Quote Originally Posted by W00by View Post
This JUST came to my mind, too, but does this change even ACCOMPLISH anything for accessibility? They cite that people found the alternating combos "harder than average" for a melee DPS, so what they did was:

Replace a timer people had to look at and keep track of...

with a timer people have to look at and keep track of?

Think about it. Anyone who was struggling with Viper because they couldn't handle alternating without staring at the Vipersight Gauge (or didn't LIKE the Vipersight Gauge) will struggle MORE now. You have to look at the Vipersight Gauge MORE OFTEN, since it now has 3 step stages rather than 2, and you'll be alternating the first combo steps MORE OFTEN (since you didn't have to Dread Fangs that often with Dreadwinder anyways). If you are coming out of a Reawaken, burst phase, or boss downtime phase and don't remember if you started with Steel Fangs or Reaving Fangs most recently, you'll have to look at either your Buff Bar (with the dreaded TIMERS!!!! that they wanted to get rid of SO BADLY!!!!) or your Vipersight gauge (which they ADMIT was confusing people!!!).

This change. Accomplishes. NOTHING. It will not help the players who were struggling. And it makes the job more boring for players who were at a higher end.

What the -- pardon my French -- heck, devs?
1, due to awakening and how it works, the 40s timer with 20s refresh made it awkward to launch awakening whenever. 2, 40s buff durations meant that you could shockingly easily drop the 3-step combo buff. If you, say, double awakening into triple uncoiled fury and then threw into...oh, it's called vicewinder now...end with that, you could drop the combo ender buffs. Either way, it is shockingly easy to run down the clock on the baseline combo buffs while still maintaining your other buffs. As for noxious gnash, I was kind of expecting it to stack up to 1m of debuff. But man am I happy they just straight up removed that garbage buff.

Also I find it funny how you think it will be harder to play. They straight made it a rocker-rocker-nested rocker rotation. 2-2-2, 1-1-1, 2-2-1, 1-1-2. It's actually more consistent now even though they literally could merge the 1 step combo buff with the 3 step, and make it only consume the buff on step 3. In a roundabout way, Viper has turned into a mishmash of Reaper's burst with Ninja's GCD and Monk's rotation. Considering no one has to stare at boss debuffs anymore to play the class, it's definitely easier. Though I can't wait to hear about how viper sucks in TOP because they added 2 more personal buffs. No clue if they stack or not, really hope they don't and are simply consumed.