Viper is feels too busy because button erognomics is awful

[Wolf_Heartnet]

Agreed. Hopefully the new announced changes make Viper more accessible to the rest of the community. Thanks for providing your suggestions @Atmaweapon510. If further changes are made such as removing all positionals it would be even better!

[ValStormbreaker]

Here's mine. I dupe the oGCDs frequently for ease of use depending on where I am in the rotation.

I'll try to have my husband show in recorded video how the inputs flow, so you can see the timing and motion. It's super comfy. But I would recommend keeping the role actions off of your main hotbar since you'll only need to use them situationally. If you have to pump the triggers to reach the upper-shelf hotbars on either side to reach your regular GCD moves, you risk clipping a GCD when you hit your max speeds.

You also don't need to be doubling up on your abilities like that, like Serpent's Tail being there 4 times and your Twinfang and Twinblood being there twice and Dreadwinder being hotbarred twice. All of that stuff just needs to be in one place. Also your two coil moves are reversed in order: the reason Hunter's Coil comes after Dreadwinder is because when you gap-closer into the boss for your opening, the tank needs to turn the boss. So if you stand still during Dreadwinder, and then do Hunter's Coil, you'll hit the flank as the boss is turning, and then Swiftskin's Coil hits the rear once the boss is fully turned.

You should also have LB somewhere on your bar, since as a melee DPS, your LB3 hits harder than the LB of other roles.

[ValStormbreaker]

I've bit the bullet and put the Twins on a separate crossbar from my weaponskills (I can still do a clockwise face button movement) and ended up having to keep finagling things so that Flanks are on the Right/ Left and Rears are on the Up/Down positions to keep things ordered. The Reawakening combo is also going to be a clockwise movement with S.Tail on the right D-pad and now my entire combo fits on the first two crossbars. Yes, the entire combo fits on the default crossbars.

I'm still annoyed because all my other melee jobs besides Dragoon have their unga-bunga spenders/combos on L2+R2 hold but for Viper I can only put Reawakening there as nothing else makes sense there for Viper or throws it out of sync with the other jobs. I would have loved to be able to go have been able to keep the Dreadwinder combo on one cross and to not have to swap to a different crossbar or fiddle with the pad so that I never have to let go of the analog stick.

As I wrote before, you should never be hotbar-swapping on any job in this game. If you are doing that, then your hotbars are set up improperly, and you need to set up the WXHB.

This is not a problem with the job, it's a problem with your hotbar setup. The job should not be fixed because you are doing something improper.

[kashi11]

... I would recommend keeping the role actions off of your main hotbar since you'll only need to use them situationally.

I leave Arm's Length, Feint, Bloodbath, Second Wind, and True North readily available as they are frequently used in raid situations for necessary party wide mits, self healing, and ease of postionals. Also many extremes and savage fights require anti-knockback. All of these actions should be readily available to quickly weave when needed.

If you have to pump the triggers to reach the upper-shelf hotbars on either side to reach your regular GCD moves, you risk clipping a GCD when you hit your max speeds.

I've never had an issue with this and I have been playing high APM jobs this way for a long time. I played a lot of fighting games growing up, and have good manual dexterity.

You also don't need to be doubling up on your abilities like that, like Serpent's Tail being there 4 times and your Twinfang and Twinblood being there twice and Dreadwinder being hotbarred twice. All of that stuff just needs to be in one place.

Twinfang and Twinblood are there twice so I don't have to change hotbars when executing AoE vs Single Target (Pit of Dread and Dreadwinder respectively). Both require Twinfand and Twinblood oGCD in their respective combos so why wouldnt I put it right there. Serpent's Tail is there for Reawaken combo, again so I dont have to change hotbars during those weaves. If I removed them - my hotbar would be empty which is a waste of space in my opinion.

Also your two coil moves are reversed in order: the reason Hunter's Coil comes after Dreadwinder is because when you gap-closer into the boss for your opening, the tank needs to turn the boss. So if you stand still during Dreadwinder, and then do Hunter's Coil, you'll hit the flank as the boss is turning, and then Swiftskin's Coil hits the rear once the boss is fully turned.

Excuse me? You don't know what order I push my buttons in. LOL. I place them in those positions to correspond with their positionals. Hunters Coil is Flank thus on Square button, and Swiftskin Coil is rear, thus on the X button. I do similarly with Steel Fangs Dread fangs and since their second hit indicates which positional the final hit will be.

I know the opener, it is right here.

You should also have LB somewhere on your bar, since as a melee DPS, your LB3 hits harder than the LB of other roles.

I edited my post to show where it is. But it is on Hotbar 3.

[kashi11]

Here is a quick video I made of the Opener with my setup.

I created a GIF as well. But the GIF is only 7fps so keep that in mind. I accidently skipped the first swiftskin coil in the recording, but you get the idea. I'll fix it later, since its so late.

[Lorika]

If you are using R1 hotbar swaps in combat with a melee job, you're definitely playing the job incorrectly.

R1 hotbar swaps cost time that are equivalent to oGCD weaving. You should always have all of your skills available and within easy reach at all times.

Completly wrong.
With proper settings is way quicker than a trigger double tap or a R2+L2/L2+R2

Since, in fact, you can swap to your secondary crossbar with a single quick tap on R1 and come back to your main crossbar with a quick single tap on R1 while your GCD refresh.(I do it all the time with Tank Mit which are on mt secondary crossbar and never miss a GCD... Rez and swiftcas are also on my secondary crossbar and, 90% of the time, i raise quicker than my co-healer)

Serisouly, i find the double crossbar inneficient and unconfortable

[kashi11]

Completly wrong.
With proper settings is way quicker than a trigger double tap or a R2+L2/L2+R2

Since, in fact, you can swap to your secondary crossbar with a single quick tap on R1 and come back to your main crossbar with a quick single tap on R1 while your GCD refresh.(I do it all the time with Tank Mit which are on mt secondary crossbar and never miss a GCD... Rez and swiftcas are also on my secondary crossbar and, 90% of the time, i raise quicker than my co-healer)

Serisouly, i find the double crossbar inneficient and unconfortable

Except you aren't just pressing R1, you are pressing R1 and then R2 again to reactive the hotbar.

R1 -> R2 -> Button is the same number of inputs as R2 -> R2 -> Button

You could argue that double tap is faster than R1 cycling when going from the upper bar to the lower one though, since you only have to release R2 then R2 -> Button removing 1 input.

[Kalinas]

Just a healer main leveling my jobs and getting role quests completed, but this is the layout that works for me. I set things up like this with all my jobs.

Across my jobs, I hold L1 to press any skills on main crossbars. Then I hold R1 as well if I need to press the skills on my left side secondary crossbar. I do the same with holding R1 for main right side crossbars -> then adding L1 to it to pop my right side secondary crossbar. Letting go of that extra trigger puts me back on the main bar. I just find it smother/easier that way. W bars never clicked with me really.

This is my main bar with the left side being my single target skills. The right side has the aoe versions.


My secondary bar has my other cool downs and skills I don't use as much. I also keep the role actions the same across each category of jobs since it helps me with muscle memory.


I also have a few regular hotbars across the top so I can see the cooldowns of skills on the secondary bar. I do have a few macro icons (not actual macros) up there as well to help me recognize the side/back positional attacks...the job bar made no sense to me.

[Tahli]

If you are using R1 hotbar swaps in combat with a melee job, you're definitely playing the job incorrectly.

Hard disagree. If consolidating between 2 hotbars works for someone and is smooth and fun, that's what matters. It's a game.

Personally I have single target skills on one hotbar, and AoE on a second for most of my jobs, because it's easier and double tapping a trigger to reach the double hotbar buttons mid-combat leaves room for mistakes if I'm anxious and my fingers are a bit twitchy.
I do use my double hotbar, but mostly for out of combat/travel things.

Rather than telling other people to play the game the exact same way you do, try to encourage them to practice and adjust their playstyle to a way that best suits THEM. OP's issue is clearly a lack of learning the job and disorganized setup, which can be fixed in MORE than the one way.

And as a fellow xbox controller user, I love Viper so far and don't think it needs any changes.

[CaedemSanguis]

If you are using R1 hotbar swaps in combat with a melee job, you're definitely playing the job incorrectly.

R1 hotbar swaps cost time that are equivalent to oGCD weaving. You should always have all of your skills available and within easy reach at all times.

It is indeed the devs' fault for not making the W-Cross Hotbar the standard default controller players see, and the game not telling you about it. But if you take time to learn melee jobs seriously, and read guides online in an effort to learn, people have been talking about it for years and it's the most commonly used controller layout by JP players. It is a gripe that the game hides it from you and that it is not the default as it should be.

Here's some reading on the WXHB: https://www.akhmorning.com/resources...configurations

For all content past level 50, the full WXHB is what you should be using for everything. The skills should flow from right to left if you hotbar things properly. On Viper, you have two of the same kinds of moves, one set for single-target moves and another set for AoEs. On my setup, I have the single-target moves on my right side. Off-cooldown moves and weaves are basically a matter of easy motions with your thumbs, either left thumb > right thumb, or things like quarter-circle motion inputs to hit them easily by just gliding your thumb across a D-Pad, or simple-taps that are easy to pull off. Buttons are in places where there's ease of access because your thumbs are already right there, and you're primarily just using your triggers to toggle icons.

When you unlock more with your Viper, including things you don't have yet and can't test out at your current level, you'll see why my setup makes sense. Everything is very simple - and mirrored - motions that make a butterfly shape when you do your rotation. It makes it not only incredibly braindead to play at a raid level (a testament to how simplified this job is), but it physically feels good to play.

I started in HW and get used to manually swap with R1, and it's fine to me, I dont have any trouble for clearing savages week1/ultimate or parsing 95%+ with gnb/drg
+ on viper all your actions can fit in the first bar

but yeah, I think WXHB is better than manually swapping with R1