I hate Riki

Riki is the ultimate low-tier checkpoint. Learning how to deal with pub Rikis is part of hte required knowledge for progressing. Basically, the answer to this, is to always carry your own dust, and stick with someone else important on your team, so that you have as much team dust coverage as possible. Yes it is definitely worth a carry buying every dust in a game if you can get riki kills with it. No point whinging to supports in low tier to help you deal with the riki, deal with him yourself.
If you keep dust/sents/gem around in enough Riki games youll come out on top eventually, and your riki test will be passed ^.^

Thanks for giving me your opinions. Whats the best way to get a party of five if you don't have 5 friends that play dota? Another common problem is that with riki NO-ONE buys dust and so no matter what I have to and if i ask these people to buy dust they just call me an idiot or say that it's a waste of money.

Clockwerk really can screw Sniper more than anyone.

I had to go Force Staff for the sheer hatred the Clockwerk had for me. (We would have won but the Axe on our team stole the Vitality Booster and recipe for Heart of Tarrasque from our hard carry Sven, trolled around and sold all his items except Treads to buy wards to spam in base.)

The 4 or 5 times I had to play Sniper for the compendium challenge I went into either Blink Dagger or Force Staff (mobility is a must imo, as Sniper is super positioning dependent) after Ring of Aquila and Power Treads.
I usually go for Blink, if your fingers are fast you can dodge some serious damage, however I have gone Shadow Blade (despite my distaste for it as an item on Sniper) or the invisible positioning. Afterwards it's a situational decision for me to either build Desolator for the raw damage & - Armor, Butterfly, or Mjollnir. I aim for at least two of these though.


Pub mentality in a nutshell.
It's ALWAYS someone else's fault.

The only thing you can really do in these situations is ignore your teammates and learn as much from your own positioning mistakes and whatnot as possible and move on to the next one.

Riki is played 'cause they consider him "OP". If you don't want to see Riki played, you should consider other gamemodes tha AP.

Hardest thing with Riki, is people in low level pubs have no idea how to stop him. When i lane against riki, he gets level 6 at ~12 min because i make it a point to stop him. And yet i have played a game with a Mirana abbadon offlane on our team, and they feed 10 kills to riki so fast, by the 10 min mark he ganked me and my carry with a diffusal blade. Then after we asked to report the 0-6 mirana and 0-4 abbadon by 10 min mark, we were told we suck. Even though it happend acrros the map form us.

I tried to go Phase Drums Yasha on Sniper and it worked out pretty well, though I wasn't doing much damage; Phase Drums Deso works way better if you're fed.

I think your build is a good one, but much like a Mirana or Ember Spirit you don't want to go for only raw damage for the first 15 minutes, a Drum is a cost-efficient item that for me is core. If I had to pick Sniper, I'd go Phase Boots, Ring of Aquila (maybe), Drum of Endurance and Maelstrom, extending into BKB and lifesteal if needed. Or just go Hand of Midas into Mask of Madness like EternalEnvy's Drow Ranger. :D

To be honest, I think gap closers really hurt Sniper because he has no burst damage or stuns to keep them away. Plus, the closer you are to him, the more vulnerable he is (remember his strength is Take Aim, which simply increases his range): especially if he doesn't get survivability items and doesn't skill Shrapnel, even a half-farmed Ember Spirit can put him in a bad spot.

This ^

As you get higher skilled opponents, you'll find that only Viper is annoying...if he's played right.

Agreed, except I'd go Ring of Aquila, Boots of Speed, Maelstrom, Black King Bar. I'll also get a Bottle if I'm Mid, so that I can Bottle-Crow and destroy the Mid Tier 1 Tower with Shrapnel if I'm not Ganked. After that, I'd take the other Tier 1s, grab Boots of Travel, then go Push to victory with my Team. 8{D

Actually gap closers arent the problem for Sniper so much as for Drow. TBH he is great hero, the only problem is the human coefficient, the builds people go for with sniper.

He has a general lack of an escape mech, and every pubber likes to go SB, which is entirely a waste of money.
To top it all they get MoM like he isnt squishy enough already.
Also the emphasis on getting deso in the alternate build without so much as a single agi item completely wasting the potential of headshot.

Moreover the general boycott of BKB is shockingly common among sniper players.

Personally I like to rush a maelstorm(not midas, never midas) into treads BKB. I have I think above 70% win rate with sniper and I almost never get SB.

Completely agree, except if Viper is dominated during the laning phase he can't really control the game. I've had games where I've completely wrecked Viper as Tinker towards the beginning and he becomes little more than a nuisance for the rest of the game.

^
And not just to group up, but play TOGETHER. There's a huge difference between being together and playing together. If you're completely ignoring the Riki while he's having a field day shredding your supports, your teamfight isn't going to go well.
Having played Riki a lot, I've always found teamfights to be a 4v5 as a distraction for you to start picking off characters.
It's a weird balance of focusing Riki and playing against the entire team, as overcommitting to the Riki requires you to get the kill then 4v5ing. If you don't kill Riki and you've blown all your ultimates, you have to worry about playing against 4 other characters who still have their spells you have to worry about.

I think the Mom and SB love is for lower levels pubs where you find a lot of lone heroes and this makes them easy to pick off. It's pretty poor for team fights though. Diffusal Blade is a better choice all round.

While detection equipment is the primary responsibility of support heroes, I like to see my #2 and #3 carrying some as well if they have space, possibly even a #1. The more heroes who carry it, the less effective the invisibility is - obviously you don't want to see a 6 slotted carry worrying about it, but a lot of the time it's pretty viable.

Necronomicon is a good item choice against invisibility heroes on a lot of strength and intelligence heroes and offers plenty of other stuff too. It's not like they can ever get rid of it like a Gem of True Sight either, even if it's not quite as good. Sentry Wards should be considered in addition to dust - they can't be purged and can give you earlier warning of their presence.

The main thing against a hero like Riki is not to be alone and vulnerable if he's starting to snowball - group up and he'll struggle.

Riki also scales decently into the late game. He's no Faceless Void, but he can pump out some serious damage with a Butterfly, Diffusal Blade and an Abyssal Blade

I've never understood the love for building Mask of Madness into Skull Basher though, considering how Diffusal Blade is so much better for damage + survivability...