How Alex plays sniper

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How Alex plays sniper

Post by Alex » Sun May 05, 2013 7:04 pm

Sometimes people ask me this. I also saw that other sniper thread and I have some input of my own. I'm really not a very good sniper, but I will try my best to explain stuff anyways!

These are part of my sniper config, they work well for me, but you can feel free to change them.
zoom_sensitivity_ratio 0.5
cl_interp 0.034
m_rawinput 1
m_filter 0


As for how to play:

Aim at the head and click. Do not try to predict and move your sight so their head passes under it.

You'll have a better chance of having a headshot if you aim slightly above the head than if you aim slightly below it. Although invisible, the hitbox is abit taller than the actual head. This is pretty important when hitting the heads on people who are at unusual angles, or above you.

Do not strafe aim. Strafe aiming is where you move left and right in order to bring your sights over your target, rather than using the mouse to change your sights. Although it is easier at first to strafe aim, it is ultimately much less effective, and you will be particularly punished for it by other snipers. If you're in the habit of this, you can use the cozy camper for awhile and you'll start to aim for real.

For quickscoping, aim at the head after you scope. You only need to look in the target's general direction before you scope so that they will still be visible while scoped. Unless a target is stationary, it's unlikely you will be able to scope and hit their head without aiming afterwards because of the 200ms delay between scoping and being able to fire.

You will need to charge your shots to have a good chance at killing anyone that is being healed. Hitting a target with a quick headshot, without killing them will only make them harder to hit, as they will be conscious that you're there.

If a target isn't being healed, and is not overhealed, it will be faster and less risky to use a quickscopes to kill them. Unless the target is a heavy, you will only need one quickscope and a noscope to kill them.

You're still allowed to bodyshot. If you know a target is low enough health, and you have the charge, you should definitely kill them however you can.

After you make a shot, quickly switch to your melee/secondary incase someone managed to sneak close to you. This will start the timer on the draw delay for being able to use the melee/secondary, hopefully giving you the extra speed you might need to win if there is someone there. If there is nothing, quickly switch back to the sniper rifle. If this is done properly, the time between sniper shots is not affected at all. This is because the draw delay on the sniper is shorter than its cooldown between shots.

This only really applies to servers with random crits enabled. But you're much more likely to get a crit if you've been doing high amounts of damage within the last 30 seconds. If you've been doing well and someone tries to get you up close, you should not be afraid to use your melee, and you can usually rely on that higher crit chance to save you.


Equipment stuff:

The stock sniper is the only sniper. No machina, no pee gun, no heatmaker, and probably not bazaar.
The machina's benefit is only useful on bodyshots. It has alot of disadvantages, the tracers are an instant message showing where you are and that people should avoid you, and there is also the loss of the ability to quickscope a target, then noscope to finish them off. Pee gun doesn't get headshots, so it's obviously no good for anything. The heatmakers 'bonus' is not particularily useful, having the same issue the machina does with the tracer. It's also worth noting that the heatmaker's bonus is often activated when you don't want it. Finally, with the lower bodyshot damage on the heatmaker, you cannot finish soldiers with a noscope, or rely on the bodyshot to kill anything even while fully charged. The bazaar is the closest rifle to the stock, close enough that it doesn't really matter that much if you use it. If you use it just because you like the head counter, that's great and I wont stop you. Just make sure not to avoid taking shots where you otherwise would using stock. It's also unlikely to be a net benefit unless there are some not so good players to farm easy heads on.

Jarate should be your default secondary as long as it's allowed. The benefit to the team is huge. You can extinguish yourself and your team. The minicrits are like a buff banner that has a 20 second cooldown. And of course, there's the jarate chop.

Only use razorback if the other team has a particularily good spy who keeps coming after you. It's not worth sacrificing jarate for the razorback otherwise.

The danger shield should only be used if you're on a silly wide open map such as warpath, and your medics dont like to heal you.

The bushwhacker is the best melee, even if you're not using jarate. The fire vulnerability is a joke, and you'll still get the crits from other snipers jarate/buff banner/death mark.

Class specific advice:

There are awful scouts, and there are the not awful scouts. The awful scouts are the type that run straight at you. You can quickscope all the awful scouts, even if they're almost right next to you. As for the not awful scouts, there is no shame in using a charged bodyshot, or just whittling them to death with multiple noscopes. Don't rely on melee to kill scouts unless it's a very open space, as most are smart enough to maintain just enough distance so you cant hit them. If you jarate a scout first, you will only need two noscopes to kill them, rather than three.

Soldiers can be killed by one quickscope, and one noscope. When a soldier takes out the escape plan, it's a big sign that says 'I have low health, please kill me', a noscope is usually good enough.

Really not much about sniping pyros. One thing is they have sort of weird hitboxes, which makes them unusually difficult to headshot from behind. When they get you close, you're pretty much screwed unless you get lucky crit or jarate chop. If they're axtinguisher pyros, you're sometimes able to get away with taking out jarate, and waiting for them to switch to the axe. If you extinguish yourself before they hit you with the axe, you wont die, and you'll be able to finish them with jarate chop.

It's usually better to charge a headshot for heavies, as they're usually healed. Even if they're not healed, they will likely dodge a second quickscope unless they're in an open area. If a heavy is running with the gru, you can kill them with the bushwhacker, and they will be mad.

Medics are your prime target. Kill medics in whatever way you can. A fully charged bodyshot will kill a medic unless they are overhealed. A quickscope will kill a medic unless they are overhealed. Always kill the medic if you can, even if it means running after them and using noscopes, or jumping in with a jarate chop.

Other snipers are tricky. You can try to charge a bodyshot and hope they dont notice, or you can try to quickscope them. You can even try to just kill them with noscopes and hope they cant headshot you because you keep bumping their aim. If you're both capable snipers trying to quickscope, you should try and wait for them to scope or fire, and hit their head in that window where they're unable to dodge. It's also usually best to kill their snipers first, so you have nothing to worry about.

When a spy is disguised as another class, their hitboxes are wrong. Do not rely on getting a headshot on them while they are disguised, but try anyways. Unless they are using the Saharan spy set, you can hear them uncloak no matter which watch they're using, learn to listen for the uncloak sounds. Jarate is super useful against spies, as is the razorback of course. If a spy tries to kill you with their revolver, I suggest trying to quickscope them. Unless they miss, they will kill you before you're able to kill them if you do not quickscope them first.


As for finishing comments... This ended up wayyyyyy longer than I thought it would be. You now know most of my secrets, you can become a pr0 sniper too! Feel free to ask me stuff, or to add me on steam. This guide looks pretty boring, and I should probably add pictures to it.

EDIT: Added the pyro advice to OP
Last edited by Alex on Tue May 07, 2013 1:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by Inner » Sun May 05, 2013 9:24 pm

Alex wrote:I'm really not a very good sniper.
Oh yes you are!

Good tips, thank you.

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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by The Domer » Sun May 05, 2013 10:28 pm

Very good guide. Well written and your points are all very valid. I don't think a lot of people will agree with you on certain things, like load-out choice, but I agree 100% and that's all that matters anyway :P

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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by ADevilishPotato » Sun May 05, 2013 11:07 pm

I really just need to take the jump and start going with the jarate...just cant ever seem to use it right. Most snipers learn this stuff after an extended time playing, but it is really nice to see it written down. I know I learned a few things and got reinforcement on some other points, so thanks for this Alex :D .
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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by CoyoteCreed » Mon May 06, 2013 3:14 am

I'm such a bad sniper that reading this before even trying any of it out made me better.
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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by Fraulein Arztin » Mon May 06, 2013 6:22 am

Wow.
Good guide, Alex! I should add those 3 other config settings for my sniper, since I have that zoom_sensitivity ratio set already.
Thanks for going into more detail, being one that had asked you how to snipe.
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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by Larry » Mon May 06, 2013 6:23 am

I've been looking for the zoom sensitivity. Thanks.
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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by Gizanked » Mon May 06, 2013 7:47 am

How Alex plays defense : go scout. :)
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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by MasterChef » Mon May 06, 2013 7:54 am

Alex wrote:
Aim at the head and click.
You really could have stopped typing here :lol:
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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by Buzzy Beetle » Mon May 06, 2013 10:03 am

Very good guide. I strafe to aim way too much as any class. It's a nasty habit that I really need to correct...
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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by kkpyro » Mon May 06, 2013 12:42 pm

Thanks, Alex. I learned a lot here.
I strafe aim a lot...didn't realize that was a bad move.

Also, you didn't include pyros in your class specific part.
Any ideas or thoughts regarding them?
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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by Alex » Mon May 06, 2013 6:16 pm

Really not much about sniping pyros. One thing is they have sort of weird hitboxes, which makes them unusually difficult to headshot from behind. When they get you close, you're pretty much screwed unless you get lucky crit or jarate chop. If they're axtinguisher pyros, you're sometimes able to get away with taking out jarate, and waiting for them to switch to the axe. If you extinguish yourself before they hit you with the axe, you wont die, and you'll be able to finish them with jarate chop.

One last thing I forgot to mention is that it's pretty helpful to change your crosshair to a more visible color like green. That goes for all classes really.
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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by MateoTheBold! » Mon May 06, 2013 11:31 pm

Alex wrote:Really not much about sniping pyros. One thing is they have sort of weird hitboxes, which makes them unusually difficult to headshot from behind. When they get you close, you're pretty much screwed unless you get lucky crit or jarate chop. If they're axtinguisher pyros, you're sometimes able to get away with taking out jarate, and waiting for them to switch to the axe. If you extinguish yourself before they hit you with the axe, you wont die, and you'll be able to finish them with jarate chop.

One last thing I forgot to mention is that it's pretty helpful to change your crosshair to a more visible color like green. That goes for all classes really.
One thing I like to do with pyros is duck behind a sight line backpedaling. They usually are pretty aggressive in chasing with a shotty/flare out to finish the job. After breaking sightline, switch to melee and charge hoping for a crit. You can surprise a fair majority of them.

My personal favorite for the alternate color is hot pink/fuschia. Seems like it always stands out...
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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by The Domer » Tue May 07, 2013 12:07 am

MateoTheBold! wrote:...hoping for a crit.
I am dissapoint.

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Re: How Alex plays sniper

Post by Soltan » Tue May 07, 2013 9:09 am

The Domer wrote:
MateoTheBold! wrote:...hoping for a crit.
I am dissapoint.
I do this quite often with my ubersaw. It works surprisingly well.
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