83 replies to this topic

[JigglyMoobs]

Sniping requires the right build and the right mech.

It should ideally be something with jump jets for good mobility, and is some combination of fast enough and powerful enough to run or fight your way out of trouble when bothered by one or two lights.

It requires a lot of experience and awareness and you always need to have a well thought escape route back to your team.

I snipe all the time with my Gauss erppc Timby, usually from 400 to 800m away.

Regarding the issue if high damage no crits or kills, the problem could either be you or your team.

It could be, for example, that you are doing damage at a super slow rate and running your weapons all over enemy mechs. It could also be that your team just suck, has gotten itself into a terrible position, has done no damage and every mech you hit is fresh.

The latter has happened PLENTY of times to me in t1 solo queue.

As a sniper, you are engaging targets of opportunity. That means you can't force the fight to a mech that doesn't want to. You can't advance on a position to get to damaged mechs, you can only see what's on offer and take your shots.

If you take a mech like a timberwolf on a flanking sniping position, you can make certain positions untenable for enemy mechs, and force a retreat or extract very heavy cost PROVIDED YOUR TEAM PUTS ANY PRESSURE ON THE FRONT.

If your team does nothing, you are SOL.

I've had games where I was the only one putting in work on the team, putting in 700 to 1000 damage where, seriously every single person i lock has at minimum yellow armor. I'm shooting as fast as heat allows and team is just disintegrating like wet napkin.

And then at the end one of the 100 dmg potatoes pipe up: NO kills you suck!

Really?!

You expect to hand me steaming horse manure and get out golden victory? What do you think I'm in, a kdk3?

[GreenHell]

I've been yelled at for 'sniping' before (by people on this forum no less). You'd think they'd be happy I was keeping heads down across half the map while pumping out 600 dmg and making people waste ammo trying to return fire way beyond their range.

That team was NOT happy with me, based on the number of times they 'tried' to fire back (and missed horribly). And before you ask, yes I was the only one and I was in a medium (cGR+2cERLL). We still lost, but one mech does not equal a win or loss, and I think I pulled my weight.

[MischiefSC]

Real problem is that it's trading certain team advatage for potential personal gain.

You get spotted alone and often the other team will collapse on you or even just a couple lights, boom, team is down a guy.

Even beyond that you're leaving your team down a mech and the value of your armor for the bulk of the fighting.

Generally it means you're disadvantaging your team so you can try to play 70 ton ninja.

[Tarogato]

Delta 62, on 27 May 2016 - 03:59 AM, said:

The tips being thrown about make me nervous.

It should be a good thing.... but it makes me nervous.

(oh sry, wrong kind of tip?)

Spoiler

I mean I agree, having tips flying around everywhere could be a public health concern.


Okay I'm done.

[MechWarrior319348]

Tarogato, on 27 May 2016 - 06:59 PM, said:

stuff

heh...muahahahahahahahahaha

[JigglyMoobs]

MischiefSC, on 27 May 2016 - 06:54 PM, said:

Real problem is that it's trading certain team advatage for potential personal gain.

You get spotted alone and often the other team will collapse on you or even just a couple lights, boom, team is down a guy.

Even beyond that you're leaving your team down a mech and the value of your armor for the bulk of the fighting.

Generally it means you're disadvantaging your team so you can try to play 70 ton ninja.

The fallacy in your argument is neglecting to account for the amount of attention diverted to someone doing high rate of damage from a flanking position.

That's often attention diverted away from the main force that team can exploit. Often times a good sniper is leveraging position to occupy multiple enemy mechs, deny terrain or pick off wounded mechs. Team should benefit fom these things much more than an extra mech worth of armor provided they KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

[MischiefSC]

JigglyMoobs, on 27 May 2016 - 07:23 PM, said:

The fallacy in your argument is neglecting to account for the amount of attention diverted to someone doing high rate of damage from a flanking position.

That's often attention diverted away from the main force that team can exploit. Often times a good sniper is leveraging position to occupy multiple enemy mechs, deny terrain or pick off wounded mechs. Team should benefit fom these things much more than an extra mech worth of armor provided they KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

As someone else said if you're part of a coordinated drop that's great. That's why you see it in comp matches... oh wait. Almost never in comp matches because it generally just results in one side turtling for a minute while Rambo gets killed.

It would only be useful if used as part of a coordinated group playing against an uncoordinated group, which is true of a lot of things.

In pug groups you're gambling on the other team being poorly coordinated, having no passable light pilots, not shifting to kill you, your own tram being coordinated and perceptive and leveraging any potential advantage.

It's a bad strategy. I get that it can be fun for people wanting the Rambo experience and in QP it doesn't matter - do what you want, play how you want. Just don't mistake it for a good idea. Reality is that you can suppress the enemy while sticking with your team and do so more effectively. Only point to going off alone is hoping to catch another bad doing something stupid too and hope between your respective bad choices you have the advantage.

[Zordicron]

Spleenslitta, on 27 May 2016 - 01:56 PM, said:

Here is one question we should ask ourselves. - Imagine if an entire lance of players managed to do 400 damage in return for receiving 10-20 damage each.
(it can be done.)
Their teammates reached the 400 damage mark much earlier in the match due to high aggression but they received crippling damage or death in return.

Which is better? Smart playstyle or outright aggression?

The community seems to be heavily favoring aggression but when you look at the numbers it seems kinda...well...unatural.

On paper that does look better, but thats not how it works. Even pug teams, usually, realize when they outnumber the enemy(you are talking 12 vs 8 then) and while those 4 mechs might have decent looking scores, outside of a miracle or a massive enemy derp march, those 4 mechs will soon be looking at 8-9 enemy mechs chasing them down, and they and their team will lose despite the apparently good looking score.

Lots of "what ifs" can be brought to the table for this discussion, but they will basically all boil down to one team being a much worse bunch of pilots then the other. It really does come down to my first post- if you can pull it off as a flank side sniper and not hurpderp #lonewolf: good on you, but most people can't do it.

[Wintersdark]

Zordicron, on 27 May 2016 - 08:32 PM, said:

Lots of "what ifs" can be brought to the table for this discussion, but they will basically all boil down to one team being a much worse bunch of pilots then the other. It really does come down to my first post- if you can pull it off as a flank side sniper and not hurpderp #lonewolf: good on you, but most people can't do it.

And that is why people get any when someone lonewolfs off in a corner.

It MAY work out. IF that pilot is good at what he's doing, AND your team picks up on it an uses the potential advantage - if they even know what he's doing at all. There's a lot more "If"'s than if he'd just stayed with the team and provided ranged fire support where he's also lending weight of nu.bers and benefiting from it.

Because your team doesn't know you, they don't know if you know what you're doing or not, hell they probably don't even know what you're doing... they're going to see it as "most likely a bad thing".

Ah well. This thread started with the OP noting that he gets a lot of flak for it, and - whether he's successful or not - that's why.

[JigglyMoobs]

MischiefSC, on 27 May 2016 - 08:12 PM, said:

As someone else said if you're part of a coordinated drop that's great. That's why you see it in comp matches... oh wait. Almost never in comp matches because it generally just results in one side turtling for a minute while Rambo gets killed.

It would only be useful if used as part of a coordinated group playing against an uncoordinated group, which is true of a lot of things.

It depends on the exact plan. If you have someone sniping in a comp match, the entire team has to do a specific plan to make that work. Emp sort of did that to SJR or Lords in one of their recent matches and was successful. On another match they were not.

Gman also did some sneaky flanking in a recent match, and did quite well.

Your team has to know when and how, and it's obviously not a given in every match or map.

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In pug groups you're gambling on the other team being poorly coordinated,

Which is a good gamble usually.

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having no passable light pilots,

Depends on who is sniping and in what mech. If I'm out there in a fresh Timberwolf you need at minimum a very good light pilot and quite often two rather good light pilots, and you have to catch me unaware.

If I'm out there in something scarrier than a fresh erppc gauss timberwolf you'd need 3 lights to have the kill not be Pyrrhic.

And if I'm really doing my job right, I won't even be there anymore by the time your lights get there.
That's with JigglyMoobs sniping. If MischiefSC is out there I'm not so sure.

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not shifting to kill you,

If they do they are out of position and losing.

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your own team being coordinated and perceptive and leveraging any potential advantage.

This is the most frequent pitfall. But if your team sucks, you'll still have fun.

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It's a bad strategy.

No worse than bringing LRMs on any mech. Quite a bit better actually in the hands of the right pilot done in the right way.

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I get that it can be fun for people wanting the Rambo experience

It's about chess not Rambo.

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and in QP it doesn't matter - do what you want, play how you want. Just don't mistake it for a good idea. Reality is that you can suppress the enemy while sticking with your team and do so more effectively.

Depends on where your team is and what they are doing, where the enemy are and what they are doing, etc, etc etc.

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Only point to going off alone is hoping to catch another bad doing something stupid too and hope between your respective bad choices you have the advantage.

No. It's about playing chess and disrupting the plans of the enemy team. IF there is the opportunity, you can exploit it. Most easy to do it in QP, much more planning and practice needed for comp.

And BTW, did you know that if you do it right, you can transition from sniping back to packing with the team back to sniping as appropriate? Again, situational real time chess.

You are debating on generalizations, when it's the details and the execution that makes the difference.

Edited by JigglyMoobs, 28 May 2016 - 01:02 AM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

JigglyMoobs, on 28 May 2016 - 12:55 AM, said:

It's about chess not Rambo.

That's exactly how I see it. The idea isn't to go off and try to kill everyone, its to gain a tactical advantage against the enemy team that you and your team can exploit.

I find it much like having an attack lane opened up in chess so that if the enemy moves they will be taken by one well placed piece and if they don't they get overtaken by others.

If anything it adds some more thought to the "thinking man's shooter" than just deathballing and charging the enemy.

[Weeny Machine]

Yeonne Greene, on 26 May 2016 - 08:46 PM, said:

I do tons of sniping with cERPPC in my Shadow Cats.

It's actually pretty damn effective in PUGs.

The same here.

My team was losing and I was the last man standing in my siper Shadow Cat. Then one of the enemy team commented "Snipers are just a burden and lose you games."

I did 800 dmg and had 2 kills. Clearly I was the problem...and not the 2 assaults with 200ish damage done

Edited by Bush Hopper, 28 May 2016 - 04:37 AM.

[LowSubmarino]

It is very much possible to be the mvp of a game as a sniper. But you dont have to leave team entirely. Theres a lot of scenarios and maos where a good sniper and great trader will 'absorb' more fire than 5 assaults have armor. A good sniper usually is a good trader. You dont have to constantly run from team to be effctive. Good snipers dont die 30 - 90 secs into the game. They just dont. If you die like that or finish the game below 500 dmg then you simply arent sniper material. Find a better job. Most ppl i see trade really bad. Even in mobile mechs. In mobile mediums and lights you should always be among the last to die because those are the mechs that allow you to trade. Unless you go for a lighthunter or brawler build. Learn to engage mechs of all sizes without getting hit. A real sniper doesnt get hit. And doesnt get caught alone until the very end when hes chased by 10 mechs and cornered.
If you dont have those skills youre no sniper. Then you are just cannonfodder out there by yourself. Most ppl that split from main group are nothing more but cannonfodder. Id say 99,5 %.

[Y E O N N E]

Bush Hopper, on 28 May 2016 - 04:30 AM, said:

The same here.

My team was losing and I was the last man standing in my siper Shadow Cat. Then one of the enemy team commented "Snipers are just a burden and lose you games."

I did 800 dmg and had 2 kills. Clearly I was the problem...and not the 2 assaults with 200ish damage done

Haters gonna hate. Shadowcat is best poptart, Nova is nothing.

[Kubernetes]

I think it works well on some maps in FW, but not so much in QP matches. FW involves fighting over a fixed position with attackers coming through defined avenues. QP involves too much nascar and positional changes. Say on Caustic, you can go find a nice sniping position, but you'll spend half the match staring at your teammates' backs. Also, in FW there's not as much fear of a light wolfpack sneaking up behind you, but in QP they can be on top of you in seconds.

[Aiden Skye]

When I'm playing my shadowcats im usually always working the flanks....but not so far out that I'm totally cut off

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Kubernetes, on 28 May 2016 - 11:20 AM, said:

I think it works well on some maps in FW, but not so much in QP matches. FW involves fighting over a fixed position with attackers coming through defined avenues. QP involves too much nascar and positional changes. Say on Caustic, you can go find a nice sniping position, but you'll spend half the match staring at your teammates' backs. Also, in FW there's not as much fear of a light wolfpack sneaking up behind you, but in QP they can be on top of you in seconds.

Caustic is a great map for it actually. You can anticipate where the enemy will be and setup shop. This way you fire on the enemy nascar as they go around, cause them to slow down, look for what is firing at them, and soon after that your team's nascar has come around and is hitting their disgruntled team.

Works decently for if you need to stop the nascar at least. Basically just take something that can move at least as fast as an Executioner running MASC and at the start just go the opposite direction of your team's nascar, but do it from the fringes of the map rather than the caldera. There are good spots for cover back there so that you can fire at the backs of the enemy's nascar going around without being seen if you get back into cover fast enough. Make sure you have a mech with some powerful enough weaponry to take out lights that might come at you and has enough armor to survive until your team's nascar comes around.

[MechWarrior319348]

I had quite a few matches the other night on boreal vault (standard one) where I would go lone wolf in the opposite direction of the team. I would go around behind the big spikes on the side of the map with 850 meter gauss rifles and wait a minute or two until the enemy team rotated around with their backs facing me.

What ended up happening was they made a firing line facing my team, and were turned with all their backs visible to me, at about 1000 meters away (stayed out of sensor range).

I picked the one that was furthest back on the enemy line (so the rest wouldn't notice gauss slugs hitting a teammate in front of them). I hit one volley in the center of the back (maybe 26ish dmg).

He began to turn around to investigate, and I popped down out of sight before he could see me. I waited about 10 seconds, popped back up, and popped him in the back again. His mech fell to the ground in a burning pile of wreckage. I then turned to my next target and repeated the process.

When the match was over, I had killed about 4 enemies doing this. It could have easily been more if the match dragged on longer. (if you do it right, you should expect conversations on their team chat about people taking random shots from somewhere, and "what the hell! someone find the sniper")

This kind of thing definitely works, the key is to stay out of sight as much as possible. Sometimes you come into view of a light or fast mover who is trying to flank, most of the time you wanna ignore them, even though its one on one. If you get their attention they will report your position.

It also seems to help if you have camo with a decent amount of white on it. At long distances, it seems to help your mech blend in with depth of field effects and fog; also if you are cresting a hill or ridge, it brings your mech closer to matching the sky and clouds.

If you are medium range or close range, white camo will probably get you shot. And good luck shutting down against a wall and trying to hide.

Also if you think of this game as chess, A lone wolf sniper would probably be the queen piece, it can attack pieces across the entire board, especially if he/she sneaks to a flank.

Edited by Delta 62, 28 May 2016 - 05:09 PM.

[Kubernetes]

Dakota1000, on 28 May 2016 - 04:37 PM, said:

Caustic is a great map for it actually. You can anticipate where the enemy will be and setup shop. This way you fire on the enemy nascar as they go around, cause them to slow down, look for what is firing at them, and soon after that your team's nascar has come around and is hitting their disgruntled team.

Works decently for if you need to stop the nascar at least. Basically just take something that can move at least as fast as an Executioner running MASC and at the start just go the opposite direction of your team's nascar, but do it from the fringes of the map rather than the caldera. There are good spots for cover back there so that you can fire at the backs of the enemy's nascar going around without being seen if you get back into cover fast enough. Make sure you have a mech with some powerful enough weaponry to take out lights that might come at you and has enough armor to survive until your team's nascar comes around.

Yeah, sometimes. Quite a lot of the time you see a Caustic sniper stuck on his perch while all of the action is on the other side of the caldera.

[L3mming2]

627, on 27 May 2016 - 04:44 AM, said:

solo sniping only works until the two enemy lights come to the conclusion they need a snack and go after you. Than it's GG and you did like 200 damage and had no meaningful input on the match.

In lower tiers, going out alone can work, pretty good to be true. People are not that aware. But I'd stop that above tier 4.

i run a shc with 2 cerl and 3 srm4s (and ecm) along with seismic and the fact they dont know i have srms due to ecm.. as long as its 1 light i usualy win... its realy funny to see them panic and overheat when there target masc turns away before the could get there free back shot and starts to brawl with them. (ps dont use your lasers in the brawl do unless its for a garanteed kill shot when they are shut down)

the srms ar gr8 to for end game to finich of woonded mechs