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fisticuffs aficionado

    Sniper is neither overrated nor least reliable carry currently. You just voiced forcefuly alternate and controversial opinion to bait and stir. Shame. Thats me sharing thoughts.

    Fathomorg

      While I agree with just about everything said about Sniper in this article, I feel that Sniper is more potent as an A-Tier mid-lane. For anybody trying to pick up this hero, I have a few advanced tips:

      1. Notice this scaling on headshot damage is 20/50/80/110. The second point is your bread and butter as you more than double the proc damage. From mid, I'm usually still building 0-4-4, but in the off chance I'm maxing shrapnel, I like to at least take a second point in headshot before putting more than one point in take aim if permitted. That said, you have a massive power spike at 0-2-1 that you can lean into (this could apply to carry if you happen to build this route as well).

      2. The best utility that Assassinate provides without aghs is long-range vision. While aiming and the projectile is traveling, you get shared vision of the target (meaning your team sees what that unit sees). This is a really strong tool for invading and sieging when enemies are grouped together. Use this to give your initiators more information; you don't even have to fully cast assassinate, just cancel right before you fire and recast on the same target if you need to. If you wanna get really fancy, you can actually target swap with the vision granted by the cast animation. Just quickly stop-cast and cast on someone else before losing the shared vision. This works by aiming at creeps as well.

      3. You can lead smoke ganks for your team if you aren't trigger-happy. Sniper's increased night vision is supposed to make it so that his attack range is never longer than his vision, but you can abuse this. Many teams will opt to smoke during the day since the smoke break radius of 1025 is shorter than the base day vision of 1800 for most heroes; this lets you see the enemy before they can see you. At night, this is impossible for most heroes without wards as the base night vision is 800, but Sniper's base 1400 night vision still allows your team to see enemies before they can see your team so long as you lead. When you see an enemy, just be patient for someone else to initiate as you won't be the one providing the necessary lockdown. Ideally, you don't want your enemy to get off a BKB, as your headshot procs don't pierce spell immunity.

      Fudjin

        Most people dont consider sniper to be broken he's just a regular ol' carry in a good spot right now. He has strengths and weaknesses. Lina and SF are considered broken heroes right now by most because of their flat DPS increases they don't really have to worry about conditions.

        OpTiMIsTDoTA

          Sniper is good in Low Mmr's 2k ,3k's love that hero xD, In High Mmr they just Consider it a good counter matchup vs Lina which is so popular right now.

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          Lolzki

            One of the most defining feature of sniper is its ability to deal damage from further range in comparison to the other heroes that are mentioned, no? In some fights, especially Roshan, with the terrain, good positioning, and a too-tanky-to-burst frontliner, it might be more difficult to be able to get close to Sniper. Obviously, against heroes such as the Spirits & Morph, this advantage is effectively nullified. All these are just hypothetical and i'm not a Sniper main myself, but a discussion of Sniper should mention that niche at least

            Edit: after reading in more detail, I saw you mentioned that in one paragraph in the closing. To reply to that, the most important fights are the Roshan and highground siege/defense fights, in which the extra range might make a little bit of difference. Though as you pointed out, the low winrate speaks for itself, but i'm wondering what kind of heroes are on the opposing team in those games.

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            Deepbluediver

              My problem with him is that he's very popular in lower brackets just because of how easy he is to play, and how hard he is to deal with if he gets farmed and you're team doesn't have a good Blink-dagger user. He's not necessarily OP, just very popular and also very annoying, which makes the game un-fun very quickly. So I try to ban him every match.

              Sniper has the twin problems (IMO) of being frustrating to play against in the lower brackets and not very appealing in higher brackets. The whole hero needs some kind of rework IMO. Maybe change his passive and some of his abilities to give him more short-ranged utility and damage, while keeping the long-range ult for pickoffs (which is really what a "sniper" is anyway).
              Either that or, for a REALLY crazy idea, give him some sort of invis or stealth ability and make him more of a ganker, and change his abilities to be skillshots, so Sniper-players actually have to try in teamfights. Again, combine it with a utility increase and make him more interesting than just "spooge shrapnel everywhere and then go AFK while you auto-attack".

              EMELIUS

                snipers good in 5k+

                Feeding Rainbow

                  Why does this guy still get to write articles?

                  Black Lives Matter

                    Terriblade is also a good ranged carry alternative. Yes, he's a hybrid between illusion and ranged, but higher level Dota players would rather run with him than with Sniper. If Sniper gets picked, it's a concession because Drow or Lina were banned.

                    He works better as "carry from mid" in the trench because outscale traditional mids in damage for the game goes 40 minutes+.

                    Just like Medusa, another ranged hero who went unmentioned.

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                    Extvia

                      Sniper's not overrated. Drow, Lina and SF are just overpowered and have way too much going on for them. Calling Sniper overrated is like calling all these less picked melee carries with less going for them overrated cause they're not on par with these disgustingly powerful ranged carries.

                      Go ahead and keep pumping false info though, less people picking or banning my boy the better.