The UES Marksman program - prestigious, presentable, and in its prime. To become a true marksman, a sniper, within this program, you must undergo rigorous training. However, for many, the reward is worth it, with your own customizable impact-action UES-82A5 Rifle, sporting 8.19mm, 12.7mm, or even the heavyweight 14.5mm, and a special, personalized SPOTTER drone.

We welcome you with open arms, but we must inform you, there is no guarantee of you passing.

Clean and efficient, the Sniper is a burst machine, sporting some of the highest burst damage in the entire game and boss-killing potential like no other, carefully lining up shots to shred enemies with one shot. However, you must be methodical, for a sniper that’s caught out is a sniper that’s dead.

Sniper plays exactly as their name would suggest - a marksman and sharpshot who keeps their distance, taking careful aim before bursting down their target with high damage per shot. They struggle at close ranges and swarms, requiring quick timing and good use of their Military Training or Heavy Recoil to escape and reposition to better places. With good practice and observation, the Sniper can become a true powerhouse capable of near-instantly or even instantly killing even the heaviest of targets, eliminating them one at a time.

Akin to the Enforcer, Sniper is arguably more antithetical to Returns in their design, demanding patience and playing more stationary as opposed to the constantly-moving gameplay of many other characters. However, while Sniper may not be as bulky as Enforcer, they more than make up for this with their incredible stopping power

The Sniper is, in essence, a glass cannon, even with above-average health.

Health Pool
119 [Base]
33 [Per Level]

Above-average base health and scaling

Regeneration
1.20 [Base]
0.24 [Per Level]

Above-average base regen and scaling

Damage
15 [Base]
4 [Per Level]

Well above-average base damage and scaling

Armor
0 [Base]
2 [Per Level]

Average base armor and scaling

Speed
28 km/h

Average base speed

While not something normally discussed in these guides since all of the characters covered so far can just be summarized as “move around and only bunker down as needed” (yes, Enforcer included since Protect & Serve has such a low cooldown), Sniper is very unique in that to maximize this character, especially while using Steady Aim, your positioning and ability to reposition is crucial.

This won’t be some complex essay however. It’s quite simple, actually - always keep an eye on the amount of enemies you can see on screen at the time and where they are currently, coupled with their method of movement, such as a flying enemy’s ability to move through cover or a Lemurian’s ability to climb. Afterwards, consider what is and isn’t close to you, and what ability is best to deal with it. Against a single light enemy like a Lemurian, Clayman, or Lesser Wisp for example, you may not really need to bother charging your secondary, and instead kill them using your primary. If the target is an Elite, is a heavy target like a Sand Crab or Golem, or there are multiple enemies in a line/in front of you, you may want to consider first repositioning swiftly instead of just standing right in front of them, either moving back with Military Training or Heavy Recoil, or if using Improvise, knock them away.

Then, of course, considering how long you realistically need to charge. Enemies will always try to converge on your position, and even by moving away or knocking back enemies, they will close the distance, potentially even hitting you while you’re in the middle of charging - remember, you don’t have to charge all the way a pretty large chunk of the time, and you may not even get the chance to charge for too long against some bosses, especially more agile ones like Imp Overlord or Providence.
For miscellaneous notes, just remember to take advantage of height, both the high and low grounds - you don’t really need to be at ground level with a Stone Colossus to shoot it, for example. You can also try to play more bait-heavy, training enemies into a line (a la CoD Zombies) before charging and firing on them, then moving away once more.

With all that said and done, positioning is less important with Quickscope, as the speed of the ability allows you to just burst down whatever’s close by, only moving back to swiftly reload. However, engaging in good positioning practices for Sniper can still help you survive with it.

Sniper’s default primary skill.

Fires one shot for 250%. This shot possesses perfect accuracy and essentially unlimited range. After firing, engage a reload minigame in which you must press the primary attack button to reload, with different areas in the reload minigame granting damage bonuses if reloaded at that point. Reloading temporarily puts you into a standstill, but will not stop air momentum.

Reloads will boost the damage of your next skill (which is not limited to Snipe) - normal reloads in the grey area will not boost damage, reloads in the purple area will grant a 30% damage boost, and reloads in the white area, known as a perfect reload, grant a whopping 60% damage boost. This multiplier appears to be multiplicative.

Due to the nature of reloads and how variably a player may make a reload, the attack interval is difficult to calculate and thus not presented, though reloaded at the earliest possible interval creates roughly 1 shot per second.

Snipe is a very cut and dry ability on its own, being a simple high-damage single-shot ranged attack - however, the reload minigame it possesses allows it to further its damage, or the damage of another skill. Due to bringing you to a standstill, remember to jump when reloading to preserve forward/backwards momentum and to maintain your distance.

Sniper’s alternate primary skill.

Swing the butt of your rifle a moderate distance in front of you for 120% damage, piercing all hit enemies. This piercing possesses no pierce decay, and thus no damage is lost when hitting multiple targets.

Attacks at an approximate interval of 1 attack every second, with a notable recovery between attacks. Does not possess the reload minigame.

Applies extremely heavy knockback to all targets hit. Can be used while charging Steady Aim, which briefly pauses the charging for the swing.

Improvise serves as Sniper’s “get off me”, and helps to alleviate their close-ranged weakness. While the damage is not as impressive as melee-dedicated characters like HAN-D or Miner, it makes up for with incredible knockback, allowing you to set up for the right shot unimpeded.

Sniper’s default secondary skill.

Fire for a moderate amount of damage. You can press and hold the skill to root yourself in place, charging up the damage dealt, to a maximum of 2000% at maximum charge. Takes approximately 2.8 seconds to fully charge up to maximum damage, charging faster the more attack speed you have. The attack pierces all enemies, with a 50% pierce decay (every target after the first takes 50% less damage from the previous target)

Holds 1 charge, with a cooldown of 4 seconds. Using this skill engages the reload minigame, as per Snipe.

Sniper’s starting secondary, and is the key to their incredibly potent single-target elimination - at base damage, a fully-charged Steady Aim can deal a whopping 300 damage (15 base damage multiplied by 2000%, or 20). However, remember - even though achieving a full charge can lead to some potent damage, especially stacked on top of a timed (purple zone) reload or better yet, a perfect reload, the skill still does considerable damage for its cooldown, even if only partially charged. Get into the habit of recognizing how much charge you realistically need to kill a target, while also getting good damage or even outright killing any targets behind with its pierce - for example, in a line of 3 Lemurians, you really only need to charge for maybe a second at best to instakill the first Lemurian, possibly the second, and then heavily damage the third. Getting into the habit of charging for only as long as you need to allows you to minimize how long you’re stayings still and avoiding overkill, making you less vulnerable in the long run.

Sniper’s alternate secondary skill.

Fire in a reticle for 600% damage. You can press and hold the skill to root yourself in place, moving the reticle further away from you the longer you hold the skill, including through walls. Can hit any amount of targets within the reticle with no apparent pierce decay.

Holds 1 charge, with a cooldown of 4 seconds. Using this skill engages the reload minigame, as per Snipe.

Compared to Steady Aim, Quickscope does notably less damage with arguably less overall crowd control. However, it makes up for with superior immediate burst damage, as well as being faster to use, with “charging” only being needed to move the reticle to a further target. As such, Quickscope is much easier to use reflexively against incoming enemies, and serves a much more aggressive and mobile Sniper playstyle.

Sniper’s default utility skill.

Backflip a sizeable distance, becoming invincible during the backflip. You slide slightly after hitting the ground. You can jump while in the backflip, effectively canceling it while preserving momentum.

Holds 1 charge, with a cooldown of 6 seconds.

Can be used while charging Steady Aim, which briefly pauses the charging during the backflip. Using Military Training while charging Steady Aim also reduces the backflip distance.

Military Training serves as Sniper’s mobility tool, allowing them to quickly backflip away from danger, gaining a generous amount of iframes to boot. Beyond escaping, Military Training’s distance can also be useful for general traversal, though for some, the wonky backflip animation into more horizontal movement can throw off others.

Sniper’s alternate utility skill.

Take aim at the ground, launching yourself a decent distance backwards at an upwards angle and dealing 200% damage to any enemy in the space you blasted away from. While the blast area is small, there appears to be no pierce decay.

Holds 1 charge, with a cooldown of 3 seconds. Using this skill engages the reload minigame, as per Snipe.

Versus Military Training, Heavy Recoil might not see immediate usage. Sure you have better verticality, but your distance traveled is overall a bit smaller, you don’t get iframes, and even with the damage and lower cooldown, you then also have to reload. What’s the point? Well there’s several, enough that it’s worth discussing later in the comparison section.

Sniper’s sole special skill.

On use, the Spotter moves to a nearby enemy within a generous distance, choosing the “highest threat” target within that range. While initially it can be pretty granular, with normal enemies being the lowest priority, bosses being the highest, and elites being in the middle, it can be seemingly random at times, such as prioritizing an Elder Lemurian over an Elite Clayman - the best way instead to guess the enemy that will be scanned (assuming there are no bosses that can be targeted) is to go by the “weight class” of an enemy - an Elder Lemurian or Temple Guardian is “heavier” than a Clayman for instance, though even this can still have inconsistent results. Regardless, the scanned target is highlighted in red scanlines, and so long as the Spotter remains on the target, all attacks you make against that target have a 100% critical hit chance.

Holds 1 charge, with a cooldown of 10 seconds. The Spotter does not go into cooldown until it has returned, which you may do so by reactivating the skill while the Spotter is scanning a target, or by killing the target it is scanning.

Spotter serves to further Sniper’s high burst damage and boss-killing potential by giving them guaranteed critical hits against the scanned target. This can frequently be inconsistent against normal enemies unless you can approximate the “weights” of nearby targets, but will always target bosses above all other enemies, allowing you to easily guarantee your crits.

If you possess an Ancient Scepter, Spotter: SCAN is upgraded to Spotter: ISOLATE, which in addition to the normal effects, will also slow the scanned target by a hefty amount, allowing you to even more easily single out targets - or continue to bully bosses.

This is extremely simple - just beat the game. Difficulty doesn’t matter, just beat the game.


This unlock is likewise also simple and straightforward, though a bit more difficult. To unlock Improvise, you’ll have to complete the 3rd stage of the game without you or any other players (if it’s a multiplayer game) collecting any items. This unlock is more or less a test of your ability to position as Sniper and make the most of your high raw damage. Running the Artifact of Command is recommended as a just-in-case for bosses dropping items, and don’t be afraid to run out the clock on the teleporter to stop swarms from spawning before worrying about taking out the boss.


This one is just down to luck, really, but since each phase Providence is present in counts as an attempt at killing Providence, you get 3 chances per fight. There are a variety of ways to cheese this, but using the Artifact of Command to get what you need is a perfectly viable way to do things - one method for example involves using the Laser Turbine and Hardlight Afterburner, combined with Backflip to spam it and quickly build up Laser Turbine. Make sure Providence is at a low enough health to use this for the finishing blow.


This is a test of your ability to use Quickscope’s ability to have its reticle go through walls, as well as using Military Training for fast mobility. This video by Snoozey may help.

| VIDEO BY SNOOZEY |

Preference. The hilarious part here is that your choice more or less influences how good the other skills may be - for example, if using Improvise, Heavy Recoil becomes a lot more preferable than Military Training. Besides that though, the two both serve their own niches, with Snipe granting many chances to get reload bonuses as well as being a high-damage long-ranged attack, while Improvise allows you to more easily keep enemies off your back.

Preference. Generally speaking, Quickscope may be more popular due to the speed it possesses and the fast, aggressive use, but Steady Aim is also capable of fast usage, since you don’t always need to full charge it to make the most out of it. The two simply possess entirely different use cases and playstyles - Steady Aim favors a more methodical playstyle where your positioning determines the outcome, using partial charges to clear out enemies and only full charging if you know you need it, keeping mobile and always looking for a new place to go, while Quickscope is more aggressive, with the fast acting allowing you to, effectively, use it like a big shotgun, before moving away.

Contextual. This is where discussion of Heavy Recoil starts, a discussion of all of its parts. To start with, its damage doesn’t really matter and is probably the least important part of the ability, so let’s talk about the other three - movement, cooldown, and reload. While it does cover overall less distance in one use than Military Training, and with no iframes either, the angle it sends the Sniper at allows for the player to more easily predict and control the movement. Additionally, the verticality means that, so long as you aren’t just firing yourself into a bunch of Jellyfish or Magma Worms, you are effectively invincible while airborne, something similarly seen with Pilot and Rapid Deployment. In addition, the 3-second cooldown means in the time it takes for Military Training to finish, you can use Heavy Recoil twice, covering quite a large distance with better directional control and verticality.

Now, for that reload - it’s a double-edged sword, to put it simply. While yes, an extra reload to worry about can be annoying, it is also an extra chance at getting a perfect reload, which is not only helpful if you missed your window with Snipe, but is also incredibly useful when using Improvise, since without Heavy Recoil, if you use Improvise, your only method of fishing for reloads is by using your important secondary skill.

Do note, however, all of these points are simply a point to how Heavy Recoil stands its ground against Military Training - both are ultimately up to preference and how much you like to fish for reloads, though Heavy Recoil is more preferred when using Improvise as your primary.

While a tech well-covered in previous guides, Sniper too makes great use of bhopping for preserving momentum and allowing them to reload while moving - always try to reload while airborne.

If you use Improvise or Military Training while charging Steady Aim and you hold a directional input when the skill ends, your facing direction with Steady Aim changes to the direction of that input, allowing you to essentially change your aiming direction on the fly. Note that this has no effect with Quickscope.

Using Snipe while charging Steady Aim cancels Steady Aim. This possesses no uses, as you could simply just let go of Steady Aim instead. Note that this has no effect with Quickscope.

While obvious that if Steady Aim rolls a crit, then everything in the pierce will be crit, Steady Aim will also crit all targets that are behind a target scanned by your Spotter.

While you are unable to move left or right while charging Steady Aim or Quickscope, you can still jump in place, allowing you to avoid some enemy attacks with proper timing or shooter something that’s just a bit above you.

While not really tech, you can activate and charge Steady Aim or Quickscope whilst airborne. This can be useful if you know there’s a swarm below, especially in the case of Steady Aim, allowing for charging up a bit and then dealing damage after landing.



If you use Military Training and charge Steady Aim about right as you land, your friction is heavily reduced, sliding backwards. This allows you to gain more distance than Military Training normally allows for.



The movement lock of Heavy Recoil ends roughly at the apex of the blast, allowing you to use your airtime to quickly change your direction. Has no application on Military Training as its movement locks until the backflip ends. Uniquely, you can change your facing direction while charging Steady Aim if you are airborne from Heavy Recoil, then immediately start charging Steady Aim after reloading. May also apply to Quickscope, though it has a slight delay before the reticle appears, which may interfere.

• Sniper, while more passive in playstyle akin to Enforcer, is reasonably mobile as both of their mobility skills are on fairly low cooldowns, especially Heavy Recoil. Keep this in mind
  
• Remember good positioning - never try to place yourself into the thick of things. Even with the aggression Quickscope adds, you are not suited to deal with crowds of enemies and can quickly be overwhelmed while waiting for your cooldown
  
• Take advantage of your range - Sniper’s effective range is the longest out of all characters, as befitting of them, and you should abuse it as such, keeping enemies at bay
  
• Try to get into a rhythm with reloading on Sniper, in order to achieve as many perfect reloads as possible, and practice doing them while performing other inputs, such as swinging around or jumping
  
• Remember attack speed speeds up the reload minigame, which can throw off your rhythm - account for this as needed
  
• Despite the slow attack rates, Sniper can be a mean proc machine, since their biggest ability (Steady Aim or Quickscope) can easily hit multiple targets, thus multiple proc chances, coupled with many items in the game being based on the total damage, or the damage of the attack that procced it
  
• Crowd control items like Gasoline or Will ‘O Wisp, or mobility items like Red Whip or Paul’s Goat Hoof, can proof incredibly helpful for mitigating your biggest weakness, allowing you to either handle crowds more efficiently, or quickly disengage

Risk of Rain Returns now has a modding scene, so below is a list of recommended mods to utilize.

Adds more detailed item descriptions from the logbook to items in a run so you know what the items do.


A simple DPS tracker to show how much damage you are doing.


A simple HUD addition that shows your current in-run stats.


A bugfix mod that prevents clipping when going at too high of a speed.


A mod that it makes it so while holding down primary fire, you will always reload perfectly. Useful for those who just seriously struggle with getting into a rhythm with reloads.

Sniper is a character that can, at times, feel polarizing - how stationary they can be depending on abilities can sometimes lead to being swarmed, with you being unable to do a single thing, while at other times, you can just annihilate enemies upon enemies without stopping, like a machine. However, with proper trigger discipline and game awareness, Sniper can become quite a powerhouse, efficiently and lethally taking out anything ahead of it, with a ton of risk-reward scenarios that can lead to some high-octane gameplay.

All in all, Sniper is a fairly well-made character with a good balance between its high power and weaknesses, though of course, some tweaks could still be made, which I’ve proposed here[docs.google.com].

Hope this guide has been of help!

Author
Number-cruncher
Playstyle Videos
Tech & Interactions gifs


Skill descriptions and clarifications
Skill demo gifs
Unlock Info


Gold Providence Trial videos