How do you feel about sniper 'fire-lines' ?

[Gnorse]

Title.

I've been seeing snipers and scouts teaming up and guarding a 2-tile entrance a lot, lately.
From what i've seen, they either get boiler-gassed, crushed or screeched and if for some reason that doesn't happen, they get a shitton of kills and probably scare the xenos off.

What do you think ?

[solidfury7]

Snipers working together are really strong.

[Crab_Spider]

I dont care about them. Theyre useful or worthless.

[Wubs4Scrubs]

I think my biggest problem with snipers is that they aren't effective during assaults. Meaning, a sniper ideally will hang maybe one marine line back and shoot targets of opportunity. Well, when on an assault snipers would have to move constantly and all the marines would be getting in their way so they're effectively useless unless they're on the front line. In which case they'll get FF'd and killed as fast as a standard.

On the defense snipers are okay because marines aren't moving around a whole lot and you can largely fire freely without having to constantly check for marines. However, you're generally just harassing xenos rather than killing them so if you're being siege'd you're usually just prolonging the inevitable alien major.

tl;dr Snipers aren't good on offence. And on defense usually you've already lost the game so who cares.

[Kesserline]

Not liking fire-lines, I prefer being as mobile as possible as a Sniper/Scout.

Usually, getting a gyro on the sniper. Loading incendiary. I land a shot on the T2 or Crusher trying to piss me off. If he is reachable, I hunt him down with other marines (he'll try to put himself out of fire or will be crited by the hunting-shots AND the fire). Marksman rounds is cool but.. I definetely use incendiary rounds more often and rely on my secondary weapon.

Fire line = static = boiler, crusher, pounced/flanked.
+
Marines do not care about you taking a sniping stance, they'll get in your line of fire, and if you are tunnel-visionned, you'll FF them.

[Steelpoint]

Biggest issue with snipers is ammo.

Due to the lack of ammo, snipers oft have to be very conservative with their ammo. Meaning they rarely use it unless they can follow up an attack or are firing on near dead targets. Its a waste of ammo to shoot xenos at range that'll just hide in cover and be back fifteen seconds later.

If snipers had access to a more accessible pool of Caseless ammo (ammo box anymore?) I think snipers would be more viable.

[Thatnewguy1]

Sniper is only fun when you are paired up with another sniper. Just sitting back at a secluded spot and chatting. Double tapping anything that dares get in you're line of fire. Fun times

[kooarbiter]

Maybe we need some form of holographic line when a sniper is scoped in that only Marines can see to
prevent friendly fire

[jalen earl]

Guarding long narrow chutes is great its basically exactly what the boilers do on big red. If im sl on a assault i usually have them as a rear guard then call them up to help suppress boilers/praes in the caves. Between them and the smartgunners they need some way to access more ammo easier even a crate of it somewhere planetside would help

[Renomaki]

honestly, I don't have a lot of experience as a sniper, but I honestly feel they work best as defenders more than attackers.

Give a sniper a nice spot near an area of importance, and you can be sure that xenos are going to be kept busy trying to avoid his bullets. Of course, they also work best in areas with few marines unlike the more explosive Sadar or GL users.

Until Snipers get "smart bullets", they are not going to be viable for much. The fact that some players play snipers as glorified grunts with night vision, charging in with assault rifles instead of sniping from afar saddens me.

[Skimmy2]

I find that snipers tend to excel at large open fields, like near tablefort.
Or for the Almayer's long hallways.
Though ammo is a constant concern.

[Mook476]

Snipers can be pretty good if they know how to aim, and marines don't get in their way. However snipers also start with a low amount of ammo, and being constantly on the move if you're an offensive sniper can be very troublesome as you'll get either picked off or simply won't get a shot in. Defensively snipers can be pretty dope if they can manage to kill boilers and help push the memeomorphs back.

[Solarmare]

I find snipers work well as an area denial tool, of an entrance or such once you've pushed xenos in somewhere. If you set up behind a barricade you can pretty much keep a flank closed off singlehandedly until you run out of ammunition.

[Dyne]

It works well in all combinations: two snipers, sniper+marksman (rail sight on something), sniper+MG+CAS binos, etc.

>tl;dr Snipers aren't good on offence. And on defense usually you've already lost the game so who cares.
You have no understanding of marine combat and tools if you think that.
Marines have the best chance to win on defense followed by a counterattack.
Even marine offense is defense-hopping.

[Kesserline]

Snipers are great on small scale offensive.

You have space to move (dodge or hunt).
You have space to shoot (with an extremely low risk of FF).

You just need a sniper + gyro + incendiary rounds.
If you have a good secondary weapon, in case your hunt finishes in conventional pewpew, that's a solid asset.

The sniper-hunter is an ultra aggressive stance, yet, very efficient when duo/trio hunting T1, T2 or Crushers (on a really small numbers at a time).

For the rest of the time, it's either a defense only or a covering stance on larger assault.

__________________

Not every marine offense is a defense-hopping, just saying.

[jalen earl]

Basically they are the only real boiler defense. An ammo box would be great but i think keeping them restricted by ammo is a good thing as well so they arent going too trigger happy shooting at every t1 that pops around a corner a pair of them is deadly. When im SL i usually keep them mid pack and call them up for area denial or suppressing in caves.

[Forst]

I agree with the holographic sight line for marines. I need to see where my support fire is coming from.