Viper in Competitive Dota?

Hey all,

I wanted to ask if anyone knows - why don't you see Viper drafted too often in competitive Dota?

I realize he was picked 2-3 times in the prelims of TI3, but it seems that his skillset is underrated.

He has amazing lane presence, his Q allowing him to severely punish anyone out of position, his W gives him insane farming capabilities, and making it much more dangerous for enemies to go low, his E gives a nice MS and AS drain, making it a good counter harassment tool, and his ult, giving him insane ganking power.

I think an early point in his E could counter some DoT heroes in solo lanes, such as Dark Seer or Queen of Pain.

Your thoughts on Viper?

The same reason we dont see bloodseeker or razor more often. The enemy could just tp away.

But chained with any stun - whether it be from another hero or item - Viper would be able to take out the enemy before they tp, unless it's super late game, in which this scenario shouldn't happen in the first place

Hence requiring two heroes to gank 1.
On the other hand u take your sample ganker as balanar, he can gank solo.

Also a couple seconds of silence shut him down entirely.

Razor is picked up quite a bit, 'specially as an OD counter nowadays.

Razor can really do a very high amount of damage with his ult and link, which also takes away an enemies damage. On top of that, he's mobile!

Bloodseeker's problem isn't that they can TP away really easily, it's that he doesn't do a high amount of damage in a short time frame. He relies on his ulti for like 50-75% of damage in ganks, if they don't run... well he then relies on allies to do damage, which isn't bad since Rupture will force them to stay in one spot, but you can see where it would be better if he had a nuke to couple with his ult.

Viper, though, can gank pretty effectively (and his ult even goes through BKB so he can really kite carries like Lifestealer and Alchemist around), has lane control, and does very high amounts of damage towards mid-game. I don't see why he realistically isn't picked more often, besides the fact that he just isn't that mobile. He relies on slowing the enemy, instead of being fast, which may have something to do with it. If enemies can react to ganks fast enough, you may not even be able to cast your ult or orb on them before they are gone.

Just my two cents.

Well the three are pretty usefull heroes but the lack of disables makes them unfavourable for competitive matches.
Even if razor is seeing the light of the day for the 1st time as an od counter a quick od would just kill with his ulti as razor doesnt have particularly high int gain and falls off towards late game. So you can counter OD but only uptill mid game after which OD can tear razor to pieces with his pure damage.

The problem is, in competetive Dota, you're not going to catch people out of position much, since they know better than to be easy prey.

Again, most competetive players wouldn't make the mistake of going anywhere near Viper when their HP is low, they'd heal up before getting back in his range.

It isn't that effective against Heroes who can spam Burst Damage Spells though, like Puck or Storm Spirit, as you'l end up taking more damage than them. Also, without Viper's Ult, Silencer could just spam Last Word and shut you down completely with ease, and even when you have the Ult, you need something to use it on to avoid the Disarm.

Gankers require Burst Damage to be effective, something that Viper lacks. If you can't take an enemy down fast enough, their teammates will rush in to save him, and all it takes is a single Stun to turn the fight around, as once his Ult is used, Viper can only Right-Click, whereas most Gankers have 2 or 3 Nukes and maybe a Disable for taking you down with.

You might deal a little damage to them, but Viper will be the one taking the most punishment in competetive games.

His Orb might make him a useful Aggressive Tri-lane Semi-Carry, as he can harrass enemies under the Tower by Orb-Walking, making it hard for them to farm. other than that, his skillset is extremely limited (1 Orb, 2 Passives and 1 Active Skill) and he scales terribly into the Late Game, meaning if he doesn't Snowball from the start, he'll become useless quite quickly.

I mean since like the TI3 prelims he has been picked up, all he needs is a decent mid-game, and with Aghs, his teamfight presence is huge. Pros don't really rely on disables to win matches as much as good positioning and good decision making. BKBs are picked up very often, and OD has no way of dealing with a BKB.

The problem is that he doesn't fit neatly into the available roles in that style of play:

- Offlaner solo, nope too slow
- Mid solo, good ish lane control but lacks mobility and team fight
- Carry, not really, poor scaling means you'd either have to snowball hard or win midgame

Basically it's hard to see what he can do that somebody can't do better in the same role.

As for Razor he's one of the few heroes that can give OD a properly hard time 1v1 in midlane, and he can be effective on a lot less farm than Viper.