Sniper/Guide

General

 * Sniper is one of those "tower" heroes, which means that in an ideal team fight, or when he has support to back him up, he should remain fairly immobile and right-click away on the most appropriate target. These kinds of fights rarely happen, and you should always be ready to side-step an incoming nuke or start taking steps forward between your shots to keep up with a retreating enemy for example. Therefore, positioning is likely the single-most important aspect of playing Sniper and one that makes him overall relatively difficult to master.
 * As the "tower" hero with the most range, he is probably best played against other tower heroes, such as, or . But odds are there will always be a hero or two in the enemy team to jump on you and make your life miserable. At such, it is incredibly unlikely you can focus your items exclusively on DPS. You either need a  and/or a  to allow proper usage of that  you plan on buying, or go for more hybrid, tanking items such as ,  and  that should help you run away and/or not die immediately in fights.
 * Always remain as far away from harm as possible while still dealing damage.
 * Sniper's huge range has this drawback that you often do not keep your focus on your hero, allowing enemies to sneak up on you with more ease than on other DPS-carries. Never forget your positioning, and keep tabs of your enemies and who amongst them you should be wary of.
 * Although not mentioned in his recommended items - and for good reason - a 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  can 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.
 * increases Sniper's attack range to a maximum of 1090, allowing him to out-range the spells of most enemies while also granting strength and agility which Sniper needs. Combining it with to build  provides more agility as well as intelligence and health regeneration, along with its ability to provide unlimited range and mobility.
 * Instead of, may be considered. Although it provides less agility compared to Manta, but it provides 6% more movement speed and Greater Maim to help in chasing or kiting enemies.


 * Shrapnel 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.
 * Useful for providing vision during pushes, and scouting the tress next to a tower you're pushing, or inside the Roshan pit.
 * Shrapnel's damage has been buffed to considerable levels and will farm for you if you need to stay very safe. Drop one where creeps are clashing and retreat.
 * Shrapnel's 55 second cd per charge is huge, (one of?) the longest non-ultimate cd after and . Try not to waste any of them...
 * When running away from an enemy, typically a snotting, always drop Shrapnel in front of you, WITHOUT TURNING BACK. It's moderate duration will ensure your enemy will be fully slowed by it or make a big detour. Sometimes the damage it deals will be enough to turn the tides of a gank, whittling an enemy low enough to net a kill with.
 * When someone jumps on you, try to drop one on top of yourself as it will at the very least deal some damage instead of none. But try not to panic and drop THREE right on top of each of other as they don't stack at all.
 * It's a good spell to farm the jungle. To get the most value out of it, don't use it on top of the camp. Instead, use it right outside of the camp you're farming as the creeps will stay inside as they aggro you and run back.


 * Only the damage increases from extra levels in Headshot. A single point is good value for the slow; get it at level 4 at the very latest.
 * But in lanes versus slow, tanky, melee heroes, it can be very interesting to max it out early to kick them away from your lane.


 * 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 are taking very heavy ranged harassment.
 * With level 2 and higher Take Aim, his attack range is higher than the attack range of towers, allowing him to attack them without them being able to attack back. Your other skills don't help too much to push however so it's not an argument to level them over another point in Take aim.
 * The more range you have, the more targets you can potentially shoot and must keep tabs on.... and the more you have to remember to keep an eye on your actual hero.


 * Use Assassinate to finish fleeing enemies if and when they manage to get out of range of your regular attacks, or if you are not involved directly in a fight and wish to finish an enemy off without revealing your precise location.
 * Since Assassinate 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.
 * If you realize the enemy won't die from this spell, it can be best to cancel it with your stop command and try to get an extra attack or another round of Shrapnel on top of your enemy before casting it again.
 * Though the target is not visible to enemies, they can see the debuff, with its timeout, next to all the others. It is the single most easy targeted-spell to dodge in the game and you should not rely on it to kill an enemy with any kinds of short-cd disjoint such as, , or.
 * It has huge range and you can usually cast it from a safe distance in lane to harass a puny support or someone with no disjoint. Try to keep enough mana for a Shrapnel or two, a and another assassinate for when you're actually trying to get a kill.
 * Considering 25% magic resistance most heroes have, deals 240/363.75/487.5, if no other sorts of damage reduction or amplifications are affecting the target.