I'm going to keep it real chief the analysis in this video is really bad. Lot's of things I could say about basically every point but the fact that a highlander player in big 2025 nonironically said "just don't peak the sniper and get your spy to stab him bro" is a little insane. This mentality is how ppl just autolose every koth map.

Also there's something really funny about trying to rebut the idea that sniper has no counters (outside of another sniper) by providing a counterexample that requires two players.

The point of that section is that the counter to sniper is teamwork and positioning. He can only look at one place at a time and so anyone from literally anywhere else can kill him easily. The same example would've worked with scout, soldier, demo, even heavy doesn't matter. The problem with all of those however, is that they can't steal his identity and his tax return... Making it far less profitable to do so.

Edit: I should add that the theme of teamwork is kept up throughout the video and is mentioned explicitly more than once. Every class in the game is weak to a 2v1.

i think people who make arguments like "other team can just run it" or "this is countered by teamwork and positioning" shouldn't be allowed to express opinions on this forum.

This conversation is getting a little sidetracked. Sure the analysis was clearly streamlined for entertainment value more than educational, but the thing we can all agree on is that I should be allowed to cheat and get away with it.

that already happens just cheat

While I appreciate that you recognize that 2v1ing any class is how you beat them, and I think most newer or low div players still need to learn that, I think not having experience playing against the best snipers in the game doesn't fully inform your view. Spring rolls is correct that the mentality of "just hide and let your spy stab him" is really fucking stupid because all it takes is 1 engineer that hits half their shots to stop the spy.

Teams at the highest level of competition (at least in HL) have great difficulty stopping a good sniper from taking over the game, or they simply can't because the other sniper is having a really good game and killing 4-5 players before anyone can close the distance even if they do everything right on paper. There's no other class that can do this, because there is no other class that benefits from being very far away from the enemy. If you had jay on soldier, and he doesnt miss a single rocket, he will eventually run out of health because he has to be close range to maximize his damage, and other classes will do more damage to him as he is closer. The best snipers usually take over the game, the best spies & engineers & heavies & pyros do not. That's a class issue, not a skill issue.

just 2v1 the guy hiding behind the whole enemy team. magically teleport near him with 2 players

I originally wrote a much longer essay but the TLDR is that I agree with you pajaro. Sniper is an incredibly dominant class and my experience in comp tf2 isn't at the highest level.

My main point however is that the reason sniper is so hard to kill us because he has a team protecting him at all times. He is clearly weak to stuff or else people wouldn't need to sit on him.

The point of a team game is to boost each others strengths while protecting each others weaknesses. Just because the 8 other people on his team have figured out how to make sniper less weak doesn't make the class itself overpowered in my opinion.

If teamwork is actively being used in the argument for him being too powerful, I don't get why it's ridiculous to say that teamwork can be used against him.

what if when u scoped in ur mouse burst into flames and the only way to make them die down and not burn you was to hit headshots

think u kinda missed what #7 was saying

Sniper stays the same amount of good no matter where on the map hes standing, where every other class in the game gets worse by standing further away from bad guys. That means that in 20xx, he just stands as far away as possible and wins every fight with every other class based on pure dps. The point isn't that there's also a team between the sniper and the guy he's shooting, it's that there's just a long distance. The argument is that sniper is OP because it's the only class that doesn't get worse by standing far away, and it's trivial to simply choose to stand far away.

btw i agree that sniper isn't OP enough in 2025 to warrant actual gameplay changes. it's close enough in 6s im surprised the euros haven't banned it yet, but i personally never really felt like there wasn't something me or my bros could've done better when we got shut down by a sniper. i think there is an argument that it makes 6s less fun enough to justify a rebalance or a ban, but that's a different conversation.

Ahh okay! I get it now. Thanks for clarifying!

i feel like everyone watches a different competitive tf2 than i do? every time a team runs sniper he gets like maybe one pick and then just dies. even when the sniper doesnt die its not even a full player advantage because having a sniper during a push kinda sucks. every once in a while a player like flippy during i55 goes crazy for a few games and makes everyone think sniper is good but it rarely works out to run a sniper. the only time sniper is good is when the other team runs a counter sniper because then they are also down a useful player. theoretically on a really poorly designed map a sniper could have a crazy sightline but on all maps in the 6s rotation for the past 10+ years sniper isnt better than a scout like ever besides the very rare lucky med pick.

Yea this is mostly my point, its the only class that gets an advantage from not closing the distance. Also @OP if the best teams have realized that playing entirely around your sniper is the optimal way to win, doesn't that tell you that that class is more important and better than all of the other ones?

This is a flawed argument. You don't sit on the sniper because the sniper "needs it", i.e. they would be useless or bad otherwise. You sit on the sniper because it is worth it; sniper is so good that it is entirely worth dedicating classes to just sit on them and afk to support. It's a very deliberate choice that people make; the value add of an engineer actually playing the game is seen as lower than just placing them in a no man's land like lakeside ruins or back of product cliff to lower the odds of the sniper getting stabbed.

Of course this alone is not evidence that sniper is broken (could be the case that engineer/pyro are just that bad, though I sort of doubt it), but the argument that people sitting on him = people need to sit on him is quite poor. Empirical evidence shows you what is perceived as being optimal, and optimal is not the same thing as necessary.

Not all teamwork is created equal, to just treat them as the same is at best seriously misinformed. It does not take that many brain cells to play pyro and just sit on your sniper; it is much more difficult to coordinate pressure on the sniper (especially if you currently don't have one) so you don't just die during a dry push.