93 Awakened Sniper PvE Guide: What to Expect

[Fox Says Meow~]

Hello, Fox here~
I'm an active Sniper player and very passionate about the class. Having played awakened Sniper in TDN, I would like to share my experience and knowledge so we can all better prepare for what awakening has to offer~

Edit:
This guide is now updated~!


Important Change List

As we know, NA has been stuck at the same patch since June, and we never got IDN patch. A mini Sniper revamp came along IDN in the same patch, which alters Sniper playstyle quite a bit. Then as 93 cap came, awakening changed Sniper playstyle completely.

Here are a list of important changes/addition to Sniper compare to what we have in NA now:

Skill percentage and cooldown changes:

- Siege Lv15: 765% -> 350%
- RoA Lv13: 63% -> 140%
- Ulti Lv3: 141% -> 584%
- Fake Shot: 7sec cooldown -> 15sec at Lv1, -1sec per lvl (5sec when maxed)
- Tumbling Shot: 9sec cooldown -> 14sec at Lv1, -0.5sec per lvl (6sec when maxed)
- Spiritual Focus: Agi/Int 27% -> 50%
- Windshot: 100% of Charged Shot damage per tick -> 90%
- Class Mastery I: 10% -> 30%

Skill effect changes:

Changed Shot EX: Windshot

- no longer has infinite range, has a maximum range now
- no longer pierces. When colliding with an enemy, it stops in place and continues ticking
- maximum 16 hits
- increased projectile speed
- can no longer obtain arrows from skills other than siege
- maximum arrow count: 50 -> 20
- arrows needed to use Windshot: 30 -> 10

Siege EX

- cooldown changes to 3sec
- left click speed increases

Class Mastery II

- removed Siege EXI
- added RoA EXI

Awakened Siege

- activation speed increases
- can be cancelled by moving
- per click, gains 1 arrows
- per hit, reduces Charged Shot cooldown by 2sec and RoA cooldown by 1sec
- skills turn yellow during Siege and have modified effects
- Charged Shot: shoots immediately and hits 2 times, does not pierce
- ACS: shoots arrows around you and evades backwards
- RoA: shoots forward with a lowered angle, much faster animation

Awakened Tumble: longer tumble distance
Awakened Piercing Shot: causes a 60sec bleed effect, every 2sec deals 800%
Awakening Sliding Shot: slides forward and shoots arrows to evade enemy attack, can be activated with spacebar during skill animations
Awakening Camouflage: for 10sec becomes invisible, increases Windshot animation speed

Build

With limited amount of SP and awakening costs a lot, there really isnt much room for changes
http://dnskillsim.herokuapp.com/na/s...-0-00-----0--0

Some notes about the build:

- there is no point in getting any Archer/Warden fillers, read further into the guide to see that playstyles allow no time for fillers in order to maximize dps
- Sniper vs Warden ulti: Sniper ulti does more damage, period (14016% vs 10675%, also Sniper ulti benefits from Class Mastery I). However, some mechs (especially IDN) requires instant AoE nuke, and Warden ulti is much better at doing that. In pure dps situations, only use Sniper ulti
- Fake Shot max is optional. There is no point in getting Warden fillers, might as well dump points into Fake Shot for lower cooldown on your evade
- Deathbloom EX is optional. Same reason as above, SP dump. Strongly suggest since you spam deathbloom off cooldown and it explodes on boss almost always
- Awakening Sliding Shot is optional. Strongly suggest, can break animation when your tumble is on cooldown

Playstyles

With all the complicated changes listed above, there are 2 viable playstyles: Windshot Sniper and RoA Sniper. Windshot Sniper playstyle abuses the fast action speed of Siege leftclicks and Camouflage to fire as many Windshots as possible. RoA Sniper playstyle abuses Siege rightclicks reducing RoA cooldown and spams RoA non-stop.
I have not been able to test myself which playstyle has higher dps, due to TDN lagging Windshots.. but from other version's meta and the limited testing I have done, I strongly believe that Windshot Sniper is much superior.
In the following posts I will introduce both playstyles.

[Fox Says Meow~]

Windshot Sniper


How It Works

- Windshot changes meaning it is no longer affected by boss size
- with proper prediction, you can reliably land 16 hits Windshots, which is 24500%, severly outdps any other skills
- extreme action speed on Siege leftclicks, meaning you can obtain arrows consistently
- Siege per hit reduces Charged Shot cooldown by 2sec, meaning Windshot is no longer cooldown gated
- Triple Windshot gives Snipe extreme amount of burst dps

General Idea

- position yourself mid range
- do nothing but use Siege leftclick as much as possible, dont bother with fillers/Siege skills. Remeber, Windshot is 24500%, other skills are jokes compare to Windshot. Every sec you waste on using filler skills, means you are not Siege leftclicking and getting arrows, which causes lost in Windshots
- save Camouflage and use it with Sylph's Aid to perform Triple Windshot
- if Sylph's Aid/Camouflage is not up but you have 10 arrows, Windshot with Deathbloom
- collect 20 arrows before Sylph's Aid/Camouflage come off cooldown in preparation for Triple Windshot
- only viable fillers are: Siege Charged Shot, Siege RoA+RoA EXI, Sniper Ulti

Example Combat Flow

- 0 bubbles, Sylph's Aid and Camouflage are both on cooldown
- Siege leftclick twice
- Siege Charged Shot
- Siege leftclick until you have 10 arrows
- Windshot
- repeat above until theres about 15sec cooldown left on Sylph's Aid/Camouflage
- Siege leftclick until Siege is off cooldown
- Siege Charged Shot
- repeat until you have 20 arrows
- Sylph's Aid/Camouflage should come off cooldown now, perform Triple Windshot
- Siege RoA+RoA EXI
- if Ulti is off cooldown, Ulti
- if Ulti is on cooldown, spam Siege leftclick and get off 1 more Windshot before Sylph's Aid duration ends
- repeat the above combat flow

Skill Plates

- Lucky Shot: critical damage
- Deathbloom: cooldown
- Charged Shot: action speed
- RoA: damage

Techs/Skill-up

- make sure Charged Shot +2 is applied, it is the first priority. Get +2 by either costume weapon+skill up crest, or tech earrings+skill up crest
- Siege +1 is strongly suggested. Try to get Charged Shot +2 from costume weapon and skill up crest, so you can tech Siege on earrings
- RoA +1 is optional

[Fox Says Meow~]

RoA Sniper

Again, strongly suggest Windshot Sniper instead. RoA Sniper has lower dps, although its much easier to play

However, even for Windshot Sniper, RoA Sniper playstyle is still valuable in various situations
In contents less than 10 mins, it is very likely that enemies die really quickly, or they go into iframe bar mechs repeatedly, thus rendering Windshot Sniper unable to siege and gather arrows
In dungeons, Sniper doesnt need single target dps provided from Windshot, rather need AoE
In raids when you need to kill mini/side bosses (example idn first boss grizzlies) but you dont want to waste arrows to Windshot on them, RoA Sniper provides very economical dps that does not hinder your later dps on the main Boss

So RoA Sniper should still be a playstyle that you need to be familiar with, and ready to use when situation sees fit


How It Works

- Siege RoA has a really fast skill animation (around 1-2 sec) compare to regular RoA
- Siege RoA does not have the indirect landing penalty that regular RoA has. Regular RoA only does full damage when it lands at the enemy, so it requires fix distance away from boss. Siege RoA does not, you can point blank Siege RoA and it will still do full damage
- Siege per hit reduces RoA cooldown by 1sec. If you point blank and use Siege rightclick (10 shots), it will reduces RoA cooldown by 10sec immediately
- This means with two point blank Siege rightclick, RoA comes off cooldown again

General Idea

- position yourself point blank at all times
- use point blank Siege rightclick to drasitcally reduce RoA cooldown, and spam it for dps. Spam RoA for dps
- since there is essentially no downtime on RoA dpsing, use Sylph's Aid off cooldown to maximize dps
- only perform Double/Triple Windshot when you have 20 bubbles, do not bother with regular Windshot
- save Camouflage and use it with Sylph's Aid to perform Double/Triple Windshot
- only viable fillers are: Double/Triple Windshot, Ulti

Example Combat Flow

- Siege RoA
- Siege rightclick x2
- Siege Charged Shot
- Siege RoA
- repeat until u have 16/20 arrows, and Camouflage/Sylph's Aid are both off cooldown
- Double/Triple Windshot
- fit Ulti in anytime you have Sylph's Aid buff

Skill Plates

- Lucky Shot: critical damage
- Deathbloom: cooldown
- Charged Shot: damage/action speed
- RoA: damage

Note: since you only perform Double/Triple Windshot with Camouflage, you can opt for Charged Shot damage plate instead of action speed. Keep in mind, if you use damage plate you can only perform Double Windshot


Techs/Skill-up

- RoA +2 is first priority. Tech necklace + skill up crest for RoA
- Charged Shot +1 is strongly suggested. Either tech earrings or costume weapon
- Siege +1 is optional

[Fox Says Meow~]

Here are some skill combos and notes that are mentioned above


Triple Windshot

This is an extremely strong burst for Windshot Sniper. It performs 3 Windshots within Camouflage duration (10sec), and can fully ultilized any short lived buffs (Sylph Aid) and debuffs. It basically has no room for errors or else the last Windshot will not benefit from Camouflage action speed.
Triple Windshot requires: Charged Shot action speed plate, 20 arrows, Charged Shot off cooldown

- Sylph's Aid
- Deathbloom
- Camouflage
- Windshot
- Siege leftclick x4
- Windshot
- Siege leftclick until you have 10 arrows
- Windshot

Double Windshot

This is an altered version of Triple Windshot, used by RoA Sniper that does not use Charged Shot action speed plate. It requires less arrows to perform and a larger room for errors.
Double Windshot requires: 16 arrows, Charged Shot off cooldown

- Sylph's Aid
- Deathbloom
- Camouflage
- Windshot
- Siege RoA
- Siege rightclick x2
- Siege RoA
- Fake Shot -> RoA EXI
- WindShot

Siege Charged Shot

Siege Charged Shot is a really powerful filler that WindShot Sniper utilizes
During the arrow gathering phase of dps rotation, siege does very minimal damage and thus is a very hard dps drop for Sniper, until later finish gathering enough arrows for Windshot
Due to the nature of Windshot outdpsing every other skill and thus you dont want to waste time cast other fillers but spam Siege leftclick to gather arrows. However, due to how fast Siege Charged Shot fires and it also gives 1 arrow, if utilized properly you will not lose speed on gathering arrows, but also gain a meaningful amount of dps.
However, improper use of Siege Charged Shot will cause you to put Siege/Charged Shot on cooldown and cause you lose speed on gathering arrow or not able to Windshot when you already have enough arrows to do so. It is very important to learn how to use Siege Charged Shot properly so it doesnt backfire.

To use Siege Charged Shot properly, there are four things you need to consider: when is your next Windshot, your arrow count, your Siege cooldown, your Charged Shot cooldown
It is a bit hard to explain the thought process, but hopefully the next few scenarios are going to give you a bit of idea to determine when to use Siege Charged Shot

1) current situation: 0 arrows, all skills off cooldown, planning to Windshot immediately after getting 10 arrows
- (enter Siege) Siege leftclick x3 (arrow count: 3, Siege off cooldown again, Charged Shot off cooldown)
- Siege Charged Shot (now you exit Siege due to using a Siege skill) (arrow count: 4, Charged Shot on cooldown)
- (enter Siege) Siege leftclick x3 (arrow count: 7, Siege off cooldown again, Charged Shot off cooldown again)
- Siege Charged Shot (exit Siege) (arrow count: 8, Charged Shot on cooldown)
- (enter Siege) Siege leftclick x3 (arrow count: 11, Siege off cooldown again, Charged Shot off cooldown again)
- Windshot
Notice we only delayed Windshot by 1 Siege leftclick, however we are able to fit in 2 Siege Charged Shot, which is 6800% extra dmg during our arrow buiilding phase

2) current situation: 0 arrows, all skills off cooldown, planning to Triple Windshot after getting 20 arrows
- (enter Siege) Siege leftclick x3 (arrow count: 3, Siege off cooldown again, Charged Shot off cooldown)
- Siege Charged Shot (exit Siege) (arrow count: 4, Charged Shot on cooldown)
- (enter Siege) Siege leftclick x3 (arrow count: 7, Siege off cooldown again, Charged Shot off cooldown again)
- Siege Charged Shot (exit Siege) (arrow count: 8, Charged Shot on cooldown)
- repeat above until u have 16 arrows
- (enter Siege) Siege leftclick x4 (arrow count: 20) (note: you do not Siege Charged Shot at 19 arrow like usual, because that would put Charged Shot on cooldown and thus rendering you unable to WindShot)
- Triple Windshot
Notice we did not delay Triple Windshot at all, however we are able to fit in 3 Siege Charged Shot, which is 10200% extra dmg during our arrow building phase

I hope the above two example shows how Siege Charged Shot is utilized properly to avoid messing up Windshot
Once you get the hang out it, you will no longer need to think about it and simply by looking at the four things and you can plan it out naturally


Awakened Piercing Shot

This skill on paper is really good, 800% every 2sec that lasts for 60sec.
However it is exactly the same as excruciating gem, meaning:

- it does not use fd
- it is not converted, and does not use ele%
- it does not crit, so does not utilize crit damage and Lucky Shot
- it does not use debuffs

All in all, it is much worse that what it seems like.
for a geared Sniper, it is still free 1mil dps that requires no effort tho, so make sure it is on when you are in a long fight.
It uses the physical damage the moment it is applied, and will not change for the whole 60sec duration. So use it once during Sylph's Aid and DO NOT re use it again when you dont have Sylph's Aid.
For Windshot Sniper: use it immediately when entering stage, then build up arrows as usual. Afterwards, refresh it everytime you use Sylph's Aid.
For RoA Sniper: you should be using Sylph's Aid to open up fight immediately anyways since RoA Sniper requires no setup. Use it everytime you use Sylph's Aid.


Awakening Sliding Shot

This skill is purely utility. It does nice damage (548% per hit and you can land 3-4 hits), but it also puts you at a bad spot.
For Windshot Sniper: only use this for repositioning/iframing. You want to stay mid range to avoid most close range attacks and thus this skill is not fit for dpsing.
For RoA Sniper: you can use it after Double Windshot to get back into point blank range. Keep it off cooldown as an evade, since Siege RoA still has a cast time and might catch you in a bad position.





Skill Description/Relative Skill Strength

I have been running idn repeatedly and here is the top dps skills and their percentage:
- Windshot: ~35%
- Lucky Shot: ~35%
- Siege: ~12%
- RoA: ~8%
- Ulti: ~4%
- Siege Charged Shot: ~2%
- Deathbloom/ACS: combined ~1%

[Kingcoal]

Looks good Foxy! I'm Looking forward to the changes!

[Fox Says Meow~]

Thanks~! Excited yet worried at the same time QnQ

[Fox Says Meow~]

My final personal thoughts about Sniper's awakening... I dont like it.

Devs were intended to make Sniper more Siege focused, yet the first thing they did was nerfed Siege from 765% down to 350%, more than half.

Addition of Siege skills looks cool, but in reality they are useless. The fact that Windshot remains 24500%, while non other skills are buffed to remotely close to that level, means there is no point in wasting time and use other skills. Especially now Charged Shot cooldown is no longer a problem, your dps is entirely based on how fast can u gather enough arrows to Windshot. I dont like it, all sniper do now is afk Siege leftclick until you can Windshot.

Compare to the NA Sniper we have, which has a much higher skill cap. A beginner Sniper will run out of arrows after a few Windshots, and improper aiming/timing of Windshots cause them gaining even less arrows from Windshots themselves. At this point they can only wait for ACS/RoA to come off cooldown and gather arrows again, result in dps lost. An experience Sniper can manage arrows much better, and it's common that you can maintain enough arrows so that you can Windshot everytime Charged Shot comes off cooldown. People can say Sniper is a brainless class that you just hold Windshot and dps, but fact is dps difference is significant between experienced and inexperienced Snipers, and its all from arrow management: its not about ur mechanical skills, but how to properly manage your cooldowns and arrows.

As for awakened Sniper? Its much easier to play as soon as you get the basic idea, there is no room for improvement: every Sniper does the same, Siege and hold leftclick until u can Windshot.

Anyways! rant over. I will still be a proud Sniper and play my class to the best that I can >:3

[xLeknat]

^^^^^ ^^^^^

[wntrwolfx]

This may be a dumb question, but I'll ask anyways:

On the link you provided for the skill build, how did you get both ultimates without any skills in the requirements for the second ultimate?

[Justin]

This may be a dumb question, but I'll ask anyways:

On the link you provided for the skill build, how did you get both ultimates without any skills in the requirements for the second ultimate?

They changed it awhile back. If you unlock one ultimate you can get the other one as well.

[Fox Says Meow~]

Yas indeed! its great for classes that want both ultimates for utility and dont need to waste sp on the other tree

[globy78]

10/10 amazing post. Sniper player myself. One question: Does tumblr not reduce siege CD by a % anymore or was that never implemented. I know it's kinda redundant for the 3 sec CD but more so wondering about pvp because siege has 50 sec CD there still

[Fox Says Meow~]

Thanks!
I have seen that change being mentioned somewhere but its not on tdn currently (it could have been a thing in earlier versions of sniper and got removed later on, or it could have been datamined concept that was never pushed to live)
It doesnt seem to affect PvE sniper much since 3sec is not much of a penalty, not sure about PvP tho..

[Aquamarine]

Best example of a Lv93 change log I've seen, nice!

[wntrwolfx]

They changed it awhile back. If you unlock one ultimate you can get the other one as well.

Thank you

[Mostein]

Personally I am really enjoying the change. It's not perfect, but I like the direction they were going with it. Snipers can now do damage far more consistently and the class is more simple and intuitive compared to the clusterfuck it was before. My dodge actually...dodges now. I can sprint like a warrior (thank GOD for this). Siege stance is ACTUALLY useful now and this is how the skill should have functioned from the start. RoA is much more versatile. In general all the skills chain into each other and flow very smoothly. The class is a much safer pick for harder end-game content now, and doing general content is a breeze.

For someone who has played sniper for over 5 years, I think this is the first time I actually enjoy the class fully. I was always fascinated with sniper in this game but couldn't stand how there was no flow and the clunkiness was over 9000...(and half of our kit was fucking warden/magic skills). Sure it is more simple to play, but simple and intuitive is >>> than complexity and chunkiness in my book, so I welcome the change. I think just a little % balance is needed to make the rest of the kit more viable and the class will be perfect (Maybe nerf the SHIT out of windshot and do a general damage buff to the rest of the kit.... and re-buff siege stance a little)

[Fox Says Meow~]

Differ in opinion I guess! Overall Sniper is strong than before, but the playstyle change is not flexable. Charged Shot was on a fixed 10sec cooldown, between Charged Shot u used to have a lot of time to use filler skills/reposition/debuff and what not. Now that Charged Shot cooldown is basically non-existent, ur dps is purely dependent on how fast u can get 10 arrows. That forces Sniper into a "do nothing but Siege leftclick" playstyle, and other filler skills are a waste of time because they dont do enough dmg and they slow down getting 10 arrows. I dont like it too much personally, but thats just my personal opinion~