What is the point of snipers now that moonfire bow and javelins exist?

I just had a cataclysm game as a Huntsman with the longbow, and a Shade with javelins was on the team. I felt so damn pointless. Sure, I was still getting some kills, but what even is the point of picking a sniper class when the elf’s melee careers are just as good at sniping. Javelins deal about the same damage as the bow’s max charged shot, they’re faster to throw, they have more than twice the cleave, and they have infinite ammo. What on earth were they thinking?

This problem already existed with throwing axes, of course. However, the only melee career with access to them is Slayer, and he has to give up a melee weapon to use them (and they’re worse than the javelins anyway). Kerillian already had some of the strongest melee careers in the game (more so now with SotT), which only got better with moonfire and javelins, to the point where they are as effective at sniping specials and elites as dedicated sniper careers.

These 2 new weapons have made a lot of cata games much less fun this last month. I really hope Fatshark reconsiders their place. Shade should not be as good as Huntsman at sniping.

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It’s even worse for melee classes that have no ranged attack or only use ranged weapons to snipe specials. Watching the elf murder everything before you can get off a single melee attack is not what I would call fun.

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Absolutely this. Spending time running towards something that dies before you get there, retarget, dies before you get there, and so on. Elf should be shoved into the Lava on Cinder Peak.

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Indeed. But that happened already before moonfire and javelins (with sniper classes), so I decided to focus on these two additions instead.

I don’t mind the javelin damage but they should probably have more of an arc like the throwing axes. It’s too easy to use them to snipe things at practically any distance and that results in them being an omni-weapon that can snipe and cleave and even melee.

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Might it be that the Huntsman isn’t one of the best classes aswell.