So I played 15m of Huttball today in NYCC as a Sniper.

[Saverem]

I don't think this is a NDA breach because I experienced what the public could experience and also weren't told anything about the NDA while there, but if this is some how a NDA breach, feel free to delete.

OK so first of all, I had an awesome time at the BioWare booth, they handed out Empire/Republic shirts (you had to pick one, I got the Empire one) and also a Darth Revan mask (made of cardboard, but it was still kick ass!).

First, some general thoughts on my experience in Huttball: This BG is pretty cool, but I found that classes that have knockbacks are going to have an overwhelming advantage here. The Huttball I participated in was pretty good, the Republic won with a score of 3:2, so it was definitely a lively match. I'll have to say that the sole reason they won was because their Assassin and Sage were using their knockbacks extremely wisely. As most of you already know, in order to score you HAVE to make your way through a series of narrow-ish grates with fire hazards. Well, if you have the ball and are trying to score and team mates their backing you up. One measly Assassin can fuck everything up. He can run up to you and knock you all off the grate forcing you to have to run allll the way back around to get back on it and buying their team time to regroup. They can also knock your ass into the fire (this happened to me, I had the ball and was taking it to the endzone, stopped on fire trap, some Sage or Assassin came up and knock me on the fire, killing my instantly). I think they'll have to do something like turn their knockbacks into knockdowns in order to balance that BG.


OK, so on to the Sniper. Keep in mind that I was only there for 15 minutes and most of the time I was just clicking whatever was up blindly in hope shit would go down. From what I remember, my Sniper had a ranged snare that snared for 5s on a medium cooldown (about 30s) he also had a flash grenade that CC'd a target for 8s, it's sort of like a Rogue's Blind in WoW, any damage breaks it. He had an AoE probe that sucked pretty hard, they'll need to buff it's damage. Also, all of their damaging abilities that actually did damage required either melee (Shiv) or required you to be in cover. Ambush from what I could tell were their hardest hitting ability. It requires cover and has like a 2.5-3s cast time but hits like a truck, 2.5k damage. By comparison, their shitty damage abilities that they could use out of cover only hit in the 100s, the low 100s...like 250ish... Yeah...it's that bad.

A limitation of the Sniper in PvP will definitely be the cover system. I found myself throwing a new cover up every 5s because people were constantly in motion in this BG, there was always someone chasing someone chasing someone else chasing the ball carrier. In this regard, I think that Snipers will be a little lacking here. Given a chance to take cover and use their cast timer abilities, I think they'll be the best DPS class in the game, only problem is, this won't happen in PvP. Half the time my Ambush would be incomplete because my target would run OOR or OOS. Didn't help that I turned into a clicker because I didn't know what keys did what, so my reaction was slow. Having to click cover every 5s isn't fun.


As for the positive things about the Sniper... USE SHIV WHENEVER YOU CAN! Shiv is so fucking awesome! It's an instant melee ability that hits for almost as much as Ambush (around 1.8k) and is on a shorter cooldown than Ambush. I found myself owning some Troopers with it. I would shoot them, they'd run to me, by the time they reached me they'd be 1/4 dead, I'd shiv them as soon as they came in melee and then I'd run and throw my CC grenade at them. I'd turn, put another cover down, and start my Ambush again, and then snare, and by the time they reached me again Shiv would be up and bam, they'd be dead. Pretty cool.

[Ghess]

Cool.

Thanks for sharing your experience with Huttball and the Sniper, its greatly appreciated.

[Beggattron]

That sounds awesome, I was there on Friday but I didn't have the time to wait in the line.

[Trollsbane]

Thanks for the write-up! I'm sure that the use of cover and the ways to make it useful will be more clear with more playtime. =)

[vizzle]

I like the fact that they have multiple levels and knockbacks, it adds another element of skill to the game.

People will eventually learn (good players at least) to position themselves so that you won't be knocked off the level completely.

[Bane123]

Eventually people will learn to pass the ball, and play more strategic to win the game, maybe not pugs = / but i think knockbacks won't be that big of a problem unless the other side is filled with sages and shadows or something :P

[vizzle]

Eventually people will learn to pass the ball, and play more strategic to win the game, maybe not pugs = / but i think knockbacks won't be that big of a problem unless the other side is filled with sages and shadows or something :P

I think I read on the alter site that all classes have a knockback? I'm not sure if that's true though, but I know I've seen in videos that Troopers have knockbacks (and therefore BHs as well).

[Jaronicity]

I think I'll find Operative to be much more fun than Sniper. Probably because, at heart, I'm more of a fan of melee. I don't believe I'll be a fan of ducking behind cover every fight and setting up shop. I can see where some people would like that kind of thing but for myself it's just not my style.

[Saverem]

I like the fact that they have multiple levels and knockbacks, it adds another element of skill to the game.

People will eventually learn (good players at least) to position themselves so that you won't be knocked off the level completely.

I'd feel that way IF every class got some sort of knockback ability to make things even. I only know of 2 classes that have an AoE knock back, the Counselor/Inquisitor and the BH (I guess Troopers have one too since it's a mirror class, but I have only seen BH use them), if you join a Huttball and none of your 7 team mates are those 2 classes, you'll be screwed. Reversely, if you have a team full of those 2, then you'll always have someone with that knockback up to screw up the ball carrier. The knockback itself is on a 1 or 2m cooldown. Oh and another thing, if you're carrying the ball YOU ARE PERMA SNARED. Yep, you run at like 75% speed or something, so it's easy for enemies to catch up to you, flank you, and knock you off the side.

Also, there is no way to position yourself not to get knocked out unless the dude doing the knockback is dumb and uses it to knock you backwards instead of off to the side. The walk way is so narrow that there is no way to avoid not being knocked off if they come at you from the side.

Another thing is, passing the ball is actually pretty challenging, it's not just click on team mate and hit pass ball like I thought it would be. When you hit the button you are given a target icon on the ground, so if your team mate is running and you throw it at the spot where he was instead of where he's going, he's going to thumble the ball. Also, if you don't throw the ball within 5 seconds of clicking the pass ball button, it will reset and you'll have to re-do the action. So it'll require some skill to use, it's not an ez-mode ability like throwing a happy fun rock at your friend in WoW.

---------- Post added 2011-10-15 at 06:31 AM ----------

I'm finding Operative to be much more fun than Sniper. Probably because, at heart, I'm more of a fan of melee. Wasn't a fan of ducking behind cover every fight and setting up shop. I can see where some people would like that kind of thing but for myself it's just not my style.

I think Operatives will be a lot better than Snipers for PvP. Stealth and heals will be pretty useful. Also, not having to use cover will make it less cumbersome.

---------- Post added 2011-10-15 at 06:34 AM ----------

Thanks for the write-up! I'm sure that the use of cover and the ways to make it useful will be more clear with more playtime. =)

Maybe after someone gets used to the map, they can set up nests or something to take out the enemy or slow their advance. I tried setting one up on the grates right above where the neatral ball spawn, but it didn't work so good because the enemy were constantly moving around. So they'd go in range, I'd start casting a shot but before it could fire they'd move back OOR or under the grate and LoS.

I think Huttball is just not designed to be cover friendly, I think the other 2 BGs will be better for a Sniper where they can set up a cover to defend a node.

[Medjai]

I'm sure people that get use to the snipers abilities will make them work in pvp, i can see alot of people rolling sniper because of the 2 big dmg abilities sort of like all the fotm sub rogues in low to mid level bgs in wow, can one shot people but then they get rolled on by someone that knows how deal with them.
Also the people that are following every move bioware is making with this game will counteract the whole not every class has knockbacks with ball passing and teamwork as a big pvp fan i hope Bioware does do 1v1 2v2 3v3 and 5v5 arenas i would love to see a head to head arena as well as RBGs and make it possible to solo queue for said RBGs instead of making you work to find 10 competent,geared, people that fight the right comp.

[Jaronicity]

<snip>

NDA and all.

[vizzle]

I really, really hope Bioware doesn't take too long with adding tournament/rated pvp. I'll be very disappointed if we have to wait for a year for it.

[Medjai]

same here vizzle i also hope the macro interface is pretty easy like wows is, never played rift so i dont know its macro interface but i played FFXI and its macro interface WAS HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 7 line limit with about 30 character limit on each line, if you wanted more detailed macros you had to work with XML and download a3rd party tool lol, but i pray to the SWTOR gods dont make us wait a year for some tournament/rated pvp =D

[Deleted]

Sniper's actually have a knock-back I believe; Cover Pulse.

[PuliGT]

Thanks for the write-up. Did you use any environmental cover during your match or just the portable? I've heard that it is faster and more effective to use the environment instead but for pvp especially that will depend on placement. Just curious if there were a lot of cover points in pvp or if you generally had to use the portable kind.

Seems like the sniper could be really good paired with a melee class. Melee charges and slows while you throw out massive damage from cover so they can't charge/pull you to them. It seems like a good sniper on a good team will be amazing, but a lone sniper will likely get caught and killed pretty easily. That sounds reasonable.

BTW, conventions are usually not covered by the NDA. Some devs have come out and said that you are free to share your experience from the previous conventions so unless they specifically told you not to at NYCC I think you are safe.

[Medjai]

If Bioware decides to have tournaments/rated pvp i could see melee/sniper being a top rank duo comp as well as melee/sniper/healing sorcerer being a high rank comp, basically anything where the sniper is allowed to freecast as much as possible or is able to set up a portable cover spot to ambush would probably destroy alot of other comps, but who knows. Maybe a spell cleave type of comp might be tops or a RMP type group

[vizzle]

By tournament/rated pvp I don't mean specifically arena, just any sort of ranking system in BGs (or arenas). Just saying this since people love to rag on arenas.

[Mothhive]

My biggest complaint about Huttball...

"Ouch! That was one dumb frog-dog!"

"Ouch! That was one dumb frog-dog!"

"Ouch! That was one dumb frog-dog!"

Shut the hell up man!!!

[Trollsbane]

There will most likely be no macros at launch.

I like the announcer. Lol

Knockbacks won't be as bad as they seem they can be. Easiest way to neutralize them? Don't run alone if possible, pass if possible, and let tanks carry the ball. Tanks have a charge. Charge = win.
Also, only certain ACs have knockbacks I believe. It would be silly to give every AC one.

[Zarasthura]

I'll have to say that the sole reason they won was because their Assassin and Sage were using their knockbacks extremely wisely. As most of you already know, in order to score you HAVE to make your way through a series of narrow-ish grates with fire hazards. Well, if you have the ball and are trying to score and team mates their backing you up. One measly Assassin can fuck everything up. He can run up to you and knock you all off the grate forcing you to have to run allll the way back around to get back on it and buying their team time to regroup. They can also knock your ass into the fire (this happened to me, I had the ball and was taking it to the endzone, stopped on fire trap, some Sage or Assassin came up and knock me on the fire, killing my instantly). I think they'll have to do something like turn their knockbacks into knockdowns in order to balance that BG.

About this part... this means that we'll be seeing more AB cliff/EotS middle sniping, won't we?

Yeah they need to do something about those knockbacks, because anybody can rotate through their team's knockbacks to block the other side from ever getting a score, assuming they DON'T have ACs with a knockback