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Kegsniper Mk IV ‘Thorbold Pattern’
Description:
The Kegsniper is the epitome of Single Target (ST) Damage over a Range. Also he is mostly useless in a WB vs WB Environment. You will simply melt to all the AoE around you and your healers can’t keep you alive in the fights. If you join a WB you can hang back and Snipe Healers, but if your WB moves through the enemies to push to the Rez-Section you can’t follow. If you try to be on the frontline and drop AoE on them you have the wrong spec. A Armor Grenadier or DPS Tinkerer are more suited for that.
The build itself is squishy and relies on positioning and taking out Sorcs and Healers in one or two rotations. You can’t go on tanks and heavy armor DOKs as most of your rifle abilities will be mitigated by the targets armor.
Also the Kegsniper relies on a Sniper buddy and a very fast Target selection and Targetchange synchronized with your Snipe buddy. With a Sniperbuddy you can usually kill any squishy in one rotation. Most Tanks in 1.5 rotation.
Builds are a difficile thing. There are a lot of nice Tactics out there and you need to play with the stuff you think usefull. The following build is the ‘Thorbold Pattern’. Tested and perfected the time on RoR by the current highest Renown Engineer out there. There are of course other builds. Some more mobile, some more Resillient, but this Build excels at two points: Keep Snipe and Ambush Sniping.
You want basically to achieve two things.
1. Get the extra Crit Tactic Tracer Rounds
2. Get A lot of Balistic Skill and Weaponskill.
3. Stay alive in Keep Defences on your own.
Build:
Spoiler:
Like seen in the Build the Used Tactics are:
Masterfull Aim (+BS)
Fighting Chance (+BS, +WS, +S, -T)
Hollow Points (Dot on Snipe, Gunblast)
Tracer Rounds (+15% Crit if near turret)
Rotation:
Dot Signal Flare
Dot Incendary
Armor Piercing Rounds
Snipe
Or here: Armor Piercing Rounds
Focused Fire
<- At this point the Target should be dead if running with a Sniper Buddy.
Hipshot
Gunblast
Armor piercing Rounds:
In the rotation you see it before Snipe, or directly after Snipe. The thing is, if you Snipe and then your bullet flies and you are capable of hitting Armor Piercing Round before the Bullet hit its Target the Armor strike through will be calculated in the shot and you still have 3 more seconds on its duration.
If you hit it before the snipe it will help on your Signal Flare Dot.
If you have Crackshot you can build them in too instead of gunblast. Crakshot is useful vs Doks as they need their weapons for some of their healing rotations as a melee Dok.
Also if you have someone close no reason not to use flashbang or concussive Grenade instead of gunblast. An interrupt or knockback is allways nice.
Gear:
Your first Step is going to Conqueror Gear.
5 Pieces of Conqueror Gear (RvR)
3 Genesis Jewels
3 Beastlorditems (Cloak, Jewel, Book)
Instead of going full Genesis the 3 Beastlorditems gives you +~58 WS. But if you don’t get the Beastlorditems just go full Genesis Set.
Talismans:
The ‘Thorbold Pattern’ Sniper relies heavily on WS to get the Damage through. If the enemy gets you, you are dead anyway. So you go full WS Talismans.
Pots:
Armor/BS
If you have the above mentioned Gear, Build, Renown and full WS the BS Pot will bring you right near the BS Softcap. The Full conqueror Gear will give you regularly the +100 BS to hit the softcap.
ALSO if you can get your Hands on the Liniment 'Something something of the Wild Hunt' use them. They give BS and +5% Crits for 30 mins. These are currently only harvestable in the Dungeons like Gunbad, Hunters Vale, Crypts and Bastion Stairs. Lvl 40 Mobs that you need to butcher also drops random liniment materials.
Endgame Gear as of 16.11.2021:
After Conqueror you naturally climb the ceiling to Vanquisher, Invader and then beyond which brings us into the BIS Gear.
There are two approaches on the End gear Sniper. 1st one is the "Higher Ceiling", meaning ou can get higher Crits, the 2nd approach is the "Higher Floor", meaning your base damage is higher but your max Crits lower.
"Higher Ceiling"
Spoiler:
It also uses 2 Triumphant items that come from playing ranked scenarios. But what if you HATE ranked scenarios. Well then change the 2 pieces with Vanquisher Items. They have the same armor penetration and Ranged Power.
"Higher Floor"
Spoiler:
Renown:
I usually prefer Daft Defender on any Engineer. The increase of Dodge/Disrupt is not to dismiss and improves your survivability greatly. Especially if you use Gunturret and are not under the protection of the flame turret buff.
BUT the ‘Thorbold Pattern’ is the epitome of an squishy Sniper.
So we go like this:
Spoiler:
As mentioned several times Ranged Crit is better than BS.
Example: Gunblast does at BS 800 roughly ~1000 Damage. These are rough numbers as with Gunturret and Armor Buff it goes +/-20%.
If you Crit with Gunblast you do +50% Damage. That is +500 Damage.
So if you have +1% Crit chance, this 1% counts as +5 Damage. In 99 Cases you don't get anything from the 1%. But in 1/100 cases it makes +500 Damage. So this +1% counts as +5 Damage.
If you buy Renown BS, you get for 5 RR something like +20 BS (+4dps). If you buy Crit you get +2% for 5 RR. And the +2% are on the Gunblast something like +10 Damage on average. You can’t compare the 10>4 because gunblast has a 2 sec casttime. So the dps bonus is doubled for it. Still Crit is king.
Update: 15.11.2021. Still everything valid on the Renown.
What is about Weapon skill: Updated 04.06.2018
Weapon skill (WS) is reducing the enemies armor. But recent tests with the formula and ingame show a horrible increase in DPS vs several Targets. BUT getting more WS instead of BS has a point in the game.
For example. At 600 BS you have the choice to put in 20 BS or 20 WS. 20 Bs gives you more DPS, (should be 4) and 20 WS gives you more Armor Penetration. So of your Physical Damage more comes through. This "more Through" is overall at 600 BS LESS then simply going +20BS.
BUT at around 800 BS more BS and more WS get at an Break Even Point. Meaning the extra on +20 BS is the same like getting +20 WS. Meaning extra Damage (BS) is the same as not extra damage but more armor strike through (WS).
So up to 800 BS you can go straight there and put in more BS Talis. From 800 BS you can split up. And if you are close to the Softcap (~1050 BS) you should definitely go to more WS.
Also remember that WS only helps on physical Damage. Not on your Corporeal Grenadier and Tinkerer Stuff. Well it does something on Shotgun or Landmine. But the bread and butter of your Tinkerer/Grenadier is Corporeal Damage.
What you CAN do:
With that build you hit like a truck. With a Sniper buddy you can even kill Tanks quite fast. But you have to remind the four Ps of a Sniper. Position, position, position, position. You need to be always at 100 feet to the next melee spot. And in a Keep Defence Sniping you need to be most of the time out of sight. In the lakes you need to hide in the bushes most of the time.
What you CAN’T do:
You can’t survive in the first line of a Warband. If you want to do that get the Armor Tactic, some Wounds and Armor Talis and spec into middle and right Tree. Pull and melt, pull and melt…
You can’t roam with a 6 men and kill running away Shamans. If you want to do that get in ‘Well oiled machine’ to summon Bombard turrets instantly and throw Grenades at them. If an Witch Elf catches you, you are dead though.
On the Armor Tinkerer I have fought of 5 WEs over 30 minutes while sitting at an BO and sipping my tee, pretending to be afk. One after the next ofc. Your Armor and Keg plus some good pots keeps you alive to pretty much outsit and kill them. Some Knockback in or an exploding turret and they begin to realize their error.
On the ‘Thorbold Pattern’ you are pretty much dead if that happens. There are ways to prepare for an BO or Flag Defence vs WEs, but they will get you a lot of times.
Instruction Videos:
Keep Defence Sniping - Training Part 1
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
1. Gunline Thunderer
Spoiler:
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