Regulus Snipe: Lack of interaction undermines multiplayer spirit

Any regulus who sits in the back of his base sniping all game is going to cost his team a lot.  He's not leveling, and probably not getting kills.  I've never seen a Regulus who was able to stay in his base the whole game and have a large impact on the game.  Yes, it's annoying, but in the long run he -will- lose.

I think he could level and get OK gold.  Reggie stays near his tower and kills creeps that approach.  He buys mana items until snipe won't drain his pool.  He never chases the enemy and he uses his snipe as soon as it refreshes.  He levels from creeps and the occasional DG kill.  Won't level as fast as others but probably stays 1 or 2 levels behind.  The benefit is that enemy DGs are consistently pushed out of the lane from the snipe or a tower or fort is consistently drained by a snipe.  Slow burn.

There's an item that deals 250 dmg and makes creeps fly in the air. You can farm from base with it.

Right, but let's be realistic: any Regulus who does this is going to lose.  An effective Regulus player will need to use his bow, at minimum, and likely his other skills as well.

The item you're talking about is Heaven's Wrath, and you're forgetting about the 60 second cooldown. Killing a wave of creeps once every minute won't get you past level 4. With this strategy you won't be able to keep an entire team back, especially at higher levels. You might get a lucky kill from an enemy who over-extends, but ultimately you'll be nothing more than a nusance.

Agreed.  The type of Reggie I'm talking about is one who is out creep farming but always waits for creeps to come to him, never comes out from his tower.  He's still killing creeps but he isn't pushing and he isn't engaging enemy DGs.  He's getting good gold still because, when his teammate engages a DG, Reggie snipes for the kill or at least the assist.

I've seen a player able to stay up competatively. They farm the creeps that come closer to base, and farm the farther ones with that item.

Not saying its good, but it is possible to keep ur reg out of trouble while u farm.

I have seen this used effectively too.

The only major problems I have seen with snipe is when I am facing two or three Regulus... Reguluses. Reguli!

Three snipes raining down with impunity makes some games very frustrating.

I'm just not getting it. At the highest damage level, snipe does 700 damage every 15 seconds. If there are three Regulusses, that's 2100 damage every 15 seconds. If that's the only damage I'm taking through the whole game (plus creep and tower damage such as it may be) how can I possibly lose? How could it even be close?

And that's if it were a 3v1 match. If I have two more partners on my team, it'd practically be like the Regulusses weren't even there.

What am I missing?

You are missing the fact that Regulus is capable of using abilities other than snipe. He also is capable of using his auto-attack.

You engage one regulus and push him out of the lane (as they are very squishy). In the process he gets you to 3/4 life with mines or auto-attack or... well anything.

He retreats and calls in the snipes. Pow Pow Pow.

Dead.

Snipe makes it so that you need to constantly have a (Snipe damage * number of Regulus in game) buffer of health on top of what you already consider to be safe. When there is more than one Regulus, this becomes nasty. The problem is that you can use the ability without actually engaging or being seen by the enemy.

That's just like having to run from a UB early because of his poison spit. Or not relying on creep upgrades vs. a Fire TB.  Regulus has a skill that you actually have to adjust to.  Not everything is going to work against every DG.  They all need strengths and weaknesses, and Regulus has very obvious weaknesses.

Regulus' Snipe, like many other abilities is simply something you have to adjust your strategy for.  Nothing really imbalanced here, just a need to adjust playstyle according to your opponent's DG choice.

Yup. I agree.

Except for when there are 3, 4, or 5 copies of him running around.

There just simply isn't any adjusting to that.

I know you could say the same for any other DG. But really... which other DG can kill you from the other side of the map on a 15 second cooldown?

That approach might work if this was a deathmatch game. To be honest this sounds like a lotta tehorycraft.

If a group of Regs want to sit back at their base and snipe all day, thats fine.  The opposing team gets all the creep and XP and flags they want, which puts them ahead in war score, which gives them faster resources and stronger creeps (which they can not snipe their way out of).

Characters like Sedna, QoT, Oak, and Erebus can break their synch with a fast reponsive heal or shield or mist, or players can buy the item that grants a short duration invulnerability, or they can just load up on all HP items to the point where they can survive consecutive snipes.

This strat sounds unbeatable, but it's not if you look at it from another angle besies X snipes * 5 = death

The only thing that would accomplish is be really annoying by delaying the game which will inevitably be lost by them.  If a teram can't take flags or the map in this game, they lose regardless of how many kills they score on their own.

The problem is that, due to the long range of snipe, there's not a feasible way to adjust for the snipe. 

Let's assume you're just facing one Reggie.  You're in the left lane creeping and being hit for 700 every 15 seconds, 47 damage per second.  3000 damage every minute.  That's a significant disadvantage that will cost you the win if not addressed.

How do you address it?  You can run back to your crystal every 60 seconds to heal.  You can invest 500GP every minute in health potions.  You can dedicate your Heart of Life to countering the snipe damage.  All of these options require a significant investment in GP that Reggie doesn't need to match.

Chasing him is out of the question because he's always at his towers.

I personally think it's a little OP but not so much that it bothers me.  What REALLY bothers me is that I'm not interacting with this Reggie.  I'm not playing a multiplayer game at this point.  It's not any fun.  If there was an answer that allowed me to interact with Reggie I'd be OK.  But sitting there being a pin cushion that can't return the damage isn't enjoyable.  This is still a game and having fun is as important as winning.

Snipe is meant to finish off a weak DG or to aid a teammate in fighting a DG.  If the damage snipe does is healed in 3 seconds, both of these goals are still attainable.  Stupid DGs who don't run early enough still die.  Your teammates still have the support of your snipe, provided they can finish the baddie off.  It's a good solution that doesn't comprimise the core purpose of snipe.

 almost every demigod is over the top in some aspect.  regulus happens to be a pretty frail demigod at least.

tower rooks are over the top, sedna healing is over the top, spitting ub are over the top, ect.   you just have to adjust strategies to what your opponents bring to game.    

also I dont think farming monsters with heavens wrath is effective because im pretty sure xp is determined by how close you are to the monsters dieng or something.  could be wrong here though.

I'm not really concerned about Reggie being over the top.  I'm concerned about Reggie being boring to play against.

I can play against Rook and AoE his towers or stun his towers or pump armor and run through his towers.  I can play against UB and damage him faster than spit can recharge or get symbol of purity or kite him into my towers.  With Reggie, I don't have any real and enjoyable options.  I can't interrupt, can't dodge, can't damage him so much that he retreats out of snipe range.  I can't interact with him at all.  He might as well not even be there.

With Reggie's snipe, I'm just playing a single player game while taking a continual 47 DPS.

If we have the snipe damage heal back after 3 seconds, that requires Reggie to come play.  He's got to thow mines at me or MotB or something.  We've got to meet and tussle, which is what the game is all about.

He can still upgrade sniper scope and make it a challenge for me to get to him.  That's fine and great.  I don't mind a challenge.  I do mind knowing there's no way at all to get to him until level 13 when I've destroyed all his towers.

I don't think people are really reading the thread as much as they are thinking it is just another nerf call. The OP has a point, but people are either dismissing it completely and moving on to the next line of thought... or they aren't understanding what he is talking about.

You don't usually even know the Reg is there when he snipes you. You don't actually fight him. He fights you. The OP is saying that this isn't fun and he has proposed an idea that might fix the perceived problem. That's all.

I think some other things worth considering as a counter is the stacking of HP Regeneration and Lifestealing.  Most DG's are going to benefit from stacking those anyways, so it isn't anything too out of the ordinary from most people's equipment choices.  With enough HP regen and Lifestealing, the Single use Snipe really becomes useless.  You will just regen the health back and it was a waste of time/mana.

And again I gotta say that if the guy is sitting behind towers most of the time, he is pretty much handing you the map.  If he is giving up all the resources and buffs and war score to be had by actually taking ground against you, I can't see how you could lose.

The other thing about Reg is that if you invest heavily in Snipe (which you have to if you want to keep it's damage scaled properly) is that you are going to be lacking in other areas:

You might have to give up Mines which means you have no close range burst.

You might have to give up Maim which means you can't Kite or Stay on people.

You might have to give up Wings which means you will have poor close range DPS.

I don't think many decent regulus players are going to be willing to give any of those things up for a skill as conditional as Snipe. I have played a lot of matches where all I did was sit back and snipe and it was really of little consequence to anyone with respectable HP and HP Regen.  I only get kills with it when I am assisting a critical or fleeing target. Then again maybe that's just me.

 I feel Snipe should have a starting range just past his regular and increase as points are put into it. Giving him such crazy range right from the start is nuts.

The whole point the OP is trying to make is that some Regulus' only use snipe and none of their other abilities, even auto-attack, against other demigods and will usually stay completely out of sight. This is a dumb strategy becuase snipe does nowhere near enough damage to be effective if its the only thing being used.

I think Snipe actually promotes player interaction, within the Regs team

If regulus is sniping you every chance he gets he will run out of mana... fast... especially if he is using other abilities. Then he needs to invest a ton of money into mana items, then he has no defence, easily pickings.

I'm not completely clear on how snipe works. Does it do more damage the further away the target is, or less?

It does more damage the further away the target is.

I'm not going to comment on how powerful snipe is, but I do agree with the OP that it isn't fun to play against. I don't like being killed by someone who was not involved in the skirmish I was just in, and was across the map capping some other flag.