Throughout history snipers have carried the unglamorous role of pinning enemies down. They serve the same function as light machine guns, but with far less bullets. While they occasionally take on missions to assassinate targets, their primary roll is to spread fear and panic through the enemy lines, lowering moral and forcing targets into cover to be flanked by fire teams or targeted by close air support.

Thats their job. Their purpose isn't "n0sc0pe h34dsh0ts", their purpose isn't to get kills (although they frequently do), their purpose is long range suppression, and in Dust they do this excellently. When I am on my way towards an objective and all of a sudden my AP is down to half, I freak the **** out. I scramble to take cover and start searching frantically for where the shot came from. No i'm not dead, but my shields are down and I am forced to exit combat for a minute to heal. This is why snipers in dust are effective, they cause panic and confusion in the best cases, and annoyance and lost time in the worst.

So CCP: Do not listen to players from Battlefield or CoD telling you your rifles are underpowered, need a buff, etc. They simply don't understand tactics and have been locked into a mentality that other games have pushed them into.

I agree with a lot of what you say. One of the worst beatdowns I suffered came from a team with about four snipers, that used them effectively. They were spread out over the map, they had support, and they kept most of my team pinned down. I died about three times just trying to get to a position to counter-snipe.

I think there are two things really making it hard to be a sniper right now. One is poor team communication: to get anything out of your snipers, you have to have your mics on! We can tell you where the baddies are, we can move to cover you...and it's a big help when you make sure someone isn't standing behind us, laughing, before shotgunning us to pieces.

The second is poor mobility. For how incredibly fragile most sniper builds are, they're too slow. I need to be able to haul ass out of a firefight and get to cover, and 90% of the time I can't make it. We can't get uphill very well, either, which I think is a major problem. I don't need to be running and jumping at a patch of ground that looks exactly like climeable terrain when a 1/2 degree difference in elevation means the game won't let me move over it.

Yes, the framework dust has calls for communication to be used properly. A scout with low signature radius spotting targets for multiple sniper would be a truly horrifying team build. It's sad that people think that in order to be used effectively, snipers must be glass canons.

As a sniper, I think you're definitely on the right track. As far as I've played so far, sniping seems well balanced and perfect. My only complaint as a sniper are other snipers who can shoot through objects that you cannot and use that to reign in free kills (some strange hilltops or metal protrusions can be seen through at close range and shot through, but shooting from the other side does not provide contact).

Snipers are a form of Active Support, and play the role of suppression and cover.

+1'd

I agree with a lot of what you say. One of the worst beatdowns I suffered came from a team with about four snipers, that used them effectively. They were spread out over the map, they had support, and they kept most of my team pinned down. I died about three times just trying to get to a position to counter-snipe.

I think there are two things really making it hard to be a sniper right now. One is poor team communication: to get anything out of your snipers, you have to have your mics on! We can tell you where the baddies are, we can move to cover you...and it's a big help when you make sure someone isn't standing behind us, laughing, before shotgunning us to pieces.

The second is poor mobility. For how incredibly fragile most sniper builds are, they're too slow. I need to be able to haul ass out of a firefight and get to cover, and 90% of the time I can't make it. We can't get uphill very well, either, which I think is a major problem. I don't need to be running and jumping at a patch of ground that looks exactly like climeable terrain when a 1/2 degree difference in elevation means the game won't let me move over it.

Good thread, and I agree about poor mobility. I've posted it on a number of threads, but the scout suit as currently constructed is poor for sniping. It's paper thin, but doesn't have the CPU/PG or the quickness (it's only 0.7 m/s faster when sprinting than the assault- that's just wrong) to offset the lack of hitpoints.

Otherwise, I agree with the OP.