Sniper SmokeScreen, Enforcer Turtling, and more!

Jump-shooting lends itself to kiting how?

I think you misunderstood what I said.

I didn't say his kiting ability makes him suffer in a Jar of Ants, I said the fact that his gameplay style is BASED around kiting... THAT'S what makes him suffer. There is no arguing this.

For the record, I honestly believe that AOE isn't his biggest problem in a Jar of Ants. No. His biggest problem is survival.

Because the only attack the sniper has that can deal with crowds in any respect is Steady Aim, and to get any decent damage from it he has to charge it. This immediately means he has to sit still, in an area where he has no distance to gaurantee him safety. Steady Aim is meant to be used while kiting. In a Jar of Ants, he can't kite shit. Sniper dies, because his gameplay revolves around kiting. Case and point.

 

He is able to kite enemies while shooting, similarly to the Huntress, however it requires a little more effort.

I didn't misunderstand what you said, I was merely clarifying your point because you were not very clear.

????
I don't understand... he is the best class for kiting enemies apart from the huntress because she can constantly corral enemies using her arsenal of stun based attacks.

Don't all the survivors' gameplay revolve around kiting?

The only downside of this is that the sniper is weak to fired projectiles. He can still pull off a low damage steady aim if there are only close combat mobs.


I'm not saying the sniper isn't underpowered, I'm saying that the only underpowered aspect of him is the fact that his steady aim can only pierce 3-5 enemies before doing pointless damage. His attack should have a minimum of 20% of his original steady aim charged damage regardless of how many enemies are pierced.

 

This is going to be fun.

You didn't answer my question. How does being able to shoot while jumping help the sniper kite? A lot of enemies are too short to be hit by jump shots. You're just shooting air.

I'm pretty sure I was perfectly clear. I literally just restated the exact thing I said and you understood it.

Do you know what a Jar of Ants is? A Jar of Ants is literally a place full of monsters with very little room. It's basically an area where you cannot kite at all.

No.

Acrid, Mercenary, Han-D and Miner are all melee classes. Kiting in it's very nature requires fighting from a distance, which melees don't do.

Engi CAN kite, but he doesn't kill very effectively when he does. A GOOD Engi sets his turrets and mines and jumps right into the fray spamming grenades and jumping around like a lunatic. A good Engi jumps right into the eye of the storm.

Enforcer is also a tanker. He's too slow to Kite, so he defends with his shield and blasts the shit out of everything with his shotgun.

No. Survival is the biggest issue on the Sniper right now. AOE is a big issue. Probably second biggest, but not the biggest.

Like I said above, a Jar of Ants removes all possibility to kite. The Sniper relies on kiting more than any other class because getting up close to monsters is a death sentence for him. This is why all of his skills are set up to help him shoot enemies from a distance.

I should state that, outside of a Jar of Ants, I have very little trouble playing the Sniper. I agree he needs a bit more AOE at times but I've beaten the game as him and never had too much trouble doing it. But whenever I encounter a Jar of Ants, I absolutely need a specific use item or my game is over. This is the issue I am saying needs to be fixed. Nothing else.

 

You're doing it wrong.

I never said it helped the sniper kite, I said he was able to deal high damage while kiting.
There is no class that is too slow to kite.
The only reason why survivors (the ones you think can't kite) aren't usually kiting is either because they aren't being played to their full potential or their attack animations are too long to be efficiently used for the hit-and-run kiting tactic.

The point I'm making with the sniper is that he CAN deal with the Jar of Ants situation, however he takes longer time than other classes due to his inability to fire a consistent piercing shot in a small amount of time.

The sniper is reliant on the environment; OK I got that.
Then use higher platforms and jump geysers to charge steady aim to deal with the Jar of Ants situation rather than stupidly sitting on one platform, because there are VERY FEW platforms which actually force you into a small space where you can't actually kite.

 

Am I?

You don't seem to have a very strong grasp of what Kiting actually is and what it's supposed to do...

Okay, if you want to get technical about it, every character is capable of kiting, yes. Congratulations, you were right.

... however, trying to Kite as a melee class like Han-D is incredibly stupid and a waste of time. Can he kite? Yes. Is he wasting incredible amounts of time and being played incorrectly when he kites? Absolutely.

Most characters are not meant to be kiters. They are meant to tank to ACTUALLY be played to their fullest potential. If you really think Kiting is the best potential of every character then YOU are the one playing them incorrectly, not I.

For many survivors, the actual preferred strategy is to kill fast and efficiently. For some characters like Huntress, they can manage this WHILE kiting, but for many others kiting makes doing this much more difficult or makes it take a much longer time. In a game where you need to do things quickly and efficiently, this is an incredibly STUPID idea.

AND THIS IS WHY YOU ARE WRONG.

Maybe you forgot, but Risk of Rain gets harder as time goes on. So it is a game where you absolutely need to do things QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY. Jumping in and out of the crowd spamming SNIPE until you pick them off one by one is NOT A QUICK AND EFFECTIVE STRATEGY. THEREFORE I CONSIDER IT NOT A VALID STRATEGY AT ALL. And trying to use Steady Aim at ALL is incredibly suicidal because while you're charging, you ARE taking damage from enemies who are ALREADY ON TOP OF YOU. I'd like to see you tell me different in a Jar of Ants.

The thing about a Jar of Ants is that you cannot snipe into it from an outside location. If there is a Geyser you can bounce around on, or another platform at the same level, then it does NOT qualify as a Jar of Ants, and your argument is already incorrect.

The Jar of Ants is a small area filled with monsters and set up in a way that forces the sniper to jump into the crowd in order to fight. FORCES THE SNIPER TO JUMP INTO THE CROWD IN ORDER TO FIGHT. Said it twice so you'd hear it. And whether you agree or not, there are many, many locations in the game that can result in a Jar of Ants VERY EASILY.

But you know what? I'm just tired of trying to beat this into your skull. I'm ending this right now.

My thread. I want Sniper to have a SmokeScreen because it is my opinion he needs it. You have tried several times and still SPECTACULARLY failed to convince me otherwise. Give up and get out. Please.

 

My argument is that there aren't many platforms which force the sniper into a "jar of ants" situation, how is that invalid because I gave reasons?
Actually read my posts instead of skimming over them, I'm arguing with you for a reason, not to just be a contrarian.

There would be better tweaks to the sniper though, and a smokescreen would be overpowered. They would just allow the player to kite/sit on a rope/hide for a few seconds then have invincibility while inside the smokescreen (and ONLY 15 seconds? you don't think that's a bit over the top? A Sniper could fully charge steady aim TWICE in that time.)

Also, I have one last thing I should mention.
In a singleplayer game, the optimal strategy to survival is to KEEP MOVING AROUND THE MAP while the teleporter is in its activation stage. Enemies far away will despawn, leaving you only bosses and a few minions which did not despawn because they were close to you.

Oh hey, that gives me a good idea, why don't you just stay away from the platforms that actually make the Jar of Ants situation arise in the first place?

1. Activate teleporter
2. Avoid having small platforms on your screen or near the edge of your screen
3. ???
4. PROFIT

 

Still completely disagreed, I should mention, but thanks for sharing.

 

Not to butt in, but that's what I meant when I said "Exploiting spawn mechanics." maybe it's just me being a bad player, but I'd rather the sniper could take care of the problem than have to avoid a few sections of the map.

 

What a ridiculous idea. Your solution to the problem is "stay away from certain parts of the map"?

So rather then admit there IS a problem with the class, you would make this excuse?

No other class needs to control spawn locations to win, because auto-losing because 5 mobs spawned in a specific location is incredibly lame. Also with the kiting nature of the Sniper (which you so vigorously extolled earlier) can you really afford to avoid those locations? Sometimes you are forced to move to another part of the map as sniper in order to kite and to not die, and if in the process of doing so some mobs happen to spawn in a bad location you are pretty much screwed unless your item luck is crazy good.

Also as DJFlare said earlier, strategies that take enormous amounts of time are not valid strategies. This game ramps up the difficulty over time and at quite a decent rate, jumping in-and-out of a jar of ants killing them 1 at a time with snipe may work, but in doing so you take well over 5-10 minutes and completely bone your run, because in those 5-10 minutes you gained insignificant progress and 0 item progression.

 

This is how every class works.
You avoid the tough situations in order to beat the game.
???
or are you telling me that you would just sit there and waste time trying to kill a few mobs?

I already stated the problem with the class, and you just refuse to accept a fix that would make the sniper just as viable in the situation as any other class, and instead propose a "fix" which gives him an invincibility buff "in a small area" for 15 seconds. You might as well just make him invincible while loading steady aim. In fact, you might as well just make him insta-shoot steady aim without even aiming.

 

I would.

Y'know... if the gate timer countdown was over and I, y'know, HAD to...

 

Oooo then you're doing it wrong, or you didn't read the instructions at all.

You activate the teleporter then start moving so that the small platforms that you want to avoid aren't on your screen.
You know, like following simple instructions.

 

Psst... lemme share a secret with you.

... once the timer on a gate starts, monsters will not despawn just because you walk away.
... so, no. If a crowd pops up on a ledge you happened to walk by, they won't vanish just because you make them go offscreen.

So, if you start the gate, and decide you have to walk away to get to more favorable ground, monsters spawning in unfavorable positions are still going to be there. Have fun with that.

To be fair, Spawn Control isn't impossible. However, it's not RELIABLE, therefore I don't consider it a valid strategy, and certainly not something that excuses the Sniper's inability to deal with a Jar of Ants. Not in the least.

 

I would hate to contribute too much to this, potentially making things worse, but that (the underlined) isn't entirely correct. I was just on Frozen Valley running from a mass of enemies on the top of the unbroken bridge after activating the teleporter. Upon escaping to the bottom of the stage and waiting for the timer to end as I survived, knowing full well that there was a mass of enemies on top of the bridge that I had not killed nor did I have anything to kill them from such a long range, I eventually made my way back up only to find the entire bridge barren of enemies. Enemies CAN despawn after the teleporter has been activated, albeit from a glitch or such a large distance away as the Valley has, they despawned nonetheless.

I actually have to agree with Split on this, reading over the past 2 pages (at least). Sniper with invincibility from a skill is far too OP. I may not be that good, but the sniper is mostly balanced as it is (there could be improvements but not invincibility) and has great potential even if time is against you. The strategy to jump in and out is still a valid strategy for any character, the sniper just benefits the least from it.

 

Fair point, and I do agree that invincibility would be going a bit far on sniper (I agreed with the idea of switching STEADY AIM to his default skill and adding in a new one, never really cared much for the smokescreen idea).

But I do have to point out that while the teleporter doesn't stop monsters from despawning, that is only for the first half or so of the timer, and that is only sometimes. There have been many times where I have had say 30+ mobs spawn near the teleporter, I instantly run off into the distance, and when I come back there are still 5-10 of them not despawned. I have also had situations where mobs in certain areas REFUSE to despawn after you have activated the teleporter no matter how far away you have run, and have lost games due to it (most notoriously certain cliffside jar-of-ants scenarios on the frozen valley stage).

So while yes, you can manipulate spawns to an extent, it is incredibly unreliable and no class should need to do it in order to function as a class. That is the scenario sniper is currently in. Yes, any character can do the jump-in-and-out strategy to deal with massive clumps of mobs in a hard to hit location, and it is a risky/dangerous and somewhat slow process for all of them. However for the sniper it is so downright damning it doesn't deserve to be compared to the others in the slightest, the jump-in-and-out strategy only really works well when you have instant casting AoE, that way you can hit all the mobs at once, killing them all in a timely fashion so you don't waste that much time and screw yourself over on the next level. In the Sniper's case, he has pretty much no AoE (Steady Aim can't be charged, and it has massive damage drop-offs after the first target), and his basic ability is quite slow and needs reloading.

You could halve the max hp of any class, as well as halve their damage, and they would still be far better then the sniper in that kind of scenario.

People keep dodging the issue not impressed. Also can we stop it with the anecdotal evidence? With the right items any class can breeze through that kind of situation easily.

 

I don't mind people disagreeing with SmokeScreen. I just mind it when they insist they disagree because Sniper is "just fine as is". It simply isn't true.

I'd add alternative ideas if I could think of any or heard any offered, but I'm stumped for ideas that would work as effectively while at the same time not imitating a skill from another class.

Someone once suggested having the sniper drop a packet of C4 at his current location that he could then detonate by pressing the trigger again. I kinda LIKE this idea I suppose, but I also wonder if it's too much like a watered-down version of Engi's Bounding Mines...

I think we can all agree, at the very least, that despawning is probably done on terms we don't understand, and at the very least those terms don't seem to include "be offscreen".

Yeah, this has been far too much debating for my tastes (not to mention I've had this exact debate before, so it's getting old).

I think people get the impression that I don't play Sniper very well or don't know how. I should mention I've beaten the game no less than 3 times as the guy (on NORMAL). He's not completely pitiful, but he suffers from flaws I have to work 3 times harder (or simply get 3x luckier) to make up for and this is a problem.

 

Well, navigating away from the debate, a suggestion (or 2) I can come up with:

If we were to go with removing snipe and making steady aim the default, giving space for a new skill, why not make his drone do something more instead of simply targeting an enemy for 100% crit chance? Could have it so that after targeting an enemy (maybe even without) you can use this new skill to shoot a weak laser from it, similar to a laser drone but without the cost, maintenance, chance of loss, or damage potential to hit everything in it's path. Of course, this would have the problem of taller enemies putting it completely out of place for the skill to be of real use, but it is a suggestion. Maybe it could quickly move down to ground level for that enemy and shoot before returning to the original position or being called back.
Could also have the drone go suicide bomber after targeting and respawn after some time (5-10 seconds maybe?) with the skill cooldown being 20 seconds or so.

Suggestions I liked:

Floating platform that the Sniper can use for a short time. Don't know how much more this can be modified to be a bit more balanced, but it seems nice anyway. Only thing I can think of is using the drone as the platform.
Dropping a pack of C4 and controlling when to set it off. Already said in here, a bit too much like Engie, but a good idea nonetheless.

Slightly off-topic but, what does ancient scepter currently do for the Sniper?

 

I heard the platform idea and I wasn't too big a fan of it. I want to give the Sniper a skill that's going to help him in a Jar of Ants, specifically. A hovering platform wouldn't do much if the Jar of Ants occurred in a pit rather than a ledge or floating platform..

The C4 is admittedly a good idea because the Sniper could drop it, get out, and detonate, or even just jump around in the Jar of Ants spamming C4 like an Engi spamming Mines (well, as fast as the C4 could be spammed, anyway).

I feel like the drone laser would make it too much like a permanent laser drone. Granted, it'd be a nice buff, but I have to admit I just don't like it aesthetically. I feel like the Drone should retain a non-violent support role.

 

What happened to the idea of having sniper's backflip drop C4? I think it makes up somewhat for the comparatively long cooldown, and buys him a split second longer to charge steady aim.
On the topic of actual suggestions, perhaps instead of making steady aim his main make his main a melee, or maybe a small sidearm? Alternatively that could replace steady aim (with steady aim as main), and have it either have a short cooldown or lots of damage?
Another idea is instead of giving him invincibility, make his drone have another ability that makes a decoy of him (holographic I'm thinking) that attracts lesser mobs. It would clear the ground in front of the boss, which would be nice, as well as drawing fire. The only issue I can see with it is that it might not be placed correctly. Probably the easiest way to do it is have it appear a set distance from him in whatever direction he's facing, and attract mobs only on that plane.

 

That was to drop a GRENADE during his backflip, and I'm pretty sure I left that suggestion up because I DO like it quite a lot.

I dunno... Sniper's rifle should be his primary weapon. Just seems right.

... like the Serrated Knife? X)

That could... KINDA be useful I guess? I mean, I dunno. We kinda already have an idea of what that would be like in the CRUDELY DRAWN BUDDY.

Even if Mobs are distracted by it and drawn to it, they WILL attack you if you happen to be closeby. It just isn't a very reliable safety for Sniper, especially in a Jar of Ants...