I haven't used sniper rifles in a Call Of Duty game this much since Modern Warfare 2. Oh, Barrett 50 Cal, where is thou! Anyway, this isn't a meta based review, Xclusive Ace does great detailed analysis of the game's weapons, no this review is based on my experiences leveling all the sniper rifles up to their max level, which could be handy to mid tier players like myself. It was also a sort of self inflicted torture of highest magnitude, though I haven't tried leveling the combat knife yet so that could trump this! So, without further ado let's get into it.
SNIPING 101
So for some reason, the COD game that has small to medium sized maps with few long sight lines has four sniper rifles, three of which are bolt action with a one shot capability.
The Paladin is unlocked by default and is arguably the superior of them all.
Snipers are not aggressive, rush friendly weapons, it's all about locking down lanes and dominating a power position. Which is excruciatingly difficult when spawns are flipping or your team is completely unable to defend any flank.
Peekers advantage will be your best friend, ADS'ing as you strafe a corner for a quick shot takes practise but it's not that hard to learn and is essential for counter sniping.
Sniping is unforgiving, miss your shot and most players are going to liquidate you before you even re-chamber your next shot.
Learning to calm down when you're being rushed is a pivotal skill that will see you survive close encounters. Normally you want to back off and hard scope and wait for your enemy to run out into your crosshairs. The Koshka with Laser Sight 2 is the only sniper rifle that can reliably kill in close quarters using hip fire, and with that it's like a sort of shotgun really, you can even out-shotgun the mog with a laser sight 2 Koshka!
The one thing you have to remember when using the sniper rifles in multiplayer is that you are playing at a handicap. Every other gun is better than yours in the slew of maps we have, so accept that, take your deaths in your stride and enjoy no-scoping someone with a spitfire or saug as they rush you round a corner, cos' you know that guy is swearing at his screen right after.
Maps and modes I find help useful for snipers are; Kill confirmed for starters, you can camp tags and shoot collectors, which is fairly straightforward on most maps.
Domination is good on some maps, ones like Frequency where the B site has a lot of cover and alot of avenues to watch out for aren't so good. Domination and Jungle are sniper heaven though!
Control on several maps is good, notably Seaside. You can snipe into the church from atop the tank outside. Domination is better than Control, with no respawn limit people are far more reckless and you'll likely pick up kills faster.
Avoid hardpoint, there's far too much movement around the maps and spawn flipping, you'll most likely end up getting creamed.
Avoid hardcore, at all costs. One errant bullet will end you, you need that extra health to line up shots.
Safeguard is Russian roulette, if you're on the winning team it's like shooting fish in a barrel. If you're on the no thumbs team, you will be killed on your flanks so hard you'll want to give up. Most inconsistent mode I found for doing well in.
Hopefully those pointers will be of some use, below I give my review of each gun and the attachment setups I used to help secure those max levels. By the way, just maxing each gun out once required over a thousand kills with Sniper rifles, so yeah, it's gonna take you a while.
PALADIN
Slowest rate of fire in the category but biggest one shot kill potential thanks to generous multipliers with High Caliber 1, which you unlock first. Then it's just a grind until you unlock the stabiliser attachment, which more or less eradicates the horrendous idle sway. Those two attachments pretty much are all the Paladin needs. Sight loader is nice, helps maintain accuracy whilst locking down a position.
The sole negative is the slow fire rate, so you want to stay very close to cover so that you can back off and reload.
OUTLAW
When I started with this rifle, I thought to myself, "that's it, start with the crap one first". The Outlaw is a hit marker machine, high caliber is a waste of a pick 10 slot. You're better off monopolising on the weapon's strengths, equipping rapid fire, hybrid mags and a stabiliser. I tended to opt for the reflex sight and use the Outlaw for mid-range engagements. The poor one shot kill potential means at close quarters, you have to be very lucky to make that one shot kill.
This gun's supposed saving grace is it's operator mod that turns it into a three round burst gun, the damage drops off slightly and the spread is fairly wide, so you're losing your ability to one shot kill at range, it brings this gun in the close to medium range, which in my opinion is scary. Of course, if you're only looking to max out the gun, you'll never have a need of this mod. Oh, one last thing; equip scavenger, this mod makes this gun eat ammo.
SDM
My favourite sniper rifle, based purely on it's ability to be a consistent weapon that you can actually rush with! It has no one shot kill potential until you equip High Caliber, then any headshot will take out someone instantly. It also does well with stabiliser and grip 1 and 2. This will steady up this gun a great deal and you'll really be able to hold your ground in mid to close range combat, equip the dual scope and you'll be competent both a mid and far ranges.
Gung-ho works well with the SDM, especially if like me you find it hard to stay in one place for too long.
The only thing to remember, is whilst you're grinding for those early attachments it is a bit of a tough gun, especially with the default scope which is not helpful for lining up the second shot. As good as it is, it is sadly outgunned by any tactical rifle.
KOSHKA
This gun. This... Awful. Misguided. Stupid. Irritating. Gun. Let's take the Paladin, make you grind for High Caliber 1 and also make it less effective, not give it a stabiliser but increase the rate of fire by about a thousandth of a second and call it a fast handling sniper rifle!
This gun is near enough on par with the Outlaw for finding hitmarkers until you finally unlock High Caliber. The only other useful attachment, laser sight 2, you unlock late into the guns life. Laser sight 2 pretty much turns this into a really skittish shotgun, and allows you to at least have some decent kill potential at close range.
Quickdraw is slightly helpful but really this gun is just a struggle. It's outperformed by everything else. It's operator mod basically allows it to be the only quick scope-centric sniper rifle but the average player isn't going to take advantage of the strelock. I wouldn't waste the two pick ten points.
This is gun is the pits, it pushed my sanity and endurance to new levels. Flipping from this to the Paladin is like night and day, you don't appreciate stabiliser until you cannot have it.
There you have it, my review of the sniper rifles you can use in Black Ops 4 multiplayer. They're pretty out of place in the small frantic maps of Black Ops 4, there are places you can make them work but generally it's a battle of attrition mastering these guns. Incidently, it's probably the easiest class to get gold camos with because three of them require 100 one shot kills to progress into the final challenges, of which none are especially difficult, just time consuming. (no attachments, 100 kills? Yawn)
I wish anyone grinding the sniper rifles the best of luck and if you're thinking of grinding away at them, then I hope this review was somewhat helpful or at least validated your thoughts that yes, the Koshka is a big steaming heap of garbage.
EDIT: Just heard in the coming update they supposed to be tweaking snipers, the hate I will possess if it turns out to be some target assist while ADS'ing or something and I think I'm gonna cry.
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