Please don't change Viper

[EdwinLi]

Viper has single-handedly ruined the game for me.

I can't play anything else after Viper because of how fun the rotation is to me with lots and lots of button presses. I will be very sad if it loses positionals and/or ogcds because people who probably don't enjoy the job are complaining that they don't like how it plays.

Yep Viper is very fun for me as well and been the type of Fast attacking Assassin like job I've been looking for as my Main since 2.0 era.

However, I still feel they could have organized the Burst/Trance Mode better when activating Reawakening.

It feels too scattered between 4 skills that are meant to be for two separate combo chains when not using Trance mode. Not to mention once level 100, it adds the additional skills for weaving between each attack.

They handle this issue well with Gunbreaker having the burst skill Mode set as a single skill with continuation for weaving. They did not need to scatter Trance mode skills between 4 separate skills that start out completely separate from each other.

[ToesterB5]

Heyo all,

First of all, i am would call myself a casual+ type of player not really a hardcore player but also sometimes touching Savage content,

But i have to say so far Viper is probably the most fun i had in a while with this game and esp. DPS classes, sure i probably mess up a lot in the rotation but the moving and weaving in off gcd stuff for your next postional is super fun and having your hotbar light up like christmas tree during reawaken even more so.

Maybe the 7.01 changes won't be "bad" but i really hope Square keeps the current style/feel for the class it's super fun and super engaging trying to get things "right"

And yes i only setup my profile here to hopefully keep Viper as is

[Shinun]

Well atleast we have 2 more weeks of this iteration of viper

[Ariablueberry]

If its class fantasy is extremely appealing to a wider audience, then player data suggests that the objectively correct call from SQEX is to eliminate as much friction within the job as possible and make it for babies. That's what worked for everything else on this list. But if Viper's appeal is more like Ninja's, where it will appeal to a core (and largely gameplay driven) audience, the right choice would be to maintain depth and complexity and give those players something to dedicate to. We won't know which one was right until a couple years out, because any argument about Viper's popularity right now is stained by the fact that it's the brand new flagship job and literally everyone is playing it, but we can speculate.

In my opinion, Viper was initially designed to be targeted to midcore, dedicated audiences. The fandom response when it was revealed was very much so "That's it?/I wanted Corsair," and it was described as a fast-paced, technical-but-stylish job. Many predicted Picto would be more popular. But after seeing the absolute inundation of Vipers in the PF (for EX1 and EX2 clears, there are literally twice as many Vipers as there are Dragoons, Samurais, and Monks COMBINED), Square realized that the job has massive casual appeal and that's where these changes are coming from They want to eliminate friction for a sudden and unexpected cash cow. I think this is a risky move on their part, because in 2 years who knows how many people will be itching to play Viper, but the intent seems clear. I hope they dial back and wait longer to see what the "right call" is (and as an Ultimate Raider and hardcore player, I hope they choose to keep it more complex), but existing precedent scares me a little.

Thanks for reading!

Right. Got it. I understand the logic behind the thinking.

Yeap some are really going to be popular due to theme of the job from a story fantasy standpoint

while some will have a dedicated base due to technical aspects

and then the business will make adjustments to either enhance the appeal of certain jobs to spread out the distribution of job popularity OR at times to attract new players.

Viper initially struck me as ... "huh? leather clad twin swords - sounds like the ACTUAL rogue class of an MMO". I expected a good player base to try it out, but the combination of the theme/story compatibility + somehow I think the devs stumbled upon a job mechanic design that just works for even the most casual player blew its popularity up.

thank you for taking the time to explain your thoughts!

* BOW *

[W00by]

No problem, happy to share!

I think it's also worth noting that Viper may be so popular because of how divisive the changes to other melees (and jobs at large) have been. Monks, Dragoons, and Samurai seem to have love-it-or-hate-it relationships with the changes to their jobs, so if you're within the melee role, Viper is an easy place to land. Heck, I've even raided with a couple BLM players who switched to Viper after the controversial BLM changes just cus it was a quick and easy place to go when compared to Picto, which by all rights seems designed for a more hard-core audience.

If these jobs hadn't changed so much, would Viper still be so popular? I don't think so. But it is this popular now, so there's nothing to it but to do it. I do wish that the devs would see so many people jumping ship from their simplified job to Viper and realize they should probably leave it alone rather than simplify it more, but I digress.

On a different subject, I've really been enjoying the current raid tier on current Viper. The high positional frequency makes fights like the second and third turn very engaging to run again and again, and I've been queuing up repeatedly just to get some extra practice in before Savage. I encourage everyone who has played the tier on this current version of Viper to share their thoughts!

[Vejj]

Viper is a really funny class. You can play half asleep as the rotation is mostly predetermined. The result is a job that simply mixes in at the top without any great understanding of the class.

In my opinion, the job and the Picto could do with a nerf.
The existence of the Viper just contradicts everything, why you should play a job that is more complex and possibly more difficult to play when you can simply hammer on the highlighted buttons with your head.

[Lyth]

If you're dependent on the GCD highlights to show up to guide your decision-making, then you're probably not the sort of player who is going to be capable of taking this job into Savage content anyways. MNK uses those highlights as well now, but at least you can argue that players can see and plan their next three GCDs highlighted in advance. With VPR you're much better off learning the buff icons and knowing which 'mudra combos' access which.

Also worth noting that all melee job rotations are predetermined, and the primary focus is on execution. You'll generally be able to list out the entire GCD sequence of fights that you've practiced enough.

[koko-on-da-forumz]

Unironically, I think Viper is a lot more fun at earlier levels when you actually have to care about your positionals and your debuff.

The higher level you get, the more it becomes just about pressing buttons fast. But it's a really fun job to do roulettes with.

[Kalocin]

Unironically, I think Viper is a lot more fun at earlier levels when you actually have to care about your positionals and your debuff.

The higher level you get, the more it becomes just about pressing buttons fast. But it's a really fun job to do roulettes with.

I think that's only because you have reawakening to pay attention to. Before 90 it kind of plays like ARR monk but without the DoTs.