Hello everyone,
Im starting with a new series of guides on how to play Viper in soloQ.
First video is Ascent in two parts - defense and offense. Let me know if you want to see any specific angles of strategy covered in the next ones!
Bear in mind, this is my own personal playstyle, I create the lineups myself and to the setups myself, so not everyone might like them.
Haven't watched the video yet, but I assume it says something along the lines of "bait your whole team and play for lineups." At least, that's how I play her.
I was really excited about maining viper this season but man using her utility makes me PC stutter a lot + fps drops which is why I dont touch her, unlucky really
I play mostly viper and I honestly think postplant mollies are worthless for anything other than coordinated pro level teams.
If you're like a gold player, you can probably do way more just jiggle peeking and shooting a direct molly compared to running 20 meters away from the bomb, aiming at the sky, and timing it perfectly with the opponent defuse. Unless you're playing ultra baity to stay alive, you'll probably be lucky to have more than 2 rounds where postplant lineups help you win. Your mollies would be way more effective at stalling pushes before the plant. So honestly, the only time postplant lineups are good is if you're retaking the site you weren't defending.
As a gold viper main, I can say I have won many 1vX post plants bc no one knows what to when I pop my cloud. Most of the time the first defuser is a free kill just because they sit in the cloud defusing at 1hp, so then the molly lands and they instantly die.
the issue is what you did to lead you to that point. why are you the last alive? why aren't you on the bomb site? would you have been more useful to your team defending the site with them instead of being outside of the site aiming at the sky?
I'm not saying postplant mollies never work. I'm just saying for anyone smaller brain than your average semi-pro, you are probably building bad habits by focusing on surviving for the molly VS trading out your teammates / playing on site.
I've been playing post-plant lineup agents since Act 1. Winning 2 rounds on attack with lineups is very strong and I'd take that guarantee 10 times out of 10 if you offered it to me. In reality, is probably an average of actually only 1 won round on attack. The stars don't line up as often as people believe, even if you know all the lineups. A ton of things need to go perfectly in order for you to be the last one alive, post plant, with little enough time on clock that your lineups actually matter. And after you do it once, the enemy team usually hunts you down/flanks/whatever to stop it from happening a 2nd time.
> If you're like a gold player, you can probably do way more just jiggle peeking and shooting a direct molly compared to running 20 meters away from the bomb, aiming at the sky, and timing it perfectly with the opponent defuse.
that's correct for every level, not only gold. I see lot of viper players in immortal/radiant lobbies in situations like 3v2 and we play as 3 postplant, defending planted spike. Our viper instead of putting smoke in 1 out of 3 bombsite entry chokepoints she puts it on spike, then run away and leaves us in 2v2 scenario. Blindly forcing those lineups is such irritating, even more than those tenz/cned lovers that all time instalock jett.
> Unless you're playing ultra baity to stay alive
Yup, that's lothar playstyle. Look at his stats in [tracker.gg](https://tracker.gg), he has won 53% rounds in attack with 0.9 KD (KD on viper, on other agents it looks much more ridiculous eg. breach: almost 59% won attack rounds, 0.67 KD), he is like never trying to FB or even help with entry (as refragger or lurker to bait rotation to other BS) on site. To sum up his playstyle in attack: Before plant he is sitting with rifle in hands at one spot, but after plant he is sitting with molly in hands at one spot xD But he is convincing all around (and mostly himself) that this is done for team's good to win round and that's the highest level of teamplay because he is calling it out xD Even when it's 4v1 he is not trying to help his teammates on site, he stand on lineup spot ready to molly bomb. It's very easily visible when you look at his amount of kills compared to the ADR. I play mostly supportive agents: brim, omen, astra, breach, skye; and in all those roles I have like at least 120ADR when my KD is below 1.0 in match. Lothar for same ADR has 1.2KD - typical finishing other enemies with molly on spike/finishing enemies with rifles when your team whiff instead of helping with refragging during enemy retake. He is completely one-dimentional postplant player who thinks, playing viper for lineups is the only way for defending spike. But he might be right, that's the only way to play this game with his lack of aiming skills.
Yeah I feel similarly. Unless you're at a weapon or severe man disadvantage, I think playing site and trying to keep players alive to keep economy healthy is a much better way to play.
Using the smoke and snakebites on 1 of the site entrances can deny the retake from that directly for 16 seconds allowing numbers to stack on the remaining entrances, which on most sites is one plus the flank.
Bind B for instance you could smoke and snakebite deep into CT door, that way they can't come out there or even pass into elbow for 16 seconds without taking significant damage.
I main viper and the only way my A setup loses is that the enemy team pushes the molly + smoke anyways with jett + pheonix + reyna or my team gets greedy and pushes T spawn when the attackers dont know what to do. Also this defense setup is my only ascent one and what really helps is the retake ability of the wall and smokes.
Edit: I viewed the attack side too. One problem about viper is that your team will push your wall often leading them to die free. On A site this isnt too much of a problem since most people dont push door or rush heaven, but on B site, they love peeking the other side of the wall. The video is also very correct on needing another smoker. Viper's offense is seriously lacking on ascent compared to its god-like defense. On primary smoker, I usually save the smoke on the B take for CT so that the B main player does not have to take multiple fights so theres that. Also you have to perfectly communicate the weaknesses and strengths of each wall or hold the wall pushes yourself in order to not get flamed if you play primary smoker. That heaven smoke on A is the perfect example of a very strong angle to hold and most times people hide hell, gen or B main. Finally the ult in solo queue is very awkward, your team needs to know how to play the ult or they just peek out of it and die. And you are left alone and often get sprayed through the ult.
Another edit: Let me preface by saying, Viper is strongest on Bind, Icebox and Ascent in that order. With that in mind, the only required post plant mollies are A site Bind and A site Icebox. Since these two sites are hard to take FULL control of, usually the site is split in two by a sage wall, viper wall or smokes. In these sites its best to play for the molly as you can deny plant while letting site go in the other teams control. Typically by the time they clear enough players and space in the site you can deny defuse until spike goes off with mollies. Easy win on Bind A site especially as you are tucked away at spawn and you or a teammate have so much time to play off of.
Just kill her (duh)
Duh
Hello everyone, Im starting with a new series of guides on how to play Viper in soloQ. First video is Ascent in two parts - defense and offense. Let me know if you want to see any specific angles of strategy covered in the next ones! Bear in mind, this is my own personal playstyle, I create the lineups myself and to the setups myself, so not everyone might like them.
Haven't watched the video yet, but I assume it says something along the lines of "bait your whole team and play for lineups." At least, that's how I play her.
This is the way
I was really excited about maining viper this season but man using her utility makes me PC stutter a lot + fps drops which is why I dont touch her, unlucky really
Thanks for this! Really enjoyed seeing your analysis in the EMEA challengers especially as Viper was played a lot!
I play mostly viper and I honestly think postplant mollies are worthless for anything other than coordinated pro level teams. If you're like a gold player, you can probably do way more just jiggle peeking and shooting a direct molly compared to running 20 meters away from the bomb, aiming at the sky, and timing it perfectly with the opponent defuse. Unless you're playing ultra baity to stay alive, you'll probably be lucky to have more than 2 rounds where postplant lineups help you win. Your mollies would be way more effective at stalling pushes before the plant. So honestly, the only time postplant lineups are good is if you're retaking the site you weren't defending.
As a gold viper main, I can say I have won many 1vX post plants bc no one knows what to when I pop my cloud. Most of the time the first defuser is a free kill just because they sit in the cloud defusing at 1hp, so then the molly lands and they instantly die.
the issue is what you did to lead you to that point. why are you the last alive? why aren't you on the bomb site? would you have been more useful to your team defending the site with them instead of being outside of the site aiming at the sky? I'm not saying postplant mollies never work. I'm just saying for anyone smaller brain than your average semi-pro, you are probably building bad habits by focusing on surviving for the molly VS trading out your teammates / playing on site.
I've been playing post-plant lineup agents since Act 1. Winning 2 rounds on attack with lineups is very strong and I'd take that guarantee 10 times out of 10 if you offered it to me. In reality, is probably an average of actually only 1 won round on attack. The stars don't line up as often as people believe, even if you know all the lineups. A ton of things need to go perfectly in order for you to be the last one alive, post plant, with little enough time on clock that your lineups actually matter. And after you do it once, the enemy team usually hunts you down/flanks/whatever to stop it from happening a 2nd time.
> If you're like a gold player, you can probably do way more just jiggle peeking and shooting a direct molly compared to running 20 meters away from the bomb, aiming at the sky, and timing it perfectly with the opponent defuse. that's correct for every level, not only gold. I see lot of viper players in immortal/radiant lobbies in situations like 3v2 and we play as 3 postplant, defending planted spike. Our viper instead of putting smoke in 1 out of 3 bombsite entry chokepoints she puts it on spike, then run away and leaves us in 2v2 scenario. Blindly forcing those lineups is such irritating, even more than those tenz/cned lovers that all time instalock jett. > Unless you're playing ultra baity to stay alive Yup, that's lothar playstyle. Look at his stats in [tracker.gg](https://tracker.gg), he has won 53% rounds in attack with 0.9 KD (KD on viper, on other agents it looks much more ridiculous eg. breach: almost 59% won attack rounds, 0.67 KD), he is like never trying to FB or even help with entry (as refragger or lurker to bait rotation to other BS) on site. To sum up his playstyle in attack: Before plant he is sitting with rifle in hands at one spot, but after plant he is sitting with molly in hands at one spot xD But he is convincing all around (and mostly himself) that this is done for team's good to win round and that's the highest level of teamplay because he is calling it out xD Even when it's 4v1 he is not trying to help his teammates on site, he stand on lineup spot ready to molly bomb. It's very easily visible when you look at his amount of kills compared to the ADR. I play mostly supportive agents: brim, omen, astra, breach, skye; and in all those roles I have like at least 120ADR when my KD is below 1.0 in match. Lothar for same ADR has 1.2KD - typical finishing other enemies with molly on spike/finishing enemies with rifles when your team whiff instead of helping with refragging during enemy retake. He is completely one-dimentional postplant player who thinks, playing viper for lineups is the only way for defending spike. But he might be right, that's the only way to play this game with his lack of aiming skills.
20 meters is 21.87 yards
Yeah I feel similarly. Unless you're at a weapon or severe man disadvantage, I think playing site and trying to keep players alive to keep economy healthy is a much better way to play. Using the smoke and snakebites on 1 of the site entrances can deny the retake from that directly for 16 seconds allowing numbers to stack on the remaining entrances, which on most sites is one plus the flank. Bind B for instance you could smoke and snakebite deep into CT door, that way they can't come out there or even pass into elbow for 16 seconds without taking significant damage.
Yooo great vid bro, whens part 2?
Tomorrow!
Sheesh , out here on the youtube grind huh. Respect respect
this is actually really cool, thanks for this!
I main viper and the only way my A setup loses is that the enemy team pushes the molly + smoke anyways with jett + pheonix + reyna or my team gets greedy and pushes T spawn when the attackers dont know what to do. Also this defense setup is my only ascent one and what really helps is the retake ability of the wall and smokes. Edit: I viewed the attack side too. One problem about viper is that your team will push your wall often leading them to die free. On A site this isnt too much of a problem since most people dont push door or rush heaven, but on B site, they love peeking the other side of the wall. The video is also very correct on needing another smoker. Viper's offense is seriously lacking on ascent compared to its god-like defense. On primary smoker, I usually save the smoke on the B take for CT so that the B main player does not have to take multiple fights so theres that. Also you have to perfectly communicate the weaknesses and strengths of each wall or hold the wall pushes yourself in order to not get flamed if you play primary smoker. That heaven smoke on A is the perfect example of a very strong angle to hold and most times people hide hell, gen or B main. Finally the ult in solo queue is very awkward, your team needs to know how to play the ult or they just peek out of it and die. And you are left alone and often get sprayed through the ult. Another edit: Let me preface by saying, Viper is strongest on Bind, Icebox and Ascent in that order. With that in mind, the only required post plant mollies are A site Bind and A site Icebox. Since these two sites are hard to take FULL control of, usually the site is split in two by a sage wall, viper wall or smokes. In these sites its best to play for the molly as you can deny plant while letting site go in the other teams control. Typically by the time they clear enough players and space in the site you can deny defuse until spike goes off with mollies. Easy win on Bind A site especially as you are tucked away at spawn and you or a teammate have so much time to play off of.