Viper

Viper the Netherdrake is a ranged agility Hero who can function as an excellent ganker and carry due to his slowing auto-attacks and his low cooldown ultimate. Although ganking is often made easier with Viper's presence, his true carry potential is revealed with sheer item power. Farming with Viper is relatively easy; while he has no area of effect abilities to clear waves, Nethertoxin makes last-hitting a cinch. However, active participation in ganking is very important before his ganking power wears out in mid-late game, due to enemy heroes playing more cautiously and obtaining better items. Poison Attack makes Viper very potent in hero harassing.

Recommended items
Starting:
 * The and the  early game will give you a boost to your harass and last hitting ability, and can also build into a.

Core:
 * are the boots of choice to augment Viper's DPS and increase his tankiness.
 * A or two give you a decent boost in damage, which helps with last hitting, and one of them can be upgraded to a.
 * A is a strong defense item that does a better job than, and the active heal is useful for both yourself and your teammates.
 * massively increases Viper's usefulness. The much, much lower CD on his ult allows him to almost spam it in teamfights which lowers his target's DPS, slows them, and deals a hefty amount of damage. It also increases his tankiness, and Viper's usefulness goes up greatly the longer he's in a fight.

Situational:
 * is a good pickup on Viper if you intend to use it for ganking. Viper is a very capable ganker if he can get into close range with a target. Between both of his slows and his damage scaling up as his target's health decreases, Viper is a very good hero for dueling.
 * provides a mix of tankiness, damage, and chasing potential, all which greatly help Viper. It also provides a way to remove certain debuffs.
 * is another item that provides a mix of damage and tankiness. Once you have a solid HP pool, evasion makes Viper much, much harder to bring down with physical damage.
 * provides an unreliable disable on top of a solid chunk of damage. It's best if your team is low on disables or enemy carries are picking up evasion.
 * prevents spellcasters from using disabling spells, as well as making your targets more vulnerable to your DPS. The mana regeneration also remedies Viper's constant lack of mana.
 * increases Viper's tankiness, and combined with your and a, Viper will be incredibly hard to put down.
 * into gives all-around stats which will all benefit to Viper. Dragon Lance alone is like a cheap, allowing to often initiate on a single target from far away, slowing him with the Poison Attack only. Less efficient than the ultimate, however the  active allows to either reach the target faster, or run away from it while still beeing able to hit in dangerous situations. All-in-all, a very good multi-purpose situational item.

Tips

 * Primarily leveling is the best way to slow and damage a target of your choice and doesn't require your opponents to attack you for the ability to be applied. If you're in a lane with supports, this is probably the strongest choice.
 * is the generally weakest option to max, but if the rest of your team is capable of getting your opponents to low HP quickly, this will allow you to easily clean up fights. It's a good choice to pick up early if you want to last-hit easier.
 * is the best choice to max first if you'll be in situations where you and your opponent(s) will be trading blows, rather than you just attacking. The damage per level of this ability is roughly the same as Poison Attack, but greatly increases how tanky you are.
 * is especially potent against DoT spells. Between the magic resistance and continuous reapplication of Corrosive Skin to the caster of the DoT, Viper will usually take less damage than Corrosive Skin returns.
 * As your and  slow attack speed as well, apply them to the enemy carry to cripple their damage output.
 * Late-game, Viper can help push by tanking the enemy creep wave, thanks to the damage return of . Of course, the enemy heroes' position should be taken into account.
 * Viper is great at kiting melee carries with his large variety of slows and with an.

Trivia

 * Viper's response Vipe spawn 05.mp3 "Holy shit, it's me!" is a reference to a scene of the movie Top Gun. makes a similar, yet more accurate Gyro ally 01.mp3 response upon meeting him as an ally.
 * 's rivalry lines towards Viper imply that he is the wizard mentioned in Viper's lore.