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  1. #1
    Sharpandpointy's Avatar Senior Member
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    Marksman Rifle Issues

    There's a problem with Marksman Rifles in the game, one that could be fixed.

    For starters, Marksman Rifles (MR) suffer from one of two serious issues:
    - Incredibly slow rate of fire for manual marksman rifles;
    - Ridiculous recoil for semi-automatic marksman rifles.

    Added to these issues is the 'short range' of these weapons. 60m sounds like long range in this game, but the NPC's easily shoot back - accurately - at ranges greater than this, and running players can cover this ground in short order. I've also had players hit me with Pred at distances where my sniper rifle is at its max range, trigger bleed, and force me to retreat. With an automatic rifle.

    Added to the above is the difficulty of scoring hits on the sometimes-ridiculously-fast NPCs who instantly react to any gunfire, or on the randomly moving players who never take cover (due to the game not pressing them into cover).

    More difficult still is getting a headshot, and headshots are the primary means of causing significant damage for a MR.

    Add onto this that there are few, actual sniper positions in the dark zone (most building tops cannot look down onto the street, sitting on a scaffolding just means you get one shot and then they're running up the stairs to kill you, etc).

    Top this off by the new Stamina/Toughness value and general NPC bullet-sponginess, and....

    Yes, it's perfectly possible to do serious damage to NPC's. But when I'm hammering a headshot in, getting 1.1 million damage with a crit, and the NPC keeps on trucking, that's a problem. Heck, I put six shots into a Heavy Shield LMB boss's head, each one getting more and more ticks (damage starting at 1 million and going up - this was Sentry's Call). I then shot him for 2.9 million damage in the head again, seventh shot, six Sentry's Call ticks.

    He was still alive.

    And against players? It's impossible to one-shot someone in the DZ. Fair enough, I get you don't want that. But using the same weapon with which I score 1.1 million damage against NPC's, it takes me three shots - two head, one body - to put down a player. One of the two headshots being a pulsed crit as well.

    The only reason I got those three shots was because I caught him checking his watch (in the menu). The third shot hit right after he started moving and hadn't yet triggered his healing. Had I opened fire when he wasn't in the menu, he would have taken the first shot, started moving, I would have been LUCKY to get the second, he would have healed, and then have been right on top of me.

    The only time I have two shotted a player was in 1.7, when toughness was much lower. Now, with 9000 stamina Striker and Pred, and Nomad being the big things in the DZ, Marksman Rifles have become useless. Player takes a hit at long range? It does nothing. Player takes a hit within 60m? It doesn't do nearly enough to slow them, they heal as they charge to negate any second hit, and then they're at close range with their assault rifle/smg.

    ESPECIALLY since Sentry's Call has no 6 piece bonus in PvP (why is that, when Strikers/Pred/Nomad have such powerful 6 piece bonuses?). And Hunter's Faith requires hits before it stacks up any reasonable amount of bonus for PvP shooting, due to the reduced damage against players (and as noted, it's extremely difficult to get those multiple hits against players with an MMR).

    Solutions?

    I'm not asking for damage bonuses or anything. But I feel that increasing the range of MMR's and SAMR would be a good start. Increase the engagement distance. Allow people to hit harder at longer ranges, and people might just start engaging with sniper rifles.

    Increase the base range, for example, of the SAMR to 75m. Increase the base range of the MMR to 'if you can actually see the person on your screen, you can hit with full power'.

    Why not?

    People might argue 'but then everyone will be using Sniper Rifles!' Doubtful. There are still few places with which to engage this way. You need to catch people at the right time. They can still move cover to cover to close and then rush. Etc. I doubt we would suddenly be seeing a sniper META. But it would become POSSIBLE to actually engage players with Marksman Rifles (especially MMR) and we might see more of them. And fighting NPC's would become a lot more like sniping.

    Speaking of which.

    Please consider increasing the range of the Sniper Rifles, including the range at which they can engage at all. I've shot at both NPC's and Players from atop a building, at a distance where I can still easily see them through a scope (including details like 'head, gun', etc), and it's clear the game simply isn't registering my shots at that distance. I can shoot at someone from the top of the building across the street from the DZ 09 Extraction site. If they're standing just past the opposite corner of the extraction site's chain-link fence - when they are still clear on my screen, running around - my shots don't even register.

    Also, please consider reducing the recoil slightly on the SAMR's - it's truly ridiculous.

    Second issue for sniper rifles.

    No Exotic MMR.

    There are FOUR exotic SAMR's. There are exactly zero exotic MMR's. I feel the game could use one.

    Additionally, the Exotic SAMR's are rarely used, with most people rightfully choosing an MDR over the Historian, the Devil/Heel, the Tenebrae. Why?

    - Damage is comparable, only better for anti-armor with an MDR against those pesky moving NPC's and Players (body shots only necessary);
    - Recoil is far, far better on an MDR.
    - Better exotic talent on an MDR.

    The Devil/Heel have good exotic talents, but require one to carry BOTH of them as weapons (aside from the sidearm), seriously hampers anything but long-range sniping...which does not exist in the game for the reasons given above.

    The exotic SAMR's aren't great, and need reworking (though people might start doing the Devil/Heel combination if the range increases to where they can engage with the idea of getting more than two shots off before someone is in their face).

    There is no exotic MMR. The game - especially now that Hunter's Faith exists - requires one.
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  2. #2
    Sharpandpointy's Avatar Senior Member
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    Side note: One possible change to the Devil and the Heel is to change one of them into an MMR. One semi-automatic, one manual, allowing for them to be used differently but with the same special talent bonuses.
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  3. #3
    Sniping is never gonna get the kills of an in your face build but just recently I have been dabbling with a m700/m44 as my secondary in Skirmish and although I've not worked out the best combination of talents/mods, I'm enjoying sniping and it can definitely 2 shot.

    Also I've got a vertical grip on my underbarrel which bumps my optimal range up to 89m and I prefer the loss of 15% crit damage to the damage drop off at longer ranges.

    I do rely on crits for massive damage and have 32% crit chance on my rifle and can hit headshots on players for over 200k (215k highest I have on record) and body shot crit over 100k. Precision is a valuable talent too.

    With everyone ads these days it's much easier to hit headshots than in the past.

    And just to note my build doesn't even have any native damage bonuses for my rifle, I don't even have marksmen rifle damage on my gloves and I don't have a pulse and booster shot was not active when hitting 200k.

    And yes an exotic mmr would be great if it has a decent talent.
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  4. #4
    Sharpandpointy's Avatar Senior Member
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    I'm rather amazed you can do that. Impressed as well. I run about the same crit chance on mine, I have precision, elevated, and deadly, and shoot from elevation whenever possible.

    Not saying you haven't, but I haven't seen anything like that from a maxed out Carbon with the above stats running Sentry's Call for more headshot damage.
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  5. #5
    This is a mix and match of different weapon mods/talents as I'm trying to work out which best suit me.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXqgPZ2VMlQ

    I'm protective of the build I'm using as it is very non meta (I will put it out there soon).
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  6. #6
    Sharpandpointy's Avatar Senior Member
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    Thanks. Some good stuff, there.

    So you're topping out with a 200K crit headshot damage (one guy you shot was clearly a glass cannon, at ~00.32). That's pretty good, then. Two shots won't put down a super-pred, striker, or nomad, but it's good enough for shooting down people wearing anything but the 9000 stamina stuff or the Nomad.

    I'll need to go back into my vid of shooting the Rogue the other night, and see what I was putting out for damage.

    So, it's possible to at least build something that can two-shot people who aren't running the 'I have DPS and 9K stamina' builds, good to know.

    I still feel there needs to be a range change for sniping weapons. It's currently roughly twice that of an AR, at most. That's...not so great, when if one wants to have a sniping build one needs to spec mostly (if not all) into firearms, whereas the DPS guys have options for 'Spec into Stamina massively and still do hordes of damage'.

    Range might help with that, allowing engagement at greater distance.
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  7. #7
    Oh I definitely think a range increase would be most welcome as it would allow you to max out the crit damage on a mmr without making it a one shot killer.

    And 9k stamina is under 400k health so I could theoretically 2 shot them as long as they haven't also rolled health on their gear or have it on their mods.
    Pretty Sure a huntersfaith build could manage it especially in the dz where you can have higher firearms than a normalized mode.

    Nomads are impossible to 2 shot as 1 shot just removes their overheal (and the third will just proc their path of the nomad.)

    Let me know how much you hit that rogue for.
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  8. #8
    Sharpandpointy's Avatar Senior Member
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    Okay, so mea culpa, upon review of my sniping it's not as bad as I thought. It still could use some kind of a range boost, I feel, which would make it more competitive and give Sentry and Hunter's Faith a more solid niche against stuff like Striker, Nomad, and Pred.

    Engagement at Long Range is kind of the point, since there are few to no sniper nests that provide safety against player and NPC accuracy and damage is insane no matter what the ranges. 60m? This is not long range.

    So, my build is 'Everything firearms (including mods) but backpack (stamina)'. Loads of Crit chance and damage, a couple of skill hastes, and EAD and DTE, as I recall.

    My first headshot on the Rogue did about 136K, non-crit, so lower than your base headshot damage. My second (admittedly with a tick from Sentry's) did 204K, so right up around yours. My third was also a headshot, it killed him.

    And yes, the kicker is he was a Nomad.

    Probably not a 9K stamina Nomad, because the 3rd shot was a normal headshot.

    Still, not bad, I suppose. Might need to fiddle, and if I went completely glass cannon I could easily hit harder. Also, he had just been through a fight, hence the likely reason for his Path not kicking in (but his overheal was full up when I fired).

    But I still need crits to kill with 2 shots (at least one crit is necessary), unless they other guy is playing a weak stamina character.

    Also, exotic MMR is needed. I repeat that shifting either the Devil or the Heel over to an exotic MMR would be a good start.
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  9. #9
    Yeah probably a 6k nomad (Most are).

    I tried with competent on the third slot, procc'd it with booster and critted for 238,942 (head) and 143,421 (body) and even with the vertical grip I think it was over my optimal range.

    If you go glass cannon I'm positive you can top that.
    I don't have any ead or dte on my build as it's purely a skirmish build.

    On a side note the headshot damage on the "sniper" gearsets is pretty underwhelming with the headshot damage already on a mmr.
    I only have it as a minor on my barrel as it crits higher with cd as the major.

    I'm in total agreement about the base range being too low and it's only a circumstantial buff so I don't see why they don't up it.
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  10. #10
    Yes, these changes would be nice. But how gonna turn Decil/Heel into bolt action rifle? irl is a semi auto rifle. Or u mean changing the whole gun?

    they should remove the stability nerf to M1A and reduce the SCARH handling a bit.

    Other thing is it doesn't make sense that the SRS have lower DMG and range than other bolt action rifle, buff it pls
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