The Sniper...Too Much AoE (Area of Effect) Damage?

This is not the typical SNIPER IS OP NERF NOW thread, hence why I'm making a new one.

Also, don't mistake this thread for "OMG I CAN"T BEAT SNIPER WITH A TANK OR ASSASSIN THEY NEED TO CHANGE HIMZ." I have an honest question from a balance perspective.

I want to pose a question to the community:

For a class that has the only ranged precision based one hit kill weapon in the game, does the sniper do too much Area of Effect (multiple target) damage?

I understand the idea of a one-shot kill reward for a head shot. It is a small hit box. It takes a decent amount of skill to pull off. I'm fine with that, as I'm sure most of the community is.

Explosive shots are another story entirely. Explosive shots seem fine in theory, but they don't reward him at all for accuracy and start making him (among) the best harasser/pusher/juicer in the game. He goes from a precise killer to a monster area of effect damage dealer at long range with very little risk to himself. He can shut down entire lanes from his spawn on 2 of the 4 maps on rotation right now (Ammo Mule, Steel Peel) I feel like explosive shots need some type of tweak:

Suggestions (any combination of):
-Make explosive shots only trigger on bot KILLS rather than hits.
-No explosive shots for shooting allied bots
-Explosive shots still trigger when shooting through both allied and enemy pros
-Explosive shots do not proc off of turret/moneyball hits, however, when a turret is destroyed from an explosive shot (or destroyed from another source after recently hit by x number of explosive shots), it does MASSIVE AoE damage (near or equal to air strike level AoE damage).

None of these would reduce his killing power whatsoever, and would bring significantly more depth to the class (choosing WHEN to kill a bot to inflict damage on a pro instead of just body spamming the nearest ally/enemy closest to his prey, as well as encouraging snipers to push forward and take down a turret instead of drawing out games to overtime with their freeze traps and love for KDR.)

Thoughts?

Re: The Sniper...Too Much AoE (Area of Effect) Damage/Disables?

I think that just lowering either the damage of explosive shot, or lowering the AoE would make most of the problems go away.

Re: The Sniper...Too Much AoE (Area of Effect) Damage/Disables?

One thing i know must be done for sure is getting rid of explosive shots triggering on anything allied to you. Not only does it not make sense (your not hurting them, where is this shrapnel coming from?), it completely shuts down any assassin activity.

Ive taken down assassins grappling our jackbot just by shooting the jackbot a few times. Not only that, but his freeze mines also completely stop assassins from targeting him.

As far as problems go, sniper has the most.

Not to mention he is freaking rediculous on Steel Peel.

I think reducing the AOE damage some (say to about half, maybe 60%) while simultaneously reducing the amount of juice gained from additional hits would be the way to go. I still like the idea of hitting off of teammates to protect from grapples or protect your jackbot.

Or maybe prevent multiple shrapnels at once. Lining up a bullet penetration through multiple bots might be too strong, I think the OP-ness may be reduced with that being gone. However, I do not know the ease in preventing multiple shrapnels from occuring at once, this may be difficult or not, do not know.

I like these suggestions and the amount of depth however, Id think being able to save someone as a sniper is just part of him being a playerkiller. and as much as these points were not just "make aoe do less damage" ideas, I think doing less damage would solve the problems more overall, that and nerfing his juice. I was kind of 60/40 about siding with these suggestions. I still think the main problem is your almost guaranteed to fight a sniper with juice always mid game. Doing the extra damage with AOE does make him overkill even with juice, I agree that he should have it, to fend of those turtle supports and to farm bots to get juice, but its just too much too easily.

Getting back on topic, not being able to shoot friendly players is something id totally vote for. Its a bit too easy to save someone that way. Friendly bots, I dont know. It could save that jackbot xl from going down, as nobody else really has an easy way to it other than maybe a deathblossom or a bomb or something.

The explosive rounds are not a big problem imo, the sniper kinda needs them in the grand scheme of balance. The sniper needs a good way to push bots and gain juice just like anybody else.

That said, they need to be changed a tad bit.
What would I change?

-no procs from shooting your OWN bots.....
-No procs from hitting dead turret nubs
-maybe only procs on bots if you headshot? It would still work for bodyshots on players, but bots are easy to headshot so this might make a nice change

If this was done I would have no problems with the explosive shots although I can understand that if you buy explosive shots no matter what you shoot there will be an explosion. It gets to the point where snipers are better lane pushers than Assassins on certain maps because of the explosive damage if you try to attack their bots. The game is fine but I think this should be taken into consideration in the future for a balance issue although I'm sure they've went back and forth on this already.

I agree, the Sniper does have a bit of overkill when it comes to the AoE of his rounds. And it is unfair that it should activate when he is shooting his own bots/any turret nubs.

I think the damage is good where it is, but if the AOE was lessened, he'd get juice slower, which is good.

And yeah, Friendly ANYTHING shouldn't trigger it.

it'd be balanced with a lessened radius and no friendly explosive triggers.

I would suggest that the explosive damage should only affect bots, and not players

Snipers, of all classes, shouldn't be getting accidental or spam kills

The snipers ability to hit allied units is what really pushes it over the edge. If i were playing as an assault and an assassin is attacking the jackbot xl shouldn't i be allowed to attach my bomb to the bot and blow it up to knock the assassin away or kill it? But yes the only time i see a sniper push he runs up grapples you kills you and runs away... but yor idea for all he needs are superb couldn't have thought of a better allternative cheers!