Hello, Planetside 2 Forums! My name's TraatAdmiral, and right now I'm bored but I also don't want to get out of this chair, so now you all have to read this because that's what the Internet is for. While I'm clearly not Mustard or Dr. Euthanasia, I do snipe a lot, here and in other videogames, and I've Auraxiumed both the M77-B and the SR-7, and I'm working on my RAMS .50M. For new snipers, that pretty much makes me a god (Right? Right?). If you remain unimpressed, you probably don't need my advice anyway. So, with that out of the way: Part the First: Getting Started Weapons: Hello, new sniper! You've just spawned and you see that you're holding a nice looking space rifle. Well, I hate to break it to you, but if you're VS or TR, that's a semi-automatic rifle and, for a new player especially, it is a piece of trash, unless you enjoy the feeling of hurling ping-pong balls at a navy destroyer and watching them bounce off, limply, and land in the cold, dark waters below. There are a few lovers of the SASRs out there, who are no doubt right now tearing their clothes and wailing at my ignorance, but really. It's been a long damn time since saw anybody above BR5 using an SASR. Luckily, there is an answer: The Tier 1 Bolt-Action Sniper Rifle. If you're TR or VS, these guns are priced to move: 100 certs. That seems like a lot if you're a new player, but trust me, it's worth it. If you're NC, you're holding yours already, you lucky bastard. TR players, you're looking for the M77-B; for VS it's the XM98. The NC14 Bolt Driver is free. Now we're cooking with gas: This is one of the nicest rifles I've ever been handed in any videogame, and it will serve you well for as long as you want it to, even well into the late game, with virtually no upgrades. Sniper rifles in general don't really need attachments. The default 6x scope is fine for most situations. I've grabbed the 12x scope for all of my guns, too, for that occasional really long shot, but the vast majority of the time you don't need it. Some people use Suppressors on their BASRs. This is a matter of choice, but I've tried it and I do not like it, not one bit. I've never found the dramatic decrease in bullet velocity to be worth it. I suggest that you try it for yourself, but they're by no means required. You'll also note that a Forward Grip is available; it literally does nothing. You can buy it if you really want to, but it is a 100% useless attachment. Now that you've got your shiny new BASR, you'll probably also want a pistol. Luckily, the default pistols are actually all great. The VS Beamer gets a lot of hate, but I've never found it to be all that terrible, and the NC Magshot and TR Repeater are both wonderful guns. NC, your pistol is awesome and accurate; use it at medium-short range. TR, your pistol can empty the entire magazine in, like, a second. It's basically an SMG. Great DPS in super close quarters. The Repeater is the only one that I have a lot of experience with; I run it with a laser site and suppressor. As a new player, though, you have better things to spend your precious certs on than pistol attachments: your sidearm is fine the way it is. Things that aren't weapons: Honestly? As a sniper, nothing else really makes a huge difference. You'll do much better putting your early certs into your Medical Applicator or something like that. You'll want to upgrade your Hunter cloak pretty much all the way at some point, but that's pretty low priority in the grand scheme of things unless Infiltrator is all you're interested in doing. Now that Nanoweave armor doesn't save you from headshots your suit slot is entirely a matter of personal preference: All of those options are really good. Nanoweave armor protects you from gunfire, so it used to be the way to go, but as a sniper you'll mostly be worried about other snipers shooting you in the head, and it won't protect against that. Still a good choice for infantry fighting, though. Flak armor will protect you from explosions; Grenade bandolier lets you carry more grenades; Ammunition pouch lets you carry more magazines; Advanced Shield Capacitor makes your shield regenerate more quickly; Adrenaline Pump makes you sprint faster. Personally, I use the ammunition pouch, but it's totally up to you. They're all useful. Part the Second: Fighting Well, now you're all kitted out, and you'll be wanting to actually shoot something. The #1 rule of sniping in PS2 is: Practice makes perfect. You have to learn to compensate for bullet drop and target motion. This takes time, but pretty soon it becomes second nature. By the time you have a few hundred kills with your rifle, you won't even have to think about it any more. IMO the ideal range for most sniping is about 200 meters. The maximum possible distance is 300, because that's how far away you can see other players, but that's a really long way. Being to far out is usually worse than being too close. Actually, I lied. The #1 rule of sniping in PS2 is: We see you. Always, always, always assume there's an enemy sniper actively stalking you, because chances are there is. Countersniping is where all the fun is at; that's my favorite activity. Cloak whenever you're not shooting. Move around, a lot. Remember, cloaking doesn't do you any good if you don't move too. I saw your head, and chances are I'm gonna put a round where I saw it last, because a lot of the time it's still there. A foot to the side is the difference between you getting domed and me assuming you've moved back into cover and looking for the next guy. But I'll be back. Snipers are vindictive bastards with good memories. If you kill an enemy sniper, they probably have a pretty good idea of where you are, and they may well shoot you the next time you pop out to take a shot. Or, if you realize that they saw you, don't put your head back in that place. They know that there was a sniper there that they didn't kill, and they'll check that spot again in a minute. Move on to different cover frequently. I went into this post thinking that I had lots of great advice to give, but now I'm having a harder time writing it out coherently than I expected. If you practice, and keep sniping, you'll get all of this pretty fast. Don't become demoralized when you do poorly. On my first day, I went 6 kills to 124 deaths. But I kept at it, and now my K/D against enemy snipers is something like 5 or 6. You, too, can be a great sniper. As a final note, Indar Excavation has the best sniping in the game IMO, for either attack or defense, but it's better defending. Attacking Crossroads Watchtower from the hill is good, as is defending Crimson Bluff Tower; on Esamir, Snowshere Watchtower and Saerro Listening Post are the best, both either attacking or defending. There. That's my advice. And you all read ever word of that, right? Right?
I know exactly what you mean, when people asked me for advice i'd immediately go blank. Some are intuitive snipers, others are practiced.... the rest are fodder.(Unless they heed some of these very good pointers!) P.S. A BASR with a silencer is THE most underrated thing in the game, as soon as you equip it you're as good as invisible to every single counter sniper who will spend their time picking off the red dots on the map as a matter of course expecting you to be among them. Little do they know you're sat 50-100m behind them with a perfect view of all their other snipers, laughing manically as you pick them off one by one, enjoying their obliviousness to their fate. (A bit of a tangent i know but i seriously recommend getting used to the silencers, i know they're a pain to get used to but the tactical advantage of never appearing on the mini-map is just too immense to ignore... you're an invisible soldier with a OHK rifle!)
I know, I know... I use Suppressors on every other weapon that can equip them as a matter of course, even non-Infiltrator ones. I always kinda feel like I ought to be using them on my BASR, too, but it just lowers the bullet velocity so much, on one of the very few weapons that that really matters for. I might try it again now that I'm using the RAMS; without a silencer it has functionally zero bullet drop, so maybe with one it'll only have as much as the M77 or something. I could deal with that.
Well, all that being great and all, I'll be sharing a great piece of wisdom for you Fish, Traat you might enjoy. Here is why silencers should NEVER be used on a sniper rifle. 1- Lower bullet velocity / harder to hit moving target. 1.5 - Lowers the OHK headshot range. 2- Doesn't sound as badass 4- Makes you loose sniper vs sniper fights. 3- It does literally nothing. As opposed to Call of Duty, in this game, when you shoot, you don't render the red dot any farther than 40 meters, EXCEPT when using a compensator, which boosts it at 80 meters red dot. 4- Think about it seriously, how do you spot a sniper in a big mess of a fight? It's with the tracer. That's what's giving you away, not the red dot which most likely doesn't even render.
Trust me man, once i got used to the silencer i was taking down Darkelfdruid and Failed78 which took no more effort than finding intelligent places to fire from, and they seriously did not enjoy the experience.(*Edit* I tell a lie, Darkelfdruid seemed to enjoy the hunt!) It makes you excessively difficult to track (I'm not saying it makes you invincible) and in big fights the good snipers will use the red minimap dots/killboard to pinpoint where the annoying enemy snipers are and kill them first (You wouldn't continue to expose yourself if you knew mustarde was on the edge of the battle picking off your friends would you?) I can't stress enough how good silenced BASR's can be if you want to play infil intelligently. There's 0 point having a silencer if you're going to sit on that hill with all your friends, as you said the tracer gives you away. However skip off to the side of the battle and fire from somewhere that isn't massively obvious and you'll find you've racked up so many kills you'll have to either get closer and use your pistol or run back to friendlies, resupply your ammo and start again. The clever infil takes advantage of the enemies tunnel vision, you can literally sit in their base and pick them off for as long as you have ammo. (When you're behind them you don't need to be 150m+ away) Plus you're still invisible to anyone passing close enough to notice your red dot (Which happens a lot more than you'd imagine, there are always SMG infils taking a random route to the enemy which brings them close enough to spot your red dot and they'll go on the hunt. This happens a LOT.) So unless you're one of the mass-hilltop snipers (They'll fire 40 rounds, get 8 kills. Unacceptable.) a silencer is the only way to have a meaningful lone wolf session. Yes it's more difficult to lead moving targets, but only until you're used to it. The lack of OHK's at range is not a massive issue, 7 times out of 10 you have enough time to drop a second round into them. Yet you don't need to engage them at range if you don't want to, you're an invisible soldier. Get as close as you damn well please! Using a silenced EM4 Longshot i once racked up a 253 kill streak and ended the day on 430-5. Tell me again how silencers don't do anything? The Silencer. The only intelligent way to solo.
They only impair you. As for me personnaly, after auraxiuming the parallax and getting sick of the bolt driver/XM98 both, I'm not running around with a Ghost/SAS-R and enjoying it very much. But hey, if you wan't to continue doing something illogical, I can't blame you. Some folks have done it for over two millennia now, you can't do worst.
I know, it sounds illogical to most but the results i've experienced speak for themselves. Silencers are coveted by those of us who bothered to take on the learning curve. Being a good sniper is more than the ability to headshot people at 300m, a lot rests on where you've decided to fire from. How dare you compare me to the religious, I'd rather be called a n00b!!! Anyway, sorry traant not here to hijack your thread with silencer arguments *ON TOPIC* New players, spend a few days with the silencer and decide for yourself. It works extremely well for me, maybe it will for you too.
After I am done with the infiltrator challenge I would love to try and learn to play with silencer. Red Dot and Sound is how I pick nearby snipers, who are not in my line of sight, all the time. I guess that happens to me too. Silencer indeed has too many drawbacks and I think it could use some buff (more speed less drop), but If I could get used to the drop I am sure that I would only go with Silencer. Silencer in CQC weapons is a no-brainer though.
There were no posts here before we started talking about silencers, so no worries, man. I'm delighted to have some good discussion here. I hear both of the arguments about Suppressors. I totally get that the advantage it confers is pretty massive in many situations, which is why like I said I always kinda feel like I ought to be using one. But every time I actually equip one and see that huge red thing arc off into the night like a lobbed tennis ball I try to guess the odds of it actually hitting somebody's head and then take the suppressor off again. At some point I'll probably try it and the light will go on and it'll be the best thing ever, but for now I'm not feeling it.
I didn't read the whole thing, but down where you recommended rifles for noobs, I have to disagree right there. Definitely agree with the ditching of the SASRs asap, but I don't think the Tier 1 BASR are actually rifles for noobs. They all sacrifice speed and drop for rechambering time, but its those moment of glory headshots that matter, thats why we do this, and thus the best rifles for a noob are actually the Tier 3 RAMS .50 etc. Yeah its bad advice to say to a noob to buy some SC and get the Tier 3 or go home, but if you've got monay to burn, buy some SC and get the Tier 3 rifle! Then when it comes to trying to mimic Mustarde or elusive1 by John-Wu'ing around with a rapid refire BASR in close quarters: DON'T! You aren't them. They are very good. When you are that good you don't need to take advice from the internet anymore. For the rest of us, sidearms are there for the CQC engagements. And thats why ITT the faster refire rifles are the more MLG weapons, not the Tier 3 as might seem more likely.
SASR is what I have my most kills with... and it's silenced, does that make me bad? That I am so used to delving behind enemy lines to take easy headshots @ 20-150m up to 200m (usually for the assist) by aiming slightly above their head and trying to compensate for their movement. In my experience, the silencer allows you to get closer, but if you stay in that spot then you're pretty much dead gaining, one or two kills at most- Gotta move around!
Well, it's definitely true that the Tier 3 rifles are easier to use, but as an F2P player I can tell you that those thousand-cert weapons look an awfully long way away for somebody who's just starting. It took me a solid three months to get my first. Meanwhile the Tier 1 rifles are priced to move, and really the difference between them is pretty small--they're clearly designed to be quickly available for new players.
Who said anything about religion It's all about the bullet velocity, not that much the curve. Also, you might need to check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo Torokokill doesn't agree. Yes do! You won't ever learn it by not doing it! Doing this have some of my best moments, always rewarding too! It's fun, and it has plenty of nice little nifty advantages. Once you get used to have a gun that kills at all ranges in 1 bullet, you can't do anything else.
Absolutely try it, but it's important to remember that it's not going to work for you, for a long time. CQC sniper is really hard to be good at, and the people who are have to work hard to get to that point. Don't be disappointed when you find you can't land the CQC twitch headshots like Mustarde does. I can't do that, either. It takes lots of practice.
When you say CQC sniper, do you mean the ones with the 6x scope as default, or the iron sight ones? Recently I've been playing with a 4x Scoped Suppressed Ghost, and while it probably isn't as effective in some circumstances as picking guys off one by one from 200M away, it's incredibly FUN. The only thing I fear is a MAX, because with accurate shots or close proximity you can burst kill almost anyone with a body shot + knife combo (though if you miss and your opponent is skilled you can end up pretty skilled). Of course, you have to pick your engagements well or you'll never go more than 1 for 1, but using that tactic I've gotten 10+ kills in a row against people 50 BR higher than me. Though it helps I've got pretty good twitch reflexes for the longer range shots as well. I dunno, maybe it's just me it just feels nice to get up close and personal as an Inf for once... Without using an SMG.
Either. I found them both hard. Using the 6x scopes in CQC is not something I would ever recommend; that's pretty much the opposite of what they're for. The low-zoom BASRs are better at it, of course, but my experience was that unless you're a badass pretty much any other weapon will be more effective.
Probably. I just feel that using the Iron BASRs for the CQC plays more to the Inf's main idea. Killing people quickly, unexpectedly, and often instantly. Of course, the SMGs are the more competitive option, but this combo will let you take down people who are probably far better at a firefight than you. There's also the upside of being able to use them as sniper rifles if you can handle the zoom being quite small.
https://www.planetside2.com/players/#!/5428147970871342881/weapons I already do do it It's incredibly fun, and it's what I personnaly prefer and suggest to anybody. I'd say, (at least for me) that It takes around 500-600 kills with it, to start getting the hang of it and be able to do relatively ok in CQC. It takes way more to master, if you can ever master it fully; but it's definetely worth it.
You're flat out wrong. Yakking right.. right.. right.. reminds me of someone who thinks they're always right. Boner to the boner, ******'d. No, you're flat out wrong. Obviously you never played as VS infiltrator as a sniper. If you did, then this thread wouldn't exist in the first place because you only mentioned NC and TR's sniper rifles. Shame on you.
