Just play Spy and all your sniper problems go away instantly. If you close the distance on a sniper, if you get quickscoped, you seriously need to check your movement. 9 out of 10 times, you getting headshot is entirely your fault.
Razorback enables situations where Sniper’s completely unkillable by a Spy. If he’s next to a level 3 sentry, not even an Ambassador can kill him fast enough before the Spy dies.
Fortunately, this is only really a problem in comp.
I haven’t played tf2 since many years, but people with time got really good at detecting spies quickly. If you just protect your sniper with Pyro (or even general classes by shooting the suspicious guy with shotgun twice) then Spy can’t do much. Play with your team and flanking sniper is colossal task.
This is where you’ve got to have good gamesense. A pyro can’t be aware 24/7 for a spy. It’s unrealistic. Waiting for the right opportunity for the pick is exactly what a spy should be doing. If I’m able to backstab sniper mains with over 10000 hours pretty consistently with some basic gamesense, anybody can do it. I’ve got like…300 hours on spy lol.
Waiting for opportunity costs a lot of time + random flaming area around was viable spy counter (spychecking). If you can’t kill sniper quickly then your team dies to him and even if you find a moment to strike, your team is in spawn and it doesn’t matter.
In small competetive settings like 6vs6 sniper was rarely played (and half of the roster to be honest), but in pubs snipers was always strong af. As long you have 1-2 snipers not 5 of them that is. Too many snipers and you don’t have point presence.
This is why you’ve got to be smart with your positioning.
Your team shouldn’t be peeking sniper unless they are another sniper or using an ubercharge. That’s the dumbest thing you can do against any sniper character.
Surefour was right. People enjoy being complete morons in games. They don’t like characters that make people think basic things like ‘take a route that the sniper isn’t peeking’
And back again to “just don’t peek the sniper”, easy to say lol.
Sniper covers one line of sight, sentry + demoman covers another. It’s not like sniper is alone defending. One Heavy to hold the line near objective, some soldiers + demos to spam chokes, engineer to protect most important spots on the map. Sniper somewhere in the middle of all that and you have strong fortress. If sniper is good, he will make your life very difficult in that (very common setup).
But yeah, Spy was good against Sniper because he could be literally invisible, so he had easy time “to just don’t peek him”. If Sombra could one shot Widow at close range like Spy could, then I think she would be exclusively played to counter her.
You can also flank him or take weird angles. One direct hit rocket kills him. A stray crit kills him. A better sniper kills him. A spy kills him. Uber pushes remove him from the game. TF2 is a chaotic game. Unless you’re somewhere like badwater last, sniper is a non-issue. A good sniper isn’t going to quickscope the map unless they’re a bot, and even then, a good soldier can easily destroy bots if he’s aware of them. (I would know. I’ve done it. Fun as hell)
Why have a high skill cap if everyone’s going to cry nerf when you reach it? Games should be balanced around that high skill cap to encourage people to hit that skill cap. Skillful plays should be rewarded. Not punished. It’s why I think Ambassador should have never been nerfed.
I think rockets couldn’t do 125 damage, especially outside of point blank range (in TF2 projectiles also had fall off damage, very strict as well) unless you are using Direct Hit rocket launcher and that is what you’re refering too (which again, needs to be at point blank range at which sniper is dead anyway to any class).
Crits were bs, playing without random ones was a lot more fun
Well… yeah duh, everything in any game can be countered by itself
Situational. You say Razorback, but even standing with back to the wall prevents backstab, so playing near sentry or team makes this tough task. But yeah, Spy is probably the strongest counter to Sniper and I wish we would have something as viable as that in OW.
Uber is interesting to think about as it’s being completely immune to damage, so technically it counters everything. The best you can do is push them away with Pyro. Uber was there to prevent stalemates, as dying in choke of Dustbowl repeatedly for 15 minutes isn’t that fun.
So it’s not about sniper but maps itself? Kinda like in OW…
High skill cap also needs proper counterplay outside of playing the same stuff but better (unless you enjoy playing mirrors 24/7). Tracer or Genji have high skill cap and have much more counterplay options than Widow (because they have to be relatively close to deal meaningful damage to you and burst is exclusive at point blank range, where they need to risk even more). Skill cap isn’t everything, people should have ways to defeat you even if you are good at difficult character. What’s the point to learn harder character then? Because you have more options. It’s way harder to shutdown Tracer than Reaper.
They went too hard on it, but I think it was to remove his ability to deal huge damage at long range. It’s like with Cassidy at launch where he had 0 fall off. Is dinking people at long range challenging? Sure. But fall off ranges exist for a reason, it’s to provide more dynamic battlefields rather than sniper fiestas all the time.
Believe it or not, it was always possible to stab people from the sides. It’s pretty handy against people using this.
I think it was full 180 degree, so it was very close to prevention if you stay with back to the wall (spy needs to be at perfect angle to backstab and slight turn to him would deny it). Hard scope snipers are easy pray for Spy, with backstab or without it. If you can land first shot before he reacts, he is dead anyway.
Which is why it pays off to have characters like Engineer to manually redirect people.