Vitals
Health: 125
Speed: 100%
Type: Support
Weapons: Sniper Rifle, Machine Pistol, Kukri
Weapons:
Ammo: 1/25
Damage: 34-66 uncharged, 110-195 charged, (headshots are crits and do 2x damage), fully charged headshot = instant kill
Best range: Long
Information:
The sniper rifle is similar to sniper rifles in other games – secondary fire to zoom, primary fire to shoot. However to balance the power of the weapon, the sniper rifle is quite weak if you just shoot it. To do serious damage, you activate zoom and a power meter starts charging up (from 0% to 100% in about 3 seconds). The damage the shot does increases with the power meter, so it pays to be zoomed in for a bit before hitting your target. Of course while zoomed in your movement speed is reduced to virtually zero, so you become a sitting target (similar to the heavy’s spin-up delay).
However skilled snipers are rewarded for their accuracy. Shooting an enemy in the head (a headshot) will appear as a critical hit and does double the damage of a hit anywhere else. In addition, a 100% charged headshot will kill any vulnerable target instantly (even 450-health heavies). And on top of that, a headshot scores you an extra 1 point on top of the kill. Hence the sniper rifle is primarily used to pick off key targets, whether they’re attacking (those deliciously slow heavies) or on their way to assist attackers (especially medics). On maps like 2Fort, snipers are also required to out-snipe the enemy snipers to prevent them from harassing their teammates.
Advantages: One of the few weapons effective at long range, potential for very high damage, headshots do double damage, can severely disrupt enemy formations (taking out medics and heavies), fast reload.
Disadvantages: High damage requires time spent zoomed, zoomed mode reduces movement speed to a crawl, necessary zoomed mode decreases awareness of immediate surroundings.
Ammo: 25/75
Damage: 8-12 (24), about 80-120/sec (240/sec)
Best range: Short to medium
Information:
The sniper’s machine pistol (a.k.a. submachine gun) is relatively weak and has a pretty ordinary ammo reserve, but it is the only real machine gun in the game (excluding the minigun and syringe gun). It has a fast rate of fire and so can be quite dangerous if the majority of the bullets hit, but it really is best for finishing off injured targets and has little chance against healthy opponents of any respectable skill. Also ensure that you watch out for ammo to pick up, since you only get 4 clips to fire and you need every bullet you can get.
Advantages: High rate of fire, fast reload, effective backup weapon to compensate for sniper’s short range weakness.
Disadvantages: Small ammo reserve, low damage, inaccuracy increases quickly with distance.
Ammo: N/A
Damage: 43-87 (195)
Information:
“What the hell is a kukri?” you ask? Correctly pronounced khu-khoo-ree, it’s a curved knife that was used by Ghurkha (Nepal and parts of northern India) fighters in the First and Second World Wars, but is a commonly used tool for woodworking, agricultural and other general purpose choppery.
Now that you’ve learnt something, the important part is that is that it functions similarly to most other melee weapons, except it is 2nd for most frequent critical hits (according to Valve’s TF2 Stats, referred to as ‘club’). It also seems to act longer than it looks, especially when it’s aimed at you.
