What makes the best sniper mc?

[Xerkics]

I looked online a bunch and there are conflicting views everywhere I was wondering if there was a consensus here at all ?

If you play dogmatic and don’t have the xenos sniper I as wondering is it worth building your main as fortress world crime lord operative or soldier to go into assassin or bounty hunter ? You already got argenta or ulfar who are arch militants so I was wondering . What is actually the highest single dmg ranged build if there is one ? Can you get comparable dmg to burst weapons with sniping ? Elf as ranged assassin seems to outdamage pascal who is bounty hunter by loads . Even though he can overcharge his plasma guns.
Thoughts ?

[RavenHeresy]

If you want raw dps, nothing will catch soldier-arch with burst weapons... End game, argenta can push 25k on her own turn, and probably double that with 2 characters giving her extra turns. My main was also a solider-arch and most fight not make it into 2nd round. Range is never an issue because you just run there with 15mp, dodge is rarely an issue with Cassi LoS debuf and reasonable perception, weapon damage is irrelevant because talents and buff make the base damage a negligible part of the output. So you are basically looking for rate of fire and armor penetration.

There seem to be some wierd psyker build out there too that can probably put out crazy damage, but I'm not as familiar with them.

Now, when it comes to snipers, they are cool, but they just can't keep up dps wise. If you play on normal though, no problem, a good MC sniper can carry you through even if it's not as strong. There are many excellent non-xenos sniper rifles, but at any given point, the best rifle available might be a xenos one (I'd say 60% of the time at least). As for what archetypes pushes the most damage for a sniper, it depends what you are looking for. Agent-Tactician might probably push out the largest single shot number. I suspect a soldier-arch however, with way more attacks per turn, might be able to push more in total, certainly overkill less and reach more targets. I've not have great success with assassins that they don't have talents which are as exploitable and buffable, but maybe someone else can chime in.

Bottom line, if you are going to play on normal, I think you are fine either way, you can just follow you heart =)

[Xerkics]

Well , I was thinking either operative / assassin or bh or soldier arch militant but I’m not sure you can really stack enough versatility as a sniper for it to work? I assume sniper assassin works by stacking exploit and lethality same way how arch militants stack dmg from multiple shots and versatility ? Mainly I want a long range snipe because I’m used to playing with the elf and I won’t have her 2nd plays through but I’m wondering if I can make the Mc much better sniper is all.

[RavenHeresy]

Originally posted by Xerkics:

Well , I was thinking either operative / assassin or bh or soldier arch militant but I’m not sure you can really stack enough versatility as a sniper for it to work? I assume sniper assassin works by stacking exploit and lethality same way how arch militants stack dmg from multiple shots and versatility ?

Yeah, the problem is that you eat your stack of debuff each time to attack, so it's not great on bosses that you need to attack repeatedly each round. And 'openings' don't really stack, and I havent found a way to buiild lethality fast enough to be competitive. But who knows, maybe it's out there.

As for versatility, right now it's bugged and and it's extremely easy to build it up. You get versatility all the time without doing much. And if you play with lots of officiers that give you extra turns, just that with the talent to get versatility each extra turn is enough to rapidly push you up. I never use any of the talent that burn versatility, which isn't necessarily possible with agent debufs.

[RavenHeresy]

BH is interesting but is another class I tried and switly respecced out of (that and strategist). They are so much work, marking your preys every fight (or setting up your zones as a strategist) and the bang for the buck just wasn't there.

[Draken]

Here is a nice Yrliet Operative Assassin build.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l73ovALYdGM

Should work pretty well as starting point.

Assassins work best by doing percentage max health damage, which will always scale with enemies hp, so it's pretty good even against bosses.

They also do get very nice damage boosts thanks to lethality.

[RavenHeresy]

Oh, and plasma weapons are by far my favorite guns in the WH40K universe, but they really got the short end of the stick in this game. Same with Melta. You can get enough armor pen to get through anything with just bolters, and they push a lot more damage. The AOE for the plasma is kinda neat at the beginning, but rapidly get left in the dust (damage wise) by burst AOE.

So eventually poor Pasqal got benched, which is a shame because I love the character =)

[Neoz]

don't listen to the nay sayers, snipers can evaporate encounters as easily as the overhyped soldier AM. And they don't need two officers/master tacticians buffing them to do it. Though, having tested out the "super buffs" once, you can easily reach 2k crits around the end of act 3. Not having the rifle that gives additional attacks on crit will hurt, but not overly much. All you need is your officer to give your MC the heroic action turn, and once you get assassin you can deadshot 2.0 for 1 AP.

If you want to actually "snipe" You go operative/assassin. Nothing will compare. Any soldier AM that tries to compete for single target damage will be sad. You can eventually (act 4) get an item that boosts the %max health you deal up to 30%, and further increases general damage by 30% more.

Personally, I went forge world, for the crit, and because I wanted the calculated relations talent, for RP. (I want my MC to be the one "giving orders/talking") But, for raw damage, fortress is your best bet.

as an added thing, the more operatives you have, the better the sniper will be. Idira can be specced to support, but so can pascal. Giving you more exploits to toy with.

[TaKo]

if you just want big single hits with long range guns, operative assassin is the go to yeah

no it cant compete with stacked burst attacks but nothing can match the power of stacking dozens to hundreds worth of damage via flat/multiplicative buffs on guns that fire 20+ bullets per attack

you are still prolly gonna one-shot most enemies tho without even needing buffs from others, just seek opening*(if they dont already have an opening facing you) and killing edge

analyze and expose weakness as needed, remember that exploits also buff your damage when hitting enemeis that have them(so its nice to have multiple operatives to stack exploits on the 1st turn passively, expose weakness to remove dodge/armor and analyze a priority target to buff your dmg further to ensure a 1-shot, granted thats rarely needed outside of MAYBE late-game bosses)

also now that wanderer's portent is fixed it's a ridiculously powerful gun that can carry you all the way and you can get it as early as 1st footfall visit

[Neoz]

Originally posted by RavenHeresy:

Oh, and plasma weapons are by far my favorite guns in the WH40K universe, but they really got the short end of the stick in this game. Same with Melta. You can get enough armor pen to get through anything with just bolters, and they push a lot more damage. The AOE for the plasma is kinda neat at the beginning, but rapidly get left in the dust (damage wise) by burst AOE.

So eventually poor Pasqal got benched, which is a shame because I love the character =)

yeah. the fact you can't use assassins primary ability with his ranged weapon hurts too. But I built Pascal as a support, which worked well with bounty hunter. Sniper kills prey, gets turn, adds exploits, etc.

Also, you want tactical knowledge and perfect spot with the sniper. Tac knowledge gives you +base damage for exploits (works best if used on large groups) it falls off a bit later, but is a huge help early on. And there aren't a lot of other good ones. Precise shot is undeeded, as your hit will eventually cap both it and crit anyway.

[RavenHeresy]

Originally posted by rorek55:

yeah. the fact you can't use assassins primary ability with his ranged weapon hurts too. But I built Pascal as a support, which worked well with bounty hunter. Sniper kills prey, gets turn, adds exploits, etc.

Yeah, that's how I had him when I carried him. The thing that give him extra turns (savor the kill maybe or whatever it is), is also bugged and triggers randomly when it shouldn't, so that's even stronger.

This being said, just to poke fun, you like say that your sniper doesn't need officers or tacticians to perform, but you have Pasqal just sitting around doing pretty much nothing except generating exploits for your MC. Pot, meet kettle ;)

[Neoz]

Originally posted by RavenHeresy:

Originally posted by rorek55:

yeah. the fact you can't use assassins primary ability with his ranged weapon hurts too. But I built Pascal as a support, which worked well with bounty hunter. Sniper kills prey, gets turn, adds exploits, etc.

Yeah, that's how I had him when I carried him. The thing that give him extra turns (savor the kill maybe or whatever it is), is also bugged and triggers randomly when it shouldn't, so that's even stronger.

This being said, just to poke fun, you like say that your sniper doesn't need officers or tacticians to perform, but you have Pasqal just sitting around doing pretty much nothing except generating exploits for your MC. Pot, meet kettle ;)

I do, but its not needed. Matter of fact, I only add exploits once he has already done his other stuff, like setting up traps/the machine aoe thing etc. I love those traps.

[Xerkics]

What is the best origin for sniper do you think ? Someone suggested crime lord ? As a pyro vanguard I don’t really use guns at all since I got my inflamed thunder hammer and psychic melta beam

[Lur Nen Rue]

bounty hunter excel at turn manipulation and does not defeat assassin at single target damage department, bh good at critting for assasin create opening tho
crime lord is great because the bonus damage is based on per, and officer with focus will buff you with soo much per it turn into 70% more damage, and with exemplar talent that excess per will turn into damage and tripled in crit
i would also go for the never stop shooting, with lethality heightens that means after officer heroic in that one round you will be able to shoot as much as you want with your possibly 9 ap and inflict vulnerability. this synergy means you will trigger as much as NSS as possible and with never stop believing, you have extra at least 2 shot in your 9 shot, more if you managed to buff your WP

[Xerkics]

Hmmm I’ve started a new playthrough with fortress world crime lord operative with another conviction but not sure I picked the right perks so far most of guides I saw online talk about either Yrliet or melee assassins .

Can people who played sniper comment whether I should have left something for later or missed On any skills so far that I should have taken: so far at lv 8 I took Tide of excellence ,uncanny sight ,tactical knowledge improved tactics , spare magazine and las weapon expert for my long las. I saw guides saying you need to take fresh target sharpshooter etc so I was wondering if this is wrong build so far ?

[REhorror]

Probably a Forgeworld Crimelord Operative Assassin.

Sure-fire plan is a massive boost on damage, but you need Cassia or Jae to do the buffing.