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Sniper SmokeScreen, Enforcer Turtling, and more!

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by DJFlare84, Nov 13, 2013.

  1. Tono123

    Tono123 Intergalactic Tourist

    I think that the sniper is fine as it is, however maybe the penetration and cool down(v move) could use some improvement. However looking at a hypothetical Jar of Ants situation, how about the sniper dropping some spikes(like the actual ingame item) during his back flip?
     
    • DJFlare84

      DJFlare84 Spaceman Spiff

      I'd like to see something like that where he drops something when he backflips. Laying down a spikestrip when you backflip, and then stopping to charge up a Steady Aim shot? Nasty combo right there. Iiiit wouldn't actually help much in a Jar of Ants, though. Remember, one of the key things about a jar of ants is how small the gathering area is, so distance is a factor. There is none in a Jar of Ants, so the spikestrip wouldn't help much (and in some cases not at all).

      Still a pretty badass general sniper idea, though.
       
      • Mann Time

        Mann Time Intergalactic Tourist

        I have an idea that might help with the "Jar of Ants" scenario, though I'm not sure how much.

        Why not have enemies focus on the spotter while you have it deployed? The Spotter wouldn't have much health [probably only about 1.5x your own] and wouldn't be able to really dodge, but it'd give the Sniper some breathing room before he fires off a Steady Aim ; By the time the enemies destroy the Spotter you've got it at least 60% charged, which will let you peck at the crowd a bit more efficiently than he can now. It'd also improve his fairly shaky crowd control as is.
        The Spotter being "destroyed" would be treated the same as you recalling it, maybe with a slightly larger cooldown [or an animation next time he tries to use it where he throws another one out.]
         
        • DJFlare84

          DJFlare84 Spaceman Spiff

          I guess that really depends... If the spotter's distraction capabilities are on par with the Engi's turrets, then yeah. That'd be pretty handy. Although I'm not sure how many snipers (including myself) would feel about their spotter being able to be destroyed. I would hope it would also have a similar HP value to the Engi's turrets...
           
          • Leaf_It

            Leaf_It Tentacle Wrangler

            Kind of a necro-post?

            Having unlocked and played every class, I don't think that most of the suggested changes are really necessary. Though I believe that some changes would definitely be nice.
            I'll just put the changes I think would really be useful without changing the way the class is played.

            Enforcer: As suggested, Allow cancel PROTECT AND SERVE by jumping. There have been many times where I have died, simply because I was moving too slowly with large groups of enemies. If I could just jump out, this would not be an issue, and I would probably play the enforcer a lot more.

            Huntress: I don't see anything wrong with her right now. I've died plenty of times with her, and I believe that the only reason people play her so much, is because they get used to endlessly walking while firing. I had this issue myself, it made it hard for me to get the feel for other classes, because I was so used to constantly moving, and never having to turn around to aim my attack. Once I just stopped playing her so much, and got used to turning around to fire, I felt that other classes were honestly more powerful and better. The only thing that makes her better is her ability to move while attacking. You can kite for days. Take that away and she becomes underpowered.

            HAN-D : Won my First play through with him. His stun lock with his basic attack is really good if you get a syringe, and just push everything into a wall so that it never leaves your range. The 4th ability does seem slightly less powerful that is could be, but I am completely fine with how he currently is.

            Engineer: I Also won the first time I played Engineer. He a pretty good class, but take getting used to. As long as you can keep the agro on your turrets, and place mines when anything is following you, hes a pretty decent class. The only problem with harpoons, is how long he can't move. Either make them fire more quickly, perhaps in sets of 2 as suggested, or allow him to move while he fires them.

            Miner: The miner is honestly pretty good so long as you jump, and attack while in the air a lot, and learn to stutter while charging your blast, so that you can use it more effectively. The one thing that I think would like to see improved on him, would be charging forward farther, based on how long you let the ability build up. Or maybe you charge forward farther the less you build it up making it a good escape at low damage, but not an escape if you build it up for more damage. Something like that.

            Acrid: Actually, just as a suggestion for all melee classes. Allow Melee attacks to move you in the direction you are trying to move. I.E. if you are holding left arrow, you both attack to the left, and move to the left slightly, but if you are not holding down a direction key, then you do not move with your attack.

            SNIPER: Bigger text, Because he really needs something to make him more usable. Not that he isn't playable. I've made it to the final level with him, it's just that his crowd control is horrible, making him extremely hard to play without tanky items, so that you can take out groups in small places. The Snipe ability isn't very useful later on, after the first2 stages it becomes nearly useless because it only hits one enemy, and the reload is so tedious that its not worth using it over Steady Aim. As suggested, the reload should not make you stop moving. As it is now, you can simulate this by reloading while jumping in the air. Additionally Snipe should pierce through 3 enemies, dealing 20% less damage per enemy hit, allowing you to hit 4 at a time. This would make the ability much more useful later game.(IT'S A F*CKING SNIPER RIFLE, THE D*MN THING SHOULD RIP SH*T APART) Steady Aim should be the fourth ability, as it would be a much greater benefit to upgrade it with the Scepter than to upgrade the Spotter. Additionally, Steady Aim should pierce through more enemies than it currently does, especially at full charge. Military training should slow enemies that you pass through while back flipping. Spotter should be the second ability and should slow the target by 5%. This slow should increase based on the player's level, capping at 50% slow at level 50. Alternately, when the enemy that is spotted, is hurt, 80% of the damage take should be dealt as AOE to everything around the target. The reason it's not a great ability, is because its only useful against a single target, and has a 10 second cool down making it even less useful. I honestly forget to even use the Spotter most of the time. Picking up Soldier Syringe does almost nothing for him, except lower the time it takes for Steady Aim to charge slightly, It should increase the width of the white segment damage bonus on the reload ability. As it is if you spam the first ability you will attack 2 and a half times in the time it would take to wait and get the bonus damage, making the bonus damage only useful for Steady Aim. If you get about 14 syringes, you should be able to immediately reload and still hit damage bonus allowing for true rapid fire as it would with any other class.

            Mercenary: I also won my first game with the Mercenary. He is a very good class, so long as you kite a lot, and chain your abilities together. His basic attack doesn't need to be a 3 strike combo, though that would be nice, his dash ability is already a 3 strike combo, and is a very good ability. As I suggested above with Acrid, Allow Melee attacks to move you in the direction you are trying to move. I.E. if you are holding left arrow, you both attack to the left, and move to the left slightly, but if you are not holding down a direction key, then you do not move with your attack.
            [INSERT SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION HERE]
            I'm making a full sprite sheet for 4 class ideas I have, using Graphics Gale, Gimp and Photoshop. Once they are finished, this will link to a post about them.
             
            • reVelske

              reVelske Pangalactic Porcupine

              Two words: Learning curve.

              Does the fact that I can reach stage 5 without a single item on Sniper on Monsoon make a difference? Well sure I can't do it consistent, as spider drones and bisons on Frozen Tundra are hellish to deal with, but it's doable, by anyone who's remotely familiar with how Sniper SHOULD be played at least.

              Try aim for Monsoon stage 4 with Sniper item-less (no artifact too, of course), once you're able reached that far, you can probably come up with a far more insightful opinion on Sniper's gameplay.
               
                Last edited: Jul 17, 2014
              • DJFlare84

                DJFlare84 Spaceman Spiff

                You can't pretend being able to do ANYTHING in Monsoon isn't something that requires an assload of skill. You, sir, are like unto a god.

                That said, it's very easy to think you're a bit disconnected with what makes something balanced. Just because you can breeze through the highest level dungeon with a cracked, wooden sword, doesn't mean the cracked wooden sword isn't a piece of sh**. It just means you can do pretty well with a piece of sh**.
                 
                • reVelske

                  reVelske Pangalactic Porcupine

                  I would take more pride in it if it really was a piece of shit, but it isn't and I still stand by the opinion that Sniper is one of the least item reliant classes (along with Miner and Engineer) in the game. I've acknowledged (as with many other sniper players) that crowd handling is his weakness, but like all classes' weaknesses, it can be worked around and overcomed with smart play.
                   
                  • DJFlare84

                    DJFlare84 Spaceman Spiff

                    Don't get me wrong, that was a bit of an exaggeration. Sniper is by no means a piece of shit and he's still my favorite character today.

                    I only really have the one small problem with him that just seems kinda ridiculous but it comes up uncommonly.

                    I just wanted to make a point about how you shouldn't expect everyone to play a game at the same level of skill as you do. It's incredibly short-sighted.

                    Not being able to play well in Monsoon is by no means a fault of the Sniper so much as it is a fault of me being not good enough at dealing with Monsoon. lol
                     
                    • reVelske

                      reVelske Pangalactic Porcupine

                      Hence why I said it's a matter of learning curve, given enough time and effort, anyone can play Sniper as well as anyone else. I don't honestly believe that difficult-to-LEARN is a flaw any way shape or form, whereas Difficult-to-PLAY would be a black mark against the class, but it does not hold true for Sniper.
                       
                      • DJFlare84

                        DJFlare84 Spaceman Spiff

                        I personally agree the Sniper is an all around great and fantastic guy, I just feel like he suffers from the same kind of flaw as HAN-D. Outside of one little instance you'll encounter just once in any playthrough, he can rock this game. But that one little instance makes it frustrating and hammers home the idea that winning RoR is more about luck than skill. (It's actually 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated Power-of-Will...)

                        Anyways, I'm still keeping up my idea for the Sniper up. Even if it's believed he doesn't NEED any changes, the fact remains that a cryo grenade would be kickass and interesting.
                         
                          pyromancerLaurentius likes this.
                        • Leaf_It

                          Leaf_It Tentacle Wrangler

                          I know that the Sniper is a good class. Though I don't play him as much as the others, I've watched videos of people beating the whole game with him. I know he can do it. But when I look at what he can do in comparison to what all the other classes can do, I feel that he is the weakest simply for crowd control. I was hoping to change that. Most of my changes would make dealing with crowds much easier, and far less suicidal. May I ask what item you had, that enabled you to almost win the game all by itself? The Sniper is widely viewed as the most difficult class to play, even worse than the Enforcer. I've heard it said that you haven't beaten the game until you've beaten it as sniper, on monsoon, with no infusion or heart. The sniper is simply a really hard class to play. To the point where I'd say about 90% or more of the player base just don't enjoy playing him because of how hard he is to use. I think that should be changed. I also probably should have waited till it wasn't 1am to post so, I could rewrite my post a bit more clearly, but, I still believe that he should have some changes. I'll condense what I said in to something a bit more organized:

                          Snipe Ability should have penetration, but a high damage fall off because of it. IE, it can only penetrate through 4 enemies. doing less and less damage to each.
                          Reload should not make you stop moving. (because any skilled sniper will just doing it while jumping, which is the exact same thing, this is just less tedious)
                          Getting a Soldier's Syringe (and any other attack speed buff, like being in the War Banner circle) should allow you to reload faster, and since you reload with the intent to get the bonus damage, the white mark to get that bonus, should be bigger.
                          Steady Aim should become Sniper's 4th Ability so that it will be upgraded with the Ancient Scepter. Quite simply, I believe that this would be a greater benefit, than upgrading Spotter. Spotter, and Steady Aim will still function exactly the same way.
                          Steady Aim should pierce through more enemies at full charge, so that taking out large groups in small places isn't as much of a suicide move.
                          Military Training Should slow units that you pass through while rolling.
                          Spotter is a good ability, if you are only targeting a single enemy. Its good against bosses, and blighted enemies. Its not very good against large groups of anything, especially late game, when everything is spawning in large groups, and you can't really take anything out very fast. Something needs to be done to improve this ability, even if its just a shorter cooldown.(10 seconds is a long time)

                          Please tell why each of these ideas is a bad idea? The reason I don't like the freeze cracker ability is because it would require replacing an existing ability, however if Sniper and Steady Aim were merged into the same ability, I would accept it.
                           
                          • DJFlare84

                            DJFlare84 Spaceman Spiff

                            Spotter is also excellent for triggering any item effects that require critical hits (like the Harvester's Scythe, etc.).

                            Those are pretty good ideas, except for Military Training. Merely slowing enemies it PASSES through is hardly any sort of improvement because it means when you come to a stop, enemies are already directly in front of you and close enough to start attacking, especially if you use it immediately before STEADY AIM like most players will. So it's only doing anything to enemies who will already be in a prime position to attack you when you stop to aim.
                             
                            • shadowpikachu

                              shadowpikachu Space Spelunker

                              While i LOVE playing sniper by myself, i find him balanced seeing how i can just do 80-90% of a bosses hp with steady aim and the trade-off being harder to get rid of crowds...
                              But i wont object to a small gas cloud that does small damage and slows when he backflips so when you backflip to distance yourself to use some of steady aim.

                              Overall if i HAD to buff him i'd either give him 40-50% more penintration with steady aim, the gas cloud as stated above, or the spotter penintration buff change in the main post.

                              Also if the main ability can have like a 0.5-1 second charge for slightly (40-60%?) more damage, that would work.
                               
                              • Leaf_It

                                Leaf_It Tentacle Wrangler

                                It is true that Military training is often used right before Steady Aim, but I was intending to improve the sniper's ability to escape. Since he can't really hold his own ground, he is often running from enemies. This usually includes turning around, and using the Military training to boost your movement, and when you do that, sometimes you pass through enemies. Additionally, after Steady Aim is fired, there are usually enemies that are about to, or have already hurt you, rolling back and slowing the enemies immediately touching you seems like it would be quite useful. The Freeze Crack grenade being launched upon the use of Military Training would be very similar to this, but mine wouldn't linger to slow more enemies. Either way, I believe that having a slow added to Military Training is something that would be very beneficial.

                                Whenever I play sniper, or any class for that matter, the issue has never been bosses. I can always take a boss out 1 on 1. The issue is when there's a large group with that boss. The group tanks the damage making the Boss harder to hit. Yeah, as Sniper I can take the boss out in 3 Steady Aims or less, but that massive army of enemies is always the bigger issue no matter what class I'm playing, and Sniper has the hardest time dealing with them.
                                 
                                • DJFlare84

                                  DJFlare84 Spaceman Spiff

                                  Escaping isn't really all that hard to be honest. MOST enemies (with very few exceptions like the bison or mechanical spiders) are programmed only to launch an attack when they are directly on top of the Sniper, meaning for the most part he can just walk calmly in either direction and just plain outrun things. Military Training would help in evasion in those instances where simply walking isn't enough, but after that even his base walk speed will help him make a speedy escape without the use of slowing tools.

                                  Don't get me wrong, I think a slowing tool would be handy, but I would like to see it be something that stops enemies at a distance so he has more time to charge Steady Aim. Unlike most people I want to see the Sniper have more safety during his charge time rather than more piercing with his shots. That would make all the difference with his minor flaws, really
                                  (because then you could just use STEADY AIM more and not worry about your piercing).
                                   
                                  • CantWontDontStop

                                    CantWontDontStop Master Chief

                                    Meele classes need to be a little more clear as to how far their basic attacks reach. HAN-D has less of a problem here, but the Miner, Acrid, and Merc need better visual cues for their attack hitboxes. It's difficult to utilize a meele class effectively when you can't figure out how many hits you're actually landing in a crowd with enough confidence.

                                    The Mercenary's basic attack also needs a bit more of a buff. Either start it out with faster attack speed, let it combo, or buff the damage. Without more of an incentive to use it, you end up using it less and less as the difficulty increases.
                                     
                                    • Yuckyspiders

                                      Yuckyspiders Intergalactic Tourist

                                      The Huntress really isn't that amazing once you actually learn how to play the game well. She has a really low skill ceiling and is more or less the "training wheels" of RoR. Nefing her damage would make her effectively useless compared to the other two range DPS classes since they both already outdamage her as it is. I understand why people think she's OP but trust me, once you know the game REALLY well you'll find that she just can't do a lot of things nearly as well as other classes. Plus she's super boring but that's just my opinion. :x
                                       
                                        Last edited: Jul 24, 2014
                                      • Leaf_It

                                        Leaf_It Tentacle Wrangler

                                        Agreed Yuckyspiders. Getting a well fed mercenary is a thousand times more powerful and easier to play with than a huntress with the exact same items. She just isn't as good later on. The reason so many people like her, besides what I've already stated in previous posts, is because she has a strong early game because she auto aims for you, and doesn't stop moving. You can kite every enemy, and early game, kiting is really effective because everything is weak. No class can match her in that way, so shes really easy to play.
                                         
                                        • Yuckyspiders

                                          Yuckyspiders Intergalactic Tourist

                                          As for the sniper though, I firmly believe that he just wasn't very well thought out. His kit just doesn't work in a game like RoR where mobiliy/crowd control and DPS are the name of the game. His mobility is fair but he really doesn't have good DPS or crowd control no matter how you look at it. His multitarget burst isn't even that effective due to the damage fall-off on steady aim. I'm not really certain what could be done to fix him but it's going to have to be much more than a smokescreen. In my honest opinion, the sniper and HAN-D are currrently the weakest classes right now. As much as I love using them their skills have very poor synergy and function too inconsistently.
                                           

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