Yet another Sniper Discussion.

It's not the same. Sniper is way, way worse than these heroes against roaming.
If you roam on a Shadow Fiend, he can go for a counter kill with Shadowraze. A lot os SF's mid who get roamed on go for the trade : they die but before dying they take down one support with double raze. They still get XP and lose no gold.
Silencer...who plays him mid anyways, nobody in competitive and hardly anyone in pubs (and when they do they usually don't need to get roamed on to feed :)
Lina also has an answer to roaming, she can stun heroes under the tower and burst them with Dragon Slave + right clicks. Again she can either trade kills or just escape thanks to her stun.

Sniper on the other hand has literally no answer to getting ganked mid. Sure he can use Shrapnel but it won't do anything, and right-click for 40 damage a hit. And then what? Yeah he's dead.

Sure you can have a support always sitting behind Sniper mid to save his *** if he gets jumped on. But that's basically a dual lane mid.

You know, there's another carry that I always like to play in a dual lane mid with a support because he needs fast XP and needs a babysitter in lane : Spectre.

If Sniper absolutely needs constant support from the rest of his team to not feed mid then he doesn't have such good lane presence after all...
So at that point you might as well play a hero with no lane presence like a Spectre, or AM, or Tiny in a dual lane mid. They'll use this advatage way better.

There are no trash heroes in this game, just better heroes :)

So does he still need a buff? Sure Icefraud can keep buffing him, and once he has 1200 attack range, 65 base damage, and his ultimate's mana cost is reduced to 100 at all levels, people will scream OP (and rightfuly so), but no amount of buff can fix this ******ed hero concept that sounds like it was designed by a 6-year-old (and probably was). Rework or riot. And by riot I mean I'm switching to LoL ^^

Just pick Storm Spirit and watch that mid Sniper melt.

Gank him from virtually any range. Vortex, and the lil' **** can't even pew pew. It's hilarious.

Strong mid heroes will have a response to Storm Spirit (generally). Sniper does not. He benefits from the solo gold and the additional XP mid provides, but as aforementioned there are much stronger middle picks. He has nothing in the way of rune control, and no way to defend himself. He needs a babysitter, or a(good) player will destroy him.

Here are my opinions on the hero:

1. Dotafire has pretty much always claimed that he isn't a good hero and the only reason we're having this discussion is because of his recent pro play, especially in DAC. The community is right: he is not a good hero. I think that there are many heroes who do his job better and that he's a situational pick. In those situations, however, he can really shine.

2. He's just a passing trend. Remember when everyone played Razor mid every game in TI4? You don't see that nearly as much anymore. Like Eul's Shadow Fiend he's just an overrated trend which will be over pretty soon.

3. The reason he's so "good" in pubs is because people don't bother countering him. He snowballs and it's ez gg. The reason he's so "good" in pro play is because with the right communication and team composition, he can really be a strong presence fairly early on in the game. It's really only these area where he's going to be successful, even in my 3000~ mmr level you don't see him at all because people are decent enough (most of the time) to either a) not pick him or b) counter him if he's picked.

Idk, I've been watching streams of people playing him. Arteezy played nearly nothing but Sniper in the days after DAC (at least in the matches I saw) so maybe we're missing something. But with the right team comp he can be sooo good. Axe is the ultimate best friend for him imo, with heroes like Tidehunter, Centaur Warrunner , and Elder Titan being up there as well. All he needs is initiation and someone to tank and he can just sit back and shoot people from safety.

I still prefer mobile heroes like Slark and Queen of Pain to deal with him. All he can do when you're on top of him is shoot with his garbage damage or run away; either way it's a kill if you have any kind of burst.

I think that in any situation where I might pick Sniper, I would pick Troll Warlord instead...

Yeah, actually I talked about Clinkz and Medusa but Troll Warlord is also a good hero you can compare him to.

When you think about it, Sniper's big strength is actually in the first 15-20 minutes of the game. He's one of the rare carries who can both harass really well AND grab early solo kills to snowball from their lane. In comparison, in the first 20 minutes Dusa can harass just as well but cannot get kills, and Clinkz can harass and get kills but he's a bit limited by his low mana pool and reliant on setup from his supports.

But Troll...I think he does everything Sniper does. Insane lane presence. Almost broken harass with 1 value point in Fervor. Can grab early solo kills very easily. Can push better than Sniper. And is a more reliable carry in every way since Sniper really suffers from the Drow syndrome.

Mayba, maybe in 6.84 when Troll gets nerfed and Sniper gets another buff, maybe Sniper will become a decent choice if you need a pushing/snowballing carry.

In your urge to deny Sniper being a viable pick you even compare him to Troll Wardlord, whose fighting style is polarly different from Sniper's...


Okay.

Razor was different though, he fitted perfectly into the meta and while i do think he was a bit overrated and overpicked, he was a strong pick in a lot of games. And though he has disappeared now i think he should be picked a bit more, since he trashes bristle and is a good substitution to viper, who is still being picked a lot for some reason.

this was high skill where everyone was over 3.5k

and i smoked or got invis rune most ganks. and one of them i had haste.

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1210226755

and this was a game where everyone except me and one on their team was over 4k and some 5k.
does that mean im an amazing player or antimage? nope. (dat 322 cs do)

yes sniper sucks against hardcore ganks mid, and that is his major weakness, but i also think he is awe full safelane, so you have to run him mid and help him a bit. and i doubt that sniper got much help.
same is true with something like medusa. she can be run mid just fine. but when we raped what i believe was sando in mid by constantly running at him with ES sven ganks i didnt think MEDUSA MOST AWE FULL HERO EU AND SANDO BEST FEEDER EU.

So conclusion:

Is Sniper bad, or just misunderstood?

In my opinion, he's just good against a few heroes that are very "in meta" at the moment.
Troll Warlord and Shadow Fiend.
If you are a sniper you shouldn't be killed by either of these or you are out of position. Or the have gone Shadow Blade and you have no detection (get detection... fixed). They get Blink Dagger? Fine, you go Blink Dagger anyway. Get Eye of Skadi and kite them to death.

I don't think Sniper is particularly good though, just good against these heroes. He is still very much a situational pick, but he is, as always, overpicked. This makes us think he is maybe worse than he is.