Congratulations! You've chosen to step out of the front line and help your team by picking off tricky foes from far away. Or you've played snipers in other shooters and decided to give everybody's favorite Australian marksman a shot as you start playing Hat Sim 2007 Team Fortress 2. In this guide, I'll teach you everything you need to begin sniping, such as basic strategies, weapon and loadout selection, and other helpful tidbits. Let's begin!

If you're on an unfamiliar map, the best thing you can do as soon as possible is learn the locations of prime sniping areas. Yes, you can snipe out in the open all willy-nilly. However, you're left open to enemy fire more so than you should be if you go this route. Some maps (like Hightower and 2fort) have good sniping spots on the bases of each team. These are good spots because they leave you closer to supply rooms to heal and stock up on ammo. This is even better for your team since any Engineers on your team may feel obligated to waste their dispenser on you if you aren't close enough to the base to restock.

But no matter what map you're on or where you are at any given point, you should be almost constantly moving around, especially after killing a player. And not as in, strafing in circles while staying in the same general area. Move from spot to spot as much as possible. This will keep your location unpredictable to the enemy and make you harder to track down.

Finally, you should always have an escape plan. Make sure you can get out of a situation as quickly and while taking as little damage as possible and know where health and ammo packs are along the way. Your best option is to retreat to the base, where you can resupply and be back to full health and ammo to take out the enemy team.

By default, your loadout will contain the stock Sniper Rifle, a stock SMG, and a stock Kukri. This type of loadout (Rifle, Secondary gun, and Melee) is great for dealing with most classes (particularly Soldiers and Demomen) should they invade your spot. However, it offers you no protection against Spies, also known as "The Bane of Every Sniper's Existence." However, there's ways to combat this.

Another common loadout type is Rifle, Shield and Melee. by sacrificing your SMG, you can equip a shield such as the Razorback (a very commonly used shield) or Darwin's Danger Shield to protect yourself against backstabs. However, this means you can't equip a gun as your secondary, as shields take up the secondary slot.

One way to remedy this issue is to compromise: Keep one loadout with your preferred shield, then duplicate that one with your favorite SMG in the next slot over. Start out with your SMG-based loadout as you start playing a match, and if Spies become an issue switch to your shield loadout. Simple as that!

It's also a good idea to switch loadouts frequently if the enemy team is mostly comprised of offensive classes as well as Spies, and you should be backed up against a wall when you snipe to further protect yourself.

Lets say for the sake of this guide, that you've managed to unlock all the Sniper Milestone achievements in the game, whether it be through legitimate means or if you got them through trade/idle servers. This means you've got plenty of items to work with. In this section, we'll be taking a look at various Primary weapons and their pros and cons.

STOCK RIFLE (Reskinned as AWPer Hand)



This is the baseline that all other Rifles are compared to. It's a good all-around primary and if you've played sniper for any significant length of time you'll be familiar with it. It fires whether it's scoped in or not, headshots are instant Crits, and the shot can be charged for more damage.

MACHINA (reskinned as Shooting Star)



This is by far one of the better non-Stock rifles in the game, though it still has its drawbacks. Fully charged shots do 15% more damage, and can hit multiple players. Otherwise the damage it does is identical to Stock. However, it must be scoped in to fire at all, and will make a clicking sound if you try using it unscoped. Also, the Machina fires tracer rounds thatt give away the path the bullet went, thus giving away your position. For this reason, it's recommended you move to another spot after every shot.

SYDNEY SLEEPER



One of the more unique rifles in the game, though it doesn't get as much respect as it should. Shots charge up faster, and it covers any players hit with Jarate for between 2 and 8 seconds depending on the charge. The Sleeper also splashes jarate onto nearby enemies if you headshot them or hit them while fully charged. The drawbacks are that the Sleeper doesn't deal random Crits, and Headshots don't deal Crits either. For this reason, I'd recommend the Sleeper as a rifle for support-oriented players; those more concerned with helping the team than killing.

BAZAAR BARGAIN



This rifle can be amazing or awful depending on your skills on the scope. Its damage is the same as Stock, but its charge rate is initially decreased by 50%. However, every scoped headshot kill you get inscreases the charge speed by 25%, up to a 100% increase over the Stock's charge rate. This means that (according to the TF2 wiki) your charge rate can go from about 6 seconds to 1.8 with 6 headshots. However, being killed resets the charge rate to normal.

Fun Fact: The Bazaar Bargain was part of the TF2 beta, and was called Beta Sniper Rifle 1.

CLASSIC



This rifle is based on the sniper rifle from Team Fortress Classic aesthetically, and plays differently to the Stock in TF2. Shots are charged by holding down the fire button instead of being scoped in, meaing you can take down a Heavy easily with a headshot while unscoped. However, the weapon can't be fired in midair, and releasing the fire key in the air cancels the shot. There's also a 10% decrease in bodyshot damage and can't headshot unless it's fully charged.

HITMAN'S HEATMAKER



This rifle is the only one which adds a special function to the Sniper. Killing and getting assists with the Heatmaker fills up a "Focus" bar near your ammo counter. Once it's filled up, press your Reload button and your shots will charge 25% faster. You also don't unscope between shots while in Focus. As a downside, the Heatmaker does even worse on body shots with a 20% damage inscrease.

HUNTSMAN and FORTIFIED COMPOUND (statistically identical)








(from left to right: Huntsman, Fortified Compound)








These two are different in that they're bows, rather than rifles. This is notable because the ammunition is now arrows instead of bullets, which take time to reach their target. However, both charge faster than rifles and can be fired in midair. They're charged similarly to the Classic, by holding down Fire. Both bows also allow the Sniper to move quicker while charging a shot, moving at 45% his normal speed compared to 27% with any rifle. The slower nature of the arrows makes shots more avoidable once fired, meaning it's best to be sneaky with a bow; very fitting as the Compound was originally a promotional item for the recent reboot of the Thief franchise.

STOCK SMG



Like the stock Rifle, the stock SMG is the benchmark that the other secondary guns are compared to. It fired 10 bullets a second from a 25 bullet clip, meaning you can deal between 40 and 120 damage per second (or 90 to 300 damage per clip) taking damage falloff into account. The SMG is good for closer opponents that may be invading your sniping spot but aren't close enough that a melee weapon would be effective.

CLEANER'S CARBINE



This gun is useful in that dealing damage with it fills a charge meter (like the Heatmaker's Focus, except with damage instead of kills.) However, the clip size is reduced to 20, making it harder to fill the meter up in one go. the bullets also fire about 25% slower, and you don't get random Crits. The meter, which is called Crikey, activates guaranteed mini-crits for about 8 seconds with the Carbine, which can be useful in a sticky situation.

JARATE (reskinned as Self-Aware Beauty Mark with added visual effects)



This is probably the most well-known Sniper item in the game. It's a jar of piss that you throw at enemies to coat them. Hitting or shooting jarate'd players will instantly mini-crit, making it useful for taking out problem eneies faster. Jarate can also be used on teammates, but instead of coating them, it extinquishes them if they're on fire. Instead of having a set ammo supply like all of the primaries and gun secondaries for the Sniper, you get 1 Jarate to use at a time, which recharges after 20 seconds. jarate is also useful for making cloaked Spies visible.

RAZORBACK



The Razorback is the quintessential Sniper shield. For the cost of your Secondary slot, the Razorback will protect you from a single backstab attempt. You'll be warned by an electricity noise and the Spy won't be able to attack, cloak or switch to another weapon for 2 seconds, giving you time to counterattack. The Razorback will also unscope you if you're scoped in to give you more time to retaliate.

DARWIN'S DANGER SHIELD



The Danger Shield is very similar to the Razorback, but it's objectively even better. Along with the effects of the Razorback, the Danger Shield gives you 25 extra health, which is always a good thing seeing as the Sniper is tied with the Scout for least health out of every class. You also recieve 15% resistance to bullets, meaning you can survive uncharged Headshots and any bodyshot from other Snipers. However, this comes at the cost of 20% more vulnerability to explosives, so its not the best choice for going against Soldiers and the like. However, the extra health offsets this, meaning the Sniper has 126 effective health against explosive damage.

COZY CAMPER



The Camper is different from the other Shields in that it doesnt protect against Spies. However, it does offer regenerating health, up to 4 HP per second. Also, when scoped in and fully charged, the Camper will prevent flinching when taking damage, making aiming under fire easier if thats your thing. It's also quite charming, with the pot, jarate, and Koala plushie hanging on the back.

KUKRI (stock)



This is the default Melee weapon for the Sniper, and isn't really different from the defaults of every other class aside from looks.

BUSHWHACKA



The Whacka is good when paired withJjarate and the Sydney Sleeper, as it deals Crits when it normally would Mini-Crit. However, that comes at the cost of no random Crits, and 20% vulnerability from all damage when equipped, so be careful with it.

TRIBALMAN'S SHIV



This weapon is interesting, in that it was the first weapon in TF2 to implement bleeding. When you hit an enemy with the Shiv, the enemy bleeds for 6 seconds following the attack. However, the drawback is the Shiv deals about half the damage of the Kukri, making it better for hit-and-run attacks rather than sudden duels with nest invaders.

SHAHANSHAH



This weapon is best suited to players who always seem to be at low health. It deals 25% more damage than the stock Kukri, but on the downside it deals 25% less than stock if the player is at 50% or more health.

The Shahanshah was initially included in the TF2 beta, named the Beta Sniper Club 1.