Can we have a serious discussion about sniper cannon?

from both perspective: non-sniper and sniper, I wanted to hear your opinion about this all-time favorite weapon.
For me, I am a non-sniper (blast+explosive cannon), here is my opinion:
1. Sniper is better than blast cannon in almost all aspects, for example: longest range weapon, high hit chance, fastest objective speed, and actually has higher damage (with crit chance 25%, every 10 shots will deal higher total damge than blast cannon). The only thing that sniper weak is curve shot, (but it still have some curve). Meanwhile, blast cannon is medium range, required more skill in leading shots, and low crit chance. Even at close range, blast cannon still needs skills.
2. Sniper cannon doesn't really need any combo. Not like explosive cannon and blast cannon that combo with fire, sniper cannon only need crit perks. I mean, a shooter can fit 5 sniper cannons and still can deal 20k+ damage. They can just camp.
3. Its a pain to switch blast cannon to sniper cannon, you can only choose 1. If you are not planning to play enforcer, choosing blast cannon is a wrong answer. Bhurt talents 25 also make a hard decision between blast can explosive.
4. For new players, sniper cannon is dominated in the range 1500-2500 infamy, since the talents offer for sniper is ridiculous. If you are a lvl 30 and not using sniper, then you are in the weak. Tier 4 Sniper cannon can crit up to 1200 damage, it is a lot for low level.
5. Sniper cannon is (almost) everyone favorite, I would change to sniper if I find another epic one. So basically no one want to nerf sniper. This is kinda unfair btw. If they wanted to nerf frost torp, then I wanted Rovio nerf sniper for sure. Another 7.5% would be nice.

 

I'm not sure how much dmg non crit a blast cannon can do, but it should do a little more than half way between sniper non crit and ex cannon non crit. For ex. Tier 5 epic sniper can do around 650 non crit. If ex cannon can hit close to 2K then blast should be around 1.3-4K at tier5 epic. If thats the case now the its balanced. Otherwise buff whichever is needed to make the numbers like i described

 

Blast cannon is better imo. Because you don't need any perks for it's consistent damage. You can add all dmg or fire damage perks.

With sniper, crit perks are a must have. So no extra damage perks. Fire+sniper is a bad combo.

I am a sniper player (not by choice, I literally only get snipers when I combine rare pieces) but as soon as I get 2 tier 4 blast cannons I am retraining bhurt and snipers are being scrapped

 

Blast cannon can be better for enforcer (or explosive cannon for speeder) than sniper if you pair it with flare. Its more consistent damage and I believe without any fire damage boosts you can get ~1.2-1.5k t5 epic. A sniper would deal about 650 non crit and 2.1k crit which averages to around 1300 if theres a 45% crit chance, which I'd say is a clear favorite over the other cannons when dealing with raw damage. However, snipers cannot take advantage of the fire combo nearly as effective as blast and explosive cannons, so in those areas blast/EC > sniper.
Shooters should definitely prefer sniper over blast cannon though

 

Sniper has already been nerf.ed. twice since the start of the game.


No need to nerf. further.

Perks are the only thing keeping snipers in play. And also this is meant to shoot far away. Like rail gun.

 

I do agree that the sniper has too much going for it. Most guns are situational, but the sniper is just as effective up close as it is at a distance. So not only is it giving you a huge advantage at long range, it’s also covering your bases at close range, and all for the low price of 1 slot.

In fact, it does such a good job at close range, there is really no requirement to waste a slot on a short ranged weapon like a carronade or exploding cannon. Not only are you covered there, you’ve got an extra slot for spamming things like mortars and torpedoes.

However, in my opinion, that’s only the beginning of the sniper’s issues. The ability to damage people so effectively beyond visual range, and to focus damage strategically, regardless of your position (distance)... I think that’s actually game breaking, and I believe the game would benafit from not having it. What should be a charming little game dogfighting with boats, becomes a terrifying no-man’s-land, where anyone caught in the open in shredded by unseen (or barely seen) foes. For that reason alone I believe it should be nerfed into obscurity.

However, realistically, that would upset a lot of people. But I still think the crit rate should ‘at least’ taper off dramatically at short range. And maybe it should have a longer cooldown, so it’s only used for its intended purpose (long range sniping), and not as the go-to gun for every situation.

 

I'll say it again: people are only whining about sniper because of the crit damage, but they need to realize that even with a maxed out sniper and maxed out perks, you still do more crappy low non-crits than you do crits. For the typical player with a rare sniper and perks, you're looking at 30% crit rate. Take my own sniper, it's lvl 39, does 409 damage. 409*.7 + 409*2.5*.3 = 593 average damage. How is this OP? I just went to check, and blast cannon with no perks or crew training does already 511. It would be near 800 with full crew training and 3 damage perks, and then we're not even talking about the fire combo yet.

TL;DR Blast does more damage, sniper has more range and a faster projectile. Seems pretty balanced.

 

it's fine as it is now... maybe you just got fragged a lot by critical sniper hits that's why you're saying its OP. snipers are great for long shots, that's what it's made for.... in midrange and closerange, if i can, i'd use blast cannons due to their reliable damage. even at 45% crit chance, you're still relying on RNG crits for it to be deadly, otherwise the damage is much lower than a BC or EC. if you know you're facing strong snipers on the other end, then don't engage them directly as much as possible. use the map layout to get close to them rather than rushing straight on.

 

Damn i like getting critted for 2k damage in nightmare league. Losing half my health already. Great game.
In all seriousness, why does sniper curve? Shouldn’t it go straight as a projectile? I mean that’s how snipers are meant to work.

Edit: Even Asian eyes like mine, cannot read & predict projectile lines. It’s almost faster than the eye can comprehend. If your caught in the open and people hit you with snipers, good luck surviving speeder mains.

 

Because every projectile curves? Do you think sniper bullets go straight in real life?

 

Yeah, well it depends on wind speed and such..

 

If a sniper did 500 damage, and a BC did 501, then you could also say: ‘the BC does more damage, the sniper has more range etc...’. That statement would still be true, but it obviously wouldn’t be ‘balanced’. My point being: balance is about more than listing the pros and cons, it’s about amounts.

BC is quite a high risk weapon. In order to use it you need to get close, and that paints a big ol’ target on your boat for the whole unfriend team. The reward is you can do ‘good’ damage (though tbh it’s not even close to the biggest damage in the game).

Sniper is fairly low risk, you can hit people that can’t even see you, let alone shoot you back. And 30+% of the time you’re getting an even bigger reward than if you stuck your neck out with the BC. That’s obviously better. Even if you have to settle for 2/3rds BC damage the rest of the time, you’re not risking life and limb to get it, so why worry.

If there were some inherent risk to running a sniper, like being weak against speeders at close range, then it might even out, but there really isn’t. Sniper is one of the best weapons against speeders because the fast projectile makes it easy to hit with, and you have a very good chance of doing 250% damage, against a ship that’s primary weakness is in hp.

 

Sniper definitely needs a Nerf.
If not BC definitely needs a buff.

 

Well not damage buff but projectile speed and range buff maybe. Not much but maybe a bit anyway.

Now bc users must go close but before getting there, you're (freezed - most of the cases but still bad situation with out it - and) sniped to death with 2-4 snipers (assuming at least 2 crits) and if not death, the game is already over for you as you can't get close there with your low health left.

For what @yellowocean said about using covers to sneak in won't help always as there is maps with large open areas which can't be dodged easily (like subzero - or how ever it is written) but yes, using covers if effective way but I still say having 45-50% critical chance gives you quite good advantage over other cannons as those deals still less than sniper's critical hit.

One thing more to add is that as said few times already, sniper is long range weapon so it has advantage there over other cannons so I don't see a point to have, let's say 600 damage sniper, with 50% critical which is x2,5 the normal makes it 1500 per critical which is already over the damage of blast cannon's normal hits, or around the same with maxed out bc with damage bonuses. Anyway sniper can hit almost over map in most of the maps so isn't it really powerful already with those hits of 540-660 (variation). I could understand x1,5 crits with that high critical hit chance but still it would be quite strong when comparing to other cannons.

As a summary, I'd say sniper helps you staying away from dogfight and still allowing you damaging those in there so it does not need to be the killer gun.

Btw this whole post was not only for @Aussies83 Only a small part (the first part) was meant to answer for his line

 

Tier 5 epic sniper crit chance is at 47.5%, can deal from 900 to 2100 damage, mean while blast cannon max perks only at 1600. It is almost the same damage. But do you know why sniper are more prefer than sniper? Because sniper have higher chance to hit than blast cannon, if your team got scouted, the whole team properly lost over 10k health total. Mean while blast cannon can't do any with that far. Sniper can camp and can hit 20 times in a game, blast cannon have to risk and only get 10 shots, not even hit all 10 of them.

 

Consider a team of fire blast cannon enforcer vs a team of sniper shooter, who will win?
Yep, enforcers died before they reach half of the map.

 

The biggest complaint I have about the sniper cannon other than I only have 1 rare is there is such a high critical chance. I would like to see the critical chance drop significantly at closer ranges. From the gun mechanic the longer range shot takes the skill of a sniper with precision and surprise so it can keep the critical chance. The closer you get to a target the sniper cannon should have a smaller chance at critical like the rail gun does less damage at close range. This would make the sniper like a standard cannon st close range but a powerful cannnon at long range rather than just a powerful cannon at all ranges

 

Agree! if this game wanted to do realistic like they add gravity on bullets. Then why sniper is so strong at close range? Real life sniper use knife at close range, not use sniper gun at close range.