E Blade Sniper is back and his aim is truer than ever!
This guide is here to help you with learning how to effectively farm, build, and combo with E Blade Sniper.
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When and Why Should You Build E Blade Sniper?
The whole point of building E Blade Sniper is to convert Sniper from his typical role as a high DPS physical damage carry into a high burst, magic damage carry. This can turn games where Sniper is not normally viable into a great option for taking down some of his biggest threats.

A great example would be someone like Phantom Assassin. She's a high DPS physical damage assassin known for 1 shotting Sniper, sometimes with just a single dagger but with this build, the E Blade can be effectively used against her to either block the physical damage by casting it on yourself or E Blading her and killing her with a single combo.

Although E Blade Sniper can be an effective pick against some of his bigger counters and threats, its important to acknowlege that it can open him up to being countered in different ways than normal. For example, with the E Blade build, Shadow Demon's Disruption ability stalls the E Blade and cancels your Assassinate. This is a hero that normally doesn't counter Sniper too hard but can shut him down temporarily on this build.

The Combo:
Your main spell and item rotation in this build will be:
Shrapnel>Veil>E Blade>Assassinate
Once you have your three core items, this combo should be able to one shot most heroes and will scale better as you pick up Yasha and Kaya and neutral items such as Grove Bow or Timeless Relic.
If you do have Grove Bow it is important to include an Auto Attack into the combo:
Shrapnel>Take Aim>Auto Attack>Veil>E Blade>Assassinate

Positions:
E Blade Sniper takes time and farm to be effective. This build is most effective in the P1 and P2 positions but can also be run as a P3. If you are running this build as a P3, I would recommend building only 1 Wraith Band early so that you can further reduce the time it takes to pick up Midas.

Matchups:
To identify when to build E Blade Sniper vs. normal Sniper, here are some things to identify in the enemy lineup before deciding your build path.

Bad Matchups

• Heroes with Spell Immunity (Lifestealer, Juggernaut, etc. - Try to survive the duration)
  
• Heroes with Damage Reduction (Ursa, Medusa, etc. - Try to survive the duration, Medusa can be countered with Diffusal Blade)
  
• Heroes that can become Untargetable (Outworld Devourer, Puck, Shadow Demon, Slark etc. - Bait the ability or try to survive the duration)
  
• Heroes with Dispel (Naga Siren, Phantom Lancer, Troll Warlord, etc. - Bait the ability or try to survive the duration)
  
• Heroes with that Pierce Spell Immunity (Engima, Bane, Doom, etc. - Avoid getting caught or try to survive the duration)

Items To Watch Out For

• BKB (Spell Immunity)
  
• Guardian Greaves (300 hp Heal and Dispel)
  
• Lotus Orb (Echo Shell and Dispel - Counter Echo Shell with BKB)
  
• Manta Style (Mirror Image Dispel)
  
• Linken's Sphere (Spellblock - Bait the Spellblock)
  
• Blademail (Damage Return)
  
• Scythe of Vyse (Hex)
  
• Orchid (Silence - Counter with BKB)
  
• Diffusal Blade (Manabreak)
  
• Euls (Disjoints Assassinate)
  
• Glimmer Cape (45% Magic Resist and Invisability)
  
• Pipe of Insight (10% Magic Resist and 400 Magic Damage Shield)
  
• Hood of Defiance (325 Magic Damage Shield)

Counterable Matchups

• Heroes with Blink(Anti Mage, Queen of Pain, etc. - Counter with Rod of Ages)
  
• Heroes with Invisability (Riki, Bounty Hunter, Templar Assassin, Clinkz, etc. - Counter with Dust or Sentries)
  
• Heroes with CC (Ogre Magi, Jakiro, Shadow Shaman, etc. - Counter with BKB)
  
• Heroes with High Magic Damage (Lina, Zeus, etc. - Counter with BKB)
  
• Heroes with Silence (Silencer, Drow Ranger, etc. - Counter with BKB)

Early to Mid Game:
Look to use your early damage and range advantage to trade efficiantly with your enemy in lane and get last hits and denies. Once you have your wraith bands and boots, accelerate your farm further by pushing the lane and farming nearby camps with Shrapnel. You can farm 2 camps at once by Shrapnelling both and standing in between them. You'll be able to freely auto the camps without taking much damage due to the slow of Shrapnel and you're bonus range. This is especially effective on Dire side mid where you can run to the bottom side jungle and Shrapnel all 3 camps while standing in the middle to effectively farm all 3 at once.

Mid to Late Game:
Use your high burst damage and long range to get picks around the map. Capitilize off your ability to get picks by agressively pushing lanes and into the enemy jungle with your team. Your long range 1.5 second stun will be able to catch enemies off guard and enable your team to reach them. Once you've gotten a pick, take advantage of a 4v5 situation by further pushing your lead through objectives or taking farm from your enemy's jungle camps.

Build Statistics
The following match statistics were using the Midas variant of the build and were played in the Crusader to Archon skill bracket at roughly 2k mmr.
Winrate: 75%
Win/Loss: 6/2
Average GPM: 634.5
Average XPM: 788
Average DMG: 38,350
Average Match Duration: 37:25

The following tests were performed with Sniper being lvl 30 and the combo being done on a Target Dummy with 25% magic resist. The number recorded is the Total Dmg displayed on the Target Dummy.
Core Items Only Full Combo: 1671.90
Core Items Only Full Shrapnel Duration: 2589.18
Core Items With Grove Bow Full Combo: 2196.00
Core Items With Grove Bow Full Shrapnel Duration: 3062.36
Core Items With Sange & Yasha Full Combo: 1940.44
Core Items With Sange & Yasha Full Shrapnel Duration: 2986.14
Core Items With Sange & Yasha and Grove Bow Full Combo: 2462.82
Core Items With Sange & Yasha and Grove Bow Full Shrapnel Duration: 3619.78
Core Items With Sange & Yasha and Timeless Relic Full Combo: 2195.76
Core Items With Sange & Yasha and Timeless Relic Shrapnel Duration: 3427.35