Gun: SR-25 SD semi-automatic with 2.5 - 12x adjustable sight and extended magazine (unlocked at recon Lvl 15)

Device assist: Cloak II with extended duration insert

Note:

- The sniper teammate on my left is beaming targets with Oracle. Every time I kill a target he lights up, he gets credits/XP.

- Headshots are one-shot kills but center-mass against enemies with 140+ health takes three shots to kill, hence enormous value of this semi-auto SR

- Final kill was a crit-shot; the 130 damage value is flashed in red.

People new to this game claim Recon snipers are over-powered but I beg to differ. This rifle was hard-earned at Lvl-15, as were my various device assists. And an experienced player with good SA should not get sniped by any but the most superior Recon.

You show good skills Bahger, and I don't blame you for playing that way, but the game may be empty soon I think. People just quit when being sniped (none of your kills were playing untactically), as there are many other games to play. You've earned your XP and weapons, but others won't want to grind through (or just pay I guess), which means you'll have no-one to headshot any more.

It's a problem with MMO's generally, in that high-level players get the toys they work for but new players don't want to act as cannon fodder to grind up. The MMO mechanic for a free PvP game often allows people to pay to get over that hump. It's why 9 out of 10 new players start as recon, as they are getting killed by recon. It might not make sense game-design wise (there's points to be had capping etc) but then it's public servers and people don't always do the 'right thing'. Again, you're playing well but I'm just commenting on the other side of the coin for new players being one-shotted - will they stay?

We'll have to see what happens I guess, but it is fun to play. It might be one of the titles that tweak the levelling to get over this, but it's a hard thing to get right.

Great vid

Sadly you may be right FearlessFrog.

I'd like any beginners that read this thread though to know that I play assault and have killed far more recon, especially by flanking or from behind, than recon have killed me. And no, not just because of how many there are.

Recon takes alot of dedication to do right. There should be far more assault and specialists, hopefully they'll find a way to tweak the balance but this 'problem' was also in the beta...

I like frying recon's with my microwave arm

Hehe there's nothing quite like microwaving someone

All good points but I have to disagree.

Those targets were not playing tactically; they popped up for far too long and should have repositioned when they got a warning in their HUD that they were being pinged by Oracle. They let me play whack-a-mole with them.

Teamwork is the most effective defense against snipers. None of the enemies on that point appeared to be deploying Oracle and none were attempting to use the available flanking routes. And their defense was too static; effective maneuvering into cover would have thinned out the few blue Assaulters and placed red team members on the point, enabling them to cap. As long as they stayed in cover and/or used HEAT, Oracle and LMGs to suppress me, there'd be nothing I could have done to prevent them from taking the point.

There will be people who quit because they believe the Recon class to be both overpowered and over-populated but the fact is that with a little experience -- you just have to grit your teeth and take a hammering at the beginning -- Recon becomes fairly easy to counter-snipe, bypass or flank.

Nice vid... but I agree... if I see more then half snipers, like in the one screen where they were ALL recons but me, I leave... this is typical with most shooters, too many snipers.