...seem seriously inadequate in performance. With the new TTK balancing CCP didn't even mention snipers, which suggests that they either think snipers are fine, or didn't look at them at all.
Well, they aren't fine. Far from it.
After playing several matches with a sniper, it becomes pretty clear that the only thing they are good for is taking out militia-fit players.
I used adv. Caldari Commando (dropsuit skill at 3), with 2 complex damage mods, and either Charge or Kaalakiota Tactical sniper rifle (proficiency skill 4).
My performance was approximately cut in half compared to pre-1.8.
There are several factors contributing to this. Apart from the obvious damage mod and proficiency skill nerfs, resistance buffs to heavies, there's also the fact that battlefield is now riddled with either heavies or scouts.
The former are, quite literally, unkillable by a sniper, and the latter are running around cloaked (and even uncloaked, half of them are now brick-tanked slayer-scouts with 700-800 EHP
This needs to be fixed, or snipers will become not only one of the most hated and annoying roles in DUST, but also totally useless.

Although there are multitude of possible ways to fix this, here's one that seems fine to me:

Normal sniper rifles
- buff damage by 10-15%.

Tactical sniper rifles
- damage stays the same
- 5 round clip
- scope magnification equal to that of normal snipers
- in short, make them more like a "marksman rifle"

Charge sniper rifle
- buff damage by 10-15%
- introduce them at advanced level, not only proto variant
- 3 round clip
- scope magnification of tactical rifles
- increased effectiveness against vehicles (still not at 100%, of course)
- in short, make them more like today's anti-material rifles

Opinions are welcome... Unless of course they contain comments like "who cares about snipers", "remove the redline" or "snipers are fine if you use Thale's". Please, refrain from that ****. Thank you.

You want sniper rifles to have vehicular damage ???

Are you serious ??? Being able to shoot the driver of an LAV or turret gunner of a drop ship is not enough , now you want them to cause tank damage .

Silly , just silly .

You want the scope of the tactical to be like a normal , don't you know that tactical's are magnified more than normal sniper rifle's ???

A slight buff in damage is needed like five to eight percent . Or maybe just five and with damage mods , that can be brought up to ten percent and with the prof add fifteen to that once maxed out .

There doesn't need to be much of an increase .

Actually the scope can use some fine tuning . Not like a Thale but somewhat in between a tactical and a thale .

Tactical scope's can become the regular with the magnification increasing to that under the thale's as one goes to prototype , with the thale being the exception just like it is now .

Changing the scope would make sniping more efficient and actually could be a skill set in the sniper's skill tree .
A certain amount of skill points and each level increases magnification . Don't know why that's not an option .

Fixing hit detection and improving rendering are the most important things needed to snipe. Next would be better zoom and crosshairs already. It is painful to line up a red dot on a red icon equipment.

Also, change proficiency to a 3% increase in headshot damage per level.

Ever hear of armor piercing rounds? No? Thought so ,so let me explain...they pierce heavy armor to injure the person inside

You ever hear of magical invisible shields that surround you? No? Neither have I. This game isn't based on earthly (or even realistic, in some cases) physics.

No. Sniping was too good anyway. I don't agree with one shot, one kill.

You are not supposed to spend the whole match sniping. If you are doing this, I will personally get a vehicle, track you down and shoot you in the head.

Neither do I. However, I also don't agree with one clip, one kill - and sniping is currently more tilted toward the latter.



I am "supposed" to do whatever I want. And if you really do go and track me down, then my role as a sniper is fulfilled - I just removed yet another soldier from trying to win the objective, and made him waste his time trying to kill a lowly, annoying sniper.

Lets get more in line with reality.
Sway hinders hits,
recoil hinders time to acquire target

1 hit max for basic say around 250 damage
1 hit for adv say around 500 damage
1 hit for proto say around 1k damage, 2x zoom
1 hit officer 1.2k damage, 2.5 zoom
vehicular damage and wp for kills (last I played it did not apply)
range 800m, officer 1k meters
make tac larger clip, more recoil, 25% less distance(less reacquire of target)
high sway with suit reduction to sway

What does this do?
lets people try the sniper fit, but makes them not deadly
forces those who really want to snip to invest sp to be deadly like all fits
gets the sniper out of harms way and forces the other team to counter sniper to remove as it should be (forces team to be well rounded or pay price)

Note: snipers are meant to shoot from the red line, their job is to be out of harms way

Now I know people don't like snipers, neither do I when I am playing infantry, but they have a role like scouts or heavys they should not be stuck with an assault mentality. Assault should always complain about snipers that is when you know they are doing their job. FYI when I get killed by a sniper, I counter-snipe to solve the problem.

You want sniper rifles to have vehicular damage ???

Are you serious ??? Being able to shoot the driver of an LAV or turret gunner of a drop ship is not enough , now you want them to cause tank damage .

Snipers in 1.8...seem seriously inadequate in performance.

Good. The risk-reward balance for snipers was off, particularly on the low end, and I think the recent changes have helped.

Ever hear of armor piercing rounds? No? Thought so ,so let me explain...they pierce heavy armor to injure the person inside

a TAC-50 will shoot through and engine block, most vehicles stop shortly after that occurrence. I don't want to kill a tank (it would be nice but the world does not work that way and classically a tank has always been the greatest fear of a sniper)...but there are many recorded events of snipers stopping jeeps/cars/trucks dead.

So yeah I should be able to stop a lav now and then not always but some times.

Is that a sniper rifle or more of a precision sharp shooter's tool ?

Yes you can say that snipers use that but that's more along the lines of sharpshooting because that tool doesn't have the distance of a sniper's rifle .. yes it comes close but it's intermediary range that that's most effective in .

The Tac-50 is a military and law enforcement weapon, which, designated as the C15, is the standard Long Range Sniper Weapon (LRSW) of the Canadian Forces since 2000.

Two Canadian snipers of the same Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) regiment sniper team made at the time the longest recorded sniper kills in history with this weapon in Afghanistan, during Operation Anaconda, in the Shah-i-Kot Valley. On a March afternoon in 2002, Master Corporal Arron Perry killed an enemy combatant from 2,310 meters (2,526 yd/1.435 miles) and Corporal Rob Furlong killed an enemy combatant from 2,430 meters (2,657 yd/1.509 miles) with 750 grain Hornady A-MAX very-low-drag bullets

So not a tool.

Use a Thale's. Problem solved. You now have enough to kill most scouts in a single body shot, as well as the majority of other suits in one headshot.

If you want to talk guns , not too many do it better than in America , where there systems reigned during the world wars and after WW2 there extensive knowledge was enhanced by the ingenuity of the German engineers and currently the country of Israel who has some of the best and brightest weapons engineers on the planet ( no I'm not Jewish but this is a known fact ) so a Tac-50's design's really don't belong exclusively to one group because there are high breeds of most weapons in existence .

Every country copies everyone else's inventions in the realm of weapons and their production .

Edit : You mentioned a C-15 which you have the option of using in-game so I just can't understand what the problem could or would be .

Basically the same thing would be if it took 2-3 entire clips just to kill someone in regular gun range, assuming all shots hit. Snipers are a low reward high risk weapon if your target is competent, and a NO reward weapon when you can't kill anything.

If you thought snipers were low risk, it just proves that you've never gone counter sniping before.

There is no doubt that snipers are the group that doesn't really fit any niche in dust right now. Not only does it have the most out of kilter risk/reward ratio in the game but it also totally fails to provide an inherent incetive to support your team rather than just lone wolf your KDR into the stratosphere.

I honestly think that CCP should remove the sniper rifle until they make the changes needed to force snipers into team play with the rest of us.

I really hate snipers. And the fact is that every weapon in this game have cartoonish range except sniper rifles.

Decrease the range of sniper rifles, decrease redline snipers.

And I wouldnt mind so much by getting killed by an sniper if it were from100 - 200 meter away.

Damage wise Snipers are good. You shouldn't be able to 1 shot a guy wearing shielded futuristic power armor unless its a head shot.

The sniper mechanic needs to be fixed so it doesn't discourage a more 'active' sniper/counter sniper gameplay. The sway that disappears completely after a few moments discourages movement.