I knew I'd catch flack for pointing out the obvious and trying to taint the Sniper's Illusion of Grandeur, but back to the topic. Should they be allowed to snipe from behind the redline?

I'm not sure I get the whole "Snipers don't matter" or "Snipers contribute nothing" malarky some of you are buying into.

If we snipers can make as many kills as a CQC guy and have no deaths, in what universe does that make us irrelevant or useless?

On that basis alone, we carry our weight.

Then add in all the "extras".

We scout.

We jump into turrets when needed.

We hack.

We counter-hack.

We counter-snipe.

We cover friendly vehicles by splattering red AV infantry all over the countryside. I see the swarm launcher trails and almost always no blues are anywhere around. The tank guys should be sending me flowers and buying me beer for saving their zillion ISK death sleds.

We cover objectives. Usually more than one at a time. I'm excellent at taking out 2. Sometimes even 3. Without losing the blue team a clone. Can I stop 4 or more red hackers? No, but a single blue CQC guy can't either.

We drop uplinks.

We drop nanohives.

We mine objectives with remote explosives.

We mine roads with proximity explosives.

We demoralize and distract reds.

We thin and cripple the herd of angry reds running toward you. Without losing the blue team a clone.

We can slow or stop enemy momentum. Without losing the blue team a clone.

We strip shields and armour and don't mind just getting the assist. It's worth it to see a proto fatty bite the dust. When that proto fatty waddles around the corner in front of you with no shields and half armor, it might be a gift from me.

We stop the red guys who run at the solo blue hacker. He usually has no clue we saved his bacon.

We shoot red uplinks and nanohives from 400m away.

We kill the red guy who calls in the vehicle before he gets into it. So a blue guy can drop by later and score a free ride. If you find an orphaned red vehicle it is likely a sniper made it that way because blue CQC guys almost always take or blow up vehicles when they kill the owner.

We stop the reds from hot-wiring your car when you get out to fight.

We harass the reds to the point where up to 4 jump in a clown car to chase us down. They almost always get me but I've taken 4 reds on a wild goose chase - which means out of the battle - for several minutes. They may as well have been dead or AFK for that time. All they end up doing is killing little old me.

I'm the grim reaper, the mad bomber, Drew Carry with a free car behind door number 3, a multi-tasking angel of death, your eyes and ears, the anti-AV service and your only friend when you are alone in a cold and dangerous place.

I'm a sniper and I'm proud of how I help my team.

Do snipers need CQC guys? Damn right we do.

Do CQC guys need snipers? Damn right you do.


Munch