How to play Viper in Valorant: Abilities, tips & tricks
Riot Games / DexertoLooking for a Valorant Viper guide? Here’s a rundown of the toxic Controller Agent’s abilities, and how best to use them.
The poster child of the franchise, Viper has become somewhat of a Valorant icon. The Controller Agent utilizes a whole host of gaseous abilities to warp the battlefield and, in turn, trap and kill her prey.
To help you to get to grips with this slippery Agent, we’re bringing you everything you need to know about the queen of toxins. So, let’s get into it.
Contents
Riot GamesValorant Viper: Abilities
Two of Viper’s abilities rely heavily on her toxin reserves (we’ll touch on this later), so you’ll need to keep track of exactly how much fuel you have when using them. All of her abilities are detailed below:
- Ability 1 — Snake Bite (200 Creds): EQUIP a chemical launcher. FIRE to launch a canister that shatters upon hitting the floor, creating a lingering chemical zone that damages enemies (24 DPS) and applies Vulnerable, doubling incoming damage. Vulnerable lasts for 2 seconds upon leaving the area of effect.
- Ability 2 — Poison Cloud (200 Creds): EQUIP a gas emitter. FIRE to throw the emitter that perpetually remains throughout the round. Re-use the ability to create a toxic gas cloud at the cost of fuel. This ability can be re-used more than once and can be picked up to be redeployed. Poison Orb goes on a 6 second cooldown after being deactivated. If active when Viper dies, Poison Cloud now remains up for an additional 2 seconds, or until Viper runs out of fuel.
- Signature Ability — Toxic Screen (1 free): EQUIP a gas emitter launcher. FIRE to deploy a long line of gas emitters. Reuse the ability to create a tall wall of toxic gas at the cost of fuel. This ability can be reused more than once. Toxic Screen burns through walls, placing emitters at all valid locations (e.g., the ground) over its length. If active when Viper dies, Toxic Screen remains up for an additional 2 seconds before deactivating
- Ultimate Ability — Viper’s Pit (7 Points): EQUIP a chemical sprayer. FIRE to spray a chemical cloud in all directions around Viper, creating a large cloud that reduces the vision range of players and maximum health of enemies inside of it. Hold the ability key to disperse the cloud early. Lasts forever if Viper returns to refuel it every 15 seconds, or remains inside.
One of the easiest aspects of Viper’s kit are her Snake Bites. These can be fired off to clear out corners of enemies if they’re clustered, or can deter enemies from trying to invade the area that you are cordoning off.
Perhaps Viper’s most valuable asset, though, is her Toxic Screen. The line of gas emitters can be used to divide a portion of the map in two. Mastering lineups with this can be extremely useful when trying to take control of certain portions of a map, as it will reduce the number of areas you need to look at.
Riot Games via CqrbonHow to play Viper
If you’re going to take on this deadly Agent, you need to remember one thing: her fuel reserves. While Patch 2.06 adjusted the damage her toxins do by quite a bit, both her Poison Cloud and Toxic Screen drain Viper’s fuel reserves. If you’re not good at managing them she becomes pretty much useless. Both take 15 seconds to fully drain her reserves when used individually, so jump into the practice range and time how long it takes for her reserves to run low to coordinate your attacks.
The first of these abilities, though, is particularly useful. As her Poison Cloud acts like a smoke, it can be placed at entry points to stop enemies sneaking up behind you. It’s made even more effective because it does 30 decay initially and 10 damage over time, so enemies won’t want to rush through it.
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A good move to make when you’ve planted the Spike is to drop a Poison Cloud on top of it. Not only does it hide the bomb’s exact location, but if enemies are planning to sneak behind you and defuse it, they’ll be dealt damage over time for their troubles, making the already sitting duck a lot easier to one tap.
Viper’s Pit performs a similar function. Spraying the toxins around the Spike means enemies will have to either rush in to defuse it and be poisoned in the process, or battle through the smoke to try and find out where you’re defusing their Spike. Just remember to stay inside it, or get back inside after 15 seconds!
So that’s how to play as Viper in Valorant and master her toxic abilities! Looking for more Valorant guides? Here’s how to play all of Future Earth’s heroes:
Astra | Breach | Brimstone | Chamber | Cypher | Jett | KAY/O | Killjoy | Neon | Omen | Phoenix | Raze | Reyna | Sage | Skye | Sova | Viper | Yoru