sask's Viper guide to ownage

Viper survivability lies in his poison atk 40% atk/move speed reduction and you can spam it! oh yes! in a team fight just stay in the back and run if things go south.

I usually don't go with Aghanim's until late game, and even then only if I've been having trouble landing my ult. Manta and Monkey King Bar are good offensive items on him, along with having Phase Boots, a Bottle, and possibly an Assault Cuirass (depending on what you can afford). Seriously, I've never needed nor wanted Butterfly or HoT on Viper.

Stated many times before, this build is absolutely detrimental for any player learning to play Viper. The creator didn't even know what he was talking about when he discussed the items, such as the fact that Manta Style's illusions replicate Nethertoxin and Corrosive Skin. Or that the reason you want to focus on health second to movement speed, is that your damage comes from just being alive and attacking.

In the end, this guide does not help anyone and just states what any player new to the game would initially think about the items. Then the skills are worse. -1

Nethertoxin really is what gives viper so much damage early, not Q poison. Not having nethertoxin maxed quick will be the difference between last hitting that guy running away and him escaping with low hp. I like to get poison, toxin, toxin, poison, toxin, ulti, poison, toxin, E,E,R,E,E.

I think HamSandwich is the biggest troll on this site, but I have to admit that he is on point about getting nether toxin quick. you will be hitting 200+ at like lvl 8 on people who are low.

Nethertoxin allows you to be super aggressive because people often think they can take you, and then the damage just keeps ramping up and you beat them with huge, consistent hits once they get low. It really is an almost exponential growth until they are deal. And unlike a crit passive this is guarenteed.

Also the whole argument about boots is semi ******ed b/c your farm should be good enough that you can finish wraith bands and get boots within ~5 minutes of eachother. Also, Viper has a high movement speed so I usually get powertreads instead of phase boots. The reason for this is that the att speed is more useful than the extra damage because of Nethertoxin which will do more damage than the +24 since you will be hitting those +32 or +64/ 20%missing even faster...

One last thing. You should add in shadowblade! I always get shadowblade after I finish my treads and I'll tell you why. Can you guess it has something to do with viper's most usefull ability Nethertoxin?

Since you lack the phase power escape the shadowblade gives you a speedy, stealthy escape but this is only a secondary use. First and foremost it keeps you from being targeted in the fray of a teamfight if you are good with timing it. Its other primary purpose is that when you attack with it out of stealth and get the +150dmg + your Q, then you are already going to be stacking nethertoxin and then enemy will most likely run if they are alone and dont have tons of lifesteal.

same way i build viper
+1

I agree with HamSandwich, posion, toxin, toxin, poison, posion, ult, then max toxin by 8, you dont need poison because it is already at 0 cd and thats why u level it 3 times early game. As for phase boots, its not bad it gives you great damage but you cant orb walk with it

Maybe you should take a look at the guide, and take note of the fact that I'm not the one who wrote it.

Maybe you should take a long look at your guide. You skill Nethertoxin at 4/9/13/14. This is bad. Somebody who wants to learn how to play viper and reads this guide will actually be worse off than if they didn't read.

Nethertoxin is important because it lets you kill things. Not only does it do massive damage to heroes, it also helps you lasthit better.


If you're in an aggressive lane, then your support hero is going to laugh at you when you've skilled Corrosive Skin instead of skilling Nethertoxin. You are actually doing your team harm if you take Corrosive Skin over Nethertoxin.

Correctly choosing skills is an important part to becoming good at dota. A better way to skill viper would be this: Posion Attack/Nethertoxin/Nethertoxin/Posion Attack/Poison Attack/Viper Strike/Nethertoxin/Nethertoxin/Poison Attack/Corrosive Skin/etc.

Well, he also has low HP, which means he has very little survivability to begin with. Mobility is only good if you actually survive long enough to be mobile. Also, when did I ever say I leveled nethertoxin last? Oh, never.

Mobility doesn't mean anything if you lack the survivability to back it up, especially in the laning phase, when mobility isn't nearly as important as being able to hold your ground (One of Viper's main strengths being his early game potency, compared to other carries, at least) unless you are just free-farming. If you're free-farming in top lane with a babysitter, yeah, Phase boots might be better off as a first item, but if you're with an aggressive support that knows what they are doing (Hint: earthshaker), who wants to pick up some kills, you're going to need the survivability incase thing sgo wrong. Mobility doesn't mean anything if you're double stunned or perma-slowed, but being able to ignore a portion of auto attacks from the bonus armor, having some bonus attack speed, and having a bit of health can go a long way.

Because Viper is incredibly reliant on positioning to do damage, the added speed from boots give both damage and survivability. The damage from effective orb walking and the defense from the run away speed. But then again, if your skilling nethertoxin as an afterthought, you probably don't know what you're doing anyways. So in your situation, where you've decided to completely ignore the skill that gives viper the most damage, wraith bands are probably better.

Well, when I play viper I usually play with an aggressive support-ish character like sand king or earth shaker. Anyone with a good stun. This can force a lot of early fights, and you don't really need the added speed, only damage and survivability if things go wrong.

LOLWUT