XCOM Soldier Guide: Sniper

XCOM Enemy Unknown was released in 2012.  It is a remake of the popular 1994 game.  XCOM is a turn based strategy game in which you try to halt an alien invasion.  You choose what you want to research and what you want your engineers to build, as well as managing your troops and relations with all of the countries in the XCOM project until a mission comes up.  Once you accept the mission you get a taste of the real gameplay.

You will drop 4-6 soldiers into an area where they will have one of several objectives, though you will always have to fight aliens, which will develop and you will end up fighting stronger enemies the farther into the game you progress.  Each turn your soldiers get two actions.  One is to move, and then you can move again or fire your weapon, reload, etc.  You will need to move your troops into cover, hopefully flanking the enemy’s position in order to get bonuses to aim and  critical hit chance.

Snipers are very important to the success of any team.  Once they get the squadsight and sharpshooter perks (I would highly recommend these two over snap shot and damn good ground), they become veritable killing machines.  Snipers have naturally high accuracy gains each time they are promoted and sniper rifles do a lot of damage at ranges beyond that of any other weaponry, including alien weapons.  If you have a decent sniper, odds are that they will have the most kills by far out of your squad members.  The sniper is the most frail out of the four classes armor wise, since armors suited for the sniper give less health.  They do receive extra defense though.  Once they get the low profile perk they treat low cover as full cover, which is an extra 20% defense.  Once you are able to build the ghost armor, they get another bonus to defense.

Snipers should be used to kill far away enemies, which means that they should almost always be moved last.  Snipers cannot move and fire their sniper rifle in the same turn (Never choose the snap shot perk), so try to keep them stationary somewhere with a good field of vision.  Be cautious and move your troops up, then use the sniper to kill whatever comes into sight.  When the sniper gets too far behind, spend a turn or two getting him back to the group.  Remember that there is no time or turn limit.  Take as much time as you need to.

There aren’t really any bad points to snipers, other than the fact that they aren’t effective with medikits.  The heavy weapons and assault class have the same problem of course.  Snipers have a very specific role, and when you try to take them out of that role they usually die or aren’t effective.  They also have a much harder time making use of their advantages inside of buildings.  Remember that sniper rifles’ accuracy drops the closer you are to the target.  If you are close to an opponent, just use your pistol.  Try to upgrade your pistol as much as you can in the forge, your sniper will need it.

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