Sniper Single shot rifle build good? or auto is just way better?

[Wolf]

I love stealth snipping and hate farming ammo, is viable making a rifle single shot build?

[virpyre]

It can be but. . .

Gauss Rifle if you don't mind charging attacks.

Lever Action if you hate charging attacks.

The Fixer, Handmade, and Plasma Gun can also work, you can even retrofit a Hunter's Rilfe with a .50 if you want.

Your weapons are limited to Instigating/FFR, the 3rd star doesn't really matter.

[Phantom]

what you can kill in 2 shots with a sniper rifle
you can kill in 2 shots with commando

the difference is you can fire those two shots in commando 100x faster and still have another 18-48 to go

[steventirey]

Automatic weapons deal less damage per bullet than non-automatic weapons, but more than make up for it in rate of fire. From a damage per second view, automatic weapons will be better. That why you see so many automatics at events.

For solo questing, however, any weapon can be used. You want to kill a scorchbeast with a switchblade? Go ahead. Smack that mirelurk queen with a pool cue. Kill the single radroach with the mini nuke.

[Quagimus Decimus]

For rifle builds the only one worth persuing for the most part is a fixer. Otherwise I would only ever suggest using the .50 bos while leveling to delete enemies up until level 25-30 and then switching to a shotgun build to lolpwn to +50.
But if you're serious with the rifle build I recommend adding everything that gives you sneak attack, and boosts your stealth. Lot of ways to min-max a rifle build if you're keen on that gameplay. Ammo is meaningless you can always ask high level players if you need some pew pew ammo.

[EJR]

I switch between both and they have their own benefits exclusive from the other. Rifleman deals more damage per shot and Commando deals more DPS (Damage per second). This observation may sound redundant or like there is not much difference but this is far from the truth, Rifleman can take out 50+% health of a non-boss enemy while Commando deals 5-20% damage and hits numerous times. Basically it's just choosing big damage and little-to-no RoF, or low-mid damage with high RoF.

Honestly either works. For non-boss enemies if you are just doing challenges, dailies, quests, events, etc then you can work either or. But when it comes to bosses then I always go with Rifleman, my AA+50crit gauss rifle gets the job done and I have seen it work; friend of mine runs a Bloodied Commando build and was having trouble dealing damage to Earle in ACP even with other people, but the moment I come along dealing crits with said gauss rifle and Earle's HP started going down.

[Nothing.]

In standard play, rifleman builds are serviceble and will easily drive you through the game no trouble, especially with stealth. Most if not every human-sized opponent is gonna go down in fewer than 6 shots to their weak point in stealth with a combat rifle or handmade rifle, and definitely fewer than 4 if you're using a gauss rifle.

With events and bosses though is where it gets dicey. Rifleman can deal big damage with the right weapons + VATS, but the problem is ultimately you're always fighting against superior ROF/DPS when compared to commando. And if you're taking the time to wrap your build around VATS, then you'd probably be better off using VATS with a commando weapon and dishing out more critical damage faster. And if you've crutched on stealth to boost your damage, then any event that makes enemies aware of you all the time is going to kill your damage potential too, which is what can really kill rifleman as well, especially if you're using a weapon better with VATS.

So yeah, rifleman "works", but compared to other weapons classes, it's pretty mediocre.

[Lesmir]

Rifle used to be good because it was saving ammo and getting ammo for automatic weapon was kinda annoying/costly

but now with the ammo context and daily ops all the type of ammo are easy to farm and you pretty much get more ammo back than what you used when killing an enemy.
so there is kinda no point anymore in playing Rifle over Automatic

if you really want that kind of 1 big shot that hurt a lot not full auto weapon go for a plasma caster ( put prime on it and get luck perks card with 33 luck total for vats crits every other shot ) you will hit for 2000-3000 damage per shot. but its a heavy weapon not a Rifle per say

[-BLOOD-OCEAN-]

the best sniper in the game is the gauss rifle just fyi. the charging gauss rifle to be specific. you can get a double shot explosive charging gauss and thats baout 450 dmg per shot. but an auto rifle like the one i use, fixer with ultracite is about 280-400 per shot and its full auto so gauss rifle is about 2000 dmg every 10 seconds. A full auto build is about 20K per 10 seconds if you go full out. and those numbers are also with a sniper build. go get a fixer is my advice.

[Angela]

The TL;DR: commando is way better than rifleman.

[Dakone]

Originally posted by Wolf:

I love stealth snipping and hate farming ammo, is viable making a rifle single shot build?

Honestly automatic does nearly the same damage as rifles which is silly so automatic is really the best route anymore and it goes for everything.

Unless you get instigating i wouldn't bother as not being able to do your damage in one hit defeats the purpose and this requires boosts and stealth sneak damage as well as I think one legendary perk that does more damage for each hit is a must for both builds.

[Hefutoxin]

Originally posted by Wolf:

I love stealth snipping and hate farming ammo, is viable making a rifle single shot build?

The game isn't difficult. Single shot is fine.

However, commando does almost the same damage per bullet, just much faster.

The game is really unbalanced in favor of the player, so it's not difficult to exceed what you think would be a reasonable amount of DPS.

[Wolf]

Originally posted by Quagalicious:

For rifle builds the only one worth persuing for the most part is a fixer. Otherwise I would only ever suggest using the .50 bos while leveling to delete enemies up until level 25-30 and then switching to a shotgun build to lolpwn to +50.
But if you're serious with the rifle build I recommend adding everything that gives you sneak attack, and boosts your stealth. Lot of ways to min-max a rifle build if you're keen on that gameplay. Ammo is meaningless you can always ask high level players if you need some pew pew ammo.

if i do the quest before hiting 50 i get stuck forever with a low level fixer?

[Hefutoxin]

Originally posted by Wolf:

Originally posted by Quagalicious:

For rifle builds the only one worth persuing for the most part is a fixer. Otherwise I would only ever suggest using the .50 bos while leveling to delete enemies up until level 25-30 and then switching to a shotgun build to lolpwn to +50.
But if you're serious with the rifle build I recommend adding everything that gives you sneak attack, and boosts your stealth. Lot of ways to min-max a rifle build if you're keen on that gameplay. Ammo is meaningless you can always ask high level players if you need some pew pew ammo.

if i do the quest before hiting 50 i get stuck forever with a low level fixer?

You get the plan to craft The Fixer.

Most of the advice you are getting are from people who watched a Youtube video.

The Fixer has a bit more damage than Handmade, along with bonuses to stealth. However, it kicks like a mule outside of VATS. It's a good rifle, but you are ever fighting outside of VATS, Handmade will put far more bullets into your target with it's minimal recoil.

[kiltedwarr]

I tried for bout 2 years to keep to a single shot sniper build. when the game first came out, ammo was hard to get and was a pain. Ran that and melee as well. once ammo was no longer an issue, AUTO all the way. Ammo is is super easy to get now, even early game.