The Best Offense is a Good Defense

Viper as the world's most deadly support

Hi All!

I am a Viper player, and while I love a lot of the builds here on Dotabuff I've noticed a near-total emphasis on building Viper as a DPS carry. This is certainly great, but this kind of build does not capitalize on 3 of viper's strengths:

1) VIPER DOES NOT NEED ITEMS TO DEAL DAMAGE!
2) VIPER IS VERY TANKY FOR A RANGED AGI HERO!
3) VIPER HAS A MORE MANA THAN HE REALLY NEEDS!

All these give you good incentive to build Viper as a tanky Mek carrier. Few people recognize how powerful Corrosive Skin is early-mid game, because of its magic resistance and attack speed reduction. If maxed early you can free up money that you would normally invest in an escape mechanism like Shadow Blade and use the money for other items.

As an alternative way to play this hero, this guide will show you how to build Viper as a tanky semicarry/support hero who can still dish out a ton of damage. Viper's excellent base damage and lasthitting will allow you to farm up a Mekansm early, making you an incredibly powerful contributor to the team in the midgame for very little farm.

Later-game you can move into purchasing DPS or utility items and building extra survivability.

This game is tailored to a team lineup where you will not be the primary farming carry. You should be playing a 2-4 ganker role with this build, getting some farm and then using the levels and items to dominate midgame, push towers, and make room for your carries. An added bonus of this build it is that it will free up supports to buy other items in lieu of Mekansm.

In a typical match you're going to build a mek as soon as you can and then get an aghanim's sceptre. You'll spend every team fight tanking damage and throwing an ulti on the enemy team every 12 seconds.

Why Mek?

"Probably because Vanguard is horrible on ranged heroes, since the flat damage reduction is done before armor reductions and at just 20 damage block it's simply not worth the cost.
You want a cheap and fast armor+health buffer to get Viper tanky ASAP, while corrosive skin takes care of incoming magic damage.

Mek gives exactly that: 5 to all attributes (5 str = 95 hp and almost 1 armor from the 5 agi) and 5 armor. And the active which effectively gives him 250 extra HP (same as Vanguard) and 2 extra armor to work with. EDIT: And don't forget the +4 hp regen aura as opposed to Vanguard's +6 self regen. Though Vanguard wins in this regard the 2 extra hp regen still doesn't justify buying it on ranged heroes."

Skills

POISON ATTACK

Poison Attack is Viper's Orb effect, which gives him bonus damage and a movement slow. By level 5 this gives you 56 extra damage per hit and a 40% movement slow!

This is what allows Viper to deal a ton of damage during the early game. You will be maxing this first. In the beginning phases of the game, don't leave this on autocast: just use in order to get last hits, harass enemy heroes, and when chasing down enemies during ganks.

Don't forget that the range of your poison attack is longer than that of your autoattack

NETHERTOXIN

Adds a bonus damage to your autoattacks, doubling for each 20% of health missing from the target. You will grab a point of this early because it makes it incredibly easy to last hit, and then max it later on. Note that the bonus damage applies to towers.

CORROSIVE SKIN

Okay! So this is the skill everyone forgets about, and what is going to make you such a tanky bastard in the mid game. This skill gives MAGIC RESISTANCE, applies a MOVEMENT AND ATTACK SLOW to any hero that damages you, along with DAMAGE OVER TIME. By the time you max this skill at level 9, this means that anyone who damages you will take a 25% hit to movement speed and also 100 damage over 4 seconds. It means that enemies can't trade hits with you efficiently in lane, and you will be very difficult to chase down in midgame.

Keep in mind that a few levels of skin make you a pretty decent jungler.

VIPER STRIKE

Basically a souped-up ult version of your Q attack. Makes you an absolutely deadly ganker, because of the move slow and damage over time it gives. Keep in mind that the attack speed and movement slow (although not the damage) will go through magic immunity from Black King Bar or Rage, making it a very good skill to use on melee carries.

Items

CORE

The best choice of boots for you, because they will provide attack speed and survivability. Make sure to switch over to STR when you are getting ganked and over to INT when you are in need of mana.


So here is where this guide diverges from most other approaches to viper. The thing is, when combined with the magic resistance and attack slow you get from Corrosive Skin, mekanism will give you an incredible amount of survivability -- much better than whatever you would get from Vanguard. Rush this item after you get your Treads, preferably by initiating some ganks. If you can afford it, buy a Buckler before Headdress; the extra armour and the active from the buckler are much more useful in the early game.


Will help to address you mana issues and provide a bit more survival.


Lasthitting power, armour, and mana regen. Turn on the aura when you're pushing towers early.

CORE EXTENSIONS

ALMOST ALWAYS the best pickup to get after you have your mek. Gives an insane buff to your cast range (900!) and lowers the cooldown to 12. Basically the best upgrade in the game the boost in stats and hp/mana pool are also impressive, giving you extra tank and mana to keep up your mek/ult usage. I always pick this up when against melee carries.


If you are not concerned about getting ganked (with mekanism and Corrosive Skin you should be in pretty good shape) you can transition into a flat DPS item, and this one is the best. The movement speed is also useful because you are super slow. Build it into a Manta Style later.


A fantastic item for you because of its boost to your attack speed, damage, and mana regen. I typically pick this up if the enemy team lineup has good escape mechanisms you need to counter, like those of Queen of Pain, Bounty Hunter, and so on.


If you are facing problems with physical damage dealers like Phantom Assassin, Lifestealer and the like, you should go ahead and pick this up. The stats aren't to shabby either.


Your effectiveness is going to be limited if you can't contribute damage to team fights. Go ahead and pick this up if you are having problems with nukes or big team fight ults.


Build this when up against enemy squads with a lot of magic damage, and build into a Pipe of Insight later. When combined with the resistance from Corrosive Skin you will be quite hard to kill.

LUXURIES

The best DPS item for you, with stats that are a good bonus.


Ditto! If you get this the other team is in major trouble.


If nobody else on your team has built this. When combined with your native damage resistance from Corrosive Skin you will be incredibly hard to take down.


I love this item on viper because of the spell block and the tankiness you get from the bonus stats. If you are not expected to be the primary damage dealer on the team definitely pick this up.


Your classic late-game tank item.


A good pickup after heart if you are playing viper as a super-tanky hero in the late game. The active synergizes well with the debuffs you already apply from Corrosive Skin and Viper Strike

Matches by trained professionals

Play Video
Here you have an example of Purge going for a Mek/Aghanim's build in the side lane. He goes more carry-oriented in this game, maxing nethertoxin and poison attack first. Note that he picks up phase boots instead of power treads and delays the Aghs for a while because of the enemy Rubick, picking up a medallion after his mek. As he says, always tune your item builds to the enemy team composition. You'll notice that he calls the upgrade to Viper Strike "the best aghanim's upgrade in the game, I'm not even joking"

Play Video
Notice how useful corrosive skin is in lane: it makes it so inefficient for enemies to trade hits with you. Also check out how he builds tranquil boots, and then disassembles them to build its components into other utility items: a ring of basilius and a mekansm.

How to orb walk

Hey guys, so there is an obscure element to the whole DOTA engine, which is orb walking. Basically it's like this: when you attack while manually casting your Q (Poison Attack), you do not attract creep aggro or tower aggro. So what you do is cast Q, move, and then cast Q again when it comes off cooldown. This will actually make you attack quicker and also prevent you from drawing creep aggro. Here's a short explanation!
Play Video

Play with in-game guide feature!

I have made a version of this guide in the in-game guide feature! You can go here and "subscribe" to have all the item builds and skill builds prebuilt into your viper.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=135955438

Thanks!

This guide is still under construction. It provides one way to play Viper that is, in my experience, very effective. Enjoy!