Sniper Training  

27Jan09 11:04 CST

Lately I've been playing around with a range display addon to assess the potential value of Sniper Training in PVE for myself. There's several available, but I think TargetRange is one of the best. It displays the range to target in increments; 0-7 yards, 7-28 yards, 28 to 41 yards, and beyond 41 yards.

Honestly, it could use some work. The 6% increased damage to Steady Shot and Explosive Shot is all win, but when you're a SV hunter sporting 45% crit buffed, the 15% increased critical chance to your kill shot isn't much of a DPS increase. Even with the reduction in cooldown that came with 3.08, I'm still only getting off maybe 2 Kill Shots per boss.

The biggest problem is that you have to get beyond 30 yards to use it. Sure,it's easy enough to get the range on a target dummy. But I found that in my last couple of Naxx runs, in 75% of the fights it was either not possible to get beyond 30 yards from the boss (chamber size and line of sight issues), or undesirable due to encounter mechanics.

So, though Sniper Training should be higher theoretical DPS, it doesn't live up to expectation. Another case where what looks good on the spreadsheet, doesn't always hold true in game.

I'll keep on (trap)dancing.