What are snipers good for?

[Medbot]

I was just wondering because my Vectis sits in the arsenal gathering space dust (although ORDIS probably wouldn't allow it). They're painful to use because in most missions you face a large number of enemies at once, leaving you to awkwardly attempt to pick off a few before your teammates mow them down (surprise surprise, least damage/kills again).

The majority of missions don't have you engaging in long range combat anyway. It's always short-medium range where the zoom is a major hindrance. Even if you did come across a situation where a sniper rifle would be excusable (such as the Plains), the distance would be way out of the AI enemies' effective range which takes all the fun out of it.

It's useless in single player missions. The most logical way to use a sniper rifle is in supporting the rest of your squad by conceivably having high enough damage to take out the tougher targets. While that certainly sounds good, in practice, most players have primary weapons that are plenty capable of taking down heavy units reasonably well. If you use a sniper rifle, you just have to face the fact that you're the least useful of the squad. At least you can have the honor of hiding a ways off and keeping those couple of pesky mutalist ospreys from gassing your team while they do the real work.

I mean I guess a rifle could be used for bosses with little weak spots, but a squad of machine gun wielding maniacs seems to accomplish that just as well.

 

If you have any good reasons why snipers are worth it please let me know, because I'm strongly tempted to get rid of my Vectis to make way for other weapons.

Edited February 2, 2018 by Medbot
tag

[DarthBane1]

I'd be down if they made an INSANELY hard mission for the plains which you could really only complete with a sniper at long distance picking off enemies. Where if you got in the middle of the fight, you'd die. And you would be able to be seen (as loki, ivara, etc.) This would make snipers viable. And if you killed an enemy in front of another or they found a body they'd get alerted and start a search for you.

 

Think of ghost recon and then add it to warframe. 

Edited February 2, 2018 by DarthBane1

[peterc3]

Don't keep a weapon around because you feel like you have to. It's useful to have one of each type in case of a Sortie/event weapon restriction, but beyond that, it's up to you what to keep or not.

[Archeyef]

Why are you looking for a justification to keep something you see no value in? You've hit on all the problems with them. There's not really anything anyone can say to refute those. Either you still want to keep it despite the problems, or you don't. If you don't want to keep it, then don't keep it.

[------Solo------]

My armor striping mag and her beautiful pole danci.... i mean lanka got to disagree with that, but i do admit that carrying a sniper in high level tight spot is a nightmare, but hey we got secondary and melee for that. o/

Edited February 3, 2018 by PrimeDCookieMonstah
typo

[Dragazer]

32 minutes ago, Medbot said:

If you have any good reasons why snipers are worth it please let me know, because I'm strongly tempted to get rid of my Vectis to make way for other weapons.

Easy, snipers are the best weapons for Sniper only sortie missions

[(XBOX)ThermalStone]

Sniper only sortie?

[-skimmer-]

When you have tall enemies that dont get affected by statuses, you may want to consider a crit focused long range weapon with decent ammo economy. So, mainly eidolons or the rare T3 sortie armor enhanced lephantis.

[(XBOX)Bieltan]

Without a Sniper, how will I make my MLG 1080 1337sc0p3z montages?

Oh wait. Wrong game.

(Even though this ones better suited to such shenanigans)

*runs*

[schilds]

Get rid of your Vectis, it clearly doesn't suit your playstyle.

 

Meanwhile I'll happily keep my Lanka :-P.

[(PSN)SlyFox5679]

I only use snipers in plains and mostly hunting eidolons for the most part i have a vectis prime with a pretty good riven that helps with chroma to take down eidolons and i've managed to kill 2-4 a night with my clan.

on a side note i'm considering getting rivens for lanka & rubico to see which would do better vs eidolons

[(PSN)robotwars7]

Snipers are fun to sue on the plains, they just don't really perform well in close combat, which is about 99% of all combat in warframe

Lanka however is an exception to the rule: Radiation Lanka build with Chroma wrecks Eidolons stupidly fast, and combining Lanka with Magnetize = sphere of death. Snipers can become pretty good with Harrow's buffs as well.

[Dromeos-Prime]

Nothing.

Honestly though the Tigris Prime is a better sniper rifle than any of the actual sniper rifles.

(Except maybe for gas Lanka's with Mag)

Edited February 3, 2018 by reptillicus

[ThorienKELL]

Community is clearly not keeping up with patch notes. Snipers have recently been tremendously buffed, in their damage headshot multipliers, the way they lose /gain headshot bonuses, in scope back on target speed(recticle sway), innate punch thru was added, some other things as well.

In short vectis is phenomenal weapon, damage output is roughly equal to opticor. It's usable in long and mid ranges just fine. 

[TotallyLagging]

viral + HM snipers can basically shoot level 150+ heavies once and let viral + slash do the rest all while maintaining 3x the actual weapon damage through the combo bonus

 

but sniper sux anyways don't use them :^)

[_Vortus_]

While I prefer the Vulkar Wraith, the Vectis/Prime is a great weapon for any run.  Sub 1 second reload on the Vectis, can be made even faster means its more like firing a semi auto without a clip to reload.   Damage is significant, killing targets in a single hit, as well as having a damage bonus modifier for continuous use similar to a melee counter.  Point, click, die pretty much just like a shotgun but imo more versatile.  

Not to mention Sniper Only sorties and Riven challenges involving multiple head shots in a single aim glide.   They are good weapons.

[R3b3ll10n90s]

Ummm one shot Nox? Or dealing some whopping 6 or 7 digits damage.

Edited February 3, 2018 by R3b3ll10n90s

[ninjase]

My vectis prime (riven + hunter munitions) is actually my 'go to' main gun for high level missions since it consistently one or two shots pretty much anything the game has to throw at you. I'm pretty sure the vectis can get consistent and faster kills than a majority other primaries at lvl 80-100. Not to mention it destroys bosses. Mod for punch through and it takes down mobs if they line up. The vectis in particular has pretty much negligible reload time so it's like a effectively an unlimited magazine weapon. In close combat situations I also shoot no scope and pretend its like a faster shooting tigris. With more breathing room, it is very satisfying to headshot and see those sweet orange/red numbers. 

Overall, I love snipers (particularly vectis) and can use them everywhere, but of course they aren't for everyone.

At lower levels, honestly anything you own can kill everything so it's kinda just down to individual playstyle and preferences.

Edited February 3, 2018 by ninjase

[Orblit]

Snipers have innate punch through now...let them line up and you kill 2-3 per shot.
Also "quickscoping" is a thing I tend to do as it lets me accurately (compared to firing from hip) hit enemies in close range.

[(PSN)lhbuch]

Outside of plains, you can use hard CC frames to pick your shots and enjoy the dmg. Nova, Harrow and the alikes can make the use of snipers really fun.

[Medbot]

23 hours ago, Archeyef said:

Why are you looking for a justification to keep something you see no value in? You've hit on all the problems with them. There's not really anything anyone can say to refute those. Either you still want to keep it despite the problems, or you don't. If you don't want to keep it, then don't keep it.

I just don't want to eventually run into something where I think back and say "maaan if only I still had that sniper rifle". It seems like there might be some riven challenges that are made easiest by using a sniper. I wouldn't know since I've only ever had one riven. I'm glad some people have mentioned the sniper only sorties because I had no idea that was a thing.

[Awazx]

What are snipers good for?

Answer: not at all.

With the announcement of PoE it seemed that finally they would have a utility.

But of course, this is DE. My Rubico, with 6 shapes, remains in the drawer full of dust.

 

[Ada_Wong_SG]

Sniper rifle are good for high value targets, Bombard, Heavy Gunner, Nox... etc which are a huge bullet sponge and will take a lot of punishment to go down.
The trouble is these high value targets make up about 15 - 20% of the enemy units, 

Meaning if you bring a sniper rifle for any mission it will most likely be an overkill 
on the lighter units.

While the Sniper Rifles did go through recent buffs, a 2 forma Vectis without riven 

can help you to take down level 100 corrupted heavy gunner in 8 - 10 shots. 
 

Which means on average enemies on the starchart that is level 40 - 50 at most on most nodes, 
you will be 1-hitting most of the enemies on most occasions unless you panicked and shot one in their toe.

 

The main concern is 
1) Enemies generally are not alerted to your presence, nor will open fire at longer ranges

hence most battles occur at medium to close range.
 

2) In the event enemies are opening fire on you, they will be closing in while putting automatic fire on your position.
Meaning you will be swarmed by enemies in attempt to overrun you.

3) All sniper rifles have high single shot damage, but have poor follow up shots either due to 
- single shot reload (Vectis)
- slow reload time (Non vectis)
as such it is totally possible that you are getting overwhelmed by enemies during your reload.

4) You can use a sniper rifle on a warframe that has crowd control capabilities, but since 
you already have the warframe that does the killing, it does not matter what weapon you are carrying 
because unless you are trying to do endurance/ torture test on limits of equipment by running endless missions, 

A Sniper Rifle would not be required on mission clearing instances.

5) With teammates using AOE crowd killing skills, it would be difficult to build up combo counter unless you are soloing.
since most maps have auto doors that does not reveal enemy if they are slightly further than a bullet jump away, 
meaning most encounter enemies occur at close to medium range, way within warframe ability range but 
too close for sniper rifles to be effective.

6) Even when presented with target of opportunity, it just does not make sense to pick an enemy off at longer ranges, 
since the current loot system, if the enemy happen to drop anything... resource, endo, mod, credits.
You will need to go all the way out to fetch the loot while potentially leaving a covered position or missing the opportunity to kill more enemies.

As such, most weapon and warframe kill tactic involves waiting until enemy units have entered a kill zone where loots are easily obtained 
and punch through on weapon hit most number of enemies.

Edited February 4, 2018 by Ada_Wong_SG

[IceColdHawk]

I dunno. Kill stuff maybe for when your soma prime runs out of ammo after 3 heavy units?

Spoiler

They also do have punch through now so you can oneshot a straight line of enemies. Pretty satisfying if you ask me.

[Ada_Wong_SG]

37 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

I dunno. Kill stuff maybe for when your soma prime runs out of ammo after 3 heavy units?

  Reveal hidden contents

They also do have punch through now so you can oneshot a straight line of enemies. Pretty satisfying if you ask me.

I guess simulacrum is a lot different than actual mission nodes, where you might have or might not have the luxury of range 
to not make zooming in disorienting for you.

Also that is 1 target instead of multiple enemies, which if you have an enemy that would demand that much of a damage to kill, 
you are more likely to be turned into swiss cheese as their weapons will also scale to do higher damage.