The time has finally come to take a Sniper Zero all the way to OP 8. I’ve only played Melee Zero so far, and enjoyed it. Since i use snipers a lot on other chars, it’s just silly to ignore the char that’s actually designed for it. I’ve played the game for over 3,5 years, so naturally I’m familiar with most of the stuff. However… Leveling up a sniper Zero from the beginning is something I’ve never done, and it leaves me with a few questions. I’ve tried to access the links in the Zero community guide, but none of the links seem to work. I’ve tried going through the old forums, but no luck there either. Some useful stuff, ofc, but not what I was actually searching for.
These are my questions:
Which order should I spec the skills? This is how I planned to go: Level 16, Level 26, Level 41, Level 50, Level 61, Level 72. Some feedback from experienced snipers would be much appreciated.
Which COM’s to use? Should I try to get a Sniper COM right from the start? The guide doesn’t really single out any of them, apart from Leg. Ninja and Leg. Killer. Choosing the right COM has always been my biggest issue with Zero.
Healing. With the spec order I have planned, I won’t get any healing from skills until late TVHM, but it’s still needed from time to time. I wasn’t planning on using Moxxi guns, except from Chere Ami, so that leaves transfusion grenades and health vials. What are your thought on this?
Excelent choice to take on the best sniper in the game. From the looks of your skill builds you seem to be going for an all sniper setup. So for the questions:
1: I went through your skill builds and they weren’t bad at all. My advice would be to get Kunai + Death Mark first and after that CA. At level 50 and going in to UVHM, Kunai are a huge boost to your damage and easier to manage than CA. Only at higher levels will CA come into play.
2: Com wise there is some variety to them, especially during your leveling up: you should try and get a com that makes sense in your build and that boosts some of your best skills. More at end game a Sniper Com (Legendary or not) and Legendary Hunter com are solid choices.
3: Transfusion grenades, especially slag, is a great way to slag and heal from your opponents. If you want to use just snipers then that is the choice to make. It’s perfectly possible to go through the entire game with only snipers and just transfusion grenades as your choice of healing. If you find that insufficient then try out a Legendary Hunter com (it heals 10% of your life for each Decepti0n you use).
I’m not the greatest Zero player but it looks pretty solid to me (although I would probably take a couple points out of Precision and move them to Velocity for your slower projectile weapons. A L. Sniper com really reduces your shield capacity so use it wisely- a L. Hunter or L. Killer might be better for general game play unless you want to go with a high capacity shield or maybe an Evolution/Neogenator…? Several pistol coms for Zero have health regen IIRC- you could try to use those in a pinch if needed. Just a question but what will be your support weapons, or is this a straight sniper rifle only build?
The general idea is to use snipers exclusively. Not sure how I’m going to be able to do it, but… Trial and error, I guess. Before i reach UVHM I’ll have to go with what I find, so there will probably be other guns in my inventory at one point or another. I thought I’d keep a nice shotgun handy for close encounters, but I will use snipers as much as possible. I expect some enemies will be tricky to kill with a sniper, but since I’m starting from scratch, I’ll have plenty of time to get into the right rhythm.
@DarthSpiderDen: Thanks for the feedback. It’s nice to know that I’m on the right track. I thought about whether I shouldd go with CA or Kunai first. I’m gonna take your advice, and go with Kunai.
Righty-O, then! On with the show! Updates on my progress can be expected.
I did the same thing you are doing now back before OP levels (level cap at 61), and took 4 snipers all the way to UVHM as soon as I found 4 of them in total. OP levels I won’t say but going to 72 is completely fine with snipers picked up from the ground. OP levels I would recommend heavy Pimpernel usage.
The best one available to you. The guide does not single out any because many of them are good. You shouldn’t need to get specific about gear until you start the OP climb.
Transfusion grenades. Chere ami is not worth a weapon slot, it’s ass for damage. If you use it as your damage dealer it will heal you for a bunch of damage you would not take if you killed things faster with a real gun. To switch from your damage dealer, heal, then back severely cuts your DPS, it’s much faster and safer to just throw a grenade. The game will increase health vial drops if you are low on health, but if you have transfusion grenades you should not need them.
Additionally:
It’s good to keep a shotgun around, not every enemy is a prime sniper target, and jakobs shotguns work great with the lower left side of the sniper tree.
A maliwan gripped slag snider have a 79.1% x2 chance to slag and is thus IMO one of the best slaggers in the game if you don’t have a slag pimp. Slag chance does not scale with rarity or level, so there’s a very good chance you’ll find a keeper if you look out for them.
I assume you know about weighted ammo drops and how to open ammo boxes?
Even with weighted ammo drops, I feel like having your utility weapon as the same class as your primary weapon is a mistake. I’m also a proponent of the more spray and pray type slag weapons, but thats just me.
Of course! But this is me challenging myself to see if I can do it using snipers more or less exclusively. I’ve seen clips from the Pro-snipers here, so i know it can be done. But it’s not easy…
Most of the spray & pray weps don’t have the same chance to slag as snipers, so you might end up getting low on ammo on those too.
I probably should have qualifed my earlier statement with the cavet that I don’t really know sniper Zero at all. It was mostly based on my experience with everyone else.
There are two characters that can pull this off (full playthrough all modes) with 4 snipers: Zer0 and Maya. Snipers for them are weapons of mass destruction, that’s why you hardly see any of them using rocket launchers.
So I’m currently at level 47, just about to go to Opportunity. I’ve been pretty lucky when it comes to finding good snipers. But I’ve had a hard time keeping my health up a lot of the time. Some shields have been pretty crappy, but I can’t blame it all on that. My theory is that I make for a better target because I have to aim more carefully. Not really sure how to compensate for that. I haven’t found any absorb shields worth keeping, but that might improve the situation. What are your thoughts on relics? So far, I’ve been using a cooldown relic.
Cooldown is always a good option. This isn’t a game that primes on long-range sniping, you have to get used to finding good cover with good acess to your targets and bouncing about the battlefield, putting out deception and killing targets on first or second shot (or first burst for Dahl snipers). It really isn’t about standing long range and killing them one by one, you have to think like you’re mobile artillery: move fast, hit hard. So a cooldown relic is your best option to give you more Decepti0n time. Are you at Kunai yet?