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

[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

[Melethron123]

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.

apparently not
it has the identity of dual-wielding swords and wearing leather (and we all know that glam is the real endgame)

[Pentacus]

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.

I’m guessing that the “busyness” is referring to the Coil combo, where you have two positionals and four oGCDs to do within the space of two GCDs happening very frequently, I can’t immediately recall any other situation where you have to do two subsequent positionals, let alone while double weaving, so the speed that they changed this may imply that “positional (double weave) > positional” goes against an internal design guideline and feedback made them aware of that, rather than directly acting on feedback

[Powercow]

I can’t immediately recall any other situation where you have to do two subsequent positionals, let alone while double weaving,

sigh
I miss Stormblood Monk.

[Router]

I’m guessing that the “busyness” is referring to the Coil combo, where you have two positionals and four oGCDs to do within the space of two GCDs happening very frequently, I can’t immediately recall any other situation where you have to do two subsequent positionals, let alone while double weaving, so the speed that they changed this may imply that “positional (double weave) > positional” goes against an internal design guideline and feedback made them aware of that, rather than directly acting on feedback

DRG had back-to-back positionals until DT and would also double weave during it in their burst. If there's an internal design guideline against it, then it was added very recently.

[KDSilver]

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

That's the point of the job.

[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.