A long time ago I use to snipe, but rarely can you snipe without hurting your team, which is why I dropped sniper rifles for the most part, when I do snipe its more of my secondary as I run a rolling sniper scan/hacker build. Most of my kills were in the 150-300 range, because I still want to still be involved in the match.

They hurt your team because sniper rifles in dust suck, period, so to make sure that the reward is higher than the risk you have to be way out there in the boon docks, and most snipers I've seen have trouble scrapping up more than 250 wp let alone 500 wp.

Those who can make sniper rifles sing are great, by singing I mean 15+ kills in a skirmish match (thats 10-12 mins), but most suck because they are difficult weapons not in usage but just poor alpha, bad hit detection, and poor risk/reward mechanics for it which push you way to far.

Dust has very few real snipers, most are just tired or aren't as twitchy as the other players to front line it.

Snipers make it so players actually have to think while playing the game. It's extremely frustrating to see them acomplish so much more with so much less.

With a one good sniper on your side,
You automatically get 1/4 to 1/3 less enemy clones you have to deal with
The threat of any AV troops is removed
During any given time in battle at least one enemy squad will be pinned down
The effectivness of enemy snipers is nullified
The enemy is forced to send tanks and DS's to hunt down the sniper, as opposed to concentrating on objectives
Heavy troops HP become effectively halved, allowing newer or weaker mercs to easily conquer them
Most Medium and Light frame suits are under constant threat of being insta-popped
Smarter more experienced players will avoid routes being overwatched by the sniper, reducing their overall effectiveness
Not only does he never die, he saves the lives of others as well by assisting them with thier kills

His only downfall? He don't hack!
Just wait 'till cloaking comes out, you ain't even began to learn how much you really hate snipers...
o7