6.80 - If I were IceFrog

Every carry is good with farm. The thing is that you cant balance him without making his skills OP.
The thing is that everytime a sniper gets picked he feeds, or he waddles along, kill stealing (which i dont even mind that much) while not doing that much damage and offering no utility apart from a nuke and some really mediocre pushing power.

Clinkz for example can do exactly the same stuff exept he does more damage, can escape, solo kill better. Exetera.

He is also countered by pretty much everyone in the game. Including all my favorite heroes. :P
Clockwerk feeds on him, timbersaw can make him onablento lane within 5 minutes, sand king's blink+burrow stomps him, clinkz destroys him, slardar 3 shots him. Chaos knight kills him with one ult+rift.
I could go on and list 3/4th of all the heroes in the game but that cost me too much time.

I think actually that phase mask of madness is the most legit build on him, so he can atleast run the **** away when someone wants to chase you. It not like you are going to survive a gank with extra EHP from treads+ dominator or whatever **** items most snipers go for early game.

Well ok, any carry is good with farm, but Sniper is one of the best - I pretty much put him in the hard carry bracket. He can absolutely dominate other carries in the late game, you just get constantly pinged with long range mini-stun headshots that *really* hurt, and even doing something as basic as casting a spell can be impossible. The mini-stun is physical, so it's not like even BKB helps. Without a space closer/good disable/element of surprise you can't touch him.

No doubt Clinkz is a better all-rounder, he's certainly much stronger early-midgame, and would no doubt terrorise Sniper in that kind of game. However, Sniper is considerably better late game assuming farm is anything like equal.

So yeah, I totally agree with a lot of your points - the big difference is one of perception. I look at Sniper as a hard carry, he's meant to be weak early on against almost everyone, and think he should be treated as such. I.e. wrapped in cotton wool and supports early game, nurtured through the midgame with an occasional Assassinate to boost his farm, before dominating late. Basically you're trading the escape of someone like AM or FV for more laning presence and a different carry style.

ATM he's very (very!) situational though, he does need some reworking somehow to make him more viable.

Sure, you could look at him as a hard carry, but what does he do better then other hard carries? He farms slow so you will be outfarmed by 2 items lategame, cant splitpush, and the only 'farming item that he can buy is mjolnir, which is not that great. What has sniper going for him?
Void has chrono, spectre is semi unkillable, farms faster with radiance and kills sniper with her ult, medusa is rediculously tanky, has her ult and farms MUCH faster. Morphling can splitpush, has tons of armor and damage, and also the ability to shotgun.
PA adds quite a punch early in the game and late game blinks in your face. crit+sniper= no more sniper.
Kunnka removes 90% hp from sniper with a crit. OD has hex and ult, and if he built refresher double hex/ult/bkb/shiva.
Naga and phantom lancer can overwhelm a team with illusions. And so on and on.

Bottom line, picking sniper screws up your team, he has no real potential, even with items which isnt even realistic in an even matchup. You condemn your team to protect your squishy *** while all the while you know that he isnt going to outcarry anyone.

STAAP PICKING SNIPAAA YOU EGOCENTRIC BAD PLAYERSSS!!1!11!1!!

*takes pill* calms down.

Ahhhhh..........


Anything else?

Much as I take many of your points about him being very situational, and probably needs a rework - he does have potential - almost locking down and destroying other carries at long range. Sometimes you can't even friggin cast thanks to all the mini-stuns. If you ever play against a good sniper (seems like an oxymoron, I know, but say a good player who randoms him) you might change your opinion somewhat.

Anyway I don't think we're gonna agree on this, and we're kinda hijacking the thread here when it should really be all about Atlas' suggestions, so I suggest we move on.

My suggestion for a rework on him would be to replace Shrapnel with something like "Disabling Shot". Single target, range same as his auto-attack, ~80 mana. Enemy target's movement is slowed by 30/35/40/45%, and their attack speed by 20/30/40/50, duration 5 seconds with their movement slowly returning over this time. Would give him a chance of escaping single hero ganks and make him a bit more useful in lane.

Kill securing, not kill stealing :)

As far as Atlas's original Aghs suggestion for Centaur, I would keep the cool down the same, buff the duration and reapply the original Ulti when he was first put in Dota2. Instead of an attack/move slow when passing through, re-apply the stun (was very similar to a tether stun, as a hero that was already run through couldn't be stunned again by another hero passing through). This would make Aghs a pretty viable pick up on centaur and would create a more powerful initiation presence on top of the typical Blink->stomp.

Well, we're definitely going to see some Ancient Apparition, Axe and Bloodseeker buffs again, that would still fain to let them stay in the meta - besides this, even MORE nerfs to Batrider.

More Aghanim's Scepter compatibility in general.

I can also see nerfs to Clockwerk, Elder Titan and most of the other mainstream professional heroes now (especially the supports) such as Crystal Maiden, Venomancer, Lich and Visage.

As for Centaur Warrunner , he's kind of underpowered right now when you consider that he can't do the #1~#3 positions well (except for 1, but position 1 centaur is pretty bad) yet he needs quite a lot of farm to be effective, some straight buffs might be nice.

IMO making the cooldown for his ult a solid 60 seconds and increasing the damage and/or the slow duration by a bit is enough for him to be a much better hero.

Oh, and Slark and Broodmother in Captain's mode after some mechanic fixes on BM's webs.

We're also gonna get some nerfs on Earth Spirit before seeing him in competitive games, that guy is overpowered. This is how I would adjust him:
Geomagnetic Grip range decreased from 1400 to 600/800/1000/1400.
Boulder Smash silence duration decreased from 5 seconds to 1/2/3/4 seconds.
Rolling Boulder no longer sets you behind your enemy but in front of him.

So, the Geomagnetic Grip nerf is probably going to happen since it's really strong now; Boulder Smash is another very good skill that, in my opinion, really needs a silence rescaling (maybe 2/3/4/5 instead of 1/2/3/4) as it's pretty easy to land in teamfights. About the Rolling Boulder, I don't think they will ever nerf it this bad (you wouldn't be able to insta-kick the enemy back to your teammates anymore) but it would still be possible to Grip-Roll-Smash running behind the enemy when they're slowed.


EDIT: A huge nerf on Batrider would be:
Flaming Lasso now sets your movement speed to 100 when dragging an enemy.

This would still make him viable in competitive games, even though he would be way less strong in the early-mid game (before getting a Force Staff, in other words).

Pretty solid list!

- Hand of Midas definitely needs a nerf. In Hearthstone there's a collection of cards called "The magical 16", which are cards that are strongest in the game, which also fit into pretty much any deck. 2 were nerfed yesterday. Midas is one of those cards (Not literally, but it fits the same idea). If you want to promote a game that encourages thinking, creativity, and strategy, there shouldn't be items that EVERY hero gets regardless of the match up. They need to be analyzed the most by developers.

- Broodmother What does a laning phase normally consist of? Heroes fighting for farm, eventually going for hero kills after enough harass. Maybe one over commits, maybe there's some pulling. Regardless, there should be interaction between heroes. This is why I think Broods phasing in webs needs to be reworked. If you want to keep cliffwalking, that's fine. But she should not be able to just hide in trees. It completely breaks the laning phase, and not in a good way. I recently played with a friend as a support, and got a quelling blade EXCLUSIVELY to cut down every single tree in top lane near the secret shop, along with a set of sentries. A hero shouldn't need THAT much commitment to killing him/her at level 1.

- Centaur Warrunner ult would be a bit too OP. Against a tankier carry, let's say like... Sven or something. If you were to smoke gank and your team had anything less than permanent stun, Centaur would be able to counter any/all ganks globally. Even if it wasn't a smoke... Maybe just a big ult. Trading ults with centaur when the CD is 30 seconds makes ganks very difficult. You couldn't commit anything big unless you were SURE they would die. Also, support coming to help their ally would come in much faster if they're in proximity. Centaur is certainly weak right now, but I think that buff would be a bit too much. Maybe Aghs gives him a weaker version of his old ult. Small stuns on contact (limit one per hero), but shorter than they originally were.

Updated again.