Next patch? I'm new to the forum so I don't get all of the memos, but there seem to be quite a few threads suggesting that support for Demigod is over.

If you're sniping to harass, you're doing it wrong. You don't snipe to harass, you snipe to help a teammate. The dmg burst that you deal with snipe from your own lane is dmg that the other side's priests or healer has to heal, which means they will not be healing the damage your teammate is also doing.

You also use snipe at close range. It's a 700 dmg burst at lvl 7 or so at point blank. Use it in a fight with another demi, even at point-blank. Blade of the serpent is nice and all, but as mentioned mine dmg doesn't fill it, and since you fight mainly with mines you're going to go oom. I still take renewal and mana helms. I reduce my helms over time and replace with health/armor items, but I definitely need to go with 3 helms.

Reg can deal a lot of dmg 1v1 if you take renewal (mine toss every 6s), so take some health pots. Chances are, you'll have a mine cast get interrupted, which gives you time to use a big pot. If it buys you another couple of mine throws, and another snipe, it's well worth it.

AF Reg works pretty well in duel situations against given DGs or players (I've seen PeterDumptruck's Minion Erb struggle against AF, for example) and a long time ago I think I saw a decent QoT/AF Reg team on Prison. 

I suppose you could make a case for Speed AF/Maim builds on a long-lane map like Crucible or Leviathan.

In a typical 3v3 Cata though?  I haven't seen it.  

I guess you could play it as a Hail Mary and it would go something like this:

Minion Erb, Minion Shield Oak allies

get Curr 1, ignore all other upgrades

lockdown enemy gold flag early

Team buys only for Reg's Crit build - Wraps, Mageslayer, and Ash if the game lasts

WTFBlitz enemy citadel at level 8, all minions, Shielded Crit Reg, Eterni-Mist Erb, and Zombie Oak = GG

I think it was you who posted in another thread somewhere that your main problem with demigod right now is that you don't know what else there is to learn to make yourself better?  If that's true then here is my suggestion for something you can put some time into: meta game calculations.

Before I get into that I'll say this:

1) buying hats caps at 4200g.  You never need more than this.  Buying hp/armor never caps as you always need more because the point of buying it is so you can be risky and run around trying to melee and everyones damage is always increasing and they are always buying better hp/armor gear too.  Eventually you'll be selling nimoth/unbreakables for groffling, etc.  In the long term the thousands of gold you would have put into your bad reg character trying to survive a melee with a beast you could have easily avoided in the first place (that's his main strength btw, avoiding melee) would have been much better used as 2 additional levels for everyone on your team because you bought xp1 2 and 3 early on.

2) blade of the serpent is absolutely awful compared to staff of renewal for reg.  First, you're still going to need to buy a hat because you'll only have enough mana for 3 total abilities otherwise.  Second, it assumes you are already being a bad teammate because the cooldown on serpent (what is it 60s? even if it's 45...) means that even if you get full mana from it every time you are out of mana and you never have to wait for a creep wave (which you almost always will) half the time you won't have enough mana to spam your abilities.  You will be holding back snipes or not mining towers for half your game.

Regulas has one thing he can do better than any demigod in the game, deal damage safely from range.  If you want to go toe to toe with any character dropping mines, motb, snares, wanding etc trying to get the kill for yourself, for the love of god just play antoher character who class strengths are better suited for that as just about everyones are. 

Now as for the meta game stuff.  Unless you are increadibly good with spatial analysis (and almost no one is) this is hard to understand.  The easiest way to grasp it as it applies to reg builds would be to watch two replays at the same time, one AF/whatever the other SoR 4 hat spammy mcspamsalot build.  Watch how, while you don't get kills SoR allow your teammates to hold the hp flag almost the entire game because every 8s there was a snipe in their oppsitions face.  Watch how you tear a tower down in <30s (before anyone can react) from full health with mines.  Watch how your entire team is +1 levels by level 8 because of your cit upgrades and count how many times your team lived with <10% health or got an extra kill because they had 10% extra health because they outgeared the enemy and held hp flag all game.
The AF build game is going to be back and forth assuming equal skill of all players.  Unfortunately no 2 games are alike so it's hard to directly compare 2 replays but put 400 games into your brain and compare the outcomes of all of those and you'll see what I'm saying above is accurate.

Here is a pro tip for anyone who tries a 2k hp reg@lvl10 build: totems.  The simple fact is that anyone who can get to you, WILL kill you.  So you have to see them first (especially erebus@10).  This is easily accomplished by having totems down well in advance of your position so you are never taken by surprise.  In the early game I often have 3 totems down at all times.  One in the mid and one on either side of the enemy tower.  They last nearly forever and cost 50g each.  Easy way to never get caught.  You should never, ever die with a few 50g totems down unless you just don't look at the map or make a bad judgement call.

Another cool feature of SoR on cataract is that you can get 2 snipes in on someone if they are at a flag and turn to run to their crystal the second you hit them the first time.  Without SoR they will make it to the crystal before you can even start the second snipe.  Again this only works on noobs but many a pro gets tricked once by the shorter cd, they won't be tricked twice though.

Actually, I've found SoR my favorite Reg favor item, as sniping+mines is nonstop pain for the other team.  Just make sure you grab a mana pot for that last snipe.

It really isn't worth it to get AF before snipe. Also, for your point blank snipe nonsense, vengeance does almost as much damage in a fairly large area for 0 mana. Regulus can't just sit back with all mana helms hiding behind his teammates for the whole game. He needs to get into fights from time to time, and he can't any survive any combination of stun/nuke. No matter what character you play, YOU NEED HEALTH. You need 4k health on any character to be decent. Regulus should be able to fight at point blank range near his towers and win, otherwise he's a useless piece of garbage. Sure, you can support your teammates with snipe, but the damage isn't great. Best case scenario, you can force a competent player to back off the flag, let himself heal, then take the flag back. If he can't take the flag back, grats, your teammate didn't really need your help. BotS + low level AF gives you about 400 mana per second around level 8 just hitting creeps. After your bots runs out you can mine two or three times before you need mana again. If AF/Mines/MoB reg is unplayable, then regulus is just unplayable. Snipe regulus is laughably weak.

We played a game last night where our sedna never healed the right target. Your regulus didn't do much. You guys won because of 12 unnecessary deaths (none of which were mine I may pompously add)

1.  Snipe Reg is the most viable build I've found for high-level play, and it only works under a given set of circumstances.  Just to reiterate, you don't stack health on this build.  Here's how it plays out.

2.  Reg, like more than half of the DGs, is a specialist.  You don't roll him unless you know exactly what you are doing and are countering or matching a given set of DGs or are confident you will win regardless of what DG you roll

3.  AF Reg is an attempt to lop the edges off of a ranged specialist to make him fit into a generalist box, and 95% of the time your opponents will crucify you for trying.  Sure, give him Mageslayer and Ash and Wraps and he's Badass.  Who isn't, with that gear?  A Stats/Crit DA with the same gear will knock down Citadel in 10 seconds, does that mean Stats DA is a good build? 

Ya they do. I've done it almost every game. Good players, great players... doesn't matter. There's just too much to track. Great players usually adapt by retreating sooner, spawning priests, potting, etc, but every now and then they are losing a fight and are oom, or have no pots, and have no choice but to run. That's when they start taking hits.

Agreement.

However, AF reg can still be done. At lvl 11, start putting pts into AF, at lvl 15, start putting them into EA. Giants are great big bags of gold, so a full snipe/mines/mark reg easily turns into a 90% AA reg. You can dump all your mana items for damage and health leech items before long, including wraps and mageslayer. In fact, with a couple of large combat health pots, you'll push away a health stacked erebus if you have mage, wraps, and nimoths at lvl 15 - which is extremely doable. The downside is you won't be able to dump your usual 11-15k completely into the citadel. The upside is your characteristic completely changes, and you suddenly shred all the health-stacked builds on the field.