Hi guys I am slahser, and this is my way of
playing Viper hard support.
I think Viper is one of the strongest heroes
early on, if not the strongest.
The idea with playing him as the position
5, is that you are able to dominate the safelane,
and secure your carry a good game.
Viper really benefits from being able to kite
the opponent, which is why he is so much better
at being at the safelane than offlane, where
the enemies are usually much farther away
from their tower.
Now this way of playing Viper has been done
a bit before, with Fly doing it in one game,
and Jenkins also making a video talking positively
about it.
But it has not really caught on, and you get
flamed and reported in pubs for doing it,
and the discussion I have seen on reddit is
generally dismissive.
One of the main objections is that ok sure
Viper may be good early, but later he is just
a completely useless hero, so you should instead
pick say Rubick instead where you are more
useful later.
And granted, Viper mostly shines early on
in the lane, but I think he is far from useless
later.
And even lets just say for the argument that
he is useless later, I think he has the ability
to be so insanely strong early that it is
still worth playing.
And if you still go with this argument, I
think you can apply it to Viper in all positions
and say “don’t pick Viper at all, he is
strong early but useless later”.
Now you may object to this and say Viper with
good levels and farm is good, but viper support
bad, but I don’t think Viper is that reliant
on items and levels than say a hero as Invoker.
So I believe Viper hard support is underrated
at the moment.
The way I play it is to max my Poison Attack
spell first, using it to harras my opponent
out of the lane or get a kill.
Whether or not you then level your Nethertoxin
or Corrosive Skin spell first is dependant
on the matchup, and how many stuns you have.
So if your team has a lot of stuns and are
able to keep the opponent in place, maxing
Nethertoxin may be better than corrosive skin
first.
But I recommend you atleast take one value
point in both nethertoxin and corrosive skin
before maxing either of them.
As for items I start with 2 fairy fires, 3
mangos, a branch and tangos.
The fairy fires are nice for the extra harras
damage, and can make you win those fights
where the opponent decides to stand their
ground.
The 3 mangos gives life regen, and more crucial
provides you with extra mana early, since
Viper runs out of mana so quickly spamming
his poison attack.
And remember, when using poison attack you
need to do the orb walk, so you click poison
attack and then the opponent, and in this
way the enemies creeps won’t hit you, even
though you are standing right next to them.
Later I think there are many solid choices
for Viper, of which at least one you should
be able to get at some point, since position
5 gets so much more gold now than he used
to.
Generally I would recommend Rod of Atos, since
being able to hold opponents still benefits
Viper so much.
If they have a carry that you can kite, like
Troll Warlord, it may be good to get a Aghanims
before Atos or instead of Atos.
And glimmer cape at some point is always good,
since you want to be in the front and be a
sorta sacrificial sheep, getting all your
poisons on the enemy and then either die or
maybe narrowly escape.
Which also ties back to my point about the
hero still being useful later, since you can
act as the sorta tank/scout that the opponent
goes on first, and open up the fight for your
allies to get a good engagement.
I think hard support viper really shines versus
the current meta of having 2 strong offlaners
that try to shut down the safelane carry,
and also combined with the fact that you now
get much more gold as hard support, I think
it is a very viable way to play Viper at the
moment.
But be prepared for narrow minded people being
prejudiced against hard support Viper, and
go win that lane hard for your safelane carry.
Oh and lastly some things I forgot to mention:
for your first items I usually go 2 crowns
if I go atos, since the stats are so nice
early on for viper, and then I also go tranquils.
As for talents, I think Vipers talents are
pretty bad, but with this build I go spell
lifesteal, then corrosive skin stats, extra
viper strike dps and nethertoxin silences.
but at level 20 i am not sure maybe it is actually better to go extra damage even though you are support.
Oh and as a final final note, he is a fucking
great roamer, he is actually amazing, as you
can see I rotate mid a lot of times, and he
is really amazing to gank with, which make
him just great with position 5 to be so amazing
to gank with early.
