The good and the bad.

[slayerfar]

First of, a heartfelt thank you for creating a longer, less rushed campaign, where I can invest the time in my soldiers to create proper bonds and to research my little heart out of everything. It's not that version 1 wasn't enjoyable, it's just that this slow and steady is way more up my alley.
Playing long also makes wounded soldiers a lot less problematic and medical Specialists an absolute necessity. Infirmery staffing suddenly took priority over digging out for new modules, and since a wounded soldier didn't lose 3/4 of his health being hit just once, he didn't have a recovery time of 20 days. All in all a solid effort into creating a more fluid battlefield, where the Aliens aren't completely overpowering, and where focus needn't be on killing every three Alien group in 1 round or face dire consequences.
But the Sharpshooter is still pretty pointless. I've trained a few because I have the time, but their damage output is absolutely abysmal. Even with the Darklance, they rarely squeeze off more than one shot per turn, since there is very, very few creatures they can kill with their sniper rifle in one go. All other types of Troops get a "Double Tap" of sorts: Chain Fire, Shotgun Doubleshot, Guardian in overwatch, Bullpup doubleshot and Psycic power take another action. The Sharpshooter just isn't up to snuff, even when shooting at a De Armored, Ruptured targets, hitting for a critical barely gives you 15 damage. I did have a round of combat, where a Sharpshooter killed 12 Lost in one turn, but the point is that at that point, everybody can do it, and even if they can't, my Templar/Ranger/Bulpup Faction with Bladestorm is in front of the shooters, cutting through the Lost like a scythe. "A lost swarm has appeared!". Ohh dear, my Templar/Ranger just kill an alien in Close Combat, and then run in and block the Swarm using their free movement after a kill.

I just want the Sharpshooters to do more than be a liabillity.

[Future]

Sharpshooters if used correctly, can be OP as hell
i usually bring 2 sharpshooters depending on the Mission Objective, and they kill a LOT, my sharps always have more kills than any other class.
High Ground + Scope + Free Reloads can be quite powerful.

[red255]

Sharps are depending on the map about as OP as Rangers.

Run and Gun and death from Above is a Mini Serial until you get the hunter rifle, then its open season.

You want a run down of Sharp skills because I assume you are building them wrong.

Obviously you want to give them a superior scope, an expanded mag and uh a hair trigger is what I usually go with

and a superior aim PCS.

Now you want to get them a wraith suit with bluescreen rounds.

and you want to place them up high.

Sniper is getting +20% aim from elevation +15 from the PCS + 15-20 from the scope. 55 or so bonus aim, and he's going to just PARK there so +10 from steady hands.

65 bonus aim. Rookies start with 65 AIM so thats 130 aim right there.

Next we want to go thru skills.

Return Fire/long watch.

Take long watch, return fire is junk. you break concealment and lead the map with a sneaky reaper or ranger, and it gives you overwatch shots at pods as they patrol quite safely activating them on their turn, giving your guys a full turn to respond.

Deadeye/Lightning hands.

Both are actually good, but I take lightning hands and buy the other one later from the training facility. deadeye has a -30% aim penalty but its enough extra damage to one shot an advent MEC. Lightning hands is a free pistol attack every 3 rounds or so. its there when enemies get too close and need killing.

Deathfrom above/Quickdraw.

Death from Above. only an idiot would take quickdraw. Fan fire does not end your turn so if you want to shoot alot with a pistol you could shoot fan fire then do a pistol shot. quickdraw only helps if fan fire is on cooldown. whereas Death From above is shoot with sniper rifle, then shoot with pistol. which is >>> shoot with pistol and pistol.

Killzone/Faceoff.

I take face off. Killzone just takes too much setup turn limits and all that jazz. also the sniper doesn't really have all that much ammo to waste.

Steady Hands/Aim. Usually steady hands, Sometimes both if you get the automatically hunker down ranger perk as an additional perk from the training facility. Sharp should ALWAYS be firing every turn. or overwatching. I suppose you could occasionally need to reload then hunker but that usually is to be avoided.

Serial/Fan Fire.

Honestly both. You take Fan Fire you can use it on things like Archons and they will go away.

But serial is better in ideal situations.

of course with the hunter rifle serial is only useful if you can't manage to get to the high ground, as death from above is basically serial with no cooldown.

[KRON]

Originally posted by slayerfar:

I just want the Sharpshooters to do more than be a liabillity.

If sharpshooters are a liability then you're using them wrong. Darklance is the most useful chosen weapon, imo. And I guess you wasn't lucky. On my playthroughs I always had at least one sharpshooter with chainshot or rapid fire. At least once I had a sharpshooter with chainshot and rupture. Darklance + Death from above = Serial on Lieutenant rank and without cooldown. Darklance with rupture or deadeye can kill many aliens in one shot. But you need high aim(well over a 100) to properly use deadeye.

Originally posted by red255:

Deadeye/Lightning hands.

Both are actually good, but I take lightning hands and buy the other one later from the training facility. deadeye has a -30% aim penalty but its enough extra damage to one shot an advent MEC. Lightning hands is a free pistol attack every 3 rounds or so. its there when enemies get too close and need killing.

Not entirely true. Deadeye has 25% aim penalty, but it's -25% of your aim, not -25 aim. So, actually you're gonna need 134 aim to have 100 aim on deadeye.

[Reuvin]

I get most use out of Sharpshooters by using them as executioners or a single heavy hitter. I make sure to get every enemy in sight to low enough health that it is a guaranteed kill with the sharpshooter, and use serial to clean up with an auto reloader. Otherwise I use them with AP rounds and deadeye as a single super heavy hit on the andromedons, gatekeepers, and sectopods. Gunslinger is fun, but I just can't find much use for it that someone else can't do better.

[red255]

I note the line that your sniper rifles do 15 damage and that isn't enough to kill anything.

seriously? what has more than 15 HP? are you running mods? yeah you might need to pistol them first or have someone send a bomb over to burst their cover.

but its enough to pop codex, its enough to pop advent mecs after you lightning hands them, its enough to pop troopers, and its certainly enough to mop things up.

Originally posted by Reuvin:

. Otherwise I use them with AP rounds and deadeye as a single super heavy hit on the andromedons, gatekeepers, and sectopods.

Why would you take AP rounds, instead of bluescreen rounds? AP rounds reduce armor by up to 5 but if you shred armor they don't take additional damage. bluescreen rounds is +5 damage vs sectopods and gatekeepers and lots of other enemies.

So you'd lose some damage against a heavily armored Andromedon, which your PSI op could just dominate for 90% chance. but gain a huge advantage against Codex, Sectopods, Gatekeepers, Advent MEC, Specters, etc.

[talemore]

Since when does sniper rifle do 15 damage, them have 4-6 + crit. Must be playing an entirely different game.

[learnedhand]

Seems like I use sharpshooters differently than the prevailing opinions in this thread. What is distinctive about them is their range, so I use them to control the flow of engagement. That means I usually open with a sharpshooter attack, maybe taking out a stun lancer, purifier (hoping for an aoe explosion on the pod). Regardless, that pod will now move closer to you allowing you now to kill them all with the rest of the group while creating separation between them and any closer pods.

For these reasons, sharpshooters have become indispensable for me. And the dark lance is the best Chosen weapon.

[red255]

Originally posted by talemore:

Since when does sniper rifle do 15 damage, them have 4-6 + crit. Must be playing an entirely different game.

Plasma Tier Sniper rifles do 8-10. +1 with the sniper rifle break thru, +1 with the beam weapon breakthru.

10-12, +5 with bluescreen rounds vs robots, or +1 with fire or venom rounds.

so 15 is the minimum damage on a maxed out sniper with a basic shot and bluescreen rounds vs robots.

[SBlack]

Gunslinger type sharpshooters are great too. They can hit many targets and clean up a lot of them if they are already hurt.

[Reuvin]

Originally posted by red255:

I note the line that your sniper rifles do 15 damage and that isn't enough to kill anything.

seriously? what has more than 15 HP? are you running mods? yeah you might need to pistol them first or have someone send a bomb over to burst their cover.

but its enough to pop codex, its enough to pop advent mecs after you lightning hands them, its enough to pop troopers, and its certainly enough to mop things up.

Originally posted by Reuvin:

. Otherwise I use them with AP rounds and deadeye as a single super heavy hit on the andromedons, gatekeepers, and sectopods.

Why would you take AP rounds, instead of bluescreen rounds? AP rounds reduce armor by up to 5 but if you shred armor they don't take additional damage. bluescreen rounds is +5 damage vs sectopods and gatekeepers and lots of other enemies.

So you'd lose some damage against a heavily armored Andromedon, which your PSI op could just dominate for 90% chance. but gain a huge advantage against Codex, Sectopods, Gatekeepers, Advent MEC, Specters, etc.

Because I personally find the flat out armor penetration to be more useful. Also, you have the specialists that can hack robots akin to psi ops dominating an andromedon, and I ALWAYS dominate gatekeepers when I have the option to take them out of the equation, plus specialists can hack multiple things as opposed to the psi's one dominate and the random roll on insanity. But I get more use out of armor pen because blue screen is situational as to when robots appear, whereas armor pen applies to everything, and nearly everything has armor late game. And I never even have trouble with sectopods/gatekeepers/andromedons when I encounter them because A) Rapid Fire ranger with Arashi, B) Stasis allowing me to just freeze the dangerous unit, clean up the pod, and then instakill the unit next turn, or C) hack/domination. I've never found much value in blue screen rounds, but if you want them go ahead.

[learnedhand]

I prefer AP on my sharpshooter as well. Blue screens I like on my gunner grenadiers, for the high hit point sectopods and gate keepers.

[slayerfar]

Originally posted by red255:

I note the line that your sniper rifles do 15 damage and that isn't enough to kill anything.

seriously? what has more than 15 HP? are you running mods? yeah you might need to pistol them first or have someone send a bomb over to burst their cover.

but its enough to pop codex, its enough to pop advent mecs after you lightning hands them, its enough to pop troopers, and its certainly enough to mop things up.

Originally posted by Reuvin:

. Otherwise I use them with AP rounds and deadeye as a single super heavy hit on the andromedons, gatekeepers, and sectopods.

Why would you take AP rounds, instead of bluescreen rounds? AP rounds reduce armor by up to 5 but if you shred armor they don't take additional damage. bluescreen rounds is +5 damage vs sectopods and gatekeepers and lots of other enemies.

So you'd lose some damage against a heavily armored Andromedon, which your PSI op could just dominate for 90% chance. but gain a huge advantage against Codex, Sectopods, Gatekeepers, Advent MEC, Specters, etc.

I'm not running a mod. I'm running the new game mode, where everything has more HP's. NOTHING can be insta killed. Not the aliens and not your soldiers.

[KRON]

Originally posted by Reuvin:

Because I personally find the flat out armor penetration to be more useful. Also, you have the specialists that can hack robots akin to psi ops dominating an andromedon, and I ALWAYS dominate gatekeepers when I have the option to take them out of the equation, plus specialists can hack multiple things as opposed to the psi's one dominate and the random roll on insanity. But I get more use out of armor pen because blue screen is situational as to when robots appear, whereas armor pen applies to everything, and nearly everything has armor late game. And I never even have trouble with sectopods/gatekeepers/andromedons when I encounter them because A) Rapid Fire ranger with Arashi, B) Stasis allowing me to just freeze the dangerous unit, clean up the pod, and then instakill the unit next turn, or C) hack/domination. I've never found much value in blue screen rounds, but if you want them go ahead.

But overall bluescreen rounds are more useful because they're pretty cheap and easy to produce.

[Reuvin]

Originally posted by KRON:

Originally posted by Reuvin:

Because I personally find the flat out armor penetration to be more useful. Also, you have the specialists that can hack robots akin to psi ops dominating an andromedon, and I ALWAYS dominate gatekeepers when I have the option to take them out of the equation, plus specialists can hack multiple things as opposed to the psi's one dominate and the random roll on insanity. But I get more use out of armor pen because blue screen is situational as to when robots appear, whereas armor pen applies to everything, and nearly everything has armor late game. And I never even have trouble with sectopods/gatekeepers/andromedons when I encounter them because A) Rapid Fire ranger with Arashi, B) Stasis allowing me to just freeze the dangerous unit, clean up the pod, and then instakill the unit next turn, or C) hack/domination. I've never found much value in blue screen rounds, but if you want them go ahead.

But overall bluescreen rounds are more useful because they're pretty cheap and easy to produce.

And so are AP rounds when you get into mid game.

[KRON]

Originally posted by Reuvin:

Originally posted by KRON:

But overall bluescreen rounds are more useful because they're pretty cheap and easy to produce.

And so are AP rounds when you get into mid game.

Producing AP rounds is always dependent on RNG since you can't just make AP rounds. You have to use "Experimental Ammo" project. And because of that there is no guarantee that you will have AP rounds at all, whereas bluscreens can be massproduced without problem.