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". Incidentally, his voice actor, Gary Schwartz, voices the Heavy Weapons Guy and Demoman in Team Fortress 2.
 * 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.
 * Sniper has the highest Intelligence gain of any Agility Hero, which is ironic since most builds focus on maxing his Headshot and Take Aim (two passives without mana costs) first.

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