Dota 2: How to play Sniper position 4

Sniper position 4 is becoming a phenomenon in both professional and pub arenas today. But is this a good idea? We will find out in this article.

PROFESSIONAL AND HISTORY

The history of Sniper position 4 is quite brief. The Dota world saw Sniper support in the pro scene for the first time at ESL One Los Angeles 2020 Europe and CIS. Nigma and captain Kuroky are not too strange names in the new gameplay tests, but this time, they took it to a new level when they decided to play Sniper position 5 in this game.

It was the second game in the first round of the losing bracket at the ESL Los Angeles playoffs. Nigma leads 1-0 against Chicken Fighters ! and the team decided to play Sniper position 5 in game 2. It was a risky experiment and the team lost that match. Nigma then lost game 3 and left in the losing bracket, ending his playoff journey. Not surprisingly, that strategy wasn’t copied by other teams for the rest of the tournament.

STATISTICS IN PUB

Although Sniper support plays poorly in pro, it is not so in pub.

According to the Dotabuff meta page, when looking for the offlane position (because position 4 often goes offlane) and looking for Sniper, the hero’s win rate in the Divine/Immortal tier is 53.42% with a pick rate of 1.96%. In the Ancient tier, the win rate is 53.74% with a pick rate of 2.11%.

This is a good stat for the hero with the 17th highest win rate in the Divine/Immortal group in the offlane role, and the 10th highest among heroes in the Ancient tier. So why is Sniper position 4 so popular and so successful?

UPGRADE AGHANIM’S SCEPTER

In patch 7.23, Sniper’s Aghanim’s Scepter was changed as follows:

“Reduces Assassinate’s cast time from 2 to 1 and makes it disable the target for 1.8 seconds.”

In patch 7.25, it was updated again:

“Cast time with Aghanim’s Scepter reduced from 1 second to 0.5 seconds.”

This rework convinces everyone to try Sniper as a Support. The 1.8-second, long-range, near-instant, low cooldown, and high-damage stun sounds pretty appealing in theory. It can initiate teamfights from afar, block teleports, and more.

In theory it’s great, but the reality in the game is still a controversial thing. But one thing we can’t argue with is that Sniper offlane is winning more games, losing only 16 heroes in the Ancient/Immortal tier, and just behind 9 heroes in the Ancient tier.

EXPERIENCE SNIPER POSITION 4

When discussing Sniper position 4, everyone wants to try it. People like the idea from Kuroky so they want to apply it in the game.

The first game the author played, a teammate asked “Why is everyone playing Sniper support?”. The author replied that he was researching material for the article.

The laning phase was pretty good, the author and Underlord won the lane against Slark and Lion. In the early-mid game, everyone farmed, so the author also farmed and got Aghanim’s Scepter at 25 minutes.

Really great. You need a lot of mana to spam it so Sniper must always have Clarity ready as well as Mana Boots. Assassinate with green stick prevents enemy from initiating combat, channel spells and stuns for 1.8 seconds, even at a safe distance.

But in the end, the team lost and Sniper himself felt extremely useless without using Shrapnel or Assassinate. Teammates are also easily ’tilt’ during the match.

Therefore, be prepared that your teammates will be prone to ’tilt’ and you may have to mute them early. If the game doesn’t work, prepare to ‘eat the flame’.

EPILOGUE

This is an interesting idea to try, but given what happens, the author probably won’t try Sniper support anymore. However, Dota 2 is a game where anything can work well, so if a teammate decides to support Sniper, the author has no objection. But after two games trying to support Sniper, the author himself will not want to choose this play anymore.

You need an effective squad to work well with Sniper support. Possessing remarkable pioneer heroes like Underlord, Ax or Mars will work well with Sniper support.

You also need to farm and Sniper is not the fastest farm hero, especially when playing as a support. You will win the farm of the cores, especially the carry will feel extremely uncomfortable when Sniper support is farming in the jungle.