Space Marine 2 // 7 Days of Solo - 3. Sniper - Bolt Sniper Rifle - Lethal Difficulty, No Downs

Here we are at day 3 of my 7 Days of Solo series - every day this week I'm showcasing a different class on a different mission, all solo, all Lethal.

And boy this one was a toughie. At one point in the patch history the final part of this mission was surprisingly tame, practically a ghost town as you waltzed up to each altar with barely any resistance. Not so this time - there are some pretty nasty spawns as you approach the final altars now, and the daemon's attack rate is very oppressive, exacerbated by the fact that cloaking doesn't lose its aggro and the AI teammates can't capture the point for you while you take cover.

Good thing the Sniper is a Majoris-killing extraordinaire then - there's no better class for taking out one Rubric after another in quick succession, racking up some truly obscene ranged damage over the course of the mission. The Cloak is incredible, letting you stand in the open to line up the shot while completely safe, giving you a massive damage buff for each shot from cloak, each headshot kill fueling yet more charge to stay cloaked.

The Bolt Sniper Rifle continues to be overlooked in favour of the Las Fusil, but is still a top 2 Majoris killer with slightly better ammo sustain, and easily stunlocking any Majoris with each headshot to line up the kill. And while the Sniper isn't the fastest horde clearer with the Bolt Pistol, he's arguably the safest, being able to stay in perma cloak just by spamming headshots on Minoris crowds.

Not the flashiest class - but definitely one of the most powerful, rewarding a cool head and consistent aim.

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Build:

A couple of changes to my usual Bolt Sniper build as I keep refining it, but the core perks are the same. SQUAD RENEWAL and RENEWAL are the cornerstone of the build, giving me unparallelled Cloak Charge generation with each headshot kill - while I used to take Efficient Readiness, it interrupts the hit count on the RELOADED RESTORATION weapon perk, which is crucial to our ammo generation especially in solo.

We'll be using that cloak to buff our shots from cloak with TARGETED SHOT, which is what lets us put Majoris into execute in just 2-3 shots. VANTAGE POINT and IRON GRIP can help us with those headshots. Meanwhile, LINGERING CONCEALMENT means those follow-up shots are still done from the safety of Cloak, and is key to how we can preserve Cloak charge - just tapping Cloak on and off is enough to switch aggro away from you, while you can farm more charge off some Minoris headshots.

With so much Cloak charge generation, I've dropped the free Cloak on perfect dodge and instead taken PATTERN OF EXCELLENCE - this is amazing for getting back charges of high value nades like the Melta Bomb or Krak nades, which are perfect for taking out the tankier Extremis.

This brings me to an important point for Snipers running into ammo issues - I don't use the Sniper rifles on every Extremis+. Anything that's easy to keep headshotting like the Zoanthropes and Neurothropes are perfect targets for you, but fast-movers like Lictors and Raveners or even small heads like the Helbrutes are better dealt with either with Kraks / Meltas, or with your combat knife. After a parry and gunstrike, their heads can sit up nicely for a headshot, but otherwise they're moving too fast that you'll be wasting a lot of shots on bodyshots and misses. Stick to the knife and pistol - that's why we're bringing MELEE MASTERY for a little buff to our knife damage.

For our weapons, availability is the best ability which is why we're going with the ammo variant of the Bolt Sniper - perks are built towards headshot damage and ammo, with RELOADED RESTORATION the key perk here - this trumps the Las Fusil's ammo generation perk as it procs off hits, not kills, counts single hits and not just multi-kills, and can technically refund more than 1 bullet per shot if you penetrate enough targets. Just make sure you don't swap off your weapon before you reload, or it will break the count.

Bolt Pistol is built for accuracy, as all I need it to do is pop Minoris heads - meanwhile the Fencing knife is what I'm taking for its easy parry, though there's an argument for the Balance knife for better DPS vs those targets that are too tricky for headshots.

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Chapters:

00:00 Intro
00:35 Locate the Source of the Jamming
05:25 Find a Way to Take Down the Warp Shielding
10:20 Capture and Destroy the Chaos Altar
25:20 Navigate the Lower Levels of the Cathedral
33:05 Capture and Destroy the Chaos Altars
45:05 Mission Stats
45:20 Build