(Sigh... I realize this turned into a bit of story time. I swear I didn't mean to type this much. No salt btw, I thoroughly enjoyed the match I'm talking about.)
I do occasionally snipe (or as I was accused of, "hiding at max range"...). When I do snipe, I don't make great effort to hide myself. Indeed I do the opposite, because I know full well that 80% of mechs are built to be effective at 600m or less. That makes my 900m sniper HBK-IIC take about 30% less damage, and that's not even taking into account that people not used to sniping are probably going to miss a lot.
I loved the match where I was able to rack up a huge damage score by openly sniping the enemy team AND distracting them to no end. They stupidly sent a slow Marauder after me and he never made it half way to my spot. A Battlemaster met the same fate (with help from a light on our side, thanks bud
). All the while, I was hitting a whale at 1000m basically for free because he simply couldn't hit me at that range.
That's not to say I didn't take damage because I most certainly did. My left side was dark red armor since the build was all right sided, so I was dead-siding the left. I'll be the first to admit, I did stay up there a bit too long since the only mechs left at the end were myself and a partially damaged W-Hawk. We grouped up for a final brawl, but I was distracted by my own team yelling at me. We didn't last long against their remaining 5 mechs (I did take one with me though
).
However, I like to think my efforts helped us last as long as we did rather than bring us down. At one point I had at least 4 mechs looking my way, and hungry to kill the sniper. I also had the RAPT attention of that whale, who I could tell was none too happy to be my favorite target. I basically forced the enemy team to abandon the central area that they were milling around in.
However, in the end I still get accused as the one, single player who "cost us the game" since I wasn't "sharing armor up front with the team". Even though I was taking plenty of damage. If they'd stopped to think about the ranges I was taking hits, they'd realize that I'm lasting longer due to damage reduction (while doing near full damage in return mind you). But that's not what matters. I wasn't up front, so I'm a bad and I lost us the game right?
I realize the strategy of sniping works best in a group drop, but I had PERFECT position to snipe, and a mech purpose built for it during that game so I took advantage of it. In the end potato is as potato does, but sometimes I wonder who the potato really is... Was I wrong to be sniping most of the game? Or was my team wrong to blame me alone for losing us the game?
TL:DR - I sniped once and got yelled at for it. Perfect sniping position the whole game, loads of damage, but we still lost. Does that make me potato?
Edited by GreenHell, 28 July 2016 - 05:38 PM.