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Tango
Wraith Band
Boots of Speed
Headdress
Blades of Attack
Phase Boots
Ring of Aquila
Buckler
Mekansm
Point Booster
Aghanim's Scepter
Butterfly
Heart of Tarrasque
Observer Ward
Observer Ward
Observer Ward
Shadow Blade
Headdress
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2 | 4 | 7 | 9 |  |
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1 | 3 | 5 | 8 |  |
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10 | 12 | 13 | 14 |  |
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6 | 11 | 16 |  |
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15 | 17 | 18 |
This is a quick guide to viper which will allow you to dominate just about every pub out there. This works even with a lousy team who won't cooperate, argues over who gets a courier and who buys wards. It works whether or not you have supports, stuns, or people on your team who can only communicate in Russian.
This is because on DPS basis Viper is the absolute best character in all of Dota 2, able to dish out insane amounts of damage, slow your enemy and initiate and win fights against two or three of your enemy at a time. Since Nethertoxin gets stronger as your target looses HP you can go toe to toe with any other character class and win (though if you are up against a 
Huskar you might die from the flames) A fed viper is one of the most dangerous carries in the game.
Of course, this plan goes to pot the second you enter into a ranked match where people know what they are doing and have the sense to shut the viper down early. Still, viper can be played effectively in ranked and on the pro-scene, but the results wont be quite as spectacular. The best I've done in pubs with this build was 41-2-5.
PROS:
A bad*ss mo-fo with some of the best attacks in the game.
He made baby Pudge wake up in the night and call for this mother.
Punga wet himself when he first saw viper.
Puck blinked away to a parallel world and never came back
Centaur Warrunner cried a lone tear and disconnected
Outerworld Devouer sapped away his own memories of the flying snake
CONS:
There are no cons if you are playing in a pub.
Viper's corrosive skin makes him the least cuddly character in Dota.
Ok ok. He's a little squishy.
Starting Items:
You'll notice that viper can dump most of his gold into a Wraith Band and some tangoes and not build half measures like the headband of boredom or some of those lame elven slippers. This is because viper has such amazing range and farms so quickly that you'll be able to build big items without worrying about dying to your opponent. If you are mid, and are incredibly lucky, maybe a support will give you a ward that you can place on the opposite bank in order to tell where your enemy is. You can harass from a distance and often never even have to touch your tangos. The wraith band gives survivability and damage and takes up only one spot in your inventory.
If you go on a side lane instead of mid you should use all of your starting gold to buy a Headdress instead. This will give you constant healing as well as keep your partner alive. The healing is slower than tangos, but it is more constant and is more than enough to survive in a pub environment. The headdress (And the Mekanism it builds into) will be your primary healing until you get a Heart of Tarrasque in the late game.
Getting Bigger.
As soon as you have phase boots you can begin killing anyone who is not next to a tower. Simply chase them down and start spamming poison. It works great in the mid lane. Build this into a Ring of Aquila for more stats and some needed mana regen.
Once you have your Mekanism you should be able to gank just about anyone and then use the heals to keep you alive once your health starts getting low. By now all your nearby teammates are benefiting from two auras and can expect +250 in heals once they start getting low.
You will be getting a ton of gold by now from kills and farming. So you build a Aghanim's Scepter to make your ultimate deadly from a distance and reduce your cool down. If you get to this point by 25 or 30 minutes the other team might just want to surrender.
Cleaning Up
Since your team is probably not very good, it's time to make sure you can survive as the enemies gang up on you. At this point a lot of people opt for Shadow Blade. This is because you can start a fight and if you begin to lose you just pop invisibility and run away. Shadow Blade is great because it gives you attack speed (which means more poison, slowing and damage) and an escape. Nonetheless, it's better to simply build a Butterfly for its evasion and continue to dish out DPS. After all, you don't need to run away. You're the viper. They run from you. Also, since most pubs have a 
Bloodseeker in them nowadays his 
Thirst ability completely destroys 
Shadow Walk. No. It's better just to kill everyone and collect your gold.
So you spend a little money on wards and place them all over the enemy jungle (on the eye-shaped ward spots that everyone is always raging about). If you take their tier 3 tower then drop an observer ward in its place to see what the enemy is up to in their base. Basically the key to survival is knowing where everyone is and picking off lone ganks when you see them trying to farm up some gold after their 7th consecutive death to your Nethertoxin.
Build a Heart of Tarrasque not because you need it, but just to demoralize the enemy team.
Basically every skill of viper's deals damage. Focus on Nethertoxin first and then Poison Attack. Level Corrosive Skin last, or maybe take one point in it around level five if the enemy has a few too many ranged heroes.
The reasoning for this build is that while Corrosive Skin is one of your most powerful abilities, it's most useful when you can spare your health. If you focus on your damage dealing abilities instead you will be able to get more kills on less skillful players. The slowing and damage from Poison Attack will quickly kill low level players who will most likely try to run from you instead of attacking.
With more competitive play think about getting a point or two of Corrosive Skin earlier at the expense of a point of Poison Attack
Once you are level six you are more or less qualified to gank anywhere on the map. Here's how you do it.\:
If the enemy is on their own just fly up behind them, maybe using the speed boost from your phase boots to quickly get into position. Then start off with your ulti which will do a lot of initial damage, slow them down and then deal poison damage over time. Next fire your poison attack which will pretty much melt them in front of your eyes. Just keep spamming Q. They will try to run. But they are slow. And if they start to get away use your phase boots and catch up. Repeat as necessary. If they have stupidly decided to fight you one on one just keep pressing Q. If they get you low on health pop your mek for extra health. You will most likely win.
If you are coming from mid to a side lane, tell your teammates to initiate and then come up behind your target and destroy them. If there are two targets then choose the squishiest one first. Hopefully your teammates will at least cause some confusion as you decimate your opponents.
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