The Sharpshooter is one of the strongest perks in Killing Floor 3. They excel in dismantling all the large Zeds and bosses with ease.
With the right build and support, they become the best single-target nuker in the game. Here’s a strong Sharpshooter build, complete with the playstyle, strategy, skill trees, and weapon build in Killing Floor 3.
Best Sharpshooter Skill Build in Killing Floor 3
Passive Skills
Sniper– Sniper gives you amazing buffs while crouching. While it provides you with buffs like better recoil, weapon spread, spread decay, and recoil recovery rate, you are mostly in it for the increased 10% weapon damage that doesn’t scale when upgraded.
Most of the time, you’ll be moving around, but the most crucial part of the waves is when Fleshpounds and Scrakes get mixed with tons of other Zeds.
Easy Prey– Easy Prey is an easy choice for more damage, but you’ll rely on a good weapon to inflict afflictions to get the bonus weapon damage. You can also benefit from other classes, like a Firebug that always inflicts burns on the enemies.
Hardshell– Hardshell prevents the next instance of melee damage with a cooldown. While the cooldown is a bit long, it still adds up throughout the round. In fact, it is amazing against bosses like the Chimera fight in the Office. Usually, bosses hit for a lot of damage, and Hardshell helps mitigate that in situations like this.
Flight Response– Flight Response increases your movement speed when taking damage, which basically screams a hit-and-run playstyle for your Sharpshooter. Once you get hit, you’ll reposition and try to do as much damage as possible while you are free.
Big Game Hunter– Big Game Hunter increases your Ballistic and Cold weapon damage even more to large enemies and bosses. When you participate in eliminating any large enemy, you’ll gain stacks of “Big Game Hunter,” giving you an increased 1.5% damage against large enemies and bosses per stack. We’ll go over this buff as well in the weapon section.
Related:Best Ninja Skills and Loadout in Killing Floor 3 – Hack and Slash Build
Throwable Skills
Chilling Effect– Enemies get frozen for longer using the Cryo-Grenade. Great utility for larger Zeds. Use them immediately against Fleshpounds when things get chaotic in the wave.
Black Ice– Black Ice adds multiple “Black Ice” effects on the ground, applying Cold damage and inflicting Enfeeble affliction over time. The skill simply builds upon the Sharpshooter’s impressive crowd-control utilities for the team.
Frostbite– Frostbite inflicts vulnerability to Ballistic, Force, and Cold damage on enemies, increasing your damage even more, combined with a good weapon, Big Game Hunter, and all the other skills, giving you more damage against large enemies.
Gadget Skills
Buzz Bomb– Your arrow deals more damage, but more importantly, inflicts knockdown affliction that causes enemies to fall. Another great crowd-control skill to help the team.
Sting Operation– More damage on your weapon while your arrow is in-flight. It isn’t your arrow that’s getting more damage here; It is your weapon shot, so ensure to have a full magazine before using your gadget.
Giant Slayer– Giant Slayer gives you more damage against large enemies, which is one of the best skills for the Sharpshooter. Fleshpound, Scrakes, and bosses should melt even faster when this is maxed out.
Target Run– Target Run increases the max number of targets hit by the arrow, making it do more damage, and also synergizes well with the Sting Operation. If the arrow lasts longer, you’ll get a longer buff to unload more firepower on the enemy.
Bug Out– Bug Out increases the radius of your arrow’s final explosion as well as increasing its damage. A great skill to help with your lacking wave-clearing abilities.
Related:38 Random Tips and Tricks for Killing Floor 3 That You Need to Know
Best Sharpshooter Weapon Build and Loadout in Killing Floor 3
To no surprise, the most expensive weapon would be the best weapon for the Sharpshooter. The Samiratan lasers and rips apart every enemy, but becomes quite expensive when heavily modded.
Here are the mods you should apply to the Samaritan:
Heat Dispenser adds Freeze affliction with your shots, helping you activate Easy Prey. Red Dot Sight is the best all-around sight since it gives you Zoom Critical Damage without sacrificing any other stat. AOS Sight gives way more Zoom Critical Damage, but the reduced ADS time really hurts in fast-paced environments.
Extended Mag helps you unleash a longer burst, critical for most of your skills that give you that short open window to do burst damage. Tungsten Receiver adds way more damage, but reduces handling. Carbon Fiber Receiver is also a valid option if you don’t want to lose the handling (ADS and weapon swap speeds).
I suggest crafting all the mods and upgrading them before looking for good bonus ability rolls on the mods. you’re able to learn more about the bonus ability weapon mods in ourcrafting guidehere.
For your ammunition mods, you have four choices:
All of the ammo mods give other stats, but you’ll want to keep your Cold and Ballistic damage types for your Big Game Hunter skill, giving you damage bonuses for both types.
You can change to other damage types when the stage calls for it, such as rare weekly mutations where you need Electric, Biological, or Force damage.Zeds and Mires have different weaknesses and strengths, so you want to learn more about them to know what type of rounds you should run with.
The Sharpshooter is one of the best perks in the game for its massive damage output. Since most failed runs stem from fighting against large Zeds and bosses, Sharpshooters excel in helping thin out those large enemies.
Enzo Zalamea
Enzo is a staff writer at Prima Games. He began writing news, guides, and listicles related to games back in 2019. In 2024, he started writing at Prima Games covering the best new games and updates regardless of the genre. You can find him playing the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Path of Exile, Teamfight Tactics, and popular competitive shooters like Valorant, Apex Legends, and CS2. Enzo received his Bachelor’s degree in Marketing Management in De La Salle University and multiple SEO certifications from the University of California, Davis.
