Nerfed? Try murdered. 62 all the way down to 42. That's a ........multiply by 5........carry the 2........32.2% reduction. Try asking your boss for a 32% reduction in pay and see if your paycheck is only *nerfed*.

-Gunny out.

This. Sneak Sniping gives a 400% damage increase. Shot the head and you are at 800%. Quarry Junction is a lot HARDER to run into guns blazing! Also, you can sneak snipe with a sneak score of 20 at a good distance. Or you can be running around then crouch for one second when you see a monster and scope a sneak snipe. The monster can not even detect you.


Funny, I feel kind of the opposite, Full auto weapons are much weaker then the stealth snipe.

Sneak sniping only feels hard indoors at close range. Outside it is super easy. It would feel more balanced if there were AI Snipers sneaking and taking head shots at the player.

I actually haven't tried it yet. I'm usually too busy trying to keep the rest of my skills leveled up to keep up with the game to really pay any attention to sneak. Plus, it's usually more fun just to antagonize people into combat and blow their head off with a shotgun.

Lol, nice one gunny.

But I am glad they nerfed it.

I mentioned this as well. Only down side would be you'd be walking around then you would get sneak crit attack by some raider with a sniper rifle and drop dead like a sack of potatoes.

Just kidding, but I'd think they'd have to find a way to balance how sneak crit would work against the player.

New to the game. But how/what attributes and stuff do you use to make a stealth sniper?

Stealth tactics are different from melee ones.

He never once said it doesn't need planning at all.

All he said was that he uses tactics and planning in his play-style which is a good idea.

LOL, well they would have to back actual balanced for game play. Not an I win button.

Here is something all you PC folks can test using the console and a little command called getdistance. I was heading North from Sloan and I came across a Young Solitary Deathclaw. So the instance he "appears" on the screen (I have max view distance) I open the console and type player.getdistance and click on the deathclaw. It reports back that I can see him at 7500. I start to walk towards it continualy hitting the VATS key. I get a VATS lock at 6000. Keep in mind I am still running normal, not sneaking and the Deathclaw has not noticed me. At any time I could crouch for a second and head shot him dead with one round. So I keep closing in around 5000 he shows up on Radar screen as a red dot. Have a low perception SPECIAL. Finally at 4500 the Deathclaw notices me and charges. Notice I don't even need sneak. I was well within sniping range and I was not even sneaking. Not balanced at all.

Yes, it is definitely the most overplayed character type. My first run-through of the game was with a stealthy, gun-focused character.

Every other character that I made eventually drifted towards stealth sniping, it was just too enticing haha.

I don't know how they would rebalance it, but my best guess would be to lower the spread on automatic weapons (like the LMG or the Minigun). I do have to say that my current slaughter, bloody mess melee class is a ton of fun

It's just that it's far too safe to not do well.

Take melee weapons, sure you can knock people down but most creatures that are melee are pretty hard hitting.

Other guns, while good at times (like with a sub-machine gun against 3 or so guys) is useful it's just easier hide, pick them off one by one and waste less ammo overall.

Even heavy weapons and explosives, sure you can take on a few people and kill them quickly but most heavy weapons need more ammo and it's more costly.

Explosives can run the risk of damaging yourself.

Even though I hate the whole sniper style since it seems too easy to me, I have to start the play through as one; it makes the first few hours a lot easier.

High Guns Skill.
High Sneak Skill.
High Repair Skill.
High Luck Attribute.
High Perception or Ed-E as a follower.
Perks that increase damage (outside of VATS)
Perks that increase critical hits (outside of VATS)
High DAM (per shot) scoped weapon.
Hand loaded ammo.
Clothes/chems/edibles that increase any of the above.

And most importantly: Patience.

-Gunny over.



7000 whats? Does anyone know the unit of measure here? I'm also at max draw distance and I've always wanted to know how far my long kills were. They seem short in real distance terms. Maybe a coupla hundred meters at most.

-Gunny out.

There I fixed it up for you a bit. A pistol with super zoom and some patience is all you need. Headshots and sneaks usually equals death for most things no matter what your skills are. Guns and Sneak are usually two of my last skills I level up. I don't even play with the red ticks that alert you of enemies or with the [Caution] or [Danger] giveaways and it's still too easy to snipe in this game if you take your time.

I personally have a stealth character, i always do. I find nothings better then popping someones head off at 100 yards without him even noticing. Although the badass run in there kill everything and walk out like nothing ever happened character is always fun to.

This, pretty much.

It can also be done with an Energy Weapons user, however you cannot silence any EW so it can be a bit trickier at times (which I actually like). Your weapon options are also much more limited; your main will be either a Scoped Laser Rifle or a Gauss Rifle/YCS 186, since effective sniping at long ranges is difficult at best with anything else (can be done with a stock LR, but I don't recommend it).

On the good side it will be easier to recycle spent ammo, since all you need are the cases, and you can readily convert Energy Cells or Electron Charge Packs into more. Since the latter can be found everywhere in good amounts it will be relatively easy to have enough ammo on hand without buying any.

Sorry you need exactly one thing on that list:

High DAM (per shot) scoped weapon.

You can still long distance snipe well with a Guns of 50
Don't Need sneak - as I should earlier it is still easy to get in range without even sneaking. Just crouch before you fire.
Don't Need Luck - Sneak attacks are auto crits. So luck does not matter
Don't need perception - just look at the screen. It does not impact when YOU see the target
Don't really need patience when outside. Just run around and then the instant you see something crouch down and head shot em. You do need patience indoors though


Not sure what the actual unit of measure is in the distance - just a generic marker I imagine. So in real life terms the instant they appear is how far you can see. So what 2 or 3 miles? I have no idea.

I like to sneak too, except rather then perching up on a hill 300m away, I just put a Power Fist to the brainbox.

The question was what is the build for a sniper, Gunny was correct in his answer role wise.

If the question was what do I need to kill at range the answer would be any gun.

However I'm not a high luck person when playing, except for my latest build they've all been 5 luck builds.
So I would say yes it fits in and i highly usefull, but not a requirement for the role with scoped weapons and sneak crits auto killing on one shot.

And patience is by far the best advice.
The sway to rifles form patterns over time, so just wait and count the sways back and forward.

Technically speaking, snipers are usually long ranged gunmen that are either hidden or so far away that you can't see them.

So yes, I'd say for the purpose of the role, you'd need sneak skills.

I thought my original questions was:

Do you think a stealth sniper in the most overplayed character type in Fallout: NV. If yes or no, why or why not?

Honestly, if anyone needs help with a stealth/sniper build let me suggest the multitude of other threads that are dedicated to this topic and are often repeated every other day on these forums.

The fact that this getting derailed into a stealth / sniper build thread kinda emphasizes what I was getting at anyway.

Uh someone asked in the topic for a build...

He wasn't saying your question was for that.

Sorry for mildly derailing this thread.
Hacking my post out of context however was not needed if you read the answers to gunny's you could see he was helping someone in need.
Others leapt on minor details to which did not apply to the question asked and answered by Gunny.

On topic.
You were right the sniper is the most common build everyone has agreed so.
Why becuase it's fun for some,
Becuase it's easy to pick up.
Becuase some see themselves as being marksmen.
Becuase others think they are.
Becuase some need a release and instantly kill something with a head shot.
Becuase you don't get hit that often.
Really it's the favourite becuase guns are the game, and snipers or scoped weapons are the best, biggest, badest guns around.
Even the EW's have great snipers with reat scopes.

Edit thanks D_ Murray I guess I over reacted, thanks for the rational explenation for my post.

No prob, madocmayhem, this topic will soon be forgotten.
Sorry for hacking up your quote, just wanted to remind people what the original topic was.

No problem and sorry for getting gnarly, being wrong happens to me all the time but taking single snipets from a post when making a point against just gets me green and smashy.
No offense meant at all on my last post either.

Considering you had quoted a poster, it was obvious what you meant. The OP just got annoyed and chose your post to pick on.

I would be glad if the sniper was nerfed properly - i.e. lower the rate of fire by 32%, not the DAM. And also, nerf JSP ammo, which is what gave it AMR-class damage stats in the first place.

As it stands now, I have to agree that they murdered the weapon.



I see it as more a limitation of the game. The 2X sneak multiplier just breaks things - if things were "fair," a critical should just be a critical.

On the player's side, if they incorporated bullet flight time and bullet drop, at least the whole class would become more "legit."