Assassin Guide : Switch Sniper

Originally made for vanilla and still effective past rank 50 this is a beginner friendly build which will take you from rank 1 to rank 50 and beyond.

This guide makes use of the Longlas Rifle but is built to be flexable for other sniper rifles to be used.

Switch Sniper : Intro

First of all are a few things to consider,

v2.0+ As this guide was written around the time of Martyr when the level cap was 50 now 100, it will have made some of the content in this guide redundant. You can ignore anything that doesn't make sense or match to current versions of the game as long as the core focal point of the build is established which is achieve relatively early then you can fine tune to how you wish to specialise in.

v1.0 At rank 40-50 with relics the game becomes really easy even on Impossible difficulty. All the guides here for builds are already decked out in relic gear with decent stats and unique rolls on their weapons. This makes it deceptive as low ranks with greens and purples will not have optimised gear and skills making it slightly difficult than perceived.

You may see results at 30+ but until you are rank 40+ in full relics do not expect to be super powerful. This is my warning to you.

The main focus of this build will be the Longlas Rifle.

PROs

• Your multi target damage is stupidly powerful in taking out clusters of groups.
  
• Your single target is nothing to laugh at either, by chaining Single Shot and Sniper Shot to eliminate loose enemies.
  
• In single player a well geared Sniper shot at high ranks will often take out most elites/champions in 1 shot.
  
• In multiplayer expect to see crits of 10k + on elites/champions but you won't 1 shot them.

CONs

• Assassin Inquisitor's over-theatrical voice acting.
  
• Overheat, Overheat, Overheat... get used to hearing it.
  
• Some animation lock delays weapon switching, noticeable when dodge rolling.
  
• In single player you're a glass cannon. You will die if you come under sustained fire.
  
• In multiplayer you're a like a birthday candle.
  
• Very frantic game play, carpal tunnel syndrome beware.
  
• Prepare to dodge roll a lot, get used to WASD keys to roll or set Roll direction to Cursor in settings. This is because sniper rifles for some reason have the same range as regular rifles, your enemies will be in range to shoot back.
  
• Hordes! those little ♥♥♥♥♥ are freaking annoying you think you've burned them all in a line but a few slip under the beam and dance right in your face, they are also small and mis clicking often happens.

If the cons doesn't bother you then continue.

Switch Sniper : Enter the Longlas Rifle

For the purpose of this build we will be equipping a Longlas Rifle in both sets. The Exitus Rifle and Sniper Rifle are a good alternative if you don't like the Longlas Rifle. They are just a little less effective in taking out groups.

Longlas Rifle is an effective all rounder sniper rifle and out of all the sniper rifles is the one best suited at taking out multiple targets (go away Needler) and anti armour to bring down a Leman Russ with some difficulty.

Single Shot

• Taking out unwanted pests not in a group.
  
• For more targets follow up with a quick Sniper shot instead of waiting for this to cooldown.

Full Auto

• No.

Sniper Shot

• Has Armour breaking and Crit chance which is good for our needs. Hold down to charge for multiplier damage and aim for the head. Will not charge for turrets and tanks.
  
• For weak to regular enemies you don't need to fully charge this.
  
• Currently has a bug that sometimes causes the shot to do a 180° when quick sniping.

Prismatic Shot

• Prismatic shot is a piercing attack and will hit all targets in a straight line. In addition it will hit up to 3 (although sometimes it will hit more) adjacent targets.
  
• It will pierce small obstacles like barrels and boxes but it will not pierce large objects like containers. This is extremely helpful at hitting groups hiding behind cover.
  
• Megablast has a huge 300% damage bonus when firing your rifle from cold heat however this will instantly overheat the rifle to max forcing you to wait till it cools down or switch to another weapon.
  
• Do note that it has no Anti-Armour and will do sod all damage on a armoured enemy.
  
• Constant Overheat will annoy you.

Check the next page for a solution.

Switch Sniper : Setup

I rather not place so much emphasis on multi target hitting skills but the game is designed to throw numerous weak one hit enemies that will quickly overwhelm you very quickly. For a sniper only build this is a pain in the ass but we will overcome that.

To make prismatic shot our effective group killer we need at least three things.

1. Another Longlas Rifle in set 2

Switch to a secondary rifle while the first is overheated and can't be used. Yes we are going double sniper rifles I'm pretty sure I mentioned that earlier.

2. Tactical Mastery Perk

When we switch weapons, all skills will have their cooldown halved and reload will also reduce weapon overheat to zero.

• Eradicator's starting perk
  
• Finish 10 Missions with at least 30% melee and 30% ranged kills

3. Ranged Combat skill tree.

Quick Draw in the ranged combat tree is an additional skill cooldown reduction when switching weapons.This will stack with the Tactical Mastery Perk for 100% cooldown.

However skills that are already on cooldown won't be effected. So there will be a slight delay to skills with a long recharge when you switch back.

PERKS

Priority 1

• Eradicator's starting perk
  
• Finish 10 Missions with at least 30% melee and 30% ranged kills. If this fails to unlock due to a bug, consider changing characters to complete the requirements as non class specific perks are shared.

What makes this build work.

Priority 2

• Beyond rank 50 you should be able to reach crit cap quite easily and may swap this out with a different perk.

More crit chance is good crit chance.


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Optional

• Available from level 29

Personal Favourite, chain sniping individual enemies is fast and satisifying however there is a bug where quick tapping on Sniper Shot can result in the las beam doing a 180° no longer the case as it appears to be fixed.

• Available from level 14

Would be excellent for the second slot before being replaced by Frenzon, can be useful for the third slot.

• Kill 100 enemies with Critical Hits

Harder hitting crits, a very good perk. One for the late game with more crit chance.


I actually don't know how I got this or if it was available at the start, also can't confirm if the debuff is working. Best used when fighting a Leman Russ because you can't charge sniper shots.

PASSIVES

Priority passives

These work for me and will give you some flexibility to switch to another Sniper Rifle if you get bored.

Ranged Combat 11 points
Quick Draw combined with Tactical Mastery Perk for 100% skill cooldown reduction.










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Hitpoints 4 points

• Field Surgery, as many would agree this is really helpful in emergencies and there are going to be a lot of emergencies. Resets your Innoculator cooldown when your HP is reduced below 25%.

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Defense 5 points

• Defensive stance for the 25% damage from health to supression. You have low HP so it's good to take the heat off (pun intentional) the heat defense helps against burning and frontal laser attacks from the Leman Russ tanks. deflect. Changed to deflect chance from last update. One issue I have is I can't see a deflect stat in the main window. 25% Chance to completely ignore damage.

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Criticals 16 points

• All important Critical chance and Critical damage, you could get the Berserk passive for 1% heal on crit but as a Sniper your crits are more than likely going to kill. Good for low damage full auto guns which we are not.

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Aimed Shots 9 points

• Taking down those hard to kill targets in a few shots.

PASSIVES (contd)

Optional Passives

These enhance your existing passives further for some serious damage. If you think they could be better spent elsewhere then by all means do so.
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Single DPS 4 points

• Single target damage and bonus damage to special enemies.

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Supression 4 points

• It's a very difficult passive to unlock due to the low encounters of side quests in missions. Extra damange and crit chance when your supression is green.

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Support 3 points

• 10% extra damage when you pop out of stealth, James Doakes once yelled "Surprise MoFo" now all that remained of Doakes was his torso.

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Heat Attacks

• 7.5% heat damage, damage over time and vunerability.
  
  I went for this at first but it turns out that Anti-splatter Nozzle is not working and only shows a burning effect.
  
  You will want to spend at least 8 points here for Anti-spatter Nozzle which applies burn on a weapon firing from cold and the one on the opposite side for stacking heat vulnerability. You'll also be stuck on the Longlas Rifle.

Armour, Wargear and Stats

A guideline only, you'll work what's best for you eventually.

Stealth Suit. Surprise attacks gives you a bonus to crit and damage.

Forcefield. To make up for your lack of HP, pick whatever takes your fancy.

• Deflector Field 1000 regen shield with some HP and Suppression regen bonus when out of combat. Lasts for for 3 minutes.
  
• Void Shield 2000 regen shield with no time limit.

Stats

Flexible depending on your needs and credits, the most wanted is Crit Chance and Crit Damage followed by Damage related to your skill or gun type. Defense will be Resists followed by Health/Suppression and Reduced Range damage.

Rifle. Crit Chance > Crit Damage > All Damage > Single Target > Aimed/Sniper > Range/Heat
Relic. I personally like Poison on Sniper Shot, so if you don't kill in one hit but manage to deal huge damage the DoT will deal 20% of the total and hopefully kill off your target.

Signum. Crit Chance > Crit Damage > Single Target Damage > Aimed/Sniper Damage >

Armour. Reduction from xyz > Health/Suppression > All Resists > Heat/Phys/Warp Resists > Deflect (no deflect values on the stat page so it's hard to tell how much actual deflect you have)
Relic. 100% duration to Surprise Bonuses

Inoculator. Coagulant + Rejuvenator + Purifier + Whatever else
15% chance for medium and elites to drop a supply pack > cooldown >

Incomplete


Purity Seal. Reduce Damage from xyz > Resists

Eye Implant. Crit Chance > Crit Damage >

Neural Implant.

Main Implant.

Leveling Roadmap

Pick Eradicator Subclass if you don't have the Tactical Mastery perk yet. Longlas Rifle unlocks at Rank 5 as Eradicator. Rank 6 as Infiltrator.

This is a roadmap to my own build, you are free to experiment and find alternatives to suit you instead.
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Rank 1 - 6
Range Combat Tree for Quick Draw only. Ignore everything else.
5 Points.

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Rank 7 - 10
Hitpoints. We want Field Surgery
4 Points.


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RETURN TO BEAUTIFUL AGONY ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) For +2 Skill points at the cost of credits and fate.

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Rank 11 - 18
Aimed Shots. taking Fast Aim first, Cranial Trauma, Rites of Obliteration and Gaping Wounds last.
9 points.

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Rank 19 - 31
16 points.
Criticals. Start at the top ignoring Torment, then bottom ignoring Massacre, then top right taking Unfettered Precision and bottom right ignoring Berserker Rage. Finally the Center Red Thirst.

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Continue with story.
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Rank 32 - 36
Defense. Middle Heat Resistance till Defensive Stance.
5 points.

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Rank 37 - 40
Return to Range Combat. Critical Hit chance at the top and the last 1.5% damage bonus.
6 Points.

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All equipment are capped at rank 40. Feel free to use your relic booster at this stage. no longer a concern post v2.0
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Ranks 41 - 44
Single DPS. From the bottom to get Retinal Auspex
4 Points.

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Ranks 45 - 47
Support. Bottom left to get Master Ambusher.
3 Points.

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SEVERAL OPTIONS FOR LAST FEW POINTS

Option 1 Glass Cannon, extra sharp.
47 - 50
Supression. Left side to get Natural Predator.
4 Points. 3% All Damage + 2% Crit Chance

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Option 2 Glass Cannon with some bubble wrap.
47 - 50
Single DPS 1 point in 1.5% damage at the top right.
Defense 1 point into Runic Wards opposite Defensive Stance.
Debuffs 2 points in 3% damage to anti armour at the bottom right.
4 Points. 1.5% Single target damage + 25% effective shields + 3% Anti Armour
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Congrats on 50.

General Gameplay

Gameplay basics

Let's revise this and make it simple.

Sniping Shot against tougher single enemies, sometimes a single press sometimes aim for the head.

Prismatic against fleshly non armoured trash or when you fail to 1 hit kill with Sniping Shot.

If there is a large group of trash mixed in with some more durable stuff you can... Prismatic shot to thin the herd then switch weapons for Sniping/Single Shot to cull the remains.

If there are Elites/Champs/Armoured/Boss within the pack then if able you may consider Stealth and fully charge Sniping shot to the head hopefully kill them outright then mop up with Prismatic.

Most small trash are either dead by Prismatic or loose durable trash by a chain of Sniping shot (with Rapid Elimination Protocol Perk)

Against tougher enemies it's just a matter of hit and run with Sniping shot.

etc

Attributes. Bloodlust.

[Moneikis]

2.3.0 patch still nice build, Thanks!

[NX04]

Decided to return after a very long time away, surprised this build is still holding up beyond 2.0

Attributes are flexible, more damage or more survival its entirely up to you.

[amossong]

what attributes should i invest in?

[Xis]

This is by far the strongest build EVER! it so so freaking broken it is insane! it has incredible area damage and the biggest single target damage in the game, all that without any sort of cooldown this build made my other characters look like weak snails crawling through the maps! 10/10!

[futonrevolution]

Sounds like a bug to me.
I ended up getting Tactical Mastery with dual Autopistol/Null Rod. Right-click the Null Rods, switch to shoot during the cooldown.

[kamghost]

The "Tactical Mastery" perk opens quite easily... but not an assassin.
Yesterday I spent several hours trying to open this perk with an Assassin (Eradicator). Went to the "Purge" missions to visually track progress. About 50% of enemies were destroyed by melee weapons, the rest by ranged weapons. Progress has not changed.
As a result, I’m tired of it. Created a new crusader, and... this perk was obtained.
What is this, a bug or a feature, I did not understand.

[futonrevolution]

My Eradicator (level 6) doesn't have access to Tactical Mastery. The Perk list has the only way to unlock it, being to "finish 10 Missions with at least 30% melee and 30% ranged kills".
What's the best build to unlock that for my Switch Sniper?

[daradux]

@xChaoSx I have the same problem. Anyone got a solution?
Thanks for the guide btw!

[xChaoSx]

So for rank 7+ you say to unlock things in health, but i dont have this unlocked. I need to suffer 500K suppression. Do I need to play a different character first to get this?

[spite]

Thx for the guide, good job. Deflect is Dodge for the assassin.