1 & 2. Damage.

Weaponry = 5 (more damage and to ALL infantry weapons = essential)
Sniper Rifle Operations = 5 (Need this to 5 so you can get the next skill)
Sniper Rifle Proficiency = 5 (This is where you get more damage specifically to your sniper rifle)

These three will seriously boost your damage output per shot. Toss on a damage mod or two, pick the rifle you feel most comfortable with, and go to town. One shot, one kill is a sniper mantra in real life for a reason. They live through that first shot they know you exist and usually respond accordingly.

After those three you want your dropsuit skill higher which will lower your signature profile. You will also want to train scout scuit specifically to get the better suits to fit more mods and be more likely to survive a counter snipe. Additionally, training whatever skill it is that is associated with the damage mods will help, too.

Signal dampeners are also nice, but don't seem as essential right now as long as you get your dropsuit command up. Signal dampeners seem better for close quarters scouts, like shotgun scouts.

3. As to heavier suits, go for it, but scouts make the best snipers. You might be able to survive a shot as a heavier suit, but you'll be much easier to find. It's all in play style. As a scout suit, you have to understand that mobility = life. Find a good spot you can stay in it, but it's better to move on every so often. Good players know where the best sniper spots are and keep an eye on them to kill those snipers that choose to occupy them.

4. Side arm is pure preference. I like the SMG, but if you are skilled and accurate the Scrambler Pistol can be deadly. As to them not taking damage at point blank from your SMG . . . that shouldn't be happening. I kill plenty with my SMG on my alt.

5. Yes. Dropsuit command reduces your signal radius which is how easily detected you are by enemy radar. Sensor dampeners as I mentioned previously, and you yourself reference, add to this.

I would guess the pro/cons of assault and scout are pretty close so it's mostly preference, the heavy and logi snipers are oddball fits.

3. As to heavier suits, go for it, but scouts make the best snipers. You might be able to survive a shot as a heavier suit, but you'll be much easier to find. It's all in play style. As a scout suit, you have to understand that mobility = life. Find a good spot you can stay in it, but it's better to move on every so often. Good players know where the best sniper spots are and keep an eye on them to kill those snipers that choose to occupy them.

This is almost entirely wrong. Scout suits are the worst suit, possibly second worst counting solo heavy snipers. Lower signature profile is not anything resembling enough of an advantage to compensate for the fact that you will die in one hit to basically any enemy sniper. Relying on the good fortune to never be targeted by any enemies will not get you far. And that's to say nothing of the fewer high slots and lower PG/CPU.

Moving around a lot exposes you more and will thus lead to more deaths.

But, to be fair, this game's **** hit detection seems to manifest more against people using scout suits. So for the time being anyway (hopefully) you will evade death through bad programming sometimes. So I guess there's that advantage.

1 & 2. Damage.

Weaponry = 5 (more damage and to ALL infantry weapons = essential)
Sniper Rifle Operations = 5 (Need this to 5 so you can get the next skill)
Sniper Rifle Proficiency = 5 (This is where you get more damage specifically to your sniper rifle)

These three will seriously boost your damage output per shot. Toss on a damage mod or two, pick the rifle you feel most comfortable with, and go to town. One shot, one kill is a sniper mantra in real life for a reason. They live through that first shot they know you exist and usually respond accordingly.

After those three you want your dropsuit skill higher which will lower your signature profile. You will also want to train scout scuit specifically to get the better suits to fit more mods and be more likely to survive a counter snipe. Additionally, training whatever skill it is that is associated with the damage mods will help, too.

Signal dampeners are also nice, but don't seem as essential right now as long as you get your dropsuit command up. Signal dampeners seem better for close quarters scouts, like shotgun scouts.

3. As to heavier suits, go for it, but scouts make the best snipers. You might be able to survive a shot as a heavier suit, but you'll be much easier to find. It's all in play style. As a scout suit, you have to understand that mobility = life. Find a good spot you can stay in it, but it's better to move on every so often. Good players know where the best sniper spots are and keep an eye on them to kill those snipers that choose to occupy them.

4. Side arm is pure preference. I like the SMG, but if you are skilled and accurate the Scrambler Pistol can be deadly. As to them not taking damage at point blank from your SMG . . . that shouldn't be happening. I kill plenty with my SMG on my alt.

5. Yes. Dropsuit command reduces your signal radius which is how easily detected you are by enemy radar. Sensor dampeners as I mentioned previously, and you yourself reference, add to this.

I've got news for you, anyone who tells you to snipe in a scout is also sniping and knows that he can one shot you. Snipe in something else, mobility means absolutely nothing when you can only take one shot.

You'll note I said later in the post it comes down to preference, but I stand by scouts being the best snipers.

You are objectively wrong and should not give advice. There is essentially no reason to ever snipe in a scout suit. You will die more and get fewer kills. You are trading many advantages of other suits for an essentially worthless bonus to signature radius. Preference doesn't factor into it.

Agree to disagree here. Period. We can call each other wrong all day and night. I could also say you clearly should never give advice. I won't, but based on the above post I probably should.

Edit: Also, done here. The OP has plenty of information and advice from myself and others and can easily decide for himself. I plan to ignore quasi-trolls.

Think about it, the scout is suppose to be hard to hit, fast, and close-quarters stealth. If you snipe you're utilizing none of those bonuses.

For ranged sniping, I vote Merc Pack Assault suit.

1) Where should I be allocating skill points?

Assault or AV class, unless you don't suck as a sniper. Since I do, this was my choice.

2) How much does getting the sniper rifle skill to lvl 5 actually help?

I suck at sniping, so it is useless

3) Should I wear a heavier suit?

I suck with every suit but the Assault, so you should use that.

4) What side arm should I go with?

Pistol. But I'm not going to explain why, because I don't have a legitimate counter-argument against the SMG

5) Is there a stealth skill?

If you suck at stealth, go loud. I suck at stealth, so obviously it doesn't work.

Fixed.

I'll be the first to say, I'm a decent sniper... but by NO means would I call myself a good sniper. That said, I can tell you from my personal experience, and from a buddy who does snipe a lot (and is a good one) that mobility is necessary, quite often.

Heavy Snipers are a possibility as well, but they're slow, so unless you're REALLY certain that the combat will revolve around a specific location or area on the map, or bring transport of some kind, Heavies aren't likely to be the best option.

I've never found this to be the case, and can make a few points about why it's not correct to say that moving around a lot is better than being stationary:

First, when you move you expose yourself to enemy snipers. If they can aim you'll potentially get killed. At best you'll simply expose your location and let enemy snipers line you up for when you start trying to snipe too.

Second, nano hives are limited and you can't pick them up. Leaving nano hives lying around would be a bit of a waste and require you to find a depot fairly often to reload your fit and get more ammo/hives to keep sniping. This plays into the first point, as people often die at depots to enemy snipers, and also plays into the third point. Which is...

When you're moving, you aren't sniping. The more time you spend running around like a goofball, the less you're sniping. There are allies being killed and points being captured you could have done something about if you weren't wandering around the map. You can't be an effective sniper if you spend more time moving than you do sniping.


In the end, the best strategy really is to find an effective vantage point and snipe until the battle moves elsewhere, or it becomes too dangerous to keep sniping there, or whatever. If you get a good location, you will be safe, you'll have a clear view of a high-traffic area and ideally at least one objective, and you'll be able to lay down a hive and keep sniping all game. If your position is good, you won't need to move to avoid enemy snipers, because they won't be able to engage you, and enemy infantry won't be able to reach you, either, because they'd have to run through your entire team and all your side's snipers to get in range of you.

Some snipers like to run around. That's cool, knock yourself out if you find it more enjoyable than camping. But, at least in my experience, I've never done anything like as well running around as I have being stationary. I am not kidding when I write that being a sniper in Dust is the safest, most powerful, and least demanding way of playing the game.