MiniTV's 6k+ Snapfire Build

Introduction

Hi guys and girls, I’m MiniTV, an ex pro/caster for Heroes of Newerth alongside BreakyCPK, now just a 6k+ Immortal Coach that makes Dota Content mainly on YouTube under the same name, and occasional BTS caster. I’ve played MOBA’s for about 10 years now, 6 of them being on DOTA2. I’ve competed on LAN and multiple Online Tournaments. Over 10k hours on Dota, I’d like to think I know a thing or two about the game.

If you would like to reach me I can be found below:

• Join my personal Discord server if you want to ask me questions, inquire about coaching or just chat!
  
  
• Check out my YouTube Channel where you will find loads of more hero specific guides and dota concepts!
  
  
• Follow me on Twitter to find out what I'm up to!

Let's move on to the guide itself! Snapfire is an incredibly strong strength ranged hero (unique alongside Phoenix), predominantly played as a support (although there are scenarios where an offlane or potentially even mid Snapfire could work) that only requires levels to be useful thanks to her incredibly versatile skill set.

Due to her only restricting factor being levels and not farm, support is the role for her. Hard support is my preferred best role for her because she is a strong laner with her high burst potential and good harassment capabilities. Although she can be a great position 4 due to her high burst and good laning skills (attractive pos 4 qualities), she doesn’t necessarily “need” as much as the other pos 4 supports, and doesn’t need the freedom, greed and farm that is offered to them. Compare Earthshaker and a Blink Dagger the hero can get if played in the pos 4 role. So position 5 Snapfire is my recommendation. Any carry hero would be glad to have you in lane!

Abilities & Talents

Scatterblast - Almost always skill this at lvl 1. It offers lane presence the other skills simply do not, offering high burst for a lvl 1 skill to harass the enemy and also has a movement speed slow on top of it, it offers chasing potential to secure first bloods. Can be used to secure the vital ranged creep that your lane partner might struggle to get - this is important as the ranged creep offers high xp and gold, so it’s key that you get it. Securing the ranged creep and harassing the enemy at the same time is best practice, so when the enemy tries to deny the ranged creep you can use Scatterblast to both harass them and get the CS. Because of the increased damage from Scatterblast at close range (50%+), using this requires situational knowledge of the game you are in and whether you can pull it off. Coming in closer to use Scatterblast offers more damage, but walking to get closer to an enemy could put you in danger or out of position. However, due to her being a strength hero and therefore tankier, the former is usually preferred.

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Firesnap Cookie - One of Snapfire’s most unique abilities, has both offensive and defensive capabilities. Due to its utility, this is maxed alongside Scatterblast to reduce its cooldown (24/21/18/15). It can be used on yourself, allies or even allied creeps! This is used primarily offensively in the lane when you are trying to go on an enemy, and not so much for harassment as it can put you out of position. Paired with a melee ally this is incredibly useful as the stun and damage is considerably high and offers your melee ally extra chase potential as it is a pseudo- Force Staff. Due to it’s Force Staff like capabilities, it also has defensive uses to either jump you/an ally up/down cliffs to escape ganks, but also out of Clockwerk’s cogs, for example. The defensive capability is further amplified from Snapfire’s lvl 15 talent, where she can provide +250 HP onto her cookies. Can be used on allied creeps too, which can be useful when trying to sneak up onto unsuspecting enemy heroes farming a creep wave, and as a use of initiation to stun them by cookie’ing an allied creep which then gives you time to walk up and Scatterblast etc. On top of that Firesnap Cookie and Scatterblast when maxed out can kill entire creep waves on their own which is a useful way of pushing out waves and defending towers. Can be used on magic immune allies, so can be useful if paired with Juggernaut when he is spinning in the lane for example to ensure he stays on top of enemies whilst he is spinning and an easy way to secure kills. Other notable examples is other allies with Black King Bar too. Pangolier's ultimate as well!

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Lil' Shredder - Although not explicitly skilled until Snapfire’s other abilities are maxed out, Lil' Shredder is a fantastic skill. Can be leveled early for one point (value point), due to its trading capabilities, as can man-up against an enemy hitting you, as it reduces their attack speed considerably and does a fair amount of damage, so can be good for harassing with the increased range too. The main use for Lil' Shredder though, is it’s tower and sieging capabilities because the attack speed slow affects towers (and Roshan!) which is vital when pushing high ground as it will make towers do significantly less damage and make your push stronger! If you can wait for the enemy to use ‘Fortification’ on their towers too, Lil' Shredder’s attack speed slow still works through that, which makes it more valuable to use it then because when the tower gets multi-shot that would normally kill your entire wave. Lil' Shredder ensures the tower only gets 1 or 2 attacks off which ensures your creep waves survival. Although it is unorthodox, Lil' Shredder does give the possibility of Snapfire to transition into a core. When the hero first came out, pro offlane players were playing Snapfire in the offlane role because Lil' Shredder's fast attacks apply the ‘Orb Effects’ of the items you have. So getting items such as Maelstrom/ Mjollnir and Monkey King Bar can proc with Lil' Shredder, providing significant damage. Same goes for all other passive Orb effects from items. On top of her lvl 20 talent that can incorporate her damage into Lil' Shredder as well, does make it possible for her to play as a core. Although I think her skill set is more viable as a support. Is one of the strongest counters to Phoenix’s ultimate Supernova as the rapid attacks that Lil’ Shredder literally shreds (get it?) the Egg to pieces killing Phoenix in the process I.e. Snapfire > Phoenix.

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Mortimer Kisses - One of the highest damaging ultimates in the game if each glob lands properly. 8 globs per use with damage of each glob at 200/300/400. At lvl 1 1600 damage! With the insane cast range of 3000, you act as an artillery platoon. It is best paired with some kind of AoE lockdown/control such as Faceless Void[[’s [[Chronosphere or Enigma’s Blackhole or Mars’s Arena of Blood, which can destroy a team fight but beware the globs can be dodged if the enemy is fast enough. Using it predominantly in teamfights when a teamfight starts and using it from range is the best practice, as if an enemy gets in melee range you will not be able to use Mortimer Kisses’ on top of your self, as it has a minimum range of 600, so keeping your distance and playing in fog as an artillery type raining down fire is preferred as it provides a movement slow too, so hitting as many enemies as possible is advisable. Although Mortimer Kisses is more of a team-fight focussed spell, it can be used for solo pick offs/ganks. If the enemy carry/support doesn’t have any movement based abilities like blink and they don’t have a large health pool. If they are out of position, Mortimer Kisses can solo kill people without the use or need of your other abilities, assuming most of your globs it. The most important glob to hit is the first one, as the globs provide movement speed slow, if you hit the first one, you can then more easily hit the second and so on. It also destroys trees which makes it impossible for them to try and juke and fog you in the trees etc. (also useful in catching Monkey King in his Tree Dance too). Due to its artillery style of use, Mortimer Kisses can be incredibly useful in either defending or sieging the high ground, killing the enemy creep wave in seconds, and making the enemy high ground push nullified due to its damage over time factor too. Very useful in delaying their push if they are trying to go high ground whilst one of your allies is dead. Or defending your allies whilst they hit the high ground, ensuring the enemy team can’t come in close etc.

Although Lil' Shredder is useful in the lane due to its great trading potential, it is single target, and doesn’t offer as much kill threat as the combined nature of Scatterblast and Firesnap Cookie, as they have movement speed slow and stun capabilities, which is favoured in the laning stage in securing kills.

With both Scatterblast and Firesnap Cookie maxed out, you offer incredibly burst potential that any lane partner would be happy to have. Combine any lane partner that has a damage threat too and you can kill almost any hero in the game with the burst of Snapfire. Also maxing Scatterblast and Firesnap Cookie gives Snapfire the ability to push waves out which is really important to have outside of the laning stage when you your cores go to jungle etc.

Scatterblast lvl 1 is preferred because of it’s great harass ability due to its lower cooldown than Firesnap Cookie and the fact that it is ranged and can be used from afar which is important to have on any support to provide relief to your lane partner, as a great offence is a great defence.



250+ Health - Although the movement speed is good, you don’t necessarily need it, you have good chase potential with the slow from your Scatterblast and the stun and movement from Firesnap Cookie that most enemies will never be able to run away from you, if you hit your spells.

On top of that, the 250 health gives you a little more protection, if you do want to come in close to benefit from the 50% increase damage from your Scatterblast as you will be tankier. Same applies if you are going to cookie-yourself into a fight. Any increase in tankability from a support is preferred as it makes you harder to kill and more chance of getting your spells off.

Also, 250 health is more cost effective/efficient/valuable than 20 movement speed if you break it down in terms of items that would provide you the same benefit. I.e. a Wind Lace is 20 movement speed, a Vitality Booster is 250 health. A Wind Lace costs 250 gold, whereas a Vitality Booster costs 1100 gold. Thereby taking the 250 health talent is just overall better.

Firesnap Cookie Restores 250 Health - Although the Scatterblast +60 damage is tempting, particularly if you are tanky enough to benefit from the close range +50% damage, the Firesnap Cookie has more viability and versatility in its uses. A 250 heal that doesn’t have any healing capabilities is huge as there is only a few heroes that have healing capabilities and adding one onto a hero that already does so much is crazy good.

It can be used on yourself as well as allies that can be the difference between them living or dying. It adds a pseudo- Mekansm on top of the pseudo- Force Staff’s capability of the Firesnap Cookie.

A supports wet dream. After lots of playing of Snapfire, there has been so many clutch saving Firesnap Cookies that have won team fights and thereby games because of this talent. A must get even if you play core Snapfire over support.

+25% Mortimer Kisses Movement Slow - From a supports perspective, this makes the most amount of sense, as you won’t be having lots of farm and therefore damage to make the other talent useful in terms of your attack damage being applied to the Lil' Shredder.

The increased movement speed slow, doubling the value is absurd, if the enemies don’t have Black King Bar or movement based abilities like blink they will struggle to run away from the sticky tar of fire raining down upon them.

Alternatively, if you are playing core Snapfire going for a damage build of Maelstrom/ Desolator, etc, than of course the other talent is preferred.

+8 Mortimer Kisses Launched - This is a hard decision, the other talents are pretty much straight forward but this one is situational and depends on a few things. The Scatterblast disarm can be useful, however if you do hit lvl 25 as Snapfire, the game will most probably be a very long one thus meaning the enemy team has significant farm on their cores. As the game develops the further back you want to play as a Snapfire as a support in general as you will be the easiest to kill, so you will be limited in how many Scatterblasts you can achieve in a team fight thus making the talent less desirable.

On top of that the +8 is again doubled in value from an original 8 to now 16 with the talent, thus evne if they have Black King Bar’s the ultimate will go on for so long that it will outlast the enemies Black King Bar’s that your ultimate can still wreak havoc. However, due to the insanely long duration of the Mortimer Kisses, the team fight may have already ended (either positively or negatively for your team) in that you might be unnecessarily ulti’ing not getting that much value out of the talent, thus providing more support in going for the 3s disarm on Scatterblast.

I’d recommend seeing how the team fights go, and make a decision on whether an increase in value in your kisses is preferable over the increased utility to Scatterblast and whether you can get Scatterblasts off etc.

Item Choices

As is the custom to give the mid laner 2x Tango (Shared if you’re the position 5, an overload of Tangos and regen is useful because your strength as a support is to provide relief to your carry, so trading regen with the enemy support/offlaner so your carry feels safe to farm is always recommended.

Buying x9 Tangos leaves you with x9 Tangos in lane, and although you could buy 2 Iron Branches and have 1 less set of Tangos, that leaves you with x4 Tangos and 1 healing salve], which in my opinion is not enough to sustain and keep presence in the lane, as with the extra [[tangos you can also give to your carry to assist in his regen too.

Although you can turn an Iron Branch into a super Tango by planting it and then eating it with your Tango, more often than not you don’t get the full value out of it, as you would with the extra set of Tangos. You have decent base stats that the +2 stats you would get from both the Iron Branches isn’t all that needed (although your base damage is low).

As for the x3 Enchanted Mangos and Healing Salve, they are non-negotiable you need to sustain your mana and as your a strength hero you run out of mana fast with spamming Scatterblast in the lane. A support without mana is a useless support in lane.

As for a position 4 Snapfire, your starting item build is more flexible. Going an early Basilius Ring, helps not only you with your poor mana pool but your offlane partner too. Bringing regen from the courier is also advised as a single set of regen won’t be enough to sustain you in the lane. Bringing the courier is safer to the offlane than bringing your courier to the safelane due to lane positioning.




Arcane Boots is a must on your hero, any other type of boot leaves you severely mana deprived throughout the game that bringing constant Clarity and Enchanted Mangoes is a waste when mana boots could do the job.

As being a support your farm priority will be lower and with the neutral items having a designated slot, filling your inventory up with small but impactful build up items are advised. Such as Wind Lace, 250g for 20 movement speed is such a boost.

Magic Wand follows that same principle and helps again with a burst of mana that you may need during team fights. Wards are wards, buy them, they win games.

Same goes for Smoke of Deceit, it can be also particularly useful to solo smoke to get an undetected Mortimer Kisses off, the enemy team might be bamboozled on where your positioning is, as the break distance is lower than your range on Mortimer Kisses.




Having a Force Staff is particularly useful as it can be used in combination with your Firesnap Cookie to get a super Force Staff with basically double the range. Or in scenarios where you would need to defensive Firesnap Cookie, a Force Staff will do the same job, freeing up the Firesnap Cookie use for other scenarios.

Guardian Greaves is a natural build item seeing as you go for the Arcane Boots and is a great team fight item that Snapfire is a natural carrier for.

Glimmer Cape is often under utilised in general but is a great support item that can win team fights, can also be used in conjuction with your Mortimer Kisses to prevent single target stuns from stopping your ultimate as you will be invisible.

Vladmir's Offering is a great item that allows you to take Roshan easily, and Snapfire is a good carrier due to her skill set being self-sufficient in that she doesn’t ‘NEED’ any item to make use of her skills. Compare that with Axe and Blink Dagger - he needs it to play his game etc.




If you are going for a core Snapfire/ Maelstrom/ Mjollnir is a must as it synergises perfectly with your Lil' Shredder to apply the proc chance of the lightning, and also a nice farming item.

Monkey King Bar, again following the increased proc chance with Lil' Shredder with the fast attacks, the high damage procs from Monkey King Bar can offer high amount of burst for Snapfire.

With the lvl 20 talent of Snapfire turning her attack damage into the fast attacks of Lil' Shredder, Desolator is one of the highest damage items for cost in the game and is a must if you want to play right-click Snapfire.

Gameplay

As for laning whether you’re pos 4 or pos 5, harassing either the enemy core/support with right clicks in combination with Scatterblast can offer high amounts of damage which will disincentivise enemies in trading with you. When the enemy is low enough or out of position, combine Scatterblast and Firesnap Cookie combo onto them to secure a kill, either by cookie’ing yourself or preferably your allied melee hero to ensure they stay on top of the enemy.

Making sure you have mana for your spells ensures you have lane presence and will make sure you dominate your lane. You don’t have the largest right click range (500) so make sure you are not getting out harassed by other further range supports such as Lina (670), using the trees as cover can be useful here.

With your low base damage of 49, you don’t trade too effectively from just right clicks alone, use in combination of your Scatterblast to get most effectiveness out of your harassment potential.

With your high burst capabilities of maxing Scatterblast and Firesnap Cookie, identify in your game who you can kill with and offer gank threat onto the enemy. Most normally this will be the mid/offlaner who should have high levels that can benefit with your skill set to set up kills across the map. Always having a Teleport Scroll available to use, to get to any and all team fights that occur across the map, as your Mortimer Kisses and single-handedly turn team fights with the sheer damage it provides.




Roshan will be a natural objective for your team or the enemy team to take, but with your Mortimer Kisses you can contest and secure Roshan for your team. As there are many “choke points” where there is a small area that people clump up for, thus making your ppmortimer kisses[[ more powerful and impactful as each glob has a 275 radius AoE.

Having Vladmir's Offering here from your core items also helps to secure Roshan easily due to the lifesteal for your carry so he doesn’t take too much damage from hitting Roshan, etc.

In the mid-game teams tend to group up more, and are less likely to get picked off thus meaning lanes will be unattended, this is a good time for you to secure some farm for yourself and with Scatterblast and Firesnap Cookie maxed out you can clear creep waves quickly and effectively from range. Giving you some much needed gold and more importantly experience, but also puts pressure onto the enemy team by pushing creep waves onto their side of the map effectively giving you more map vision and pressure onto their outer towers.




In the late game the enemy cores will be seeking you out to kill first in team fights due to your utility and damage, so playing even further back to ensure your safety, whilst still being useful in team fights with your ppmortimer kisses[[ (artillery covering fire :D) is most advised. And cookie’ing allies to get into/out of team fights is where you can come in handy.

With towers and sieging on the mind in the late game, ensuring you use your Lil' Shredder on towers (as well as Roshan) to reduce their damage output and keeping your creeps and allies in healthy position will help in your destruction of their towers and hopefully winning the game!

Good Pairs & Counters

Because of the Mortimer Kisses synergy:

• Faceless Void - Chronosphere
• Enigma - Blackhole
• Mars - Arena of Blood

Because of Firesnap Cookie

• Juggernaut - Bladefury
• Ursa - to keep on top of his enemies for Fury Swipes
• Axe - for his Berserker’s call before he has Blink Dagger

Nyx Assassin - One of the most annoying heroes to play against in lane, because his stun can interrupt your Firesnap Cookie mid jump, as well as his Spiked Carapace that will stun you due to your high uncontrollable damage of your Scatterblast and Firesnap Cookie.

But more annoyingly can interrupt your Mortimer Kisses with a single Spiked Carapace, which will stun you and stop your cast. Even if you try to not target him (which can be difficult in the big team fights) he can run into the globs after they have already fallen as they offer damage over time and Spiked Carapace can still interrupt you! Ban Nyx Assassin if possible!

Lifestealer - With the inbuilt Black King Bar from his Rage, there is simply nothing that your kit can do against him. And seeing as your a strength hero with a fairly decent health pool, his Feast passive ability benefits from that too offering him higher lifesteal as well.

Conclusion

Thank you once again for reading and I wish you the best of luck in your upcoming Snapfire matches! Feel free to post a comment telling me how the guide has been working for you and what other heroes you'd like to see me create a guide for!

Hi guys and girls, I’m MiniTV, an ex pro/caster for Heroes of Newerth alongside BreakyCPK, now just a 6k+ Immortal Coach that makes Dota Content mainly on YouTube under the same name, and occasional BTS caster. I’ve played MOBA’s for about 10 years now, 6 of them being on DOTA2. I’ve competed on LAN and multiple Online Tournaments. Over 10k hours on Dota, I’d like to think I know a thing or two about the game.

If you would like to reach me I can be found below:

• Join my personal Discord server if you want to ask me questions, inquire about coaching or just chat!
  
  
• Check out my YouTube Channel where you will find loads of more hero specific guides and dota concepts!
  
  
• Follow me on Twitter to find out what I'm up to!