OK, sorry... I know you were expecting a QQ /ragequit story from the title. You will not be drinking any noob tears tonight though. THIS STORY HAS A HAPPY ENDING (for now).

I am generally a new DUST player. I have experimented with different setups, weapons, and play-styles. This past Friday I created a new character with the intention of "learning" how to snipe. Here are a few quick notes regarding setup. After about a day of playing, I fit the following setup:

- Dragonfly [NSV]
- 2x Basic Profile Damps
- 1x Light Damage Mod
- NT511 Sniper Rifle
- SMG
(So pretty basic and unremarkable, except for the Dragonfly which I did pay some AUR for)

This setup worked VERY well for me, and even though this character is only 4 days old, I've racked up 143 Kills, with only 14 deaths . Don't believe me? Look me up on the leaderboards, I believe when I logged off last night my KDR was 10.21 (Yes yes it's easy for noobs to make it because they just haven't had that many chances to get utterly destroyed yet ).

So I basically stuck to these 3 simple guidelines:

1) Don't snipe from obvious places. A prime example are buildings in the middle of the map with ladders, etc (AVOID THESE). Find yourself a nice place on the map's edges, preferably a hill, with your back facing the red line. The shots are longer...but hey remember, you're a SNIPER that's what you're supposed to do, headshots are still very doable. Trust me... sniper rifles have a rather obscene reach in this game.

Even better alternative... have a buddy in a dropship ferry you to buildings and places inaccessible by foot.

2) Try not to stay in one place for too long. People will eventually know what you're up to, especially if they've seen 2 of their team members spontaneously hit the ground nearby. This one time, the other team got so fed up with me, that the next thing I know, I have a tank, 2 LAV's, and tons of infantry trying to climb the hill to take me out.

3) Pick your targets - obviously guys standing still, dudes manning turrets on the back of stationary LAV's are also very vulnerable. Obviously guys hacking objectives turrets, etc will also easily fall prey to your long stealthy reach. See a heavy climbing the hill trying to get you? Don't pull out the SMG, try and try and outflank him, just leave.... and find another nest to shoot from.

I'm sure some of these ideas will stop working once I get out of the academy queue, but I had a fun weekend I do feel that the mechanics are slightly tilted in favor of snipers, mainly that the huge maps gives stealthy scout builds a lot of places to hide. I will also concede that this is not a particularly useful role for winning battles. Yes, you can get 6 to 10 kills without dying, but that's a drop in the bucket in terms of overall warpoints accumulated in a game.