Worth of Sniper?

Absolutely Nothing?

Seriously has anybody successfully used a sniper in in a serious match before?

From time to time I find myself building a sniper team accidentally with soviets realizing after that it is not the guard rifles I built because I haven't unlocked them yet.
So I think to myself: What to do with a Sniper Team?

Brilliant Idea: I use them behind my infantry to provide medium range fire support.
- They get killed by a lone artillery shell
Brilliant Idea: I place them away from the action in cover to provide max range fire support.
- They get killed by a light vehicle driving by
Brilliant Idea: I place them inside a building to be safe from one accidental shell
- They get killed by a flaming pioneer
Brilliant Idea: I use them to scout ahead with their big sight radius
- While being slower and 4 times the cost of my scout car you know what happens while doing so: They get killed

I never had problems like this with the other units. I know that the worth of a sniper is very situational and might need alot of micro. Just show me an efficient way of using him. Best where he will kill more manpowers wort than he costs to build.

Sounds like you just aren't micro-managing him properly. Keep him near your troops and be sure to retreat him if he gets in danger. Also keep him moving so the enemy can't focus a mortar on him.

Snipers are high maintenance for sure, but they can well be worth the effort if you use them correctly. A few tips:
- Hotkey individual snipers so you can access them quicker.
- Always keep him behind your troops / use them in conjunction with your other troops to prevent them getting killed too easily.
- Always stay in cover, so they are cloaked.
- After _every_ shot, switch position to avoid being hit by aimed mortars / other artillery.
- Later in game, make sure they're protected by AT.

The longer the sniper lives and the more lives he takes, the more he pays for himself. Thus, try to take pod shots at enemy squads whenever possible, without risking to lose it. A well used sniper will dwindle enemy squad numbers and force the opponent to retreat earlier. You can also try to aim at retreating one-man squads, sometimes you can get lucky and kill it. Use it to de-crew enemy AT guns, mortars, MGs, and of course enemy snipers. With the real sight system, they also make for great baits, to lure enemy vehicles into mines or infantry into an MG position. Putting them into cars works also, I hear, although I haven't tried that one yet.
If you want to be really good at CoH though, I fear you'll have to get used to them, so start using them now!

thx

Maybe the reason is that in 3vs3 or 4vs4 public games the whole battlefield is just too chaotic/crowded to learn decent sniper tactics. He might perform better on a smaller scale. I will try him in a 1vs1 against a friend this evening. I am relieved that this unit might not be a waste as I heard multiple times now.

Check out Krebs' game that he uploaded. It's a good first starter on how to use snipers in 1v1.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9Wc_F5kgJE

Brilliant idea: i go rush with my panzergrenadiers
- they got killed by conscripts because i haven't played/watched tutorial
Brilliant Idea: i'll get panther and destroy all enemy tanks
- i lose it on ice or due to my fail micro
Brilliant idea: let's build fuel OP's on sectors to get tanks faster
- lose early game cuz of no units on the field
Brilliant Idea: let's spam mortars because they are OP and i'm the best
- whine when you lose mortars because you dont have any other infantry units

Your thread looks like this

Your thread looks like this.

Check out Krebs' game that he uploaded. It's a good first starter on how to use snipers in 1v1.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9Wc_F5kgJE

Haha, good one

don't forget to subscribe and donate MVGame

Donate to what? The snipers care foundation? MVGame

Donate to what? The snipers care foundation? MVGame

Krebs Care Foundation MVGame

Your thread looks like this

Your thread looks like this.

Corrected! It is a bad habit of mine I can't control.
I did some test yesterday and snipers in soviet scout cars or buildings perform OK. Still I'd produce conscripts or grenadiers instead in most cases. They can also kill infantry and storm objectives or damage a tank engine.

Snipers are good when supported by infantry, I just learned..

I'm not sure if they are worth their price if you do not plan to put the infantry building to other use. But I've found that my snipers always end up with minimum 20 kills in a game (And sometimes well over 30.) which is a very good pay off.

I honestly often do not even notice them making all these kills and they end up being much more effective than I think they are while playing. I just keep them around my infantry but in out-of-the-road covers where enemies have little chances of going randomly, and I change their location very often as soon as the action goes down a bit or things get too risky.

The flare ability can be very useful too, especially in blizzard (Though it is a bit expensive.). Having the sniper around the middle of the map also allows you to just harass and weaken any units that tries to cap important points.

Last point would be that they are pretty expensive and losing a sniper who did not pay himself off is a big deal. Also their reload rate seem to become much better with veterancy so... RETREAT RETREAT RETREAT!

Note that I only play single player and mostly as the Russians.

German ones are pretty ho hum but Soviet double snipers can be fantastic.

I'm currently certain that snipers can prove to be as OP as they were back in coh1. But atm no-one wants to play the boring game of countersnipes. For me I got sick of the sniper metagame that I'm playing exclusively without snipers atm. But a problem I encountered is that many infantry squads don't kill snipers very well.

Snipers can turn the game by themselves if used correctly I'm sure.

I can't remember who mentioned this, and upon playing I noticed this as well, but you can no longer manually pick off specific units in enemy squads. It was a way too give you more control over your sniper in CoH1 by targeting the gunner of an MG squad or the stray rifleman while they capped a point (to keep your sniper at maximum distance). I hope it's just an oversight and that Relic can restore the feature. Unless someone can provide a valid explanation to the change, I don't think removing control like this is a good way to go.

The russian sniper unit has a nice flare ability if you use it as an hold-fire mostly forward observer unit. But it is mostly used defensively, keep the unit in cover or deepsnow and only use it for combat in conjunction with other units, otherwise it should stick to recon.
German snipers I don't use.

The Soviet double-sniper team is a big investment, but having been on the wrong side of it in a number of 1 v 1 and 2 v 2 I can attest to it's efficacy.

The manpower drain it generates on PzGrens and weapons crews is a pain in the arse. Plus, those little flares are a natural gift for Tank Destroyers and AT guns.

All in all, and unlike in vCoH the sniper has become a useful niche unit that repays the effort put into it by a skilled player. Not a superhero, meta-dominating win button.

I can't remember who mentioned this, and upon playing I noticed this as well, but you can no longer manually pick off specific units in enemy squads. It was a way too give you more control over your sniper in CoH1 by targeting the gunner of an MG squad or the stray rifleman while they capped a point (to keep your sniper at maximum distance). I hope it's just an oversight and that Relic can restore the feature. Unless someone can provide a valid explanation to the change, I don't think removing control like this is a good way to go.

It looks like they removed the tag that allowed weapons to fire at individual targets...meaning it's unlikely to make a return.

That's a more serious mistake than it sounds, whether a Sniper will decide to randomly target the MG gunner is a huge deal.