Viper is not hard, and does not need simplification.

[TheMaxwewll]

Viper is not hard. It's painfully simple, in fact. I firmly believe the ONLY reason anyone is having trouble is because of the horrendous tooltips, complex combo system and their unbridled unwillingness to even try and learn it.

I'd like to preface this by saying I have Viper at level 100, and I used it in the recent extremes. That being said, I love Viper, it instantly became my main over Ninja, and hitting a dummy for even 5 minutes would give you a good understanding of how Viper functions. Unfortunately, some people cant manage that, and for some reason resort to depending exclusively on tooltips, which in Viper's case are terrible, or running to the forums to cry about how complicated Viper is.

Firstly, I feel like the lack if variety in the names of each skill are the first culprit. The words "Steel", "Fangs", "Hunter's", "Dread", "Maw", "Twin" and a few others are all used several times among all of Viper's weaponskills, sometimes upwards of 4 times. Of course if someone is looking at these weaponskills with nearly identical and often interchanged names will have trouble remembering which skill is used for which instance. This isn't even mentioning the fact that literally over half of Viper's weaponskills are UNASSIGNABLE, so unlike other classes, you wouldn't be able to hover over the skill to double check what it's purpose is, and even if you could, being shown "Can only be executed after Dreadwinder", you'd have to go back and look through all 4 abilities that have Dread in the name.

Secondly, the descriptions, the most important part, are vague as hell. Twinfang and Twinblood have "Changes to x, y and z when requirements for execution are met". Genuinely what the hell is that supposed to mean? What are the requirements? They seem to have zero issue dropping a ton of Viper buzzwords in the Coil and Den weapon skill tooltips yet cant manage telling us that Twinfang and Twinblood react to Dreadwinder, Pit Of Dread and Uncoiled Fury? This isnt even an isolated issue. Almost every unassignable weaponskill has the phrase "when requirements for execution are met." This is the cause of people complaining. A mistake on your part, SE, not how Viper plays.

Everything can easily be figured out with minimal practice. The positionals are quite literally a skill issue, not a big one either. Even with Viper's haste buff there is enough time to execute every necessary oGCD.

A better change for Viper would be making it harder. Simple things such as removing the highlights around most GCDs, removing the Noxious Gnash proc from Dreadwinder but making the GCD proc last longer. Give it a damn mit ability like Shade Shift, even a minor one. Games are allowed to have hard jobs, and high skill ceilings. For the love of the Great Serpent of Ronka don't make Viper easier than it already it.

[Melethron123]

they're changing it because it was too busy, not because it was hard

[Darkstride]

Give it a damn mit ability like Shade Shift, even a minor one. Games are allowed to have hard jobs, and high skill ceilings. For the love of the Great Serpent of Ronka don't make Viper easier than it already it.

I actually feel like I am missing an ability from Viper because it has no defensive skill. It's probably because I'm so used to Reaper's Arcane Crest. It's hardly necessary, but I just like having that little bit of extra functionality to break up the DPS tunnel vision. It might be interesting to have a short defensive like Samurai/Reaper that refreshes Noxious Gnash when you get hit.

As for the overall complexity, I do feel like the tooltips and naming are cumbersome while also being too vague. I usually go through and set up my hotbars to max level based on tooltips and then make adjustments for playstyle as level up. Viper took me some time to get it right. While the "just follow the dotted lines" approach is an interesting implementation, I still like to actually know what I'm doing when I press my buttons lol.

[hunter2]

they're changing it because it was too busy, not because it was hard

Isn't busyness the whole point of the job? What identity does it have if not high apm? I've only seen praise for the apm amongst my friends so I'm baffled that they think this is an issue worth addressing.

[Gilihere]

As a ninja main I love how busy viper isn't, you have more than enough time to press button, move, press other button.
It could use a self mitigation button like all the other melee, something like arcane crest or tengetsu would be nice

[Taliriah]

As a ninja main I love how busy viper isn't, you have more than enough time to press button, move, press other button.
It could use a self mitigation button like all the other melee, something like arcane crest or tengetsu would be nice

Bloodbath is super effective on viper compared to ninja because all the damage is physical. Do it during reawaken or while AoEing mobs and watch you hp go up up up

[KDSilver]

they're changing it because it was too busy, not because it was hard

That's the point of the job.

[Gilihere]

Bloodbath is super effective on viper compared to ninja because all the damage is physical. Do it during reawaken or while AoEing mobs and watch you hp go up up up

yeah I can see that happening, but in raid setting it might not work as well. Anyway might as well try it

[Barachim]

There's nothing too busy about it. It's one of the most simple melee DPS classes to play at the moment.

I admit that initially it took me a moment to figure out my hotbar, but that comes with every new job. But once I figured out the pretty much perfect set up, my 2 hotbars have an open space left.

[Router]

they're changing it because it was too busy, not because it was hard

It has the same APM as NIN, and NIN has more complex burst. Where's my NIN simplification?