I agree that this perk is full shit now, even if it will be increase to -50% people will not use it. You only need ask builds of players and you will understand what they use and what not.
If you want to make enemies, try to change something.
I say its fairly balanced, I mean sniper's make big gunners angry because big gunners are short-mid range power houses, I mean a big gunner gets close to a sniper the sniper always lose. And most big gunners do not have the perception to see 50 hexes away which is annoying when facing snipers.I do not see any nerfing needed to anything really, it has gotten a lot better since the beginning of the wipe. On average I would say my sniper does like 50-100 damage to head because of bonehead and those big 150-200 crits is not every shot and sometimes its just pure luck. I see this time and time again with my awareness that people forget to wear helmets. Eye shots are always deadly, and actually my biggiest annoyance playing sniper is laser pistol sneakers or getting shot in my back even with 12 perception a big gunner can shoot where I cannot see. Big gunners need all the tanking abilities they can get they are the ones who have to rush up close so they have to be tough to kill. A big gun tank swarm is hard to kill yes, but a sg/ew sniper swarm can counter this depending on a map, and big gunners can wear tesla masks. There is a counter to everything and things are fairly balanced in my opinion. Gattling lasers are very OP but it is a hard weapon to get and there is way to counter them as well. To make a decent sniper it needs less health than most builds to be a power house build and snipers are easily killed they are flimsy. I think the mistake is people are forgetting to wear helmets, you don't wear a helmet its same as going into battle bluesuit. Sniper pissing you off? Just find a way to flank them in the back they well not last more than 1-2 shots. Some towns its not possible to do this so make a sniper best way to kill snipers is with a sniper.
Funny, follow the link and you'll see avv saying it will make the perk an automatically taken option. Just like how some players perpetually say BGs need nerfing and some people are always saying snipers need it. This will never change, because players don't understand their impression of the game is not the one and only truth.
its not the problem, the problem is the ammount of time, caps, digging, crafting you need to play both builds, if build A) is twice cheaper, needs less ammo, guns are easy to find, loot than build B) then it must be weaker, but its not the case in this game.
Solar did past his tables and was all like avenger is the best, end of the story