Guild Wars 2

Sniper isn’t all that bad, at least u get a huge "marked’ icon to warn u of the impending strike and their attacks have a cast-time, allowing u time to react; shadowleaper and shadow dancer have none of that, their attacks are way harder to predict and have very little wind-up time. I really hope Anet takes a close hard look at shadowleaper and shadowdancer, I have learned to deal with snipers but shadowdancer/leapers are just aggravating.

The Snipers are fine. If you have Probs with them then it is a L2P Issue.

Dude. They’re called snipers. Of course they do big dmg from where it’s difficult for you to engage.

Those guys are the backbone of the Morden army if you take then away everthing fall apart and goes to “shatterer dificult level”

The Stalker is a try hard too but he knowns the Sniper is the real Mvp.

The only thing he is missing is a catch phrase like some other mordrem to annoy the player…

But speaking of try harders you guys should buff the Blademaster a little, she is a joke compared the other two legendarys especially the axe master and why the weakest mordrem general is a female poor form Anet.

They are rather squishy, so you can take them out relatively fast.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky. Other times they will fire, stealth, wander off, repeat, making it more difficult to drop them, especially if there are other enemies to deal with. Again, any one of their tools would be manageable, but together they are quite frustrating.

lease, do not request the dumbing down of every little piece of content in this game.

I didn’t. I specifically called out this one specific mob type. There are a few others that could perhaps use some tweaking, but most are fine.

These are not some super destructive bosses in the open world, you will learn to adapt in a short while (I know you will), and any sort of pampering on their difficulty was unnecessary

Have you not been paying attention? I already pointed out that I beat the story mode and have killed hundreds of these guys already, there is nothing more to learn. I know how they work, I just don’t like how they work.

Dude. They’re called snipers. Of course they do big dmg from where it’s difficult for you to engage.

If that’s the issue then they should rename them.

The normal level ones, I’ve started popping a Shiro Daze on them as Rev and then hitting them hard, to try to take them down before they can stealth.

The elites, veterans, and champs are harder to manage because you can’t as easily burst them down. I know it’s gonna sound like a lame solution, but I find the best way to handle a lot of these new mobs is to burst them down.

Like that Portlandia sketch “put a bird on it,” except replace that with “burst them down.” What do we do? BURST. THEM. DOWN.

CC is the other theme as well, with HoT. Many of the high level mobs have breakbars and breaking those bars can do serious damage to their cellphone’s signal… er, I mean, serious damage to their ability to function.

I feel like throwing this here for a little laughter:

• You can’t call Sniper a sniper, unless he does damage from no where.
• Rename Sniper to, Announcer, and let them shout 5 seconds before they shoot. HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY IMA SHOOOOT NOW!
• Also implement matrix slow motion bullet, that shoots so slow that you get disconnect before bullet hits you.
• when ever they shoot, they need to sit out for 30 seconds
• demonstration below in youtube link
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reB-ZwtWQ4Q

once you fight them a bit, the snipers are not bad. The mushroom ones are kinda funny at times. The thing that makes me rage is the devil bowling ball things that roll into you in packs of 8+ for 2-4k a hit with multi hits per roll. and if they get you against a wall, its hilarious…

I’ve not actually been killed by a sniper yet, I always seem to melt them waiting to see this infamous one-shot people are talking about lol.. is this an issue that comes with standing still or?

I realized that comment sounds incredibly condescending lol but I mean it in a genuine way, maybe its because I primarily wvw/pvp im never standing still and the sniper seems to never be able to cast the line attack fast enough as well as the animation being pretty obvious.

The worst encounter I’ve had with these involve a mastery insight where there’s like 3 of them together. I find them hard to kill in threes ( I’m usually using ranged) but my biggest problem is they respawn so fast, I can’t complete the mastery insight without having someone else there to draw aggro while I’m communing.

Zetsumei.4975:

I’ve not actually been killed by a sniper yet, I always seem to melt them waiting to see this infamous one-shot people are talking about lol.. is this an issue that comes with standing still or?

I realized that comment sounds incredibly condescending lol but I mean it in a genuine way, maybe its because I primarily wvw/pvp im never standing still and the sniper seems to never be able to cast the line attack fast enough as well as the animation being pretty obvious.

It’s probably the PvP instincts. PvE has a lot more “stand here and DPS mob” kind of mechanics, generally speaking.

Ohoni.6057:

~Snip~

But yeah, I find it annoying that their line attack deals so much damage, persists so long, has a hitbox that is larger than the visible indicator, and is far from the only tool in their kitten nal, for all it’s strength.

~Snip~

Are you sure it’s not your graphics settings that are preventing you from seeing the entire line? The hit box of that line does not extend beyond it’s graphical representation, which goes from the yellow down the center to black on the outsides. I’ve dodge right between two of them without taking any damage, so maybe you aren’t seeing the entire graphical display and that’s why the hit box looks larger than the line.

P.S. – I have absolutely no problem with their current difficulty or damage output, even if I do get killed occasionally, but then again, I have an odd sense of fun…I decide what is fun for me, not anyone else…I can make anything fun short of real life death, if I wanted to.

Are you sure it’s not your graphics settings that are preventing you from seeing the entire line? The hit box of that line does not extend beyond it’s graphical representation, which goes from the yellow down the center to black on the outsides. I’ve dodge right between two of them without taking any damage, so maybe you aren’t seeing the entire graphical display and that’s why the hit box looks larger than the line.

I know I’ve taken damage without touching any of the graphic itself. I assume it’s similar to the new Revenent effects like the road or the hammer-crack, in that it appears to be a human-width line along the ground, but is in fact at least a full arms-length across. It might help a bit if they displayed a complete border, as they do for those effects.

Ohoni.6057:

For the record, I am not trying to belittle your opinion, but rather understand it — as the concept is so alien to me

Well then, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and I suppose your weakness might be clarity of intent. If you genuinely meant that, then in future you might not want to include lines like “Do you think it will ever be possible for you to accept that there will be things you may not like at first, but strive to better yourself so said things aren’t as bad (even fun),” which implies an unhelpful and irrelevant “learn to play better” attitude.

From what I understand, you find Mordrem Snipers annoying because their line-aoe hits very hard and is hard to avoid when stacked.

By “stacked” do you mean like in a zerg or something? I don’t know that I’ve ever been a part of a zerg that’s encountered Mordrem Snipers, I mostly fight them solo. But yeah, I find it annoying that their line attack deals so much damage, persists so long, has a hitbox that is larger than the visible indicator, and is far from the only tool in their kitten nal, for all it’s strength.

It’s not an impossible toolkit, but it is a bit unbalanced for a basic mob, and only scales up from there. It seems like the Mordrem Sniper is a full rank higher than listed in all forms. Think of it from a balance perspective, if you had to play as an enemy in a PvP match-up, with only the options available to an enemy, would you rather be a basic-level Mordrem Sniper, or, say, a basic-level Mordrem Punisher? If players were playing as mobs, there would be huge cries to nerf the Sniper class.

It’s not that I can’t deal with them, it’s that I do not enjoy having to deal with them. I would prefer their effects to be something less of a hassle. It is not that I do not understand how they work, it is not that I do not understand the tools that I have for encountering them, and it is not that I lack the manual dexterity to implement that understanding, it’s that I lack the interest in doing so and would just prefer to not do that, if at all possible.

I hope that clarifies things.

I still don’t see what that line you quoted from me has anything to do with unclear intent. It was a genuine question, and a shame you chose not to answer it. The only way for me to really understand your inner workings is to ask questions that provoke base responses. If your are being offended by such questions, then I apologize. In my opinion, though, I think you should live a bit more care-free and not be bothered by trivial things; whether it be questions or mordrem snipers.

On to clarification now. When I said “stack,” I was refering to when multiple mordrem snipers shoot multiple lines of fire into your general vicinity — criss-crossing all over the place. Not sure what the best term to refer to that could be, so for now I’ll just call it a volley.

Finally, the “balance.” This one is a bit tricky. I think this topic will largely devolve into a simple matter of opinion. But hopefully we can form some construcive conversation around it before that point.

I am going to break your beefs with snipers into points so we can discuss them one at a time.

1) The lingering aoe-line (AL) hits hard:
I think I can understand why this annoys you. Especially as a thief, I can see those lines being the few-second difference between fighting and downing. But we also have to consider the big picture. Lets say that the AL was changed to not hit as hard as it does now. That’s not to say it would hit like wet paper, but it would be somewhere in-between. In essense, this would equate to the difference between dodging out of the way because not doing so means death, to mearly walking out of the way because being hit once or twice would hurt some — but is easily healable by oneself.

This is the mistake A-net has been learning to avoid. This is a mistake because it assists the ability for full glass builds to get through fights just through self healing mitigation. Rather than prolonged the dps meta, A-net has been trying to subdue it by nudging players into more well-rounded play-types. That’s not to say that pure dps is no longer an option, but if you chose to run that, you either have to be really good at what you do, or bring a friend running support. This, here, is where we see people who have wanted to run support roles finally earn a place in the open world. This also encourages teamwork and socialization — goalmarks of the MMO genre.

2) The AL persists too long:
I’m not quite sure on this one myself. I’ve never remained near the lines long enough to play attention to how long they last; it was always a avoid and forget thing with me (could that carry over with you, maybe?). I’ll try to play a tanky spec later to see how many hits one does before dissipating (unless someone else can provide this number). For now, I’ll just leave this one the table.

3) The AL has a larger hitbox than it suggests: This one I also have little experience with. I never noticed it myself. I suppose I’ll test this too in conjunction with the previous topic. If you turn out to be correct, then I would see this as an issue that needs addressing.

4) Stealth and repositioning:
I’m neutral on this topic. I don’t like it, but I don’t dislike it either. I think every profession has some means to counter/prepare for this. For thief, I would probably out-stealth them. After they appear, they would not be targeting you unless they had put that target above your head before stealthing. This would provide an opportunity to flank them while they’re in the open.

Concerning the pvp perspective component, pvp is more flexible when it comes to adaptation than most pve’ers are. By this I mean: if player-snipers started to become more provailent in matchmaking, then more people would start to run builds containing reveals and interrupts with a melee focus (win addition to ranged options). Soon, said snipers would be too hard-countered and be forced to play punishers. A sliver of this game centers around adaptation and versatility. This sliver is a very important base for the soft-trinity the game supports.

I’ll get back to you on points 2 and 3 when possible.

They’re kind of ridiculous. I don’t have any problems with them but they are tedious to fight against because there is rarely ever just one sniper alone

This is the mistake A-net has been learning to avoid. This is a mistake because it assists the ability for full glass builds to get through fights just through self healing mitigation

Full glass builds need to be able to do this, otherwise they become non-viable. The difference between a glass build and a tankier build should be that the glassy build needs to be more mobile and active in its own defense, while a tankier build can just facetank things without breaking a sweat. If glassy builds just die instantly to papercuts then they become non-viable as build options, so what’s the point?

If your response is “well glassy builds should just play so flawlessly that they never get hit,” then that’s even worse. If it’s possible only for extremely skilled players to survive then it means that the really skilled players will be “allowed” to do class-build high damage, while everyone else is stuck doing horrible damage. The build options should be more balanced than that, so that median skill players can run glass builds, and be survivable, so long as they try to be active and defensive, without being so OP on damage that this presents a problem.

Though for the record, I don’t run full glass builds, I’m not exactly sure what my gearing breakdown is atm, I mix in new pieces over time, but it’s got a fair about of PVT in there. There’s only so much tankiness you can get into a Thief though.

This, here, is where we see people who have wanted to run support roles finally earn a place in the open world. This also encourages teamwork and socialization — goalmarks of the MMO genre.

there is a place for people who want to run pure support builds, and always has been. It’s in other games. In GW2, each player should be self-reliant across all build options, and other players help by bringing more of the same, not by countering deficiencies.

I’m not quite sure on this one myself. I’ve never remained near the lines long enough to play attention to how long they last; it was always a avoid and forget thing with me (could that carry over with you, maybe?). I’ll try to play a tanky spec later to see how many hits one does before dissipating (unless someone else can provide this number). For now, I’ll just leave this one the table.

I can’t imagine that you’ve actually fought many Snipers if you haven’t even noticed how long the lines stay on the ground. I’m beginning to wonder if you’re experienced enough to actually play a useful role in this conversation.

In any case, the major problem with their persistence has to do with the downed state, in that if you fall in one of these, you’re not getting back up. A Thief might make it, since they can teleport, but a class without a move-after-downed ability just has to sit in the fire. I dislike long time persistent damage pools of all types for this reason, but the sniper ones are particularly nasty.

I’m neutral on this topic. I don’t like it, but I don’t dislike it either. I think every profession has some means to counter/prepare for this. For thief, I would probably out-stealth them. After they appear, they would not be targeting you unless they had put that target above your head before stealthing. This would provide an opportunity to flank them while they’re in the open.

Daredevils don’t stealth well. I was a bit of an odd duck in running the Stealth heal for a long time, since that’s the one I was comfortable with, and also keeping Shadow Refuge slotted, but popping shadow refuge each time a Sniper stealths is a bit of a waste of an important move, and I found that there are a lot of better heals for a DD than the stealth one. The new Physical one, for example, became my goto after I maxed the line. It’s SUPER fast, and great to use whether I’m high or low on endurance. Yeah, it’s ironic that my D/P Thief would have an easier time with it than my staff Daredevil, but here we are. I play a lot of other classes too, mostly Reaper in HoT content so far, but eventually I’ll get most classes in there, and they need options as well.

Again though, this has nothing to do with “cannot beat them, need help please,” that is not the issue. I can beat them, I do not need help to be better able to beat them. I just do not enjoy beating them, and since this is a game, since it is meant to be fun, and since they do not bring me fun, my personal preference is that they be changed to be less not fun. You can feel free to disagree with my opinion on that, but just please accept that it is a valid opinion, from a position of knowledge, not weakness, and deserves genuine consideration, if not necessarily agreement.