When you think of Team Fortress 2, the first thing that probably comes to mind is its colorful visuals and characters. Playable classes such as the Spy, Engineer, and Demoman provide the player with a unique gaming experience you can’t find in other video games. It can be fun to tear through the badlands as a larger-than-life cartoon character, but what about when you want to take things seriously? What if you want to play the game professionally?

Enter the Team Fortress 2 Sniper, hands down the class with the most polarizing reputation. Pro players consider him overpowered for his ability to one-hit-kill from across the entire map. New players who choose to play as him are widely remembered for being easy pickings. But like every other class in the game, he widely benefits from knowing the individual strengths of his arsenal and how to pair them together

1) The Lucksman

Team Fortress 2 is a game where every playable character besides the Sniper excels at close-range. As a result, he generally has to stand far away from the enemy team to be effective. This can make Sniper considerably more challenging than most Snipers in other FPS games because it renders the enemies as tiny colored blobs on the screen. It makes shots easy to miss.

This loadout is intended to cover that mistake by replacing his primary weapon with a bow-and-arrow. Instead of taking potshots from afar, a Sniper with a bow specializes in close-quarters combat. While his arrows may move slowly, the hitbox is so massive that at close range, it’s nearly impossible to miss even a semi-accurately fired shot.

Loadout:

• The Huntsman: A bow-an-arrow with a charge faster than the stock Sniper Rifle at the cost of lower damage, ammunition, and range. 
• Jarate: Despite being a jar of mutated pee, it’s unironically powerful. Enemies coated in Jarate take 35% more damage (called mini-crits) with no damage falloff. It can also be used to extinguish yourself if you’re on fire.
• The Bushwacka: This melee weapon replaces mini-crits with a massive triple damage crit. This means it can one-shot 7 out of the 9 classes if they’re covered in Jarate. You take more damage while it’s out though so use it sparingly. 

Playstyle:

• The best way to use the Huntsman is around corners. Peak around a corner once you have a fully charged shot, and just as you fire the arrow return to cover. This can turn you into a nearly invincible class with high power potential.
• If an enemy rushes you down, don’t be afraid to fire an uncharged arrow, try and shoot it just above their head for a high-damage headshot.
• The Jarate is great when used with the Bushwacka, but it also pairs well with the Huntsman. A fully charged Huntsman shot deals 162 damage on a body shot if the enemy is covered in Jarate, capable of one-shotting 5 out of the 9 classes.

2) The Aim-Trainer

With some classes, it’s easy to instantly take the training wheels off once your ready and do amazing. Snipe is not one of those classes. Unless you train extensively at headshots, tracking, and melee duels, there’s a strong skill cap with this class that can’t be passed. This is the loadout for going even beyond that and actively preparing to be the best Sniper possible.

What’s great about this loadout is that it doesn’t handicap you unless you’re actively performing poorly. It’s entirely possible to be the best Sniper in the server with a loadout intended for training.

Loadout:

• The Hitman Heatmaker: The only downside to The Hitman’s Heatmaker is that it deals less damage on body shots. The upside is that headshots build a focus meter that when activated (with R) allows the Sniper to fire and charge shots faster.
• The Cleaner’s Carbine: Compared to the Hitman’s Heatmaker, the Cleaner’s Carbine has a far more severe downside, with a slow fire rate and small clip compared to the SMG. However, like the Hitman’s Heatmaker, it builds a meter that rewards damage dealt, granting the Sniper mini-crits for 8 seconds
• The Bushwacka: The mini-crites from the Cleaner’s Carbine give the Bushwacka full crits just like the Jarate.

Playstyle: 

• Forcing yourself to go for headshots all the time significantly improves your skill as a Sniper and the focus meter is a nice bonus for those who can use it well
• The Cleaner’s Carbine can be used for body shots in the event you land one on an aggressive enemy. The slow fire rate makes tracking difficult yet satisfying and if you build the meter, you get eight seconds of overpowered melee hits with the Bushwacka
• Because you suffer at close range with this loadout (unless you have the Carbine’s meter full), practice surfing bullets and rockets. Time when they’re about to hit you and jump, allowing you to fly a good distance to safety

3) Be Efficient

Yup. This third loadout is entirely the stock loadout, the one you get with Sniper from the moment you install the game. Playing stock Sniper effectively is hard, you get nothing to make playing him easier and no bonuses for securing kills and dealing damage. And yet there’s a reason this is the favored way to play from pro-players.

When playing the stock Sniper, everything revolves around getting kills. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Loadout:

• The Sniper Rifle: A simple weapon that deals critical (triple) damage on headshots and can be charged to deal triple that damage. Has no damage fall off either.
• The SMG: It deals low damage and the clip is short, but it’s the only Sniper secondary capable of dealing damage and is a highly accurate weapon for being automatic
• The Kukri: 65 damage on a melee hit. Nothing fancy, just a solid weapon

Playstyle:

• The body shot damage of the Sniper Rifle is powerful enough to one-hit-kill 5 out of the 9 classes with a full charge. A non-scoped hit also does 50 damage, which can be used to soften enemies before finishing them with the SMG.
• While the SMG doesn’t deal a lot of damage, it is highly accurate and can be used at a longer range than where most classes are effective. When engaging an enemy with the SMG, keep your distance unless you know you can finish them off
• Finally, the Kukri is an all-or-nothing weapon, you should pull it out as little as possible and only in emergencies. Your Sniper Rifle should be out around 85% of the time.

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