When should I choose Daedalus over Butterfly (or vice versa) when playing as Sniper?

I am playing Sniper with:

• Mask of Madness
• Shadow Blade
• Manta Style

Which grants me a kill in the midgame. As I scale into the lategame, I go for Eye of Skadi since it gives me everything, in addition to a great buff.

After this I wonder which is better to buy next: Butterfly or Daedalus? Butterfly gives a boost to Attack speed, Damage, Armor and Evasion, while Daedalus gives more Damage + a chance to amplify damage.

Has anyone found one remarkably better than the latter? What situations would it suit picking one over the other?

Solution 1:

In terms of Attack Speed, the calculation is below:

Attack time is: Base Attack Time / (1 + Attack Speed)

and your attack speed cannot go higher than 400.

Sniper has 21 + (2.9*level) agility and 12-18 base damage (lets call it as 15). Considering that you are 18, you will have 74 agi, hence 74 AS

MoM gives 100 AS when active

Eye of Skadi gives 25 AS, 25 damage

Shadow Blade gives 30 AS, 22 damage

Manta gives 41 AS, 26 attack

You will have 1.7/(1+2.7) = 0.4594 attack time and 162 damage before you buy either items. You will also benefil from all of your headshots in that situation which is +36 increase to your damage. Your DPS is 431.

If you buy Butterfly, you will gain 30 AS and 60 damage.

That makes you have 0.425 attack time, and 258 damage: 607 DPS.

If you get Daedalus instead, you gain 81 damage and %20 chance to crit for 2.4 x your damage. Which roughly translates to %48 increase after all modifiers, except one fifth of your headshots won't proc the Daedalus crit. It still makes you have 873 DPS though.

In that case, Daedalus wins by a %44 advantage in DPS but if evasion is exactly what you need, you might need a butterfly. I also would recommend getting a Black King Bar before you even go for Eye of Skadi since sniper can be an easy target for nukers, and you will counter Blademail.

Solution 2:

While the math provided by bunyaCloven is great, I think you should consider one more thing when choosing between Daedalus and Butterfly. In terms of personal damage, Daedalus is obviousy better, while Butterfly is more of a defensive item that still provides a great boost to damage output. However, Sniper can produce two illusions with Manta (which is mentioned in the question), which benefit much more from Butterfly compared to Daedalus. The illusions both get the evasion and 30 Agility, while they only benefit from the Critical Strike from Daedalus. If your opponents don't have too many AOE nukes or ways to deal with your illusions, I think this point should be considered, especially since the illusions can deal quite a bit of damage and be generally disruptive when you put Evasion and an Eye of Skadi on top of them. Indeed, this argument is probably better suited for heroes like Naga Siren and the likes, however if we are talking about lategame and with the HP buffer Eye of Skadi provides, it may be worth considering even in the case of a Sniper.

After all, they're both great choices, and the choice is situational. However, I think you should consider illusions when choosing, especially if you have other ways to produce some of them on top of a Manta (for example, an allied Shadow Demon or Morphling).

EDIT: Another reason to prefer Butterfly over Daedalus is the damage against structures. Critical Strike won't help either you or your illusion in siege situations, while every offensive stat of Butterfly work; also, your Butterfly-boosted illusions have a much easier time being useful against structures than against heroes: the target does not move, you have huge range, and you can get uphill vision with Shrapnel to siege more effectively.

Solution 3:

bunyaCloven already gave a nice in-depth-math answer but there is one big rule you always need to remember when playing MOBA and especially on DotA 2: Item Choice is ALWAYS situational! meaning you may ask for the better item but you will always receive the answer that I depends on the situation.

If you face a heavy auto-attacking team you would almost always try to get butterfly ASAP but it wouldn't be necessary if there'd be 3 of 5 stunners. Than first choice is BKB and then damage...you really need to make the items fit the enemies line-up as well as your playstyle!

try to keep it in mind :) & good luck further on.