Sniper

Kardel Sharpeye the Sniper is a ranged agility hard 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 mini-stun, 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 extremely hard into the late game, dealing a remarkable amount of dps while sitting outside of harm's reach, almost permastunning heroes with his headshot. Though he is a rather frail hero, his potential in the hands of a good player and team is high.

Trivia

 * 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: "Thanks for standing still, wanker!", "Let's have a go at it", "Professionals have standards", "I am polite and efficient", and "As long as there's two heroes on the battlefield, someone is gonna want someone dead".
 * Sniper's name in DotA, Kardel Sharpeye, is a reference to professional Counter-Strike player Kyle "Ksharp" Miller of team 3D, who is regarded for his skillful AWP (Sniper rifle) use.
 * Sniper's fun name in DotA was Vassili Zacjev/Zaitsev, a highly skilled Russian sniper who was active during World War 2.
 * Sniper's line "What a dum-dum!" is a pun on the dum-dum, or expanding bullet. It is designed to expand on impact in order to limit penetration and create a wound larger in diameter.
 * Sniper's eye wear was added to Team Fortress 2 on the 18th August 2011 as Sniper's Snipin' Glass.
 * Sniper's ultimate, Assassinate, has the same sound when firing the shot as Counter Strike's famous AWP.

Update history
July 18, 2013 Patch
 * Fixed Backswing behavior for:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and.

June 28, 2013 Patch
 * Fixed 's Trueshot component not working with Illusions.
 * Updated to higher fidelity model.

April 19, 2013 Patch
 * Added victory animations and more aggressive posing of idle, run and attack when enemy is in range.

March 14, 2013 Patch
 * Fixed not working on units like Spirit Bear, 's Golem, etc.
 * Fixed doing slightly less damage than intended to towers.
 * Fixed 's physical damage bonus being blocked by Magic Immunity.

November 30, 2012 Patch
 * Pseudo Random chances are now enabled for these abilities:
 * Phantom Assassin's Coup de Grace icon.png Coup de Grâce
 * Slardar's Bash icon.png Bash
 * Faceless Void's Time Lock icon.png Time Lock
 * Brewmaster's Drunken Brawler icon.png Drunken Brawler's critical strike
 * Sniper's Headshot icon.png Headshot
 * Juggernaut's Blade Dance icon.png Blade Dance
 * Chaos Knight's Chaos Strike icon.png Chaos Strike
 * Lycanthrope's Shapeshift icon.png Shapeshift's critical strike
 * Skeleton King's Mortal Strike icon.png Critical Strike

September 13, 2012 Patch
 * Broken down a number of existing hero models into multiple parts Death Prophet,  Enchantress,  Huskar,  Silencer,  Sniper,  Storm Spirit,  Venomancer and  Weaver.

July 19, 2012 Patch
 * Added teleport start and end animations for Sniper, Spirit Breaker and Weaver.
 * Added spawn animations for Sniper and Weaver.

February 16, 2012 Patch
 * Fixed Headshot bonus proc damage working against Towers and Buildings.
 * Fixed Headshot working while Doomed.

November 03, 2011 Patch
 * Fixed Assassinate reveal debuff never disappearing if the target dodges it with a blink.

September 29, 2011 Patch
 * Fixed Assassinate ministun interaction with BKB

September 09, 2011 Patch
 * Sniper will only say his shrapnel line if he captures any heroes in the radius.

August 07, 2011 Patch
 * Fixed Legacy hotkeys on Sniper and Earthshaker

August 02, 2011 Patch
 * Fixed the cast time on Assassinate.
 * Assassinate keeps units from going invisible.
 * Fixing the duration on the Shrapnel's slow. It was hardcoded to 1.5 and now it's 2.0.

July 29, 2011 Patch
 * Fixed Shrapnel slow not getting upgraded per level.

April 30, 2011 Patch
 * New Hero: Sniper