dbone
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Post by dbone on Sept 3, 2009 11:42:38 GMT -5
As a casual player, I am curious about everyone's thoughts on these 2 weapons. I have been hearing more and more lately that the huntsman is for no-skillz snipers yet Whatsit dominates with that damn bow.
Which do you guys think requires more skill or are they balanced and each one is situational?
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Post by FadedOasis on Sept 3, 2009 12:11:03 GMT -5
Sniper Rifle is for mid- and long-range.
Huntsman is for short- and mid-range.
Neither requires more skill, just different skill.
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rhench
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Post by rhench on Sept 3, 2009 12:11:28 GMT -5
The bow is not what a traditional sniper does. It's a spam weapon for long distance at best, and it's a better mid-range threat than the rifle because you don't need to scope or charge.
It basically turns sniper into a mid-range threat instead of a long range one, and it's a totally different thing. Since this mid-range game is dominated by soldiers in competitive play, you'll almost never see a competitive team run a bow sniper, as far as I know. For pubs, you'll have a little better chance to move up with the group and use team play, but the area-denial is lost.
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Post by pneuma08 on Sept 3, 2009 13:18:28 GMT -5
The Huntsman has a lower skill floor that is, it's easier to get kills with it if you don't know what you're doing. Arrows do a ton of damage and charge up superfast.
That said, it also has a higher skill ceiling in that it's really hard to get coordinated headshots with the darn thing because of the arc and travel time. It's hard to get headshots with the sniper rifle if people are dodging, but at least that's straightforward (click on their head); you don't have to correct for distance and arc.
But what rhench said is pretty much correct. But competitive teams don't usually run rifle snipers either, as far as I know. (Snipers seem like they're a very hit-and-miss class; you either kill your target or barely damage them if at all - much like the spy. This unreliability is a very big problem for competitive play. That said, there are situations where they are useful, and some people are really good snipers.)
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.: sora
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Post by .: sora on Sept 3, 2009 14:09:04 GMT -5
As someone who has sniped in comp, I can share a bit of insight on this.
The Huntsman excels in short-to-mid ranged combat, as others have pointed out. However, as a sniper, you're not a heavy (in terms of hp - soldiers, demos, etc. are all collectively called "heavies" as opposed to your more squishy classes). In situations that demand mid-to-close range prowess, you're better off running something that can either take punishment (typically a solly or demo) or control the range of engagement (scout). Otherwise, you can look forward to being torn up by 'nades, rockets, and the like.
Sniper is used on maps where you have sightlines that start far away from where the engagement begins - naturally, with the rifle. As a sniper, picking people off without engaging them directly is what you do, period. In a pinch, you can support your sollies with Jarate (it mitigates the damage falloff from long-range rocket spam), but unless you're making a push you're better served watching the fight from afar and calling flanks. Many comp maps are tight-quarters and fast-paced like Granary, so you don't see them being run very often.
tl;dr - just by the nature of competitive play, a Huntsman sniper is going to get rocked, and rifle snipers are highly situational, generally replacing a scout.
In pubs, both weapons are viable, especially with the *extremely* forgiving hitbox on the Huntsman. I agree that the bow has a lower skill floor and a higher skill ceiling, but it is balanced against the rifle depending on the situation.
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Number 9
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Post by Number 9 on Sept 4, 2009 15:41:50 GMT -5
I agree with what the others have said.
From personal experience and observation, a player who was previously skilled with the sniper before the unlocks will more than likely continue to use what they are familiar and successful with - while those who didn't play the sniper on any sort of regular basis will be more open to using the new weapon, and some do pretty well with it.
I used the Huntsman for a good few days after it came out and discovered that it just wasn't the weapon for me and haven't equipped it since.
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Whatsit
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Post by Whatsit on Sept 5, 2009 4:16:05 GMT -5
Well I agree with what others have said, but there's a few things to add --
The huntsman and the rifle don't really overlap at all. When I'm looking at my team load-out, I actually consider them independent classes, and have no qualms playing the huntsman* if there's already 2 rifles on the team (depending on the map, of course).
I've found huntsman tends to play much more like a mid-range spy than an assault or roadblock class. If soldiers are frequently shooting you at close to mid range, you're doing it wrong. Usually, you want to get to a position to the side, where you can take a couple of potshots and then fall back. This is why scouts are the biggest threat by far -- they're the only class that can consistently chase you down when you need to fall back, and you can't just fade into the shadows like a spy. Sniper rifles, by contrast, tend to work better in plain sight. If your enemy knows where you are, they'll think twice before entering your field of vision, which allows you to control their movements to an extent.
This one might just be me, but I have a lot of trouble getting into the zone with the huntsman. It takes me 30-60 minutes to get dangerous with it, and that's 30-60 minutes each day. I just look good 'cos I only stand out when I start pinning people to walls all over the place. :) Really, I've been less useful for a couple of maps before that.
Connecting with an arrow is tough. You kind of have to 'feel' the shot. I get a lot of kills as people chase me around corners because I can estimate when they'll be coming around. People tend not to dodge when their foe is behind a wall. Plus they'll often turn the corner and then run parallel to the wall (i.e. straight at you) for a moment. So there's a pretty good window where you'll hit them, but you have to shoot before you can even see them. Plus people then accuse you of wall-hacking :/
Even generally speaking, you need to predict how people will dodge so you know where to aim, taking into account distance, bow power and enemy speed. And you need to do so in a fraction of a second, before all the variables change.
As pneuma said, the rifle's pretty much just point and click.
When using the sniper rifle, you need to know where to use it. Between the limited field of view and the distorted sound effects, you have massive 'blind spots'. Good snipers know what their limitations are and know how to cover them using teammates and the terrain, so that they can exploit their strengths. It's something I've never got the hang of and the reason rifle-sniper and engineer are by far my weakest classes.
Huntsman, on the other hand, removes some of those weaknesses at the cost of the rifle's fearsome accuracy and range. I suspect the reason a lot of established snipers don't 'get' the huntsman is because they're trying to cover the rifle's weak areas, and so not seeing the full benefits.
Okay this post is way too long already, but here's an example;
Both weapons are very effective on KotH_Nucleus, but for totally different reasons.
The rifle-sniper can sit near his spawn room and deny the enemy access to the control point. This makes it easier for his team to cap and hold it, but it also prevents the enemy using several paths out of their spawn because they have little protection against the sniper. The distance here is great enough that no other class can hope to retaliate directly. The sniper's teammates constantly stream out of their spawn and around the sniper, keeping the immediate area relatively clear of enemies, so the sniper isn't in too much danger of being flanked. His teammates benefit because it's easier to predict where enemies will come from, since the sniper is covering that central area and restricting the movements of the enemy.
The huntsman, on the other hand, has no chance of shooting across the whole room to hit enemies there. But nucleus is filled with (essentially) 2-dimensional walkways -- so long as they haven't spotted him, enemies will usually walk around the map in straight lines. This makes it pretty easy for the sniper to predict where they'll be when the arrow hits. This is especially true near the important central point, where the bridges are so narrow there's really no opportunity to do anything except run straight forward. When the enemy does come after the sniper, the map's twisted terrain means it's very easy to evade pursuers. Because he keeps changing position, the enemy never really has the option of evading the threat.
Anyways that's my two cents, and then some. Yeah it's 3am and I get wordy when I'm tired.
*Not a euphemism
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Post by scrambles on Sept 5, 2009 11:46:45 GMT -5
Wow after that soliloquy by Whatsit my two cents will seem like two yen.
Whatsit nailed it on the head. But I might add one other thing i've noticed. In that sometimes when you are firing the huntsman towards, say a soldier who is being healed by a (bad) medic, the Solly will dodge the arrow, but with his medic usually right behind him and following him step for step (only delayed a second) the medic gets nailed. Now if that medic had any sense he would know not to stay right behind his pocket when he is under fire, but hey there are alot of medics out there, and not too many good ones.
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Whatsit
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Post by Whatsit on Sept 5, 2009 15:27:27 GMT -5
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Post by scrambles on Sept 5, 2009 16:58:01 GMT -5
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Heller
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Post by Heller on Sept 5, 2009 19:41:35 GMT -5
Perhaps a better comparison would have been two Zimbabwean cents. |
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Post by docsfox on Sept 7, 2009 1:49:02 GMT -5
The heart of the matter is huntsman is good weapon but it takes a lot of guess work and prediction while the rifle does not. The rifle takes more skill to use but can be more dangerous when in the right hands and enables the sniper to stay way from danger. At mid range a soldier destroys snipers.
But this is all about which can do more damage. The huntsman is by far 20 times more FUN to play and that's why I use it.
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Post by pneuma08 on Sept 9, 2009 0:43:29 GMT -5
The rifle takes more skill to use but can be more dangerous when in the right hands... I don't consider either of these to be true. They use different types of skill and are dangerous in different types of situations. For instance, the sniper rife isn't dangerous if you run down the sniper, getting right in his face. The same isn't true for the Huntsman. |
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Number 9
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Post by Number 9 on Sept 9, 2009 1:56:35 GMT -5
Well he did say "the right hands". Skilled sniper could care less if you're far away or getting up in his personal space. He'll still get'cha.
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Post by pneuma08 on Sept 9, 2009 4:10:46 GMT -5
I dunno. It gets to the point where to even attempt a headshot at point blank you'd need to have sensitivity turned up extremely high, and without a headshot the damage is considerably less.
Edit: I should clarify what I mean:
Point blank = melee range
Short range = flamethrower
Medium range = just outside flamethrower
Long range = rocket jumping distance
Extreme range = beyond rocket jumping
Skilled snipers can take people down at mid-range but at short and point blank it's not nearly as deadly as the Huntsman is.
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