The game currently has two snipers and they work differently.
Widowmaker
Widowmaker has a grappling hook that she can use to pull herself up to ledges and rooftops. You should use this to position yourself somewhere where it's hard to see you.
Her alt-fire will use her zoom scope. When zoomed in, a power meter appears on your screen. When the power meter is full (takes about 2 seconds), headshots will do 300 damage and body shots will do 150 damage.
Keep in mind that a few characters have a different head position:
- D.va's head is...
- Mech: The entire cockpit she sits in.
- Girl: Her head
- Bastion's head is...
- Recon configuration: His head
- Sentry configuration: The glowing spot on the back of the turret near the top.
- Tank configuration: The glowing spot on the back of the tank near the top. (This used to be at the top of the tank, but I'm pretty sure that changed during beta.)
Bear in mind that death replays as well as your sniper rifle's tracers (the red lines that show where you were shooting) give away your position, so you periodically need to move.
Don't forget to set your venom mine down somewhere. It's best use is as an early warning that an enemy is nearby as it shows on your screen when it's triggered.
Your ultimate should most likely be used shortly after you get it as it shows all enemy positions to your team.
Hanzo
Unlike Widowmaker, Hanzo doesn't have a zoom scope. As such, you tend to do better when you're closer to an enemy. Constant movement between shots helps quite a bit.
Remember that you can climb walls and use this to your advantage.
Hanzo's arrow do more damage if you charge the bow for a second before letting go of the attack button.
You should use your Sonic Arrow whenever it's ready to help show your allies where enemy players are. Keep in mind that, unlike Widowmaker Ult, it only shows enemies near the arrow.
On Defense, consider shooting it at one of the enemy doors during setup time so that you can see what heroes the other team has.
Your Scatter Arrow is a mixed bag. It's most powerful when shot in a small room as the shots ricochet off walls. However, you can still do a lot of damage with it by shooting the floor directly in front of an enemy.
Your ultimate is incredibly powerful as it sends the twin dragons/wolves in a direct line in front of you and travels a good distance, but bear in mind that it won't hit anyone within about 5 meters of you.
From Overwatch latest PTR patch notes :
Competitive Play
- Fixed a bug that could cause overtime to continue indefinitely on Assault maps
So yes, if you are unable to recapture a point, after a certain amount of time, the game will instantaneously end, giving the win to the team that currently controls the point.
Best Answer
As a rule of thumb, no.
The situation may differ depending on whether you're attacking or defending, but the time it takes to die, respawn and run back is time you could be spending diverting enemy attention, rounding up health packs (to zone/deny your enemy getting them when the next team fight starts), or scouting for teleporters/turrets/flankers.
One thing I will mention though, is that in a situation where it's suicide or die to the enemy without the option of retreating/regrouping (let's say you overextended and can't backtrack without getting pipped by a turret or sniper, and you're watching a Reinhardt trudging towards you); suiciding is the better of the two options.
This is because if you let that Reinhardt hammer your face in, he gets ultimate charge, which stacks the odds against your next engagement. If you suicide, the respawn timer is the same, and he is ~10% further from his ultimate because you decided the cliff would treat you better than his beatstick.