Viper in Valorant: Agent abilities and gameplay tips

Riot Games’ latest tactical first-person shooter Valorant has been considered by many to be a cross between CS: GO and Overwatch ever since the release of its closed beta.

With gunplay mechanics that are similar to CS: GO, and an arsenal of hypernatural, battle-ready agents like that of Overwatch, Valorant seems to have taken and combined the best of these two FPS genres.

Each Valorant Agent is unique, and has a definite personality and a set of skills that set them apart from each other. However, out of all the 11 playable Agents, one stands out a bit more because of how edgy she is.

Viper (along with Reyna) is considered to be one of the most bloodthirsty Agents in the game, and possesses a very dark personality. However, her personality alone is not what makes players love her.

Viper is one of the hardest Agents to master, but when played right, she has a lot of creative abilities at her disposal to solo carry a single round. She has a very high skill cap and is very satisfying to play when once mastered.

While defending, she does a great job at slowing down and at times even stopping enemy advances. And while attacking, she can use her poison clouds to facilitate pushes and obscure enemy vision.

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Viper in Valorant: Abilities and tips

Valorant Agent Nationality: USA.

Valorant Agent Description: “Viper deploys an array of poisonous chemical devices to control the battlefield and cripple the enemy's vision. If the toxins don't kill her prey, her mind games surely will.”

Abilities in Valorant:

Image Courtesy: Polygon

• Unique Trait - Fuel. Viper’s Q and E uses toxic gas, which shares a fuel resource. At the start of the game, she gets 100 fuel, which will tick down to 0 when her abilities are active. Once the fuel meter is up, she can re-activate her abilities once again.
• Snakebite (100 credits) - Viper creates and fires a projectile that explodes into a pool of acid which damages enemies that pass through it.
• Poison Cloud (200 credits) - Viper throws what looks like a gas emitter, that she can then reactivate to create a cloud of poison smoke.
• Toxic Screen (free) - Viper consumes her fuel reserves to create a tall wall of toxic gas that obscures vision and damages anyone who passes through it.
• Viper’s Pit (requires 7 orbs): Viper’s ultimate allows her to create a massive toxic cloud in a large area, which holds its shape as long as Viper stays inside the cloud. Once enemies enter the cloud, they will appear highlighted to her.

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Tips and tricks that will help you master Viper in Valorant

Image Courtesy: Polygon

1. Ideal Spike Planter

Viper’s Pit, her ultimate, doesn’t really have many uses in the game. But there are certain circumstances which makes her ultimate one of the deadliest abilities in the game.

If the ult is used while planting the spike, Viper can literally solo-hold a site while the timer ticks down. She creates a massive cloud, which damages enemies when they enter it, and highlights them to just Viper for better visibility. So always be the one to carry the bomb in attack whenever your ult is up.

2. Keep an eye out for enemy ult meters

Though Viper’s Pit makes it quite hard for opponents to kill her, it doesn’t exactly make her invincible.

Agents like Phoenix, Brimstone, and Breach can very effectively use their ultimate abilities to kill her while she is inside the gas cloud. Brimstone with his AoE nuke and Breach with his Rolling Thunder can very easily take her out.

Phoenix, on the other hand, can use his ultimate outside her smoke and engage her twice.

3. Practice makes perfect

Viper is one of the hardest agents to master in the game at the moment. Her abilities can be a deterrent for the team sometimes, because the poison tick hurts allies as well as enemies.

Ability timing is one of the most important things to learn in Valorant, and that will take a lot of games to get right.