The Snipetron (And Vulkar By Extension) Is Still Pretty Bad

[matrixEXO]

I am sorry if you felt offended but you obviously didn't have experience about modding snipetron for high damage. I had a feeling you were not modding it properly and you confirmed it in one of your posts.

I'll make a bet with you. Come to the t3 void mission with me, you take the braton and I will make more frags then you at the end with snipetron every time. Oh and don't forget to take additional 2 rifle ammo boxes, I'll take one.

Don't forget to make sure it's T3 and post a vid up for us to see.

Edited May 30, 2013 by matrixEXO

[Twistank]

Personally, I find that the Snipetron is a beast against Grineer and Corpus, but much less useful against infested.

It's all about the mods you equip and the headshots. Max out critical chance and damage and you have a serious problem for these two factions.

 

The wiki has an excellent build:

 

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/User:User_Talk/Snipetron_Build_1

 

And yes, the Snipetron will sport a 50% crit chance once you max the mods.

 

Exactly, the main idea is to have 50% crit chance dispersed on multishot which basically guarantees 1 crit for each shot in average. Together with crit damage mod and some more kinks, it become the beast.

[krisp]

Exactly, the main idea is to have 50% crit chance dispersed on multishot which basically guarantees 1 crit for each shot in average. Together with crit damage mod and some more kinks, it become the beast.

 

Just the Fire mod itself is more reliable and costs less per point than crit + crit damage. At least against Ancients. Your damage doesn't come from your mod choice, but from the +75% damage inherent in Serration 10 over my mods.

 

I'd gladly take up your void offer if:

- it didn't tank my FPS

- I'm ever going to have max rank Serration (which just isn't worth getting)

 

Feel free to record yourself, though.

 

 

The goal of these sniper rifles, I said before which you obviously didn't read, is for increased damage over ranges. 

Lato Vandal, Latron, even the Braton when fired selectively can all trump the Snipetron in damage per time. This is what I meant when I said other guns outperform it. This game doesn't have combat at significant ranges. Most of it is in cramped corridors or in medium range.

Edited May 30, 2013 by krisp

[Meltina]

I get that it does a lot of damage. I do. But does it really have to have such awful reload speed?

 

Four bullets plus awful reload means you'll spend most of your time reloading and god help you if you miss a shot. There's another weapon that's like that, except the Hek is a shotgun (therefore +50% magazine size instead of +25%, and overall better mods), it's harder to miss with it (because it's short range) and it reloads much faster.

 

Basically the snipetron forces you into spending 2 mod slots on things that barely make a difference, but that you need anyway because it's so annoying without them.

 

A nice simple fix would be to lower the reload time, so I don't have to jokingly say "brb taking a &!$$" every time I reload.

 

Anyone else feel this way?

 

You do know the snipetron gets armor ignore and the hek doesn't. The snipetron also gets a much superior serration mod. The extra 55% damage is more than the extra 30% damage from multishot. Your using the snipeton wrong without working on serration as by far it is the biggest dps mod you can stick on your gun. Why shoot things with the hek when you can slash dash it and anything farther away the hek doesn't event hurt. The snipetron has nothing like being forced into a range shorter than a slash dash it still does full damage at point blank.

 

I do agree the reload speed of the snipetron is cripplingly bad. It makes the dps drop like a rock and makes fighting large numbers of enemies annoying and those are the most common encounters in warframe.

 

 

Also tower 3 has S#&$ tons of armor on the grineer and corpus snipetron is gonna get a huge advantage. Though I expect it to fall behind the all mighty bronco. Stick a few forma in that and you can one shot the lancers and crewmen in t3. The question is will the diffrence in time to kill for the heavies make up for the diffrents in reload speed while killing the trash.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Meltina

[krisp]

You do know the snipetron gets armor ignore and the hek doesn't. The snipetron also gets a much superior serration mod. The extra 55% damage is more than the extra 30% damage from multishot. Your using the snipeton wrong without working on serration as by far it is the biggest dps mod you can stick on your gun. Why shoot things with the hek when you can slash dash it and anything farther away the hek doesn't event hurt. The snipetron has nothing like being forced into a range shorter than a slash dash it still does full damage at point blank.

 

Like I said, my beef wasn't with damage. Damage is fine. Falling asleep in-between reloads is not.

And technically armor ignore doesn't really matter unless you miss the weak spot.

Edited May 30, 2013 by krisp

[matrixEXO]

Lato Vandal, Latron, even the Braton when fired selectively can all trump the Snipetron in damage per time. This is what I meant when I said other guns outperform it. This game doesn't have combat at significant ranges. Most of it is in cramped corridors or in medium range.

But they can't shoot at 100+ damage per shot unmodded. The point is clear. It's not high damage over time, it's high damage over distance.

 

And you already know the problem. The game's map layout does not sufficiently promote the weapon as viable. So why not have a suggestion in the Map & Level sub-forum about wanting more maps that are long and can promote such weapon to being viable.

Edited May 30, 2013 by matrixEXO

[krisp]

But they can't shoot at 100+ damage per shot unmodded. The point is clear. It's not high damage over time, it's high damage over distance.

 

And you already know the problem. The game's map layout does not sufficiently promote the weapon as viable. So why not have a suggestion in the Map & Level sub-forum about wanting more maps that are long and can promote such weapon to being viable.

 

Why would I care about damage over distance when there's hardly any situation when that's useful? Void maps are mostly short and medium range with almost no wide open areas. High level defense missions always have hordes of little guys and never have extreme ranges except for one particular map where fights still happen in medium and close range due to how mobile the player characters are.

 

Asking to tweak the reload speed seems much more reasonable than demanding to make at least half the maps open and huge, indirectly nerfing shotguns in the process. You change the systems to match the game type, you don't change the game type to match the systems. "Please develop a lot of new tilesets so these 2 guns can be good again" is hardly something anyone will take seriously.

Edited May 30, 2013 by krisp

[Twistank]

krisp, damage comes from the pure math. So you are saying that 11 power for ~2x90% damage increase is cheaper then 18 power for ~1x330% damage increase. I agree it is cheaper and it is obviously inferior and less power efficient. I calc in the ms as 100% but it does not make much difference IMO. Let's assume that serration is at the same level.

 

So for each power point you invest in fire mod for example you get around 16% damage return but on the other hand you get 19% guaranteed damage increase with potential of 40% damage increase per point you invest in crit chance/crit dmg combo.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Twistank

[matrixEXO]

Why would I care about damage over distance when there's hardly any situation when that's useful? Void maps are mostly short and medium range with almost no wide open areas. High level defense missions always have hordes of little guys and never have extreme ranges except for one particular map where fights still happen in medium and close range due to how mobile the player characters are.

 

Asking to tweak the reload speed seems much more reasonable than demanding to make at least half the maps open and huge, indirectly nerfing shotguns in the process. You change the systems to match the game type, you don't change the game type to match the systems. "Please develop a lot of new tilesets so these 2 guns can be good again" is hardly something anyone will take seriously.

WOW! So, because shotguns suck at long ranges and you don't want shotguns to suck at those ranges, you want them to "buff" a gun that is already good in it's own niche? Even when the shotguns are in the niche of their own, being close-medium ranged weapons only?

 

 

Is it me or does that sound childish? Remember why the devs added damage falloff to shotguns?

 

"Please develop a lot of new tilesets so these 2 guns can be good again" is not what I'm really asking for. Even having 1~2 tilesets per area is good enough, with the exception of the Frozen Planet tileset. And Orokin tilesets have a decently long range depending on where you want to aim, long enough to have your Hek's damage scale off so low it's dealing 1 damage per pellet.

Edited May 30, 2013 by matrixEXO

[krisp]

krisp, damage comes from the pure math. So you are saying that 11 power for ~2x90% damage increase is cheaper then 18 power for ~1x375% damage increase. I agree it is cheaper and it is obviously inferior and less power efficient. I calc in the ms as 100% but it does not make much difference IMO. Let's assume that serration is at the same level.

 

So for each power point you invest in fire mod for example you get around 16% damage return but on the other hand you get 20% guaranteed damage increase with potential of 40% damage increase per point you invest in crit chance/crit dmg combo.

 

Do I really have to do this again?

 

Sniper crit with critical damage and no other mods has a base damage of 330. That's 1.5+(120%x1.5)=3.3 damage multiplier. Over a normal hit, that's a 230% damage increase. Over a normal hit, factoring in base critical chance and damage, that's a 220% damage increase. Since crits only happen once every 2 hits (50%), the average damage increase will be 110%.

Both crit mods: 110% damage increase for 18 drain, 2 mod slots.

Hellfire: 90% damage increase for 11 drain.

I don't really care what you invest in, the choice is obvious.

 

But I'm really digressing here. You can probably support all of those mods if you polarize a weapon enough times. I've said in the OP that damage is fine, in fact I really have no problems with damage on any weapons especially since Forma was introduced.

 

 

WOW! So, because shotguns suck at long ranges and you don't want shotguns to suck at those ranges

 

Are you even trying, or are you just throwing random counterpoints you can infer from specific fragments of the text you're reading?

 

I want them to fix the Snipetron's reload speed, which would take the gun away from its crappy niche and give it more usability in more scenarios. I don't want to do that by causing sweeping changes to the level design because that would be a stupid request, and not one that will ever be fulfilled any time soon.

 

Face it: gun accuracy in this game isn't so bad that you can't use other guns in the snipetron's place with just as much success. Hell, I just got back from a corpus defense mission in which I used my Afuris to snipe. And since long-ranged combat doesn't seem to exist unless you really go looking for it, the niche that the sniper covers is too small. I can use my Braton in any situation. I can semi-snipe with the Hek in medium range scenarios. I can snipe with the Lato for which I have better mods, more bullets, more ammo reserve and a way easier time reloading. Don't get me started on the Lex.

[matrixEXO]

Are you even trying, or are you just throwing random counterpoints you can infer from specific fragments of the text you're reading?

 

I want them to fix the Snipetron's reload speed, which would take the gun away from its crappy niche and give it more usability in more scenarios. I don't want to do that by causing sweeping changes to the level design because that would be a stupid request, and not one that will ever be fulfilled any time soon.

 

Face it: gun accuracy in this game isn't so bad that you can't use other guns in the snipetron's place with just as much success. Hell, I just got back from a corpus defense mission in which I used my Afuris to snipe. And since long-ranged combat doesn't seem to exist unless you really go looking for it, the niche that the sniper covers is too small. I can use my Braton in any situation. I can semi-snipe with the Hek in medium range scenarios. I can snipe with the Lato for which I have better mods, more bullets, more ammo reserve and a way easier time reloading. Don't get me started on the Lex.

Says the guy who talked about indirectly nerfing shotguns. Sounds like you got an issue yourself.

 

A gun with a niche is fine as it is. It's like the Grakata being a niche at dishing out high DPS with semi-decent accuracy and a bad damage. If you don't like it, learn to live without it. Nothing's there to please everyone and I most certainly prefer a niche gun to only please a set of people who prefer such a niche. It's not there for everyone to pick up, say it's so nice and strong and what not. It's like how Riot said that Quinn will not receive any defense buffs when there are tons of people asking for it because it is meant to fit into that high-mobility adc niche.

Edited May 30, 2013 by matrixEXO

[Meltina]

WOW! So, because shotguns suck at long ranges and you don't want shotguns to suck at those ranges, you want them to "buff" a gun that is already good in it's own niche? Even when the shotguns are in the niche of their own, being close-medium ranged weapons only?

 

 

Is it me or does that sound childish? Remember why the devs added damage falloff to shotguns?

 

"Please develop a lot of new tilesets so these 2 guns can be good again" is not what I'm really asking for. Even having 1~2 tilesets per area is good enough, with the exception of the Frozen Planet tileset. And Orokin tilesets have a decently long range depending on where you want to aim, long enough to have your Hek's damage scale off so low it's dealing 1 damage per pellet.

Actualy the shotguns sucking at range blows was my point because now shotguns are outclassed by the pistols now due to the falloff being crippling. If they fixed the reload speed the snipetron would have a wider niche which at the moment but totaly remove any niche the shotgun had. Fully modded the damage of a snipetron and hek arent too far off due to shotguns having a poor base damage mod. So if a snipetron does the same damage at point blank range and 10x damage at long range why bother with a shotgun. The only thing saving the hek from being replaced by the snipetron is the crippling slow reload of snipetron. Also why bother with hek when bronco does more at point blank due to better pistol mods and more damage at range where 1-2 pellets from the bronco hits harder than the combined shot of a hek. The bronco is not ment to be a mid range shotgun due to spread the size of texas but when it outperforms the midrange shotgun of the hek there is a problem. Really spread the size of texas and ranged fall off isnt that a bit unfair to the bronco getting double pentalized for shooting at a far target. As it is the bronco isnt out of line compared to other pistols it is strong but not broken. Shotgun spread is ranged fall off for the bronco magicaly turning bullets into cotton candy is excessive. The issue is the hek fired a realistic firing pattern for a shotgun. Hek and strun had base stats way too high and the mods sucked to compensate. This left the boar crying in the corner. Shotguns really needed a damage nerf and a mod rework as they are forced to have extremely high base damage to compensate for the weak mod strength which makes balancing niche shotguns a problem. If they ever made a burst fire shotgun it would be a nightmare to balance. Compared to other weapons as they take the same slot shotguns have to compete with rifles.

 

I wouldn't call widening the niche of the snipetron to be a bit more usable in non sniping situation a bad thing. Its nich is pretty weak as most of the time the game sends masses of enemies like squads of grineer at you. The snipetron is great for stuff like heavy killing but for most of the combat you need sustained dps to kill the grunts. Just shotguns got screwed so hard the snipetron would take its place if it was buffed.

[Dasmir]

Why are you using the Vulkar or the Snipetron?  Lex is soooooo much better other then it doesn't have zoom.

Barrel Diffusion goes upto 120% Multi-shot you are are guranteed to double shot every shot, 6 rounds rather then 4 and the reload is 2.35 compared to a horrific 3.8.  Pistol Ammo is much easier to find and you start off with a butt load more ammo as well.

 

The only thing is getting the Barrel Diffusion but even without it I find it better because the ammo is much less scarce and the reload is much shorter.

 

The Non-Standard AP on the Vulkar kills it for anything but Infested which the better base damage does better, but why would you use a Sniper for Infested unless you are like me and use the Sniper for anything anyway XD.

 

I even find the Paris Bow better then the Snipetron because you aren't waiting for 3.8 of doing pretty much nothing while still getting the really high damage.  Also if you can line up enemies and one hit them you can kill multiple in a line rather then having to one shot eveything.  You also have the possibiliy that if you shoot straight up you can kill something with the arrow when it comes back down (done it a few times and is always a WTF did just happen Oo)

 

The Vulkar and the Snipertron are just completely outclassed by other weapons.  The HEK isn't so bad even with 4 shots because the Reload is only 2.15 but I have this feeling they nerfed the damage cause my Potatoed HEK doesn't do nearly as much damage as I though it did a few patches ago even at point blank range.

The Snipetron and Vulkar does get a nice V mod polarity as base so you can add Serration for lower points but that has kinda become void now that I added a V Polarity to the Bow.

 

Just my thoughts on it :)

 

since tons of update lex cant outdamage the snipetron like the Rifle mods buff update and the armor ignoring for snipetron, critical mode for pistols still crap against the critical mode for snipetron (easy 50% critical)

[TheaMatticks]

People seem to not be mentioning that snipetron is armor piercing.  That makes it more powerful than pretty much anything else against a lot of high level enemies.

 

The problem is that after a certain point, convenience becomes more valuable than power, because there simply aren't that many high level enemies to fight.  We spend a lot of our time farming in areas that we don't have much issue with, so guns that are technically less powerful but have a faster reload/large clip and use more common ammo are better because they still one shot trash anyways.

[Firebat86]

I am sorry if you felt offended but you obviously didn't have experience about modding snipetron for high damage. I had a feeling you were not modding it properly and you confirmed it in one of your posts.

I'll make a bet with you. Come to the t3 void mission with me, you take the braton and I will make more frags then you at the end with snipetron every time. Oh and don't forget to take additional 2 rifle ammo boxes, I'll take one.

 

Would love to take you up on that. Take my Latron etc in and show you how tunnel visioned you are.  You really don't get that people agreeing with you that it does good damage, but it's outclassed by other weapons do you...? Oh and I'll take zero boxes. 

[Twistank]

Would love to take you up on that. Take my Latron etc in and show you how tunnel visioned you are.  You really don't get that people agreeing with you that it does good damage, but it's outclassed by other weapons do you...? Oh and I'll take zero boxes.

Yeah this is the real issue here. +1

[krisp]

It's like how Riot said

 

SERIOUSLY? Riot? That's what niche in warframe means to you, the same thing as a competitive, well-balanced niche suitable for a certain elite metagame? You got big problems if you're comparing balance in Warframe to Balance in LoL.

 

There is such a thing as too small a niche. When that happens, you expand it. I've said my reasons as to why the Snipetron isn't perfect, or even near worthwhile for that matter. Anything else would mean repeating myself.

 

 

The problem is that after a certain point, convenience becomes more valuable than power

This guy gets it. This is what I've been trying to say.

[matrixEXO]

SERIOUSLY? Riot? That's what niche in warframe means to you, the same thing as a competitive, well-balanced niche suitable for a certain elite metagame? You got big problems if you're comparing balance in Warframe to Balance in LoL.

 

There is such a thing as too small a niche. When that happens, you expand it. I've said my reasons as to why the Snipetron isn't perfect, or even near worthwhile for that matter. Anything else would mean repeating myself.

I'm using their reasons to why they even want to keep such a character like Quinn to be that frail and not give her even 1 point increase in armor. Basically, it fits a niche that was intended so anything more than that would ruin it. Same goes to Snipetron and Vulkar. They fit a niche and will stay a niche. Perhaps they may slightly increase the reload speed of the Vulkar by a bit, given the ammo and fire rate of it is far lesser for a 25% higher damage bonus. But not the Snipetron since it has too much bonuses on it. I still feel that raising it to 3.0s is way too ridiculous and anything lower than 3.5s is way too high a buff for these niche guns. But, will you be satisfied with a 0.3s change in reload speed? Obviously not since you can't feel it.

 

Also, please stop saying Snipetron only. It's now not the only sniper rifle in the game.

Edited May 30, 2013 by matrixEXO

[Qb3rt]

You can have 5 bullets per mag and increase its reload speed. And then you can polarize it couple of times to make it better. What's the matter?

Spoken like a true antagonist... who likely has never used either weapon before.

 

There's no denying it, using these weapons sucks. It's frustrating, not fun, and horribly susceptible to the excessive amount of ways reloading is interrupted.

 

The core problem is that the amount of damage it does is so rarely needed, especially at long ranges... so the clip size & reload time tradeoffs seem far more penalizing than the damage is rewarding. There are definitely situations where the Snipetron just wrecks face (Void lvl 3, Pluto missions) where such high amounts of damage are required ..... but its still such a prohibitively un-fun weapon to use even in those cases.

 

Personally I would rather the reload mechanics be reworked first as they are a large part of the problem (a sneeze would interrupt reloading in this game). I think it would be a great idea as a work-around to introduce a new rifle mod that prevents interruption while reloading... but it would be tough to figure out how to implement that incrementally.

[stivoknis]

I always found the snipetron to be really good.  In fact, it is one of the only weapons that I can use to solo a T2 void mission.  Maybe I am just a noob, but how can a crap weapon make a noob good?  I think it is the gun's innate armor ignore and high crit rate that make it amazing.  Also, if you can kill the enemies before they get to you, who care how slow it reloads.

 

On a side note, any opinion is welcome.  People have different tastes and play styles.  If you does not like the sniper rifles then perhaps being a sniper is just not meant for you.

 

p.s. I have not played with the Vulkar yet.  I hear it does not have armor ignore, so perhaps it needs a buff.

[Fireblac]

I got fully leveled Snipetron and Vulkar and my Vulkar is at level 30 again with an added polarity slot too and I still prefer my Paris or Dread, and even Latron in some instances, over them(and I think I still would if I added another polarity slot in the Vulkar). Though I still think Snipetron is better than Vulkar, at least with my playstyle. Are they bad weapons? No. Are they very situational? Yes. Hower can be utilized very well on almost any mission when used with appropriate sidearms. I can go into detail if you want OP but that's all I gotta say for now.

[Genjiru]

You can have 5 bullets per mag and increase its reload speed. And then you can polarize it couple of times to make it better. What's the matter?

So... you're telling me I have to polarize it to make it a viable weapon?

You just said it,it needs a buff.

[_daVinci_]

They could add a sniper that does 4 times the vulkar and snipetron in damage, but has twice the reload of the respective weapons, twice the zoom, and only 1 bullet.  That would make things fun.  Snipers in real life believe in one shot, one kill.

[Asum]

All Snipetron needs in my opinion (didn't tried the Vulkar yet, but i guess is suffers from the same issues) is a 6 - 10 base clip and a 2 - 2.5 base reload and I'm pretty sure it would be a fairly enjoyable weapon, even outside the very, very small niche which it is currently in.

 

Two more 'Fast Hands' stages would be pretty sweet as well, since it feels a bit lackluster. 

As i don't have experienced every single Rifle in the game fully modded yet, i don't know how that would affect the balance tho. Maybe some more (or any for that matter) exclusive Sniper Mods would help out here (they have their own, and rare, ammo type, so why not make more powerful and exclusive mods for snipers as well, they sure need it)

 

 

Most Sniperrifles (real ones) come with a 5 to 20 magazine, super high tech future space ninjas probably didn't took steps back in weapon development. Not to mention that these Rifles kill with a shot on 600 to 1400 meters (with recorded shots on 2400+ range). 

 

As the average fighting range in Warframe is something about 5 - 20 meters, it would be more reasonable to compensate with a WAY larger clip and shorter reload times (and removing the firing from the hip, which is just silly anyway). 

 

Another option besides buffing the Rifles itself, as already mentioned, could be new Sniper exclusive mods.

Ideas would be flat ammo mods (+1;2;3;4;5 clip) a max. 50% reload mod and so on. 

[krisp]

What the snipers really need is their own set of mods, but that's too much of a far cry to suggest. Right now rifle mods are balanced for weapons with dozens of bullets in the magazine and hundreds in stock, that are reliable and usable in all situations. 30% magazine capacity is good for a rifle with 45-60 bullets, but it's awful for a sniper.