First let's cover the first decision you'll face when sniping in MvM, your loadout. Be very careful because there are a lot of bad choices to be made here.

• Stock:
  Stock is a fine choice but offer's zero utility. It will do in a pinch but chances are you will have at least one other unlock that can covers the stock rifle's role and do it better.
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• Sydney Sleeper:
  
  If you think using this means getting away with bodyshot spamming, think again. The Sydney Sleeper is a fine choice but don't use it as an excuse to play lazy. Always headshot. Always attack the lead robot in a herd. When it comes to MvM treat this as if it was a standard rifle. Jarate is a great assistance but it isn't a replacement for explosive headshots. Using that mentality will drag down your team and more often than not mean failing a wave.
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  (Note that the video showing the sleeper headshots was made before a patch that increased explosion radius and a critical boost is not required for the headshots to register)
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• Machina:
  
  Like the stock rifle the Machina is a decent choice but offers very little in the way of utility. The free damage and penetration bonuses are nice but keep in mind they are dependent on a full charge and with how massive crowds get in MvM, spamming shots is invaluable.
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• Hitman's Heatmaker:
  Here it is. The crown jewel of a Sniper's MvM arsenal. The heatmaker is fantastic at what it does and 90% of the time, this is the rifle you want to pick up. No unscoping paired with max reload allows you to take down any giant in seconds along with everything in a thirty foot radius. Explosive headshots will guarantee you a fully charged focus meter for nearly the entire game allowing you to track targets much more easily. Even at it's minimal charge with max upgrades across the board this will dish out ~340 damage per hit at intervals under one second. This is the minigun of rifles. Use it.
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• Bazaar Bargain:
  The Bazaar Bargain can be a good alternative to the heatmaker if you're capable of fairly consistent headshots. While I find the heat maker is better suited to the "headshot spam" end of rifles this is capable of the same effect. However it is still subject to unscoping during reload which can throw off your aim quickly. If the map you are running is low on giants this can be a poor choice but if you know there will be a large amount of them to keep you supplied with plenty of heads, this does have good potential.
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  Huntsman:
  
  Here's where I'm going to start losing people. Looking forward to those "stopped reading here" comments. DO NOT USE THE HUNTSMAN! I know the appeal of "easy mode" on Sniper will draw a lot of people to it but it doesn't hold a candle to rifles. There aren't explosive headshots for this and that's the Sniper's only saving grace here. Taking this weapon means giving up massive utility and killing power for a negligible damage increase to single targets.
  
  The main issue with the huntsman is that it offers zero crowd control. Penetrating shots will only take out an additional 2-5 enemies in the absolute best of scenarios unless you jump into the thick of things and constantly readjust your positioning which is the last place a sniper should be. With a rifle you can destroy an entire swarm of bots with one shot, and any giants left standing will be subjected to the focused fire of the rest of your team which trumps anything even a maxed out huntsman can dish out. Remember one of the golden rules of sniping. Be efficient.
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Secondaries & Melee:

• Jarate:
  Always bring jarate. Stop upgrading jarate. This is something a lot of people are going to disagree with but from my experience it is wasted cash. I'm not saying upgraded jarate is bad, quite the opposite. It's just that the money you spend on this has much better uses being spent on rifle upgrades. Once you have a rifle decked out though go nuts with this it's great to help pyros, heavies, and sentries mow down huge crowds but it doesn't require 1200 cash dumped into it to do it's job. There's also a tiny hidden upside of jarate I find many people don't know about. If a team mate kills a coated enemy, YOU get focus charge on the heatmaker for the kill. Toss it out if you're low on focus.
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• Bushwacka:
  Like jarate this is your best choice for melee. Always bring the bushwacka. This is the only item that makes you useful versus a tank. Ask a soldier to save a buff banner charge when you know a tank is coming. The bushwacka will turn those buff banner's minicrits into full criticals for you. Late game consider upgrading the swing speed if you know there will be a lot of tanks coming your way but remember that some situations call for you to be on the tank and some call for you t pick off the things that come with the tank.

Remember the bad habits I mentioned up top? Well this is easily the worst of them. Where you choose to snipe from has a gigantic impact on your performance. Many people will instinctively take the highest ground they can to the left or right of the battlefield.

STOP DOING THIS! I REPEAT DO NOT TAKE THE HIGH GROUND!!!

It is incredibly counter productive and the root of most terrible snipers problems. When you position yourself you want to be ground level with the enemy in the center of the battlefield. This reduces from aiming in two axis's to one. Confused? How about a visual.



The red boxes indicate the general area where your targets will be. Notice how the low ground reduces how much vertical adjustment is needed to line up the shot. This also makes penetrating shots worth having. Taking the high ground means much more difficult aiming and almost never hitting more than one target or almost never hitting a single target.

As with engineers knowing the map is crucial. Always keep in mind where the bots will be spawning and more importantly where the spies will be spawning.


Decoy:

The prime location here is inside, not on top, inside the middle building. You have a medium ammo kit on hand all to yourself and perfect level ground that makes sniping here incredibly easy. Be careful however because this building is also a spy spawn point so as soon as the announcer warns you, TURN AROUND. When things start getting rough and you find yourself pushed back to spawn the bridges will also give you great vantage points but minimal cover so make shots count or get ready to fall back to spawn doors. On the spawn end of the map there is also a small gap in the fence to the right of spawn that provides great vantage over the right bridge.


Coal Town:

As with Decoy you should be inside the middle building and again you will have excellent cover and this time a full ammo kit. However again comes the issue of sitting right on top of the spies spawn point so be alert. When things get rough here and the fight is focused closer to spawn you have multiple options. One is on top of the back end of middle building. This is high ground but offers easy cover to snipe enemies off the bomb drop point while they are standing still. Alternatively there is a long walled off alley directly to the right of spawn that offers great cover at ground level, a full ammo kit, and a perfect view of the left staircase and bomb drop point.


Mannworks:

This is the tough one. There aren't many nice spots to take here without getting on high ground or only covering one half of the battlefield for the forward portion of the map. However again the middle building offers great protection, ammo, health and this time no direct spy spawns. However the windows here only face back towards your spawn which can't directly be seen here but does offer great coverage of both paths leading to it on fairly level ground.

It amazes me how many snipers I see using little or no cover. Get as much of yourself behind a wall as possible while still leaving the crosshairs out and enemies won't even target you. Also start thinking of your team mates and friendly buildings as "negative cover". There are tons of explosives spammed here and if those explosives hit something close enough they are going to hit you as well. Never stay in "high traffic" zones that your team mates use because snipers go down fast.

Explosive headshots are the entire reason you are even viable here. Always buy them first. Keep in mind that explosive headshots now slow down enemies and they do this better than anything else in game. Each increased rank will upgrade the radius and amount it slows. Regardless of rank ancillary targets of the headshot will always take 150 damage. This means getting any headshot on a giant will kill all classes with 150 hp or less in a very large radius around that giant, including medics.

After headshots are out of the way I usually recommend increasing reload speed to allow you to spam headshots a bit more more easily. If it takes you a long time to line up shots then don't invest more than is needed here.

Once you have your reload speed to a comfortable level it's on to charge rate or damage. If you tend to take longer to line up shots then increase the charge rate first but if you can handle spamming headshots more easily then go with damage first.

And finally if you have leftover cash at this point stick some into getting penetrating shots and your bushwacka/jarate. For waves with very large sums of cash I like putting one point into health on kill, with a well placed explosive shot you can get a ridiculous amount of healing back.

If you want an easy way to get a better grip on sniping in MvM I suggest using the tool from this thread to create custom waves to get your skill level up to par with what will be thrown at you.

Start off slow and easy. Create some melee heavies with low HP. Learn how the bots hitboxes behave, which routes they take, how large the different tiers of explosive headshots are. Test out how well you perform against every bot, especially scouts. Make sure to create some waves with melee octoheavies. Learn to time those headshots for the second the last medic hits the ground. Experiment with each rifle, find out which suits you best. Take the time to explore the map with some appropriately paced waves to find ideal spots to camp. There is no such thing as too much practice when sniping. The skill ceiling here is very very high and there is no such thing as "mastering the class" here.

Most people will say that it's precision elimination. Not here. In MvM your job is mass annihilation and extreme damage. Snipers can now mow down entire mobs single handed with just a few well placed shots. When the spam starts coming aim center lane and make that sticky demo jealous. Don't let this fool you into believing you're an unstoppable force. Outside his comfort zone the sniper is still incredibly weak and the fact all upgrades need to be put towards damage make him the poster boy for glass cannons.

Sniping takes practice and patience. You won't be good at it starting out. Stick to Decoy and Coal town on the easiest tours until you feel comfortable moving up. Once you have the hang of it though you will be a near essential part of any team.




If you have any suggestions on how to improve this guide I welcome them as well as any questions. If you would like to read my other guides they can be found in the links below.

Gear up! (A guide to optimal MvM loadouts)Stop thinking like a Medic! (A guide to using the Quick-Fix)Basically Idle (A guide to contributing as little as possible)Begginer's Guide to Trading & the "Mannconomy"Sprint N' Splode (A guide to better Demoknighting)