The rise of Sniper in Dota 2 patch 7.32

Sniper used to be a relatively weak hero, but in Dota 2 patch 7.32, he is an absolute monster. During the laning phase he’s very hard to deal with because of his Headshot ability, which gives him the capacity to deal extra damage and keep his enemies at bay. And if they try to run away, he simply activates his Take Aim ability.

For 3 seconds after activating this ability, if you happen to be trapped in Shrapnel, your life is hell. You will easily lose 50-80% of your HP and there’s nowhere to run. Because of that, Sniper works well in the mid lane as long as you use wards to make sure that nobody ganks you without being smoked.

Sniper’s strengths

Sniper’s win rate in Dota 2 patch 7.32 is 51.6%. That’s a huge win rate and it guarantees that on average, you’re gaining MMR if you’re competent with this hero. Anyone who’s played at least 50 Sniper games will destroy their opponents in the lower MMR brackets, where team coordination is quite bad and Sniper gets to attack nonstop.

This hero excels not only because of his attack range, which is ridiculous even without a Dragon Lance (950), but also because of his abilities and item build. In the current meta, you can buy a lot of great items that deal damage, increase your attack speed and improve your survivability.

You’ll even see Snipers that buy Diffusal Blade to keep enemies at bay or slow them down if they try to escape. A Sniper who buys this item will quickly drain a tank’s mana and even agility-based heroes are in trouble during the first 20 minutes of the game.

With just 10 hits, a Sniper will either kill or neutralize an enemy hero. And that usually happens in 5 seconds. In other words, if you’re out of position for just 5 seconds, you’re dead against a competent Sniper. Because he’ll shoot from 1100 range (almost a Blink Dagger distance!), use Shrapnel and remove all your mana.

After that, you’re practically useless to your team. And the only solution for this tactic is tp make sure that you initiate first and that you target the enemy Sniper. Any other method is guaranteed to fail against this hero.

To put the icing on the cake, Sniper deals 510 damage with his Assassinate at level 12, which means that most heroes will die if they lose two-thirds of their HP while being engaged in the fight. Running away on low health is not an option.

Header: Valve Corporation