Sniper Rifle, the Ultimate Answer to any foe

Decrease to 80 and SR will be useless. What to choose: one shot from SR with 80 damage or 3*50 from pistol?

on close range choose handgun :slight_smile:

If you need to target special body part then you take laser SR. All others don’t have enough accuracy even without any debuffs :slight_smile: But you like to nerf everything, if I remeber right…

On long range choose laser pistol ))) or dash+shotgun :wink:

True that is. :wink: btw

When enemy has 30 armor it gives similar damage and sniper rifle is still more precise. :slight_smile:

Challenge accepted!

BTW, I started a thread on this a few months ago:

Since then I have largely changed my view on SRs. Yes, they have good accuracy and armor penetration (high damage per projectile), but they have low damage per ap, they don’t shred armor and they don’t daze.

IMO, the hell cannon wielded by a sniper/heavy, especially with the strongman skill, with armor buffing accuracy makes for a much better choice than an SR. For the same APs it can often one shot kill, but when it doesn’t it shreds armor and can easily daze the target.

Giving an example of more overpowered weapon isn’t right way to deal with overpowered weapon in question. :slight_smile:

Useless? It still pierce armor, still very accurate and has the longest range. Would be the worst weapon for damage per AP but still be the king when it comes to long range engagements (as it should be).

1 Like

Still has rather bad range and accuracy, you need to get close to use it effectively.

1 Like

Not with the Synedrion armor and the marksman sniper perk, that gives a total 85% boost to accuracy… Not that useful for the SR, but very useful for the HC.

@Yokes yes, the HC is OP with the accuracy buffs. But then as accuracy and mobility in PP are practically the same thing, you can also argue that the best weapon is the deceptor with an extreme mobility build. Though currently the most powerful weapon is probably Marduk’s fist when used with the melee bionic torso…

In any case, I would rank SR OPedness somewhere below the Synedrion assault rifle in the hands of a lvl7 nfiltraror with an echo head…

I guess my point is SRs are actually not that good because they don’t benefit from the things that make other weapons OP. They don’t benefit from accuracy/mobility buffs, and they also benefit less from damage buffs because actually their damage per AP is quite low.

1 Like

To all.
SR DON’T has any armor piercing (only one has, ok)! It has good alpha. But it’s SR - what do you want from it?

SR has very bad accuracy right now (not laser). But in other cases it’s in balance. You can guarantee kill one enemy in one turn at middle range. It’s normal and I don’t see any reason to nerf this.

I don’t know if the SR is best described as “the universal answer”, while I do employ them a lot…they have generally low damage per AP. and that is not a downside to ignore in a game where you want the enemy dead as soon as possible.

now they used to be exploitable as heck, the old return fire allowed way too many bonus shots on a high perception sniper and the old rageburst heavily abused the 10+ shot magazines these weapons have. but both these exploits have been dealt with when those skills got reworked, and in both cases keep in mind its the skills that made the weapon too powerful (much like current RB still works well with snipers just like it still does well with any other 3AP costing weapon) not the weapon itself

what they do have going for them is reliability, they can deal damage to practically anything due to the high damage per shot + high range (accuracy in this game). unless a nearly unarmored enemy is standing point blank to your soldier, firing the sniper is an okay move. this can be seen as a “universal answer” but its actually very suboptimal…you can make a full rifle-squad in the game and do okay…but you will realize that it takes 2-3 guys to take down targets, and very liberal use of WP to get into position or lower shot costs

I’d have to find my old suggestions regarding sniper rifles again to see what I found to be problem with them…but from the top of my head it wasn’t that as drastic as the problems with shotguns and AR’s.

2 Likes

Well, add enough buffs and any weapons can be great. Still, you need to be quite far in the game before you can have all those buffs and make that ultra gimped weapon actually useful.

The only thing an SR needs is quick aim, you may not kill them outright but you can remove any limbs you don’t like. Like I said earlier, it’s not the best damage dealer of the game but it’s always reliable at it.

1 Like

Well, it’s universal in the sense you can always make them work against anything.

Tell me then. Is there any situation where bringing an SR is the wrong answer? Wrong in the sense it’s going to get you killed not just be sub optimal? You can kill vehicles, Scyllas, The Pures and anything in between with no fuss. And you start with them, the better ones you find later are only a plus.

1 Like

And what you think about my modifications: 1) to lower damage and 2) change ability behavior on closer ranges?

I think it would remove them from being the Universal Answer to anything. So yeah, seem ok to me.

If you play with skill spamming (for example, using quickaim twice or more per soldier per turn) you can basically get way with everyone carrying a SR and a pistol. But then again, what can’t you get away with if you skill spam?

On the other hand, if you are playing without skill spamming relying too much on SRs can get you killed, simply because they don’t do enough damage.

Howcome? Synedrion sniper armor is available from the start. Marksman is a level 5 skill, which currently you get in less than 10 missions. Chances are at least some of your recruits will have third row damage buffs in the first few columns. And at first basic ARs are the best weapons, as the crabs wear little to no armor.

The thing about SRs is they are “easy”. They do enough damage to penetrate any armor, they are accurate. If you use quickaim twice per turn they do decent damage. Their big advantage is that you don’t have to think much about how to use them best.

It depends how you will balance the other weapons. If you change SR without the others then it seems to be not really balanced, because:

  1. As other mentioned, they have already the lowest raw damage per AP, even pistols have more
  2. See 1., there are much better choices, actually it would be a waste of AP to use SR on closer ranges and if you take quickaim into consideration it gets even worse.

That’s why I personally almost don’t use SR for my sniper crossclassed frontliners in closer range, other weapons do this job better. In fact, even my long range infiltrator sniper almost uses the synedrion AR (Daimos) because of nice accuracy, more damage per shot and with quickaim for only 1AP :flushed:

TLDR, without balancing the other weapons I personally see no reason to nerf SR.

Fighting at pandoran’s bases with only SR is near suicide, I think. Low mobility in early game also not good. To make full SR squad in the beginning you need too much resources which you don’t have. In mid game terminator with shotgun or melee is best choice.

So, SR good in the beginning against heavy armored enemies, but later it’s become more support, then main DD.