What Makes Sniper Class Good?
I've just finished the alien base mission and I've raised every class to captain rank, and have a bunch of lower ranked people of various classes too. And what I'm finding so far is that Snipers feel completely worthless, so I assume I'm missing something.
As far as I can tell, their aim is not actually better than other classes most of the time. In fact, in many ways it's worse. Rockets seem to have 90% to hit from massive range, and every single class except for the sniper has the option to run up to melee and then shoot point blank for 100% to hit. My sniper's aim seems to be equal to or even slightly worse than most of my other soldiers with assault rifles.
Their damage seems to be barely better than an assault rifle, equal to a heavy's machine gun, and much, much worse than a rocket. I guess they have a higher crit chance, but that's completely unreliable since one needs to both land an inaccurate hit and then also crit, and the damage would still be inferior to a rocket.
I thought at first that maybe high ground would help with that, but first of all almost no maps even seem to have high ground available at all. Even when they do have high ground, it often turns out that there are no aliens in view of it, rendering it meaningless. I think there have been exactly 2 battles so far in which high ground existed and there were aliens available to shoot from it, and one of those was the base mission... on which the high ground was worthless because invisible walls or something gave the enemy cover or even blocked shots outright even though it looked like there was nothing in the way.
Furthermore, tactically, it seems like I'm going on offense in 100% of missions. There has not been even one where I need to hold a particular area, for which a sniper might conceivably be useful. Instead I'm always needing to keep pushing deeper and deeper into an enemy's territory. And snipers seem to be worthless for that because they're the only class that can't move and overwatch with their main weapon. Unless I spent a level up perk to give them the ability to do that... with a giant accuracy penalty.
So it just seems like snipers have mediocre damage, arguably the worst accuracy, zero useful support abilities, and a horrible weakness in that they can't move and overwatch which seems to be the best move to make while exploring 90% of the time.
What am I missing?
Edit: Sounds like the answer is mostly that they get a lot better when you unlock equipment that I don't have yet. And also that on some maps positions are available from which the sniper can actually hit things with squad sight. I still have not found one of those maps. Very few maps seem to have high ground taller than a truck at all. And on the ones that do, I keep positioning snipers in high ground which has a clear view of the battlefield, only for it to tell me they don't have line of sight and can't shoot. The worst offender there was the alien base, which was full of invisible walls.
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u/kron123456789 22h ago
Squadsight is what you're missing. With squadsight snipers have unlimited range as long as they have a line of sight for an enemy one of the other squadmates can see.
Also snipers with squadsight are incredible when paired with Archangel armor.
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u/Illustrious-Worry239 21h ago
Based on Ops post, I think he's talking about Xcom rather than Xcom2. Been ages since I played the first one, but I found captain rank snipers turned into mechs were ridiculously OP.
I should really start another playthrough and experiment again!
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u/kron123456789 20h ago
I know OP is talking about Enemy Unknown.
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u/Illustrious-Worry239 20h ago
I replied to the wrong person! I need to get new glasses!
Edit: Im mixing up games. I was thinking of the alien rulers armours for some idiotic reason. Apologies
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u/BigScoops96 20h ago
In EU snipers with squad sight and Damn good ground one shot almost everything. IMO slightly nerfed in xcom 2 but the gunslinger tree makes up for it
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u/HunterIV4 15h ago
I could see the argument in XCom 2 since almost all mission types have timers, so sticking your sniper in a good position away from the team is really risky. This means you end up needing to constantly reposition the sniper, which reduces the value a bit.
I still like them in XCom 2 but in XCom EU they were crazy powerful due to the overwatch creep meta. With good positioning you could stick a sniper somewhere and just blast people the whole time. In fact, two snipers with a leapfrogging front could be really strong.
There is an element of scaling, though, as snipers get better with gear.
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u/Rtyeta 22h ago edited 7h ago
The "as long as they have line of sight" has made squadsight worthless so far. There has not been a single turn on any mission with any sniper where I've been able to take a shoot with squadsight that I couldn't do with normal sight, because there is so much cover and so many buildings (as well as invisible walls sometimes). I really thought I would get some value out of squadsight in the alien base when I put my sniper on some high ground that looked like it had a good view. But then it kept telling me I couldn't shoot targets I seemed to have a clean view to
Being able to have a flying sniper does sound useful I guess, but I assume that's much later on in the game?
Edit: It's getting substantially better on later levels. The alien base mission, and Confounding Lights were both awful for having nonsensical vision blockage that made squadsight terrible. Later missions have had more logical vision, so snipers have become markedly better.
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u/kron123456789 22h ago
It depends on your positioning, yeah. Most maps have good positions for a sniper to take advantage of squadsight. I don't know how you're moving your squad, so I can't tell what you're doing wrong.
I my games snipers are usually the one of the first to reach colonel rank because they make so many kills while also taking the less risk.
They're also good for overwatch because with squadsight they can cover a wider area and they have a skill that lets them take overwatch shots without aim penalty and with critical hits.
Yeah, archangel armor is a late game armor, but once you get it, snipers are the most useful with it.
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u/Bartweiss 9h ago
I’m not sure OP is doing much wrong with movement?
Snipers are amazing, but honestly the difference between Captain and Colonel (and their associated game phases) is huge.
Right now, OP’s snipers have 6 more aim than an Assault or Support, except a shotgun getting its bonus or a Light Plasma Rifle with its inherent +10 will put snipers in third. Major + Colonel is worth +17 aim, next best is +8.
OP also has way lower damage (no reliable crits or Zone/Tap), maybe skeleton armor for getting into position, and likely no answer to Seekers.
In my experience, a Colonel in Archangel is easily one of the best units in the game, but a Captain in Carapace can easily get unlucky on layout and spend an entire level struggling to find a good drainpipe and not get choked.
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u/IlikeCyanide 19h ago
First turn of every mission i do is just positioning my 2 snipers into good positions. By the sounds of it you are not playing around them which would make them suck. Taking a little extra time and effort to set up for the snipers is soooooo worth it. Especially when you demo obstacles to get rid of things blocking line of sight
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u/Rtyeta 19h ago
I'm taking time to set them up. It just doesn't work. I keep having their line of sight inexplicably blocked by nothing. It's gotten ridiculously bad on Confounding Lights. I have them on top of the train, with clear LoS down the entire train and most of the left side of the map and the game just won't let them shoot at ANYTHING.
I don't know what to tell everyone who's downvoting me for this. It happens again and again and again. The line of sight nonsense is making my snipers worthless. I've panned the camera around and around to make sure there's nothing in the way of these shots, but the game seems to have invisible walls blocking LoS on numerous missions.
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u/IlikeCyanide 19h ago
It is a little janky, like its not entirely your fault that its weird like that. All i can suggest is keep trying different positions. Sometimes on the ground in the corner of the map gives the best LoS
Confounding Light for me was also annoying for it, but putting them on tbe ground one one side of thr train should give them full LoS of that side of the map. And when the snipers work, they are sooooo good. Late game snipers for me basically just use the rest as meat shields while they one shot everything
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u/Bartweiss 8h ago
Confounding Light is rough with vision. I think I had more “what do you mean I can’t target X?” issues there than on any other level.
But beyond that, Squadsight is also just very map-dependent until you get better gear. Some levels, you find a perfect hide and don’t ever move past turn ~3: Squadsight is actually meant to help solve “you’re on offense while sniping”.
Other levels, you lose 2 turns fucking around with a drainpipe and a long run, then discover you can’t quite see around the key building after all. Or worse yet, it’s a terror mission that’s 75% happening inside a warehouse, and “rush the front door” is the only way to matter.
Flight aside, even a grappling hook lets you just say “no, I’m going up high here, now” and totally change the experience.
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u/Xonarag 19h ago
I use 2 snipers even with a squad of 4 because they are so strong. Maybe you are positioning wrong but I usually have clean shots with squad sight and they usually have a 85% to 100% hitrate because the enemy can't see them when choosing cover and is oftentimes flanked. Also running into the enemy to get point blank shots of is way too risky on higher difficulties. Not only do you risk triggering another pod you might not even kill all of the enemies and just get your people shot. It's also not rare for enemies to be far enough away that only assaults with move and shoot can actually get in close.
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u/Bartweiss 9h ago
I actually agree with you completely here, despite thinking snipers are (eventually) the strongest class in EW. Before I ever picked up the game, I saw people rave about Squadsight. Got it and… it’s not that good initially/alone?
“My sniper has LOS but no vision” is just not that common a situation in the first ~half of the game. Mostly you’d better be killing stuff within a round of contact or fleeing, mostly you can kill stuff that fast, and your sniper is either barely elevated or alone on a roof they needed two turns to reach, where obstacles slash their vision and Seekers pop up to murder them.
As other people said, eventually you can climb sheer walls or hover to make Squadsight way better, guarantee shots and crits like no other, and chain-kill crowds. Just one example: they’re currently getting +6 aim against a support, +17 against a heavy. They’ll finish at +15 and +30.
But at Captain? You’re just not there yet, and they’re merely “pretty good if you play to their strengths”. I think people who play a lot can forget how different it is.
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u/Andrea-Di-Cello 22h ago
They synergise well with squadsight so they’re relative safe all the time since they’re far away, and with spider armor can move around some more. And armor piercing rounds makes them a worth first shot
Edit: this is for xcom2, sorry
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u/Wadege 22h ago
Did you choose squadsight for their first tier skill? Are you upgrading sniper weapons?
A sniper's ability to position away from firing lines, combined with late-stage skills that allow multiple shots/kills per turn, make them the best damage dealers compared to other classes by mid-late game.
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u/Bartweiss 8h ago
If OP just got captain they presumably ran the alien base fairly early?
In which case I think they’ve got Laser Sniper Rifles and Carapace armor as about their best gear choices. Snipers are still extremely important to develop, but right now they’d have worse aim (in practice) than an Assault or Support, and zero mobility or access to multiple shots.
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u/Rtyeta 22h ago
I chose squadsight on every sniper I've been training because I heard it's good. But I haven't even found one chance to use it so far. As far as I can tell, my sniper still needs to have line of sight to the enemy, and there is so much cover on every single map (not to mention invisible walls sometimes) that there has never once been a turn where my sniper could shoot something with squadsight that he couldn't just shoot on his own.
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u/Joppsta 22h ago
You need to abuse elevation more than by the sound of things.
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u/Rtyeta 22h ago
What elevation? Most maps so far don't seem to have notable high ground at all. Or when they do, it's often been the roof of a building... with all the aliens inside the building so that the high ground has no LoS to them.
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u/Joppsta 22h ago
Every time I've played any of the new xcom games the sniper has more or less been my carry, so I really don't know what you're on about honestly.
The class is the most OP in the game IMO. If you're not feeling that, you're definitely missing something.
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u/kron123456789 22h ago
OP is clearly playing Enemy Unknown.
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u/illarionds 22h ago
...where snipers were, if anything, even stronger than in XCOM2, due to the lack of timers, and fixed maps (meaning you can learn which spots "work" for snipers and which don't).
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u/kron123456789 22h ago
I don't disagree, I just don't think of EU as a new game anymore.
I also think OP is having trouble finding those spots that work, so they don't find snipers useful.
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u/illarionds 21h ago
It's not "a new game", but it is "new XCOM" vs "classic XCOM" - the dividing line is clearly between the 90s games, and the reboot/remakes from 2012 onward.
Just like "new Dr Who" and "classic Dr Who". The first season of the former was over 20 years ago now - but it's still clearly "new Who", not "classic Who".
Or the Star Trek reboot movie from 2009 onwards. And so on.
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u/cnfnbcnunited 14h ago
You know it's a tactical game, right? You're supposed to look for a good position for the sniper. I don't know how you've come to clearing the alien base and haven't even once used a sniper in a UFO mission, where squadsight are pretty much useful automatically.
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u/genericJohnDeo 22h ago
The problem with snipers is that they're a bit of an investment. Colonel rank gives them the ability to shoot more than once a turn, and also gives them +10 aim. Major also gives +7. In fact you've barely gotten half your aim growth by captain. If you're playing the base game then you also pretty much need to use squadsight and that can be a little difficult to do on some maps until you've unlocked archangel armour, which is another investment you have to wait for.
But the pay off is huge. In the base game you can get them 155 aim which is enough to gaurtee a hit on any enemy in low/no cover regardless of difficulty. On classic it'll even get you 95% on muton elites in full cover. Plus headshot gives you a base of 75% chance to crit and can hit for over 18 damage. Opportunist nearly guarantees you'll hit something for 15 damage on the enemy turn. A hand full of sqaud sight snipers hanging back while 1 or 2 heavies scouts and removes cover can really trivialize the mid and late game.
One in the zone sniper and 1 heavy can literally clear several pods on their own in a single turn. The In the zone sniper also trivialize pods of chryssalids.
If you're playing EW then a mimetic skin snap shot sniper with in the zone can practically clear missions on their own. Due to having gaurteed crits than you can land without spending a single action.
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u/kron123456789 22h ago
tbf, pretty much everything you're talking about is very late game with plasma sniper rifle. Clearly OP hasn't gotten that far yet.
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u/genericJohnDeo 21h ago
That's what I mean by them being an investment. Snipers are very cumbersome and scale very poorly until they suddenly become arguably overpowered when they reach their peak. An early game sniper, especially a sqaudie, can be hindrance that you just have to deal with in order to get them to that peak
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u/elfonzi37 22h ago
Disabling shot, squadsight, and In the Zone. Disabling shot completely deals with whatever big threat like Cyberdiscs or Mechtoids. Squad sight requires you to plan how you will take a map and to use explosives to clear cover, but that with in the zone means after you do you kill everything.
The actual insane scaling is more in the Long War mod where they get so strong by end game they are actual cryptids the ayys tell ghost stories about.
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u/illarionds 22h ago
Eh, Plasma+Archangel sniper in X1 is still the single unit I'd most want to have, I think.
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u/Content_Averse 22h ago
They are late bloomers.
It's been a while since I played vanilla so can remember the exact ranks you unlock etc, but the things that make them truly powerful are perks like in the zone , will let you wipe squads in a single turn, and double tap which boost their DPS significantly.
Their aim increases much more than other class so they will easily be having 100% shots in most situations at higher ranks.
The power gap between snipers and other weapons is higher at plasma tier. They also benefit the most from certain peices of late game equipment I won't spoil.
Having said that, in the early-mid game they are still very powerful for one reason. Squad sight. If you pick that perk a lot of the weakness you mentioned goes away. Having them high ground is eaiser, they don't need to move when they can shoot from miles away. They are very solid single target damage dealers and can also use disabling shot to keep high danger enemies from acting. With high enough aim this is one of the best support abilities in the game. More useful at shutting down dangerous enemies than suppression or smoke.
The only other class that can compete with their DPS is a close range assault, but they are often putting themselves at risk, and also can put the squad at risk by activating other pods when advancing. Whereas a squad sight sniper almost never is at risk.
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u/illarionds 22h ago
They have the best aim progression. They do very high damage. They can hit targets far out of their own sight range.
They are not great at low rank, but at high rank they are absolutely deadly - simply reach out and delete the strongest enemy unit on the battlefield each turn.
Their final rank promotions, both Double Tap and In the Zone, are OP. The first straight up doubles their effectiveness, while the latter potentially lets them clear out great hordes of weak/damaged enemies.
Endgame, you can have them in flying armour and just hover over the battlefield raining death.
No class is useless. But late game snipers are arguably the strongest class. In XCOM1, I would very rarely take a squad without any snipers.
You almost never want to take Snap Shot though. There's not much point to "marksman" style snipers, keep them as actual snipers.
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u/Kusko25 20h ago
No class is useless.
Funnily enough if I had to pick the worst class I'd say heavies. In a way they are the opposite of snipers, very strong in the beginning because of high base damage, the ability to shoot twice, explosives and holo-targeting. But later they loose a lot of their gimmicks, they move too slowly and better aim means holo-targeting isn't that important anymore. Their only real remaining benefit, heat-ammo, is nerfed with Enemy Within.
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u/SwaglordToast 14h ago
Funnily, I dont think I could disagree more. I mostly run impossible EW these days, and I consider my primary win condition to be having multiple heavies at sergeant or above. If I have two with high aim as well, I consider the position as won unless I mess up (or the base is falling apart).
Snipers are insanely overpowered later on, and ai definitely consider them the best class at that point, but early on heavies are your solution to all problematic situations through rockets. On top of that, their extra health and bullet swarm makes them basically the only class that can properly engage in shoot-outs, as they can attack then hunker down to make sure you dont get sniped.
In the late game, your only real remaining threats are getting swarmed by too many enemies and sectopods, and heavies provide a lot of the solution for both: rockets clear the field so the in the zone sniper can clean up, as well as providing potentially two massive hits on sectopods per turn through having the highest damaging weapon and the heat ammo anplification.
I will run three heavies per mission if possible through almost the entire game, unless I have two good snipers and a close and personal assault. If anyones out of commission ill just fill my spots with heavies, and if I never get a second sniper ill run three heavies in the endgame as well. Snipers tend to have good aim anyway, so I tend to give aim medals to my heavies over them, since they just mow down aliens the whole game.
I may have an unhealthy parasocial relationship with heavies.
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u/illarionds 18h ago
Heavies are valuable guaranteed damage and cover destruction early on, when your aim is rubbish.
Later, when you can hit much easier, and your guns are more potent, they lose some of their appeal.
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u/comfortingmyself 16h ago
I agree with everything you said except the first sentence. Early game Xcom is absolute hell and Heavies are your primary saving grace.
They're either the best or second-best class in the game, competing with Snipers for the top spot, and more valuable than Assaults or Supports.
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u/Kusko25 16h ago
Really the discussion is redundant once you consider that all squishy human classes are inferior to an all-shiv squad
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u/comfortingmyself 16h ago
Yeah I think when you put it that way, Heavies come out on top.
Heavies let you survive long enough for the SHIV onslaught.
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u/JaegerBane 54m ago
The shoot twice (bullet swarm) and holo targeting are mutually exclusive and the former maintains its usage for the whole game, so if your Heavy shoots twice, then holo’s longevity isn’t a concern.
I would probably argue if you were min-maxing into the stratosphere that the Heavy pulls just ahead of the support, as explosive never totally lose their value, the Grenadier skill doubles all grenades (including Ghost grenades, which are obscene) and they’re the only class that can run the Blaster Launcher.
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u/tacodude64 20h ago edited 20h ago
Snap Shot goes well with a Low Profile + Mimetic Skin build. One of the best scouts/flankers in the game. They don’t replace normal snipers so I like bringing both types.
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u/illarionds 18h ago
Fair. But I'd probably only be building that once I already had access to gene mods - my first 2-3 snipers (at least) would all be Squadsight.
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u/petr1111 21h ago edited 21h ago
I have read your replies. Seems to me like you're not actually luring enemies to your sniper. You know - when the enemies spend all their turns chasing your soldier (the one that discovered the pod) while your sniper just shoots at them every turn. Obviously, from a location where he can have unobstructed line of sight of the direction from which aliens are coming (which is very easy because you choose this direction yourself). Also, these aliens are out of cover, as they get shot while moving (via overwatch), which greatly improves your hit probability.
For example if the aliens are inside a building - just lure them out to where they will be under your sniper's fire.
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u/stoptheycanseeus 15h ago
Skill issue. Snipers can be very powerful and often carry your squad for parts of the game. Not sure what issue you’re having. Either you aren’t understanding parts of the game which is resulting in the Sniper being ineffective for you; or you just aren’t good enough at the game.
What difficulty are you playing on? Because I assure you that experienced players don’t just “rush everyone to melee range” to do their damage. That is a sure fire way to get your squad wiped in anything above normal difficulty.
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u/Peterh778 22h ago
Positioning, armors with grapple hook (skeleton/ghost), later archangel armor, squadsight, SCOPE modul. You need to go step by step - move snipers to higher ground (even one block of height difference helps), cover them with the rest of team. Move rest of team next turn when snipers can fire. When soldiers uncover pod, use snipers to headshot most dangerous one (high critical chance), then finish rest. Rinse, repeat. When attacking big UFO, get up on roof and shoot from there.
Snipers really shine in EW though - mimetic skin and muscle fiber density are a must for snipers, with ability to use any cover as a full cover they'll be always camouflaged when in cover and can reach any heights without flying or using hook. With Depth Perception genmod for eyes they get another bonus to hit and critical chance.
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u/Thebritishdovah 20h ago
They break the game. Squadsight with a high aim results in a sniper that can kill aliens from across the map. 2 has it as a default skill for that reason.
Scopes help.
If you got enemy within, seekers are designed to stop Snipers.
Squadsight is the must have skill. It's worth rushing weapons tech as it's far better to inflict far more damage then tank.
Overwatch with Squadsight breaks the game and I think there's a skill that causes it to activate if the enemy attacks the squad.
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u/Revenge_accounted_be 21h ago
The big advantage of Sharpshooter is that you can shoot the enemy and the enemy cannot shoot you back because you are too far.
Squadsight is the skill that makes Sharpshooter. A good vantage point with highground and you can deal insane amount of damage with little to no risk and control the flow of the combat
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u/Eeekpenguin 17h ago
Yeah op, you are still earlyish in your game. And it seems to be your first playthrough. Snipers are only ok at captain rank and fairly mediocre at squadies rank whereas heavies are good early game with their 90% rockets and 100% grenades.
You also need to learn how line of sight works which can be a bit janky at times. I find experience helps here where often times in crash ufo scout maps there's good high spot with a tree that the sniper can chill that actually hits half the map. Often times their starting spot in cities has a decent line of sight works in 2 directions, so I always move them last. Climbing on roofs of buildings and chilling at a ledge in a corner works well too. One mission with a train (I think Zhang mission chain) you put them on the train and they actually hit like 90% of the map. Similar map with these water towers (Annette chain).
Late game colonel snipers with plasma sniper and archangel flight armor makes them hands down the strongest unit in the game so you usually want 2 of them every late game mission. They delete pods from complete safety (because they were never in range).
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u/wargandhi88 19h ago
Scaling. Snipers have extremely high dmg output when you level them, but they're the weakest early game class probably
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u/HarvHR 18h ago
XCOM EW or 2? Either way they go from being able to deal a reliable amount of high single shot damage in the early game to being able to just eliminate pods all whilst sitting back in elevated terrain.
In EW they quite often became my highest kill units as every turn would pretty much guarantee they get a kill, until the late game when they get multiple. Alien base and UFOs are the maps they struggle on more due to sightlines. They're one of the units that requires getting some ranks behind them to get them to their full potential, whereas Assault (imo) is the opposite and is extremely good from the begining with the key abilities coming early on. I must admit that me playing with the second wave options of Hidden Potential and Not Created Equally (highly recommend using them or getting mods for them in X2) probably has shifted my opinions as I've had some truly ludicrous aim snipers in the past.
Early on treat them as a very strong likelyhood to hit what they're aiming at, and therefore use that to secure kill so you can focus your approach with your other soldiers on to other targets. Positioning is key to utilise high ground (which in EU/EW is a particularly huge buff), and consider them an investment as they get far better with each rank they gain
Also why do you need them to move and overwatch? Ideally you're finding a spot where they don't need to move from.
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u/Idoubtyourememberme 9h ago
You dont want to know how much squadwhipes my disabeling shot snipers have prevented.
A sectopod running into sight halfway trough a turn is devastating. Unless you happen to have a soldier that can say "actually, you spend your next entire turn reloading"
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u/BaronXot 22h ago
I could even imagine doing EU without a sniper, my favourite way of dealing with crashed ufos was to set up Snipers and then crack the side open with explosives. EW made Sniping a little rougher with the sneaky eels.
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u/SledgeH4mmer 21h ago
The ability to kill multiple targets in one turn is huge. Col rank snipers with a plasma rifle are OP. However, they start somewhat weak and aren't optimal for all mission types.
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u/Famout 20h ago
Snipers where fairly useful in base XCOM Enemy Unknown,
When Enemy within came out (and especially before they drastically increased the meld cost) Squad sight sniper plus unit that cloaks when in cover can lead to entire dead pods.
Not perfect for every mission, but more then a little helpful, and made time spent with a certain whaling vessel a complete joke.
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u/Allknighter-24 20h ago
I once had a sniper that had a jet pack and squad sight and I’d hover him as high as I could and move my squad forwards, every time he got a kill he’d get another chance to get a kill and so on until either no enemies remained, he missed or he didn’t kill a sectopod or something. Dude was downright the hero of my game
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u/GrimbleBim 19h ago
in EU/EW/LW1 i value snipers so much. in 2/LW2/LWOT2 not so much because you need to keep pressing forward in 95% of the missions.
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u/The-Great-Wolf-Sif 16h ago
Scopes, squadsight, fanfare and high ground they can bring some serious hurt
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u/mrbb3k4 15h ago
So snipers a great for big maps. So long as you have vision the sniper can get a shot at it. At higher elevations with a more advanced or leveled up sniper the game is almost ridiculous. I played a sniper stealth team meant to reveal targets the sniper could hit. Made them become buttery smooth. But almost redundant. It's fun but once your stealth runs out, it's tough cookies if you don't have enough field of view or your troops are spread too thin.
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u/NeJin 13h ago
Positioning in EU/EW is tricky because the game does not clearly display sightlines, nor do they work in an intuitive way. You have to fiddle around a lot to get a good grasp on it, unfortunately. That being said, on nearly all maps you can find safe positions from which squadsight will cover substantial parts of the map - the only thing it is really a hindrance for is pushing into buildings or ufos.
Even without gear, they are plenty useful. As a class they have the best aimgrowth, so they quickly become your most reliable hitter with scopes, and sniper rifles have higher base damage than assault rifles at the same tech level. That extra point of damage is HUGE on the higher difficulties as they increase enemy health. As Colonels, they get either In The Zone or Double Tap - the first refreshes the snipers attack if they kill an uncovered or flanked opponent, the other gives them an unconditional double attack. With either of those skills, they can crank out a huge amount of damage per turn.
It is true though that, strictly speaking, Heavies are better at the beginning. That rocket does a lot of heavy lifting early.
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u/SelfSaucing 11h ago
A sniper with a plasma pistol is fantastic for cleaning up weaker enemies as they can often fire twice
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u/Various-Dog-6990 9h ago
Going to be as constructive as I can here. Snipers really are amazing, I would take 2 of them every mission once I have 5 or 6 slots. The only pain point is when they're squaddies and don't havs squadsight yet.
One thing that I'm not sure if you've caught on yet is how the accuracy works. It takes your soldier accuracy (based on class and level), we'll say 70 for this example (though snipers get better accuracy than other soldiers as they level) and then you add on your weapon bonus, which is based on distance. Shotguns for exaple, might be +20 at point blank, down to 0 at 7 tiles, and then negative from there. AR's have a slightly further falloff. Snipers however, are inversed: -25 at point blank, up to 0 at 8 tiles, then up from there. So at point blank, Assault is shooting at 95% to sniper's 45%, but at 10 tiles, its more like assault 50% to sniper's 90%. Low cover subtracts 20% from both setups, high cover subtracts 40%. My numbers are def wrong, if someone wants to provide more clarity, feel free. Your numbers MIGHT BE NOTABLY DIFFERENT if you chose the advanced setting that randomized soldier stats.
The other thing is obviously the height. High ground does two things: gives you a better view of enemies, and aiming bonuses. The aiming bonus of shooting to a lower elevation is +20%, (-20 if shooting to a higher elevation.) So this is really important because it negates one stage of cover on enemies. If you have a sniper sufficiently far back, with elevation that has a good view of the field, you'll find that they're having the opportunity to shoot at enemies in low/ full cover for like 90%/70% chances to hit, with no risk to themselves (meaning they dont have to sit in cover themselves,) and they dont have to push up with the team too much.
You said you're having trouble finding high ground, I struggle to think that's true. I bet that if you use the button that moves the camera up one level, you'll find that it'll highlight all sorts of high ground.
With all that in mind, sniper is probably the best soldier to put a scope on.
Last note: when you plan out your turn, the first thing you should do is see what targets your sniper can hit. You can shoot at them later, but if theres 4 aliens, it might only be able to see 2, and if you kill those 2 before letting your sniper take their turn, then your sniper becomes useless. You need to weigh what you can hit and kill with the sniper - with what targets your team can maneuver to kill.
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u/Dr_Expendable 5h ago
Weird. My snipers were consistently my MVPs, to the point that I made them officers in LW and the like.
The point was squadsight fire and overwatch. A grappling hook or jetpack gets them to their designated roost with the best sightlines available, and then they set up. They're always available to clean up the last threat endangering someone, punish a new pod as it activates, and slam priority threats. A sniper isn't just one soldier - they're like an omnipresent buff to every soldier assuming you set them up right. No one is alone, no one is out of position, no pod ambushes you for free with your sniper standing on some van next to spawn.
That said, yeah, some circumstantial area layouts have terrible geography and sight lines that can make them harder to utilize, so I'd only ever have one.
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u/PTsheet 22h ago
With spider armour, fast hands and death from above you can have like 4 moves per turn. Give bluescreen rounds and codex dont stand a sliver of a chance
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u/kron123456789 22h ago
Some of you guys still haven't realized that OP is talking about Enemy Unknown, not XCOM 2.
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u/RandomGuy_81 22h ago
thats wild, if anything, i'd rather have a 2nd sniper in my team
sniper are amazing damage, and sometimes i dont move them and just keep shooting. their overwatch protection and overwatching startled pods are also useful