Why Does Warframe Even Bother With Sniper Weapons?

[Pendragon1951]

I have always wondered since I began playing Warframe a year ago why we have Sniper weapons? I can vaguely see some use if your going solo and trying to be stealthy, a true mechanic that is severely lacking, but the way this game is played in most situations is very face paced with the object being to kill a inordinate amount of bodies as quick and as numerous as possible. How does this weapon, bows aside since they seem to have a higher fire rate than sniper rifles, benefit a team on defense, mobile defense, survival? The character of this game just does not cater to this type of weapon, which seems a shame because a sniper rifle can be fun. I know they are thinking of buffing snipers but damage is not the issue, it is just outclassed by any other weapon in how many enemies it can kill at a time. Even the bow can kill more enemies at a time if it's loaded with Thunderbolt. Now so we don't get off track I don't believe the sniper weapon in this game is viable because of the character of how this game is played on the three types of missions I mentioned above. 

[--FORMA--]

We'll talk after the Sniper Buff.

[Tengu-musume]

Agreed. Snipers feel like midrange rifles with scopes.

There are maps that are big enough for snipers to be useful, but most actual combat occurs too close for sniping.

If only DE would transform the game from bumrushing enemies, mass-murder grindfest to smart AI, tactics requiring kind of game.

[RoboDoge]

Because some people like snipers.

 

 

But if you ask me, they are worst weapons in games. No weapon in any game is realistic, but snipers are worst conversions ever.

Edited July 13, 2014 by RoboDoge

[Latronico]

Is this a good answer? Select both Critical damage and Multishot and look ad the damages against Grineer. 

http://warframe-builder.com/Primary_Weapons/Builder/Snipetron_vandal/t_30_20322002_131-1-5-132-3-5-133-2-5-137-0-10-140-4-5-146-5-5-153-6-3-159-7-5_137-7-131-9-133-6-132-8-140-5-146-9-153-9-159-5/en/2-0-22

 

Imagine these two shots against an Heavy Grineer without armor (thanks to Corrosive auto-rifles, mods and so on).

 

 

Sniper rifle sucks a bit because there aren't good big maps where people are allowed to snipe seriously and because there are some weapons that however deal more damage.

BUT, DE said sniper rifles will be buffed soon so... 

 

EDIT: I forgot. Headshot damage 4x... 

Edited July 13, 2014 by Latronico

[DaftMeat]

IMO they should all have both innate punch through and be silent, for starters.

[Pendragon1951]

Ok some of you guys are missing the point, I'm not talking about a damage comparison, I'm talking about the viability of even having sniper weapons in the game because of the type of game Warframe is, damage is not the issue being a viable team weapon is the issue.

[Vyrn]

The purpose is to have a single shot, high powered, high accuracy weapon. You can pick off priority targets, such as Heavy Grineer or Eximus before they can threaten your team. You can also clear out swathes of enemies in a line if you have some Punch Through.

That at least is the intent, and, long ago, they excelled at this (back when Snipetron was the only one).

Nowadays, due to power creep and general weapon buffs, they've been buried in the dust by most players, except those who like them regardless and those who know how to make them really bare their teeth.

For everyone else, wait for their coming buff. People raised these same complaints about bows, and now look at their current status and praise.

[Rekkou]

I don't see a problem then, there is no hip fire or unscoped penalty. You can use sniper it at any range in warframe.

[Churpy]

The problem with sniper rifles is that, yes, you can hit an enemy for more damage than a lot of weapons..but that's ONE enemy. Usually you have at least 10, and sometimes closer to 30 or 40, bearing down on your position. Even the bows at least have innate punch-through/can damage more than one enemy.

The only sniper I have, and have used, is the Snipetron Vandal. I have tried very hard to make this weapon viable for any kind of content, but it falls down very fast because of how far away you have to be, and the fact that your kill rate is extremely slow.

 

Why have 6 bullets with a slow fire rate when you can have 100 Soma bullets with half the damage but 20x the fire rate and improved reload?

 

DE say that snipers will be buffed, but I honestly don't see a viable solution.

 

The best things I can come up with are:

 

-MORE damage (wouldn't really fix the problem)

-Variable zoom on the scope (No idea how you would control this BUT it might improve the maneuverability of the weapon)

-Innate punch-through (This would probably help a lot)

-Faster fire rate/reload speeds, or improved clip sizes (Just generally a bad idea but I seriously can't think of anything else)

 

If DE were to implement one or all of the above, snipers may still be unfavorable to use in most situations. You are right OP, they don't really work well in Warframe.

Edited July 13, 2014 by Churpy

[Evers]

Only Problem i have with snipers is the change to First Person View when zooming (well and that they are a bit weak but scott already said he will look into them). I liked them when they were using the same zoom function as any other rifle (just with a bigger zoom). But that change to First Person always throws me out of the Gameflow. I whish they would implement atleast an option where we can choose what we want. But until that happened im not going to touch any sniperrifle.

[HellEnforcer]

You can all talk for yourselves.

My main weapon is a sniper. Head, shoot, dead.

I prefer to take my time on it than just spraying all over the place and then complaining on the forums when someone says that ammo is extremely abundant.

I do agree that snipers are far worse performing than other weapons in several situations, but they are far from being useless.

I also think they should have innate punch-through... how come bows have it and a sniper doesn't? I have a harder time imagining an arrow penetrating several enemies and walls but a bullet doesn't...

[Neguro]

Since the Sniper Buff has been announced, this kind of topic is increased in numbers, I don't understand the logic.

Aren't you supposed to complain before the solution has been announced?

[Quizel]

I like snipers... I aim for weak points and take down heavy units. Have fun spraying your auto's and blasting ur nub cannons :D

Edited July 13, 2014 by Quizel

[Tarille]

Well...

 

Snipers could be useful even in a game which has large numbers of enemies such as this one:

 

- Their high damage and accuracy makes them ideal for taking out the big units with lots of health/armour such as Corpus Techs, Grineer Heavies, Ancients and Eximus units (Currently, Bows are more consistent at this because of 100% crit rate while the Sniper Rifles only have 50-60% crit rate which makes them unreliable)

 

- With enough Punch Through they can decimate lines of enemies with their high impact shots (Currently the only sniper that does that innately is Lanka. Every other Sniper Rifle requires the same mods that can be put onto auto and semi auto rifles)

 

Both of these combined can in theory make Sniper Rifles viable, though not quite god tier able to clear rooms in <5 seconds levels, but usable even in Survival, Defence and Intercept missions.

 

High damage output would make regular mooks killable in a single body shot, while headshots would take out even high level heavies in a single round. Punch Through would then allow multi-kills with each bullet, allowing the large numbers of enemies faced to be dealt with.

 

Unfortunately, the current situation of rifles means that while they do boast impressive base damage, they can't quite match Bows because of inconsistency in their damage output (Because of lackluster crit rates while still relying on crits to do the big numbers) and again they can't match Bows in the killing of multiple enemies because unlike Bows they don't all have innate punch through nor do they have the pseudo infinite punch through from the ragdoll effect that the arrows give.

 

Once the rebalancing of Snipers comes around, the Rifles will hopefully perform better and will be a viable alternative to using a Bow - Even on high enemy density missions.

Edited July 13, 2014 by Tarille

[Ionus]

I've seen this asked before:

"Hey guys what is the highest dps build for vectis"

[CY13ERPUNK]

the biggest problem IMHO is that enemy dont engage at sniper ranges

 

thus the primary benefit of a long range rifle is pointless in a game where the enemies rarely engage with any lethality at more than mid-range combat

[Pendragon1951]

and once again we fall back to damage, this post is not about DAMAGE, damage is not the issue of sniper rifles, the non-viability in the three missions I mentioned above as a benefit to the team because of it's low kill ratio. If taking out some sort of leader did something tactically or have some strategic impact then yes it would benefit a team, but losing a leader does not prevent the mob of enemies coming at you any slower or disrupt their attack, they just keep coming.  So it is still not useful in that kind of venue.

[achromos]

the biggest problem IMHO is that enemy dont engage at sniper ranges

 

thus the primary benefit of a long range rifle is pointless in a game where the enemies rarely engage with any lethality at more than mid-range combat

 

True, though that does not mean that snipers are 'useless'.  Though they are inferior to bows imo, however both are meant to be 'headshotting' weapons. At the least taking a Tenno with good aim and giving him either weapon he will do well at any range.  However... one could just simply equip a Ogris, or Boltor Prime and have kinda the same deal... Well, maybe less potential(?) damage per target with the Boltor Prime because your headshots aren't doing as much damage more likely than not, however unless you are a very VERY quick aim with the sniper rifle you would do better sticking to Bows outside of Solo-Stealth missions.

 

Why Bows > Snipers?  No Scope Vision, no getting locked into a slightly/kinda zoomed in sight and getting side-swiped due to a moments lack of awareness. (also it has been a while as I haven't played in a long time, don't Sniper rifles lack the innate punchthrough 'most' bows have on a fully charged shot?)

Edited July 13, 2014 by Sibarian

[TwiceDead]

Agreed. Snipers feel like midrange rifles with scopes.

There are maps that are big enough for snipers to be useful, but most actual combat occurs too close for sniping.

If only DE would transform the game from bumrushing enemies, mass-murder grindfest to smart AI, tactics requiring kind of game.

Too close for sniping?

Pfff. Nothing is too close for a single well placed head-shot with an insanely powerful rifle... Warframe is just lacking that insanely powerful rifle atm. 

[Latronico]

Ok some of you guys are missing the point, I'm not talking about a damage comparison, I'm talking about the viability of even having sniper weapons in the game because of the type of game Warframe is, damage is not the issue being a viable team weapon is the issue.

 

The answer to your question is in the post below. The need to have a weapon (and so a player) capable of deal a LOT of damage to ONE enemy to take him down. It can be a boss, an heavy unit and so on. 

This is the definition and the purpose of a 'sniper' in this game.

 

And this is not useless. Because having a player capable of taking down a boss with a single shot is a great thing. For example it allow other player to take care of other enemy units instead of fighting the boss. The problem is not about the need for snipers or not, but about what they can really do. Not so much today, but however they're not totally useless. 

[wtrmlnjuc]

I'm awaiting their buff, but during Damage 1.0 they were pretty much hitscan bows. Think of it like a super accurate shotgun.

On another note, I missed the time when sniper rifles didn't have q scope and it worked like the rest of the weapons with an over the shoulder zoom.

[Cpt_Atroxium]

Variety, playstyles.. Remember, they have more then one mouth to feed. 

[Basilisk1991]

Frankly I think the Grinlok hits a nice balance between being a sniping weapon and useful for close -quarters combat (Since it's a semi-auto with little to no recoil), same goes for the Latron and it's prime variant to a lesser extent. Frankly the biggest disadvantages to sniper rifles is not only the severely limited FoV while scoped, but the fact that a lot of the maps tend to consist of hallways and mid-sized rooms, and that the enemy AI's reaction to taking fire is either:

 

A) Run straight at you foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.

B) Scatter all over the place whilst shooting at you

 

If you're playing solo with Loki (or ash to a lesser extent) sniper rifles become much better since enemies tend to scramble for the closest cover if you start taking potshots whilst cloaked which alleviates these two issues quite a bit (Except fro melee enemies and infested obviously)

 

If I had some ability to toggle the amount of zoom I think they'd be far more useful than they are currently.

Edited July 13, 2014 by Basilisk1991

[Pendragon1951]

ok lets try it this way, i'll give an example, but before I do let me clarify something, I'm not saying Sniper guns are useless, I'm saying they are not a viable weapon in the three missions I'm talking about which were once again, defense, mobile defense and survival, I am not talking about boss kills. Now to the example, lets use the map of Venera, i'm sure your all familiar with it. Now for the moment lets put your sniper guy on where the ramp is and lets send 20 Grineer of all types at him, no napalm, using a loki no powers, then we will use the same guy using a boltor prime same amount no powers, who gets killed or overwhelmed first? My point is for a sniper guy to be viable he has to be able to kill more than one enemy at a time to benefit the team in the above missions.