Sniper is fine
He just doesn't fit into real games, as much as Warlock/Spirit Breaker, whom are one of the most OP heroes in pubs POV, still suck in competitive
Sniper isn't fine, he totally sucks
But again, who cares? Boring as fuck
Sniper sucks so hard. Only thing he does is being annoying in lane with every hit headshot. First of all, all competitive carries have a way of flash farming. Maybe not Lifestealer. But he is a useful hero even without farm. And yeah. Being annoying in lane won't help you when Pudge comes and eats your face or Zeus zaps your ass. But he will be way better if they change shrapnel into some sort of reliable disable.
There are far more unique and fun heroes that would be interesting to see in competitions. who cares about a hero who's only power is his attack range and a delayed low-damage nuke.
Sniper should be played as a support early in pubs, transitioning to semi-carry to carry as the game progresses. People try to play him as a hard carry...this is why he loses.
Max shrapnel, get the mana to spam his abilities. Sniper is easy to attack, but he is excellent at attacking. As long as you don't put him in defensive situations he is fine.
My sniper buy wards, gets tanky (aqullia-drums-manta), and focuses on disabling the enemy carry or whoever is attacking support heroes. Headshot is a disabling skill. Use it for its intended purpose. Sniper is extremely effective against Lifestealer. Just make sure he is bashed whenever he trys to rage on your supports. Then they are still alive to stun him...easy win.
http://dotabuff.com/players/103176226/matches?hero=sniper&game_mode=&match_type=real
70%+ win rate sniper
Don't get worthless shadowblade, unless the game is a joke. Don't get worthless lifesteal until you already have plenty of dmg. Position correctly so you don't get stunned or attacked. Position like you are playing warlock and you will get the idea.
^^ Rage stops headshot procs... But I agree with not getting Shadow blade. I prefer going max movement speed with mom, yasha and phase. If he is able to be attacked he shouldnt be in that position. A sniper tanking is rather the opposite of what his name suggests.
I'm all for giving sniper a slight buff, but whats the deal with being near trees? I feel like a simple strength and agility gain buff would be enough for him to see some play in competitive. He is an extremely situational hero who just doesn't really fit the current meta. That's all there is to it.
arcane boots shrapnel tower push build, it's deceptively very effective.
"He can stomp easily, if enemy team is bad" this means nothing, if the enemy sucks hard I can carry with CM this doesn't make CM carry
"http://dotabuff.com/players/103176226/matches?hero=sniper&game_mode=&match_type=real
70%+ win rate sniper" this means nothing as well, my AM is 35%, now AM sucks?
it's a shitty hero guys, just admit it
sniper and WD were the only 2 heroes who weren't picked at all in a single game of dota in July
I wonder why, if he's good
^100% agree. Rework and not straight buff. He sucks really badly.
@Relentless
Sniper as an early support is just as bad. Why not just pick a hero that's going to be a good support.
- Not going to be able to roam effectively with low levels.
- No disable. Headshot isn't going to help you when you attack slow as hell with no items.
- It's common to only be able to buy brown boots near 10min mark as support even if you dont die, he feeds enough as it is played as mid or hard carry. If he is under leveled and with basically no items he will feed out of control
How long is this "early game" when you are supposed to be a support? 3minutes? After you get the courier + upgrade you are no longer support?
I saw your link to your 70% win rate sniper. 20:26 game ended with threads, aquila, manta, 33min game, threads, yasha, mjollnir, relic, HoD, MoC. I clicked on the 40:33 game where you had phase, manta, aquila, MoC, morbid, even though AM was hard carry and got most of the farm you guys had a bane + dazzle. What was your support role there?
Many of the rest of the games are really old and I didn't go into them. All of the ones I did see you were not the support.
I buy wards from time to time as the carry in random pubs that doesn't make you support.
Also this aquila, drums, manta build. I don't see any of your sniper games in the last 6 months with drums at all.
Like someone already said a player with 70%+ win rate on a hero doesn't mean the hero doesn't suck.
It needs a rework. Sniper is a hero that is consistently in the top 5 most played heroes, he doesn't have a skill shot like pudge yet still have a significantly lower pub win rate than pudge. BH is up there as well, 1 reason (not necessarily the main reason) is that too many people rush bfury. I rarely see it on bh these days but it's the second most common items after boots for BH.
Average win rate is 47%, mine is 70%. I did not magically get lucky for 24 games. I get wards, I spend very little time farming. I go for map control.
Sniper is not a hard support like cm or lich or bane. You should play it more like a supporting semi-carry. When you take farm you flash farm and move on. You look for runes, you stack camps, you help on ganks.
Aquilla-drums-manta are good choices for this, so is MoC. I don't always build the same way. It depends on the game. Often by the time I have aquila I have already effectively won and its pretty irrelevant what I do after that...ie http://dotabuff.com/matches/249638465
14 min win, was mid vs puck so I went bottle first. Luna farmed I got runes and ganked with lich. I bought extra regen for Luna twice this game.
http://dotabuff.com/matches/254840943 ....throne down in 20 minutes. I have over 500 gpm, but only 2.5 cs/min...because I killed heroes and took towers, took map control and won the game instead of standing around csing.
Sniper does have a skill shot its called shrapnel...I do not win my sniper games by farming until I can win a fight while afk. I win them by warding, by taking towers, by protecting supports, by ganking. People greatly underestimate the importance of headshot. Getting 2-3 headshots on the carry while he is trying to walk up and attack is big deal. It does not have to be 4-6. If you make it take even 1 second longer to kill the support they initiated on, his combo goes off...suppose that was a venomancer who ults just before he dies because the initial stun was not quite long enough to kill him...you just won the teamfight.
...I have MoC for a reason! Do you know how powerful that item if you actually use it? Do you really think bane and dazzle did the warding just because they are the "support" heroes? Pudge and I did the warding because we knew when and where to place them.
You didn't watch these games or would know what I mean.
...the most recent game my team fed like crazy, in part because they started fighting over lanes and shouting at each other before the game began.
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Sniper is not the best support hero, or the best semi-carry. All I am saying is...that is how he should be played if you want to win a pub game. Do some supporting, don't take much farm early. Kill heroes and take towers.
@Relentless but yea you should understand you can play any hero in any way against bad people and end up with a win rate like that. it doesn't mean your build works for higher level play and thus is nothing you should recommend on a forum where everyone is page 1 pros
I assume Karake is trolling...but Ill accept the compliment anyway on behave of all dotacash forum posters and readers. We are all page 1 pros now.
i donno if sniper should be built as a support
when u say sniper should be getting wards, getting support and utility items, that doesn't tell me that hes decent or playable as a support
it just tells me that u need to build him in an unorthodox way to have a positive impact on the game
let me give u an example of wat i mean
u can go arcane boots on antimage and rush a mekansm
now u tell ur team to go teamfight and push and u guys win the teamfights and pull ahead in the game
u were useful because u got the teamfight/utility item, it's not a good item on the hero but its an item that makes whatever ur doing a little more marginally useful
u can do that stuff with any hero. especially useless kinds of heroes like sniper and bloodseeker. it doesn't mean that its good on the hero, it just means that u need to utilize a shitty unorthodox playstyle just to have a positive impact on the game
hmm, thats how I feel about OD. I think OD is a mostly useless hero and I think it shows as pros keep trying to get mech and still carry.
The problem with OD is that astral sucks for anything but 1v1 laning. You can never chain it to another spell...astral must be first. But OD should not be an initiating hero...so you have a skill only good for initiating on a hero that should come in later with the dps. Or you have a skill that should be on support (ie defensive astral) on a carry. Either way it doesn't make sense. And giving someone 4 sec of no dmg is just asking for them to use a blink to escape.
OD is best as a carry...but bkb makes him do no dmg. What kind of crappy carry can't do dmg when someone uses bkb? So does that mean OD should be support? A ganker? No he has to sit there and cs a lot to do anything, but there is no payback for it. Every pro and very high level team game OD wins, lots of other heroes would have won more easily.
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If shrapnel was a bit stronger, maybe a larger aoe... sniper might be a viable support-semi-carry, I think he can be played pretty well that way now.
Shrapnel is an 1800 range, 9 sec aoe slow....that's a support skill. He has long range harassing ability in the lane...a support skill. And his ult is a super long range nuke that gives vision...again a support skill. If they just changed headshot to be an active orb-walking type thing with a short cd maybe 4/3/2/1 seconds...he could fully be used as a supporting semi-carry type hero. As it is...this way of playing sniper works...its just not the best option for the role.
That's nice...which other carries wait for bkb to end before doing dmg? Or put it this way...you are going into a big teamfight. One teams carry does his dmg totally ignoring magic immunity. The other teams carry has to wait for bkbs to end before he can do much at all. Which team do you want to be on?
od almost always auto wins his lane
his aura means u can spam shit better than cm's in fights and while pushing
his astral is good for when ru chasing someone and need to catch up or when another hero on the other team is channeling or when someone stuns ur ally
relentless, im sure u watched that 97 min or so game lately, where carry OD (black ofc) out carried a freaking morph with 2 bkbs. Also almost every fnatic hero had a bkb and still got raped by OD. But that was just a situation. Imo morph had no fucking damage, instead of morph if the pick was lifestelaer for ex., he would change that bkb slot for another dmg item and just run into OD's face and smash it. But also OD has great laning phase, almost everytime he owns his lane.
OT. there are soo many ways of dealing with sniper thats it's not funny. Even 6 sloted sniper has no HP, if get focused. Lemme talk about 30 min sniper - he has freaking 1k hp? A zeus nuke and ult, spirit breaker charge, nyx vendetta combo, every other freaking nuker or so would easily kill him so easy. He is just a shitty hero imo.
cuz using force staff to run away from bkbed hero is so hard or just juke him around
or just killing 4 remaining heroes and ignoring that one with bkb
that longest game that happend mouz vs something recently 90+ mins showed how strong od is as a carry with bkbs or without he still rapes yo face
sure 6 sloted sniper with skadi and satanic has no hp cool story brah
Some people are really not seeing these situations very clearly. A great carry player on an excellent team can force a weaker carry to win late game...You can find ways to make OD kind of work out...but any other carry hero would be better in all but a handful of special situations.
Vaikiss, OD won't be killing the other 4 heros during that bkb time...he will be running away while his team dies....or he will be killing one or 2 supports while he dies with his whole team. While 1 v 1 OD might be able to escape...the issue is he cannot fight during the 5-6 second window when he must so his team loses the fight. After bkb is over his team is dead and he was not able to do anything about it. If he stands and fights the real carry hero will kill him.
Yes you can force OD to work if you are ahead. This sort of win is not on the power of the hero it is in spite of the weakness of the hero...won on the power of better play. OD did not win that super long game...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyDzOL-9oVY
Fnatic lost it. Watch the game deciding fight. Enigma fails his bkb refresher bhole as if he has some lag spike. During the 1 bhole Morphling does 1 attack. Razor does 1 attack. Naga does zero attacks. Alchemist does zero attacks. Naga song not canceled in time...Their coordination was awful. Fnatic lost the fight on bad play. OD had nothing to do with it. Fnatic bkb use timing is also very bad. Maybe they were all spiking because the map was breaking...whatever the reason Fnatic failed to execute spectacularly and that is why they lost.
OD has another big weakness compared to other carries in that he has no way to farm more than 1 creep at a time. So he is quite bad at catching up on farm if he gets behind. OD takes forever to clear a stacked camp and can't do much at all to a stack of ancients.
OD really doesn't beat everyone 1 v 1 in the lane. He just beats the mid solo heroes people currently like to play. For instance, he is not good against Lone Druid mid. OD is not good against Razor mid (level 1 link is 20 mp goes through astral). OD will kill himself if he spams astral on a razor that maxes unstable current. OD is not good against SF mid, soul assumption will give SF more dmg to lasthit. OD is not good against Drow mid. OD is not good against Sniper mid. OD is not good against Bloodseeker mid. Given equally skilled players...these heroes will out lane OD mid. The common feature is they are AGI heros who do not need any, or only the tiniest bit of mana to function in the lane...who cannot be harassed down either because of their great range or some passive mechanic or the Bear...who will have more dmg than OD vs creeps early with few items. OD is also not good vs Nyx assassin mid...something the pro scene proved last time OD was popular for a while, but seems to have forgotten again. OD will have trouble staying in the lane against an equally skilled kunka.
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So often I hear about how "sniper is squishy"...but he is only thought of that way because of how ppl tend to build him. Vaikiss understands this well, based on his comment. People just tend to build snipers with no hp, greedy all dps builds.
Sniper str gain is only 1.7...that's on the low end, but AM is only 1.2. People build AM with heart and Manta and they forget how few hp AM would have if he didn't get tanky items.
Shit hero. The amount of team effort that is required for him to come even close to carrying is ridiculous, when at the same time you can leave heroes like Na'ix/LD/Weaver and others alone for half the game and they will still all carry like absolute beasts. If you put the same effort into supporting a hero like Alchemist, who could either rice like a god and get 1K GPM with ease, or run around the map with an 8 minute lothars and kill heroes everywhere.
And it only gets worse, lets say you do pick Sniper. For starters, he needs an exceptional amount of farm. His natural DPS is pathetic, and he is squishy as hell. You need to build a BKB and possibly a Manta, just to survive shit. At the same time, even with a pure DPS build, you don't hit much harder than another enemy that goes for a similar build but replaces one of those DPS items with a BKB. Lets not forget that you farm shit as well, no flash farming ability, not a great ganker, and requires an obscene amount of money, as stated before, to carry. Compared to Alchemist/AM/Gyro/etc who can all farm very quickly, half of them don't require a stupid amount of money to do something, and then there are heroes like CK who also cannot farm quickly, but CK doesn't need much money to be effective.
Sniper sucks balls as a support, I don't see how anyone could possibly argue it any other way. He can't transition into anything, this is only true for heroes that don't require a lot of farm, or have some very nice natural damage output. Like Leshrac for example, he can farm quickly and his AoE damage output is quite crazy, you aren't a full fleshed carry obviously, but you only need to get some bulk and you are a pretty effective semi-carry.
Gain is NOT a big factor when it comes to survivability early on. Heck, this doesn't even come close to being an argument when you factor in all the other shit like I dunno, AM has Blink? AM has Mana Shield? AM generally buys Stout/PMS anyway. The only thing that Sniper really has going for him is his range, but its still very easy to pick him off with a fair chunk of heroes, his pathetic MS doesn't help him out here much either.
I remember back in WC3, I think it was quite a famous match, one team picked up Sniper, and it went really late game. This Sniper was getting raped beyond belief, so much so, that he had to go for a really bulky build, just to survive, I think he had Satanic + Skadi + AC + Butterfly + Treads, and he couldn't do shit the entire match. Was hilarious.
OD is a fucking machine in both the early-mid and late late games when BKB durations are down. All of the items which he buys work towards improving his utility/bulk that also result in a big boost to his DPS, which is monstrous late game when carries have 30+ armor. He just fucking jukes around the fight with AI/Force/BKB/Ghost Scepter/Hex/Shivas and is a massive pest.
OD isn't shit at farming either, that's just you mate. Really after the laning stage and a few basic items like treads + force or something like that, you deal quite an impressive amount of damage to clear creeps. As opposed to Sniper as mentioned above, who has very little damage, and no flash farming, spammable ability.
OD rapes SF lol. The base damage that he gets from using AI puts him well above heroes like SF. And your argument is stupid to begin with, every hero has a couple of counters in a 1v1 lane, that doesn't make OD a weak mid hero. Shitting all over the vast majority of the best mid heroes is a very big plus. If you want to look at a hero like that, then every hero is shit, and every hero is crap in the lane.
^ totaly agreed. The time you farm skadi, satanic, heart or whatever with sniper, your enemies reached your ancient.
And yeah even loda said that OD is broken for mid, like i think so too.
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Sniper is far too frail and undesired; I have noticed this since 2005. The problem is that he has no mobility, reliable disable, or escape. For these reasons, I propose the following buff:
If sniper casts shrapnel, he should have a blurred effect that somewhat hides him from enemy's sight; however, several conditions must be met.
1) Sniper must be very near a tree
2) Opposing heroes must be near shrapnel
3) Blur lasts as long as shrapnel is occuring
4) If sniper moves, the blurred effect will be deactivated for 1.2 second
Please vote thumbs up at:
http://www.playdota.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8648807#post8648807