Sniper SmokeScreen, Enforcer Turtling, and more!

How about when targeted enemy dies it explodes? (Similarly to Wisp in a jar)
Or removing the cooldown of Spotter: Scan entirely so the sniper can focus on taking out an enemy at a time? (This wouldn't really help him all that much with huge groups, but opens up more fluid individual target gameplay, allowing him to destroy enemies as they spawn reducing the amount of mobs built up over time)

And personally my most preferable one, give Steady Aim a minimum % damage.
For example: 25% of the original aim damage, so if steady aim was aimed for 2.5 seconds the first enemy would take 2000% damage, and no matter how many enemies pierced the enemies would take at least 25% of 2000% damage (500%)
Or if steady aim was charged for 0.5 seconds (400% multiplier) the minimum damage taken by an enemy (like even after 50 enemies were pierced) would be 100% of the sniper's damage.


The problem with the "drop a grenade on backflip" is that I don't see how that would help as much with the Jar of Ants situation as backflip has quite a lengthy cooldown and the grenade probably wouldn't do as much damage.
I could see the grenade helping situations where enemies are kited by the sniper over a fairly long platform though.

It slows down the targeted enemy, effectively making things harder for the sniper if it's in a group of enemies.

 

To be fair, I really do like how the Wisp Jar item works with the Sniper. It's fun to shoot Steady Aim into a crowd and have like, two dead enemies explode the whole group.

Yeah, really the worst part of Steady Aim is those diminishing returns. This'd be a nice way to buff it.

Yeah, the backflip grenade isn't meant to help him in a Jar of Ants, I just like the suggestion because it'd be a neat way to aid his regular kiting strategy.

 

@Above discussion. I think the Sniper's basic attack DOES add to his kiting potential. Because his basic attack has high damage, it knock backs quite often. He can Jump+Reload to keep moving while reloading, land and fire. That tactic keeps you moving more often in conjunction with his backflip, and knocking enemies back creates even more space. If you don't understand what I'm talking about it's probably because you can't perfect reload as soon as the reload starts.

If you can't hit enemies while jump shooting, you're not shooting as SOON as you jump. Aka, your timing is off/you're doing it wrong.

Question: Does the Sniper have an indicator letting you know that you've perfect reload? I know that you will see additional pink damage when you hit something, but I want to know that if I perfectly reloaded prior to shooting. I've been playing the Sniper a lot this week and I have a bad computer. I have graphics turned all the way down with damage numbers off. The only way I'm certain that I did a perfect reload is if I purposely let the line go in the middle of the bar instead of touching the edge(which is what I prefer).

Suggestion: I think the Sniper should get a pink bullet above it's head indicating that they have a perfect reload shot primed.

 

Hey. I really like Sniper for his uniqueness in gameplay. So reading your posts i was thinking how to make sniper more fluid while letting him do what sniper does best - killing enemies one round at time. That
what i got:
* Combining Snipe and Steady Aim is good idea. Piercing effect for Perfect reload.
* Let him reload in move for more fluidness. Jump-reloading works but its not intuitive when you also want to time it for Perfect reload.
* Make SPOT scan work so when deployed you will aim, shoot at and 100% crit spotted enemy even when he
is higher/lower then you if shoot is unobstructed (similar to Spitter enemy at Mushroom Cavern. If
monsters can do this then why trained sniper cant?). You will only hit spotted enemy and no-one else (no
piercing and stuff).
* Press SPOT button again to change target (from strongest to weakest).
* Hold SPOT button to summon SPOT back.
* Back flip feels like Commandos Tactical Dive but backwards. Swap it with floating platform so he can
use it as safe haven for sniping or to get to higher places to snipe from with SPOT.
Now "Jar of Ants" problem. Many enemies and no place to run. I came up with a skill called Fire Frenzy.

When activated slows everything for few sec. Like you were high on adrenaline or something. Point is
your skills work like normal. Reloading animation is faster and you charge shoot faster. During Frenzy
SPOT doesn't come back after kill but rather automatically targets next enemy so you can kill like 10 or
so enemies one after another just timing Perfect reload and shooting normal or (for tougher enemies) charged shoots. Use with floating platform for maximum safety. Fire Frenzy doesn't have time colldown but kill
colldown. You can use it again after you kill 10-15 enemies.

What do you think? I basically rewritten SPOT and implemented few ideas posted by others while trying to let sniper be sniper and do what sniper does best - killing enemies one round at time.

 

Some interesting ideas there, I especially like the idea of STEADY AIM imitating the spitters when SPOT is deployed. It really would make playing the sniper feel like you are isolating the strongest target and neutralizing him in one shot. As for your other ideas, I would have to think about them for a bit. (still not a super big fan of the floating platform thing)

As for the C4 suggestion, I think that was one of the three ideas I came up with waaaaaay back in the topic. I don't remember if I mentioned the fine details, but the thing that made it work well with the sniper's playstyle and to help differentiate it from the engi mines was the idea that it would have a much bigger explosion and would do self damage to the sniper if he was in the radius. The reason I think this idea works fine for sniper is because it supports his technical playstyle and supports his kiting (drop C4, Military Training away, start charging Steady Aim, Detonate C4 when the mobs are close enough, let loose Steady Aim). The self damage would prevent it being an emergency kill button and instead something you need to plan out.

There have been some other really good ideas though, I do love the technical playstyle of the sniper.

EDIT: found my old suggestion post

I hadn't really elaborated on the C4 idea, I probably should have in that post. After thinking about it more, I quite like it and place it about even with my Serrated Knife idea.

 

Admittedly, I have to confess I went ahead and tried this in SP and did manage to figure that out. Admittedly it's ALRIGHT, but unless you have a crowbar, the damage on Snipe leaves much to be desired, even with a perfect reload.

To be fair, doing the jump-shot is still better than NOT doing it, but it's supplemental at best, like the Mercenary's basic attack. Just something to spam for a little extra damage between your skills. Not ultimately impressive in and of itself.

There is currently an indicator but it's only in the form of a sound. If you listen during reloads, a sound plays when you get a perfect or near-perfect reload. It's louder on a perfect reload, and not so much in the purple area, so you can easily tell.

A visual indicator would, indeed, be nice, though.

I also like the idea of being able to reload while moving. No idea why they decided he has to stand still for that. I'll add it.

As for the spotter allowing the sniper to aim at specific enemies, I considered suggesting something like it, but I didn't figure out a way to let him summon the spotter back so I refrained. Now that you pointed it out, seems obvious in retrospect! In my version, the attack also had infinite piercing up to the selected target, but your idea is probably better-balanced overall.

Finally, I do NOT want to swap out Military Training at all. I like it.

I dunno how much I like this, especially if we replace SNIPE with Steady Aim and make it his only attack. Especially if we do the Spotter the way you suggested so that the sniper only hits the spotted enemy. In this case he's still killing enemies one shot at a time, and I appreciate that this is what you feel to be the core essence of sniper-dom, but he absolutely needs an AOE attack, and Steady Aim is that AOE for now. I'd rather not remove it until he had another AOE.

In the meantime, however, I think I've come up with another suggestion to replace Snipe.

This ability, I call "Freeze Cracker".

The Sniper drops a grenade at his location that explodes after a second, creating a large cloud of freezing gas. The ability would work like a limited-area snowglobe item, enemies inside the cloud would become frozen and refrozen frequently, and any enemies that thawed would have their moment SEVERELY hampered until a few seconds after the cloud vanishes. The cloud would preferrably last a while, and probably have a long cooldown to compensate, but this would give the Sniper plenty of time to land 2 or 3 Steady Aim shots against mostly helpless foes.

... Yes. The name is a MegaMan 7 reference.

 

I have another idea, maybe instead of changing a whole lot, make enemies hit by steady aim's piercing (which would preferably be buffed, maybe even with snipe having its current piercing if it's not replaced) crippled in some way, either slowly losing movement speed like Thallium, or maybe just plain unable to attack for a second or so. This wouldn't be massively helpful, as long-range sniping would be largely unaffected, but it might help slightly with the Jar of Ants.
Another idea that's just struck me is that the sniper's muzzle flare could do damage, effectively protecting him a bit more from close-range enemies.

 

First of all, thank you for kind words. Now to business;

How about making it so that you can do back flip while charging steady aim?

Well there is always option to not activate spotter. Then you would shot horizontally into the crowd of
monsters probably killing first and damaging few next in line. That is if you had perfect reload,
granting you bonus damage and piercing. Maybe making it so while in frenzy bullets pierce more and for
the same damage, like, you do perfect reload, then charge Steady Aim while in frenzy without spotter and
you deal full damage to first five enemies (no crit because no spotter), then repeat while frenzy lasts.
If you consider that in frenzy you would have faster charging and reload, it should be made so
you cam do two full charged shots effectively killing first ten enemies in line in one frenzy. Think
about it as bullet time and some buffs on top of it. Spotter would be good to take out specific enemies or when
you want to kill from higher ledges.

It would have more or less same effect. I just for some reason really don't like idea of sniper having AoE. Finite piercing is ok, but AoE feels somewhat forced.

So like slow/stun? Nahh, that would be the easy way out. But still good idea if everything else fails.

 

... oh yeah...

... nobody saw that...

 

About the Sniper... imo if they want to keep snipe as his primary skill 2 things need to happen:
1- Let you reload while you run, the reload mechanic is annoying enough no need to make the experience even worse.
2- Add 'Pierce bulllet' to the reload bonus basically it would work like Heaven Cracker but for all shots (if you time the reload correctly).

 

Agreed. Having piercing on a regular SNIPE shot would increase Sniper's potential in a Jar of Ants. Not as much as other suggestions but it would be a great bare-minimum.

 

a great bare-minimum?....That sounds like a stupidly strong boost since it's easy to get perfect reload every time. That alone might make the Sniper one of the best characters imo.

 

Not a necessity when jump+reload is easily achieveable and negates the need to stop for reload.

Pierce bonus off perfect reload sounds like a very nice idea, or alternatively, significantly improve the pierce gained from Steady Aim. Though I maintain the opinion that Snipers are fine where they are and there are other classes that are more in need of balancing than him...

Just going to copypaste what I mentioned about Bandit in another thread, seeing how this is a far more appropriate thread for this:

 

So far in this thread there has-almost-ONLY been debates and suggestions about the sniper class (I have nothing against this). I think that's because he needs the most improvement.
On a different note, the Acrid's toxic sludge's duration could be put on hold when in the air, and resumed when back on the ground.
OR
The Toxic Sludge could reset its cooldown when you kill an enemy with a certain ability. Imo it would the primary attack, or the, bash, or whatever it is. It's harder to get a kill with than other attacks-at least in a jar of ants, otherwise it's quite easy. Then again if you're outside a jar of ants, it would've probably finished cooling down by the time you got into one anyway! Other than that I can't think of another attack that would be balanced.

And the mercenary (my favorite ) might benefit from some bleeding chance on his slice.

hm... this could be a good use item!(the hover platform) I won't post it on the item suggestion thread myself, I promise! Hopefully somebody else will, it sounds like a good idea.

 

He does need the most improvement, but the debates have surprisingly been arguments about whether or not he does. There appear to be one or two people who think he's just fine as-is and any further buffing would break the precious balance or ruin his gameplay style.

Eh, I don't see any reason to beef up Toxic Sludge. By the time it dissipates it's only a few more seconds away from being able to re-cast.

 

People think the Sniper needs a buff because they simply cannot play him. They, for whatever reason, cannot understand how to play him. So because they don't understand, and cannot learn how to play him properly, they think he needs the most buffs out of everyone, even the Bandit. All I'm gonna say is, if you can't get a perfect reload without the bar having to back track to the perfect reload space, then you don't know how to play him and need to practice.

 

I guess, at least right now. But it just seems that, compared to the other classes, the skill threshold for the sniper is painfully high. I mean, one must take multitudinous precautions and learn how to preform perfect reloads while jumping in order to play him effectively. That is compared to using piercing attacks to take out swarms, a six shot combo to keep them away, and then a roll to get away from whatever's left, then repeating as needed as the commando. The sniper just seems painfully time consuming and disheartening to learn to play, especially when everything else in the game is just as hard, but you have less intuitive mechanics and harder to execute abilities (I'm looking at you, steady aim.)
I openly admit to not having played a ton of sniper, but I'd rather his learning curve matched all the other classes', is all.

 

The perfect reload thing is actually pretty easy. If you jump+shoot at the same time, just reload as soon as you land and it's a perfect reload. Of course player skill comes into play when reloading in different occasions. You can even do the opposite now that I think about it. Shoot, then Jump, reload at your max jump height(without any jump Jetpack) and it's a perfect reload. It's a perfect cycle that only a few seem to notice.

I hope I explained it the best that I can in that paragraph because it honestly is THAT simple. It's not nearly as complicated as you tried to make it seem.

Here's one of my Sniper runs on Monsoon. I luckily found the Unstable Watch from a random container on stage 3 so that helped my time a lot. My fastest run is actually a minute quicker as I found the Unstable Watch on the first stage. I usually avg 35mins runs without the Unstable Watch.


Edit: I hope Split doesn't mind me posting this but I feel it necessary to help me show you what I mean. Notice how he's doing the jump shoot, reload. There's not much thinking to it once you get the muscle memory down.

 

Just remove the cooldown on Spotter Scan.
Sniper will then be just as viable as any of the other classes if played correctly, while still maintaining a unique play style by avoiding the Jar of Ants situation entirely.

Note: This won't actually help the sniper (specifically) handle the Jar of Ants situation very much, which is intentional, the sniper will have to race against the spawn rate to avoid the Jar of Ants situation.

 

You also have to choose where you allow mobs to spawn during the Teleporter. If you're letting them spawn on a small platform above or below you then you're going to be punished for it. You have to manipulate your surroundings when you're playing Risk of Rain. No matter which character you're playing.