Viper Changes Thread - Share your thoughts

[Elkanah]

I played around initially and thought "Oh, this doesn't feel that different" but then I played a bit more and realized "Oh no, this feels completely automatic now". There's absolutely 0 thought process in going through your combos now. It already was "Follow the Dotted line" for the most part. The nuance you had was whether or not you needed to use Dread Fangs or not. Noxious Gnash was actually a better designed Damage up debuff than Reaper's Death's Design IMO. It flowed with your kit well and was just very well designed. Once you remember that Dreadwinder also applied the debuff, you realize how you only needed to press Dread Fangs not too often. Knowing how much you had to reapply Noxious Gnash was a key component of Skill expression on Viper. Now it's completely gone and Viper, in less than a month of its initial release, became a shell of its former self in favor of pleasing a small crowd of players who can't take the time to learn how to properly play a job. This is exactly how we got Job Homogenization and The job designers continue to go through this trend.

Viper gameplay now feels extremely automated. Dragon Kick > Twin Snakes is the exact same now as the new Reaving Fangs into Swiftskin's Sting. You just do 2 > 2 > 1 > 1 for your first 2 combo starters, exactly the same as Monk's 2 > 2 > 1 > 1 gameplay. What we asked for was not JUST to not remove the positionals, but to not change the job because of how immensely satisfying it was to play. Now it's nothing. You completely ruined a job not even 1 month of Dawntrail coming out. There ARE at least good job designs out there like the newly released Pictomancer and old jobs like Warrior. They need to answer to this kind of mistake, cause the job designers messed up big time.

I mean-- if they really wanted to dumb it down further (which I wouldnt put it past the devs to do, cause they seem to love dumbing things down so even the child pressing the dead monkeys button would work) they could remove the second combo and reduce the button bloat. Put all 4 buffs up on all 3 skills as a wall-o-text and really seal vipers defanged venom. Goes from a viper to a garden snake after yesterday

[KuraLathliss]

I find the changes to be kinda bad, I got really used to Noxious Gash. I Personally feel like the job is in dire need of any kind of damage mit ability. I get it's a glass cannon, but after running EX1 about 45 times, there's is so many times I've had preventable deaths because the healers or tank didn't account for me being so low health. VPR needs to be brought up in health a tad or given another life steal ability or just give them that defensive they get in PvP.

[Ayokai]

My experience with Viper so far has been in the extremes and Savage fights. While playing it before 7.05, it was a simple job. Having cleared the Savage tier with Viper, I'd say it's a little simpler in the sense that you don't have to worry about a DoT, but it plays pretty much the same as it did. I will say that it has been very enjoyable to progress and clear with in Savage, specifically M3 and M4. Having cleared both of those fights, I don't believe I can say that I could push the other melee classes to the extreme and not lose out on even a single GCD. Perhaps this tier is just built for Viper, but I can't deny that it is fun to play regardless of how simple it may be. Initially I was going to play Samurai for this tier, but that didn't pan out with the changes to Tsubame-geashi all but ruining 2.15 GCD samurai for me.

Edit: Ultimately, I'm indifferent. I think it is silly that Viper got changed in the way it did so quickly. It takes time to adjust, learn, and optimize a class.

[Glaceon10]

It's just so much less fun than it used to be - there's no tension on the job anymore at all which is what made it fun. It felt like it was MEANT to be a job with simple execution but fun little things to manage among the chaos of all its buttons. Now it is literally "press glowing button" with NOTHING else to think about, why even add a job if it's going to be changed into something so boring and uninspired?

I definitely think the debuff could feel too constrictive before but it'd have been such a better change to just extend the cap or something instead of cutting it outright

[DeltaCyan]

Even after giving it a try in savage, it just feels so empty now. I unironically would have preferred positionals being removed than having a timer gutted, but the monkeys paw curls...

Not every job needs to be loved by anyone, why doesnt SE understand that? And I wouldnt imagine casual players cared about noxious gash since the job is already so simple to play, just hit the shiny buttons and youll do good damage. Who was this change even for?

The only change I was hoping from them was using the twin swords on the vipersight gauge to show timers on the haste and damage buffs, instead of what step you were on the 1-2-3 combo. just feels so redundant.

[CaedemSanguis]

It's trash

revert it

before the nerf it was the most busy/engaging melee to me, now it's less engaging and fun

[Drachelanze]

Horrible changes. Horrible. The job just came out a month ago and they're already gutting parts of the kit. A debuff is too much for this playerbase, really? We're just digging deeper into the homogenization hole by turning the combo starters into another Leaden Fist? Why was the combo finisher buff timer extended? This is such an unnecessary change. Basically everything that came out of today's notes reads as reducing any small amount of nuance the job had. What is even the point of Dreadw- sorry, Vicewinder -- a name change that feels deeply unneeded, having charges now? You're just going to press this button whenever you feel like it with no care in the world for buff/debuff timers because you already won't put it into burst. Christ, you may as well have committed to gutting the positionals too.

[Rhael]

A debuff is too much for this playerbase, really?

The vast majority of this playerbase doesn't actually want to engage with this game in any meaningful way. Anything at all, even just a few very simple buff and debuff timers, is far too much for them. SE has made it clear that they're more interested in designing a game for these players who don't want to actually play a game than people who actually want to play the game.

[Aco505]

What is even the point of Dreadw- sorry, Vicewinder -- a name change that feels deeply unneeded

Apparently, the name was changed because the JP name mentions poison, which it no longer applies.

What makes no sense is changing the English name, especially considering how free the translation can be.