Tank - How Do You Beat Snipers?

I generally have no issues with snipers that are new-to-mediocre, but snipers that know what they're doing seem to be invisible when I tank. I am just minding my lane, trying to distract and shoot my lvl 3 product grenades at him, but I can't seem to do anything. This seems to be a big problem in pubs when our assassins are only going for bots (my job) and turrets (my job). I also don't understand how other snipers cannot take these 'elite' out. They sit in ONE spot the ENTIRE time. I ask nicely, "please take out the sniper, he goes upper left EVERY spawn." -- nothing.

I try to ignore the sniper and go to a spot where I am not snipable, but when I try to retreat, he manages to headshot me instantly. Sometimes I will manage to sneak up behind an elite sniper to find myself stuck in ice. I manage to break through this ice, to be stopped by another trap of ice. Sometimes I can manage to burn them to death if i charge in close and get frozen, but most times, they just sit back, aim and headshot.

It's so frustrating, does anyone have any tips for tankers if you're on a team in a pub where nobody seems to be able to kill him? -- tanks are waaaay too slow to match a good sniper.

On some maps, you can do one of two things.

On GrenADEIII and LazorRazor, try gold armor and silver rate (and whatever bronze), and just dash between the pillars killing bots. Hiding in cover sometimes helps, unless your team aren't keeping pros in territory. One single headshot isn't going to kill you this way, and you shouldn't be out of cover for more than one shot. Not recommended, but for added fun, make silver health-regen and bronze reload, and when you take shots and hide behind cover, deploy with deploy 2 and your health will regen almost instantly, and if assassins come up your health will be too high so you can just hold jumpjets down and jetgun her (burn damage on all sides of you doing this, she will die before you)

On other maps, try to simply use skills and railgun to kill bots, popping out periodically if you see enemy assassins making a routine trend with your bot waves. Don't go out every time, but if the sniper is gone and you see the assassin making a pattern, charge and blossom/grapple her. BTW, gold skill, silver rate, and bronze reload is what I use here. However, against a sniper, silver armor and bronze rate might be better.

When you get real good at richocetting/rolling product nades, you can use product-nade-3 and take popshots at the snipers, which at least makes them flee. At this point, thats usually what I do. I simply trade hits with them.

Thanks BroTranquility, I'll give those a try -- Just created a few new classes for these cases!

Anyone else have other suggestions? I want to rip out my monitor and throw it out the window sometimes when on a team with no competent snipers/assassins and faced against a good sniper.

Invisible? That's the assassin.

If possible push quickly up a lane he isn't covering, swing around, float your way over to right beside him and then grab him and throw him in to the sun.

It actually gets more satisfying in relation to how many times hes killed you.

Really though your best friend is product grenade3. If you cant hit him direcetly then use it and its cluster to force him to move more than he'd like to then charge the hell out of there.

Being accurate with the railgun can save you a lot of the time as well, but if hes good enough to be a real problem then he will kill you for trying.

I know exactly what you mean about satisfaction. He can kill me 8 times out of 10, but if I get that ejection it's worth just that many deaths!

Versus these kind of elite snipers the railgun is no match. I don't even try anymore because my egg-shaped *** it way too big and shows before i can see him.

Actually, a Sniper hugging a corner can be almost as invisible. Unless you can spot the rifle sticking out from half a map away.

I don't know to be honest. I don't play tank much but I play sniper much and I only experience death by tanks when they get within jet gun range/charge range, and that's when they get a drop on me. Otherwise when I play tank I try to railgun snipers while avoiding getting head shot, but I never get a kill no... They run away at the first rail gun hit.

You just have to stay out of his sight

Which in many cases means don't leave your base!

Tank hardly has any other chance than to pick a different approach. Snipers can be taken down remotely easily if you are able to flank them properly... if the map architecture allows it. Try alternate routes. Get close to them from an angle, then Meteor the sh*t outta them!

If he's an average sniper, just move erratically and railgun his ***.

If he's a good sniper, go around. There's always a secondary path. So go up to him and melt his face.

As a tank, your mindset shouldn't be to "beat" snipers. If you can get him, go ahead, but it shouldn't be your goal. You should avoid him as much as possible and focus on your objectives.

Or just come to our server (PwnShop #2).
We are experimenting and disabled the overpowered sniper class completely.
So atm no 50:0 snipers.

Might not stay that way but it's quite refreshing.

Outstanding initiative!

That's a good way to see how the balance might change when the Sniper is not around to OHK every Gunner/Support combo.

I beat snipers with every class the same way. Avoid their firing lanes and flank.

Also be sure to shoot their traps or atleast set them off so they don't snare you. But usually medium range fire will kill them, even with the railgun.

I hope you were being sarcastic...

Somewhat. Mostly it was a remark about how overly sniper-friendly some of the maps are, allowing a sniper to cover most or all possible routes.

For example, it is impossible to leave your half of Spunky Arena without entering the kill zone of a sniper positioned near the forward ejector button. Same goes for Grenade III arena. People defending the sniper say "just stay out of his sight" without realizing how ridiculously restrictive that actually is.

I usually hide behind cover and shoot him with my railgun. Most snipers will want to retreat after taking a railgun to the face, and that's my ticket to jet charge and advance.

If he doesn't retreat, I'll pop a few more rails around him (By then, he'll probably be dodging, thus rendering any and all chances of me hitting him null and void) and try to scare him off.

If he still persists, I jet charge out of there and find an alternate route.

Somehow I don't like you.

To the OP: shoot him with the railgun whenever he isn't looking.

Agreed, also on Steel Peel. A good sniper can shut down the left and right sides, bot lanes, and the annihilator.