The Versatile Viper - Slow your victims to victory

Good guide.
I myself played Viper quite often for the past few games, player 10 games are 4k rating and won 9 of them. Faced many lineups, including the annoying Rubick that can steal your ulti everytime he wants. I play 4-1-1-1 build and harass the enemy as much as I can in order to get that fast mekanism. Once I have the mekanism I just get a teleport and tp to where fights happen. It's important to get that healing power before minute 18.
I always go for mekanism + scepter, I never go shadow blade since I always want to stick with the team and not go alone searching for a kill in their woods only to be spotted by sentry.

The 4-1-1-1 build does the most right click damage early on to enemy heroes.

Get Buckler first before Headress so you don't push the lane, also the chainmall allows you to be more aggressive.
http://dotabuff.com/players/26221561/matches

I disagree with your silencer and zeus comments. Viper's 'E' can mitigate the damage to an extent, but those two are still hard matchups. Reason being, Silencer's 'Q' does a lot more dot to you compared to your 'E'. He can also use his 'E' which leads to constant dot on you. Last hitting will be a pain since you would constantly be low and would need to watch out for first blood against you.

As for Zeus, he can use his 'Q' from high ground, so he needn't get in range. Also, his 'Q' and 'W' do more damage than your Corrosive Skin can return to him. Once he hits level 6, one combo of his 'Q', 'W' and 'R' can kill you unless you are careful.



Correct. That is because the salve is optional, in my opinion. If you are facing harassment, it is worth the salve. If not, it might be worth rushing a bottle for rune control.

Oh, right:I missed that tango + salve is mentioned in the text( but not in the item build.)

Viper can easily beat silencer/zeus/weaver/pudge in lane.

Silencer = If he wants to spam his Q on you just max E and he takes as much damage as you.
Pudge = won't get a single last hit and get a ward on his highground (buy the damn thing yourself) and you'll never get hooked
zeus = so squishy, gets wrecked by your Q and E
weaver = low range compared to you, very squishy so can't afford to trade hits. Your E also ****s him up bigtime. Get a sentry and the lane is won.

I do agree with your suggestion about the Healing Salve. If you look at my explanations for the item build, you will see that I suggest either a salve or an early Bottle if facing a nuke heavy team.

I also agree that Viper can be a double edged sword, he can either get shut down really hard, or can snowball uncontrollably. But, in low level games (most pubs), teams have little to no co-ordination, so your laning phase goes peacefully. However, I am starting to see this hero get picked in the competitive scene, so it should be interesting to see how he pans out.

Thanks for the insight, by the way.

I agree, Viper is a super good (low-)level pub hero because he is straightforward and punishes the opponents each time they over-extend. Nice for beginners as well due to only 2 skills and tankiness, I played him a lot when I started dota2 . However, at any higher level players know how to counter him or make him irrelevant: a) gank (low ms and staring HP), b) don't feed (stay far back), c) nuke out of lane early on (see below) or d) out-carry. As a result, the winrate is much lower for viper in higher MMR -games.

Your item build is quite similar to this guide: http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/how-to-get-godlike-spree-in-6-minutes-7712

Like I stated there, starting with Wraith Band and Tango leaves you vulnerable especially to opponent's nukers ( Lina, Keeper of the Light, Death Prophet etc.). If they see you only have a tango for regen they'll be "oh look, Viper has little regen, let's nuke him out of the lane": At low levels you have low HP and little or no extra spell resistance. I highly recommend starting with Healing Salve as well.