Viper Changes Thread - Share your thoughts

yes , VPR changes are trash and must be reverted!

Personally, I’m okay with the changes. I didn’t have an issue with the last iteration either.

I have also also remember that I’m not a particularly whiney individual who’s caught up in the “all about what I like” and “it’s about me” mindset.

It was more fun to keep up the timer than to alternate the starters, I'd rather have seen Noxious Gnash upgraded to 60s over it being completely removed. Vicewinder is a terrible name and it feels empty to press now, before when it gave the debuff it was reasonable that it had no OGCD's after it, now it just kind of feels like its just there. I guess damage is damage but it was fun when it had a meaning towards optimizing debuff time, now it's kind of just another cooldown and doesn't even have double weaves or anything.

I'm going to play this iteration but I'd rather see the change to Noxious Gnash reverted and Dread debuff restored, and if they really want to make it easier then just increase the debuff time.

Well, we know nothing will get reverted, so time to just adapt.

All this does, is make it that we can ignore re-applying before starting a combo string.

Previously would be like, ok.... few seconds left, just tap Dread Fangs button, apply debuff, go into combo wanted, then just finish the 123 combo to get Death Rattle.

Now it's just go into combo without worrying about debuff timer. Wasn't any skill involved really, and on some bosses if didn't apply debuff before running out of mechanics, you had to re-apply it anyway. It was not a core feature of the Job imho. Just something we pressed as needed, they simply removed needing to press it to do our main Job of combo dancing.

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Originally Posted by Komarimono

Well, we know nothing will get reverted, so time to just adapt.

All this does, is make it that we can ignore re-applying before starting a combo string.

Previously would be like, ok.... few seconds left, just tap Dread Fangs button, apply debuff, go into combo wanted, then just finish the 123 combo to get Death Rattle.

Now it's just go into combo without worrying about debuff timer. Wasn't any skill involved really, and on some bosses if didn't apply debuff before running out of mechanics, you had to re-apply it anyway. It was not a core feature of the Job imho. Just something we pressed as needed, they simply removed needing to press it to do our main Job of combo dancing.

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It was gameplay though. You had to keep track of the debuff duration and your Dreadwinder Cooldown to make a conscious decision of either using Dread Fang or Steel Fang as your GCD in the string. No matter how "small" that bit of gameplay was, in a game where many classes are devoid of such things, it was a breath of fresh air, and it had to go because we are not allowed to have a class that requires even a bit of attention.

Going to preface my thoughts on the fact that I only have VPR at 90, so I don't have firsthand experience at 100. My understanding from a few people that I know who main viper is that the only time the 20s timer is much of a concern was if you planned on doing 2 Reawakenings in a row (with more lenience) or 3 in a row (very tight lenience); but that ultimately the way the class pilots itself you almost never have to actually think about the timing of it. That seemed pretty in line with my understanding of the job at 90, maybe with the exception of the boss going invulnerable right before you would use Reawakening?

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Originally Posted by ovIm

It was gameplay though. You had to keep track of the debuff duration and your Dreadwinder Cooldown to make a conscious decision of either using Dread Fang or Steel Fang as your GCD in the string. No matter how "small" that bit of gameplay was, in a game where many classes are devoid of such things, it was a breath of fresh air, and it had to go because we are not allowed to have a class that requires even a bit of attention.

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It wasn’t major enough to be anything I would consider close to a “breathe of fresh air”. It was just something else to track.

Which is fine, some people enjoyed it. I was numb to it. It didn’t add anything for me when it came to enjoyment of the class. It was pretty empty if I’m being honest.

To some others, it appeared to be some top level gameplay or something.

it was actually deep when you try to max your DPS, there are a lot of nuances. now the job is absolutely empty and boring.

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Originally Posted by zaya_moya

it was actually deep when you try to max your DPS, there are a lot of nuances. now the job is absolutely empty and boring.

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It really wasn’t deep… at all. It was just a decision point. That’s it. Do I delay or not delay. It didn’t really add any complexity.

It’s weird how people in this game pretend that these classes have some deep hidden layer to them. This isn’t a deep hidden layer game. A lot of things are pretty surface level.

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Originally Posted by ovIm

It was gameplay though. You had to keep track of the debuff duration and your Dreadwinder Cooldown to make a conscious decision of either using Dread Fang or Steel Fang as your GCD in the string. No matter how "small" that bit of gameplay was, in a game where many classes are devoid of such things, it was a breath of fresh air, and it had to go because we are not allowed to have a class that requires even a bit of attention.

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Like I said, it was a debuff ya tracked, nothing more. Ya tapped one button... To refresh it if needed. Went into the combo you wanted, then finished the previous combo. So ya save 2 seconds with the changes(Assuming all other buffs up first)

I honestly don't see, keeping track of one debuff as a core of the Job at all. The combos and positionals are what's core to me. Press one button before changing to next combo, to then finish previous combo wasn't what Viper was... Not that I saw at least.

Know what I did see? On certain fights where you have to reapply it anyway, since unable to reach boss in time, to then go into the combos you actually needed.

They finally add an upkeep oriented mechanic after years of removing them, and then ditch it after a month because feedback from *somewhere* pointed toward people not being good enough for "too hard."

I genuinely dislike this change, the job was better on release.

Melee hasn't been this fun for me since Ninja in Midas.
I've been playing bard since 2.X and was tired of it getting its upkeep mechanics removed, so I was happy to move to viper.

Overall I'm really tired of the nuance of status upkeep and maintenance getting removed, and that removal being celebrated while the people who liked it are told to move to another lane, when there pretty much aren't any left.

I'm thankful Noxious Gnash is gone. I hate having to maintain arbitrary debuff upkeep, it's not fun or challenging, it's just boring busywork.

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Originally Posted by Komarimono

Like I said, it was a debuff ya tracked, nothing more. Ya tapped one button... To refresh it if needed. Went into the combo you wanted, then finished the previous combo. So ya save 2 seconds with the changes(Assuming all other buffs up first)

I honestly don't see, keeping track of one debuff as a core of the Job at all. The combos and positionals are what's core to me. Press one button before changing to next combo, to then finish previous combo wasn't what Viper was... Not that I saw at least.

Know what I did see? On certain fights where you have to reapply it anyway, since unable to reach boss in time, to then go into the combos you actually needed.

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Because it still gave you something to think about, especially before doing 2 Reawakens. Sure, you can boil a lot of things down to "why keep it if it's just press button anyway" but you're taking something that was very crucial to VPR. Something that added more of a skill ceiling to it than whatever just having positionals does. You had to be careful of overcap but also mindful to have enough for double Reawaken every 120s. It wasn't a lot but it sure made the job feel much better than it does now. Now it has nothing and a lot of the pace of VPR is just missing because you have nothing to keep track of any more.

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Originally Posted by Lamarcy2699

Because it still gave you something to think about, especially before doing 2 Reawakens. Sure, you can boil a lot of things down to "why keep it if it's just press button anyway" but you're taking something that was very crucial to VPR. Something that added more of a skill ceiling to it than whatever just having positionals does. You had to be careful of overcap but also mindful to have enough for double Reawaken every 120s. It wasn't a lot but it sure made the job feel much better than it does now. Now it has nothing and a lot of the pace of VPR is just missing because you have nothing to keep track of any more.

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What was there to think about? Do I have 12 seconds left on debuff? If Yes, Reawaken Combo. If No? Hit Dreadfangs, then hit Reawaken Combo. Finish 123 Combo, by time second combo Finished, need to re-apply if Dreadwinder is ready. Dreadwinder not ready? Tap the button, go into Dreadwinder combo, then finish 123 combo.

I'm not seeing the complexity here. Ya just saw if ya had 10-12 seconds left, depending on what ability was about to be off cooldown. And I've never seen an overcap, or ever see a reason to.

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Originally Posted by Leonus

It really wasn’t deep… at all. It was just a decision point. That’s it. Do I delay or not delay. It didn’t really add any complexity.

It’s weird how people in this game pretend that these classes have some deep hidden layer to them. This isn’t a deep hidden layer game. A lot of things are pretty surface level.

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In fairness, when it comes to FFXIV job design lately, that's deep.

You realize that you're admitting in your post, a thought, that you no longer have to have. And that one thought across a fight is an aspect of engagement that is now missing. It adds up.

The main things I'm noting right now is that the job got a bit more punishing on failing to hit the right ability, since without having the hanging dps buff like what reaper has most of the bonus damage has to come from the existing buffs and the combo bonuses. Also this is probably the first time I've ever gotten into a situation where it feels like there can be too many things lit up on the hot bar. Making viper a continuous dragoon combo is not a particularly great idea since the idea is to guide the player into using death rattle and would have preferred if they kept it loose.

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Originally Posted by Lamarcy2699

Because it still gave you something to think about, especially before doing 2 Reawakens. Sure, you can boil a lot of things down to "why keep it if it's just press button anyway" but you're taking something that was very crucial to VPR. Something that added more of a skill ceiling to it than whatever just having positionals does. You had to be careful of overcap but also mindful to have enough for double Reawaken every 120s. It wasn't a lot but it sure made the job feel much better than it does now. Now it has nothing and a lot of the pace of VPR is just missing because you have nothing to keep track of any more.

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It was only crucial because it HAD to be to achieve higher damage output. It wasn’t crucial because it was a key or core mechanic. Now if they removed reawaken or something like that… I could empathize with that argument. I can’t empathize because it was nothing more than death’s design in a combo. That was it.

It’s just a debuff. That’s all it ever was, and all it ever would have been. If it was an actual DOT, I could probably empathize too.

Right now the JP forums are a bit miffed by the Viper changes as well. Most of the posts are saying that the viper class designer should have stuck to their design philosophy. This is the Japanese equivalent of being spammed with "No balls lol".
Other posts mention (correctly) that one month is too short for analyzing player feedback and they should have waited longer before making such a big change.

Rare JP and West agreement moment.

Eh I'd rather they didn't change it but it could definitely have been worse. I guess I just play it the same except when I use my basic combo I alternate.

I really liked how Noxious made you put a little effort into which button to press next; it gave the class some rythm between Reaving Fangs and Dread Fang, a meaningful choice in damage that took into account self awareness of your own cds, the debuff timers and when you would reawaken.
Now, it's just a back and forth triple button rotation that can be cast mindlessly. If the job had to be simplified, i'd rather they take positionals than rythm.

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Originally Posted by Kersplosion

You realize that you're admitting in your post, a thought, that you no longer have to have. And that one thought across a fight is an aspect of engagement that is now missing. It adds up.

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If you mean me? Not really See if red debuff number under 12. A nanosecond of thought. I was always more concerned over the mechanics of a fight, and when I'd be using True North due to them.

It's better now, I made a thread on it and I'm too tired to copypaste my thoughts on it, but TL;DR fundamentally viper plays almost the exact same. You don't have to worry about noxious gash anymore which makes it more flexible. Noxious gash was never a skill expression thing, it was an annoyance. The job was always ALWAYS easy and anyone who thinks it was at all difficult to play is deluding themselves, anyone who enjoyed having to upkeep the low 20s debuff timer of noxious gash is further deluding themselves

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Originally Posted by Komarimono

What was there to think about? Do I have 12 seconds left on debuff? If Yes, Reawaken Combo. If No? Hit Dreadfangs, then hit Reawaken Combo. Finish 123 Combo, by time second combo Finished, need to re-apply if Dreadwinder is ready. Dreadwinder not ready? Tap the button, go into Dreadwinder combo, then finish 123 combo.

I'm not seeing the complexity here. Ya just saw if ya had 10-12 seconds left, depending on what ability was about to be off cooldown. And I've never seen an overcap, or ever see a reason to.

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It was not much, but that bit of Gameplay is now gone, replaced with nothing. Alternating GCD. If you can not fathom that people actually wanted that tiny Debuff to track because it kept them engaging, because it made the class fun to them, then I really have no idea what else to tell you.

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Originally Posted by Leonus

It really wasn’t deep… at all. It was just a decision point. That’s it. Do I delay or not delay. It didn’t really add any complexity.

It’s weird how people in this game pretend that these classes have some deep hidden layer to them. This isn’t a deep hidden layer game. A lot of things are pretty surface level.

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The pretty surface level is to say "Do I delay or not delay."
In reality, there were a lot of nuances:

For example, you could use Dread Fangs (now Reaving Fangs) or Dreadwinder (now Vicewinder) to apply Noxious Gnash with different consequences depending if you had Reawaken soon or two Reawaken and if you go into Reawake you could continue your basic rotation if you out of it in time or not or you go Uncoiled Fury rotation, or you can go Dreadwinder rotation. Or maybe you want to cast Serpent's Ire and drop combo rotation. And there is only one correct choice to maximize DPS from all possible choices. Also, it played well with watching other buffs because they could run out too. If you do it incorrectly you just simply do more CDs than you need and you will lose DPS because combo fail. Also, combine this with boss mechanics and watching what the boss was doing and it was pretty deep and enjoyable.

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Originally Posted by ovIm

It was not much, but that bit of Gameplay is now gone, replaced with nothing. Alternating GCD. If you can not fathom that people actually wanted that tiny Debuff to track because it kept them engaging, because it made the class fun to them, then I really have no idea what else to tell you.

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Ya, never saw it as engaging. Maybe due to how my UI is so can easily see debuffs and track them without losing focus on the fight? Not sure. What I found to be far more engaging, like I said earlier, was the proper use of True North due to a fights mechanics. That was far more engaging to me, since being off one second and unable to change position, could mean bonus damage or not.

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Originally Posted by Komarimono

Ya, never saw it as engaging. Maybe due to how my UI is so can easily see debuffs and track them without losing focus on the fight? Not sure. What I found to be far more engaging, like I said earlier, was the proper use of True North due to a fights mechanics. That was far more engaging to me, since being off one second and unable to change position, could mean bonus damage or not.

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SHOCKER: you can move your debuffs and buffs in your UI and make them large, you can put them in the center of your screen or above your character head.

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Originally Posted by zaya_moya

SHOCKER: you can move your debuffs and buffs in your UI and make them large, you can put them in the center of your screen or above your character head.

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Ok, and? It was never hard to nor complex to keep the debuff up. So it being gone makes no difference.

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Originally Posted by Komarimono

Ok, and? It was never hard to nor complex to keep the debuff up. So it being gone makes no difference.

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Other jobs also have status effects to watch, for example, NIN or BLM and others.
VPR still have 2 status effects to watch, even though it is much easier, but if you not watching them means you are just a beginner and this doesn't apply to you and you do not need it to play VPR on a casual level, so why are you even writing here? You would do fine with Noxious Gnash because it doesn't matter on your level.

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Originally Posted by zaya_moya

The pretty surface level is to say "Do I delay or not delay."
In reality, there were a lot of nuances:

For example, you could use Dread Fangs (now Reaving Fangs) or Dreadwinder (now Vicewinder) to apply Noxious Gnash with different consequences depending if you had Reawaken soon or two Reawaken and if you go into Reawake you could continue your basic rotation if you out of it in time or not or you go Uncoiled Fury rotation, or you can go Dreadwinder rotation. Or maybe you want to cast Serpent's Ire and drop combo rotation. And there is only one correct choice to maximize DPS from all possible choices. Also, it played well with watching other buffs because they could run out too. If you do it incorrectly you just simply do more CDs than you need and you will lose DPS because combo fail. Also, combine this with boss mechanics and watching what the boss was doing and it was pretty deep and enjoyable.

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That’s because it is what it was.

People are pretending as though it’s deep, it wasn’t. It never would have been. People are turning into something that it’s not. The fight itself dictated way more than the debuff ever would have. However, do I delay or not delay is what noxious nash can be boiled down to. Just about every time.

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Originally Posted by Leonus

That’s because it is what it was.

People are pretending as though it’s deep, it wasn’t. It never would have been. People are turning into something that it’s not. The fight itself dictated way more than the debuff ever would have. However, do I delay or not delay is what noxious nash can be boiled down to. Just about every time.

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The gist of it is the game designers want all the decision making on the fight end and make the jobs have minimal decision making. This is to limit the benefit of clearing specific fights and then having that knowledge carry over to the next set of fights since they want to control how fast people clear content. In fact, most of what they are doing is for more control over the clear rates and how difficult content is that they are pushing. It's one of the pains of a live service game: The goal is to keep someone paying as many sub fees as possible or making as many lootbox / gacha spins as possible while still being enough of a game to be enjoyable by the player. But that is getting a bit off topic at this point.

A completely negative change. Previously you were required to think for 0.5 seconds, now there is zero thought required at all

Only made an account on here to say I hate the change.

The argument that it didn't take effort is just false out the gate, given the fact they removed it precisely because some people were claiming to have trouble maintaining the debuff. I myself managed to let the debuff drop off multiple times just because I got carried away with other abilities (Reawaken go brrrr). This is not a bad thing! The content was still cleared just fine, I simply made a mistake. I took a mental note of needing to make greater effort to maintain the debuff, and moved on.

It's a shame that a class that requires you to reach the level required to beat Shadowbringers (A few hundred hours into the game, three whole expansions worth of content!) had a bit of complexity taken away. It should be a given that classes unlocked at highers levels are generally going to expect just a bit more from the players. This is also an odd choice given the previous statements that they had gone too far with class simplification.

I hope they revert the changes.

At this point, I'm just really mad. I was a Summoner main in Shadowbringers. They ruined it. Ok. I moved on to Black Mage. Then, they ruined Black Mage in the beginning of Dawntrail. Okay. I move on to yet another job, gear up Viper, I'm having massive fun, I want to main it. Now they change Viper after barely a month. The gameplay is missing something without the dot to keep track of. Honestly, I'm just disheartened, I don't even want to look into how to optimize the changes anymore. This is ridiculous.

Yeah, sorry, I'm frustrated.

I've made these points in different places but I'll put my thoughts on here too:

The change was unnecessary and overall served to make certain parts of the job feel worse. Dreadwinder, or whatever it's called now, now feels like it serves no interesting purpose because all it does is open a couple strong damage GCDs whereas before it was a fun tool to optimize Noxious Gnash uptime.

I'm noticing that in this thread there's a lot of arguing over whether or not NG uptime is considered a valid form of skill expression and my response to it is "If it wasn't difficult, why did Square feel the need to change it?" There's too much focus on the argument of whether or not it should've existed as a form of job maintenance that people are ignoring that, much like other things lost over the years, it's just another job mechanic that is removed and replaced with nothing. I've been playing XIV for the better part of 10 years, and this slow removal of mechanical maintenance and upkeep is what got us to the point that Square needs to make a statement about how jobs will totally have their identity back by 8.0.

The TL;DR is that while it wasnt the most engaging thing to utilize, it was a small bit of kit that ultimately made the job feel somewhat complete, and now that it's gone there's a lack of overall fun feel to the job as a whole. One of the things I miss most about XIV's job design is that feeling of constant fight maintenance. If people were genuinely that annoyed by it being on a 20/40 second timer, swapping it to a 30/60 timer would've fixed it for everyone without the need to remove a bit of what made the job enjoyable.

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Originally Posted by zaya_moya

Other jobs also have status effects to watch, for example, NIN or BLM and others.
VPR still have 2 status effects to watch, even though it is much easier, but if you not watching them means you are just a beginner and this doesn't apply to you and you do not need it to play VPR on a casual level, so why are you even writing here? You would do fine with Noxious Gnash because it doesn't matter on your level.

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Viper had one status effect to watch. The two buffs come automatically when played right, focusing on the GCD one on fight initiation.

Funny you're calling be the beginner here lol, been playing the game for some time now.

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Originally Posted by Higashikata

A completely negative change. Previously you were required to think for 0.5 seconds, now there is zero thought required at all

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It doesn't even solve the problem they were trying to address. The job is busy so they removed noxious gnash and add even more ability highlighting? The new design encourages tunneling during encounters since it makes Vicewinder look less important than death rattle, reaving fangs, and steel fangs. The new design also makes it much easier to forget using uncoiled fury, and I don't think I've had a point in time in the past month of play where I ever let my energy gauge go over 55 or 60 on the awakening meter, nor did I often forget to use serpents ire on cooldown. It might just be lack of experience on the new version of viper since I've only had time to do a striking dummy test and expert roulette, though.

I hate this change so much. The job became "follow the glowing button" so literally now that you can turn your brain off

I'm so confused, who are these changes for? Viper really has nothing going for it now asides from being high apm. People (mostly jokingly) before said that this job was just following the dotted line, but that is genuinely all you do now lmfao. I'm very disappointed with these changes.

Congrats SE, you've appealed to very few people who were bad at Viper, instead of the many Viper players who loved this job before.

Oh bummer!
My VPR may only be Lv92 before patch, and I'm never great at playing melee myself; but the changes sucks. It's even more disgusting that now it even highlights the first button as you alternate between combos. There's no thought process needed while playing apart from positionals. Just press the glowing button and have zero worries about buff upkeep.

I dislike it. 1 month is really so short to be changing a NEW job like this.