Sniper Rifle

The Sniper Rifle is a Hardmode post-Plantera ranged weapon that fires a bullet with extremely high damage, though at a far slower rate of fire than most ranged weapons, and has a "zoom" feature. It cannot be auto-fired. The Sniper Rifle is uncommonly dropped by Skeleton Snipers in the Dungeon during Hardmode, only after Plantera has been defeated.

The Rifle's zoom capability is identical to the Rifle Scope and the Binoculars' abilities, whereby the screen scrolls temporarily in the direction of the mouse cursor while holding the right-click button, essentially extending your viewing range in one direction.

Its best possible Modifier is Ruthless.

Tips

 * Its high base damage makes ranged damage bonuses very potent. With the Unreal Modifier, Chlorophyte Helmet, and Sniper Scope, damage is raised to 181 per shot. Switched with the Shroomite armor and its 45% max stealth bonus, with its Shroomite Mask bullet damage bonus, the damage rises to 245.
 * Pair with Chlorophyte Bullets for a powerful homing killing machine. The homing effect compensates for the slow rate of fire by successfully killing even when you "miss", so you don't need to re-fire as much.
 * Pair with Golden Bullets for a money-making machine. The low bullet consumption and high coin return per kill makes this an efficient coin producer.
 * Although the Sniper Rifle pairs nicely with Exploding Bullets (killing multiple targets, compensating for the low fire rate) one must be very careful, as self-damage from the sniper explosive rounds are easily enough to 2 shot most players. Crystal Bullets will have similar benefits without the risk of self-damage.
 * Since enemies can only spawn while off-screen and within a certain range, using the Rifle's zoom ability continuously can cause far fewer enemies to spawn from that direction. This can hinder farming efforts, for instance if a player is farming enemies by standing where enemies can only come from a single direction: Zooming in that direction can cause spawn rates to drop drastically.

Trivia

 * Has the second-highest base damage of any weapon, next to the Bunny Cannon with Explosive Bunny.