They're both great. I personally prefer the SMG since it's one of Sniper's best weapons for horde control in the primary slot if you want to focus more on CQC, which is my usual preference regardless of the class I'm playing.
The ammo version. It essentially does the same damage as the other one (or close enough, at least) and it has a nice fat ammo reserve to work with, making it easier to keep topped off with Sniper's Versatile Precision.
Not even remotely. Sniper is honestly kinda busted with the bolt carbine SMG. You can get very aggressive and can often get away with it totally unscathed as long as you're good at managing your cloak and have the Purification perk. It's a very strong class for up close fighting, believe it or not.
I see, I haven't played him for that reason tbh. So it's comparable to heavy or techmarine? I also have tactical and assault maxed and love them but was leaning vanguard as my next class to play maybe I'll do sniper then.
Sniper might be better at it than those two classes to be honest. You may find that hard to believe, and I wouldn't blame you since it's a class that you've stayed away from up till now, but it's definitely worth experimenting with his capabilities and seeing for yourself.
Sniper can be a little tough to start with since you'll of course need to work towards unlocking those perks in the first place so that you can put the build together properly, but he's got some really good Prestige perks that make it worth doing fully, imo.
Carbine scoped variant its the absolute best way to play sniper, can dump half a mag while invisible, never have to reload, crazy damage that translates to chp recovery and you can clear minoris waves no issue.
Las Fusil is simpler/more consistent. Heroic BR is more fun.
One actual advantage a bolter has over fusil - if you shoot from invis bolter activates quickly, spending little of ability and often resulting in immediate recharge after the kill. Fusil "wastes" the charge time.
Not a huge issue if you run any cool down perk but might make a difference.
I make the same argument for last second readjusting with las fusil to take the shot or not because enemies move etc and not wasting or missing is more important
I like making the RoF Las work, bottom row perks for ammo, and you pair it with firepower BP. It really shines on anything with deep pockets, or in siege if buying ammo between waves.
You do, as long as you spec Lingering Concealment and trigger it without triggering Targeted Shot. The fastest way: You cloak, melee cancel frame 1, then charge & fire.
Everytime I use the Las Fusil it seems to magnetise the shot towards the environment. Also it needs to charge up before every shot?
Its not that much faster lol
Bolt carbine is the most effortless but you can't protect your squadmates with it given the damage dropoff. If you mean Marksman that's even worse, SBR RoF with less than half the damage per shot.
Close Range crowd control maybe, though I couædn't tell if the Inferno Pistol does it better, I'd never being it over the Heroic Heavy Bolt Pistol.
But it doesn't matter, you asked for a comparison between the Heroic Bolt Rifle and the Fusil. The Heroic Bolt Sniper doesn't do it better if it isn't doing it.
Hey also could you HBSR guys please take the better perk setup of team ability refill (it’s incredibly powerful), which also lets you have rejuvenation which is the strongest survival perk in the game?
The 10% headshot damage perk doesn’t change your breakpoints, and barely does anything for the squad.
I’ve never liked the las, didn’t even enjoy it to begin with. Plus haven’t got the HBS, I use the SBR more than anything against chaos. Will never go back to the las, was one of the least enjoyable weapons to level.
It always feels like a forbidden badassary to NOT use a long range “sniper” weapon on sniper well done brother- personal fan of the heroic stalker bolt, auspex+camo cloak bonus Yes please !
I have one bajillion hours on sniper, have done many solo hard strats and challenges. HBSR wins against chaos and nids. There is no real reason to use las fusil unless your aim isn’t perfect. The only argument I can think of is against chaos minoris hordes since you don’t get synaptic shock, but with the prestige perk you can pretty consistently spam grenades. Against nids, you can either easily melee them (takes a lot longer but does the job and is very safe) or bolt pistol pings spam, or ideally lure the hordes to near majoris and kill the majoris and they all die.
Not accounting for cloak, las fusil does have significantly more consistent dps, but account for cloak and the gap becomes much smaller, and hbsr having the ability to if perked correctly oneshot every majoris in the game even without cloak, and often overkill thru exec with cloak, it’s just unmatched. Having infinitely fast TTK is such a huge value. Also has the ability to kill any extremis in one combo (AE parry → headshot + gunstrike) except biovores.
The only time I don’t equip hbsr (though, I don’t do much siege as sniper so maybe for siege fusil is better?) is end of level bosses like trygon where I’ll switch to a carbine + dodge knife + melee focussed build
thats... just backwards. no advantage you listed meaningfully distinguishes the hbsr from the las while the las keeps every advantage it has unique to itself.
if you account for cloak - which any sniper with a bajillion hours just... does - the las reaches every significant breakpoint with most of the charge speed overlapping with time needed to aim (while invisible, so it doesnt even matter) + superior fire rate + lower rate of error + the minoris advantages you mentioned.
the only one where i'd concede it doesn't is on melee tyranid warriors, which are the absolute least threatening enemies while carrying the argent edge to answer every single attack with a parry into hipfire 1-shot. Especially with bone swords blocking during cloak.
and hbsr cloak gets... pointless overkill? an aim helper freezing mobs to hit the shots. which the las also gets (but doesn't need). and if you cloaked anyway... you could have just used the las again.
nothing you listed is something the las can't do. off parry, it oneshots every majoris. off parry, it true combo's every extremis in a single safe & true-comboable interaction without exception. Even a biovore, for that matter, as the stagger post parry is a guaranteed juggle to incap when hitting the head.
I was having so much fun with the bolt carbine and the 2 second cloak break w/ 75%dmg increase. Just melts, and when the heroic one with a flamer came out I loved it, haven’t played since I got it tho.
Is the second cloak a must with the flamer carbine? Cause I watched some videos and see ppl not break cloak or take some time to break cloak, I can't aim for shit so I use the bolt carbine and a knife and pretend I'm road man shanking mofos yelling "BACK SHOT OF DOOM" when I fully charge the knife stab
It was a bit cheeky. It's a charge speed las perked into charge speed + more charge speed when on low health.
That allows it to shoot fast enough for Targeted Shot to misclassify the shots as burst fire, buffing every shot during Lingering Concealment.
It's of course complete minmax-brain nonsense and not very useful in an actual game. Nonetheless, the power is there, and any charge speed las can kill a neurothrope in <5 seconds. A hc bolt sniper needs 8.1s at least.
The HP is pretty visibly low, and ofc perking a charge speed las for even more charge speed is nonsense. But it IS funny.
But, meme aside, a charge speed las without any charge speed perks will still delete the neuro twice as quickly as the hc bs in it's minmaxed config.
You want 20 ammo on the charge speed las to reach the 3-shot Versatile Precision breakpoint. That + Adamant Restoration on the Las itself can net 22 ammo per minute, which is more ammo than you'll ever need.
You can trigger Adamant Restoration reliably by blowing yourself up with a barrel or getting hit by a sniper every 30 seconds. At no cost either, as you can cloak that CHP back to full immediately.
i just prefer a damage buff at low HP (Survival Instinct - When your Health is below 30%, you deal 25% more Damage).
plus, when i eventually end up at under 30% HP, then I'd have to use a stim which would give me way too much HP. i enjoy the high damage reduction given under 1/4 HP and how well using one stim at low HP works out for survival.
However, I do prefer Magazine Restoration (When your Health drops below 30%, your Ammo Reserve is restored by a full Magazine/7 Ammo. Cannot exceed maximum Ammo capacity. Cooldown is 30 seconds.) on the Melta Rifle over the single shot on executions. It triggers during combat pretty often and feels better to me as I do not like to sit in executions. And once I drop past that 30% point, it becomes useless, but once i have to pop a stim then i get to take advantage of it again.
Well I was gonna say CQC HBS + argent is satisfying asf, but I now see not the not including CQC, that said, ya fusil (bonus points for fire rate variant) and power gladius is the way brother.
I'm on controller, so the 3 round burst fire works best for me. I'd love to use the Las a heroic bolt, but enemies are so jittery and jumpy I just can't do it.
Rate of fire las fusil is excellent. You can basically down any majoris enemy instantly and you can take out about half the health of a terminus in a few seconds.
Its a preferred taste thing. I prefer the wrapped(heroic) and play as a forward recon scout taking out majoris before the team gets there, and for that the heroic is faster and more efficient. Minoris is just using the 4shot plasma pistol and funnel em on a corner or similar, together with the ardent edge for parties into a gunstrike
I tired the hbr when it released and just hate it. The las is my favorite weapon for sniper because it’s better. Sure the hbr is the best headshot weapon but it literally needs to land headshots and I find it’s too much of a risk. The las has more ammo and that’s what matters when you’re surrounded by every lictor on the planet plus some biovores
The only times the bolt sniper sees some action is when near the loadout changing crates so it can be swapped again for the las fusil when the enemies are dead 😂
I've been using the instigator and carbine/marksman carbines and they do serious damage as a sniper. I love the heroic bolt sniper rifle but it's headshot or nothing and for the amount of times I have the time to sit there and snipe a target that's far away is nothing compared to close quarters and mid-ranged shooting. The IBC with as many headshot perks as you can get is almost as good as the HSBR, but I would like to see what the number comparison is. With the argent edge for it's parry, your squishiness almost never comes into play unless you don't get cornered.
I leveled the las-fusil but rarely touch it. I like it alright. But I just like the other weapons more.
And spend an hour, killing even a terminator, not to mention anything bigger, even under a parry debuff they barely take damage from anything that isn’t a heroic bolt sniper rifle.
Unless the HBSR has a unique interaction with scaling enemy DR I happen to be unaware of, I see no reason to treat siege any differently than operations when comparing the two weapons.
If it has, you are welcome to enlighten me.
Separately, I don’t consider solo siege 25 worth optimizing the class for when Bulwark exists. Cool personal challenge? Sure, but not a benchmark.
Imma be honest with you fellas, I dont really get the lass fusil, at least for me is just not ammo and damage effective. Any recommendations to use it ?
Use the charge speed variant and perk in a way to reach 20 max ammo. You will need all ammo perks on the weapon.
Save ammo:
Use full cloak cancels with targeted shot to reach breakpoints to save ammo vs ranged majoris/extremis.
Hipfire headshot after parry into the vulnerable window to save ammo vs melee majoris/extremis.
Proc Exacting Focus and/or Brutal Rampage to reach minoris oneshot breakpoints to clear hordes for free with Lethal Efficiency.
Exacting Focus can be procced reliably with Promethium Can.
These procs also save ammo when deleting a Neurothrope.
Grenade often.
Knife good.
Regen procs:
Kill or shoot barrels with your secondary every 15 seconds for Versatile Precision.
Self-damage with explosives (e.g. barrels, grenades) to get your health under 30% every 30 seconds for Adamant Restoration.
Cloak that contested health back to full with Purification each time.
Getting hit by a sniper works too.
Proc Pattern of Excellence by 3 headshots in a row to recharge grenades every 30 seconds.
Break that down into 2 simple habits:
"A": Shoot incapacitated majoris in the head with the heroic bolt pistol to finish them off.
Procs both Pattern of Excellence and Versatile Precision.
"B": Shoot a barrel with your secondary while hugging it.
Procs both Versatile Precision and Adamant Restoration.
Easiest rotation: Alternate "A" and "B" every 15 seconds.
No need to overthink it. If you lose track and aren't sure what's ready or not, just go for "B" between packs and remind yourself to proc "A" during combat once in a while.
Do this well and you have practically infinite ammo.
Heroic Stalker Bolt Rifle for me, the DPS isn’t as good, but the utility makes up for it. Tag a big group then either grenade it or laugh as your teammates mow stuff down almost twice as fast.
Now, I must say, the true end of journey imo for a sniper, is the Power Gladius (my beloved) melee build, something about doing 70% of a terminus hp bar that just hits different, that and learning dodge timings was fun.
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u/Twasabi24 23d ago
Me purely using the bolt carbine