There are only a couple of major alternatives to the standard skill build. The first one is taking both Take Aim and Headshot, skipping Shrapnel early on, to farm and possibly even kill heroes faster. Personally this is not recommended as Shrapnel is a great and important skill, and you get just as much farming power with it as you would with Headshot.

The other one is grabbing a couple of levels of Stats early on. Still, max Shrapnel, and levels 2 and 4 grab some stats instead of Take Aim/Headshot. Stats give you some HP and MP which actually helps a bit early game. This again is not recommended over the standard skill build, since when you get your first survivability and mana regeneration items, the extra Stats don't become as useful as Take Aim/Headshot.

Whenever you have the feeling that nukers kill you too quickly and you can’t farm well enough, you should buy one or two Bracers. They give you hp and are easy to farm. But remember that Lothar’s Edge is much more useful.



Adding 1 or 2 Wraith Bands is never a bad idea. They give you a bit of everything you need: A bit more hp, a bit more damage which is good on lower levels where Sniper's damage is poor and a bit mana for using Shrapnel more often. But if you have problems with nukers you should buy Bracers and if you farm very well you should go for Lothar's Edge and luxury items.

Its really your choice whether you should go for Wraiths or Bracers.

This picture shows you that Shrapnel’s AoE is decent. The only special thing that you have to know about Shrapnel is the positioning of it and abusing it's AoE.

Instead of simply using the skill on the center of a creep wave, you can also harass you opponent with it. Look at this picture:


You will not just hit all the creeps, you will also hit heroes in an area behind them. Usually they don’t want to be damaged, so they will go out of the AoE and then they can’t last hit/deny the melee creeps easily.

Shrapnel also damages towers. I don’t have to explain much here I think. You push while farming with it and your creeps will fight near to the tower. Use it so that you will hit creeps, heroes, and the tower at the same time. Notice that the tower is fat and can’t move, so you don’t need to have the whole tower in your aiming circle.

It's obviously how to use Shrapnel to flee. Aim between you and the enemy hero. What is important here is to cancel the animation. Look here:


If I wouldn't have canceled the animation I would be dead.


And there Weaver pawned me. Using Shrapnel against heroes that can blink or move very fast isn't super effective, but sometimes it is worth a try.

The most important thing here is not clicking directly on the enemy hero. That's as effective as aiming Elune's Arrow directly on a moving hero.

First look which way your gank target is going. Make sure that he is cornered by Shrapnel and your allies, so that he has to walk into it. I guess you know that already if you play Pudge/Mirana/Lina/Kunkka, etc. sometimes.


In this pic you see a siuation where Leoric had to run into my Shrapnel because he was chased by my allies.

This is quite obvious. High casting time that can be interrupted easily, huge range, very high damage and it ignores invisibility; the perfect skill for finishing off near-to-death heroes. Use it on low HP heroes to kill them. It is so simple but why is it, that some people don't understand how to use it correctly?

Some people always complain that you are stealing a kill when you use Assassinate on a low HP hero. Someone has to get the lasthit and you are a carry (not the best one, thats true). So ignore these guys that flame at you. You just secured a kill. But there are situations where you can waste your ultimate.

Lets pretend you (Sniper), Vengeful Spirit and Lion gank 2 heroes. Vengeful and Lion use their skills and would surely kill someone and the other hero runs away with 200 hp. While reading this and thinking about it is obvious what to do: Use Assassinate on the fleeing hero. But I see so many people who use Assassinate at the beginning of a fight, trying to weaken the ganked hero, who would of died anyways. Always, when ganking, try to save Assassinate to finish off the ganked heroes.

I see too many people using Assassinate when someone starts attacking them.

If you are lucky and your target doesn't interrupt Assassinate or kills you, this will happen; You use it, your target will notice the low hp and will run away.

The best way is to use Shrapnel and attack the hero to force him to run away and finish him off with Assassinate.

But there are a lot of heroes who will make it not that easy for you to kill them.

1. Invisibility



2. Blinking Heroes



3. Invulnerability



4. Magic Immunity



There is a solution to all these heroes:



This disables all their ugly abilities, even Riki's ultimate and it allow Assassinate to deal more damage. The only things that can interrupt your ultimate now are certain items and passive stuns.

This is an important thing to know when playing Sniper. Usually enemies will be trying to gank you to stop you from farming, so it is a good idea to always have an escape mechanism with you. You will need one before you get Lothars, and even after that Lothars can be unreliable if enemies get Dust or Necronmicon.

So always carry 1 extra TP scroll with you. If your teammates have warned of a mia, and after some time you are sure that the enemy is going to gank you, then just TP to a different lane where you can farm/push rather peacefully.

Since Sniper's mana pool is rather low early game, it is important for us to know when we can use our spells. If you can afford to to use your spells for early pushes and harrasing then do so. However try to keep your mana up, so that you always have one Shrapnel ready. This last Shrapnel can be used for last ditch efforts against ganks.

Once you get your Oblivion Staff, you don't really need to worry about conserving your mana anymore. The regen will provide you with enough mana to spam Shrapnel, and even have some left over for an Assassinate.

After you finish the laning phase, and even during the laning phase, you should be trying to farm and push to the best of your ability. That one extra tower down early game, is huge for your team. After you push one tower in a lane, go to a different lane and push one tower there. Pushing any furhter than the second tower alone is too dangerous.

Other than pushing just try to farm one lane. When enemies come to gank you or try to deny XP then just TP to a different lane, and start farming there. Snipers attack animation is very good, so last hitting should be fairly easy.

At this point you should have your basic core build finished. That means that you can and should try sticking with your team and doing pushes together with your team. You should also take part in team battles. Income should be coming from hero kills at this point.

Your team should try to push down the tier 2 tower in each lane. Hopefully you can also get some tower kills, and that will result in a big boost in your money.

If your team is turtling, and does not want to push, then just try to stop enemy pushes as best as you can. Your Shrapnel is an excellent tool that can be used for stopping large pushes, so use it.

At this point your DPS should be pretty high. You should have at least one luxury at this point. With your team behind your back, you are quite a formidable carry. Also if no one has soloed Roshan yet, then it is our priority to do so. You most likely will not be able to kill him alone, so make sure to bring a couple of teammates to help.

Your team should definitely be trying to push into the enemy base at this point. You will want to end the game very soon, or other harder carries will out DPS and overcome you.

Riki and Mortred are complaining that Sniper is stealing kills from them, ironically they are hard carries.


Snipers response ^_^.