General DiscussionWhy did viper actually lose winrate?

he went from "tanky frontliner who can hit towers" to "tanky frontliner who cannot hit towers"

But how did he lose the ability to hit towers? I am pretty sure that all the items he builds help him hit towers, aside from the seemingly mandatory veil, which helps him murder people who try to defend.

Also poison attack is insanely good vs towers with the talent upgrade, and 120 damage on an agi hero is actually an insane talent.

But those are kinda late tho.

Maybe the old build doesn't fit him anymore that well?
Someone tried something in the lines of atos drums solar crest etc?

no he still builds right click it is just that he builds veil as well, that's literally the only thing that had really changed in his item build, he still hits hard but it is mostly magic damage and he needs some way to sustain mana

I think atos will be good on him, wtill gives tankiness, and the mana isn't the worst thing in the world, viper after all needs a bit more mana than before

And of course root in nethertoxin

his old passive gave him bonus damage against towers, meaning he could chip the tower in his lane way quicker than he can now

once he hits 20/5 it stops being as much of an issue but for what used to be the most important part of vipers game he lost a lot of his ability to siege

maybe hes a huskar counter now though, thats cool

The hero is now insanely good against any hero that relies on a passive but overall the hero did get a little nerf. Really it was mostly a playstyle change that caused the drop in winrate. You can't be nearly as aggressive early in lane and you have to be much better at last hitting than you used to. The hero also really sucks at hitting buildings early like jdf8 said, used to be if the enemy mid left the lane I'd take the tower but now its a lot harder to take it down in time. I don't know about other people but I have completely changed my viper build. I used to go treads into pike into sny and then into like satanic and shit. Basically get really tanky have decent damage and run at people. Now I get phase into pike into mjolner. which is more of a sit back, let someone else frontline, and pump in damage. The hero also needs a mana regen item lategame, which I think means that a six slotted viper now needs either linkens or orchid/bloodthorn.

ppl dont buy enough radiance on it yet

i saw someone that didn't take toxin in low prio games

i mean unless your against a hero with a passive I don't think you take a point in nethertoxin until like level 8 and if your against a heavy magic damage lineup I could see not taking a point until 11.

because its usually picked by support only players who got pissed in his last game

I think all it would take to get this hero back to a 50% winrate would be to give him like +5 base damage.

Without nethertoxin this hero doesn't do the retarded deny lh crap so

don't think this hero is a mid anymore, its way harder to shit on a lane now

Needs a lot of mana now

Sounds like you didn't play viper before the patch.

Viper was a tower killer. People severely underestimated the right click he could do to towers and heroes and those who didn't play him mostly saw him as a tank. Viper was/is tanky but more so old nethertoxin was a huge dmb buff. It was an extra 48 dmg to buildings under 40%, under 20% an extra 96! That's insane against a tower. Vs heroes it was double. I built him as a right click carry every game, not even as a tank, just stuff like mjollnir, butterfly, ac and wrecked towers.

Now he's worse early game. Poisons scale better into late now but his lane dominance was due to nethertoxin, that's gone. So you aren't going like 60/30 cs/deny in lane at 10 minutes any more.

Now he's just a pocket pick vs heroes you want to break. And his item builds are fucked up now cus you need mana to sustain nethertoxin spam but mana items aren't that good on viper.

he has waveclear/flashfarm now though lmao

you can farm stacks and creepwaves with toxin easily. even ancient ones.

@dire wolf Nethertoxin did half damage to towers but yes the hero struggles to take towers early on now.

@seilos even with the increased farming ability from nethertoxin and going mjolner second item, I've averaged less gpm than I did with old viper. Never under estimate how much 3-4 kills in the laning stage mean on a hero like viper and old nethertoxin meant that you secured kills much easier and it was easier to pick a hero off with old viper. Just basically the increased farm speed on this hero doesn't mean that much because the hero wants to group up with his team and take towers.

The number I listed is half dmg. He does double that to heroes.

Poison attack is so strong tho

oh shit I don't think I ever actually more than glanced at nethertoxin, thought it was less damage. But yeah thats another thing Viper has a lot less immeadeate damage. 190 physical damage every attack is much better than 90 magic damage per second. The hero's right click damage was actually just slashed and this is part of the reason I thought Viper was going to be way worse than he is.