Thoughts on Viper?

[BaconBits]

Y'all are not ready.

[Shurrikhan]

Y'all are not ready.

When do we get the side-holstered-shotgun, though, so that we can actually make use of our free hand?

[Renathras]

Y'all are not ready.

"I see your twinblade and raise you gun."

.

I generally don't play DPS Jobs and only really do Casters once in a blue moon, my main focus being healers and to a lesser extent tanks (meaning I go 6 years between really caring about what's being added), but the more I see of Viper, the more I think it might be a cool Job. It has the Rogue aesthetic people have been asking for for years, twinblade/thief sword (Zidane)/Swallow (Surge, from Chrono Cross) people have been asking for, and has a very pirate/bounty hunter aesthetic...which people have been asking for. Oh, and it's a second Job using Scouting gear, which people have been asking for since they made a NIN-only gear type in HW or so (I think it used Striking in ARR/Crystal Tower gear).

So it's a thing that a lot of people have been asking for, and why I typically don't like Melee or overly complex DPS rotations, I might give it a look once the initial DT rush has passed (unless I REALLY hate whatever they do to healers, in which case I might look earlier...)

EDIT:

Oh, I should note I don't dislike NIN - it's arguably my favorite Melee Job. I REALLY wish the oGCD weaving was cut down a bit - I liked the Job until 60 or so, but when they added the Ninki, TCJ, Meisui...it's just too many buttons to mess with. It still feels like an agile and fast attacker, which I like, but the carpel tunnel reminds me of AST's burst, and I hate that, too (though I do understand some people love that sort of thing...)

So I can see the draw to people with something that might be a bit more steady.

I'm not sure Viper WILL be that - the reveal seemed to have a dual wield fast attack mode and then a two-handed bigger, slower swings mode. Now, this could be an inversion of the burst mode we're used to - your burst being the SLOW phase and your "downtime" being higher paced. If so, bravo, since that might actually be a nice change of pace; that is, having a fast GCD but a pretty static 1-2-3-4-5-1-6-1-2-3-4-5-1-6 or something downtime rotation that feels active because of all the attacks, but then you SLOOOOW down into the burst phase and just get a bunch of hard hits and that's where you put the oGCD weaves instead. Could work. (Could pull a Kingdom Hearts 2 "off-hand attack" [in that game, I think it used the block button?] thing and have each base combo action have a Continuation-like second strike with the offhand weapon, then in your 2-handed phase, you wouldn't have that, freeing up room for the actual oGCD weaves?)

I dunno, there are lots of things they could do. I'm in the wait and see camp.

But, overall, people HAVE been wanting something like this aesthetically for ages, and given people love things as diverse as BLM, MNK, and RDM, SMN in this game, I'm sure whatever they come up with will have AT THE LEAST a niche following. I'm cautiously optimistic about Viper overall, I think.