More a question for Badger and Original, but what sniper do you use? I'm using the Barrett, but only because that was the first sniper I had available and have never moved away from it.
The Barrett is by far the best rifle in my book. With the bolt actions I always find that when I'm trying to snipe someone from distance, if the first shot doesn't take his eye out then he'll move pretty sharpish. Also the Barrett gives you a midge's testicle of a chance in close combat where it's a semi-auto.
The thermal sight/scope is just as cheap.
I'm fine with folks using whatever they want in the normal TD mode, but in the hardcore modes the heartbeat sensor tells you where people are. With the thermal scope you have to have a bit of nouse about you to stand a chance of taking people down. The amount of times people have just wandered round corners all guns blazing or have sussed me out (without me having fired a shot) gets a bit tiresome after a while. I had a HTD game yesterday where every single killcam of mine involved some bugger with a heartbeat sensor.
Also, it bears mentioning that scrambler is possibly the worst perk I can think of - it gives your position away. The amount of
snipers I've seen using it is ridiculous.
My next goal is to get a nuke, not sure what killstreaks would be best though (perhaps nuke?)