My Poison Flies - a Viper guide

Have to agree with dresmasher about the skill build. To delay level 3 Poison Attack until level 7 is a mistake. Having a slowing orb attack with 0 cooldown makes him an amazing chaser and is the prime reason why Viper is such a deadly ganker. By level 7, most heroes will have their ults up and will make them even harder to gank, and that's bad news.

I usually go vit booster and pipe rather than vangaurd.

Gonna have to agree with the no desolator. I'd also pick up the MKB late game and the BKB.

Also as an alternative starting items i'd go 4 gg branches and some tangos if you're laning with a comptetent babysitter.

But good guide all in all :D

Well, I used to think Vanguard is not required on Viper before as well, but playing against more decent ppl made me realize just how squishy Viper is, that early Vanguard makes a big difference in early-mid game clashes.

I don't really understand why you would get Wraith Bands on Viper, he already has awesome damage, the little damage you get from the Wraith Bands doesn't seem like it's going to do much and you're going to end up selling them by lategame (if it lasts that much) and they don't have such a good sell-back price.

Desolator is a bad late-game item :-|, it's dmg is only noticeable if you finish it early (have it in midgame) + it overrides your awesome orb, I highly disagree on this item, I suggest Monkey King Bar in return.

Agreed on Power Treads.

I disagree on starting with Nethertoxin first, in a fb gank the most helpful skill that you can have is Poison Attack.
I disagree with keeping your orb level two until after level 7 (that's huge), at level 3 your orb gets 0 seconds cd which makes harassing turn into killing easily, also pre-7 easy ganks.

Shadow Blade is debatable, way too easy to counter imo, but I guess it can work in some circumstances.

Viper is not a hard carry, he's a semi-carry.

Black King Bar can also be helpful in lategame if you end up as your team's main carry.

+1 from me. This might be more in depth than you think.