Sniper Rebalance Idea (Keeps Identity While Making Him a RoR Character)

Let me first start off by stating that I love Sniper. Sniper is my favorite character to play hands down. Ever since I unlocked him, I have been playing him pretty much religiously, and as many as you have figured out, he's one of the most difficult characters to play. That's not a problem. What's more of a problem is that he isnt really a Risk of Rain character.

Risk of Rain Characters for the most part have the ability to deal with mobs, many mobs. Large amounts of mobs tend to appear in the game at various points In the beginning, they may not be the best at mobbing, but they all have the tools necessary to mob and to survive. It usually just boils down to skill whether or not you survive. Also, when Risk of Rain characters pick up items, there is always a substantial benefit from doing so. Some characters may drastically benefit from certain items more than others, but there is rarely a time when you feel like "Wow that item was totally a waste for x character"

Unless of course, you're using Sniper.

A large number of the items in the game are Chance based on hit. Chance based items benefit the most from attacks that either Process multiple times per hit or on characters with medium to high attack speed. Sniper has neither of these attributes. He's slow at shooting, and his piercing attack does not Proc multiple times. His normal shot also only hits one enemy at a time, which makes every chance based item in the game mostly useless for Sniper. Meaning that for the most part Sniper is not really part of the "Risk of Rain experience".

The only items that I could perhaps say are "best" for sniper are items that activate by chance on kill (due to his high damage) and the Crowbar, and perhaps the Ol' Lopper. But that's such a small item pool, that it really brings him down on a whole. Plus, other characters can benefit from those items as well, so it's not as though they're specialized for him.

His other skills such as Scan and Steady Aim have a number of problems with them as well. Scan is specialized for hitting one enemy at a time, but it's extremely inaccurate (sometimes picking enemies offscreen as targets), and when you recall it, it will have a hefty 7 second cooldown time. Also, if you target a boss like Magma worm, the scan will go offscreen and then just get re-cooldowned.

So I had some ideas to keep Sniper as a "Sniper" while bringing him more into the RoR experience.

Here are my proposed changes for Sniper:


RELOADING: Now the changes to this would be huge, and would really make Sniper Shine in his playstyle. There are essentially three bullets: Normal Reload, Purple Reload, Perfect Reload. Consider removing the Damage Buff of reload if this is too overpowered.

Normal Reload: No changes in anything related to Sniper. Takes your Chance Items and increases their Base Activation Chance by 1/8th. So If you have Boxing Glove with a base Proc Chance of 15%, that gets increased to 16.8%. This pierces 3 Targets with SNIPE So it goes 16.8%, 8.4%, 4.2%. The reason for the Buff to chance on Sniper, despite Procing on Pierce is to Balance out his really poor Firing Rate compared to the other characters.

Purple Reload: Gives +1 Piercing Target To SNIPE and STEADY AIM. This Pierce Target Is Special as it Changes the Formula. Normally if SNIPE Hits 3 Enemies, it Will Do: 100%, 50%, 25%. With Purple Reload it will hit 4 Targets doing: 100%, 100%, 50%, 25%. Or Alternatively, 100% 90%, 50%, 25%. Whichever you feel is better for balance.

Increases Base Proc Chance of "On Hit" Items by 25%. So if you have Boxing Glove with 15% KB Chance, that will Increase to 18.7% With Purple Reload. This Extra Pierce Target Will Also keep the Base Activation Chance of the attack before it. So The Proc Chance of that Same Boxing Glove will Go:
18.7%, 18.7%, 9.35%, 4.675%

Perfect Reload: Gives +2 Piercing Targets to SNIPE and STEADY AIM. These Pierce Targets also change the Formula In this Fashion: For 5 Pierced Hits of SNIPE Damage Becomes: 100%, 100%, 100%, 50%, 25%

Increases Base Proc Chance of "On Hit" Items by 50%. So if you have a Boxing Glove with 15% KB Chance, that will Increase to 22.5% With Perfect Reload. These Extra Pierce Targets will also Keep the Base Activation chances of the previous attacks. So the Proc Chance of the glove with SNIPE will go:
22.5%, 22.5%, 22.5%, 11.25%, 5.625%


SCAN: We'll Make a Man Out of You! Scan is pretty bad right now. Like really bad, almost useless. But I think it can be drastically improved in this way:
Changes: Targets the CLOSEST enemy over most dangerous enemy. Will prefer enemies closer to your current position AND elevation, and not enemies extremely far off unless there are no other targets nearby. Will Also Target the closest most dangerous enemy out of the nearest 3 enemies. So For Example it will pick the missile launching Child about 1/8th of a screen away from you, and NOT the Rock Giant Above you about 1/3rd of the screen away... UNLESS you clear out the nearby enemies. Exception to this are Bosses. SCAN will ALWAYS target Bosses as long as they are on screen. No exceptions. Killing bosses is your job. So yeah...do it.

Buff: Double Chance to Activate "On Hit" items on the Scanned Enemy at it's current activation rate so if it got lowered to 5.625% chance as labelled above, that will double to 10.625% but only on that enemy). This is also why it targets bosses at high priority. Recalling SCAN does not have a Cooldown as long as you dont do damage to the Scanned Enemy. If you Damage the Scanned Enemy at All, but don't Kill it, then Cooldown is reduced to 5 Seconds. Killing an Enemy With SNIPE or STEADY AIM while under the influence of SCAN, gives you a Special Bonus called either TANGO DOWN or KILL CONFIRMED. But puts SCAN in its 10Second Cooldown.

NEW!! KILL CONFIRMED/TANGO DOWN: This will be some bonus for sniper for killing an enemy under the influence of SCAN. I was thinking it could either be:
Bonus 1: Increased Movement Speed for a duration. Bandit style.
Bonus 2: Permanent Increase to (Some Stat). Thinking either +1% Crit or +1% Damage. Maxes out somewhere.

SNIPE: Buff: Change from 1 enemy per shot to Piercing 3 enemies by default. Lower Base Damage of SNIPE to Compensate. Perhaps to 150 - 200%. Piercing works the same as STEADY AIM in terms of damage output ie: Starts at 100% Damage, and goes down to 50%, then 25%. Each of these piercing shots can Proc any chance based items you have on. Except it lowers the chance of them activating by 50% each time. So for example if you have on the Boxing Glove (1) and you use the normal shot. Your first pierce shot does 100% damage and 15% Knockback Chance, the second pierce hit does 50% DMG and 7.5% Knockback Chance, third pierce does 25% Damage and 3.75% Knockback chance.

Reasoning: The goal with this is so that chance based items are not useless for Sniper. It also gives him proper mobbing potential, which he sorely needs after using STEADY AIM. What happens a lot is you will use MILITARY TRAINING to Backflip away from "ant lines" of enemies. You charge up a full/almost full STEADY AIM, and then only a few enemies at the forefront will actually die. You now have to wait 4 more seconds to use another STEADY AIM, and another 4 seconds to wait for your MILITARY TRAINING to come back. So your only real option remaining is SNIPE which currently only hits one enemy at a time. Hitting
multiple enemies will balance out him being in a bad situation there, and also giving him the chance to activate his items and have them help him out.


STEADY AIM: Buff: Procs On-Hit Items On Each Pierced Enemy, using Same Method as SNIPE described above Ie: Half Chance Per Pierced Enemy. Pierces 5 Enemies By Default. Consider nerfing the Damage to Balance out this new Feature to Perhaps 1500% Max.

New Optional Feature For STEADY AIM: Can Pierce Terrain. However, if it pierces terrain, Base Damage Is Lowered to 50%. So it Starts at 50%, then 25%, then 12.5%, etc. Also, Piercing terrain makes you lose 2 Pierce Targets (Basically, STEAD AIM through terrain becomes an Inferior but charged up SNIPE) in exchange for positional advantage. This may be hard to balance though, so its optional.


MILITARY TRAINING: Buff: Leaves Behind A Holographic Decoy That lasts 1 - 2 Seconds, Luring Enemies Towards it In a Similar Manner to the "Crudely Drawn Buddy." Has Less "Lure Range" than Crudely Drawn Buddy. Decoy lifetime starts AS SOON as you hit the button(meaning it goes on during your entire backflip to avoid abuse but encourages intelligent usage). Acts Purely as a Distraction To Give Time to use STEADY AIM. Can also be used to help Facilitate "Lining Up Targets" so STEADY AIM can be Applicable.

This particular buff may not be necessary and may make Sniper OP if you give SNIPE the ability to pierce AND add Perfect Reload/Purple Reload Pierce time and Procs. But it's an idea. If you keep the behavior as it is, it might actually be better and still allow sniper to be challenging.


That's pretty much all for now, I'll do more editing later.

 

That was awfully clumsily written. What you should have said is "Divide a monster's health by its distance from the player and whichever monster has the highest value gets targeted"
Bosses tend to always have higher health than everything else even when damaged so there's no need to make a special exception for them.

 

No offense but pretty much the ONLY thing "Sniper Smokescreen, Enforcer Turtling, and more!" Is talking about is the sniper. Post (smaller) suggestions there.

 

I tried writing a lengthy response but gave up, here's just a summary I suppose.

Sniper is not item reliant, which is a damn good thing. There's absolutely no reason why every item has to be exceptionally good on every class, each item's usefulness varies from class to class, but as you said, nothing is wasted, not even on Sniper. On-hit items aren't as effective on Sniper, but far from wasted. Besides, Sniper has his speciality items such as Drones, on-kill items and Crowbar, all of which are exceptional on Sniper thanks to his high base damage and fast kill rate. To adjust his playstyle so heavily just to cater for on-hit items is ludicrous.

Spotter simply needs to weigh proximity a little more than HP then it will be fine, though I'd personally like to see some Ancient Scepter change, a single target slow is a bit underwhelming.

Military Training is hands down the best dodge of the game as it is, it does not in any way shape or form require additional function.

 

I agree with reVelske on all points. The Spotter doesn't need new functionality, it just needs to be better at picking the target that the player wants by prioritizing enemies based on vertical distance (so you're more likely to pick a strong target that will be in front of you). Dealing reliable auto-crits is fantastic. Additionally, as far as item selection goes, the Sniper has a lot of items that work better for him than any other class. Things that happen on crits, on kills, and on healthy items are great.

I still think the single, best way to improve the Sniper would be to combine Snipe and Steady Aim into one ability that has the functionality of both (tapping would be the same as Snipe, holding would be essentially the same as Steady Aim) and giving him an additional ability that isn't overpowered that helps deal with the rare situation where he falls short.

 

I think you're failing to understand the difference between item reliance and item effectiveness. Actually, I think Sniper is more item reliant than any other class because of the very reason you said: only some "specialty" items are good on him, rather than the wide, wide variety of items that are good on just about every other class (barring maybe Engineer, but even his Trinades/Mines/Rockets proc a decent amount).

Sniper's dodge is not hands down "the best in the game"; if cooldown is included I believe that to be Commando's (which could be argued); if not Bandit's is definitely the best. Pointing that out was to lead to this fundamental weakness of Sniper: his kit is too average to account for the fact that he has the worst item synergy of all classes in the game. His 1st ability is almost entirely redundant when comparing it to his 2nd (the only 2 abilities on a class in the game that overlap so poorly), his AOE is lacking (having to sit down for 2 seconds to decently damage 3 or 4 enemies does not qualify as good AOE), and he does get overwhelmed easier than all other classes. Don't refute by saying "there should never be too many enemies on the screen at a time when playing Sniper", because it is impossible for any (non-godmode) class to reliably deal with the relentless wave of enemies that spawn in Monsoon by the 3rd or 4th stage.

Sniper either needs better item synergy or a better default kit to account for the fact that as it stands, he is the most item-specific reliant class in the game, not the least. I really want to like Sniper, but he is not currently even close to the level that every other class in the game is (yes, even Han-D).

 

When I can happily boss rush no loop Monsoon clear my run without giving the slightest damn about what I get and don't get, the class is not item reliant, when I can only get through stage 2 (if it's Worm) and 3 (if it's Valley) on a good day whilst failing horribly on others, the class is item reliant. You know who I find to be item reliant? Commando, Bandit, Mercenary. You know who I don't find item reliant? Sniper.

And of course I take cd into consideration. 2 extra secs compared to commando is a worthwhile trade off for a much faster and further dodge.

And I really don't know what's people's big problem with Snipe, it's 400%+ per two hops, the attack is absolutely solid and a vital part of his kiting arsenal.

Again, Sniper's AOE isn't great, but it's still 2000% + 1000% + 500% + 250% + etc etc + Perfect Reload. Sure it isn't gonna hit a whole marching band like Commando's FMJ does, but its AOE damage is most certainly comparable overall to some of the other AOE skills available.

And get overwhelmed with his default high move speed and fastest dodge in the game? Certainly no more than the chance of any other class getting overrun. Actually, do you honestly think Bandit has an easier time not getting overrun than Sniper? And Merc? That is just silly. Good luck outrunning Blighted Clay Man with your Smokebomb lead for 10 secs, don't forget you need to shoot once in awhile too!

 

Those classes, even if you consider them to be item reliant, work well with enough items that they can make just about any slew of items usable. Commando, Bandit, and Merc are the three best classes in the game for item synergy, so whether they're item reliant or not is irrelevant, as they will be successful with whatever items they find (I can definitely vouch for this with Commando and Merc, but I don't personally like Bandit very much so I don't play much of him).

2 seconds is a very long time when being pounded by a swarm of enemies (missiles, ranged attacks, teleporting elites, etc.), and while Sniper's dodge is farther than Commando's, I don't believe that that alone makes it much better (if better at all) than every other dodge in the game as you claim it does.

400% in 2 hops is admittedly good damage, but the attack + reload is far slower than any other class's, making it difficult to reliably run away and damage at the same time. It's also not nearly as useful as Steady Aim, which has a cooldown short enough so that Snipe itself feels like a waste of an ability.

Very rarely will you actually be able to pull off a fully charged Steady Aim when in serious combat, making that a poor example. The fact that you have to commit yourself to a charge for a solid 2-3 seconds means that Steady Aim will almost never deal the full 2000% advertised in the description. Assuming Sniper gets a half charged Steady Aim, he'll only seriously damage 3-4 enemies, which is not enough in a game where being chased by 10+ enemies is common. Every other class has some sort of way with dealing with these large groups whereas Sniper does not. This is probably his most glaring weakness, as he becomes overwhelmed easier than any other class if he can't immediately execute enemies as soon as they appear (which isn't possible a lot of the time).

With the worst AOE in the game, no default high movement speed or good dodge will keep Sniper from being overwhelmed. Smokebomb at least can damage all enemies in an area, something that Sniper is incapable of doing. Claiming that Merc gets overwhelmed more easily than Sniper, on the other hand, is objectively wrong. Merc has waaaay more dodge frames, vastly more AOE, and much quicker attacks compared to Sniper, meaning that even before getting any items that work well with him (read: all good items in the game), Merc will deal with a mob of enemies far more efficiently and safely than Sniper.

I've gotten to godmode status in Monsoon with every class (including Bandit) except Sniper, despite my several attempts. You are the only one I've seen defending Sniper as he currently stands, pitted against the large majority of people on these forums requesting some sort of buff for this class. I understand that you like Sniper, but I like every other class except Sniper (and Bandit, but that's for personal reasons), because Sniper is, as it stands, too weak to reliably loop Monsoon successfully.

 

Wowowowowow hold on just a sec, are you actually basing your opinion mostly on a class's ability to do loops? Then we are arguing completely different things here. Loop is intended for player to acquire additional items to better clear final stage and Providence 'n Friends, when there's no need for additional items, there's no point. Otherwise, if you are doing loop purely for senseless self-indulgence, then that becomes completely irrelevant. OBVIOUSLY classes that proc on-hit better will have a better time looping, this is not Sniper's purpose, not what he excels at, and frankly, not what any of the class is built to do.

And your usage of "item synergy" is rather questionable, please define the phrase, unless, of course, you simply meant faster attack rate hence more on-hit item trigger. Whereas Commando can FMJ kite a marching band forever, Merc and Bandit has absolutely no good self-defense or good damage potential to truly deal with a crowd without the necessary items few stages in.

And actually I have no idea what I was thinking when I said two hops. Shoot, hop+reload, rinse and repeat. Same strat is of absolutely no worth for most other classes who relies solely on skills for kiting and zoning. Other classes' default attack is highly ineffective later on without the much needed attack speed improving and on-hit items, even in early stages they generally struggle to kill most targets in timeous fashion on their own. Snipe, on the other hand, can reliably two-hit kill on most within first two stages, whilst its usefulness doesn't drop off regardless of items even in later stages. Keep in mind, most classes' default attack stop being able to hit stun due to having fallen behind on default damage vs monster HP quite early in a run, Snipe will continue delivering hit stun through out most of the playthrough, which adds to the hopSnipe's viability as a kiting strategy. Frankly, this works a lot better for kiting a march band than whatever Bandit has to offer, or Merc for that matter.

"Every other class has some sort of way with dealing with these large groups whereas Sniper does not"? HAN-D's Overclock + HURT stop being safe from around Temple onwards, and FORCED REASSEMBLY is unsable without Ancient Scepter; Bandit can run and throw grenade... which is really it, that is NOT a reliable method of dealing with large group, Once you've acquired the right item you can actually Smokebomb INTO a crowd and start a chain reaction, but again, item reliant class; Merc can invulnerability spam, but without the correct items, it's an excruciatingly long grind due to low damage, and there are plenty of rooms for mistake, not to mention his lack of good escape mechanism.

And getting full charge is not as difficult as you make it out to be, it's not something you get every shot, but it's not what I'd consider "rare", there are various mechanics you can abuse to acquire that full charge, stairs (which slow down enemies), Proton Jetpack (air time), jump pads (same concept), and most importantly, good reaction. Besides, a half charge is still a heck of a lot of damage overall and is still relatively comparable to anything that isn't FMJ on an army or a Miner swimming in a pool of beasties.

Overwhelmed how? Everytime you do a Military Training, someone is almost guaranteed to die. What is Smokebomb gonna do? 140% tickle? For what purpose? For you to run for your dear life from that Blighted Clay Man for 10 secs so you can repeat the same thing? And Merc NEEDS items to kill, he doesn't have the luxury of long post-attack invulnerability to allow him to hop in the crowd completely unharassed the way Miner does, you ARE vulnerable when you end an Eviscerate, you ARE vulnerable when you land from a Whirlwind, without some core cooldown reduction/stun/dps items, Merc starts to struggle in a crowd very quickly in a run. And I dunno which threads have you been looking in, but I'm far from the only one, and "large majority" of the argument has simply been about "reload is too hard" and "can't deal with jar of ants", neither of which are really anything worthy argument to deserve Sniper such harsh treatment.

 

Just wanted to say that I'm definitely one of the Sniper players who feel he's good where he is. A slight change here or there would be good but people are talking about removing and giving new skills.....There's honestly no point in arguing with people about him anymore. Especially anyone who would defend the Bandit as I feel he needs the most work. There's also that other guy who, post after post, shows that he's not very knowledgeable and can't even beat Monsoon.

 

But what's inherently bad about the suggestion of combining Snipe and Steady Aim? There is hardly anything that separates Snipe and an uncharged Steady Aim, and that redundancy in itself is sloppy.

The differences between the two as I see it are:
-Steady Aim cancels your horizontal movement in air, Snipe doesn't
-Steady Aim has a small cooldown+Reload, Snipe is just reload.

The cooldown on Steady Aim has a fairly small impact on the character as is, seeing as the actual time limitation is the time needed to get a clear shot again. Also, Steady Aim would feel better if it didn't cancel your horizontal momentum, so losing that would be just fine. As is, Steady Aim is essentially his actual basic attack, with Snipe just being there for when you can't use Steady Aim. It's silly.

 

I can understand the complaint with the two attacks being very similar visually and functionally, which makes things a little less interesting. But gameplay wise, Snipe and Steady Aim serve vastly different purposes.

Despite what people think, Snipe is actually a very spammy and powerful skill (no less so than Engineer's default attack, in fact it has similar attack speed but with vastly higher damage), it's far more than just a "kill time when Steady Aim is on CD" skill as some people perceive it as. You want your on-hit chance? Well, Snipe is right there for that, between each Steady Aim you have time for about 3-4 Snipes, which sums up to around 1200%+ damage in total. Don't like how Sniper stands still a lot? HopSnipe is your answer. Not sure what's ahead of you and don't want to waste time planting your ass down for a Steady Aim? HopSnipe away.

 

... but if Steady Aim didn't have a cooldown, didn't stop your horizontal momentum, and was the same key as the reload, would you have any reason whatsoever to use a separate Snipe ability? While Steady Aim does have cooldown and stops your momentum, neither of these things are things that actually define that ability and could be done away with just fine. Obviously Snipe has functionality, it just doesn't have any functionality that a modified Steady Aim tap wouldn't have.

 

I'll admit, removing Snipe and having only a CD-less Steady Aim seems nice (though they'd need to reduce the damage output heavily to balance that out, because frankly, Steady Aim as it is without CD would be quite ridiculous), but the chance of the devs canning a skill to create something completely new is highly unlikely, as the class would require to be completely rebalanced.

 

I can't even imagine a no cooldown steady aim lmao. It'd be impossible to lose with that.

 

I suppose? Coding-wise, it would be rather simple to modify the two into something that would work. Adding another skill, yeah, that would take a little bit of time, but it definitely wouldn't take up a whole day or anything crazy.
(and I'm still in favor of it being an ammo switch so the Sniper's focus would still be on enhancing his superb Sniping abilities. Also wouldn't be a pain to code in, it'd essentially just be switching on and off a few properties.)

As is now, how does the damage compare between Snipe and an uncharged Steady Aim? I think I'd be fine with it starting at ~300% and then going up to what it normally is fully charged. So, change base damage but keep max damage.

In any case, I would have to try the no CD Steady Aim out. I still feel like the cooldown on it isn't the main limiter of using charged up shots since you still have to reload and respace, but who knows.

 

The thing is, more monster pile up as you're waiting for your Steady Aim to cool down. But if it's not cooling down, that chances of you getting overran by monsters is severally lowered.

Edit: 300% is way too much.

 

Is 300% way too much? Ah, looks like I meant to say 250%, like how Snipe is now. Basically imagining going 250% - 2000% with charging.

I guess I feel like most players would still be waiting for the Backflip CD to burn off so they can get some space, otherwise they're just firing off uncharged shots into the crowd or really risking having their faces get torn off, assuming the previous shot didn't freeze/stun/knockback the crowd.

(also, thinking about it, I wish Backflip made you roll in the direction you're facing but have you end up facing the direction you came from. Pretty much universally I'm quickly tapping the opposite direction and then Backflipping, it'd be classier if it just handled that in the first place. More badass imagery too, rolling away and coming up facing the crowd.)

 

What if snipe was changed to a more mobile skill (I recall someone suggesting a sidearm) while Steady aim had its cooldown removed. The catch is, you can only charge Steady Aim up to how much "focus points" you have. Focus points generate over time, and whenever you charge a shot, the required focus points are consumed. The time it takes for your focus points to reach their maximum value is equivalant to Steady Aim's current cooldown, and firing a fully charged steady aim would require the maximum number of focus points. Therefore you could fire it consistently without charging it, not consuming focus points (to the same effect of Snipe) or could fire off a fully charged shot every time you get full focus points. (like current Steady Aim) These two methods of the skill would not be mutually exclusive.

Imagine if to plant a Turret, the Engineer had to hold down the mine key (both mines and turrets still draw from separate resource pools)
That's the equivalant of what I'm suggesting here. Merging similar abilities like that would allow another ability slot to be freed up.

 

^That would make the Commando's Full Metal Jacket look like a joke in comparison.