XCOM 2 Tips: Sharpshooter / Sniper Build & Equipment Guide (How to Level Up & Equip Snipers)

I replay the game every couple of years and rewatch your videos at the same time.

Still very enjoyable & helpful.

Xcom fan since terror of the deep here! Great videos, subd ✌🏽

Tapcat, I’ve been sort of binging your videos and I absolutely love them for the XCOM2 series. Because of you I did end up buying XCOM1 as well. Would you ever consider going back and doing tutorials and tips and tricks for XCOM 1?

I like the “Furry” perk. No need to explain.

The superior auto-loader is basically the only alternative to the magazine if you can't get one, but if you can use covert missions to get your snipers aim to a decent height on its own, then I see no reason to not equip both the magazine and auto-loader on your sniper. I also just keep tracer rounds, for the extra boost (even though it's not necessary) just because. But more damaging ammo types are also great.
I also run flash bangs or mimic beacons until I get a grapple hook suit , since my snipers are typically further away from from the enemy, just in case I get into trouble. My sniper is typically the second to last soldier I use, with my last being the specialist, since both of them can typically turn even the worst of combat phases into more manageable situations. I also like to bond my snipers and specialists to keep them closer together to make them both even more effective.

I do prefer the sniper sharpshooter... I'm in late game now and my "Baroness" has a record of 18 missions and 66 kills thanks to Series and auto reload :o)

Dont forget superior stock. My sniper turned around the last mission in a single turn because of superior stock and serial. Finished off a lot of enemies including a few Codex clones with a chance to hit below 40% but had only 3 health or lower.

I never take deadeye. Lightning Hands, if used properly, can be combined with Death From Above for that little bit more damage output. It can also be the difference between making Serial last that little bit longer.

I don't use gunslingers ever. But Lightning Hands is just too good.

With the WOTC expansion my sharpshooters ALWAYs have the most kills in my lineup. In my most recent play through I had a long range sharpshooter with 265 kills. Granted that’s with chosen equipment, the archon armor, but if you can crank your aim stat to about 130, your sniper cannot miss especially when you add pcs superior perception, superior scope (which is on the darklance which is perfect), and tracer rounds (which I normally never use) you can have an ultimate killing machine. With the xcom optional abilities, I got really lucky with them as well with chainshot, guardian, implacable, and phantom

I personally don't like Long Watch because an enemy moving on the other side of the screen will trigger the sniper I had set up to OverWatch strike the people closest to him. Death for Above for sure.

Can aim go higher then 100

I feel like the superior Auto Loader is a good substitute, granted it only works the first three times you reload bur if you purposefully don't reload after each shot or what have you you essentially have a 12 round magazine from the start of the battle,
This of course changes depending on difficulty bur it's a good substitute for that until you get your hands on the magazine at least

I would strongly recommend an autoloader for the early game for a Sniper rifle, just in case you end up in a situation (and it can happen for sure) where you have been firing every turn without time for a reload, and having to forego a shot at a critical moment obviously blows.

Mid-late game yes absolutely throw on a superior mag. Also I prefer to stick with Tracer Rounds even at endgame just because I absolutely HATE missing, and going over 100 AIM stat isn't pointless (near as I can tell anyway) every single point helps.

Is a few extra points of damage worth it over a miss? No (especially during Serial). Similarly, while AP rounds can be very good, you should generally be using your Grenadiers or whomever else has shredding capabilities to soften any critical targets and Sectopods beforehand (and of course once that armor is off the AP rounds lose all value).

Oh and if you're running WotC, I believe the special rifle that one of the 3 singleberries drops if you kill him can actually fire on any action, not just the first so yeah lategame sharpshooters are hilariously broken. Saw a video of one guy getting 10 kills in a single turn....

I have the viper king suit on my sharpshooter, its work really well for setting up kills by pulling enemies out into the open an freezing them in place for 1 or 2 turn, depends on the type of enemy, plus the grapple too.

Thank you very much for this,

This was probably created before WOTC or was meant only for the vanilla game.
A sniper with the hunter's rifle and death from above might be the most powerful soldier in the game. Especially if he has the Archon King armor. This sniper can be placed up high on any visible part of the map and can get up to twelve death from above shots in one turn. It only costs one action and so works like having Serial on all the time.
For me, this sniper is like calling in the cavalry. Strategically weakening some of the stronger enemies first with other soldiers, as suggested in the video, and the game gets very easy, assuming the sniper has been buffed enough with PCS implants and aim+ covert ops missions. Add in rapid fire from the training center for the occasional Sectapod and it's a breeze.

2 Grenadiers are the perfect support for a long range sniper. Eliminate all but the toughest pods in a single turn, with actions remaining for the rest of the squad. Absolutely OP. One can fire 2 grenades per turn carry an extra grenade in the same slot, and has bigger blast radius, the other has shredder, hail of bullets (guaranteed hits), AP ammo, halo sight, and can also destroy cover and hit multiple targets with cone fire ability when out of grenades.

Even in the early game, I had my heavy gunner with halo sight shoot at the enemy that I would attempt a dead-eye on.

Get chosen rifle death from above can be used with rifle

For any of my long-range sniper builds I will pour all of the aim buffs I can into them from ammunition to Scopes and even PCS mods. I want every round fired from my long range sniper to be 100% and when I do pop deadeye I want to be sure that, whatever poor unfortunate xeno stupid enough to poke their head out is turned into just one more reason why the aliens should just pack it in.

Xcom 2: Deadeye small aim penalty

Me: Bruh

Have a gunslinger sniper use Quickdraw and Fan Fire with a high power pistol and blue screen rounds and it will finish off a Sectopod by its own (provided a few pips of armor have been taken away)

I've admittedly been putting Hair Triggers on my Snipers, it can be very nice when it works, but I admit its probably not got a lot of certainty to it.

Tom!!!!!!

Faceoff is usually more effective/useful than Kill Zone.

Getting Run and Gun through the AWC is busted, enjoy it if you luck into it

Realizing the grappling hook was a free action in this game (unlike EW, where it costed one) was such an awesome realization when I tried this thing out. It seriously helps reposition when most missions are time sensitive, and having a round where your sniper doesn't shoot can be fatal.

As an alternative view, autoloader and a scope, superior autoloader and serial will in theory get you more shots and an expanded magazine than a extended mag, to go through a serial chain, yeah you have a set number of free reloads but with only 3-4 pods on the most maps and it being only most useful when you trigger 2 or more you shouldn't need it more than twice in most situations

I like a Gunslinger with Plasma Pistol and Fan Fire to set up Serial for a dedicated sniper. On my last campaign, that was a deadly combination. If the sniper was out wounded, I had a Ranger with Reaper to follow up the Fan Fire. Not much use in retaliation attacks, but there is no one class fits all for those.

I think Lightning Hands is still the superior skill. That free pistol shot is pure profit.

Death from above + Darklance turns legendary into veteran.

I take snipers all day every day over gunslingers

Hello... newbie here, so, sorry for this question but what does he means by PCS boost and how do I manage it? Thanks...

Rangers lead the way. 6 Rangers with bladestorm and implacable are unstoppable.

Using serial, and bluescreen rounds, plus scope and an autoloader. I once took out 4 codexes, 1 full health androdemon shell and a heavy mec in one turn with my sniper. Ended the turn with a reload and Killzone setup. Where he took out 2 more mechs, and missed a 95% third shot hitting an explosive barrel killing the friggen vip. He was a full Sniper setup. Best, and most useless round ever.

For people playing with war of the chosen all i have to say is Death from above + Icarus armor + The sniper from the hunter is just to good and Serial is a good backup in case there is no highground available.

When you gain "Aim" as an ability at the second-to-top rank in the army, you know how screwed up the whole XCOM training regime is.

I find snipers really not that useful, even with darkclaw. All they can do is a lot of damage if the setup is right, which rangers can do better, and they already aren't worth it for a good part of the game. The only real use I've found for them is pistol skills + bluescreen rounds to melt mechanics. The squadsight still comes in handy, you just don't have to play around it

Today, when I was playing Xcom 2, I used the proving grounds to unlock two types of experimental armour, E.X.O. suit, and spider suit. I equipped my E.X.O. suit to my main specialist, and my spider suit to my sniper! That next mission I was able to use the spider suit and it DEFINITELY helped me massively. It is also incredible because, as soon as I have used the spider suit, I can sniper, giving me a greater aim bonus from the height, so that, plus a superior scope, is definitely really effective. Also, thanks for the videos. I love them and I'm currently trying to jam all of the incredible tips into my brain. I've also subscribed and liked all of your videos I've watched!

getting lightning hands and fan fire is super good on top of that. i killed a gatekeeper with fan fire and it was glorious

The only thing I do different is take a wraith suit instead of spider.

The extra dodge isn't needed if you are staying at a good distance.

The wraiths added travel bonus from phasing helps to reposition and cover ground while still having a grapple.

My goto class/build, from EU to EW and through to XCOM2, especially paired with a spotter / Phantom, or to paraphrase the succinct words of Drill Sergeant Zim....
"the enemy cannot push a button if you disable his hand"
into
"the enemy can't hit/hurt/kill you if you blow his head off without him even being able to see you"

With Armed to the Teeth you cam have best of both worlds.

Is this really Tom Hanks giving XCOM 2 guides?

Ok but I get so stressed when I need to evac and my sniper is the only one left and the enemy reinforcements just spawned in and he’s not to the evac point yet and everyone else is gone and at that point I want to turn off the game and cry

For snipers I always go for the superior auto reloaded becuase instead of having three extra and having normal reloads, its essentially like having 12 rounds since the reloads wknt cost any action and you can still fire

Hey TapCat, wondering if you could help me out with something regarding this build. Is there a reason why you choose the Spider Suit over the Wraith Suit? Both offer grapple hooks but the Wraith Suit offers better health, mobility and dodge.

Also, to anyone new to the game. I would highly suggest getting the Armed to the Teeth continent bonus allowing for 3 weapon mods on weapons. This makes for some pretty insane setups.

I also managed to bag Chain Shot on my Sniper 👌

I'd personally say that the Superior Auto Loader is just as good as the Expanded Magazine, though they each have different benefits and drawbacks. For Kill Zone, the Expanded Magazine is obviously far superior, however I tend to find that I will often use Kill Zone just once each mission, when setting up the initial ambush with a Proximity Mine combo, which makes the Expanded Magazine something of a waste, as you won't need more than 3 shots to deal with that first pack.

For that reason, I personally far prefer the Auto Loader as you can continue firing your rifle every turn without fail, pumping out higher sustained damage on longer battles. This becomes even more of a thing in WotC since the Reaper needs the Superior Expanded Magazine even more for their Banish with Superior Repeater combo, but then obviously this is just the baseline game stuff so that's fair enough. Still, even in the baseline game, I think valuing the Expanded Magazine as highly as you do isn't necessarily correct in all cases.

Thanks a lot.

I got so lucky and got a sniper with run and gun so if I ever needed to relocate or draw a sniper out of a bad situation but still wanted to hold a area it became very useful.

Second I actually prefer Dodge on a sniper because they are often on roof tops for most coverage and accuracy but they also have the least amount of cover if anything at all so keeping the chance of getting hit as low as possible is great. I also provide a spider suit. The extra mobility without wasting a opportunity to use the rifle is great. I've used it to move from one building to another for a better kill zone which allowed me to fire at two pods.