Sniper

Kardel Sharpeye the Sniper is a ranged agility Carry who excels at dealing heavy damage at an incredible range. His third ability, Take Aim, allows him to deal high DPS at a safe distance, and avoiding damage as he is relatively frail. He also excels at harassing enemies due to his second ability, Headshot, which gives him a chance to do extra damage and a brief slow, and his first ability, Shrapnel, which slows and deals damage over time in an area. While he can be a nuisance to lane against, he is also extremely squishy early-game and requires supports to lane effectively. He scales into the late game, dealing a remarkable amount of dps while sitting outside of harm's reach, almost permaslowing heroes with his headshot. Though he is a rather frail hero, his potential in the hands of a good player and team is high.

Tips

 * Sniper's main advantage is his range - always remain as far away from harm as possible while still dealing damage.
 * is an incredibly versatile and useful ability with excellent range and a low mana cost. Among its myriad uses are chasing, farming, anti-juking, creep clearing and impeding chasing enemies or those attempting to close to melee range.
 * Carefully consider your laning situation when deciding which of Sniper's abilities to max first. It is common to level up first when playing him in the middle for the lane control it provides, which is particularly effective in the relatively cramped environment of the river. On the other hand, maxing  first in the safe lane can be very potent, especially against a melee solo offlaner like  or.
 * One level of is typically enough for the laning phase since it allows Sniper to outrange every enemy except  and . Only invest extra points early if you're taking very heavy ranged harassment.
 * Use to finish fleeing enemies if and when they manage to get out of range of your regular attacks, or if you're not involved directly in a fight and wish to finish an enemy off without revealing your precise location.
 * Since grants full vision of an enemy during the cast time it can be used to counter an enemy attempting to juke your allies in the trees or go invisible. The extra couple of seconds of vision can often make the difference.
 * Although not mentioned in his recommended items - and for good reason - a Mask of Madness is a fairly common purchase on Sniper as a large and cost effective increase to his DPS and farming potential at the expense of increasing his already significant fragility. Extreme care should be taken with this item choice though, as enemies who can close the gap on you easily like, or deal large amounts of damage from range like will annihilate you in short order. This goes double for enemy carries with natural mobility such as ,  or.
 * If possible, try to have at least one teammate on a hero who can get into the enemy team's face and keep their attention while you sit at range and deal damage during teamfights. and  would be good examples. Sniper is a great deal more difficult to play in lineups which lack this component to some degree.

Trivia
Incidentally, his voice actor, Gary Schwartz, also voices the Heavy Weapons Guy and Demoman in Team Fortress 2.
 * A number of Sniper's lines are either direct quotations or paraphrases of lines used by the Sniper class in Team Fortress 2, a popular class-based shooter also by Valve. Such phrases include:
 * snip_tf2_02.mp3 Thanks for standing still, wanker!
 * snip_tf2_05.mp3 Let's have a go at it!
 * snip_tf2_06.mp3 Professionals have standards.
 * snip_tf2_07.mp3 I'm polite and efficient.
 * snip_tf2_08.mp3 As long as there are two heroes left on the battlefield, someone is gonna want someone dead.
 * Sniper's line, " snip_kill_blade_04.mp3 Inconceivable!" is likely a reference to Vizzini's catchphrase in the film The Princess Bride due to the similarities in both the appearance and voices of the two.
 * Sniper's name, Kardel Sharpeye, is a reference to professional CounterStrike player Kyle "Ksharp" Miller of team 3D, who is regarded for his skillful AWP (Sniper rifle) use.
 * Sniper's ultimate, Assassinate.mp3, also uses the same, though slightly modified gunshot csgo awp shoot.mp3 sound as CounterStrike's AWP.
 * Sniper's model in Dota 2 is based loosely off of Gary Oldman's portrayal of the real life sniper Lee Harvey Oswald in the 1991 film JFK.
 * Sniper's fun name in DotA was, a highly skilled Russian sniper who was active during World War 2.
 * Sniper's line, " snip_kill_05.mp3 What a dum-dum!" is a pun on the, also known as a dum-dum. It is designed to expand on impact in order to limit penetration and create a wound larger in diameter.