Imperial agent adv class. operative or sniper

[Mon-chere]

Hey everybody I'm new to Swtor and want to be a bitch on wheels. I've been watching peoples videos reading blogs but I'm not sure what's right fully for me to play. I've been looking at the Imperial and I just started her and I don't know whether to be an operative or sniper.

a little background about how I'm playing other games, I'm the type of girl who likes to be in the background harder to find but I can hit and before you know when I'm gone very rarely like to do melee but I like it if I have to I can do it. So that is where I have an issue I know what the operative to you usually have to be up close and the sniper you can be obviously 10 meters out from the target what is the benefit of being operative vs sniper and what set up what I use? Like is it possible the operative could be a distance hitter and not always close range fighter, etc. It seems like swtor has it one way or the other. Any advice or thoughts?

Thank you for taking the time to read I look forward to the responses and learning everything there is to be a better player for myself and for my guild and as a group member.

[Deleted]

Like is it possible the operative could be a distance hitter and not always close range fighter, etc. It seems like swtor has it one way or the other. Any advice or thoughts?

The DPS Operative is ALWAYS at melee range. Despite having some 30m abilities they rely on a buff gotten by a 4m ability.

Operatives can heal or DPS, have stealth, but are melee DPSers. Naturally when healing you don't wanna be in melee range...

Snipers can only DPS (But have 3 unique DPS tress instead of Op's 2) and are ranged, focused on being behind cover (Immobile most of the time).

[Binaris]

Operative= melee dps / healer

Sniper = ranged dps only.

If you are looking for ranged dps that may also come with the option to heal, mercenary or sorcerer would also be something to consider. But if you dont like melee, operative will be off-putting. I'm leveling one now and am the opposite, i couldn't play sniper because I dislike ranged.

[Lovestar]

Snipers are 30 meters out from the target like all ranged classes. They're pure DPS and basically a human turret — pew pew pew. You need to be in 'Cover' to do a lot of stuff so you'll be rooting yourself to the ground to do your rotation; if you need to move, you pick up and escape, then re-root ASAP. At higher levels your mobility will increase a bit with stuff like Exfiltrate, but at core you're still a turret emplacement.

Operative is 30 meters for healing, but the core of their rotation is at 4-10m (melee/close-range). Heals can also benefit from being in melee during light damage to cheese extra Tactical procs.

You can get a little looser distance restrictions with Lethality, but if you want a heavy Stealth focus that's more Concealment which is a definitive melee spec. You do have some long-range moves, but they're embellishments, not core. That said, you can function reasonably well if forced off-target temporarily by AoEs, etc. but you're not going to be 'effective' like that if you try to stick to long-range exclusively.

If you want to cut people down from a distance then GTFO, you should probably go with Sniper.

[Mon-chere]

Thanks for all the info ans also another class possibly to play. I will try the sniper out. I wsd thinking of that class but wanted to ask around. Is there a better skill tree to follow for a more effective sniper?

[Lovestar]

Marksmanship is about heavy ST damage, Engineering is about AoE damage, and Lethality is mobility/DoTs.

Those are very, very crude generalizations with a lot of overlap, but that's the rough idea. On my Gunslinger I found leveling with Engineering easiest because of how many trash packs you have to chew through in story missions, and also because detonating cluster bombs with Series of Shots makes me giggle.

PvP is a little more ambiguous, Lethality will have more mobility and its DoT focus keeps people dying while you move around. Marks has more CC/interrupt resistance and higher burst / more lethal when it's allowed to sit at range and pick people off. Engineering has some bursty tricks and can tear up clusters of players. Just being a Sniper at all is already a big advantage in leveling PvP though, haha. =)

[Hellfury]

Operative is great, if you are a explorer type, can go anywhere without having to fight hordes of mobs cause of stealth.

My first char was a operative and I had a blast

[smilemoar88]

I found sniper fun. Could usually kill most things pretty fast. You do struggle a bit if you caught needing to move around a lot though.

[Achaman]

operative (stealth plus healing is OP)

sniper is just increased range..

[Stormcall]

operative (stealth plus healing is OP)

sniper is just increased range..

Increased range, and the ability to do far more damage, you mean.

[quras]

I leveled the sniper and it was amazingly fun. I kept a geared tank companion and in the largest majority of any encounter and if I kept my gear up to date, I could kill anything before they killed my companion.

So much fun that class was and the story was just as good.

Operative was good. Stealth and healing is pretty nice to have but I just couldn't get over the fact that I have this blaster pistol but to do really well, I had to run in and hit something with it like it was a club. It just wasn't for me.