There have been a few updates to Valorant since its initial release in June. One agent, Viper has received many buffs which has increased her stock as a viable agent in the game. If you are unfamiliar with Viper, she uses poison to create toxic walls, smokes, and molotovs to deal with her enemies. Before looking at her recent buffs, let's look at her abilities with a little more detail to see what they all do and how to use them.

C Ability - Snake Bite

Viper’s C ability Snake Bite is an area of effect (AoE) type ability where she equips a chemical launcher and fires a poison canister that shatters on the ground where aimed. It also has a similar trajectory pattern to Brimstone’s Molotov ability. If an enemy is in the poison they will be inflicted with damage and slowness.

Q Ability – Poison Cloud

This ability allows Viper to throw an activatable smoke bomb that can be picked up and redeployed once in a round. It can be activated multiple times in a round based on the amount of fuel is in Viper’s fuel stores. If it is not at 0, the poison cloud will stay up, and any enemy that finds themselves inside it will get inflicted with decay, a new status effect that inflicts damage until the person hits 1 hp. Once they leave the poison, their health regenerates back to where it was before.

E Ability – Toxic Screen

Toxic Screen is the other ability in Viper's kit that utilizes the fuel mechanic. Viper can summon a poison wall that blocks vision and gives decay to anyone standing inside of it. This is a permanent placing ability so once it is placed, it cannot be repositioned during the round.

Ultimate – Viper’s Pit:

When you activate Viper’s Pit, a large poison cloud appears that stays up and active while Viper is inside of it. Everyone but Viper takes decay damage from it and, enemies inside will have a red outline to Viper, making it easier to see and kill them. If Viper steps out of the cloud it will stay active for a little bit, then dissolve.

Buffs:

Her Toxic Screen now penetrates walls, making it easier to deploy behind cover to cut off sites compared to before where you almost had to peek to activate it, making Viper vulnerable to getting killed.

Her Snake Bite was changed to give the debuff Fragile. This makes it so when players are in her poison the damage they take is doubled. The buff makes Viper very impactful on pistol rounds, as a few well placed snake bites can become detrimental to the enemy team because the Classic can one-shot headshot unarmoured enemies in the poison.

The recent buffs to Viper’s Pit make her unstoppable when she is defending a bomb site. When enemies are inside of her pit, their minimap is obstructed (same effect as Omen’s ultimate) making it harder for them to relay information to their teammates. Her vision of opponents inside of the cloud has been greatly enhanced, so they are easier to see. To top it all off, when she leaves it, the ultimate will stay up for 12 seconds compared to the measly 5 seconds it was before.

Her last buff pertains to her decay effect. The health tick is now 15hp instead of 10, and there is a 2.5 second delay when out of her poison before health regeneration kicks in. This is huge as you can inflict massive damage to opponents and easily kill them at low health before they regenerate to full. The change could also help prevent many rushes or pushes from opponent’s because pushing at low health will result in them being killed. As well, when activating both Poison Cloud and Toxic Screen, the fuel reserve will decrease at a slower rate than it did before, making it easier to defend with both active. With these buffs live here are a few spots on Bind and Ascent where her abilities are effective.

Bind A Site:

A Site on Bind is an excellent site for Viper to be on the offense and defense. The first location uses her Toxic Screen to cut off the map for defending. You can put this across the doorway at showers and since there is wall penetration, the wall will extend to the other side at A Short, making for an easy way to delay attackers and to get vision of the whole site. If the wall is lined up correctly, it will extend through the teleporter, also blocking off the entrance to Hookah, and blocking off B Long.

The next one occurs in Link right before the doorway to A Short. You can put the wall through here and cut off the rest of site to ensure a Spike plant. For this lineup, it is important that you get the screen to go across the boxes on the bomb site so it gives for cover to Heaven, preventing your team from being sniped. Once the screen is up there should be a little gap between the A Short Box and the screen that you and your team can run through and plant the Spike.

Another Toxic Screen location you can do is by the ledge in A Short. By standing behind it and shooting a straight screen over you will be able to cut off the site to make planting easier as most of the right side of the site will lose vision (having a similar effect if you were to Sage Wall in the corner and plant by Truck). When lining up the screen, you want to make sure it goes over top of Truck so it cuts off most of the vision on site. When the screen is active, it lets you safely plant the Spike on both sides of Truck.

This last one uses the Poison Cloud and Snake Bite abilities, and has been shown by <a href="https://blitz.gg/valorant/guides?agent=viper&amp;difficulty=all&amp;map=bind&amp;side=both&amp;ability=all&amp;guide=A Site Smoke &amp; 2x Poison" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blitz.gg, a helpful resource for all games made by Riot. What this smoke and Molotov combo does is clear out the back of the bomb site behind the boxes and the right cubby by Heaven. To do this you need to go to A Lobby and jump on the crates by the water fountain spray on the wall (around the corner form the teleporter). Then you need to line your crosshair up with the tower corner and throw the smoke. It will land in between the boxes and the wall, blocking vision from Heaven. For the Snake Bites, you will have to move your crosshair up to the glowing light at the top of the tower and slightly left to it. This will have it land behind the boxes on site. Then for the cubby poison you need to move your crosshair to the second beam before showers and slightly above it. This is an effective ability combo that can delay a Spike defusal as well as clear out the back of site when attacking. For example, if you combine it with Brimstone’s smokes you can swiftly rush a plant by having everyone in showers and Viper in the back communicating when she is going to activate her abilities.

Smoke Lineup

Behind Boxes Lineup

Cubby Lineup

Ascent:

The first Toxic Screen lineup comes from <a href="https://blitz.gg/valorant/guides?agent=viper&amp;difficulty=all&amp;map=ascent&amp;side=both&amp;ability=toxicscreen&amp;guide=A Site to A Site and Mid Toxic Screen" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blitz.gg and is for A Site which covers A Main, Mid Cubby, and the bottom of Mid at the arches. To do this screen all you need to do is line yourself up at the boxes in the corner of A Site and point your crosshair in between the door and the other corner of the site (while also making sure the lineup on your mini-map covers the entryways). From there you can activate the toxic screen and delay the attackers from running through onto A or in Market and CT Spawn. This is an effective screen because it can cut off crucial choke points for the attackers and basically moves them into a B Main push as it is the only entryway not smoked off. Since Viper can reactivate this ability, if the attackers decide to do an A hit while she is at B rotated, she can just re deploy the screen delaying them even more.

The second screen also comes from <a href="https://blitz.gg/valorant/guides?agent=viper&amp;difficulty=all&amp;map=ascent&amp;side=both&amp;ability=toxicscreen&amp;guide=B Lobby to B Site Toxic Screen" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blitz.gg and is a B Site screen for the attacking side. What you need to do is line yourself up with the corner in B Lobby then point your crosshair at B Main. This screen will cover the 2 entrances on B Site and the tent where the door control is, so you have an easy access into Market and CT Spawn. This lets you clear out these locations before heading onto B Site and planting. Once the Spike is planted it also makes a good post plant screen as the 2 entrances are covered so you can easily see where the enemy is coming from if you camp each side, or use a Cypher Cam on the outside of site to see which side the enemies go too.

Optimal Weapons:

Vipers role as a controller gives her a more passive playstyle allowing her to pick off enemies who are being inflicted by her poison abilities. Here are some optimal weapons that suit her.

Spectre:

The Spectre is an excellent close to medium range SMG that is a staple in any anti - eco round. This gun is a good choice for Viper as it would be effective when eliminating her opponents that are inside of her poison abilities. If her opponents find themselves inside her Snake Bite which deals double damage, or her ultimate they will be quickly dispatched.

Phantom:

The best AR that Viper should be using is the Phantom. It works as her long-range rifle, but also as a great close range gun when money is not an issue for the team. Even though the Vandal is better at longer ranges, the Phantom would be a better choice for her due to the faster fire rate of the gun. Combining this with her decay and vulnerable debuffs, she will be able to shred enemy health bars in an instant. Also the Phantom is silenced, so when she is inside her ultimate it is harder to locate her due to the quieter gun shots.

Shotguns:

When the other two guns are not available, using the shotguns are a great alternative when getting up close and personal with your opponent. They complement Viper's decay really well since most enemies getting out of the decay will be stuck at low health for 2.5 seconds, which leaves them open to getting one-shot. As well when inside her ult her opponents will never be at full health due to the decay so it makes it even easier to kill them when inside her pit of doom.

Viper’s buffs have made her competitively viable in Valorant and are a large improvement of where she was when the game first released. All these changes are making for interesting plays that makes her quite a useful agent in the game. I hope this guide helps you in understanding this agent more and how to use her effectively. Do not forget to follow us on our various social media pages and to join us on our discord!