This is why Sniper is Broken

at my level (low infamy, warrior, don't ask how I dropped there) are snipers unbalanced, they crit for 800+ damage or even 1000+ but normal BC or EC (almost noone uses EC at my infamy) do around 500 damage or maximaly 600, is there still the point of "sniper's crits do same damage as BC or EC normal hits"?

 

Well let’s test that.

Do you deny that Sniper is able to exercise huge area control, and deny access to open spaces?

Do you deny that Sniper is the most effective and reliable way to damage ships in the first few moments of battle (first ship sighted)?

Miika has even said (more or less) that Sniper is amoung the top 3 most damaging weapons. Only slightly behind EC and Blast, which are typically run as part of combo that required 2-3 slots, and 2 (much harder) shots to set up. To me, that sounds like Sniper is likely therefore the most powerful single slot option in the game, by quite a margin.

It’s one of the most overused weapons in the game (if not the most overused). It’s hardly surprising really that it would have plenty of proponents. But can you really expect people to be objective about thier own gear? I know that I would struggle to be completely objective about another EC nerf.

 

Some more thoughts:
I'm pretty confident that the 'easy aiming' of SC is a necessity.
Why? Because you cannot just expand the range of a standard cannon and keep the speed of the projectiles. This would make it very hard to hit with such a weapon on the increased range. The game designers did also give the SC a long reload time and therefore, if you want the weapon to be usable, you must make sure that it hits relatively often - otherwise the weapon wouldn't make much sense.
On the other hand, I also agree that SC is annoying for 'scout ships', especially when the first shots with the SC crit. This is even more of a problem since the crit chance and damage of the SC can be increased to a very high level with perks. For me (and I use a SC) it would be ok if they reduce the crit damage and chance with the perks and instead increase the base damage or add some utility (shortly slowing down ships? Shortly stunning ships? etc.).
I don't think that SC is a powerful weapon in near combat.

 

Fair and well constructed reply, gg mate.

 

Well, all I can say about sniper is that it is perfectly balanced in Nightmare league, as my 1700 crit doesn't seem to effect that much with shooters having 10-12k hp and also speeders here have a decent 7k to 8k hp. And I need not tell about defenders, they literally charge at you and sniper is no good against them, and also the rise of Enforcers has made the sniper less useful ( not completely useless) in Nightmare. The fixers are the one that are affected the most with the sniper crits imo.

Most of the players complaining that sniper is OP is from Ace and below leagues, and I get it. Most of the players there has around 5-6k hp for a shooter and even less for fixers and speeders. I don't know ow how they're going to fix this s***, but I hope in the next update it would be solved.

The reason why i say this is because, I don't see any nightmare players complaining in the sniper Nerf thread ( well, maybe few ), but the complaining is from lower leagues. So, corretive measures has to be taken in those leagues , not Nightmare

 

Nightmare here for almost 10 seasons, and nerf is needed. And there aren’t that many daily active NM members in here, at least i don’t know that many.
(most) Snipers in NM crit for 2000+ (the standard epic t5 one). That plus the full training (speed, range, crit talents) and epic perks makes the normal shot do 700 and crits 2000-2500. That is roughly 1/3 of my 6414 hp (that’s maybe a little below average for 4000-4500 shooter). That’s 1/6 of the übershooter’s hp, that there are only few and usually above 5k.

Defenders usually have 15-20k hp, so that sniper crit takes 1/7 to 1/10 of their hp. Only other weapons capable of doing that damage are mine and big torpedo, both of which are ridiculously easy to dodge and need a lot of skill to use, unlike sniper.

So yes, it is a problem in NM as well

 

Well, I believe ur one of the few nightmare players who feels it needs Nerf.. lol

 

I'll speak up then, one more for your list.

 

I said the same thing at the first 2-3 pages of this thread and no one even payed it attention, no sniper user will ever want his item to be nerfed , ExC is my only t5 epic item as F2P it is really hard to get one but i don't mind if devs have to nerf it if it is OP ,

And believe me devs know that SC is OP

The main problem is in that devs nerf an item if it is overused by to many players , ok now it is a good idea , but that is why there are always some OP items because if devs don't nerf an oP item because it is used by a very small amount of players then when a normal or OP item bet nerfed for being used too much by players then players will start to switch to another powerful item and that is that item that it was OP but underused ,and with the rise of that OP item ,devs will buff other items that they might be OP item but underused and when devs nerf the new overused item the same thing will happen again and again ....

 

That could certainly be true. It wouldn’t be the first time a company has deliberately cycled the meta to make people spend more. I just wish we could cycle away from Sniper already.

How about making Carronade OP instead? I could have some good battles against an OP Carronade user, and I might actually get to do some of that ‘fun’ stuff, like shooting back, dodging, and running away, before I lose...

 

At my current infamy (around 3500), oh, I definitelly do. Plus I don't remember having problems with it from 0 to 3500 on my main account or from 0 to 1000 on my mini account, it just allow me to keep distance from the mk5-6 I faced with my mk2 but things could be different from 1000 to 2500 nowadays, I don't know

Pretty sure you are misquoting him except if that wasn't what you are refering to

 

Perhaps I was mistaken. I thought when he said EC was first, he meant first overall, but perhaps he just meant first of the three (though I’d be quite surprised if those three aren’t the top scorers).

 

I don't know, some big torp users got its achievments from it before any cannon... I guess only the Devs can know for sure

 

Make Carronade OP definitely Agree with you

But if a speeder is using carronade against you it will be so hard that you win (for example me : i use a Carronade and double fast reload nitro

 

Well iam at 3.9k-4k infamy ,my mini is at 1.3k infamy and it is OP and always was

 

Which indicates that its supposed overpowerness is probably related with playstyle or point of view

 

Maybe , but if speeder and enforcer (who are made to use items that its pros isnt speed and range ) use SC away more than expected. Does this mean anything to you?

 

I guess the only way to dodge snipers would be to have cover or to nitro with good timing on yellow ships.

 

You sound like a lawyer
Good points though, sniper is way easier to use than any other weapon.