Snipers need a buff

[apostrophe]

I really feel they are left behind with Expedition.

Psycho-temporal Contraction does not give them another shot, they didn't receive OP belt like Bolt Quiver, specialization points don't really give them a meaningful damage boost they already one-shot everything, they don't really benefit from Versatility specialization and higher stats like light weapons, etc.

Compared to a crossbow that can now also one-shot anything on dominating with elemental bolts but can fire 6-7 times instead of 2, energy/chem pistols that can now drop agility and even perception to 3, 19DEX SMG builds, dual AR builds with 9mm/Muzzle/AA Chimera for commando procs etc. they are just shit.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Pure sniper is just meh, like you said it hits a practical ceiling quite easily. Buffing it would quickly make it retarded. Mix with other guns.

 

[apostrophe]

But nothing really benefits from having it as the second option. SMG, pistols and melee cant invest into perception for feats, a crossbow is just a better version of a sniper rifle and for assault rifles you really want to have 2 of them. That just leaves shotguns and even then it's counterproductive.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

You get three spearhead shots if you spec the feat that buffs contraction.
Sniper rifles are really good. They can take smart modules and they have AP ammo so they can one shot pretty much everything. Crossbows are cool but the damage is much worse and they really struggle against heavy armour. No need for buffs, they're good already.

 

[Tigranes]

Wait, crossbows multiple times better than snipers? Did somebody scramble the entire game code while I wasn't looking

 

[apostrophe]

Elemental damage on special bolts can crit. Crossbow crits always, can stack higher crit multiplier (x7), fire up to 7 times per round depending on buffs, and definitely have no problems one-shotting every non-boss enemy on dominating difficulty. Sniper needs snake people cocaine to fire 4 times for 2 rounds and then be useless next 10. Not to mention that Shock Bolts have AoE damage and stun, pirates can sell you Corrosive bolts before DC, you are not completely fucked when your special attack misses. Crossbow is also silent and has no STR requirement.

Shitty Shock bolts I and Acid bolts do ~250 electrical/acid damage on average and with good rolls can go up to 500 damage, Shock Bolts II do 400 average electrical damage and 200 AoE damage, and those bolts you can have before Depot A. Shock bolts III and Corrosive bolts do 1k electrical/corrosive damage per shot. Add on that ~1.4k mechanical damage. Snipers are just shit compared to crossbows in every possible way. There is literally nothing they do better or even close.

 

[the mole]

You combine contraction with adrenaline, are assault rifles left behind because they don't get an extra burst from contraction, obviously not because you combine it with adrenaline for 90 action points

 

[apostrophe]

There are multiple AR choices that can burst 2 times per round with contraction and proc commando for something like 9mm AA/Muzzle Chimera, and even going full tin-can from head to toe you can have ~75% crit. And AR benefits a lot from damage increase specialization points since its bullets do great damage and it fires a shitload of them per round. AR is awesome.

 

[Tygrende]

I really feel they are left behind with Expedition.

You must be kidding. Snipers are one of the most buffed builds in Expedition and they didn't even need it, they were good to begin with. Namely:

1. Shooting Spree is literally game changing. Since Aimed Shot will result in a kill almost everytime if it hits, it effectively means you can use it every 2nd turn instead of every 3rd. Possibly 2 turns in a row if you use Limited Temporal Increment and/or score a kill with regular shots. You can kill stuff so fast now it's funny.

2. Strafe is an another awesome feat which is most useful for snipers, it completly removes move penalty from Spearheads, which means you are no longer bound to shoot from the place you ended your last turn on. Which usually translates into ending your turn behind cover to break LoS and prevent enemies from shooting at you.

3. Temporal Manipulation has great utility for snipers. Aforementioned LTI means you use your bread&butter ability much more often. Dilation is great for keeping enemies away, so is Stasis if used offensively. While contraction doesn't give enough AP fro another shot on its own, it does when combined with adrenaline/Blitz AND it gives a ton of MPs for kitting. Entropic recurrence is great to finish off very high health enemies, if they somehow survived an Aimed Shot/Snipe, they definitely won't take another one over a few turns.

4. A number of new sources of crit chance. Crit chance is one of the best things to stack for snipers after crit/special damage. When you have enough damage to 1-shot everything with your special abilities, the next best thing is increasing the chance of 1-shots on regular attacks too (especially with Shooting Spree). Snipers qualify for Scrutinous pretty much by default, unlike some other builds that may want that 7% crit chance but would have to go out of their way to get 11 PER. Hardcore chips give another 5%. 3% against some enemies with Body Horror.

Psycho-temporal Contraction does not give them another shot

It does when used with adrenaline/Blitz. Or you can use Vitality Powder instead, it gives 25 AP instead of 20.

they didn't receive OP belt like Bolt Quiver

Yeah, they just got 2 OP feats instead. That's a bargain if you ask me.

specialization points don't really give them a meaningful damage boost they already one-shot everything,

That depends entirely on difficulty and damage boosts from specializations can free up other items to get different benefits instead. If you invest into Critical Power and Snipe specs for their damage, you can swap now redundant smart goggles for seekers for antoher 10-15% crit chance. Or more detection.

they don't really benefit from Versatility specialization and higher stats like light weapons, etc.

Versality is a really niche feat, few builds get a real solid benefit from it. That said, I could imagine a sniper taking it for Dirty Kick, for example. As for AP reduction on light weapons but not sniper rifles, don't really see how that's relevant.

Compared to a crossbow that can now also one-shot anything on dominating with elemental bolts but can fire 6-7 times instead of 2

Crossbows can't 1-shot everything on DOMINATING, not even close. Nagas, other very high mech DR/DT enemies and bosses with 2000-2500 HP come to mind. The room with 4 Nagas on DOMINATING for example is literal hell for crossbowskis, smooth sailing for snipers. Snipers are pretty much the only build that can 1-shot everything on DOMINATING, and even they have to actually put effort into it.

they are just shit.

I should record clearing RAF at DOMINATING with my sniper without losing a single point of health sometime. For now, have this gimmicky but fun webm of killing Tchort completly naked and without even entering combat:
https://webm.red/QprE.webm

 

[apostrophe]

1) It's really easy in expedition to reach 100% crit chance, and other weapon have easier time getting there.
2) 5 AGI, a crossbow can just take Marksman spec. Other weapons don't care.
3) Temporal just does more for other builds.
4) Again 100% crit is more meaningful to other builds because it pushed them into the same one-shot one-kill zone as sniper rifles, and snipers need to make some sacrifices to get there.

Blitz had 10 agility requirements. Snake people cocaine is not exclusive to sniper rifles. Both of these have long CD and/or bad side effects and have no meaningful benefits against 20+ savages/spiders/burrowers etc.

Light weapons (or energy pistols in this example for "sniper" playstyle) can now safely drop AGI and PER, have no STR requirement, and with more levels and stat points with versatility specialization have the same or higher weapon skill, but with lower AP cost, higher damage from intelligence and 90-100% crit chance always. That is why versatility spec, higher stats and temporal have pushed light weapons ahead.

Crossbows cant one-shot Tchort. They need 3-4 corrosive bolts. Big Fucking Deal. The one-shot Burrower Warriors, Azurdae Goliathus, Tchortling Devourers, Industrial Bots, etc. I finished Naga's room on dominating before level 25, can't really remember, with shock bolts II without any problems and will all my turret buddies surviving. Enemies mechanical resistance does not mean much when your primary damage source is electrical and acid. Who would have easier time killing Magnar and his 20+ buddies?

I should record clearing RAF at DOMINATING with my sniper without losing a single point of health sometime.

You do realize just how easy is that when you can kill 7+ robots per round? It is not really even worth mentioning, let alone bragging.

It just comes down to that - crossbows and energy pistols can kill significantly more enemies per round than snipers in any situation. Even if there is something ultra-tanky like Tchort that you have to shoot 3-4 times you still kill more stuff per round. Also i seriously doubt that naked kill was on dominating.

 

[Tygrende]

It's really easy in expedition to reach 100% crit chance

No, it's actually quite hard to reach 100% crit chance without either Ambush (highly situational, even if you use molotovs to trigger it, still a good pick for many builds including snipers though) or Survival Instincts (I don't consider running around with <30% HP to be a good choice).

other weapon have easier time getting there

Walk me through the math then, because I fail to see how crossbows or energy pistols (which you compare sniper rifles) have an easier time with stacking crit chance. My sniper builds end up with at least 59% crit chance by the end of the game: 10% base crit chance, 7% recklessness, 7% scrutinous, at least 15% from seeker goggles, 15% focus stim , 5% hardcore chips. Energy pistols will have a hard time getting scrutinous if they dump PER as you suggest, crossbows will have a hard time justifying the use of seekers instead of smart goggles since they can't compensate for lost damage with specs as much as sniper rifles can. If I really wanted to go for max crit chance at the cost of gimping myself in other areas, I would also go for the 10% from digital scope and most likely another 10% from infused rathound leather armor, for a total of at least 79%. Sniper rifles will again have an easier time justifying the use of a digital scope compared to crossbows because they get the scope slot for free and can use smart modules, energy pistols can't use scopes whatsoever. Plasma pistols get 15% crit chance from Steadfast Aim though, which is nice.

5 AGI, a crossbow can just take Marksman spec.

5 AGI is not a high requirement and it give access to sprint, which is argueably one of the most useful feats in the game in general. Marksman spec doesn't interact with move penalty at all, it merely gives up to 5% bonus hit chance. You will still suffer from 10-15% move penalty if you don't pick Strafe.

Again 100% crit is more meaningful to other builds because it pushed them into the same one-shot one-kill zone as sniper rifles, and snipers need to make some sacrifices to get there.

No build gets to 100% crit chance without making serious sacrifices and/or it being situational. No build gets into the "reliable and frequent 1-shots" zone snipers are in. Snipers can settle for relatively high crit chance with no sacrifices at all.

Blitz had 10 agility requirements

Yes, it can be worth it. I don't really use Blitz myself on snipers though, I find it overrated.

Snake people cocaine is not exclusive to sniper rifles.

And that's relevant because? What matters is that it pushes snipers into the exact sweet spot when they can shoot 3 times instead of 2.

Both of these have long CD and/or bad side effects and have no meaningful benefits against 20+ savages/spiders/burrowers

There's no AP buff that doesn't have a long cooldown and relatively short duration.

Light weapons (or energy pistols in this example for "sniper" playstyle) can now safely drop AGI and PER, have no STR requirement

So let me get this straight - you are dumping PER and STR on energy pistols, which means you are losing 22% crit chance by not taking Scrutinous and Steadfast Aim, but energy pistols have an easier time getting to 100% crit chance than sniper rifles do?

and with more levels and stat points with versatility specialization have the same or higher weapon skill

Yeah, no. You are not getting the same or higher guns skill of a build with 15-16 PER by using Versality. At level 30 with 16 PER, the effective guns skill is 323. At level 30 with 16 DEX and Versality with maxed spec (which is 10 out of your 15 points), you will have 258. That's 326% base damage vs. 281% and I dunno how much lost precision, but definitely not negligible. Even with 20 DEX you would be at 302 guns vs. 377 with 20 PER.

but with lower AP cost, higher damage from intelligence and 90-100% crit chance always

You are not getting lower AP cost with plasma pistols, you can with laser but then you are not getting anywhere near to 1-shoting everything. You are losing damage by going with Versality, then getting it back by picking High-Technicalities and pumping point into INT, in the end you are losing 2 feats, 10 spec points, who knows how many ability points into INT and not even getting your precision back. 90-100% crit chance always is a bold claim, let's see the math. I sure hope it doesn't involve being at less than 30% HP at all times.

Crossbows cant one-shot Tchort. They need 3-4 corrosive bolts. Big Fucking Deal.

I saw it done in 6, barely. I would love to see you do it in 3.

The one-shot Burrower Warriors, Azurdae Goliathus, Tchortling Devourers, Industrial Bots, etc.

I have a hard time believing you are reliably 1-shoting industrial bots with crossbows. I also have a hard time believing you are 1-shoting anything on that list before being at least level 20+, snipers on the other hand 1-shot everything they can see much, much sooner.

Enemies mechanical resistance does not mean much when your primary damage source is electrical and acid. Who would have easier time killing Magnar and his 20+ buddies?

But huge HP bars do matter. I'd say crossbows would have an easier time with Magnar since they excel at crowd control and dealing with squishies and the limited space puts snipers at a disadvantage. But they can still win that fight, no problem.

You do realize just how easy is that when you can kill 7+ robots per round? It is not really even worth mentioning, let alone bragging.

I think pure psi builds would really struggle to do that and they're considered to be among if not the most powerful builds overall. I can believe crossbows can do it with shock bolts. Just goes to show different builds excel at different fights.

Also i seriously doubt that naked kill was on dominating.

O ye, of little faith. Here, a version for cynics with the 3000 HP Tchort has on DOMINATING shown:
https://webm.red/ta9b.webm
Also, just to compare with gear on:

 

[apostrophe]

No, it's actually quite hard to reach 100% crit chance without either Ambush (highly situational, even if you use molotovs to trigger it, still a good pick for many builds including snipers though) or Survival Instincts (I don't consider running around with <30% HP to be a good choice).

%HP does not matter, HP does. And it's really not a big difference between 30% 9 CON and 100% 3 CON, in both cases if you fuck up you die. Not that its hard to not get hit ever with a forcefield, stasis, and LOS. I usually go around with 20HP. And snipers have to make sacrifices for 9 CON because they need STR and AGI.

Walk me through the math then, because I fail to see how crossbows or energy pistols (which you compare sniper rifles) have an easier time with stacking crit chance. My sniper builds end up with at least 59% crit chance by the end of the game: 10% base crit chance, 7% recklessness, 7% scrutinous, at least 15% from seeker goggles, 15% focus stim , 5% hardcore chips. Energy pistols will have a hard time getting scrutinous if they dump PER as you suggest, crossbows will have a hard time justifying the use of seekers instead of smart goggles since they can't compensate for lost damage with specs as much as sniper rifles can. If I really wanted to go for max crit chance at the cost of gimping myself in other areas, I would also go for the 10% from digital scope and most likely another 10% from infused rathound leather armor, for a total of at least 79%. Sniper rifles will again have an easier time justifying the use of a digital scope compared to crossbows because they get the scope slot for free and can use smart modules, energy pistols can't use scopes whatsoever. Plasma pistols get 15% crit chance from Steadfast Aim though, which is nice.

30% (SI) + 20% (Focus and chips) + 8% (BASE) + 10% (Rathound) + 20% (Goggles) + 7% (Recklessness) = 95%
Over 100% with Scroutinus. And you can put points into SI spec. Elemental CB does not lose any damage going seekers because they don't use any special attacks. The same goes for Energy pistols. Steadfast aim is shit, it works of your AP cost after DEX.

5 AGI is not a high requirement and it give access to sprint, which is argueably one of the most useful feats in the game in general. Marksman spec doesn't interact with move penalty at all, it merely gives up to 5% bonus hit chance. You will still suffer from 10-15% move penalty if you don't pick Strafe.

2 points (3 for sprint) that can be spent better, Sprint is redundant with Temporal Contraction (and stasis&forcefield, you really don't even have to move much with builds that can kill a lot of stuff per round). Marksman gives you +5% flat additive hit chance. Cyclone has -10% flat hit chance after moving. It is enough.

No build gets to 100% crit chance without making serious sacrifices and/or it being situational. No build gets into the "reliable and frequent 1-shots" zone snipers are in. Snipers can settle for relatively high crit chance with no sacrifices at all.

Still at the mercy of RNG gods. Not only for crit but missing just one 95% attack is huge for snipers. Reliant on CD and special attacks. Other weapons one-shot 99.9% enemies in the game. Other weapons do reach 100% crit with no sacrifices, sniper cant. That why it's bad.

And that's relevant because? What matters is that it pushes snipers into the exact sweet spot when they can shoot 3 times instead of 2.

It is relevant because, like most things, it just gives other builds more. Snipers can fire one more time with snake cocaine. Crossbows can fire 2 times.

So let me get this straight - you are dumping PER and STR on energy pistols, which means you are losing 22% crit chance by not taking Scrutinous and Steadfast Aim, but energy pistols have an easier time getting to 100% crit chance than sniper rifles do?

Yeah, no. You are not getting the same or higher guns skill of a build with 15-16 PER by using Versality. At level 30 with 16 PER, the effective guns skill is 323. At level 30 with 16 DEX and Versality with maxed spec (which is 10 out of your 15 points), you will have 258. That's 326% base damage vs. 281% and I dunno how much lost precision, but definitely not negligible. Even with 20 DEX you would be at 302 guns vs. 377 with 20 PER.

You are not getting lower AP cost with plasma pistols, you can with laser but then you are not getting anywhere near to 1-shoting everything. You are losing damage by going with Versality, then getting it back by picking High-Technicalities and pumping point into INT, in the end you are losing 2 feats, 10 spec points, who knows how many ability points into INT and not even getting your precision back. 90-100% crit chance always is a bold claim, let's see the math. I sure hope it doesn't involve being at less than 30% HP at all times.

You are missing the point. No-one did builts with 16 PER for light weapons, you went for 7-8 for weapon skill because you had to. Now with +2 stat points and Versatility specialization, you can dump those points and still have the same effective weapon skill, effectively losing nothing compared to previous energy pistol build, not compared to 16 PER build no one used. You don't need Sprint so you can dump agility. Which means you can go for 14 DEX,13 INT and 9 CON.

That is 9 shots with Adrenaline and Contraction that do with ~50 damage gun >
50*2.45(weapon skill)*1.64(INT bonus)*6.4(crit multi) = 1285 energy damage per shot, and you really just need 5 feats for that. Also INT bonus stands alone so just taking Blindsiding would push this to 1.5k damage in the first round.

I saw it done in 6, barely. I would love to see you do it in 3.

I am not finishing the game again to prove something. He had no passive bonuses like Blindsiding and no Sharpshooter which is a huge damage loss, probably not maxed Critical Power or had really bad damage rolls. And does it really matter?

I have a hard time believing you are reliably 1-shoting industrial bots with crossbows. I also have a hard time believing you are 1-shoting anything on that list before being at least level 20+, snipers on the other hand 1-shot everything they can see much, much sooner.

100% reliably, no. Shock bolts have a huge damage range. Can snipers kill them without CD? Everything else on the list you can kill with Acid bolts in one shot, again for some things sniper needs snipe or aimed shot.

As for level progression and a power curve that is the main reason I think snipers are shit. As soon as you finish Junkyard with the crossbow and do some shopping you have 7 attacks, ~80% crit chance with 2.4 multiplier with double damage elemental bolts, without ambush. I don't even take Deadly Snares. Snipers have 2 attacks per round and are completely reliant on CD for their damage and need solid frame and smart module. CB can rely on elemental damage and use a shit frame.

But huge HP bars do matter. I'd say crossbows would have an easier time with Magnar since they excel at crowd control and dealing with squishies and the limited space puts snipers at a disadvantage. But they can still win that fight, no problem.

I think pure psi builds would really struggle to do that and they're considered to be among if not the most powerful builds overall. I can believe crossbows can do it with shock bolts. Just goes to show different builds excel at different fights.

Is there a fight where sniper has a significant and meaningful advantage over crossbow/laser pistol?

O ye, of little faith. Here, a version for cynics with the 3000 HP Tchort has on DOMINATING shown:
https://webm.red/ta9b.webm

Good job, I had it in my head that Tchort had much bigger mechanical resistance.