LF> pros and cons: Sniper vs Warden for PvE

[Kyoko]

Hello fellow archers!

I have been playing warden and I am liking the skill tune-ups and new skills. However, considering PvE purposes and dragon nesting between sniper and warden, which one has a better potential?
I see siege stance is a lot faster than before, and reading guides some people like/do not like it. Personally I would want to try out sniper for just that dodge animation xD
With the guides though, it looks like snipers can deal a higher burst under a strict rotation. While warden seems... like they fall behind, but they can close the gap potentially.

Like for the skill: Cannonade, it's great, but it tends to glitch out a lot and doesn't register.
Harpoon arrow doesn't seem to useful other than a damage filter (when activated by swift shot), and the suction effect doesn't seem to be very strong either! I guess its other use is another dodge skill for jump mechanics...
Fatal Shot will reduce CD of hawk ballista by 5 seconds, but I don't see it happening the CD when fatal shot procs, is it bugged?
Super magic arrow (have to wait 20 seconds to use full potential though)
Then Core barrier, which... I guess i've been getting mixed reviews that its not better than using just regular swift shot.

Snipers have the longer dodge, the movement arrow shot for placement, stealth which increases wind shot, and a variety of siege attachments.

From my perspective, snipers got a cool kit revamp, and wardens are more utility benefits.
I probably plan to level up a sniper, or just switch to see how it is xD

What does the community think about the two classes in regards to PvE?

[QueenBooms]

Im not trying to be biased to wardens but they are actually alot stronger than snipers imo (if they have gear) yes there are a few bugs right now but it will be fixed 90% by next patch for snipers you'd have to ask a sniper main but I don't really like the awakening as I feel its a little too lackluster Warden is really fun for me but you need crit and decent dmg to feel good with it

imo both have good potential given gear and learning/mastering the class but as far as I know Wardens are above snipers in terms of usefulness but I dont have alot of knowledge about snipers standing

[Kyoko]

May I ask what wardens have that makes them more useful than snipers? They both have the same class buff, and wardens have the crit debuff on rapid shot. However, snipers have that crit debuff with aerial chain.

[QueenBooms]

wardens have a lot of burst but as foxy said snipers are easier to gear than wardens, however with said gear wardens can do the same or even more dmg than a sniper due to int giving them crit damage while snipers cant get crit damage as easily making them stronger when you have alot of crit

[ceruulean]

Just play what u like
sniper is more burst dmg, warden is consistent but then all classes are more consistent dmg these days
most people regard the two classes are equal. Warden has higher dps but like the difference is so neglible no one cares.

[Fox Says Meow~]

Sniper main here~
take this comment with a grain of salt


Sniper

Pro:
1) Easy to gear. Being an agi class meaning u will naturally cap crit, and with +50% fd from deathbloom you can perform really well with low level of gear. Agi/phys dmg/fd is all you need to aim for.
2) Cheap to gear. There arent many competing agi classes in current meta, and thus agi items are cheaper compare to str/int items
3) Good dps in raids. Top tier among classes
4) Safe (Windshot Sniper). Superior range and majority of the time ur in siege stance (which can be canceled at anytime and evade attacks). You can focus on dpsing and worry very little about bosses attacking you
5) Micromanagement oriented class. A lot of mini game playing with Charged Shot/Siege cooldown and arrow count in order to maximize dps

Con:
1) Cannot perform optimally in short content. Due to Sniper being arrow gated now, a lot of short contents die too fast or go into iframe bar mechs, rendering Sniper unable to obtain arrows, and thus further reduces Sniper dps when bosses are available to be attacked again
2) Very stationary/linear playstyle (Windshot Sniper). Not very interactive with the boss.
3) Windshot glitches when you have unstable/high ping network. Also glitches in certain content (most noticeably bishop in abn)
4) Micromanagement oriented class. Not many skills are used, no fancy skill rotations and what not


Warden
(again, I dont main the class, so there might be misinformation especially regarding gameplay)

Pro:
1) Very flexible playstyle. All skills do nice dmg and you can adjust to battle accordingly
2) Good dps in all contents. Top tier among classes
3) Spammy. Always nice to have so many skills to use and there will be skills off cooldown to use at all times

Con:
1) Hard to gear. Being an int class meaning u will have trouble hitting crit cap (especially for 93 cap). Although a lot easier compare to other int classes due to having Spiritual Focus, crit is still a problem
2) Expensive to gear. LK is currently in meta and has a large player base, which drives int item prices very high
3) Mid-short ranged. A bit less safety compare to Sniper, and some skills might be dangerous to use at wrong times. (However this is a very minor issue, you can avoid this by improving gameplay)
4) Cannonade glitch. Currently Cannonade would do no dmg/low dmg randomly and cause dps loss. This should be fixed in near future and will no longer be an issue


As for dps, I have to disagree with above comments saying Warden is stronger. My Sniper (lgraded, 3rd stat agi, 4.1k fd) is currently doing ~60mil dps in idn first boss. A Warden (lgraded with +13 mainhand, 3rd stat int, around 300 more fd than me) is doing ~51mil dps in idn first boss.
The idea of Sniper being weak is coming from the fact that Sniper does significantly worse in short contents (generally content less than 10min). Even in medium contents (~15min), Sniper does fine. In real raid environment where Sniper can properly abuse siege and arrow collection, Sniper can truly show its real capability.
(Also the fact that awakening Sniper is vastly different from old NA Sniper, transitioning between the two playstyles will take some time)

But honestly, unless ur into competitive raiding, both classes are fine. Play what you like, and you will enjoy the most.

[Kyoko]

Ahh.. that is another point to consider... I do have a ruina but I do not play her much as it's hard to gear one character as it is xD

But my she does have all 3rd stat agility crests/windswept phy 3rd...

[ceruulean]

You can server storage crests now

[Kyoko]

I noticed that! It definitely would make gearing sniper faster as far as crests xD

[Kyoko]

I have read the guides for warden from Queen's and Sniper from Fox's and both. One thing for sure is that wardens suffer from lacking SP to put into other utilities such as CD reductions of the i-frames, shorten of stunning shot, etc.

It doesn't bother me much, but it really feels that comparing both classes, people prefer sniper more. Or there are just more snipers in general D:
Hero's battlefield shows 3:1 ratio between snipers and wardens, unless wardens are bad at hero's battlefield and do not run it.

I do want to try raiding more aggressively, and as of the moment I am slowly gearing up with RDN L due to IDN L being enhance transferable (and probably cheaper!).

As far as looks, snipers do look badass with the skill display xD

I commented on Queen's and Fox's post, but not sure if it would be better to just post

[QueenBooms]

I have read the guides for warden from Queen's and Sniper from Fox's and both. One thing for sure is that wardens suffer from lacking SP to put into other utilities such as CD reductions of the i-frames, shorten of stunning shot, etc.

It doesn't bother me much, but it really feels that comparing both classes, people prefer sniper more. Or there are just more snipers in general D:
Hero's battlefield shows 3:1 ratio between snipers and wardens, unless wardens are bad at hero's battlefield and do not run it.

I do want to try raiding more aggressively, and as of the moment I am slowly gearing up with RDN L due to IDN L being enhance transferable (and probably cheaper!).

As far as looks, snipers do look badass with the skill display xD

I commented on Queen's and Fox's post, but not sure if it would be better to just post

the reason there are more snipers is because of the patch we had before this one where wardens were really weak and snipers were stupid strong and people have stuck with that. The awakening for Wardens put them back on the radar but like I said you need gear (int and crit) to do good dps as a Warden also stacking int benefits you for crit damage while snipers have to go to other limits to get crit damage since agi doesnt give crit dmg. It's up to whatever you enjoy I have not enjoyed sniper gameplay since before the rework so I do not play it as I have been playing Warden since 50 cap and I have always loved the class and if you don't play what you like the game gets boring (trust me I know that too well) People don't mind as long as you have the gear and knowledge of what you are running but always Mechanics > Gear

[Owl]

This post has an average 80 words per sentence. But I think gear should be taken into account. I've seen a lot of bandwagoning wardens since 93 which is sad. Lets just say its easier to run IDN 4 man when they don't have +5 90 epics and blues.

[Kyoko]

Really? I have seen more snipers if anything... Not like its a bad thing, but it can discourage sometimes. Class discrimination was the most painful thing to deal with back then. It's not too bad now it seems

[QueenBooms]

Sorry i don't bother typing proper sentences online I don't care about proper grammar and I haven't seen many new wardens myself. Class discrimination doesn't occur as much as it was so it really does not matter what you want to play

[Kyoko]

If I'm not mistaken, snipers have that critical damage increase passive when crested should give them 70% applied more critical damage on crits. Not sure if its additive or multiplicative though.

So far leveling the sniper seems a bit strange, but I am holding on to the mentality that they will be changed play-style completely at level 93.

One problem that I have noticed playing warden is once I use all my skills, i'm left waiting for cds to recover xD
Do you run into that a lot as well?

Edit: Apparently its 75% crit damage, crested to 95%? D:

[Fox Says Meow~]

Its multiplicative, so effectively another multiplier. its much stronger than lets say, a flat +95% crit dmg
Sniper playstyle does change significantly after getting all awakening skills, its pretty much a new class >:3

[QueenBooms]

If I'm not mistaken, snipers have that critical damage increase passive when crested should give them 70% applied more critical damage on crits. Not sure if its additive or multiplicative though.

So far leveling the sniper seems a bit strange, but I am holding on to the mentality that they will be changed play-style completely at level 93.

One problem that I have noticed playing warden is once I use all my skills, i'm left waiting for cds to recover xD
Do you run into that a lot as well?

Edit: Apparently its 75% crit damage, crested to 95%? D:

I almost don't find myself out of skills because I have enough crit to almost never run out of a rotation. but without crit it can feel that way. As for the 45 passive yeah it does that but really it's up to what you enjoy most z_z

[Kyoko]

At the moment I am at 75% crit with archer buff and spiritual focus. I hope to get up to max soon. The L grades seem to help with that quite a bit for the agility bonuses.
I will hopefully find out as soon as i get to 93 with sniper though xD

[Socheatha]

Warden is a fun class trust me, but it's not as strong as sniper. Under Dps mechanics, where the bar needs to be moved under a certain amount, is where wardens have trouble with. When I do idn on my warden, you need to set up your cannonades that glitches out sometimes and the deto arrows that take a bit of time to cast. If it was a sniper, it's be easier to set up and burst during situations. Although wardens struggles on burst times, they can still do some strong cannonades for bosses that sit still. I mean it can be worse, 90 cap snipers had it better than wardens just cause of Windshot. In the end, just play what goes for your style.

[Kyoko]

Warden is a fun class trust me, but it's not as strong as sniper. Under Dps mechanics, where the bar needs to be moved under a certain amount, is where wardens have trouble with. When I do idn on my warden, you need to set up your cannonades that glitches out sometimes and the deto arrows that take a bit of time to cast. If it was a sniper, it's be easier to set up and burst during situations. Although wardens struggles on burst times, they can still do some strong cannonades for bosses that sit still. I mean it can be worse, 90 cap snipers had it better than wardens just cause of Windshot. In the end, just play what goes for your style.

When the fixes happen for warden though, do they close the gap compared to snipers? That Triple Windshot seems pretty nasty D:

[QueenBooms]

Also with the cannonade glitch there is another thing our server doesn't have on our server. KDN has ward of the spirits % at 35% ours is at 20% which heavily nerfs us compared to what we should have. Once we get that wardens will be a decent amount stronger than right now, dunno if it pushes us stronger than snipers but its still a huge boost.

[Kyoko]

With the ward crest that would bring it to 42%?

[QueenBooms]

think it brings it to 40% still better than what it is right now

[Kyoko]

It's such a sad sight when fatal cannonade doesn't work D:
I hope they plan to patch it with October's update.

[Kyoko]

Just got my sniper to 93... I will confirm the play-style changes... a lot xD
I am fiddling with the style, but I was wondering what must be done to do Triple Windshot?
As far as I know, it only looks like I can have 20 arrows?

[Fox Says Meow~]

yep yep, to do triple windshot u need: 20 arrows, deathbloom, camouflage, sylph all off cooldown, charged shot action speed plate. w/o shard or lencea, u wont be able to do all three windshots within camouflage duration, but will still be able to fire all three within deathbloom duration.

[Kyoko]

Ahh gotcha, so its like... Windshot -> siege left click to take CS off CD -> Windshot and repeat as fast as possible to obtain 3 shots?