Sniper remake (more skill, less noob!)

Sniper remake

When voting, don't take into account the math, which I acknowledge is a little imbalanced. Focus on the overall idea instead.



**** attack speed and agility growth along with **** damage. Relies more on spells and skills to play.




Q: Shrapnel Grenade
Fires a ball of shrapnel that explodes at the target location, dealing some damage and pushing enemies to the edge of the radius.
- 900 range
- 275 radius
- 40/80/100/140 damage
- 60 mana cost
- 20/17/14/11 second cooldown
(Similar to Flamebreak)

This lets Sniper reposition his enemies and makes it easier for him to escape/secure a kill, giving him an advantage in terms of positioning.




W: Take Aim
Sniper lies on the ground after channeling, giving him a vastly increased attack range. Getting up afterwards will increase Sniper's movement speed for a short duration.
- 2 second channel
- 150/300/450/600 attack range increase
- 15/20/25/30 second maximum duration
- 25% movement speed boost for 2/3/4/5 seconds
- 50 mana cost
- 20 second cooldown

W(When skill is active): Get back!
Ends the skill prematurely.

Notes:
The cooldown timer begins ticking down when the skill is activated.
Auto attack is disabled when used.

Makes positioning all the more important for Sniper. He can now go undetected while shooting from the fog of war, and good positioning gives a huge advantage in fights. If the enemies were to figure out where he was, he can get away preemptively with the movement speed bonus. Enemies would be shouting "where's that ****ing sniper" all game (almost like in FPS).




E: Full Metal Jacket
Sniper loads his gun with a larger bullet, piercing armor and increasing its damage based on sniper's bonus damage (from items that provide damage like Phase Boots, Crystalys etc.) and mini-stunning its target. Damage is not reduced by damage block.
- 0/1/3/5 armor pierce
- 10/20/30/40 +50% of Sniper's bonus damage as damage increase
- 0.5 second mini-stun
- 30 mana cost
- 6/5/4/3/2 second cooldown

Notes:

This necessity to save shots, coupled with low attack speed and attack damage on Sniper, makes it less of a right-click-spam-and-win or right-click-spam-and-feed hero, while increasing the effectiveness of single attacks. Any sniper, let alone any sane person, can easily testify that nobody can shoot the sniper rifle accurately hitting the same randomly moving target over and over at 200 rounds/minute.




R: Assassinate
Channels a shot that fires forward in a straight line, dealing damage to all enemies heroes hit. The damage falls off greatly once it hits an enemy hero.
- 1500/2000/2500 range
- Same damage as current Assassinate
- 40% damage fall-off per hero hit

Makes assassinate a skillshot ability! Also, full health enemies can "shield" their low health allies so that they receive less damage and hopefully not die. This means that team cohesion from the other team would affect Sniper's play and makes different assassination angles important for a competent Sniper.




The current Sniper play style consists of moving forward, attacking, then moving backward, attacking, and moving backwards/forwards on repeat. With this skillset, Sniper can contribute in early fights instead of kill securing, and it fits more with the regular definition of a sniper (taking calculated shots, being focused, requiring skill etc.). I really hope that this "noob hero" can be made to be more "pro".

"Professionals have standards. Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet." - wise words.

Well, perhaps I've overdone this hero remake and made it too hard to play, but this is just what I think sniper should be like. Comment if you think otherwise and would like to improve on the idea :)

THIS IS AWESOME.
the fact that assasinate will become a skillshot, and that he has armor reduct and 2 guaranteed ministuns will ensure that sniper gets picked in competitive and sees more play at higher MMR.

too good
*sniffs back a tear*

The Assassinate idea is the same 1 i had. I like it. I thought of it as a more damaging powershot.

Rest emm not so sure.

I'm a little confused about "Full Metal Jacket". Is the Armour Pierce a Debuff that provides Armour Reduction for only 1 Attack? Also about the "saving shots" does this means there are limited Charges like Flame Remnant, and if so, how do they recharge?

Also with Take Aim, you mention about hitting from the Fog of War. Does this mean Sniper becomes Invisibile when using this Skill? because Attacking always reveals you in Fog of War, even if you're on High Ground, or otherwise obstructed from Vision.

I do like these ideas though, properly balanced it could make for a much more interesting Hero. I'm not too sure if a Shrapnel rework is need though as it is already a Skillshot that can be useful in Teamfights, against Jukes, etc.

Assassinate Rework is pure gold though <}3

Also, don't worry about making it "too hard to play", it doesn't even compare to Meepo or Invoker 8{3

Interesting ideas, he'd need a full rework/rebalance, but it would make him more fun to play. Also a bit confused about Take Aim - is he invis like Shadow Amulet, or does he just not reveal outside a certain radius? (say shooting from behind trees or high ground?) Does he get to keep attacking while lying down?

I think you could leave Shrapnel as it is, already an ok skill. Personally I'd like to see Assassinate manually targeted - you channel for a few seconds and then can decide on the line of the bullet, it hits everything in it's path for reducing damage, but could make it a real skillshot :)

Honestly nothing is really wrong with sniper right now, he is pretty easy to deal with and the fact that you are trying to make him "less noob" just shows that you are failing to deal with him on your own. The Assassinate rework is interesting however to me it seems like a glorified Powershot. All in all unnecessary.

I'm a bit confused over "get back!" being mapped to Q. Does that mean that we couldn't use shrapnel grenade?

I don't think you understand my meaning of a "noob hero". I can deal with him fine; in fact, I have trouble NOT dealing with him unless my teammate feeds the **** out of him in lane, and it's the same when I'm playing Sniper. What I meant is that Sniper has such a 1-dimensional gameplay, and literally requires near 0 skill to play (apart from basic positioning). So I asked the question: in what game are snipers "suitable for noobs"? And through this I realized that Sniper needed to be changed somehow to be made less easy to play. With a higher skill cap, he won't be a useless piece of **** in the early-mid game if he doesn't snowball, in the right hands of course.




Whoops, my bad, gave Get Back! The proper key allocation :)




When using Take Aim, he is not invisible, but shooting from behind fog will not reveal him (but bullet direction is clear), and you can shoot while lying down, hence the attack range increase.

I like your suggestion for the new Assassinate! It would be something like a Phoenix Sun Ray in that you can change the direction of the cast while channeling, correct? If this is the case, I'd like the idea of Snipers leading their targets with their ultimates and firing the killing blow.





Yes, armor pierce deals damage as if the target had less armor, but does not actually reduce the armor of the target. Also, by "saving shots" I meant that you only had 1 shot every 2 seconds, so you have to be choosing the right targets to attack and disrupt.

Well, when you attack an enemy from the fog of war, they get vision of you, correct? Using take aim would mean that you could avoid enemies getting vision of you and and remain untargeted by enemies while you shoot them. However, if an enemy walk beside you and stuns you, you're still kinda screwed. :P

I think what you and Sando said are true, I find Shrapnel quite useful myself and I originally wanted to keep shrapnel as his first skill (but with a decreased mana cost since he got more active skill), but I think he should have some kind of spell that lets him push enemies away (like Gust for Drow Ranger). I could be wrong though.





Glad you liked it :)




Thanks for all the feedback, guys. Relax, you're doing fine, and keep Dota-ing!

Old thread ik.

I just want to say, I think sniper should stay with 0 skill required. There have to be some easy heroes in the game right? If every hero was hard and consisted of skillshots and magical combos you have to pull off in milliseconds, where would you start? You have to get into the game somehow, nobody is denying sniper is a non easy hero, but surely he was made for this purpose! I think he should stay the same, these ideas are cool, but I don't think it is necessary for sniper. It's sort of like changing drow ranger's frost arrows into spammable mirana skillshots. I think the easier heroes should stay easy. There's no need to make easy heroes hard, because they are easy for a reason.