Viper has received another makeover in Dota Underlords, and he's even better against Mages now

Oct 3, 2019

In Dota 2, Viper is a lethal ganker who wears down his enemies over time using unmatched toxicity. But in Dota Underlords, he hasn't quite found his role yet. Well, Valve seems not to have found a good role for him yet. Earlier this year the green amphitere, who at the time was a Dragon Assassin, received an additional ultimate ability which could be activated when he was on the board with his draconic brethren. But in the latest patch to Underlords, Viper isn't a Dragon at all anymore.

Instead, he now belongs to the Scaled units alongside Medusa, Slardar, Tidehunter and Slark. Especially the latter one could be of importance for Viper's new alliance. Strategies built around Assassins, which are fantastic against squishy backlines, usually perished when faced with heavy AoE damage. With Slark and Viper as Scaled units in your lineup, however, all allies will now receive a 30% Magic Resistance bonus as part of the Scaled Alliance. Assassins were good against Mages already, but they only have become stronger with this update.

With Viper no longer being a Dragon, the aforementioned second ability had no purpose anymore. But instead of just removing it, Valve has given Viper a completely new ultimate: Nethertoxin. This targets a spot on the board, dealing considerable damage over time to enemies standing on it.

Full patch notes:

GENERAL

Removed Summon Units challenge.
Fixed an issue where some abilities that preferred the unit's current target (e.g. Slardar's Corrosive Haze) could be cast outside their maximum range.
Fixed an issue where Tusk could punch something so hard it never returned to earth.
Added a new Notice animation for Tiny.

HERO CHANGES

Lycan:

Shapeshift:
- Fixed an issue where Lycan was healing too much on shift.

Slardar:

Corrosive Haze:
- Will no longer be cast again on a target currently affected by it.

Venomancer:

Venomous Gale:
- While Venomancer still only targets units within his attack range (3 cells), the actual Gale projectile travels up to 5 cells.
- Projectile damage increased to [30, 60, 120] from [25, 50, 100].

Viper:

Viper is now a Scaled Dragon (was Dragon Assassin).
Removed Viper Strike ability.
Added Nethertoxin:
- Viper poisons a cell, dealing [50, 100, 150] damage per second to any enemy unit in it and disabling their passives. Duration: 5s.
- Mana Cost: 50.
- Cooldown: 5s.

ITEM CHANGES

Big-Time Contract:

Players can only have a maximum of 1 of this item now.

ALLIANCES

Savage:

Changed to: Allied Savage units gain +[4, 8, 15] Attack Damage each time they land an attack on an enemy. This replaces the bleed effect that would be applied each time they landed an attack.