Why do people play Sniper Mid?

[Tome]

Title.

I'm coming back to DOTA after a several year long hiatus and was surprised to see most people in my bracket (guardian) play Sniper as a midlaner instead of a safelaner. Why?

[Jason Wang Dang ✅]

sniper has easier time playing 1v1 lane.

in duo lane he can't do jack whenhe gets snowball by two heroes

[Amogus]

Sniper is a gamble to play in safe lane nowadays from what I've seen, as depending on who he lanes against, he can either have a super easy or super challenging safe lane.

Laning against melee heroes will usually provide an easy time for him (at least when it comes to being harassed), while laning against ranged heroes can be a hit or miss as to how difficult of a time he has. It also doesn't help if the enemy laners have any means to consistently harass him, such as AA with his chilling touch or an Axe that can cut the lane and give Sniper no creep wave to hold the line with.

Ultimately, it feels like going against a solid offlane line-up can actually be really bad for Sniper, especially if they have a means of removing his friendly waves, harassing him from a distance, or being able to basically tank his auto attacks/shrapnel without issue. I can understand why Sniper would be a more viable choice for mid given those circumstances, as Sniper being behind on farm can be a big hindrance to the team and mid has faster farm/XP gains.

[Sargeant Sausage]

Hi OP,

I would agree with both posts before mine.

It is essential for Sniper to farm well in the early and mid game & that is best done in the mid lane to soak up as much EXP and Gold.

Lemme know if you have any Q's.

[low rank dog]

Guardian bracket right? Well What bear is best's answer kind of sums it up but I think the main reason people pick sniper mid, especially at lower brackets, is because he is absolutely so easy to play. In terms of laning he is very strong, it's actually hard to trade with sniper because a few points in shrapnel and headshot and he'll do a lot of damage. He can also just max out q and use it to kill waves if he knows you can kill him. There's also the fact that he has some late game potential and since a lot of games at that bracket tend to drag out since everyone farms and not being able to really punish positioning it makes sniper a really good hero for people to pick. Personally I find it as a grief pick because these players are legit just palying to win their ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lane and it's annoying.

[Mixue Pizza]

Because Sniper just trash everywhere else. Sharpnel is really good at zoning and keep enemy away 1vs1. At pub, people just do not coordinated greatly to ganking mid and drag the game into late . Thus he always snowballing at late game.

[Amogus]

Originally posted by ganyu_is_my_waifu:

Because Sniper just trash everywhere else. Sharpnel is really good at zoning and keep enemy away 1vs1. At pub, people just do not coordinated greatly to ganking mid and drag the game into late . Thus he always snowballing at late game.

Not only that, but people don't understand how to counter him properly. High damage heroes typically are extremely strong in the lower brackets because most people haven't developed the skills to work around it, such as buying the proper items to counter his damage or positioning properly to make sure he doesn't have the advantage.

[hamed]

agreed

[Tome]

Originally posted by Maximum Glove Gaming:

Originally posted by ganyu_is_my_waifu:

Because Sniper just trash everywhere else. Sharpnel is really good at zoning and keep enemy away 1vs1. At pub, people just do not coordinated greatly to ganking mid and drag the game into late . Thus he always snowballing at late game.

Not only that, but people don't understand how to counter him properly. High damage heroes typically are extremely strong in the lower brackets because most people haven't developed the skills to work around it, such as buying the proper items to counter his damage or positioning properly to make sure he doesn't have the advantage.

maybe in my bracket they don't understand, but surely the higher you go the less you see him

[RadCon One]

Because Sniper can't cut it as the offlaner, and he isn't worth it as the main hard carry. His low hp pool and lack of disables / control make him a terrible offlaner, while how easy to counter he is makes him far too risky to put forth as the pos 1 main hard carry for the average game.

His low base attack damage also makes a lane with 2 people in it even less enticing for him, as he is an easy hero to deny creep kills to, and having potentially two people doing it can quickly ruin your lane. Even if sniper does get his farm though, he still can't beat most other hard carries late game if they don't ignore him in fights, and he certainly doesn't have the same level of AoE/teamfight capability as many others.

[Fistraiser]

People who pick sniper mid usually do it because they don't know how to lane.
I mean it can be fine in other lanes depending on drafts.but most mid snipers are low skill players who think the hero is op.
Most of them don't even pressure their mid march up.they just shrapnel and right click away uncontested most of the time.
If they went offlane or safelane they have to worry about ganks and their positioning Vs 2 hero's.
If they go mid it's free farm in low skill matches.nit to mention in low skill matches people don't gank mid.

[Amogus]

Originally posted by Fistraiser:

If they go mid it's free farm in low skill matches.nit to mention in low skill matches people don't gank mid.

Better yet, it's usually that the mid doesn't have the brain capacity to understand that he's got a support coming in for the gank.

I gave up trying to go for mid ganks in high herald-low guardian bracket since 9 out of time attempts will result in the mid just casually walking away while I'm trying to wait for the right moment to jump on the mid, even though I say that I'm on my way for a mid gank and ping the enemy mid to inform them of my intent. It's not just a matter of lacking the support coming mid to gank, but also lacking a mid with the brain capacity to say "hey, my support is mid and informing me they are ready for a gank, so I should get ready for it".

[Highrule -1]

When was Sniper not a midlaner? Granted it's not a very strong choice and there should always be better options, but it's not to a point where a mid Sniper should be shocking or anything...

[Tome]

Originally posted by Highrule -1:

When was Sniper not a midlaner? Granted it's not a very strong choice and there should always be better options, but it's not to a point where a mid Sniper should be shocking or anything...

Last I played was before the reborn update. Things were very different back then.

[no154370]

the reason why sniper is not a hard carry in late game to very late game onward are due to these

1) people don't bother to buy agility items for sniper

2) magic damage items is very highly ineffective in late game and very late game onwards.

e.g maelstrom and mjollnir are the most useless item for sniper in late game and very late game.

3) people don't bother to get lifesteal items for sniper at all

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if you asks me, the items i will go for sniper are these

i) power treads (strength or agility) (this can be upgraded to boots of travel in the late game onward)

ii) silver edge

iii) bkb or mkb or both depending on what opposite team hero buy

iv) sange and yasha (this is optional)

v) butterfly (if opposite team none of them got mkb, then get this item)

vi) satanic

vii) manta style

i will never get mask of madness, it will seal off your skills completely for 6 secs and it is fatal in team fights.

the worst item that can HARD COUNTER sniper is this item especially in late game and very late game.

a) Overwhelming Blink item

even if you got dragon lance it is not enough to counter the item i mention above.

[Amogus]

Originally posted by no154370:

i will never get mask of madness, it will seal off your skills completely for 6 secs and it is fatal in team fights.

There is absolutely NOTHING WRONG with having his abilities (not his passive) being disabled during team fights, especially if the enemy team has BKBs and/or high armor. Shrapnel does next to nothing late game and his 2 other abilities can be on cooldown when you use MoM.

I don't know what planet you're living on if you think that Sniper's abilities (not his passives) are what make him strong. Sure, assassinate is a good ability for finishing someone off at a distance, but you can easily use MoM to get someone's health down and then finish them off with assassinate AFTER the silence has expired. Shrapnel becomes irrelevant for anything other than being a minor annoyance for squishy supports and/or disabling blinks in the late game, so it has nothing going for it past the 30+ minute mark.

You said yourself that the issue with most Sniper players is that they don't buy agility items late game, which is another way of saying not relying on raw damage from their auto attacks, which is another way of saying attack speed is more important than magical damage from his abilities (you said yourself that auto attack damage is more important than magical damage from things like maelstrom). You can't argue that being silenced late game is a death sentence while also saying that Sniper is weak when he relies on magical damage items late game, as literally every non-passive ability he has does magical damage. MoM is a great choice in the mid game and, depending on the situation, can be replaced with a satanic if necessary in the late game. If you want to argue that Sniper should be relying on the physical damage from his auto attacks in the late game by buying agility items, then you should be all for a MoM because it amplifies his physical damage by increasing his attack speed and, as a result, his DPS.

You contradicted yourself in your own argument by saying that he needs his MAGICAL DAMAGE ABILITIES in team fights, but that RELYING ON MAGICAL DAMAGE is "fatal". 6 seconds of being unable to use abilities isn't a big deal in the least, ESPECIALLY if all of your abilities are on cooldown in the first place. Why not have the 6 seconds of bonus attack speed if you're down to auto attacks only because your abilities are on cooldown?