On Friday, NCsoft posted their regular Feedback Friday feature with an update on the Sniper and a look at Level Command on the public test server.

Sniper Update with Designer Lee Ridout

I wanted to take a moment and talk about Snipers. Some players have found an effective way to play a sniper, by using a chaingun and Shredder Ammo instead of a Torque Shell Rifle (TSR). Shredder Ammo has disproportionately benefited chainguns as it affects every round fired and CGs fire more than 2 times a second. This is the way it has been since before launch. It wasn’t the original intention for snipers to be arguably the best chaingunners in the game, but we are fans of emergent gameplay and don’t want to take this play-style away from those that have grown to love it. Our goal for snipers is that they should be powerful single target killers whether using chainguns, TSRs, or whatever else they find effective. The choice belongs to the player. We wanted to add value to this choice though, and under the current system the value just isn’t there. Currently you can spend a single point in Shredder and gain the benefit of a skill that far exceeds what logic should dictate its power should be. We are correcting this without removing the fun that can be had from combining Shredder Ammo and Chainguns. And for all the TSR users, we also wanted to keep value in this skill for you, but potentially make it more accessible.

In the last patch, Shredder Ammo’s affects were increased greatly in a global buff to abilities due to the new aggro difficulty/bring-a-friend code changes. This put Shredder Ammo directly under the spotlight and is driving the timing on this change. While we tone back on the Shredder Ammo’s effectiveness when combined with chainguns, we are going to add more value to every pump to give both TSRs and Chaingunners reason to invest in the skill. The way we are going to do this, is to move Shredder Ammo to a proc system (basically means a percent chance of occurring per minute) instead of a per-shot bonus. The number of rounds per minute effected by the Shredder Ammo buff is dependant on the highest rank learned. The duration of the buff has also been increased to 30 seconds instead of 20, and the damage types have been altered to give access to damage types that can be harder for snipers to come by. Each time a player places more skill points into the ability the proc rate will improve for every rank (see below), and finally, the ability will include updated icons, visual effects, and tool tips.

Read more here.