SWTOR’s second 8.0 PTS iteration includes level 85 changes for all 3 Sniper | Gunslinger disciplines. We’ll explain what they are and what we think about them.
General Changes Approach
The changes on the PTS are very, very preliminary. Each combat style is getting one of their baseline abilities replaced with a version that adds a unique additional function for each discipline at level 83, like the second ability each class gets at level 15.
Typically, this ability is some sort of cooldown, and in a couple cases, it’s the same ability that we got at level 15.
None of the unfinished business with ability trees and talent choice design have been fixed (yet), it’s just that new ability and a “new” passive at level 83, though that passive is almost always just that spec’s most popular tactical item.
It seems like they’re intending to make the most popular tactical less ubiquitous, rather than just balancing the alternatives properly, and the fact that they’re doing it this way has the potential to create even more imbalance without eliminating this flavor of the month issue because they’re going off of popularity rather than actual power level or intended use case.
Many players are not even aware that tactical items exist, nor that they’re designed like ability tree choices where they tend to be optimal against a specific enemy and content type, whether it be a boss (fight), trash mob (solo content), or player (PvP).
Some players just pick the one, usually the single-target sustained option meant for boss fights and end up doing worse in other types of content and end up disengaging rather than learning.
Tactical items also cost a lot of Tech Fragments and Credits and take up unnecessary inventory space while acting as an incentive against having alts.
Really, each discipline has ~3 tactical items that should just be migrated to their own new talent choice in the tree. The ones that need rebalancing or refining can be addressed individually.
So far, it feels like they’re trying to use a single size screwdriver to fix a bunch of specific and unique problems, but sometimes that screwdriver just doesn’t fit. I don’t think the same one-size-fits-all approach will work here like it did with Ability Trees because the problems for one spec aren’t shared by another.
Sniper | Gunslinger
The changes to Sniper | Gunslinger are extremely basic for all the pomp and circumstance with marketing it as a new ability and passive for everyone.
Each discipline is just getting another discipline-specific upgrade to Laze Target | Smuggler’s Luck or equivalent and their single-target sustained tactical as their discipline passive.
While it is a bit bland, these changes do help to better integrate Laze Target | Smugglers Luck or equivalent into their respective discipline and create a stronger incentive to use the Improved Targeting implant.
However, there is absolutely no need for these changes to exist as a second upgrade to the ability and could be rolled into the base level 15 transformation.
It would be much better if the level 83 ability upgrade affected Takedown | Quickdraw instead, since that ability really struggles to compete for a spot in the rotation for each spec. For example, I’d love to see a high noon type of ability for Sharpshooter.
Marksmanship | Sharpshooter
Marksmanship | Sharpshooter is getting its Laze Target | Smuggler’s Luck ability upgraded and its Agitating Energies tactical as its new level 83 discipline passive.
- Laze Target | Smuggler’s Luck now also enables your next Ambush | Aimed Shot or Takedown | Quickdraw to increase the critical chance of your next Followthrough | Trickshot
- Agitating Energies is now baked into the tree and is now called Corrosive Followthrough | Vital Trickshot
- Refraction Point will be optimal the vast majority of the time. B-0 Differential Targeting System will only be useful in select boss fights without any adds and arenas with a lot of ranged DPS.
The change to Laze Target | Smuggler’s Luck is a bit convoluted. From reading the description, it sounds like Laze Target | Smuggler’s Luck just applies to Followthrough | Trickshot as well, but that is not the case.
You activate Laze Target | Smuggler’s Luck, which increases the critical chance of your next Ambush | Aimed Shot and consumes the crit proc upon dealing damage and gives another proc that increases the critical chance of Followthrough | Smuggler’s Luck.
This should help to enable a build with Retargeting | Lucky Draw and Lazer Focus | Lucky Thoughts to be more viable next to the semi-recent buff to Penetrating Blasts | Penetrating Rounds, but numbers aren’t balanced yet, so we’ll have to wait and see if that’s enough.
Turning Agitating Energies into a discipline passive does help to raise Marksmanship | Sharpshooter’s AoE potential significantly, to the extent that it will be one of the best in the game without the current sustained DPS loss drawback.
AoE potential for direct damage disciplines is not balanced very well in 7.0 and nothing I’ve seen indicates 8.0 will improve anything. Furthermore, since B-0 Differential Targeting Device is so weak, there will now be even less of a reason to swap out your tactical as Marksmanship | Sharpshooter ever.
In Warzones, Refraction Point is consistently better, and in Arenas unless the enemy is super spread out and features an unusually high number of rDPS, you’ll still be better off using Refraction Point.
I also think it’s problematic how Refraction Point works from a visual and lore perspective. You’re firing a sniper rifle or a pair of blaster pistols, but with this tactical item, the shots deal enough damage to explode?
The tactical describes that you’re firing a prism into the target, at least with Marksmanship, but that would make a touch more sense if you did it with Corrosive Dart and that caused some sort of toxic explosion, but that wouldn’t work for Gunslingers.
As strong as it is, Refraction Point deserves to be redesigned to work as a sequential ricochet shot like The Bad Batch’s Crosshair does with strategically placed mirrors or, perhaps more feasibly, Diversion’s smoke cloud.
Virulence | Dirty Fighting
Virulence | Dirty Fighting is getting its Viral Targeting | Blood Sights ability upgraded and its Exploited Weakness tactical as its new level 83 discipline passive.
- Integrated Toxins | Smuggler’s Chems now also causes your Poison | Bleed effects to tick twice
- Exploited Weakness is now baked into the discipline and has been renamed to Major Hemorrhaging for Dirty Fighting
- Ultraviolet Blast will continue to be optimal for PvP and Airborne Agents will be optimal for all PvE content
The change to the 10s effect applied by Viral Targeting | Blood Sights is probably the most interesting of the bunch, especially when paired with Airborne Agents, and should assist with Virulence’s | Dirty Fighting’s AoE potential.
It will also be nice to use Exploited Weakness alongside the other two tactical items, though I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to disturb the perfect balance between the discipline’s core trio.
Virulence | Dirty Fighting is the poster child for migrating all 3 discipline-specific talents to the ability tree as a new choice, and the other two specs aren’t that far off.
Engineering | Saboteur
Engineering | Saboteur is getting its Targeting Systems | Target Hack ability upgraded and its Ruthless Interrogation tactical as its new level 83 discipline passive.
- Targeting Systems | Target Hack now also causes your next Explosive Probe | Explosive Charge to apply a second Explosive Probe | Explosive Charge upon detonation that deals 50% less damage.
- Ruthless Interrogation is now baked into the tree and has been renamed to Repeated Shocks for Saboteur
- TO-RO Ionic Discharge will be the new optimal tactical item for all content instead of just PvP
With the TO-RO tactical, your autocrit Explosive Probe | Explosive Charge reapplies itself, but because TO-RO makes it so EMP Discharge | Sabotage is the only way to detonate Explosive Probe | Explosive Charge, the next activation of EMP Discharge | Sabotage will detonate the fresh Explosive Probe | Explosive Charge applied in the GCD prior and the 50% damage one that’s about to fall off.
It’s weird how the second one is delayed like that, and whenever you can precast, Engineering | Saboteur already has some of the most oppressive spike damage potential in the game, and that’s before you factor in TO-RO. I have no idea what Broadsword is thinking by dialing up the spec’s spike damage even higher.
Unlike Virulence | Dirty Fighting and Marksmanship | Sharpshooter, Engineering | Saboteur has no useful AoE tactical. MG-2 Polygrade Dispersal Caps is garbage, so the discipline’s AoE potential is going to get left in the dust.
They could fix it by making that tactical expand the blast radius of Explosive Probe | Explosive Charge to 5m and make Suppressive Fire | Sweeping Gunfire apply Electrified Railgun | Blazing Speed to enemies it damages.
