I love all these "how to balance snipers" posts from people who obviously don't snipe, they're hilarious.

400m effective, still 600m absolute, with heavy fall off between the two. Going with Tychus' numbers for dmg boost and hs multplier, seems about right.

And for snake n symb, didn't I call this bs when I told you guys about the delta thread?

Sniping in my mind is a support role so I don't see what is wrong with forcing snipers to leave the red line, I do it anyways, it's completely viable as long as your team isn't god awful and a god awful team kills all roles except snipers right now. Here's my rationale, do snipers expect logis to be good one man slayers? They used to be, but they aren't now, and from anyone ive spoken to that is working as intended since the logi is a support role and not an assault suit. A sniper just like a tank now, when balanced, is untouchable behind good team support but absolutely vulnerable when alone.

Cloaks are getting a nerf in Delta as well to where there will be a delay on when they can fire after decloaking. If you listen for the de-cloaking noise you can react in time although, right now it usually means you die anyways to a knifer or shotgun. However, with the coming nerf a cloak that decloaks right behind you will be dead in the water for some precious moments that will allow you to spray their low hp down. You have to look at what Delta is bringing as a whole. A lot of bad play goes back to poor matchmaking and poor awareness. When it isn't poor matchmaking or poor awareness, IE. a Thales sniper on a terrible team killing with impunity in their red line on the objective/s or a cloaked scout sprinting about bunny hop shotgunning before their cloak wears off, these are balance issues.

The things that were out of a players control like the cloaker shotgunning before the noise even makes a sound right behind you or the sniper hiding deep in the red line beyond reproach (Even at times head glitching to stop even counter sniping) that is what Delta is trying to fix.

When I counter snipe I usually can't even worry about the objective because I am wasting time hunting down the thales/charged ******* in the back of their red line causing massive damage because some maps allow this. I don't even worry on maps where the red line doesn't help, but on the few it does, it's absolutely broken. When I snipe, I move as close to my team as I can on the objective while keeping around a 200-300m gap between me and the enemy. If I'm behind my team they aren't going to rush me, working as intended. If they are all over the objective and my team can't take it, I'm not sniping, why? Because, I have now become the burden to my team that everyone hates when they see snipers. I'm now killing clones when it won't matter because our MCC is going to explode.

The only time I red line snipe is when the enemy has pushed to our red line. And guess what? A range nerf on the sniper won't stop me from red line sniping when the enemy is on our red line so it won't hurt the only time in which it isn't scummy to red line snipe.

Tanks in 1.7 went through the same bitching when they lost their ability to tank 8 AV. Logis went through the same thing when they lost their Slayer potential. Snipers are now bitching when they won't be able to cover the objective/s from their red line. Bias people hate balance when it will take away their imbalanced aspect. Unbiased people who care about the state of the game understand when something is broken and understand why it must be changed.

The fact that players didn't vary their builds so that they can transition into many different roles at any given time in a battle based on what actually works and instead bash their head into a wall forcing a bad tactic to be good or giving up and isk farming is exactly why balance has taken over a year to be addressed properly.

As to what I think should work for snipers:

Tactical Sniper:
Significantly reduce weapon sway for quick scoping.
Keep circular sight.
Reduce Optimal Range to 0-300m
Increase damage by 25
Increase magazine to 5

Standard/Specialist SR:
Add the Dot sight back
Reduce Optimal Range to 0-400m
Increase damage by 50
Decrease magazine to 4

Charged/Thales:
Add the Dot sight back
Reduce Optimal range to 0-400m
Slightly Reduce Thales zoom to be more practical in the new optimal
Increase damage by 75
Decrease Charged magazine to 3

All sniper rifles:
Increase head shot bonus. I'm not sure how much, but in my mind, increase it to something that will make only the most brick tanked heavies survive the head shot from a Thales/charged without damage mods. With damage mods, maybe it will be possible to kill brick tanked proto bears, however brick tanked proto bears shouldn't be hobbling about in the open anyways as even a RR will down a proto bear out in the open. Their ****** should either be in CQC or be in a LAV/Dropship.