Thoughts on Viper?

Unlike with pre-existing jobs, it's hard to gauge the naming choice without having a proper story context. It's a bit like calling a job 'Riskbreaker' without having the background of Vagrant Story. In the end it just comes down to how interesting the lore behind the Turali hunters turns out. If the Vipers themselves end up being some form of local special forces, then it could turn out to be a fun concept.

In terms of gameplay, this sounds promising. My interest in it will depend on the mobility options that come with the job. I like the fact that they seem to be aiming for it to be more skill intensive, but we'll see if they actually pull it off. Hopefully it will have both higher APM while also maintaining interesting positioning requirements, because players on existing jobs will be looking for ways to downplay it on release. It's that console wars effect, where everyone else in the subrole suddenly feels compelled to justify their reason for not switching (although melee dps has just been through this, so I suspect caster will be shaken up a bit more by its new entry).

initial impression is that it might play like reaper with the swordstaff mode being the enshroud equivalent. personally i'm whatever about it. hope the glams are good; if it gets katana as a weapon glam i can use it for my main, otherwise i'll probably just level it to cap and continue complaining about samurai when it inevitably gets gutted in dt.

edit: y'know, now that i think about it, i said enshroud but i don't play reaper enough to know their abilities. the swordstaff abilities made me think about that reaper move where your avatar comes out and takes a swipe at the target. that's what i meant.

Looks pretty, given that we only saw 4-5 animations (a few of the same just from different camera angles, as is the norm for early showcases)

The zidane-esque weapon style seems cool, and i wonder what that blue energy they use to power up will be, if not just aether.

I got very hyped when it was revealed BUT THEN he put the swords together and that was where my hype died

I really wish they went full send on the twin-blades fantasy with something ridiculous like a 1.5 GCD under burst/buff windows. The whole "Hard hitting attacks" with the single blade mode doesnt really sell it for me, so I will probably wait for the full reveal before deciding if I like it or not

Even though VFX are subject to change, the skill that snaps you into Swordstaff mode was OGCD coded (The light blue swirl).

I hope this is the case where you are expected to swap between twin sword and swordstaff, each contributing to the empowered state, however unlike other swaps, you can stay in the form you prefer and swap primarily to deal with separate cooldowns. I'd be a little disappointed if it was just filler + combo then swap and then another filler + combo then swap.

Aesthetic is A+ though.

Some people are complaining about the animations being "bland". But that is exactly why the job appeals to me. I think there is room for both sparkly, flashy jobs and more "grounded" jobs.

My favorite button to press in the game as a DPS is "Scattergun" (MCH AOE shotgun). It is a slow, deliberate shot. And because the animation is so grounded it feels like it has more impact. Compare that to MCH's 1-2-3 combo where my Roe is doing pointless summersaults and cartwheels every second shot. There is no weight behind it, feels like I might as well be shooting foam nerf bullets. Needless to say I prefer the PVP interpretation of MCH's 1-2-3 to the PVE version (shout out to the sniper rifle limit break, just perfection).

Now obviously from what we've seen of the Viper animations they attack very fast so the comparison isn't 1:1. Hopefully SE can still capture the feeling of impact and weight behind Viper's slashes in the same way Monster Hunter manages to do with Dual Blades (and to a lesser extent Insect Glaive) despite also being relatively fast weapons.

It looks cool but if it's anything like recent job design i don't think i'll play it much other then leveling it for the sake of leveling it.

I really hope it differs from melees

I'm interested to learn a bit more. At the moment it looks like a weapon fighter purely... But I'm sure as we learn more about where they harness their power from, the lore behind Vipers - it could become something even more appealing beyond their choice of arms.

Feels like pugilist got tired of punching and picked up swords, just initial trailer makes me meh about it, but we'll see when more info comes out.

I was really hoping for corsair, but an original take for a job is a pleasant surprise! I can't wait to try it! I'm already hunting for glams for it!