So, im trying to write my first guide and i decided to write one about Sniper, one of the heroes that often feeds because he is played wrongly.
Im still a noob in writing guides, so pls help me, suggest ideas to improve my Guide and so on.

I wont have the time to completely finish my Guide now, it will take some weeks perhaps.




For detailed information on some things im not going to mention, pls take a look here: playdota link or here DA-wiki link (not yet updated)


Outline:
1. Skills
2. Sniper's Strength and Weaknesses
3. Skill + Itembuilds:
a) The harrasser / fast-push build (Shrapnel + Take Aim)
b) The farm build (Shrapnel + Headshot)
c) The hero-kill build (Headshot + Take Aim)
Rest to come whenever.



1. Skills

Shrapnel


Explanation:
Fires a ball full of shrapnel into the air. which promptly explodes, showering the target area in explosive pellets. Enemy units that walk in this area get damaged and slowed. Deals 30% damage to buildings. Lasts for 10 seconds.

Notes:
- Damage type: magical
- Grants vision of the area where it was casted (450 AoE).
- Deals 100/200/300/400 damage all in all over 10 seconds, not regarding Magic Reistance, can kill a ranged creep without problems at lvl 4
- Deals 30/60/90/120 damage against towers.
- Mana Cost is about 3/5 of Snipers Mana at Level 1
- Long Casting range (900), can include a tower in AoE without being attacked by it

Personal thoughts:
This skill is pretty good for clearing creep waves, with a pretty large AoE its easy to place if you dont care about heroes, but only want to damage creeps and push. If creeps are near an enemy tower, you can easily damage both. Helps you in last-hitting and is therefore a pretty good farming tool. Used against heroes, this synergizes good with Head Shot or Take Aim, because the slow gives you the opportunity to hit with some more shots. The disadvantage of this skill is the high Mana Cost in comparision with Sniper's low Mana Pool and poor Regeneration, youll hardly have a chance to cast more than 4 Scattershots until level 6 without going back to fountain, unless you have a lot of Clarities.


Headshot


Explanation:
A shot to the head deals bonus damage and stuns for a short duration.

Notes:
- Damage type: hero physical
- Also works on allied creeps, can be useful to deny creeps
- Stun is blocked by magic immunity
- Stun duration: 0,01/0,1/0,2/0,2
- Deals 30/30/40/50 bonus damage

Personal thoughts:
The ministun slows the enemy a bit down, but isnt really that great at the first levels. The main thing why to get this skill at the beginning is the bonus damage, which improves Snipers low base damage. This skill is pretty good for last-hitting. It is good the whole game. Early-game, the stun will be short and your attack speed isnt that high either, so that it wont proc very often, but if it procs, even if its only every third attack, it deals a good bonus damage. Mid-game is the perfect time for this skill imo, because now you can have some items which give you attack-speed, your agi is increasing and the max leveled skill stuns for a good time and deals still a nice damage. Late-game, this skill will proc even more often, but now the bonus damage isnt that much anymore, but the ministun is now strong, since the effect will proc more often.


Take Aim


Explanation:
Kardel uses his dwarf engineering skills to make modifications to his rifle, enhancing the range of his rifle.

Notes:
- Level 3 and 4 of this skill allow Kardel to out-range towers.
- Increases range by 55 (to 605) / 110 (660) / 165 (715) / 220 (770)

Personal thoughts:
Most often, this skill is only taken, because it out-ranges towers, the fact that you can stay a bit more away from enemy heroes is not always that important and often situational. Therefore, some people only take this skill until level 3 and only if they encounter a bad enemy they take level 4 of this skill.



Assassinate


Explanation:
Take time to draw a bead, and then deal a large amount of damage to the target at a huge range.

Notes:
- Damage type: magical
- Crosshair on target is visible to allies only
- Will still hit and damage the unit even if it goes invisible
- Interrupts channeling spells
- Interrupt works on magic immune units
- Casting Range of 1500/2000/2500 is pretty long
- low CD, average-high MC for Sniper
- Deals 355 (266 regarding base Magic Resistance) / 505 (378) / 655 (491) damage.

Personal thoughts:
The less controversial skill of Sniper. It is simply the Sniper's core skill and the favourite skill of many people. I mean, who doesnt like attacking enemies out of nowhere from a long range and this every 10 seconds at level 3. The missile can give sight of the enemy's whereabouts for a very short time, but this could be enough for teammates to move to the right place. Early / Mid-game it can keep a lot of heroes away from their line. It has an average Mana Cost, which rises each level, but since you must spam it, Sniper's Mana Pool is often not enough. Never cast it on Max Range, because if the enemy moves out of range, the casting will break.



2. Sniper's Strength and Weaknesses:

Strength:
- fast missile speed, easy to last-hit
- long attack range, especially with Take Aim
- high AGI
- high INT-gain per level

Weaknesses:
- low Mana Pool
- low Health Points
- low base-damage



3. Skill- + Itembuilds:

a) The harrasser / fast-push build (Shrapnel + Take Aim)

Explanation:
This build concentrates on getting enemy towers down as fast as possible and push your creeps a lot. Pls dont go for this build, if your team is full of carries or weak early-game heroes, because then this will fail.

Skill build + Explanation:
lvl 1: Shrapnel
lvl 2: Take Aim
lvl 3: Shrapnel
lvl 4: Take Aim
lvl 5: Take Aim
lvl 6: Assassinate
lvl 7: Shrapnel
lvl 8: Shrapnel
lvl 9: Stats / Headshot
lvl 10: Stats / Headshot
lvl 11: Assassinate
lvl 12: Stats / Headshot
lvl 13: Stats / Headshot
lvl 14: Stats / Headshot
lvl 15: Stats / Headshot
lvl 16: Assassinate
lvl 17-25: Whatever is left

Your core skills are of course Shrapnel and Take Aim, because these are the skills that are strong against towers and for getting creep waves down very fast.
You start with Shrapnel, because you wont need Take Aim at the very beginning. Before level 6 you should get Take Aim to the stage, where you can harrass towers without being attacked by them.
At level 6, you take Assassinate in order to make enemies leave their line, so that you can tower-harrass without being disturbed.
Imo, its unnecessary to take the fourth level of Take Aim, you dont really need it, it doesnt help you anymore in pushing. Therefore, you should max Shrapnel asap, since this clears creepwaves completely at level four.
After that, take either stats or Headshot. Stats give you a higher survivability, a better Mana Pool and a bit more damage. Headshot improves your pushing capabilities against creeps a bit, but is not that strong. Take whatever seems to you to be more fitting for the situation.
Assassinate is taken everytime you can, you need it, even if it doesnt really improve your pushing it keeps enemy heroes away from you.

Item build + Explanation:

A viable item for early-game spamming of Shrapnel, gives you some good farm and push.


Tangoes are always useful.


1 or 2 Bracers for a bit more HP and therefore a better survivability are needed most times.


1 Null is enough, Bracers are more needed. This gives you a higher Mana Pool.


Good for pushing, a bit higher MP-regeneration and a slightly increased armor.


With this + RoB + Nulls/ Bracers you have enough items that give you the MP and MP-regen you need. Now you can push, defeat towers and go on for some items that you need for your damage and your attack-speed.


This is pretty much the best item for Sniper if you already have enough MP to spam your skills. It also gives Sniper a higher survivability.
OR

With Sange and Yasha you have a better damage output, a good Orb effect and a better Survivability.
OR

This gives you a bit Strenth, more AGI and attackspeed, a bit useful INT, which you need for the active Mirror Image. This active increases your pushing power as well and the MS increase isnt bad either.

Best buy 2 of those 3, which one is up to you.


For the fast tower-pusher, these are necessary tools

Other possible items:

Although it grants you altogether less MP than Arcane Ring, it can be better, because it gives you a lot of Regen, you could even do without RoB then. Furthermore, the Movespeed is pretty good for changing lanes to push somewhere else and the cyclone gives you an escape mechanism and can prevent enemies from denying towers.


b) The farm build (Shrapnel + Headshot)

Skill build + Explanation:
lvl 1: Headshot
lvl 2: Shrapnel
lvl 3: Headshot
lvl 4: Shrapnel
lvl 5: Headshot
lvl 6: Assassinate
lvl 7: Headshot
lvl 8: Shrapnel
lvl 9: Shrapnel
lvl 10: Stats / Take Aim
lvl 11: Assassinate
lvl 12: Stats / Take Aim
lvl 13: Stats / Take Aim
lvl 14: Stats / Take Aim
lvl 15: Stats / Take Aim
lvl 16: Assassinate
lvl 17-25: Whatever is left