VPR suggestions

Viper feels really good in massive-scale PvP gamemodes, such as RW and FL, where its strength truly shines, but I believe that the job still needs slight improvements towards its survivability and some QoL changes for damage application delays.

The general problem with survivability of the job comes from how clunky Snake Scales work. The idea of the mitigation is really good, but it feels really bad pressing it and being essentially locked in place for almost 2-3 seconds. I believe that it has potential to be much better at least in some aspects, and here are my proposed adjustments (choose all or at least one of them):

1. Make Snake Scales mitigation buff (the 50% damage reduction) linger for 1 second after leaving it and executing Backlash action.
The problem of current situation is that you almost never get to Backlash safely and restore the lost amount of HP. During the animation of Backlash (jumping up), you stop having 50% damage reduction and enemies just damage your HP (or even kill you) for way more than you can possibly restore with lifesteal. That pretty much makes the ability usually completely useless during later stages of fighting in FL/RW, since everyone has Battle High and Soaring High to damage you during that little window enough to kill you. If the damage reduction at least lingered for 1 second during the execution of Backlash, that would make it so much better.

2. Make Backlash executable right after entering Snake Scales.
Currently once you enter Snake Scales, you're locked out of executing Backlash for almost 2-3 seconds. This makes the possibility of using Snake Scales as reactionary mitigation (see Stun/damage flying your way > enter Snake Scales > soak Stun/Damage > leave Scales immediately) pretty much impossible, since no matter what, you will be unable to leave it for almost 3 seconds. Making Backlash executable right after entering Snake Scales will make the mitigation button much more skill expressive, since there would be a way for a skilled players to press it just for one second to soak any potential burst or crowd control ability and leave it immediately.

3. Remove the root effect from Snake Scales, instead reduce the movement speed for 50% as old Guard did.
This is self-explanatory. Being stuck in one place and unable to move just sucks overall and causes this mitigation button to fail at what it tries to do - protect you. Outside of Snake Scales > Guard > Snake Scales trick, in most situations you're just there for the enemy team to beat you up without any chance to get out. Being rooted in place from the ability that is supposed to protect you just feels bad.

I also think that the Developers team should address the Limit Break. Job CAN do damage, but it has NO good ways to do it majority of the time, since any crowd control ability makes executing LB combo painful.

IMO, there should be either:
1. proper Lifesteal (not as % from DMG dealt, but as a Cure potency) on all LB actions;
2. proper Lifesteal on Ouroboros (make it flat Cure potency and not % of DMG dealt);
3. grant crowd control immunity for the first few seconds after executing LB;
4. throw out Noxious Gnash as debuff completely from the targets and put it on the Viper who executed it instead. That button just sucked in PvE, it sucks in PvP, it should not exist.

Lastly I think that job suffers a lot from damage delays from various GCDs and offGCDs. Recently MNK's delays on damage application were shortened by a huge amount, making it much comfier to play. I believe that VPR should get the same treatment, since almost every MNK cooldown has a delay of like 0.5-1s, and VPR has DOUBLE of that: like 1 to 2s delays to damage application. The worst offender of it all is Ouroboros - that button takes so much time to actually deal damage that enemy can carry it around on them like a bomb and accidentally cause a death to their low HP teammate if they stand close enough to them when the DMG actually applies.

Hello

I am probably the only crystal viper main (that I know of) and I would toot my own horn and say I am probably the best one by default due to that fact, but this response will be purely based on CC, I have no clue how viper performs in fl/rw, maybe these could be fl/rw specific changes but I dont think square's infinite wisdom is capable of coding that

1. That would feel really good but also be very broken imo. That would essentially give you a second or two of half guard twice in a row, which is extremely strong. The tradeoff with scales is it heals you but you need to drop the defensive layer. You absolutely can backlash safely, you just cannot treat it like a second guard or you will die in the animation. It's best used above half hp imo, since you can usually re-use and not die in those circumstances.
2. I don't think it should be instant. I would 100% be down for it being one second rather than two, but instant seems a bit iffy and would allow too many shenanigans, which, again, I love viper shenanigans since I main it, but that'd be too much chicanery.
3. This has been suggested many times and imo is just a terrible idea. I'm sure it's objectively worse-feeling in frontlines, but the tradeoff is you get 50% mit, which is REALLY strong, but you have to stand still. Additionally, you can slither out of scales if you macro it or just mash. I will come back to this at the end.

Second post, about the limit break
1. This would be nice but also wouldn't make sense in the pvp system of the game. I used to main dark knight for a while, and now I main viper, so I know the pain of using lifesteal into shields, but I think having outright cure wouldn't make sense and would be too strong defensively especially considering the lb combo is aoe. The only way I see this working is if it's low potency, like 3k, but even that would have to only be on one half of the combo. Raw lb combo into sacred claim is already a LOT of healing, so having that built in would be a bit much.
2. Same as above. That being said, my single biggest change I want for viper is 50% lifesteal on each attack, at least each main gcd. Simply put, the combo is too fast to allow recuperate to be weaved because the game's engine is worse than a game released in 2004. You clip recup, have no healing, and die, or you are forced to slow down to mash recup.
3. Again, it would be good qol, but it wouldn't be good for the game. The only way I see this working is if they also completely remove the movement speed aspect and even then you can still slither.
4. Completely fine with this change. Could be a bit strong, but it would feel a lot better.

As for gcds, yeah, viper could probably afford to have damage come out faster, at least on it's heals EXCLUDING BACKLASH. I'll get back to this in a sec. Like you said, ouroboros is a trash button in terms of timing, so whenever i use it I end up usually running away so I can get it's heal to guarantee a pot.

Anyhow, since I brought up slithering out of backlash and how backlash's timing shouldn't be changed, ICYMI, viper has a funny tech (that you can only do if your ping is below 70 or so, otherwise the tech is unusable and frankly so is the job in CC,) where if you mash lb or slither the second you end scales or macro it, you drag the full damage to the slither target. This allows you to not only move away from danger out of scales, but also to drag a (assuming the shield breaks,) 16 to 32k bomb into enemy backlines, which ends up healing you for quite a bit. case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzlzBd-yjqg (the bitrate dies in parts, sorry bout that)

TLDR, viper is really fun, defensively kind of weak which means you need to be on the ball with your defensive cds, and above all, HOLY MOLY REDUCE THE ANIMATION LOCK ON RATTLING COIL. AN OGCD RESET SHOULD NOT FEEL THAT TERRIBLE TO PRESS IF YOU NEED TO SCALES RESET SCALES
the biggest issue with viper is they keep giving it damage without giving it good ways to keep itself topped up. Bloodcoil and ouro healing is nice, but outside of that its single defensive is better used offensively, and it's lb combo is tight enough that you can't easily heal during it using the built-in pvp heal button.

There is other crystal vipers. We have at least one on EU there, but they're definitely far and few.

I only play it casually but one of the biggest gripes I have with the job is the lack of reliable healing during LB due to the oGCD weaving, which tends to force you to either use the LB when completely out of harm's way, or just cut it short early because you're dying otherwise. Unlike a WAR that has all the tools to sustain during it, and is also immune to CC for example. Not saying VPR should have the same tools though (it would be boring), but on LBs that aren't an instant action and done deal (WAR, BLM, SGE, etc), you need ways to stay alive. In the case of ranged they do have range, but in the case of VPR you're just going to get targeted especially at higher level if they know they can punish it.

ah, meant to say crystal on NA. good to know EU is carrying the torch at least even if viper folks are rare :vprjerry:

think there's one or two on JP as well