OVERPOWERED SNIPER GUIDE

Attack speed is VERY IMPORTANT for Sniper. My guide and item build will get Sniper to reach an attack speed of 450 (or even more if your team has Troll Warlord), which is about 0.39s per attack. Your enemies will have no time to escape and cast their spells at all. ENJOY.

Character

• Sniper is considered to be a very heavy carry, however, we rarely see professional players choose him as the carry simply because he has no escape mechanism and is extremely squishy.

• His 2nd skill (Headshot) is what it makes him to be a fearful hero when it comes to late game, not to mention his long rage (850) once 3rd skill is maxed, he can easily kill the enemies before they can even reach him.

• Sniper can be an extremely fun hero to play with, at least for me, in public game. Most of the people tend to underestimate his capability to carry his team to victory as far as my personal experience is concerned, where most of the late game heroes tend to fight with me face-to-face before they come to realize they have made the worst decision.

• Before I begin, I strongly recommend players to switch off the AUTO ATTACK that can be found in the settings in DotA 2, if you haven't already done so. The reason being that it makes last hitting so much easier compared with AUTO ATTACK, however, if you are comfortable with AUTO ATTACK switched on, that's fine.

Skill Build

• The argument always comes down to whether Sniper should learn Shrapnel in early game or not. I personally do not learn it until I've maxed Headshot and Take Aim.

• Shrapnel not only destroys the creep wave, but also eats up Sniper's mana. I only learn it at Level 10 and 12 because you'll need that for tower defense and to slow enemies down. The rest skill points will be used to max attributes before Shrapnel.

• Sniper obviously needs mana to cast his ultimate, spamming Shrapnel will only drain out his mana quicker than you masturbate. If you wanted to cast Shrapnel that badly, you'll have to get yourself Ring of Aquila which gives you faster mana regeneration, but wasting your slot.

Item Build

EARLY GAME

• In the early game, as usual, you need items that will keep you survive longer and damage that will help you better at last hitting, as Sniper has low damage at the start and low hp that is squishy as hell.

• If your last hitting were good enough, you should expect to get Hand of Midas by 6th ~ 7th minute. If you're later than that, you have to practice more, that's all I can say. The reason for getting Hand of Midas is to earn the extra gold that would help you get your item faster in late game.

• The next thing you want to get is Phase Boots. It gives extra damage and movement speed that will help you escape as well as chasing down the enemy.

• At this point, some of you might disagree with this build because they both already take up 2 slots. Sure, Power Thread gives the same movement speed and attack speed as they will be for HoM and Phase Boots. The good thing is that you'll gain extra speed, damage, and the extra gold and experience which is a very good long term investment when it comes to late game.

• Next, you should get Mask of Madness which gives you a crazy 100 attack speed and 30% movement speed, that will help you to escape. Again, some of you might disagree because Sniper has no damage at this point. My reasoning would be for the 17% lifesteal and escape mechanism. Also, when you joined early ~ mid game team war, you can activate and stay behind the enemies and attack like a boss. Nevertheless, for the sake of late game, you really need attack speed to shut down the enemies before they can even cast their spells. Remember in the late game, coupled with Monkey King Bar, Headshot is almost always triggered in every attack, leaving the enemies with no chance to cast their spells at all or escape.

• Next, you should already have Crystalys by the 18th to 20th minute. You should also be having couple of kills or killsteals :D. At this point, your mid game items should look like this:

MID GAME

• And don't forget to carry a TP with you at all times.

• If you want to make a Magic Wand from the leftover Ironwood Branch, that's fine. I personally don't always make a Magic Wand because sometimes I forget to activate, it's just my personal habit, if you feel secured to have a Magic Wand with you, that's fine, go for it.

• Now your focus is to complete your Daedalus, which is to boost your damage.

• After that, you should get yourself a Monkey King Bar, which boost your damage and attack speed to another level, as well as giving you a burst damage. Some people would get Butterfly for Sniper but honestly that evasion and the extra 30 agility doesn't do much compared with a Sniper with MKB. Sure it gives you extra armor and attack speed but we are talking about getting Sniper as much burst damage as possible.

• Finally, his lack of attack speed for not getting a Butterfly can be compensated by a Mjollnir, which boost another extra 80 attack speed. At this point, you should be able to kill your enemy easily like a normal creep. When you activated your Mask of Madness, you should be able to have a 450 attack speed (correct me if wrong, but I'm pretty sure is 450 and above), which is the fastest attack speed I ever had on Sniper. And imagine your team have a Troll Warlord, that would be a complete nightmare for the opponent team.

• With such an amazing and terrifying attack speed, your target would not have a single chance to come close to you or cast their spell. That is when you'll be having fun trolling with the enemy carries and supports :) Your late game items should look like this:

LATE GAME

Why not the usual Sniper build?

• Alright, let's talk about the usual items people would get for Sniper:

As mentioned earlier, I wouldn't take favor into getting Butterfly for Sniper simply because in my opinion it would be a little bit wasted for Sniper to carry it. Getting MKB in place of Butterfly would be more worthwhile. You'll have burst damage, fair attack speed and high damage compared to agility gain, armor increase, and evasion.

This item used to be my favorite item for Sniper. I always thought this item is the best for Sniper not until I've tried the Mask of Madness build. Yes, this item is extremely useful in the mid game, but when the enemy carries, usually the Agility Heroes, were farmed up, their armor in late game would be 20++, which would be meaningless for you to carry Desolator again. And if you insist to buy Desolator for him, you can't win against the enemy carries because you have no Lifesteal.

In my opinion, Manta Style does not give any significant effect to Sniper. Apart from the illusions that give you extra survivability, the overall stat increase and extra movement and attack speeds generally don't give much effect to Sniper.

Shadow Blade, for obvious reason, is easily counter-able with Dust of Apperance. The attack speed and movement speed can be compensated by other items such as Mask of Madness.

The only trade off of having Phase Boots and Hand of Midas instead of Power Treads is that you lose an extra slot for Sniper. Other than that, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't get PB and HoM for Sniper. They give you extra movement speed, damage, extra gold and experience. The effect of HoM will only be noticed when it comes to late game. You will get much more luxurious items with HoM than you will have with Power Treads.

Choice of Lane

• In general, Sniper almost always solo in the middle lane to get the most gold and exp.

• At times, when your team have one or few ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that wanted to solo mid ("Mid or Feed"), your last choice would be the safe lane (I assume you know where safe lane is). Going offlane does not do you any good at all, Sniper does not have any escape mechanism and your priority in the early game is to keep yourself safe and farm well. Also, when enemy starts ganking, you are always their main target, cause you can't do a ♥♥♥♥.

• In the middle lane, when you're against Pudge, I wouldn't say you are completely vulnerable against him, all you need to do is buy yourself an Observer ward and put it at the hill where you can see him clearly whether he tries to land a hook on you. Otherwise, you are a great threat to him, your Headshot almost always makes him low in HP.

• Basically, in my experience, with your Headshot and Take Aim max out as the top priority, you almost always winning the lane, I could not recall any instance when I lost in the middle lane. Remember to maintain your creep equilibrium at your tower, of course not at the distance where tower could attack the creeps, just at the edge of the hill.

Unusual Situations

• Normally, when you have the above items I've mentioned earlier, you should be killing enemies like there's no tomorrow or already have your game ended. If however you were getting aimed and died continuously, which would be the rare case for me as your teammates would be protecting you all the times, you should get yourself a Black King Bar.

• You have no choice but to sell your Phase Boots and Hand of Midas, because obviously there's no point for you getting that extra gold when you can now easily earn tons of gold and also to get yourself an empty slot for BKB.

• Although there may be other heroes that can counter Sniper easily, which I couldn't think of any at this moment, but Spirit Breaker and Nyx Assassin post a great threat to Sniper. Usually, Spirit Breaker is way tougher than Nyx Assassin, your team can just buy Dust of Appearance or whatever to reveal Nyx. But when it comes to Spirit Breaker with BKB on his hand, Sniper is almost always need to get himself a BKB in order to counter Spirit Breaker. Once you got BKB in your hand, the game is within your hand as well :D.

[BRETT RIVERBOAT]

Sniper is better to BOSS mid game imho

[Technomunk]

Also, you should only use your ultimate to kill a retreating enemy, that's hard to catch up to, or that's too far away from you, otherwise, you just waste your mana and dps

[Technomunk]

a) Sniper is NOT a late-game carry, his stat-gain is low, he can only focus one target at a time, his range is easily negated by blink or force staff
BUT he is very good mid game carry, at levels 11-17 he can usually gank any non-tank hero 1 on 1, even without a big item or xp advantage

b) Don't spam shrapnel on creeps, you can use it at early game to slow down enemies that chase you, or that try to escape you. 1st level of shrapnel slows down enemies in decent area by 15%, which is absolutly huge, if they don't have much much higher than yours movement speed. So I'd recommend getting 1 point early on.

c) Hand of Midas is not necessary at all, if you're good, you can carry your team to victory in under 30 minutes, by that time Hand of Midas WILL NOT benefit you, so you should rush MoM instead, get it at minute 6-8 and then go Sange and Yasha, which makes escaping from enemies much easier, while it makes much harder for enemies to escape from you.

[Technomunk]

d) Max headshots first, not taking aim, it increaces your damage, allowing you to be more aggresive early on. Before you have MoM and S&Y you should only run from enemies to the tower, if you are close to it, because killing a retreating sniper is much easier than killing a sniper that attacks you, even if you don't kill your pursuers, you'll do decent damage, so that allies will have a chance at finishing them off.

e) MKB is a good call, but by the time you get to building one, enemies usually get enough farm to burst you down, before you can kill them, so I'd recommend building some defencive item like butterfly or shadow blade (which gives even more ms)
Ignore this if you 5-man a lot and have some tanks, then you should build max dps.

P.S. Sniper is my favourite hero, and while I agree with some of the guide, I do think that you underutilise sniper's strengths (mid game potential) and underestimate your opponents(late-game initiation and burst can end a sniper in under a second)

[OTW 1k (for real)]

but try to do better

[OTW 1k (for real)]

its good

[D-Hara]

How is aquila wasting a slot! its like one of the best agi hero items in the game! and yes always max sharpnel 1st it does nothing mid/ late game but if u sharpnel some one at lvl 7 with max shrapnel its and easy ulti kill and ur aquilla will give u free mana while u free farm untill the next muppet comes along!

[76561198139268393]

noob guide!