being able to skip mobs when needed. Trouble on that last boss with three adds? Kill the adds, vanish, heal up, finish off the boss from 100% life with all cooldowns up.

If you know a free program I can use to record, let me know.

[Deleted]

The Trench coats are the best! When I get home I'm going to post some screenshots, you can get some pretty cool looks if you pair up the right items. I have a Tatooine set which is beige, to mix in with the sand, and I have a Matrix set, for when I'm in a City (it's all black/leather and has a neat visor)

[Hellfury]

Operative is sneaky melee and healing.

Sniper is pew pew from far.

Operative can be missleading since it uses a ranged weapon but to do proper DPS u have to be close and personal to use the melee abilities

[Geckomayhem]

The Trench coats are the best! When I get home I'm going to post some screenshots, you can get some pretty cool looks if you pair up the right items. I have a Tatooine set which is beige, to mix in with the sand, and I have a Matrix set, for when I'm in a City (it's all black/leather and has a neat visor)

That's totally sold me. I'm getting a trench coat and sunglasses, man.

Yeah, from the sounds of things, Sniper is still the way to go. Took my Chiss agent up to level 8 last night. Grouped up with a fellow agent and we did the Hutta heroics. We took turns running in on Champions to melee and stun while the other person sniped from cover. Was a lot of fun, with a few deaths, but lots of explosions. My newfound friend has already decided he wants to be a Sniper. I can see why more people choose it over Operative. And until you get higher level abilities, I guess it's hard to judge what will be most enjoyable.