[Nab's big bad Guide] Viper - The Netherdrake

[NotAbastard]

A malicious Drake tamed by the Lich King himself, Viper is a fierce, acid-spitting beast whose speed and agility surprises the most hardened of warriors. Cursing himself into a maddened rage, Viper charges into battle without regard of his own safety. His salivary glands produce stinging poison that causes enemies to writhe in pain, severely damaging their nerves. Be careful when facing this powerful monster...its dark silhouette may be the last thing you will ever see.

 

 

One of the most imbalanced heroes in DotA, his ulti is deadly early and he is really hard to down if played right. He's not hard to play, but you should not overestimate his skills cause you'll end up fighting overfed enemies.

 

I. Pros and Cons

II. Spells

III. Skill Build

IV. Orb Walking

V. Item Build

VI. Alternative Items / Rejected Items

VII. Lane Control

VIII. Jungling

IX. Allies

X. Enemies

XI. General Tactics

 

I. Pros and Cons of Viper, The Netherdrake

 

Pros :

-Great spammable slow spell, useful for harassing.

-Great Ultimate, Spammable and deadly.

-His passive spells can really help you during 1v1.

-Frenzy, good for pushing late.

Cons :

-Moderate Late gamer (there are other agility heroes that can outdps Viper full geared)

-He may run out of mana early, cause Poison Attack needs a lot of mana.

-Kind of fragile early.

-No Aoe spells.

 

II. Spells

 

Frenzy

 

Increases attack speed for 20 seconds, at the cost of taking additional damage.

 

Level 1 - 25% increase, 5% damage taken increase.

Level 2 - 50% increase, 10% damage taken increase.

Level 3 - 75% increase, 15% damage taken increase.

Level 4 - 100% increase, 20% damage taken increase.

 

Cooldown: 40 seconds.

 

Level 1: 80 mana, 40 sec cooldown.

Level 2: 90 mana, 40 sec cooldown.

Level 3: 110 mana, 40 sec cooldown.

Level 4: 130 mana, 40 sec cooldown.

 

Poison Attack

 

 

Coats Viper's attack with poison. Slows movement and attack speeds and lasts 2 seconds.

 

Level 1 - Slows speed by 10%, deals 6 damage per second.

Level 2 - Slows speed by 20%, deals 12 damage per second.

Level 3 - Slows speed by 30%, deals 18 damage per second.

Level 4 - Slows speed by 40%, deals 24 damage per second.

 

Cooldown: 4/3/0/0 seconds.

Orb effects do not stack

Buff placers do not stack

 

Level 1: 20 mana, 4 sec cooldown.

Level 2: 20 mana, 3 sec cooldown.

Level 3: 20 mana, 0 sec cooldown.

Level 4: 20 mana, 0 sec cooldown.

 

Corrosive Skin

 

Viper's body is covered with poison. Any unit that attacks it becomes infected. Reduced movement and attack speed and minor damage for 3 seconds. The poison also absorbs some of the damage from spells.

 

Level 1 - 5% reduction, 5 damage per second. 5% magic reduction.

Level 2 - 10% reduction, 10 damage per second. 10% magic reduction.

Level 3 - 15% reduction, 15 damage per second. 15% magic reduction.

Level 4 - 20% reduction, 20 damage per second. 20% magic reduction.

Passive

Viper Strike

 

 

Strikes with a vicious bite, slowing movement and attack speeds significantly and dealing poison damage over time.

Lasts 5 seconds.

 

Level 1 - Deals 60 damage per second and slows speeds by 40%.

Level 2 - Deals 100 damage per second and slows speeds by 60%.

Level 3 - Deals 145 damage per second and slows speeds by 80%.

 

Cooldown: 80/50/30

 

Level 1: 125 mana, 80 sec cooldown.

Level 2: 175 mana, 50 sec cooldown.

Level 3: 250 mana, 30 sec cooldown.

 

NAB's comments : Frenzy is nice for pushing, but you should take care when you use it cause the extra damage you take can be a great disadvantage. Poison Attack is crazy, useful for harassing, orb walking , chasing, escaping, and it's spammable! Corossive Skin can help against mages of all kind and it's also useful for farming. Your ulti is really nice. Early, you'll kill with it. Late, you'll use its slow, but it will still have the same effect : you'll get a kill.

III. Skill Build

 

First Build:

1. Poison Attack

2. Corossive Skin

3. Poison Attack

4. Corossive Skin

5. Poison Attack

6. Viper Strike

7. Poison Attack

8. Corossive Skin

9. Corossive Skin

10. Stats

11. Viper Strike

12. Stats

13. Frenzy

14. Frenzy

15. Frenzy

16. Viper Strike

17. Frenzy

18-25 Stats

 

That's the build number one, we max poison attack early of course for harassing and killing, Ulti at 6/11/16, corossive skin second, and we get frenzy last. We get stats between our Level 2 ultimate just o boost our hp and mana pool a bit.

 

Second Build:

1. Poison Attack

2. Stats

3. Poison Attack

4. Stats

5. Poison Attack

6. Viper Strike

7. Poison Attack

8. Stats

9. Corossive Skin

10. Corossive Skin

11. Viper Strike

12. Corossive Skin

13. Corossibe Skin

14. Frenzy

15. Frenzy

16. Viper Strike

17. Frenzy

18. Frenzy

19-25. Stats

 

This build is based on high hp / mana so you can spam your spells and make a lot of money before your enemy farms.

You can choose this if your enemies are not mages or nukers.

 

IV. Orb Walking

 

Orb Walking is useful on heroes who have an orb-on-use spell like Viper, Traxex etc. It's hard and it needs practice but it's really important and it'll make you an unbeatable chaser/ganker or at least, a hard hero to kill.

 

So what is Orb Walking? When you orb walk, you spam your orb spell, while you keep cancelling the attack animation to be ready to use it again faster.

This way, the players you are chasing / being chased by  will always be slowed, or disabled. Let's take a closer look at our player.

 

 

You see, Viper just unleashed his Poison attack. After the projectile (our orb) gets out of our mouth (lol!), there will be a small delay till we can attack again. BUT : If you stop the animation right after the projectile gets unleashed, Viper will be ready to use it again without its delay. So he can move and spam his orb at the same time! You can also do it by moving to another direction. Cool huh?

 

It's not that hard, and you need to be fast. Your hand may hurt every time you attempt to orb walk, but, hey, you won't be using it all the time!

 

V. Item Build

Viper is an Agility hero, so the items are kind of obvious. But pay attention to the orb.

 

Item build number one : The Linken's Build, a nice build for spell spamming, it helps countering nukers and has high survivability and dps.

 

 

Item build number two : The Sange and Yasha build. Yes, it stacks with your orb, but both maim and poison attack can't proc at the same time.

 

 

Item build number three : The Mjollnir build, it's the same with Sange and yasha, stacks with orb but can't proc at the same time.

 

 

VI. Alternative Items / Rejected Items

Alternative items

 

Too many stuns? Here's the solution.

If you are having a hard time surviving against other high hpers.

It ruins your poison attack but can help survive. Get this if there are many stunners in your team.

Early game boost to your hp pool.

Get this if you have no stunners in your team. Boosts your mana pool.

Too many mages? Can't handle them? Take it.

Works well with your ulti.

Overfed? Wanna have fun? Get refresher. 2 Viper Strikes ftw.

 

Rejected items

 

Not an orb, but still a buff placer. Too expensive, you don't need it.

You don't need so much mana. It just delays your builds.

You are not melee.

You are not melee.

You are a good chaser, but I'd let a STR hero to carry this.

Why would you want them to target you first?

Useless, you don't need it.

You can't handle the degeneration, you are fragile.

Nu-uh. No. Not for you.

We can orb walk, remember?

You are not a nuker, and you do have a slow spell.

Your pasisives are not offensive, so illusions are kind of useless.

Your mana can't handle it + You don't need it.

 

VII. Lane Control

 

Solo Vs 1 Ranged : Last hit and deny as much as you can, if he is a harasser like tinker, keep a lot of tangos/ pots with you

Solo Vs 2 Ranged : Last hit and deny as much as possible, try not to get to close or they may stun you and destroy your hp.

Solo Vs 1 Melee : Your favorite. Harass him, last hit and deny. Unless he's a dark seer for example, the lane control is yours

Solo Vs 1 Melee/1 Ranged : Harass the melee dude, don't let him get too close, last hit , deny. Watch out for stuns.

Solo Vs 2 Melee : Don't let them get close to you or they'll probably stun you and deal heavy damage. Harass them if you can, and last hit.

 

Non-Solo Vs 1 Ranged : Last hit and deny like crazy, your enemy won't be able to get enough money.

Non-Solo Vs 2 Ranged : Last hit and deny. Try not to be very offensive because a death of yours may also cause the death of your teamate.

Non-Solo Vs 1 Melee : Poor guy. Harass him, tell your teamate to stun/ attack so you can first blood him if possible.

Non-Solo vs 1 Melee/ 1 Ranged : Harass the melee, last hit , watch out for stuns.

Non-Solo vs 2 Melee : Harass them both, tell your teamate to tank for you if he is melee , or harass if he's ranged. Last hit/deny as much as you can.

VIII. Jungling

 

Jungling is not recommended for Viper. If you still wanna kill those poor Centaurs, just draw them to your lane when your creeps are coming, so a couple of them will start attacking and tank for you. Last hit , xp and money yours. Use poison attack if possible, keep a bottle for you to get the runes , to regen your hp whenever you are low.

 

IX. Allies

 

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And many more, can't present them all ^^ Generally healers, stunners, and tankers can be really helpful in your team.

 

X. Enemies

 

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And generally stunners, high hpers, healers that can outheal your ulti.

 

XI. General Tactics

 

-Don't let melee dudes like Ursa or Panda get close to you. You can't handle their dps.

-Search in the map for Haste and Double Damage Runes. Really helpful early and late.

-Don't be an egoist! Help your team! Slow if needed, and don't cast your ulti only to get kills.

-Don't be a fool! Look at the map, do not push too far from your base, you'll be gang-banged.

-Gang early! You are amazing early, and moderate late! Abuse your early game overpowerness!

-Be a pro! Don't run during Strygwyr's ulti or don't let Axe get you to low hp! Don't let Ezalor hit you with his nuke! etc.

-Practice damn it! Practice orb walking , be fast, test new items, get experienced, PWN.

 

Item builds in Game :

 

Well that's it folks. Credits to NotAbastard and www.maxcheaters.com. It took like 3 hours to make this guide, my hands are ...red at the moment. Please leave a comment :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Emrys]

Nice guide!!!! Nab !!!!! Another Good guide!!!

/offtopic1 I have to se you a long time to garena...

[Morian]

y0 NotAbastard, I think your guide is perfect! You axplain everything.

BTW change your title is not bad guide, It's very good guide! :P

Thank you!

BTW2 NobLe or kenji nab update the sticky! Don't forget! :D

[NotAbastard]

heh Thanks... I'm in garena every day O_o rofl.

 

I tried to add Preys, but it won't let me modify my post. Too many images crash the site I guess.

[xKenji]

congratz for teh new promotion, you surely deserved it :D

 

bout the guide, it is great, big and badass as you said :D i mean viper is a fragile hero and he slow spam just pwnz...

 

+1 karma and added on teh list :)

[MrMG]

Nothing new in this guide. No new items in the Item Build still the old builds as they previously were. Last Hit and Deny are basic things for everyone to do i do not know why is that mentioned so much in the Lane Control.  From when does Phantom Lancer has the skill you've shown in the worst enemies / best allies ?  Well thats my comment.

[NotAbastard]

Nothing new in this guide. No new items in the Item Build still the old builds as they previously were. Last Hit and Deny are basic things for everyone to do i do not know why is that mentioned so much in the Lane Control.  From when does Phantom Lancer has the skill you've shown in the worst enemies / best allies ?  Well thats my comment.

 

I've made a mistake , and I can't edit the post, cause the forum goes down. Every player has a basic item build, I showed 3. If I did show you something new, everyone would come and harass me because of it. Trust me, last hitting and denying is NOT known in my country, most of the dota players ( not everyone ) just hit their creeps till they get their money.

 

Can you stop being an ass in every post of yours? We have enough flamers in the forum.

[DāЯқŜiĐє]

Nice guide NotAbastard..P Pfff those guys dont know what "guide" means...I think "guide" is a personal opinion for something...(Thats why there are  a lot of guides out there)

[Emrys]

Trust me, last hitting and denying is NOT known in my country, most of the dota players ( not everyone ) just hit their creeps till they get their money.

That's not truth... I have seen many people doing these... Only Pros do this...