Ideas on how to balance the sniper

The sniper is broken in pubs. That's pretty much universally accepted now.

I think the devs mentioned a possibility of making the sniper rifle bolt action. That could work, a lot lower ROF on the rifle would make spamming less effective. If a player can land headshots consistently, this wouldn't hurt him too much.

Another possibility would be to further reduce the clip size. I'd go as far as making default clip size 1, with endorsement boosting it to 2, 3 and 4. This would allow a lot of variety in endorsement builds. ROF would only be useful for those with high ammo endorsements, while reload speed could be worthwile to those with great aim and no ammo endorsements.

To compensate for the loss of bot killing power, explosive shots from Passive 3 could also affect the SMG. This would also buff sniper juice. Explosive juiced SMG

Any other ideas?

Clip size endorsement doesn't work that way.

Counter a Sniper using a Sniper, no problem on pubs.

If the other Sniper is better then he is going to win, because better people are meant to get better results.

One week it's let's nerf sniper, next week is let's nerf assassin. I guess no one ever says assault or tank or support or gunner. That's quite sad.

I propose that people should learn to play the game before crying "OP Class". Sniper is perfectly fine when there is a counter sniper. What happens when you guys have either a BAD sniper or NO sniper is entirely your team's fault.

i think decent snipers from other games may have a little edge, not much of one, using a mouse in this game, as it wasnt intended to be that easy to aim.

nonetheless, if the sniper rifle is made less spammable, it would need 50% stronger explosive rounds, so it could take care of bots as effectively as before. because some people use the sniper that CANT get headshots constantly, that DO deserve to still be able to use it. if the rate of fire is nerfed 4fold, it wont be able to push bots or keep damn assassins off the walking juice machines (bots).

but he is right, just cuz some people are good with something doesnt mean it needs to be nerfed. that makes people who are godlike slightly less godlike, and everybody else cant play the class at all anymore.

btw, congrads grimbar, you made it into a sig. mine.

I happen to think tank and assault are the two most overpowered, though assault takes the cake.

Juuuuust saying.

the assault's bomb needs to be less spammable. aside from that, they should just make gunner pre-spin shorter, or make prespin fire faster than it does albeit slower rate than when spun

that way, i get to stop hearing cries for the nerfhammer to fall on the assault, and at the same time they dont just nerf him down to unplayable.

id also be ok with lowering his armor just a slight bit, IN LEAU of making the gunner better in a fighter. EITHER OR, not both. again, dont throw every nerf at him at once.

I'm not complaining about getting raped by snipers here. I'm saying that I feel overpowered while playing sniper myself. I'm not a godlike player, not even close. Yet as a sniper I can pretty much decide who wins matches, unless the enemy team has a godlike sniper. But that's rare. I just ended a match with 62 kills and 2 deaths. I don't think that should happen to a mediocre player, EVER.

You can't assume that both teams have equally skilled snipers in a pub. Most people play pubs, thus, games should be balanced around pubs, not competitive play which is only experienced by 1% of players (random estimation pulled out of my ***).

In a match with good snipers around, gunners can't even leave their bases without getting killed. That's not balance, no matter how you put it.

however, there's 3 good counter sniper classes.

1. sniper

2. assault

3. assassin


just cause you did well in a pub doesn't mean it should get nerfed. It means nubs need buffed.

I can agree that the Sniper could need a small nerf. They could make the Sniper Rifle to Bolt Action, like OP said, or nerf the non-headshot damage with the Sniper Rifle

Talk to Grimbar about that and come back to me.

Grimbar is a better player than me. Make Grimbar play against a sniper of equal skill.

Rock is OP, Paper is balanced.

Love from scissors.



But in all seriousness, Nickeboy you honestly havent got a clue what your talking about, an assault griefing a sniper will take him out of the game, grenade launcher is a godsend to the assault, not to mention their bombs, being ungrappableable (Is that a word?) and moving fast enough to avoid headshots...

Despite outward appearances the masses opinion of, sin counters sniper, the truth is assault is the true counter class to snipers.

The assassin isnt a rock paper scissors style character to any class in particular, they are immensly powerful in their own way, and a good player should be able to take down any class as the sin, but the key phrase being 'good player', If your maining tank and a sniper takes you down a few times and you switch to sin to get revenge on that pesky sniper, then you do not deserve the kill should you be fortunate enough to get one, im sorry thats just how it is.

(On a side note, i would put money on those players who switch to sin to kill snipers being a large portion of the nerf team.)



As said before in this thread, the difficulty on nerfing the snipers 'spamability' is that you will absolutely destroy his bot pushing ability, which in turn will take away his ability to skill up, and will effectively take him out of the game...

Without his skills the sniper is so vunerable that he will not even make it onto the lane to take his single shot, whilst the sniper is obviously a class that wants to stay at range, the maps in this game are NOT designed to make keeping range an easy task... Even grenade arena, which, since the ammomule nerf is probably the most sniper friendly map, with clever use of jump pads and cover you can easily get round behind a sniper and cause him all sorts of trouble...


Apologies for the rant, just see so much crying about sniper with people not considering the actual rammifications of their suggestions, most 'balance' ideas ive seen so far have no desire to balance the sniper class but the desire to destroy it and make it absolutely worthless...

Assaults can easily counter Snipers, the bomb is their worst enemy. He's fast enough to stay out of the shots and he's agile enough to float over your mines and dodge your shots. His maneuverability and his ability to hold down ground (which will leave you to do nothing but fight), will kill you.

My point is, he's a counter.

Funny how assault is my second most killed class.

Assault does NOT move fast. Try to snipe a recon jetpacking around with bionics on in GA to understand fast. Basically everything you just said can be countered by a twitch headshot. While I'm not capable of pulling off insane headshots, I'm sure the snipers equal to grimbar are.

The bomb may hurt a sniper, but the assault has to be reasonably close to drop that bomb in the first place.

And again, the grenade launcher, while effective, is still inferior to the sniper rifle in both damage and difficulty.

The assault may be the best class for sniper killing, but it's not a counter.

I already said that the drop in snipers bot killing power could be compensated by buffing the SMG's bot damage and making explosive shots affect it.

But last i checked sniper shots cant bounce around corners...

What you are saying is not "Nerf sniper" but "nerf good players plix".

I think you missed the point where I said I play sniper. I can dominate as a sniper, and I'm a mediocre player at best. I can see when I'm playing good and when I'm just being carried by my class. And in this case, I'm being carried by an overpowered class.

Besides, even if an assault could counter sniper, what about the gunners, tanks and supports that can't even leave their base when there's a good sniper around.

the mouse is a little good, they are looking at nerfing the rate a little to comphensate.

they arent going to make the sniper absolutely worthless tho. it still needs to be able to push bots. they should keep that in mind. maybe increasing explosive rounds by an meager amount.

less shots, but same bot damage, should be their solution. make blackjacks die to headshots. idk.

but i kill plenty of snipers as assault. grenades are EASIER to use, once your at the range they blow up on their own then fire 2 and they are pretty much unavoidable. easy to accomplish on a sniper. and if you get around their attention, drop a bomb next to them and they are gone.

every other class BUT the assault (and suprisingly the assassin, but i play shuriken heavy) is what im noticing the sharpness of most snipers headshot aim with. that is what is making the sniper seem better on pc, his ability to aim better. of course, im pretty good with the gamepad, but i use the mouse when not dealing with bots or linear pros.

Again, you've never had a good team try to counter a sniper.

Have you ever:

-Had a tank product grenade you from the distance?
-At the same time, had an assault throw grenades at you and charge at you with a lvl 3 bomb?
-A gunner shooting mortars across the map.
-A tank good enough to rail gun you and keep you pinned. (hi velo)
-Support airstrike you to death?
-A good assassin who actually knows what they're doing?

I've killed good snipers with each class described above, well except tank. I'm a good sniper killer at everything else and I PLAY SNIPER, yet I don't feel OP. Just because you feel OP in a pub, does not mean it would apply for better players, or even when normal pub players get better.

I feel your biased opinion when I see it. :roll:

Going back ontopic, the problem with your suggestion is that is simply dosent balance out, the sniper does not have the HP neccesary to use the uzi against bots, that would require him to leave the safety of his traps, get down onto the lane right next to the assaults, tanks and gunners who can kill him faster than he can change weapon...

Not to mention that you would need to use your single shot rifle to 'farm' bots to get the cash to buy explosive shot for your uzi, and although good snipers will go for that skill as fast as possible sometimes it simply isnt pratical, sometimes its in your better interest to pick up traps and grapple, or flak before you go for sniper 3, based purely on your situation... this would pretty much destroy that meaning the sniper would have to turn tail and run as soon as anybody so much as looked in his direction.