If you haven’t seen part one about ranging your rifle and attachments in Breakpoint, give it a look first!
Ghost Recon Breakpoint has a plethora of sniper rifles and DMRs to enjoy, but which is the best? The answer isn’t quite that simple; it all depends on the role you want to fill in the game as a marksman; there’s really not a lot of true “sniper” gameplay, as we’ve discussed before, but it’s the best we’re going to get (keep an eye out for a later guide on getting the most realistic sniper experience in Breakpoint). With that said, let’s take a look at the breakdown of sniper rifles!
Breakpoint Sniper Rifle Damage & Bullet Drop Comparison
As was noted in the previous guide, nearly all the stats lie, and damage is the big offender here. The image below showcases every sniper rifle in game as of writing this.
As the image notes, all rifles were shot at 500m for the bullet drop tests, and damage was tested with suppressors on against a Landscape Mk. II vehicle (except for the Zastava, which can’t equip a suppressor, but we’ll get to that later), and the Rolling Thunder skill was equipped. Each rifle had every attachment that boosted range, and the bullet drop was tested using the Ballistic Advantage skill.
The TAC 50, HTI and M82 are the top performers in damage and range together. That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily the best; just that they do the most damage. When you’re up against squishy targets, you’ll find just about every one kills in one shot. Wolves may take a second shot if you’re going for the body, and the heavies can’t be taken with 1 shot unless you’re using the sharpshooter’s special ability, Armor Buster.
The Zastava is a bit different; this rifle claims to basically ignore armor, but that’s not really true. While it may look like it does more damage, it actually does the same damage as the HTI and M82 without a suppressor, so there really is no good reason to use it. Even testing it against targets showed no apparent difference, taking targets down with the same number of shots.
Note that I didn’t include any of the unique micro transaction variants of various sniper rifles, as testing has shown that they perform the same as their non-MTX counterparts.
Breakpoint DMR Damage & Bullet Drop Comparison
DMRs get a similar treatment to sniper rifles, and were tested using the same methodology, just at a slightly closer range. Note that Rolling Thunder doesn’t affect DMRs; that’ll be important when we get to the breakdown of one particular DMR..
DMRs are all over the place regarding damage and bullet drop, quite literally. It should be noted, in case you weren’t aware, that rifles with the word “Scout” in the name are actually DMR conversion rifles; they just took an AR and made it equippable as a DMR, which means they have AR-levels of damage.
Have you noted the one standout in the crowd yet?
The Scorpio Scout has the same damage as the Scorpio sniper rifle, and that’s factoring in Rolling Thunder! That means that technically it does MORE damage than the actual sniper rifle. The Scorpio Scout also has a fast rate of fire, making it even more powerful. The only downside to the Scorpio Scout is there is an odd bug occasionally where shots will just go all over the place, but with any luck that will be fixed in a future patch.
There are a number of stinkers in the chart, too; The DMR conversion rifles are pretty iffy (although the range on the MK17 Scout is pretty good), having so little damage and typically pretty poor bullet drop, but there are people who like them, so who am I to judge? The FRF and Scorpio Scout Quiet are both pretty sad rifles despite having a decent amount of damage for a DMR; Neither compare to the Scorpio Scout, and their rate of fire puts them more in-line with sniper rifles than DMRs. There really is no advantage to taking them over literally any sniper rifle in the game, because they utilize the same .338 rounds.
A personal favorite is the G28; I like taking it as a backup rifle, loading it with a Dual Range optic and treating it more as a battle rifle rather than a DMR. The MK14 also works well in this role. Since both utilize 7.62 rounds, you won’t be sharing the same ammo pool as your dedicated sniper rifle.
What is the best sniper rifle or DMR in Breakpoint?
In case you can’t tell already, there is no single “best”. The top performers in regards to range, damage and rate of fire based on testing tend to be the TAC 50, the Scorpio Scout, and the G28 or MK14. Still, I did put together a top 3 sniper rifles video if you’d like to see what I’d suggest.
My personal choice tends to be the Recon A1; while it’s among the lowest damage of sniper rifles, it’s bullet drop pattern is great with the TARS101 optic when you don’t have range boosting attachments or Ballistic Advantage, but we’ll talk more about that another time.
Part 3 is now available, which covers class & skill choices in Breakpoint for snipers.