Sniper rifles seem awful

[Captain Sandwich]

Why on earth are sniper rifles so god awful? They're horribly inaccurate and have the stopping power of a potato. If getting headshots reliably was an option, they'd be all right. But as it sits, they essentially seem like a less accurate, slower, less lethal version of revolvers that use tons of ammo to drop a single target. Hell, they're even worse than repeaters.

It seems completely off kilter how inaccurate they are. At a distance, I can headshot a bandit with a revolver, without even using iron sights. At the same distance, I can unload an entire clip with a sniper rifle, and not even hit the center mass. And that's with perks and an accuracy mod.

The problems with accuracy aren't quite as frustrating as the damage. They pretty much deal the same damage as revolvers per hit, but revolvers are much easier to use, faster, and elemental revolvers ALWAYS proc. Not to mention the gunslinger tree allows easy access to Predator. I started out the game using sniper rifles and struggled, but as soon as I found my first revolver my killing power seemed to drastically increase.

So what am I missing here, why do sniper rifles seem so weak?

[Bacchus]

What is your level and sniper proficiency?
What quality is your rifle, semi or bolt?
It's no Fallout. BL2 for snipers is even worse.

[Killbonee]

I agree the aiming just seems off... but when i do land a headshot it kills them. Just not worth using.

[Kargor]

It seems pretty ok to me. Sniper rifles have accuracy too, but IF I need to take accurate single shots at a long distance I equip one of my snipers (I actually carry two around, for different cases).

Such scenarios are rare, though -- on most long distance scenarios I just spray SMG shots. Especially on targets that shoot at you, as that tends to disrupt the aiming with the sniper but doesn't do all that much if you're just spraying bullets across an area anyway. Same of all forms of popping out of cover to unload a magazine, then hiding again to reload -- if there's no time to aim, firing 50 shots into an approximate direction hoping that at least some of them will hit works better than firing just a single shot that most likely won't hit.

[SkullFire58]

I've noticed that, with every gun in this game, you have to lead your shots. If someone is running to the right at medium range and you're using a combat rifle, you have to aim slightly more to the right than they are, which makes no sense. If bullets were that slow in real life, they would plop to the ground in a second or two. It feels like I'm firing a lethal Nerf gun. Same goes for snipers, if I shoot a guy who's standing still at semi-long range, it takes a good half second to hit. I don't know, maybe the gravity on Pandora is different. That would explain why you can jump higher than Mario. It reminds me of the jump from Halo CE.

[Jurassic Fart 2]

There are a couple of factors to consider: A) What Bacchus (er hat den korrekten Geist) alluded to (experience and leveling), and B) the significance of the ACCURACY RATIO (i.e., PERCENTAGE). The more you use a weapon or class of weapon, the more heavily weighted towards success are your shots. The more you play the more you'll discover (pay attention to the specific weapons and related specs your enemies and victims are dropping) several instantiations of the same weapon may all have varying stats, and the further along you get (the more experience you gain) the weapons get more technically powerful. The percentage (RE: accuracy) figure is like GAMBLING. I've never seen a weapon with a 100% accuracy rating, but even if a weapon is 97.1% accurate, it's possible for sixteen heasshots in a row to miss, just like flipping coins is supposed to be 50% odds, that's LONG TERM MEAN [average], and you can get tails twenty-eight times straight. I can't remember the name of the manufacturer, but their sniper rifle sights are those elongated up-and-down elliptical sights. They seem to be more accurate of the common sniper rifles (the more powerful of the accurate Hyperion rifles are pretty rare), garnering you less misses than the other rifles. But you're right: Starting out, the sniper rifles kinda suck. Your best bet, if you're going for sniper rifle proficiency, is to choose a Hunter character, fill all your Sniper skill points first, and use the most powerful Hunter/Sniper class mods. Playing with any other character type will make using sniper rifles more challenging.