The most effective way to counter a Sniper

Yukon was intentionally designed to be harder for Engineers:

This abandoned mountaintop coalmine was repurposed by shadowy operatives into a top secret surveillance outpost—one which also, so nobody gets wise, insidiously continues to mine coal. There is also a log hanging in the center of the map—possibly as an example to other logs. Logs that said too much.

Five control points promise a lot of momentum swings in this compact outdoor map, with plenty of tunnels and rocky outcroppings. Plenty of alternate routes ensure that if you can’t get past a well-placed engineer through one tunnel, you might be able to sneak up behind them through another.

CP_Yukon is a community map from the brilliant dual-powered brain trust of Patrick “MangyCarface” Mulholland and Joachim “Acegikmo” Holmér.

-- Classless Update, Day 3

Point 1

Point 1 is extremely poor for defending as Engineer.

If you're building full size sentries, it may be better to build them down in the pit, although that means a Spy can back-cap the point.

Point 2

Point 2 has a few defense spots. One of the best for actually covering the point is at your team's end of the hall when you first come out the door from point 1. You had better have the Wrangler, though, or a sniper at the far end of the can easily take you out.

Another point is past point 2, on the middle route. You can place a sentry on the walkway up. The problem is that, if you place is close enough to the point to be able to see it, it's far enough from the point 3 area for Demomen to be able to take it out.

Point 3

Thanks to point 3 being moved, your best bet is near the point itself, preferably where the fence covers it, so it can't be shot by Snipers (or at least where you can't be shot by Snipers). Your biggest problem here is people sneaking up behind you. You could place it at the very end of the point 3 bridge, facing the point to help counteract that.

Point 4

Building slightly to the enemy's side of point 4 works pretty well, as it covers both entrances to the point 4 area.

Another Alternative

Due to the difficultly in guarding points with a level 3 gun on this map, Mini-sentries work fairly well on it, at least when combined with the Frontier Justice.

Ok, I did some calculations for the sniper.

First, let's consider rifles. There is always the basic version, and the fully upgraded version. We are talking about killing the tank, so upgraded means full damage, faster recharge and faster reload, as well as maximum ammo capacity. Since the damage is subject to some randomness, I averaged the lower and upper bounds each to get my values. I also assume perfect reflexes for firing as soon as the charge reaches 100%, and the auto-rezoom feature enabled.

Sniper rifle:

• Unscoped basic weapon: 33 dps (down to 24 with 15s to find new ammo)
• Scoped basic weapon: 35 dps (down to 31)
• Unscoped upgraded weapon: 107 dps (down to 85)
• Scoped upgraded weapon: 128 dps (down to 116)

Huntsman:

• Unscoped basic weapon: 26 dps (down to 16)
• Scoped basic weapon: 41 dps (down to 29)
• Unscoped upgraded weapon: 84 dps (down to 60)
• Scoped upgraded weapon: 140 dps (down to 109)

Sydney Sleeper:

• Unscoped basic weapon: 33 dps (down to 24)
• Scoped basic weapon: 40 dps (down to 34)
• Unscoped upgraded weapon: 107 dps (down to 85)
• Scoped upgraded weapon: 144 dps (down to 129)

Bazaar Bargain:

• Unscoped basic weapon: 33 dps (down to 24)
• Scoped basic weapon: 24 dps (down to 22)
• Unscoped upgraded weapon: 107 dps (down to 85)
• Scoped upgraded weapon: 90 dps (down to 84)

Machina:

• 0% charge basic weapon: 33 dps (down to 24)
• Scoped basic weapon: 40 dps (down to 35)
• 0% charge upgraded weapon: 107 dps (down to 85)
• Scoped upgraded weapon: 148 dps (down to 134)

Hitman's Heatmaker:

• Unscoped basic weapon: 27 dps (down to 19)
• Scoped basic weapon: 28 dps (down to 25)
• Unscoped upgraded weapon: 85 dps (down to 68)
• Scoped upgraded weapon: 103 dps (down to 93)

Conclusion: Whatever you do, use the Machina, it has the highest damage in all catgories. (40 is close enough to 41 - don't say anything!)

Now to consider melee weapons. I also assume the basic weapon as well as the fully upgraded weapon. Upgrades are damage +100% and hit speed +60%.

Kukri:

• Average basic: 106 dps
• Average upgraded: 296 dps

Tribalman's Shiv:

• Average basic: 53 dps
• Average upgraded: 150 dps

Bushwacka:

• Average basic: 81 dps
• Average upgraded: 228 dps

Shahanshah:

• Average basic: 80 dps
• Average upgraded: 222 dps

Now, while this far the Kukri would be best, you might notice that we forgot about one circumstance. If you are below 50% health you deal much more damage with the Shahanshah:

• Average basic: 132 dps
• Average upgraded: 369 dps

With that in mind, a stunning 369 average damage per second, while you never have to reload, makes the machina with its 148 dps look like a toy.

EDIT:

(I deleted the previous calculations concerning other classes' melee weapons, because I clearly made mistakes. I also corrected the melee calculations for the sniper, which were wrong, too. I have no idea what I did a couple days ago. I redid the melee calculations WITH critical hit chance of 15%.)