You missed headshot multiplier damage. SS suppose to kill Big Zeds / Small Zeds in head.
Of course it will suck if you want to take down Scrake shooting him in body.
Or shooting cloat in the body or siren or husk or whatever.
I repeat myself, Sharpshooter is a class, that designed to aim for head.
If you think that M14 is a BIG GUN, like M99, you missing point here. M14 is not big gun at all. However it will deal massive damage in skilled hands.
In terms of weapons that fire metallic cartridges, the M14
should be the "biggest" gun currently in the game. I see
nanostrike's point in that a rifle that fires a 7.62mm NATO round is somehow less potent in some circumstances than the LAR. I don't know what caliber the LAR is supposed to be, a .30-30 Winchester, a .44 Magnum? The cartridges appear to be bottle-neck in the loading animation, so presumably it's the former.
In any event, the M14 effectiveness should be
well in excess of the LAR across the board. In fact, as I'm sure has been pointed out in the past, since the M14 EBR and the SCAR Mk.17 fire the exact same round, there shouldn't be even the slightest difference in terminal ballistics between those two. But, that is a different can of worms, which I'm not about to open.
Before the M14 nerf, it pretty much behaved in a fashion that a weapon firing this sort of round should. But, the abuse was deemed common enough for the bodyshot to be dialed back. My personal solution to that would have been to keep the authentic 20-round magazines, but drop the total ammunition carried to 120 rounds. Maybe even just 100 rounds.
However,
sverek's point is also entirely valid. Despite the, (IMO), screwy head vs. body damage, this is now a weapon that must be used in a very particular fashion to realize it's full potential. What probably should have
always been a specialized weapon certainly is one now. In essence, the community received what it wished for, and now we just need to live with it. It doesn't seem too unreasonable if one knows the requirements ahead of time. (It certainly isn't as good a "battlefield pick-up" for non-sharpster's as it previously was.)