Viper Changes are good, actually

[Atmaweapon510]

I actually think that this change was for the best in the long term because it's one of those things makes VPR awkward to play as you level or downsync because the ratio of Dread Fangs to Steel Fangs only starts evening out once it gets access to Reawakening and Uncoiled Fangs. From here, they're free to add in even more branching/alternate combo sequences without disrupting the flow of VPR's basic combo.

Of course, any goodwill towards the "wait till we get to the next expansion to flesh things out" excuse kind of died with SAM and Kaiten and no healer rework in sight.

[Zakon]

Okay, so there's a potency difference between a good Viper and a bad Viper that doesn't know to not overcap gnash, I fail to see how this is a bad thing.

There should be a potency difference between a good Viper and bad Viper anyway.

The most skilled Vipers will never lose an OGCD while also never drifting their GCD and also never getting hit by any boss mechanics while maintaining as much uptime as possible on the boss.

The less skilled Vipers will lose an OGCD, drift their GCD, or die to mechanics/fail to maintain uptime on the boss.

Viper is likely the most mechanically demanding job in the entire game. Even other jobs who need to double weave OGCDs like Machinist don't need to do it as frequently as Viper does, and failure to do so doesn't result in as much loss of potency. Machinist also has the benefit that they're a ranged DPS who doesn't need to worry about melee uptime. The tradeoff is that Viper's rotation is simple.

I already dropped the job because I know I don't have the dexterity to do what it needed me to do to play it optimally, I was already drifting my GCD on regular dungeon pulls trying to keep up with all of the mandatory double OGCD weaving.

[EdwinLi]

I actually think that this change was for the best in the long term because it's one of those things makes VPR awkward to play as you level or downsync because the ratio of Dread Fangs to Steel Fangs only starts evening out once it gets access to Reawakening and Uncoiled Fangs. From here, they're free to add in even more branching/alternate combo sequences without disrupting the flow of VPR's basic combo.

Of course, any goodwill towards the "wait till we get to the next expansion to flesh things out" excuse kind of died with SAM and Kaiten and no healer rework in sight.

I honestly felt Viper's design choice since this expansion release been more focus on maybe being a bit too simple by design.

I was expecting a bit different when they talked about Viper's design is partly about switching "stances" in their combat.

Don't know what it is but it was not giving me the "feeling" people get when they are playing a job they naturally like playing.

In my opinion, I think they could have designed the job more towards emphasis on the whole Switch stance concept they had going instead of how they just treat it currently being a normal combo for dual sword form and burst combo for Twinblade form then Trance Mode for BIG burst.

Either way, I'm probably defaulting back to my old Main Job again being Machinists since current expansion jobs do not interests me gameplay wise after trying them out.

[Corverous]

Without having to manage the debuff timers, Vicewinder (Dreadwinder) feels kind of purposeless outside the beginning of the fight when it gives you your buffs faster. Having to know when to hold a charge so as not to refresh the timer too early was cool and added just the right amount of thought to a job that's just hitting the lit-up buttons otherwise. It really doesn't matter if some people were using Dread Fangs combo too much; differences in skill/knowledge is just a reality of life, and removing it just because of that is silly. The potency buffs for the two combo starters is laughably bad because it defeats the purpose of the job having separate combo starters in the first place. I think learning how to manage Noxious Gnash was like the one aspect of the job that matches the difficulty of pretty much anything you could have played before picking it up at level 80

[mallleable]

I honestly don't know how to feel about the change. It kinda feels the same, but it also feels super auto piloty now.

[AlgernonBlackwood]

Even other jobs who need to double weave OGCDs like Machinist don't need to do it as frequently as Viper does

It gets 7 double weaves every 2 mins, 4 of which have extra long GCDs and all of which can be freely used at any point in the fight as long as you don't overcap. You press the same 2 buttons every time.

DRG has 6 consecutive forced double weaves in their 2 min + one extra long oGCD with animation lock, all on a normal 2.5 GCD. You press a total of 5-6 different buttons. Also, you're doing your 10-step GCD rotation at the same time.

Like, I'm not saying that Viper isn't somewhat mechanically demanding, it does have the highest APM in the game, it's just not nearly demanding enough relative to most of the other DPS to justify it's extremely simple rotation.

[OliverQ]

I'm going to repeat what I'm saying in other threads on this issue:

Viper is literally much better now actually and here's why.
The low timer (20s) on noxious gash caused many vipers to fall into the bad habit of just rotating dread fangs combo to keep the debuff up instead of doing the better Steel Fangs starter for higher potency. When you go into reawakening, you also can't reapply noxious gash during it either meaning you had to play around making sure the debuff was up before you reawakened, making double reawakenings very annoying and the theoretical triple reawakening a near impossibility.
The other issue was when you needed to peel off a boss to deal with adds or another target etc. you HAD to just start a new combo to apply noxious gash or use dreadwinder on it. It felt very VERY bad for a job whose primary draw was getting into a constant flowing rhythm. The INTENT behind the debuff was it would fit into that constant flow but due to how the nature of it being a debuff works, it ended up feeling like hot ass (plus the duration sucked)
Viper was always an easy job. Noxious gash was just the biggest complaint because it's an annoyance (note: I don't like reaper's death's design either but the debuff timer on that is longer and fits better with reaper's comparatively slower GCD and rotation.
For all intents and purposes, Viper plays nearly the exact same, I'd say it plays even better without having to worry about the debuff falling off, and with the buff timers now at 60 seconds, you can maintain your flow past some lengthy phase transitions.
If you're crying about it you never played viper outside of leveling it 80-100 and brainlessly spamming roulettes.
Does the job feel like ass in low level content? Fuck yeah it does, but so does everything else and that's a fundamental issue with the game that's not gonna be solved anytime soon. Beg Yoshi P to let us keep all our skills when synced down

TL;DR it's the exact same and honestly better, you did not seriously play viper if you think the noxious gash change is bad. The job was not made easier, just less annoying, it was never hard, it was always easy.

Gonna disagree. Not that Noxious Gnash was complicated, but it added a tiny bit of complexity to an otherwise simple job by requiring you to time double NGs before Double reawakens so the buff doesn't fall off mid burst. Now Viper is quite literally press the shiny buttons and nothing else. Your main combo stays lit up the entire fight now, it doesn't even require picking which button to start the combo on. All jobs are being dumbed down like crazy, but VPR is now the Summoner of melee.

This isn't a good sign for their 8.0 job redesigns.

[OliverQ]

I honestly don't know how to feel about the change. It kinda feels the same, but it also feels super auto piloty now.

This is a great way to describe it. I was having trouble explaining what feels different, and auto-pilot is a good term. It feels like it plays itself now.

[roach777]

There should be a potency difference between a good Viper and bad Viper anyway.

The most skilled Vipers will never lose an OGCD while also never drifting their GCD and also never getting hit by any boss mechanics while maintaining as much uptime as possible on the boss.

The less skilled Vipers will lose an OGCD, drift their GCD, or die to mechanics/fail to maintain uptime on the boss.

Viper is likely the most mechanically demanding job in the entire game. Even other jobs who need to double weave OGCDs like Machinist don't need to do it as frequently as Viper does, and failure to do so doesn't result in as much loss of potency. Machinist also has the benefit that they're a ranged DPS who doesn't need to worry about melee uptime. The tradeoff is that Viper's rotation is simple.

I already dropped the job because I know I don't have the dexterity to do what it needed me to do to play it optimally, I was already drifting my GCD on regular dungeon pulls trying to keep up with all of the mandatory double OGCD weaving.

I really don't think it is the most mechanically demanding job in the game. The OGCDs and the way the button swaps are designed is so elegant that even though on paper it has more button presses per min (not even by a lot by the way) it feels a lot less busy.

Also all those things you listed, how are those even Viper specific at all?
Good Vipers will get better DPS because they wont die to boss mechanics and have better uptime...
Yeah? This applies to every class in the game? Should every class only press 1 button and remove all rotational and job specific skill expression because there are already raid mechanics to express your skills in?

[LunaCelestiaXIV]

TL;DR it's the exact same and honestly better, you did not seriously play viper if you think the noxious gash change is bad. The job was not made easier, just less annoying, it was never hard, it was always easy.

Call me elitist, but we're supposed to listen to what you have to say?

You, who has 0 clears on Viper on EX (actually no EX clears at all) are supposed to tell us --- players that at least cleared EX with Viper --- that the changes are good and if not, we have not "played the job seriously"?

Utterly laughable.