Snipers (PvE) - Opinions?

[Reid]

I use bolt action exclusively as my primary, no difficulties at all. For bugs, I try to aim for their butt flaps when possible, or switch to a secondary shotgun.

I find bolt action snipers (and shot guns, esp those that fire slugs) to be extremely ammo efficient. i.e. 1-2 sniper rounds for a regular (non boss; tankers take about 5 rounds), while auto guns (assault, smg, lmg etc) tend to burn through ammo really quickly.

[Amonkira]

IIRC sniper rifles have some of the best critical hit bonuses, with shooting weak spots and EGO boosts you can do 5-7 k Damage per shot 2 times a second...

They are the best option to pick off hard enemies.

You need to learn how to shoot, though

To find weak spots turn on damage numbers, also use several weapons/dmg types with dmg numbers, some mobs have weaknesses and resistances to certain weapon and/or dmg types

Or look at the defiance wiki ;o)

Sounds like your talking about semi-automatic sniper rifles? I've tried those once... it did feel a bit akward tbh. But have to use them to get the Pursuit done..

[blurps]

I used bolt action sniper rifles and a shotgun ( the one that fires 3 bullets in quick bursts with 15 ammo capacity ) to great effect in alpha and beta. Thinning out the herd from the distance and then going in to finish the remainders with the shotgun worked like a charm.

Just don't expect the sniper rifle to be effective if you're being swarmed by 10 critters, that's simply not what it is for. You really should complement it by a close quarters weapon you can swap to.

[Draemos]

The semi-autos are terrible and are are clearly outclassed by an AR with a scope. The bolt-actions are pretty decent as long as your a good shot and aren't being swarmed.

[xScribble]

Bolt-Action as my primary, and my pistol for anything close range (doing a pursuit, thats why I have a pistok). The only thing I dont like is the lack of any lead. You have to be right on the enemy for a hit, instead of being able to lead your shots.

[Scuffy P]

The only thing I dont like is the lack of any lead. You have to be right on the enemy for a hit, instead of being able to lead your shots.

Noticed that myself, but to be honest lead-in's for a game of this speed and scale may prove to be a little too difficult.

The sniper riffle, and other weapons for that matter, need to be usable by all gamer's not just experts. If t was made too exclusive, you'd hardly have anyone using it in the random groups you encounter.

[Sakara]

Might I suggest using a sniper rifle and either an AR, LMG, or SMG as your second weapon?

[Dinova]

Might I suggest using a sniper rifle and either an AR, LMG, or SMG as your second weapon?

Thats mostly my setup.

I got 3 loadouts:
LMG - sniper
Shotty - sniper
BMG - shotty.

I love making chain kills with the snipers, go stealth, run around, pop another headshot.
Not finished and getting close? Shotgun in the face!

Though i wish there was an even slower snipergun, massive damage, like like a AM50.

[Psyqhical]

The only thing that bothers me as a sniper is that there is no Raw Mouse Input option. I constantly find myself changing my mouse sensitivity.

It doesn't help that the sensitivity when unscoped is higher then when you scope in as well.

[Saraya]

It seems to me that snipers are not that great in PvE. Here are the issues I am having with them:

[*]ARs seem to do much more dmg, are easier to hit with, allow you to run around more, and are all around better weapons.

Not per single bullet, however in a 'DPS' sense they do. And that's where guns in MMOs gets difficult. Realisically a high powered rifle round to a head or chest will one shot practically anything that has a brain or a heart, however if we could do that it wouldn't mesh well with gameplay.

[*]When fighting with other players, they cause lots of flinching/knockback/setting on fire/etc that makes aiming even more difficult.

Unfortunately this is something that will always be an issue when you have an unstructured field of combat.
However it exacerbates the following issue you mentioned, which Trion CAN do something about.

[*]Enemies move erratically/jerky at times, not smoothly like a player would, which makes headshots difficult.

Agreed. Mobs, particularly bi-pedal humanoid types, tend to have 100% acceleration to all their movements, as well as unnatural agility. They have no momentum, no physics (seemingly) and a shallow pool of animations.
The also roll, jump and dodge excessive distances.

[*]During Arkfalls, they seem to do EXTREMELY low damage against bugs.

Believe they have been toned down to stop people hiding away and picking them off.
Though that's a very blankted and cheap way to 'solve' the 'issue.'
It's just a poor shortcut needed because the mechanics system is shallow.

Sniping should never be easy - fire arms are never easy.
Yet it is a game, and it is a "MMOTPS"(which is the buzz word going around now that magically explains away all the shortcomings of the weapons combat).

They need to balance weapon damage and they need to redesign the mob animations/movement speed as the latter issue affects all weapons in other situations like false zoom on small arms. It's a pain trying to catch up to and lead bullets on mobs when you got a narrow field of view, slow aim sensitivity and in one dodge the mob goes from end to end on your screen within a second.