Headshots: Should they ignore Nanoweave?

Any ease-of-use advantage the Eidolon might have had went out the window the moment Battle Rifles got their muzzle velocity buffs back in 2014 - an assertion which the Oracle of Death clearly supports. Not even HSRs are any different amongst the 3 BRs.

When using an AMR-66/Warden, aim for the top of your target's head and you'll get a headshot out to about 150m. Add in HV ammo and the distance increases to about 175m. Anything past that is beyond the Battle Rifle's effective range for most players, but if you can hit targets that far away just aim for the Dorito and again, headshot.

BASRs are identical across all three factions - not including the Railjack which has no TR/VS counterpart.

BASRs require more precision but that's balanced by the fact that you generally have little to no risk of dying from your target. You can fire shot after shot with impunity until they reach cover, and with the straight-pull attachment you no longer have to scope out (having to scope-out for the 2nd shot if they couldn't OHK was one of the major complaints used by snipers to get Nanoweave nerfed).

Any sniper worth their salt knows that standing still firing shot after shot with a BASR is suicide. You're a huge target to other snipers and vehicles. If this weren't the case, I'm sure the Semi-auto snipers would be more popular.

Honestly, the major complaint about nanoweave denying sniper's their headshots was not that it took two shots, it was that there was no way to know if the guy you were lining up in your sights was going to actually die when you shot him. Especially with how hitboxes are now there's a decent chance that if you don't kill someone with the first shot of a sniper than the would-be-victim is just going to spam medkits and move all over the place until he reaches the nearest cover. This means that the target is now aware that there is a sniper and is probable going to be taking precautions in the future or go actively hunt the sniper. Not to mention that if the target is in a squad than the whole area is probably going to know that there is a sniper and be generally more difficult for the sniper to kill. Having to randomly guess whether or not the guy you are shooting at is going to die in one shot makes a huge deal to the sniper.

I think the game lore makes the HA overshield a force screen whereas Nanoweave is physical armour worn on the body. So the overshield can sensibly cover the whole trooper in a personal shield bubble (this is just my ionterpretation - feel free to disagree anyone).

Fully certed nanoweave reduces damage from bullets by 20%. I don't think that is a waste of my certs personally.

"HA isn't overpowered at all. Just aim for the head!!!"

Players learn to aim for head

"Hey uhhh, I'm getting shot in the head a lot. Make Nanoweave+Shield+LMG invincibles plz KK!!!"

No.

But my Helmet wasn't made by NS, It was crafted by a Legendary Wizard named Lord Faven. A wizard who puts damn gandalf to shame.

Eh, that bit about snipers being able to shoot with impunity is a bit exaggerated. The easiest target in the game for a sniper is another sniper...

I would argue that an engineer on a turret is the easiest target, or an engineer repairing a max, or an engineer repairing a vehicle, or engineers in general because 90% of them run flak not nanoweave . . .

I think they should add a new suit slot called "helmet" or something. Make you more resistant to just headshots.
Imo its a big enough benefit to warrant it being a suit slow on its own.

I dont even care if it doesent protect me against snipers, as long as i dont insta-die to some of these headshot "wizards"

Yes, but as a sniper, vehicles usually aren't your target, are they? Neither are enemy snipers that are zeroed in on your skull waiting for the right moment to fire. Any sniper worth their salt won't engage an enemy sniper that already knows their location (unless they feel like dueling). A good sniper will cloak, move, and then wait until the enemy sniper's attention is elsewhere before engaging.

Look, I never said snipers were not at risk from other sources. There is always the possibility of there being other threats that are outside of the dynamic that exists between a sniper and his target. But that's beside the point. The same thing could be said about any class or vehicle so it's a valueless statement.

The big difference with snipers is that all else being equal, as a sniper you're usually at little risk from your target because said target is generally not able to effectively return fire unless 1) your target is another sniper, or 2) you're a CQC sniper like elusive1 (rare), in which case you're within range of your target's weapons. CQC carbine sprayers don't have that luxury.

The high precision required of a sniper is balanced by the low risk they usually get from their target.

If that was the case, then the simple solution would have been to place an indicator above the target's head if they were wearing Nano. It wouldn't have required a complete reworking of how Nanoweave functions.

Not being able to tell if someone wore Nano was also complaint, yes, but by far the biggest argument was that Nano let people survive headshots from as close as ~35m. Players posted several video examples before the Nano nerf, and supporters of a Nano nerf rallied behind those posts.

As I mentioned above, I was talking about risk from your target.

And obviously if your target is carrying the same or similar weapon system as you, he can be as big of a threat to you as you are to him. That should go without saying, and it's why I said you generally have little to no risk of dying. There are always exceptions.

Yes, I know you said, "risk from your target," and I politely side stepped that, but now that you're attempting to make it stick I suppose I'll need to be more direct: Risk from your target is irrelevant, and only serves to artificially isolate a single interaction in an entire field of such interactions, where the sniper--and the target--are always at risk from other actors, not just each other.

In other words, that part of your point is moot, because it exists in a fantasy where there is just the sniper and his target. In the real world--in real game play--there is the sniper, his target, the other sniper trying to kill the same target, the counter-sniper waiting for the sniper/s to open fire, and the innumerable other players gunning for the same XP piñata as the sniper, who is himself an XP piñata at equal risk of being popped.

Depends on the turret. If I'm on a anti-personnel turret I have it placed in such a way that I can angle the shield and cover my entire body from sniper fire.

The reason I think snipers are the easiest targets is because their precision all but requires an overwhelming degree of target fixation. Few if any snipers in this game have much situational awareness when staring down their scopes. The better ones know to relocate after every shot, but the vast majority are much too lazy and spam shots with their straight bolts. If I'm counter-sniping they might empty a magazine before I kill them.

Sidestepping that phrase completely changes the whole meaning of my post, turning it into a strawman.

And variable isolation is a very basic precept for statistical analysis and the scientific method in general. You try to isolate one variable, and have control over all others if possible, in order to support a hypothesis and/or predict future events.

Without such variable control and isolation, any comparisons are useless because there will be too many outside variables to come to any sort of conclusion.

No it's not moot, because all other non-MAX infantry suffer very real threats from their intended targets in addition to the very same threats from other sources that snipers have to worry about,


The logical next step is that in real gameplay, regardless of the outside threat level that exists, all else being equal, snipers will almost always be at lower risk overall than other non-MAX infantry because most of their potential targets can't shoot back due to range. This is a very real, non-fantastical advantage for snipers because it means most of their firefights are very one-sided in favor of the sniper.

But if that's not enough of an advantage for you, let me expand upon it. Add in the fact that in most battles the majority of players are playing non-sniper infantry and almost none of them can effectively return fire, and that small trickle of lowered risk from one target becomes a deluge where the majority of players in any given fight can't kill you simply due to range.

So I will update my assertion to say that the increased precision requirements placed on a sniper is balanced by the lowered risk of death that snipers enjoy from the majority of players in any given battle, due to range constraints placed on almost all non-sniper infantry weapons.

Coming from a heavy that mains adrenaline and nanoweave, it would be broken if it also protected against headshots. That's what resist shield is for, to protect players from headshots. To grant headshot protection to all classes is a huge buff to the armor slot.

If the sniper is worth their salt, one their primary functions is to counter those snipers even if they know their location. The long range sniper simply relocates a bit and continues to shoot at the enemy sniper. The ones that are usually not worth their salt are the dead ones that ignore the enemy sniper and continued with their farm.

I understand your argument of low risk but as a sniper that's had extensive long range and even more CQC sniping experience (CQC like elusive1) I can tell you that long range sniping isn't even that much helpful for combat. Sure I agree with you that the long range sniper has somewhat low risk but it's also incredibly low reward. Try it for yourself one day. Sit on a hill and count your KPH comparatively to being closer in the thick engaging enemies. You'll notice that your long range kills are practically insignificant in comparison since the majority of enemies will have time to respawn and go back to their objective.

"As I said, Headshots are already incredibly powerful. Having them deal 20% less damage isn't going to be the end of Araxius. And we can change BASR's to a new damage type if need be, letting them ignore Nanoweave still."

If i'm a new player,I'll have to score 4 or 5 HS when the amazing Br 100+ has to score only 3?

Give a full nanowave armor for new players

By your logic the same should apply to semi-auto scout rifles and battle rifles. Since they have worse COFs than BASRs it's even harder to land a headshot with those, and therefore deserve even more to be rewarded with a kill.

Except that they shouldn't ignore it, in my opinion. If I'm spending the certs to max out Nanoweave, i should no longer be a one shot kill for a sniper if I'm at full health and shields.

In my opinion, headshots should not ignore NWA. Or atleast have something that increases headshot damage resistance.

No, the easiest target for a sniper is a Newbie sniper.... Those Newbie snipers are what helped me Arax the phaseshift.

Yep, absolutely. That doesn't really contradict anything I said. It more just expands on it. I thought about mentioning that good snipers could also just break contact long enough for the enemy sniper to lose their target and then re-engage, but I chose not to in the name of brevity.

I guess it depends on how you define "reward." I consider an OHK to be a really big reward. But then what do I know? I'm just a jealous mid-range Battle Rifle marksman.

I think that the risk/reward of sniping fairly well balanced now, but perhaps tipped a little too much in favor of the mid-range (100-200m) sniper and away from long range sniping. I think it's a little too easy to snipe at that range give in that you're still outside the range of most other non-sniper weapons. But that's a topic for a different thread.

My only real issue is the sense of self-entitlement many snipers feel when it comes to BASRs and OHKs. The introduction of the straight-pull attachment removed any solid justification for the distinct lack of counter to the OHK and the insistence that BASRs should OHK 100% of the time when their target is in range . Some snipers even complain about Resist Shield, which is currently the only counter available and which isn't available to 4 of the 5 (non-MAX) infantry classes.

My preferred counter would be introducing a Nano-Helmet Suit slot, which would provide enough head protection to significantly reduce if not remove (at max level) the OHK range of at least the CQC and mid-range BASRs. EDIT: I also think there should be a HUD indicator telling snipers if a target that they have spotted has Nano-Helmet equipped or not.