Dota is full of possibilities. Many of the best things are tried and true... but sometimes you can also do something different and gain an advantage.
For instance...
http://dotabuff.com/matches/492441644 Today I played Spirit Breaker with Re-arm Tombstone, Nether Ward, March... an unbeatable siege force. But when I first picked rearm my team began to whine... Why re-arm nub? You have only 14 base int, you will never be able to cast it!!! Of course when I am throwing done triple tombstone, triple nether ward, triple march... then they really that the stat gain on the hero means almost nothing and the item choices determine what can be done.
The same thing applies to many situations and to Sniper. The typical pub way to build him does suck... but it does not have to be done that way.
--------------------------------------------
Yan, as I said before the carry split pushing is actually bad. It should not be the go to option... its something you do when you are losing and desperate and failed to draft a real split push hero. You want the carry with your team, not alone pushing a lane. Pushing is not a farming tactic, it puts your carry in a lot of danger no matter what their escape options may be. It reduces your farming efficiency and worst of all it means your team cannot have the main dmg dealer if forced to fight. Porting in at minimum 3 seconds later ... fight already lost.
My point is sniper cant split push reliably to get the level of farm needed. The moment you're on the losing end with sniper its pretty much downhill from there and over already.
Sniper "can't" split push? Really? You mean he can't hit a tower from 950 away? He can't dmg a tower with shrapnel from 2000 units back?
Sniper is in a much safer position to take a tower than nearly all other carries. You can't just port in and cast on him. Even if you blink forward he will be out of vision range before a tp ends. This forces you to walk to defend the tower if you want to catch him.
Sniper is great split pusher... if the sniper actually has map awareness.
I really do not understand why people think you need to instantly have a way of backing up from ganks. Maybe you are used to playing in games were supports suck and never give you the vision to do anything correctly. Nearly every gank mid to late game, even in pros games is obvious long before it happens. People die to them because they make mistakes... not because they didn't have an escape ability.
Hmm no one visible on the map? Not a good time for you to be visible either... its not complicated. But instead the typical pub sniper keeps on autoattacking his way up the lane and dies... then you say "sniper is easy to gank".
Have you even seen the terri-bad amount of dmg that level 4 shrapnel does to a tower? Its not even worth it to max shrapnel. Who said you have to port in? You have fog, smoke, night time vision and map control if you bother to deward... doesnt matter if Sniper has 950 attack range, his vision is still 1800/1000 and no hes not a great split pusher...
? you think shrapnel sucks?... no wonder you underestimate snipers power.
25 games of sniper for me ... I got shadowblade twice. I must have died so much with no escape!? Yet I had 4.55 KDA, averaged 3.75 deaths/game compared to the pub average of 7.23 deaths. How did I manage to die so little with no escape? You leave before they attack. I only die in teamfights to focus. Probably 25% of these games I had to start out playing support on sniper too.
If I don't support it almost never is done properly.
Shrapnel is an amazing tower killing skill. Its extremely powerful for farming stacked jungle camps as well. Shrapnel does 160 dmg to a tower. And you can cast it every 15 seconds. Once you cast it that dmg is done. You do not have to stay there... and it casts from so far back no one can see you... almost 2x a level 3 VS swap.
... again... "oh carries can't do well with no map control at all" I guess you should just never pick carries since those heroes suck.
Or if you are desperate to split push, go ward the map yourself. Its 150 gold! it costs nothing! Are you so easily trapped in such a tiny box that you cannot conceive of a carry actually establishing map control? Is it ILLEGAL for sniper to ward if his supports totally suck and did not do it for him?
Will the extra 4 lasthits it costs him to get wards every 6 minutes destroy his ability to carry?
That is not what i meant, good carries are the ones that can split push reliably for farm even with no map control such carries are usually the bkb core carries or those with high mobility/escape/magic immunity
You obviously dont know the concept of establishing map control.
No, good carries do not split push realiably for farm with no map control... nub carries attempt to do that and succeed if the other team is terrible at ganking.
If the other team does not suck, having a blink or an windwalk or a bkb does not save you from ganks. You get chain stunned and silenced from fog and die. You get dusted and die. That is what happens to split pushing carries against competent teams when they have no map vision.
The right choice for ANY carry trying to split push is "Oh there is no map vision, I can't do it.... we need to establish map control then I will push." Against bad players of course you can walk right up to their tower, not knowing where the enemy is and just blink or invis away when the bad players try to gank you by walking directly at you in vision and without any true sight.
And again IF you were split pushing with the carry it is not a good thing to do. It may be the only option in a pub game where your team fails every fight and you don't want to have anything to do with them... but this not a clever tactic its foolish in a real game.
And also... I have forgotten more about establishing map control than you ever knew. How many ward spots do you know? Is it hundreds? How many wards have you placed? Is it over 50.000? Because for me it is.
This hero sucks, he cant cope 1vs1 with most heros because he will just die, he is easy to gank, he has low base damage, he takes a lot of farm to get going, needs a bkb against a good team, needs safe lane with 2 supports to be able to farm so then the other team can just put a solo there to get xp because he has no kill potential before 6 and the other team can run a jungle and still get farm on there carry, it is very easy to beat a sniper.
He can cope 1v1 because he has 950 range with max aim.
He is easy to gank - as is many other hard carries.
He has low base damage, till about level 3 where his headshot can take over.
He actually doesn't need a lot of farm, he cses well, has a treads/yasha/wand/loths or phase/mom/wand/armlet imo by mid game.
Bkb is a NO item for sniper, he's suppose to sit in a safe position, and loths is generally a must-have.
If you fail farm with sniper that's dependent on your own skill level - unless you get an extremely disadvantaged lane.
That is why sniper generally goes mid. Sniper kills easy, dies easy. He's a glass cannon type hero.
I thought sniper sucked but went off lane with him recently with windranger backing me up. We warded the jungle so we wouldn't get ganked. It was so easy. Anytime anyone got to close we'd back up. Otherwise I'd harass with headshot. We were laning vs axe and terrorblade so it could've been bad but axe just would hunger us and leave lane. Terrorblade's slow sucked but we'd kill him solo. Once I got mjolnirs I sat at the back end of team fights killing everyone. Got skadi, we rolled their mid rax and wiped them, then finished ancient. Sniper is really good once you get some farm and yes, with good map awareness and a good lane support he is fine early. He still feels slow though, even with phase boots. Might be he animation, not actual speed.
Play tusk and just wipe sniper everytime. Shards, snowball and punch, easy money.
But seriously if you are at that level of dota where no support rotates for 20 mins then sniper is a good mid. But otherwise it takes just one smoke or invis rune to pop him, and if he dies a few times it is hardfor him to get back in the game.
Sniper mid is only good if they are for some reason unable to roam. He is meant to be played in the protection of safe lane. One interesting dynamic is if your teammates are good, the fact that you are easy to gank down there can be a good thing. The way I phrase it is "If they are missing, they are where I am, Sniper". Dota, in the early phases, is about mystery and tricks. If you are 100% predictable, you are 100% useless. All ganks are botched, either your target hides or you get counter-ganked.
His low base damage is somewhat balanced by his good animation. I've played so many blink-snipers. The hero is so squishy that if you get jumped upon, you're done. And if you have a Shadow Blade, they just buy dust. So, I think Blink is the best option.
When I play it safe lane, i go with 2 supports and open some advantage against the offlaner, and when i'm level 5 or 6, I can solo him pretty well, so the supports can gank freely and if the offlaner can be solo killed.
And I agree about 1 Shrapnel + bonus. The only use of shrapnel is to give vision.
I've tried the build a couple times and with my limited experience it's pretty legit. I usually do terrible with sniper.
I'm able to zone and stay alive after jumped on pretty well. With MoM and phase active, it's near max move speed making escaping and getting into position easy. MoM is great for pushing towers. He fits really well into a push lineup.
Regarding Shrapnel- Shrapnel is totally worth leveling. It's great for pushing and the slow at level 4 synergies well with headshot. There's mana problems, but with some arcane boots on your team it's fine.
Yes, thanks mdk. You are a true scientist - instead of pontificating with abstract/idealistic oversimplifications of complex reality, you put things to the test. A sange on sniper puts you at 1k hp at level 7 or 8. You basically go from being the easiest hero to gank to being as hard to gank as a beast master.
Alright so my sniper fascination has gotten me in trouble. All pick, everyone takes forever to make picks so I go sniper offlane with beastmaster. Despite our lack of disable, high dmg from bm and vision and attack speed buff should make an easy lane right? Well other team sticks drow and bounty there, BM doesn't buy sentries, doesn't do anything. I'm harassing bounty and drow down, drow is almost freakin dead multiple times and BM sits behind creep wave basically afk. Somehow drow and bounty actually zone us out of xp range because they can 2 shot me with jinada and one drow arrow. I'm not blaming sniper here, the support was braindead. Also our mid was invoker and he got crush by rubrick and they off laned lina solo and she killed windranger and earthshaker multiple times.... so I don't think the game was winnable whatever I rolled. But it became very apparent if sniper gets behind a snowballing high dmg hero like drow or bounty he is screwed cus everything 2 shots him. At one point I rotated top and was lvl 5 or so and lina was lvl 8 or 9. Two shotted by dragon slave and ult.
Next sniper game I have to go mid by default cus no one else picks a mid. I face off vs drow. TERRIBLE match up. Why? Sniper's base dmg sucks. Drow at lvl 1 is doing around 60 dmg, I'm doing 45. By 3-4 she's doing almost double. She can deny creeps that take me 2 hits to kill. And while I can eventually out range her, drow's range is really good so she can just step back a few to avoid headshots. Anyway she couldn't kill me but I couldn't out farm her or gank. Our supports in other lanes got rolled.
But in conclusion I'm skeptical about sniper mid vs heroes with good range because his base dmg is so awful when headshots don't proc. And there are certain heroes that make his life miserable like bounty, riki, slark.
Was in a higher ranked tier match since my rating blows, and my friends are better (note razor on my team, never played razor either?)
Yes I agree you have to counter pick that sniper..... Riki/slark/bounty (I had luck with pudge mid against him since he hits so soft at first)
Basically get a spell that has good range against him, or slows him down, or have a mid game/late game way to take care of sniper I.E. invis. I think the sniper is not OP and is VERY glass cannon squishy.
Best results with sniper:
You have 1 or 2 tanks to absorb dmg in a teamfight
Your sniper sits back and hits the other team pew pew pew pew.
I played Sniper last night. Purchased a blink dagger and a Shadow Blade, teammates raged at me. Worst part is that they werent random teammates they were my IRL friends. Game went ok, I went 12-1-19, dunno what they were mad about LAWL.
I like blink on Sniper, Blink into trees and right click them to death, double tab blink to disappear. Blink forward to get in range of feeling enemies when ult is not enough. Good pub item.
I think blink should be a good item. Shadow Blade is a POS really since it is so easily countered and for 3k gold there are items that offer sniper so much more things that he needs. Granted blink isn't cheap either, but it does give a reliable escape.
I don't like shadow blade either. Good teams will just carry dust once you escape once or twice using it. For 1100g less you can get mask of madness which is guaranteed run away as long as they don't kill you in a stun window. So guys like riki and bounty will still kill you but you can probably escape most other ganks.
I'm trying to think who sniper is good vs mid and the list seems short. He doesn't do enough dmg to really bother pudge, though pudge shouldn't really bother him either so I guess that's a win. Like I noticed he's not good vs drow, her dmg is too high she easily out hits him. I think he'd be pretty good vs qop and razor- both only harass with spells pretty much, he can out ranged their auto attacks. DP, if he doesn't control runes I think her swarm is too much dmg. He is probably good vs TA and venge as he massively out ranges them. I think he'd be great vs kunkka, range should let him avoid tidebringers. Probably awful vs viper and that poison on hit and silencer since spamming sniper's Q is going to run oom quickly. Anyway, I don't think he's that strong mid, I much prefer him off lane or safe lane with a strong disabling support like CM or SS.
If you go for a Skadi + Lifesteal build, would you get an OoV early or wait until late game? I'm concerned about slotting when you have lots of items to farm.
an early OoV (orb of venom) is useless. it has minimum effect when ranged heroes use it. (2% slow range. 11% slow melee)
imo skadi is not cost effective for sniper. Desolator ,Deadalus , or Mjo Hammer are much better and can have some impact start from early to mid game.
the slow orb effect from skadi is only 30% . I would highly recommend get a blink dagger instead to secure your kills
I wouldn't rush the Skadi. I'd go Phase --> MoM --> Blink. I'd probably finish with Manta Style and then Mjollnir and Skadi last. I just wondered if I should pick it up early since it stacks with lifesteal and I can use it to kite.
I wouldn't go mid with sniper either. Unless it was a duo mid. Offlane sniper works too if you have the right support and they don't have a good trilane. He can zone out people easily with some focus harass. If you get some lucky headshots and your support is also harassing, they can't stay in lane.
With sniper you need to have really good map awareness and never get out of position. It's always better to be safe than dead.
For skadi, it depends on the matchup. I just had a game where I was getting focused I ended up with S&Y, Skadi, Daed. It helped me survive enough in teamfights to not die to a bit of focus and then come back to get kills.
I'm digging the current build of Aquila > Phase > MoM > S&Y > Daed This gives you some really good survivability, mobility and damage.
Skadi is maybe a bit much on sniper. I mean it is pretty much gg if you build it but it takes so long. If you want more stats why not turn yasha into a manta? And I don't do mask for the lifesteal, that's just an added bonus. It's really for movement speed and ZOMG HEADSHOTS in team fights.
@RM LORDY Ya some scrubs were giving me shit for getting MoM Phase and S&Y. They were yelling at me to get shadowblade.
I dunno about blink yet. I think it puts off your damage items more and the mobility of MoM Phase and S&Y is pretty good. The only reason I'd even entertain blink now is because of the 0 mana cost. That was a HUGE change. Wraith King can get blink now and it's wicked. >:)
Ya, MoM is good. You gotta be really careful that you're not gonna get focused, but the utility it provides is great. And with phase, MoM you can rotate very fast. And with the recent buff to it, you can get back up to full life pretty quickly in the jungle or on a creep wave.
Some of you are talking like sniper was the kind of heroe that can have the luxury of being vulnerable at some point in most of team fight, hes far from sucking, his ridiculous range already tells that's hes suppose to ALWAYS stay back, ALWAYS, so it become really costly for the opposite team trying to take him down, most of heroes that can easily reach him and take him down are fragile as well so it will be more like one by one, if you're playing sniper and it's not the last one dying on your team you're doing it wrong pall.
^ right.
that why almost never seen people get tanky items and bkb on sniper. and same reason i think skadi is not cost effective. sniper doesn't need not the int and str and mana and hp gain from it.
also I never buy butterfly for sniper. that insane 35% evasion is a waste...
you pick a glass cannon then play it like a glass cannon
I play sniper mid most of the time, and I've never lost the lane, even to SF. A wraith band or two suffices more than enough, unless you have some extremely poor luck with headshots.
I prefer shadow blade over blink due to the slight boost in damage and 30 atk speed, plus I generally use it as an escape only during the first phase of the game when they generally don't realize I have it yet. Thus, when they buy wards or dust, I use shadow blade to avoid the wards in the common places of the map, to go gank or pick off a couple on my own. You can't avoid warded areas with blink as easily.
This is the difference between a good sniper, and an average sniper.
I have many more things that I do extra in comparison to what I see here, which betters my skill when playing sniper, but due to my selfishness, I'll keep them to myself.
Dota is full of possibilities. Many of the best things are tried and true... but sometimes you can also do something different and gain an advantage.
For instance...
http://dotabuff.com/matches/492441644
Today I played Spirit Breaker with Re-arm Tombstone, Nether Ward, March... an unbeatable siege force. But when I first picked rearm my team began to whine... Why re-arm nub? You have only 14 base int, you will never be able to cast it!!! Of course when I am throwing done triple tombstone, triple nether ward, triple march... then they really that the stat gain on the hero means almost nothing and the item choices determine what can be done.
The same thing applies to many situations and to Sniper. The typical pub way to build him does suck... but it does not have to be done that way.
--------------------------------------------
Yan, as I said before the carry split pushing is actually bad. It should not be the go to option... its something you do when you are losing and desperate and failed to draft a real split push hero. You want the carry with your team, not alone pushing a lane. Pushing is not a farming tactic, it puts your carry in a lot of danger no matter what their escape options may be. It reduces your farming efficiency and worst of all it means your team cannot have the main dmg dealer if forced to fight. Porting in at minimum 3 seconds later ... fight already lost.
@ Relentless
My point is sniper cant split push reliably to get the level of farm needed. The moment you're on the losing end with sniper its pretty much downhill from there and over already.
Sniper "can't" split push? Really? You mean he can't hit a tower from 950 away? He can't dmg a tower with shrapnel from 2000 units back?
Sniper is in a much safer position to take a tower than nearly all other carries. You can't just port in and cast on him. Even if you blink forward he will be out of vision range before a tp ends. This forces you to walk to defend the tower if you want to catch him.
Sniper is great split pusher... if the sniper actually has map awareness.
I really do not understand why people think you need to instantly have a way of backing up from ganks. Maybe you are used to playing in games were supports suck and never give you the vision to do anything correctly. Nearly every gank mid to late game, even in pros games is obvious long before it happens. People die to them because they make mistakes... not because they didn't have an escape ability.
Hmm no one visible on the map? Not a good time for you to be visible either... its not complicated. But instead the typical pub sniper keeps on autoattacking his way up the lane and dies... then you say "sniper is easy to gank".
Have you even seen the terri-bad amount of dmg that level 4 shrapnel does to a tower? Its not even worth it to max shrapnel. Who said you have to port in? You have fog, smoke, night time vision and map control if you bother to deward... doesnt matter if Sniper has 950 attack range, his vision is still 1800/1000 and no hes not a great split pusher...
? you think shrapnel sucks?... no wonder you underestimate snipers power.
25 games of sniper for me ... I got shadowblade twice. I must have died so much with no escape!? Yet I had 4.55 KDA, averaged 3.75 deaths/game compared to the pub average of 7.23 deaths. How did I manage to die so little with no escape? You leave before they attack. I only die in teamfights to focus. Probably 25% of these games I had to start out playing support on sniper too.
If I don't support it almost never is done properly.
Shrapnel is an amazing tower killing skill. Its extremely powerful for farming stacked jungle camps as well. Shrapnel does 160 dmg to a tower. And you can cast it every 15 seconds. Once you cast it that dmg is done. You do not have to stay there... and it casts from so far back no one can see you... almost 2x a level 3 VS swap.
"You leave before they attack", GOOD LUCK with that if you have no map control whatsoever.
... again... "oh carries can't do well with no map control at all" I guess you should just never pick carries since those heroes suck.
Or if you are desperate to split push, go ward the map yourself. Its 150 gold! it costs nothing! Are you so easily trapped in such a tiny box that you cannot conceive of a carry actually establishing map control? Is it ILLEGAL for sniper to ward if his supports totally suck and did not do it for him?
Will the extra 4 lasthits it costs him to get wards every 6 minutes destroy his ability to carry?
That is not what i meant, good carries are the ones that can split push reliably for farm even with no map control such carries are usually the bkb core carries or those with high mobility/escape/magic immunity
You obviously dont know the concept of establishing map control.
No, good carries do not split push realiably for farm with no map control... nub carries attempt to do that and succeed if the other team is terrible at ganking.
If the other team does not suck, having a blink or an windwalk or a bkb does not save you from ganks. You get chain stunned and silenced from fog and die. You get dusted and die. That is what happens to split pushing carries against competent teams when they have no map vision.
The right choice for ANY carry trying to split push is "Oh there is no map vision, I can't do it.... we need to establish map control then I will push." Against bad players of course you can walk right up to their tower, not knowing where the enemy is and just blink or invis away when the bad players try to gank you by walking directly at you in vision and without any true sight.
And again IF you were split pushing with the carry it is not a good thing to do. It may be the only option in a pub game where your team fails every fight and you don't want to have anything to do with them... but this not a clever tactic its foolish in a real game.
And also... I have forgotten more about establishing map control than you ever knew. How many ward spots do you know? Is it hundreds? How many wards have you placed? Is it over 50.000? Because for me it is.
Why do you use so many ellipses?
Idk about you guys but I'd rather play with a good sniper than an am of equivalent skill level.
Of course I'd prefer that wooolfgang.
50000 ward spots
still in sub 4000 shitbracket
^^ Creates smurf. 40% WR
This hero sucks, he cant cope 1vs1 with most heros because he will just die, he is easy to gank, he has low base damage, he takes a lot of farm to get going, needs a bkb against a good team, needs safe lane with 2 supports to be able to farm so then the other team can just put a solo there to get xp because he has no kill potential before 6 and the other team can run a jungle and still get farm on there carry, it is very easy to beat a sniper.
He can cope 1v1 because he has 950 range with max aim.
He is easy to gank - as is many other hard carries.
He has low base damage, till about level 3 where his headshot can take over.
He actually doesn't need a lot of farm, he cses well, has a treads/yasha/wand/loths or phase/mom/wand/armlet imo by mid game.
Bkb is a NO item for sniper, he's suppose to sit in a safe position, and loths is generally a must-have.
If you fail farm with sniper that's dependent on your own skill level - unless you get an extremely disadvantaged lane.
That is why sniper generally goes mid. Sniper kills easy, dies easy. He's a glass cannon type hero.
I thought sniper sucked but went off lane with him recently with windranger backing me up. We warded the jungle so we wouldn't get ganked. It was so easy. Anytime anyone got to close we'd back up. Otherwise I'd harass with headshot. We were laning vs axe and terrorblade so it could've been bad but axe just would hunger us and leave lane. Terrorblade's slow sucked but we'd kill him solo. Once I got mjolnirs I sat at the back end of team fights killing everyone. Got skadi, we rolled their mid rax and wiped them, then finished ancient. Sniper is really good once you get some farm and yes, with good map awareness and a good lane support he is fine early. He still feels slow though, even with phase boots. Might be he animation, not actual speed.
Still better then yours.
http://dotabuff.com/matches/494990523
Yes sniper is an OP hero. I have the same build as TS, phase boots and mom. His headshot is just insane.
Blink dagger ursa. At any point in the game, a blink dagger ursa can kill a sniper in one overpower ASSUMING ursa initiates on sniper unseen.
ursa with heavens halberd....right?
Play tusk and just wipe sniper everytime. Shards, snowball and punch, easy money.
But seriously if you are at that level of dota where no support rotates for 20 mins then sniper is a good mid. But otherwise it takes just one smoke or invis rune to pop him, and if he dies a few times it is hardfor him to get back in the game.
@Commondore
Sniper mid is only good if they are for some reason unable to roam. He is meant to be played in the protection of safe lane. One interesting dynamic is if your teammates are good, the fact that you are easy to gank down there can be a good thing. The way I phrase it is "If they are missing, they are where I am, Sniper". Dota, in the early phases, is about mystery and tricks. If you are 100% predictable, you are 100% useless. All ganks are botched, either your target hides or you get counter-ganked.
His low base damage is somewhat balanced by his good animation. I've played so many blink-snipers. The hero is so squishy that if you get jumped upon, you're done. And if you have a Shadow Blade, they just buy dust. So, I think Blink is the best option.
When I play it safe lane, i go with 2 supports and open some advantage against the offlaner, and when i'm level 5 or 6, I can solo him pretty well, so the supports can gank freely and if the offlaner can be solo killed.
And I agree about 1 Shrapnel + bonus. The only use of shrapnel is to give vision.
Sorry for my bad english.
when someone on my team pick sniper, I pick CM and baby sit him for about 15 mins with ward on river and 1 advance ward on lane. haha
I've tried the build a couple times and with my limited experience it's pretty legit. I usually do terrible with sniper.
I'm able to zone and stay alive after jumped on pretty well. With MoM and phase active, it's near max move speed making escaping and getting into position easy. MoM is great for pushing towers. He fits really well into a push lineup.
Regarding Shrapnel- Shrapnel is totally worth leveling. It's great for pushing and the slow at level 4 synergies well with headshot. There's mana problems, but with some arcane boots on your team it's fine.
Yes, thanks mdk. You are a true scientist - instead of pontificating with abstract/idealistic oversimplifications of complex reality, you put things to the test. A sange on sniper puts you at 1k hp at level 7 or 8. You basically go from being the easiest hero to gank to being as hard to gank as a beast master.
Alright so my sniper fascination has gotten me in trouble. All pick, everyone takes forever to make picks so I go sniper offlane with beastmaster. Despite our lack of disable, high dmg from bm and vision and attack speed buff should make an easy lane right? Well other team sticks drow and bounty there, BM doesn't buy sentries, doesn't do anything. I'm harassing bounty and drow down, drow is almost freakin dead multiple times and BM sits behind creep wave basically afk. Somehow drow and bounty actually zone us out of xp range because they can 2 shot me with jinada and one drow arrow. I'm not blaming sniper here, the support was braindead. Also our mid was invoker and he got crush by rubrick and they off laned lina solo and she killed windranger and earthshaker multiple times.... so I don't think the game was winnable whatever I rolled. But it became very apparent if sniper gets behind a snowballing high dmg hero like drow or bounty he is screwed cus everything 2 shots him. At one point I rotated top and was lvl 5 or so and lina was lvl 8 or 9. Two shotted by dragon slave and ult.
Next sniper game I have to go mid by default cus no one else picks a mid. I face off vs drow. TERRIBLE match up. Why? Sniper's base dmg sucks. Drow at lvl 1 is doing around 60 dmg, I'm doing 45. By 3-4 she's doing almost double. She can deny creeps that take me 2 hits to kill. And while I can eventually out range her, drow's range is really good so she can just step back a few to avoid headshots. Anyway she couldn't kill me but I couldn't out farm her or gank. Our supports in other lanes got rolled.
But in conclusion I'm skeptical about sniper mid vs heroes with good range because his base dmg is so awful when headshots don't proc. And there are certain heroes that make his life miserable like bounty, riki, slark.
IDK I seemed to do ok last night against sniper mid with pudge:
http://dotabuff.com/matches/507434646
Just a little FYI:
I have played pudge 6 times maybe?
Was in a higher ranked tier match since my rating blows, and my friends are better (note razor on my team, never played razor either?)
Yes I agree you have to counter pick that sniper..... Riki/slark/bounty (I had luck with pudge mid against him since he hits so soft at first)
Basically get a spell that has good range against him, or slows him down, or have a mid game/late game way to take care of sniper I.E. invis. I think the sniper is not OP and is VERY glass cannon squishy.
Best results with sniper:
You have 1 or 2 tanks to absorb dmg in a teamfight
Your sniper sits back and hits the other team pew pew pew pew.
End game.
ya. sniper op. had this last night.
http://dotabuff.com/matches/507376072
key is to get blink daggar <3
I played Sniper last night. Purchased a blink dagger and a Shadow Blade, teammates raged at me. Worst part is that they werent random teammates they were my IRL friends. Game went ok, I went 12-1-19, dunno what they were mad about LAWL.
I like blink on Sniper, Blink into trees and right click them to death, double tab blink to disappear. Blink forward to get in range of feeling enemies when ult is not enough. Good pub item.
" double tab blink to disappear."
didn't know that. care to explain ?
I must try the blink dagger on sniper. When do you purchase it? First after boots?
double tap*
as in the blink short key when an enemy appears about of nowhere
I think blink should be a good item. Shadow Blade is a POS really since it is so easily countered and for 3k gold there are items that offer sniper so much more things that he needs. Granted blink isn't cheap either, but it does give a reliable escape.
I don't like shadow blade either. Good teams will just carry dust once you escape once or twice using it. For 1100g less you can get mask of madness which is guaranteed run away as long as they don't kill you in a stun window. So guys like riki and bounty will still kill you but you can probably escape most other ganks.
I'm trying to think who sniper is good vs mid and the list seems short. He doesn't do enough dmg to really bother pudge, though pudge shouldn't really bother him either so I guess that's a win. Like I noticed he's not good vs drow, her dmg is too high she easily out hits him. I think he'd be pretty good vs qop and razor- both only harass with spells pretty much, he can out ranged their auto attacks. DP, if he doesn't control runes I think her swarm is too much dmg. He is probably good vs TA and venge as he massively out ranges them. I think he'd be great vs kunkka, range should let him avoid tidebringers. Probably awful vs viper and that poison on hit and silencer since spamming sniper's Q is going to run oom quickly. Anyway, I don't think he's that strong mid, I much prefer him off lane or safe lane with a strong disabling support like CM or SS.
If you go for a Skadi + Lifesteal build, would you get an OoV early or wait until late game? I'm concerned about slotting when you have lots of items to farm.
an early OoV (orb of venom) is useless. it has minimum effect when ranged heroes use it. (2% slow range. 11% slow melee)
imo skadi is not cost effective for sniper. Desolator ,Deadalus , or Mjo Hammer are much better and can have some impact start from early to mid game.
the slow orb effect from skadi is only 30% . I would highly recommend get a blink dagger instead to secure your kills
I wouldn't rush the Skadi. I'd go Phase --> MoM --> Blink. I'd probably finish with Manta Style and then Mjollnir and Skadi last. I just wondered if I should pick it up early since it stacks with lifesteal and I can use it to kite.
BTW it's 4% slow ranged and 12% slow melee.
I've been going phase -> MoM/sange (in some order) -> yasha -> skadi -> mkb or crit
But I am thinking 2 things:
1.) get 2k crit before skadi for more damage
2.) Incorporate blink dagger.
I wouldn't go mid with sniper either. Unless it was a duo mid. Offlane sniper works too if you have the right support and they don't have a good trilane. He can zone out people easily with some focus harass. If you get some lucky headshots and your support is also harassing, they can't stay in lane.
With sniper you need to have really good map awareness and never get out of position. It's always better to be safe than dead.
For skadi, it depends on the matchup. I just had a game where I was getting focused I ended up with S&Y, Skadi, Daed. It helped me survive enough in teamfights to not die to a bit of focus and then come back to get kills.
I'm digging the current build of Aquila > Phase > MoM > S&Y > Daed This gives you some really good survivability, mobility and damage.
I never got MoM on sniper. but nice ideas. I will try it tonight. I guess MoM will be a great better alternative to maelstrom for early creep farming
Skadi is maybe a bit much on sniper. I mean it is pretty much gg if you build it but it takes so long. If you want more stats why not turn yasha into a manta? And I don't do mask for the lifesteal, that's just an added bonus. It's really for movement speed and ZOMG HEADSHOTS in team fights.
@RM LORDY Ya some scrubs were giving me shit for getting MoM Phase and S&Y. They were yelling at me to get shadowblade.
I dunno about blink yet. I think it puts off your damage items more and the mobility of MoM Phase and S&Y is pretty good. The only reason I'd even entertain blink now is because of the 0 mana cost. That was a HUGE change. Wraith King can get blink now and it's wicked. >:)
Ya, MoM is good. You gotta be really careful that you're not gonna get focused, but the utility it provides is great. And with phase, MoM you can rotate very fast. And with the recent buff to it, you can get back up to full life pretty quickly in the jungle or on a creep wave.
@Vandal btw thanks for pointing out this build. I always wanted to use sniper more and now I think I can. Just in time for that cool dragon gun :)
Some of you are talking like sniper was the kind of heroe that can have the luxury of being vulnerable at some point in most of team fight, hes far from sucking, his ridiculous range already tells that's hes suppose to ALWAYS stay back, ALWAYS, so it become really costly for the opposite team trying to take him down, most of heroes that can easily reach him and take him down are fragile as well so it will be more like one by one, if you're playing sniper and it's not the last one dying on your team you're doing it wrong pall.
^ right.
that why almost never seen people get tanky items and bkb on sniper. and same reason i think skadi is not cost effective. sniper doesn't need not the int and str and mana and hp gain from it.
also I never buy butterfly for sniper. that insane 35% evasion is a waste...
you pick a glass cannon then play it like a glass cannon
I play sniper mid most of the time, and I've never lost the lane, even to SF. A wraith band or two suffices more than enough, unless you have some extremely poor luck with headshots.
I prefer shadow blade over blink due to the slight boost in damage and 30 atk speed, plus I generally use it as an escape only during the first phase of the game when they generally don't realize I have it yet. Thus, when they buy wards or dust, I use shadow blade to avoid the wards in the common places of the map, to go gank or pick off a couple on my own. You can't avoid warded areas with blink as easily.
This is the difference between a good sniper, and an average sniper.
I have many more things that I do extra in comparison to what I see here, which betters my skill when playing sniper, but due to my selfishness, I'll keep them to myself.
shadowblade is pretty shit on sniper. It is basically a get out of free card in the shit tier, waste of gold against teams that buy detection