This week’s post is primarily going to detail some more class changes that are coming with the rebalance; specifically changes relating to Sniper and Sniper Analysis.
First though, I want to discuss a few more changes coming to transwarps! This past week I’ve found and fixed a few issues. One, you will no longer be able to transwarp to non-player-vs-player galaxies when under the effects of the PvP timer. You can’t use a wormhole to get into Earthforce Space after you’ve initiated PvP; you won’t be able to use a transwarp to either. Two, if you are warping to a galaxy that is flagged as ‘non-slave’, for instance, the Nexus, slaves will not be warped along with you. Both of these issues were oversights with the original implementation and the fixes will be live with the next patch.
Now, Sniper Analysis. As it stands right now, Sniper is overpowered primarily due to Analysis. The damage bonus it gives is absolutely massive, and worse, players can also use collision code to deal the analysis bonus damage to targets other than the one they’re analyzing. This was never the intended function. It’s also not a very exciting mechanic. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen people sit around in a boss room for ten minutes to build analysis so they can just unload on a boss and kill it immediately; again, not the intended functionality. I know not everyone agrees, but it is definitely time for a change… and changes are definitely coming.
Perhaps one of the biggest is that your analysis will be toggle-able via a new item, the Sniper Analyzer. When equipped the Analyzer enables you to build SA on your target. If you put the Analyzer in your hotbar it will display a charge bar on the icon that shows how much analysis you have on the target. This means instead of having to constantly check your Event chat channel for Analysis messages (which are being removed), you can simply check the visual in your hotbar. It will also be useful to keep in the hotbar for hotswapping purposes.
How you build analysis is different as well. Currently you just keep an enemy targeted for a length of time and you passively build analysis on that target. With the rebalance, charging analysis will require that you fire on and hit your target. Each projectile and laser hit on the analyzed target will add to your analysis timer at a rate equal to the following formula; time added = recoil / # of bullets / MF level. For instance, if you are multifiring two Excommunicators with a 1.5 second recoil (1500 milliseconds), each bullet that hits the target would add 150 milliseconds. Bullets that hit incidental targets do not count towards building analysis.
This is because you won’t want to hit incidental targets anymore; bullets that hit incidental targets also no longer grant bonus damage. Currently you can sit in a galaxy with the boss targeted using something like a Hot Glue Sprayer and also clear spawn because the analysis bonus you have on the boss applies to all the bullets fired. With the rebalance, individual projectiles will check the target they hit against the target currently under analysis. If they don’t match up, they don’t grant bonus damage. Finally, analysis will have its bonuses cut in half, but it will also only take half the time to build; instead of 10 minutes to build analysis, it will only take five.
These are some big changes and I know not everyone is going to be entirely happy with them, but they need to happen to bring Sniper damage in line with some of the other classes. Sniper will still be the damage king when it comes to PvE, but the gap is going to be a lot smaller than it currently is. Hopefully this is going to encourage squads to bring along more than just Shield Monkeys and Snipers. Also keep in mind that as we make these changes we will be rebalancing existing content so it doesn’t require the insane damage output that we currently are forced to require to make things difficult. Overall bringing Sniper more in line with other classes will make all content more accessible for everyone.
So that’s this week’s update. I’ll be taking a half-week this week due to the holidays so I will either be posting a shortened update next week or taking the week off. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! Feel free to post comments and questions in the forum post!
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