I've cussed this character out in matches many times. The first thing I notice is that he has no animation time in his attacks. You point, you click, you first hit. He doesn't do a lot of damage when you are in the first levels, but that's okay. Once you get the dance down, he's a cake walk to learn. I remember the first kill I got on assassinate. Oh my God, it was so amazing to be on the giving end of that rather than the receiving. I couldn't stop myself from singing "Shot through the heart, and you're to blame!" (... showing my age...). Now... in between getting him ready for pubs and reading up on builds, I tried to see what the normal pub sniper would do. Most Snipers on off or safe lane like to go for shrapnel at level 1 and spam that thing in order to push the lane.
... Uhm... thanks for the free exp when they reach my tower! ^^;
Sure, they take out most of my creeps, but often times they are not smart enough to ride their creep line and try to harass or even attack the tower, they just stay down there and let us kill their creeps. One time, this Sniper kept shrapneling our tower... x_x ... I think they were trying to attack the heroes, but the attack doesn't do much at first level, so I didn't even bother using a tango when I walked out of the way.
So the first time I play Snipes in co-op, I get chastised near the end of the match that I won for not getting a shadow blade. Once I put that thing on him, I was a holy terror in co-op. Here's why. I went against the grain and raised his e at first level. Why? Because at level 3, I can start pea shooting at the enemy tower without fear of getting shot at. The other reason is that one day while watching the pros, I noticed that they have a different method of using the mouse than most people... I discovered the stutter step. Being the support at heart that I was, I started creating a strategy when the event came that there were two carrys in my lane (or a carry and a nuker). There was almost no chance that I got a support in my lane, so I had to do this. While I came up with this strategy while playing Lich with Lina in the same lane, I made the crack "You fry, and I'll deny".
The tactic of "Fry and Deny" actually worked well. Here's how it goes. One player (usually the carry or the nuker) focuses all their energy on first hitting the creeps (frying). The other (usually the ranged attacker or someone who has a distance move) focuses on denying the creeps and harrassing the enemy. Sniper is an excellent denier... why? Because he can kill heroes fairly quickly and can gain gold that way if the enemy lane is stupid.
Here's how I build for Sniper. E, W, E, W ... THEN go for q. Because by the time I'm level 5, my partner is strong enough to push because I let them get all the farm, and the opponent is weak because I've been giving them the 'pew pew' for the past five minutes. Sometimes my partner and I will pause and kill an enemy when their low. Now... I wouldn't recommend this strategy if you are playing two melees, or two haro carrys who have to fight over experience. It's just that I've found that Snipes needs little to be effective because people run away at the first shot! All I have to do is click, step, click, step, click and it's about 150 damage to that hero.
Then I came to my first match in pubs... and... they asked me to take mid. Now, I've only taken mid about 3-4 times in the month I have been playing, because I felt uncomfortable not having the side shop right there. So I go mid... and there are two at mid! A tidehunter and a Drow. The Drow keeps denying my creeps for a couple of minutes and then leaves. The Tide hunter hugs his creepwave and starts meleeing my creeps to push. I pew-pew him... and I pew pew him... he doesn't move. I get first blood. I'm like... oooookay... Now... I'm an idiot, so all I have with me is that one green agility mask thingie and a Tango, and I don't know when a good time is to go to the fountain and get items (since... I don't know how to use the courier...). Tidehunter returns... he starts pushing the tower without the creep wave. Pew-pew... doesn't move... Pew-pew... second kill under the three minute mark. So I decide... okay, unless someone is smart enough to help this poor noob, I'm going to fill my stash and walk all the way back to the fountain once I have taken the enemy tower. Soon... nobody is at mid... for five minutes... I just nod to myself, push and pew-pew the frag out of the tower until it dropped and then I went to get my items. That's when I realized how slow Sniper really was without boots. X_x It was then I realized, I had to learn how to use the courier.
OMG, I never realized how easy it was. As a support, I promised myself I would never use it because the other carries needed it more than I did, so I never bothered to learn. As a mid, you NEED the damn flying donkey. Man! If I knew it was that flipping easy to use, I would have been using it every time someone wasn't!
Now, sadly, we didn't win that match. Some idiot fed the Legion commander and she had an attack bonus of 220 by the twenty minute mark. So what did I do? ... *smirk* Raised my KTD ratio before the camp collapsed by stalking poor tidehunter. Now... I know that was cruel... but the kid has to learn the art of strategic retreat. Not once did this poor noob run away from me. NADA! About five minutes from winning the game, Tidehunter ragequit... I guess in hindsight I did his team a favor, but my strategy was to farm the hell out of the lad to pose a threat to LC. I wondered what was wrong with my ganking skills, and I noticed that while Maelstrom gave me and AOE, and Pike gave me more range... I still wasn't doing as much damage as I liked.
Enter the crystalis... OMG... those sweet crits at early level. I didn't need the full powered Hurricane Pike and Molinjir. I needed me that Daedalus. Hurricane Pike is fun, but if I'm close enough to use it, I'm usually a dead sniper unless I have Silver Edge and I pretend I'm solid snake.
I'm going to play around with him a little more before I tackle Ursa in pub again. I'm wondering if the stutter step is useful on melee heroes as well.
Peace!
Ursula
Quick Comment
You need to log in before commenting.
[-] Collapse All Comments