DOTA 2 Viper Build Guide
If you’re looking for a beginner-friendly damage Carry hero in Dota 2, you can’t go wrong with Viper. His playstyle is straightforward and relies on his poison toxins and complementary items for a solid build. His consistent damage output early on in the game makes him scary to go against.
This guide provides you with all the utilities you need for a robust Viper build, starting with its playstyle, abilities, and essential items.
Table of Contents
Viper’s Playstyle
The best role for Viper is solo Carry Midlane. He completely dominates the lanes due to his ranged abilities, making last hits and farming easy for Viper. As Viper can gain levels pretty easily early on in the game, he can start ganking enemy laners, due to his enhanced attack power.
How Does Viper’s Abilities Work?
The first step towards mastering Viper is an in-depth understanding of his abilities. Since Viper requires a balance of his kit and items to reach his maximum potential, you should focus on both facets of his build. Hence, let’s start with a brief look at Viper’s abilities.
Poison Attack
Poison Attack adds a buff to Viper’s normal attacks, slowing down the enemy’s movement speed while dealing damage to them. Its effect can be stacked up to 5 times. You can use the Poison Attack to easily harass the enemies in your lane, denying them substantial gold and XP.
| Cast Range | Attack Range Bonus | Max Stacks | DPS Per Stack | Duration | Mana |
| 600/640/680/720 | 25/65/105/145 | 5 | 4/8/12/16 | 4 | 24 |
Nethertoxin
With this ability, Viper releases a toxin cloud in a targeted area. All the enemy units in that area take damage which varies based on the duration they remain in the Nethertoxin. The passives of affected enemies are also disabled for the time being. It is the best tool for farming with Viper, as you can target waves of enemy Creeps with it.
| Cast Range | Radius | Min DPS | Max DPS | Duration | Cooldown | Mana |
| 900 | 400 | 15/20/25/30 | 50/75/100/125 | 6.5/7/7.5/8 | 14 | 70 |
Corrosive Skin
This ability allows Viper to spread his toxins in a wide radius, buffing his resistance to magic damage. Furthermore, enemy units affected by the toxins experience slowed attack speed and damage over time. If you are trading damage with the enemy, we recommend maxing out Corrosive Skin first.
| Radius | Magic Resistance Bonus | DPS | Attack Speed Slow | Duration |
| 1400 | 10%/15%/20%/25% | 8/16/24/32 | 8/16/24/32 | 4 |
Nosedive
It is an AoE attack that requires Aghanim’s Scepter to be unlocked. It allows Viper to disarm and splatter the enemies while applying the Corrosive Skin debuff to all the enemies within the radius.
| Cast Range | Effective Radius | Disarm Radius | Disarm Duration | Cooldown | Mana |
| 375 | 1200 | 500 | 4 | 20 | 75 |
Viper Strike (Ultimate)
Viper’s ultimate is a poison projectile that slows down enemy movement and attack speed while dealing damage over time. You can help out your team win fights in lanes with it, as it’s one of the best ganking abilities in the game. We recommend slotting an Aghanim’s Scepter to increase the uptime on Viper’s ultimate.
| Cast Range | DPS | Movement Speed Slow | Attack Speed Slow | Duration | Cooldown | Mana |
| 500 | 80/120/160 | 40%/60%/80% | 40/60/80 | 5 | 50/40/30 | 100/150/200 |
Viper’s Build Guide
Viper has one of the highest pick rates across various roles in the game. However, as described early, the most common spot to play Viper is the Midlane, especially if you’re up against squishy heroes. To make your Carry Midlane build viable with Viper, you need a specific set of items.
Check out the list of items and strats for Viper throughout the different game phases described below.
Laning Phase
As Viper, you should start with the Midlane and use your Poison attack to harass enemies out of the lane meanwhile prioritizing getting the last hits on Creeps and farm gold. Hence you actively deny gold from the enemy laners, while stacking up on the levels needed early on in the game. Once you have enough levels, you need to invest levels in Nethertoxin and Corrosive Skin to boost your farm rate.
It is best to start with the following items under your belt.
- Tango: It provides extra health regeneration to Viper.
- Enchanted Mango: It helps Viper stay in the lane with additional health regeneration and burst mana.
- Faerie Fire: It grants additional burst HP with a boost in attack power for extra damage early on.
Early To Mid Game
Once you have maxed out Poison Attack and invested some levels into Corrosive Skin and Nethertoxin, you should focus on clearing through creep waves much faster and join your team whenever they engage with the enemy.
We recommend the following items for early-to-mid game build.
- Power Treads: A must-have item on Viper to boost your attack and movement speed. It helps Viper set up early ganks all across the map.
- Wraith Band: It enhances the strength of Viper with additional damage and agility provision.
- Dragon Lance: This item greatly enhances various attributes of Viper, including Strength, Agility, and Attack Range. You can upgrade it to Hurricane Pike in the late-game phase.
- Mekansm: A great mid-game pickup on Viper that helps with the gank fights by healing yourself and allies within a 1200 radius.
- Black King Bar: It provides Viper immunity to spells and magic damage resistance, making it viable for you to lunge into fights. It is immensely useful against enemies with disabling abilities.
Late Game
By the late game, Viper can play as a hard Carry, helping his team win fights by dealing immense damage. His ultimate becomes a strong utility by the end, that can entrap entire enemy units in the poison pool and deal damage over time.
We recommend having these items in your item slot in the endgame.
- Sange and Yasha: It will be your best-in-slot item by the late game that makes Viper extremely agile and tanky. It grants all extra juicy bonuses you need to your attack Strenght, Agility, Resistance, Attack Spee, and Movement Speed to turn Viper into an OP Carry.
- Aghanim’s Scepter: This item enhances Viper Strike by lowering its cooldown to 10 seconds and decreasing mana cost by half. Furthermore, the Scepter unlocks Nosedive, another solid late-game ability for Viper.
- Hurricane Pike: You should upgrade your Dragon Lance to Hurricane Pike for increased mobility and power, among other stats.
Final Thoughts
Viper is one of the easiest Carry heroes to play while being a hard character to counter. Especially in lower MMR brackets, Viper can be deadly with his toxins. We hope this guide helps you rank up using Viper as your main hero. Check out our Games Guides & Tips for more Dota 2 guides.
