Megacherv said:
You obviously aren't too good with it then, because it's not useless. I've seen playes kick arse with that thing.
You obviously aren't good. Period.
First because you've descended into ad hominem, attacking me as you fail to attack my argument, but mostly because you fail to understand this isn't a matter of opinion. Taste can be argued. Effectiveness, in this case, can not.
Due to the Huntsman's slow moving projectile nature, like any non-explosive projectiles, it has a criminally short effective range, essentially a small room's length, after which whether it hits or not is up to luck and not skill. Get that? There's a maximum, and very short, range after which the time it takes for the huntsman's arrow to hit the target is greater than the time it takes to dodge it, which means anyone who sees it can simply step out of the way.
You can say "predicting!", but that's just bullshit. Unless you know everyone you're playing with, you're not predicting, you're randomly guessing. You're not basing yourself on previously psychological and functional knowledge of that person, you're just tossing a coin and hoping you got it right. Guessing is luck.
You can't do that with the rifle because the shot is instant. The rifle's hitscan nature means if you don't mess up the aiming bit, which admittedly is the hardest part, it's impossible to avoid it at any distance. Whether it's at melee range or across an entire map. The Huntsman's arrow becomes possible to avoid after a very short distance.
You can say it's fun, you can say you like it, but I can PROVE that everything the Huntsman does the Rifle can do better. If you saw someone dominating with it, it usually means he was playing against very bad players.
Megacherv said:
Maybe you like playing as the spy but aren't too good at it? Maybe you need time to think about the situation and consider your actions?
And I did edit my post saying when crouch walking was useful.
See above for the reply to the typical scrub insult.
And crouch walking is never as useful as being able to move properly.
"I can away from the kill area invisible!"
So can I with the IW, and I can do it running, which is a lot faster and safer, and I can turn right around for seconds. Contrary to the C&D the IW recharges from dropped metal, which means it refills a large part when I backstab someone (and inevitably grab their dropped weapon for metal/ammo). The C&D is good to camp. Camping players are useless.
Megacherv said:
Oh come off it, games can easily at least 5 minutes if not more. Unless you only play Arena mode, then you're missing out on most of the game.
You're not following. Yes, games can last 5, even 20/30 minutes, but a LOT happens in those minutes. 4 seconds is enough for me to steal your intel from it's spawn into "undefendable" or hard to touch locations. 4 seconds is enough to kill you most of the time. 4 seconds for one shot, in this game, is a lifetime.
I'm guessing you play it very "campy" from what you're saying, so I guess understand that. Let me put it in perspective: The charge time it takes you to body shot a normal 125 character, I can kill 4 150 or 125 hp classes and be ready to kill another at the same time you scope in, not even including that you need to stand still during those 4 seconds, which any passing enemy will find absolutely delightful.
Megacherv said:
I never said I didn't do this did I? Gold Rush, stage one, I always move back to the spawn point to snipe as soon as the cart gets to the tunnel because it's almost impossible to defend. It's also good because from there, only 2 entrances are visible and you don't have to cover as much, and enemy snipers only have those 2 openings to counter-snipe you.
Goldrush is a terrible map... But, and assuming you're talking defense on the first level, you can snipe from the whole "past-tunnel" area, that way you can cover just about anywhere.
I'll give you one thing I forgot as I tend to rarely play boring modes like payload and a/d cp: when you're strictly defending (like in those modes), charging your shot to cover an entrance isn't that bad, providing other entrances are covered and someone has your back.
Still better to scope in only when you have a target, but it's not terrible in those modes.
Megacherv said:
What if you've flanked them, or they're concentrating on one spot? No matter how skilled you are, you can only see what's in front of you.
When you flank someone it hardly matters what weapon you're using. Yes, if you flank them it's a good "disabling" weapon.
Megacherv said:
Effective range is the range at how effective it is. If I can amange to get a hit from the first point on Thundermountain, incapacitate a sniper for a few seconds so another one can get a shot ready for when he comes out, that's effective.
It's also luck, or a bad sniper. Effective range of a weapon is the range at which you need to rely solely on your skill with a weapon to hit. The flare is a very good weapon, I use it myself on the Pyro, but it's hardly effective at long range unless people are stupid and don't avoid it.
Megacherv said:
How are they? This isn't team deathmatch, the game is mostly objective based. If you camp and manage to get a good amount of kills in a single life and are being assisted by another sniper, (for instance I got 13, which is good for me), that's still skill.
Look, when you're not super-skilled at the game, you do what you can to help. Whether this be dying whilst w+m1'ing a group of sentries so that the engies are distracted and come out from cover, or if you're only just damaging an enemy sniper so that he retreats leaving an opening for your team to advance, it's still helping, and it's still teamwork. There's a reason why the clan I'm in is called No Talent. I said that these strategies work alright for me, and they do. Not all the time, because no game is the same, but they still allow me to have fun in the game.
Player skill is irrelevant for the argument. I usually top the charts on almost any server I'm playing on, I rarely bring it up because it's irrelevant. You shouldn't be looking for "pedigree", you should be looking at the actual argument. I don't see how it's relevant whether you tell me you're one of pandemic's Scouts (arguably some of the best Scout players to ever touch this game) or if you picked up the game yesterday.
I'm not saying you have to play this way, nor that these strategies "are a crime!!!!!", but they're not efficient, and they're not what you should be aiming at to be good. The Sniper class has an absurdly high skill ceiling and floor to be GOOD at it. It's by far the single hardest class to be really good at. It pays off. When you're really good, you're nigh untouchable with it. That said, it's a seriously difficult class to be good at, way harder than all others. I can understand that people pick up the Huntsman, as it lowers the skill floor immensely by trading skill for luck. That's what it does. The Huntsman will make it easier for the guy who doesn't have 200+ straight hours to put into sniping to be "passable" for a real Sniper. Obviously, it also comes with the downside that it completely dwarfs it's own potential, as substituting skill with luck means that no matter how many hours you put into it, there's only so much your own skill will contribute to using it. An half-decent player who just picked up the Huntsman will be basically as good as someone who spent every day since it's release mastering it. The rifle, is far more unforgiving.
But at the end, when someone asks, "Which is best? If I want to be good, which should I work for?", the answer is simple: The rifle. It's not a matter of taste, they can decide which one they like more on their own, it's not a matter of anything but sheer efficiency, and the rifle is way more efficient, as is the flamethrower to the BB, and the Scattergun to the FaN.
Nobody was good at this game when they started.
