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Tango
Slippers of Agility
Healing Salve
Iron BranchIron BranchIron Branch
Maelstrom
Power Treads
Town Portal Scroll
Ring of Aquila
Magic Wand
Mjollnir
Manta Style
Black King Bar
Butterfly
Boots of Travel
Mekansm
Linken's Sphere
Monkey King Bar
Heart of Tarrasque
Blade Mail
Shadow Blade
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3 | 7 | 9 | 12 |  |
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6 | 11 | 16 |  |
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Viper is a ranged agility hero who can play as ganker and a carry in the game.
The corrosive poison carry, is a seriously fun and easy to master hero.
With little skill, you can easily stomp pubs, and can 1v1 most heroes in the game.
PS: This is my first ever guide attempt, a feedback would be nice. The reason for writing it out is , I feel the guides here are misguided in neglecting corrosive skin as the most powerful ability of viper.
Pros of playing viper:
1. Viper means a harassed lane enemy, no one likes to lane against viper
2. just 2 active abilities, and very spammable
3. Literally no mana issues (don't toggle on Q)
5. Easy last hitting/kills with Nether toxin
6. Corrosive skin is like a free blademail to some extent, squishy heroes will die early game trying to gank you.
Cons:
1. The most major con is: no stuns available for you, and no good good build will let you have a reliable stun item
2. Below average movement speed: Be careful, despite flying his speed is ****, so dont think of diving too much
3. No AOE effect: You are a single target attack, which kind of limits your team fight capability late game.
As above, I still believe Viper is way too good for most of the games with basic skill levels.
Always start with Poison Attack first, its a good harass and can save your *** from early ganks by slowing the enemy. But thats where i keep it for long time, extra levels of Poison strike do add to the slow, the damage bonus is very low. Moreover, multiple poison strikes do not stack but just refresh the slow and damage, which i feel lowers the utility of poison attack. You can still think of adding a level in it at 9 or 10, when some movement speed items become common among heroes.
Then next level should be Nethertoxin the sweetest passive in all game, it makes last hitting like a breeze. Its so easy i think its unfair :P. 1v1 fight, lower the opponent's health the harder you hit, a hefty 160 bonus physical damage. You should max it out at level 7 or level 8 (depending upon the game whether how heavily you are being targeted)
Corrosive Skin, another sweet sweet passive, any attack on viper causes the attacker to take damage and at 4 levels its insanely high at 100 per attack on viper, add to that movement and attack slow, (this is the primary reason that i feel Poison attack[ maxing out early is wrong). Another beauty of this, it is applies to illusions too, so hello Manta Style to the core
Finally, the ultimate Viper Strike, its leads to incredible slow of 80% with 700 magical damage over time, (but believe me most heroes die before the 5 second duration expires). I have rarely seen multiple Viper strikes in team fights, hence skipping 
Aghanim's Scepter.
so basically Viper is Corrosive poisonous slowing death on wings.
Staring item:
Staring is basic , Healing Salve, Tango, Slippers of Agility and 3 Iron Branch.
Your basic healing items to retain you in lane, slippers of agility and iron branches for cheap stat gain for last hitting.
Early game:
Soon you should be owning the lane, and to make it more effective, I get my boots first to compensate the low movement speed as early as possible, then get my magic wand and and Ring of Aquila. Then finish your maelstorm and the treads. This makes your attack speed very high and random procs of lighting add to the harass of any poor soul waiting behind creeps.
PS: always have TP scrolls in your inventory, its a must for escape and helping your team mates in need.
Mid game:
Here you can choose to whether build 
Yasha or finish Mjollnir. Yasha gives bonus movement speed which is always helpful, while Mjollnir attack speed bonus is crazy. Whatever be the case, finish Mjollnir and Manta Style. Manta would be your escape mechanism too.
If facing lots of stunners, I think Black King Bar should take priority over Mjolnir,
Then go for Black King Bar, Manta Style and Mjollnir respectively.
The final core item is Butterfly, well for any agility hero its kind of core anyway, the attack speed plus evasion and your already beefed up magic resistance makes you such a tank. Its would be a won game by then.
If game goes really late, then your item build show include Boots of Travel + the 4 items mentioned above,
another added item might include the following:
1. Monkey King Bar, for its mini bash chance, to counter enemy tps and channeled spells
2. Linken Sphere: for safety from stuns
3. Satanic might be considered, but I believe is over kill<
Satanic v/s Heart of Tarrasque
Both tank up your hero quite a bit, but with high DPS build, Satanic is a better option which keeps you in team fights longer, while heart will make you retreat after some time, (as its counter is 6 secs for ranged heroes)
3. Heart of Tarrasque: for becoming a tank (courtesy Xyrus for reminding me of limitation of Satanic)
Situational:
1. Meknsm: If no one in you team has built one, Viper is a good mek carrier. (it should be built in early game
2. Shadow Blade: If your start was bad and your get targeted quite a lot, Shadow blade is a decent escape and attack mechanism with good stats till you farm up your your manta.
3. Blade Mail is another fun item to play around with ... just love the impact of those spikes :P
Some comments on 
Pipe of Insight and Aghanim's Scepter:
1. Pipe provides 35% magic resistance, but its percentage of you current magic damage intake, that means if you already have around 43% magic resistance Corrosive Skin level 4, a 35% increase would make it to only to net 60% Magic Resistance, I'd rather get a Black King Bar
2. Aghanim's Scepter may be a good choice but I hardly notice viper killing multiple heroes with Viper Strike.
I hope this provides an alternative insight to viper.
Pl. provide feedback so i can improve the guide.
Thanks and keep playing dota
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