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Table Of Contents
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1. Overview
2. Skill Build
3. Item Build
4. Play Strategy
5. Relationships
6. Extra - Tips and Mechanics
-Credits and Thanks-
2. Skill Build
3. Item Build
4. Play Strategy
5. Relationships
6. Extra - Tips and Mechanics
-Credits and Thanks-
1. Overview
 Viper is quite an item-independent hero that can flexibly wield a variety of items. However, survivability is an issue with him, so he is item-dependent in this one aspect. He also has nice DPS, which can be chosen to be maximized as well. The "Dodge" Viper item build is a balanced build concept that provides survivability and DPS simultaneously and cost-effectively. The recommended core items provide protection in ways other than raw HP and regen, turning you into a "Dodge" Viper, rather than a Tank Viper or DPS Viper. Strengths: |
2. Skill Build
    (extra - suggested icon changes  )   Level 1 - Poison Attack 11st - You will find that Poison Attack lvl 1's harassing ability is much more useful than than Nethertoxin lvl 1's last hitting augmentation. You have full HP so you should harass, instead of staying fully passive and only trying to last hit. 3rd - Get Poison Attack if the 1 sec cd is beneficial enough that you're being aggressive. Get Nethertoxin if you'd rather focus more on last hitting and farming up early on. Level 5 is the earliest you can get lvl 3 Poison Attack for orb walking, so whichever skill you get at lvl 3, it will both lead back to the same at level 5. 6,11,16th - Viper Strike taken whenever possible. It's useful for increasing the amount of HP you can leave on a hero, finishing off windwalkers, and the lowered cooldown is invaluable as well. 9th - - Poison Attack 4 Get it. it makes your orbwalking more powerful. - Stats One stats at lvl 9 and Poison Attack at lvl 10 is an option for the extra nudge of survivability. Basically, the inevitable stats of lvl 15 gets to cut in line, and everything is maxed by level 16. - Corrosive Skin Should be maxed soon afterwards, by lvl 15 most of the time. |
3. Item Build
<CLICK: Items Information Page>
Starting Items Options:
(599)Early-Carry (600)Other notable starts (603) Balanced stats and healing:* Branches > circlet/gauntlet/slipper/mantle if you don't make anything out of the latter items. If you end up selling circlet, let's say, you would have saved 79 gold in the beginning had you bought two branches in the beginning. Starting boosters are meant for the very beginning so 79 gold isn't to be shrugged off. |
Early Core:
Early-Game:          "You never know when things will go to 5h17, so always keep some TP around." - gwho |
"Dodge Viper" Core Items Pool: You don't need all of these.
Mid-Game Picks:    Late-Game Picks:  |
Luxury / Alternative Late-Game Items:
Balanced:   DPS Class:    Survivability Class:  |
Situational Items:
   |
What About These Items?
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Tank Build Items
/The outlined Dodge Viper could certainly imply a very defensive build (bracers, BKB, Heart, but is not explicit about a full tanking build and discourages Vangaurd. The Dodge Viper build emphasizes a balance between survivability and DPS, but a fully tanking Viper will be a babysitter and eventually a tank that supports ganks mainly by slowing. For this reason...
- Phase Boots are bought for the movespeed/phasing. As a tank, your main role will be to slow. Even though Nethertoxin dispels phased mode, it is useful for reaching your allies and shielding them with your pipe.
- No damage items. Your main job is to slow, and Nethertoxin is still pretty powerful on low HP heroes, which you should be prioritizing.
- Vangaurd can be the first item in the tank build. In the long run, Vangaurd nicely softens physical damage while Corrosive Skin covers magical damage. Corrosive Skin is what really makes Viper viable as a tank.
- An early Pipe can be very helpful to your team as well, but don't go for Hood just for yourself.
- BKB isn't as important as getting Vangaurd or Pipe early so it comes after. Good for being durable in battle and doing what you need to for the duration of Avatar.
- Heart is for massive HP boost and massive out-of-battle regen.
- Vangaurd's damage block becomes less significant late game, and against monster DPSers, a Talisman of Evasion will go a long way in boosting your effective HP. (The higher your raw HP, the greater the benefit of evasion/armor/magic reduction). The Talisman of Evasion can be turned into a Butterfly if the game goes on, since it will be better to get some offense than more tankiness, and it maintains one slot, making for a full inventory of 6 items.
- You may want to trade Phase Boots for Travels at some point if desired. This is a general rule for many heroes going into the late-game. Doing this also maintains 6 slots while allowing teleportation.
As you can see, the Tank Build is much more "fixed" than builds incorporating offensive items.
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4. Strategy
Early Game:
If you will not act as early carry, lane with your team's carry and abuse Poison Attack to allow your carry to last hit AMAP (as much as possible).Harassing Techniques:
Opt to solo middle with a bottle if you will be playing early-mid game carry. It will be important that you do not die at all, as you will want to be ahead for the mid-game ganking, armed with level 3 slow, and your ultimate ASAP. As you put up great pressure against your laners, there can be a swift moment, when maybe you are in too deep or too overconfident, giving your enemies the opportunity to stun or nuke you. It will set you back, wasting all the harassing and gain that you have made so far, and rob your team of their powerful early ganker. Playing carry and being a few levels above everyone else is critical and immensely helpful when ganking.
-Manually casting Poison Attack will not aggro creeps! Also, Poison attack improves your range to 600 from 575. Being able to stand close to creeps can make last hitting easier.(see section 6-6: "Creep Aggro")Staying Safe:
-There will definitely come times when you are chased backwards. If they do not pursue you until you die, they will inevitably turn around. When this happens, watch carefully for that moment they disengage and turn around and Poison Attack him with your best reaction speed. This scenario is always a freebie hit that you can land, provided they don't have any tricks up their sleeves. If you react quickly, you can even get in another attack or two on top of that using animation cancel/orbwalk, putting you ahead in damage exchanged and making them regret chasing you.
Even though Viper is very good at making someone feel like they are totally boxed in, there are surprisingly lots of counters to Viper. When playing Viper, the key is to recognize them, and keep yourself out of such situations preventatively, with:Ganking:
1) Map awareness agianst getting ganked. Surprise nukes is Viper's strongest counter and biggest weakness. This is largely preventable with map awareness, knowing who is missing, and with wards - observers if they are windwalkers.
2) Maintaining distance when laning. Maintaining distance is the method of staying safe when up agianst opponents that you know will instantly convert you into gold and experience if you get clipped with a stun. (i.e. Rhasta + a DPS/nuker You know once you get caught, that's it.)
3) Knowing when potential death-dealers are "tied-up" in big battle situations. If you watch good replays, it will seem like Viper has no trouble walking into the heat and killing a hero. It actually isn't as simple as that. The reason he was able to do so was because potential threats against Viper have beeen tied up in one way or another and the Viper player was aware of his pre-occupation.Example:
-An enemy Blood Seeker is chasing your ally who is low health. He will want to make the kill, regain his health he will lose in the chasing process, so he will not go for you. This leaves you free to help your ally by slowing Blood Seeker, or engaging the rest of the enemies in the big fight.
Maintain distance and stay safe by avoiding focus fire and having your teammates initiate. Close in and "dive in" when heroes are at low health and you can finish them using maximized Nethertoxin damage, or slowing them long enough for your team to help.Orb Walking
How to use Viper Strike:
Maxed out, it only has 30 seconds cooldown and 725 damage over time(543.75 after 25% reduction). So:
- when enemy HP is low and might get away (run speed, blink, invisibility, etc.) to kill him with the DOT, even if he does blink away.
- in 1vs1 situtations, as a surprise nuke to throw off their sense of whether they can win the fight or not
- for the greater slow (up to 80%) for letting your team pound the target.
This is the most foundational skill of playing Viper well, because he is a support DPS chaser whose fearsome weapon is slow. (see section 6-3: "Animation Cancelling / Orb Walking" to learn how to do it)Mid-Game:
Using the points mentioned above, and knowing that your era of dominance will come to an end, you should gank gank gank whenever possible in order to make the most of your "timed life" and give every ounce of advantage to your team.Late-Game:
Your late game role is much the same role as Mid-Game: to slow and pick off weak heroes. But the battlefield has become more intense, and you are not as dominant as you were early and mid game. Therefore you will have chosen whether you will be a glass cannon, support, or a tank. But luckily in the case of the dodge viper build, you will have reasonable survivability as well as DPS. But you require finesse and good timing that comes with awareness. So you are by no means invincible; your enemies can pop you in a blink if you are not careful. The best thing to do is to stay alive and contribute DPS and focus fire, doing everything you can to avoid focus fire yourself. The only exception may be is if you can take down the enemy carry. You can defend, sweep through neutral creeps, and take on Roshan with pretty good speed. Viper is a great farmer, and even more insane late game, and 1-2 minutes bench time can make a huge difference in your gold to dominate the late game with amazing items.5. Relationships
Synergizing Allies:
These allies grant you the ability of some core items, and allow you to build bigger items instead.
Shielder-Healers (free BKB + Mekanism)
They can do both, rather than just one, doing much to prevent your quick squishy death, allowing you to further chase and kill.
Invisibility Granters (free Lothar's)
These provide positioning and an escape mechanism. They can also stun =]
Chase Assisters (free Blink Dagger)
(Dark seer is actually everyone's best ally =]) Most of the time, getting Blink Dagger can be a bit risky because that's 2k gold with no added survivability. But with abilities like surge and toss you basically have a blink dagger. In chasing situations, distance-closing abilities works best on a hero who can slow, since this allows the rest of your team catches up to attack, instead of that one hero alone.
Ogre Magi gets a special mention because all his skills work in tandem with Viper. Nothing is wasted: possible ultra nuke, stun, more DOT, and AS/MS increase cast on Viper. Ogre makes a great ally, but isn't as big of a threat as an enemy, unlike the following "two-timers."
Damager-Disablers:Other Worst Enemies:
(The Two-Timers)
Due to your slowing ability and fragility, heroes that can dish out fast damage and have strong disables simultaneously make the best allies and and worst enemies.
Powerful Two-Timers
These heroes have a strong mix of both damage and disables, making them fearsome ganking partners and most feared enemies of Viper at the same time.Strong Disablers
- Lion has two disables and two nukes, topped off with mana drain.
- Tauren Chieftain's moves are awesome for both initiating and finishing off your slowed target. Mad range, mad nuke, and mad chase-killing ability.
- Mirana can cloak a whole army, catch up and kill your slowed target, stun, and simply leap to impassable terrain, countering your slow.
- Anub'arak Hussein Obama has incredible nukes and the element of surprise. Also an annoying mana-burn that really works against you. He can shut out your ealry and mid game shine-time due to these factors.
Silencers + DPS
Ally - prevent deadly spells on you. Also nice DPS to combine with slow.
Enemy - With slow, fragility, and no escape mechanism, all you have is your DPS. You become useless in your role to slow enemies and become a glass cannon. Their DPS can work against you as well.
Burst-Nukers
Ambushers
If they calculate that they can survive the DPS duel in a 1 vs. 1 situation, or if it's 2v1, then the decision to engage is totally in their hands and you don't have an escape mechanism.
Chasers/Durable Attackers
Enemy - These are also pretty durable, so they can usually walk up to you and kill you, if you don't have backup nearby. They all usually outlast you 1vs1 situation.
Superior Harassers
- Their spammed harassing spells outrange you. Most are nukers as well.
- When laning against Lich, you can use chicken-fountain-bottle-replenishing trick, as well as magic wand/stick against Dark Ritual. Also pad your HP with stat boosters to build tolerance against his nukes.
- Atropos's spells in succession will undo all of your harassing, and you can easily die b/c of your low HP pool. If Atropos has a lane mate, it allows him to position. Very dangerous.
- Enchantress out-lanes you by dealing greater damage in an encounter, even though your range is the same.
* Unlike against Lich, magic stick is not effective against Atropos or Enchantress.
Mana burners
- If you can't slow or use ultimate, you're just a strong ranged creep. In laning and harassing situations, the best way to cope is to use bottle as reserve mana and replenish as you move in to use your spells for the sudden kill-gank.
6. Extra - Tips and Mechanics
6-1 Mechanics to Note
Viper-specific: - Nethertoxin is physical damage, not magical. - Nethertoxin does not work for your images. - Corrosive Skin's poison part works for images, but not the extra magic resistance aspect. - Criticals, bash, Nethertoxin, Poison Attack, and normal damage all happen in the same attack, as long as Poison Attack is on auto-cast (no critical or bash on manual-cast) - Both Poison Attack's damage and slow do not stack, meaning hitting a target with Poison Attack before the 2 seconds effect is over will simply refresh the timer, instead of increasing damage over time or slowing at a higher percentage. - Poison Attack adds 25 range to your normal attack range of 575. - Orb spells like Poison Attack, Searing Arrows, Frost Arrows do not trigger Magic Stick / Magic Wand counters. - Ghost Form used against Viper will block the physical damage portion (including Nethertoxin), but not the Damage-over-Time portion or the slow effect. General: -all percentage increases act on your base value and don't "stack" (multiply) with other percentage-based items. -Evasion of Butterfly / Talisman acts independently from other blocking items like stout / PMS / Vangaurd, and one will trigger if the other does not. good thing =] -Stout Shield / Poor Man's Shield / Vangaurd does not block magical damage Recap: - Poison Attack will break Phase Mode - use regular attack if you wnat to remain phased - Lothar's Edge's 125 backstab damage will not take effect if you break invisibility with manual-casted Poison Attack. - breaking invisibility with auto-case will give you backstab damage, but it will not slow, and it still consumes mana for the poison attack. subsequent auto-casted attacks will slow, however. Therefore, break invisibility around 400-300 range so you will be within range for the second attack to land the slow. - With Ghost Scepter during Ghost Form, use Poison Attack (spell) as a loophole around the physical atack disables. |
6-2 How Nethertoxin Damage Is Determined
-Nethertoxin only works on enemy units (enemy heroes, enemy creeps). Does NOT work on neutral creeps or allied units. -Against creeps, the bonus is halved. As you can see, you do more damage the lower your target's health is. This skill really casts you as one that picks off weak heroes, and Poison Attack allows you to slow healthier heroes down to eventually kill them. |
6-3 Animation Cancelling / Orb Walking
<CLICK:: Animation Cancelling Page>
Orb Walking is simply Animation Cancelling with an added spell/ orb effect on every attack - when you use Poison Attack instead of regular attack. How to Animation Cancel / Orb Walk: 1) Give the attack command. 2) Wait for the actual attack point. 3) Immediately after the attack point, give another command (usually the move command) to cancel the portion after the attack point - called backswing animation. Giving a new command any time during the backswing animation is fine, but the closer it is to the attack point, the more time you will save. However, if you do it any earlier than the attack point, it will force you to complete the backswing animation, and you lose out. -When chasing, give the move command in the predicted path your target is running. -When backing up, but not completely fleeing, as in lane micro or neutral creeping, give the move command between 90 and 180 degrees, instead of 180 degrees backwards. This reduces the turning time, while getting you out of the enemy's attack range. Works best if you have high move speed or higher move speed than your target. 4) Attack again, repeating #1-3 |
6-4 Orb Stacking/Conflits
<CLICK: Orb Stacking Page>
To utilize both Poison Attack and lifesteal together, you must toggle auto-cast to swtich between one orb and the other - could be challenging. Lifesteal (MoM, HotD, Satanic - Vlads does not conflict, but useless to ranged units anyways), & Feedback (Diffusal Blade).To utilize Poison Attack and critical together, you can auto-cast to critical when it doesn't slow, OR use manual-cast to slow when desired. Critical & BashChain Lightning and Desolator - can be used with manual-casted slow alternatingly, but chain lightning is outdone by Radiance, and corruption is outdone by critical and other DPS items. They can work, but non-orb substitutes have the edge over them. -Maim and Skadi Don't ever get them; Poison Attack and Viper Strike slow at a higher percentage. |
6-5 Images
<CLICK: Images/Illusions Page>
- Images don't get direct damage bonus from items like Demon Edge, but do from stats, like Yasha. - Corrosive Skin's poison part works for images, but not the extra magic resistance aspect. |
6-6 Creep Aggro
-Creep aggro effect is 500 distance from your position. -Creep aggro lasts 2 seconds -The location of the Hero does not matter; you can click a hero accross the map, but if there are creeps within 500 distance of you, you will aggro them. -The aggro occures the moment you click the attack command, rather than when you actually attack them. -Giving the attack command while outside of 500 creep range causes the moment of aggro to be triggered when you actually attack (again, the condition that creeps within 500 range applies) Tips: -To minize damage from creep aggro, you can use the move command or right click the ground to get within range of the target hero, and issue the attack command at that moment, rather than giving the attack command from the beginniing. -Spells don't trigger creep aggro, even if you target an enemy hero. Poison Attack is considered a spell, so it does not trigger creep aggro, which you can use to your advantage. -Creep aggro is not always a bad thing. It has 500 range, so you can aggro them without being hit at all and keep the creep conflict closer to your tower. |
6-7 Tower's Targetting Priority
The towers' target acqiusition priorities is in this order: 1) that which is attacking the nearby hero 2) that which is attacking the tower (strikethrough are incorrect. erased for the time being) 4) creeps over heroes -The tower will finish continuing to attack the current target before acquiring a new target. The listed order applies during that interval when it looks for a new target. Tips: 1) When tower diving - 1) use the move command/click ground and; 2) Orb Walk, rather than chasing having right clicked the hero. This will reduce the amount of time that the tower recognizes that you are attacking the hero, putting you lower on the priority chain. 2) Preventing tower targetting you - Since the tower finishes attacking the current unit, you can temporarily stop attacking the tower when the unit about to die to ensure that the tower won't attack you. 3) But if you do get targetted by the tower - attack an allied creep with almost full HP or full HP and the tower will cycle to a different target. |
6-8 Synergy Formulas
The synergy formula for physical attacks is: high attack damage * high attack speed * an attack modifier. The same concept is contained in the fact that 5*5 is greater than 4*6 or 3*7, even though they all add up to 10. What this means in terms of practical application is that, given a finite amount of resources, they are best allocated so that the each factor bolsters one another via the multiplicative effect to maximize the output/usage. This is also known as synergy. Having 200 attack damage when you have almost no attack speed boost is not as effective as diverting some of that investment into attack speed. Your overall DPS and effectiveness (when orbs are applied) is what we're trying to maximize. The variables being multiplied are damage and the frequency of damage (attack speed) which results in your damage/time value. The third variable, which is effects like slow and chain lightning, usually benefit more with attack speed, since it activates upon attack. Other modifiers like critical and cleave make their foundation upon both damage and attack speed. 2) Survivability: The factors for defense is high raw HP, reduction (armor and magical), and special blocking abilities like invisibility/dpell immunity/damage immunity/Lifesteal In early game as well as later on, a boost in raw HP helps immensely. On tanking heroes, damage block provided by Vangaurd or Poorman's Shield is quite invaluable and sometimes underestimated. Viper goes under the category of fragile DPS machine like Razor, Clinkz, Sniper. His main weakness is getting stunned then nuked. Because Viper's playstyle isn't like that of Clinkz, where he can high-tail it any time, we compensate for for this weakness in the item build, whereas it would not be worth doing for Clinkz. |
-Credits and Thanks-
Thanks to every one of you who took the time to read my guide and posted feedback here and in the original guide thread. All of your comments helped to shape this guide for the better. There are a lot of better players out there than myself, and all your insights are appreciated. I just happen to be one that likes organizing the info. =] I drew upon a lot of sources and existing Viper guides for major and minor points and in hopes of being as comprehensive as possible. I hope my guide has been useful for you.
- Ramomar for the artistic banner and aesthetic help
- Vindicate for some deep discussions =] as well as Antifate, dondy, and Merkaba
- All previous Viper Guide writers, especially DrDragun's <-- *click*
- Everyone who commented and helped point things out
Image split of a "dodge" Viper w/ Manta,BKB,Butterfly
Viper the NetherdrakeAuthor: gwho
Map Vers.: 6.64
Dodge Viper
Dodge Viper
Last Comment:08/04/2013
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Current Rating: 8.26
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