Viper Changes Thread - Share your thoughts

[Kastiyana]

I setup my forum account just to post I absolutely hate this change to Viper. It feels much less engaging and makes the rotation feel mechanical in nature. The job hasn't even been played for a full patch cycle to warrant a complete revamp of the job. Please revert the change.

[ffisdead]

change it back

[Nathavin]

I'm going to repeat what I'm saying in other threads on this issue:
Viper is literally much worse now and here's why.

The short but easily reapply-able 20s debuff (With a 40s max) gave vipers something to optimize, as the other two buffs require almost no thought other than when coming out of your 2/6/8/10 min window.
Before going into your reawakening its its fun to plan how you're going to ensure you go in with atleast 22+seconds of this debuff. Also if you set it up correctly its very easy to just apply a single gcd of gnash inbetween the two reawakens should you have miscalculated the timer! Beyond this I have to wonder if anyone who is saying these changes are good ever played reaper, as reaper's triple enshroud was almost always not worth the effort and very clunky.

Dealing with EX1 Vali and optimizing when the boss disengages you for the application of gnash on the needles (first hit of 3 hit combo on needle one, then use dreadwinder on needle two) then spacing out snaps to allow the timing of the first returning gcd on vali to be gnash was a ton of fun to optimize, and even when it was difficult to do, it was not a big deal as you still had 16-8 seconds till reawaken! Enough time to apply the debuff twice!

Viper was always an easy job. Noxious gash was just the one thing other than uptime and positional you could optimize.
Gnash feels truly like a better version of reapers death's design. It almost makes me wish they would make it a alternate combo for RPR rather than being a single button.

For all intents and purposes, Viper plays very similarly. But the few plates that you had to spin have fallen and all you have now is uptime, and positionals.
If you're saying its better I doubt you've ever tried to optimize it in any content whatsoever, let alone EX+ content.

TL;DR it's the worse and honestly more boring, you did not seriously play viper if you think the noxious gash change is good.

[DerpyCubone]

I hate the changes. While it doesn't kill the class for me, it does remove a lot of what I liked about it. I have nothing I can fine tune in the class anymore. The skill expression factor has gone down without having to optimize debuff timing with dreadwinder or add spawns.

[Gugnir]

Them: Viper is an easy job to play, and maintaining Noxious gash is equally easy.
Me: Okay, why change it all then if you find it so easy to play?
Them: >:c

[Memyx]

So after actually using updated Viper during raid reclears today, I can now say that it feels a little weird not having Noxious. It's not awful, but it is awkward. I'm okay with how it is now, but I actually would prefer having Noxious back. I won't be upset of they don't bring it back, but I will always kinda miss that minigame...
Edit: AoE does feel better, though. Not having to worry about making sure each enemy is marked while also not accidentally overstacking the debuff is nice. Man. Now I'm torn.

[W00by]

So after actually using updated Viper during raid reclears today, I can now say that it feels a little weird not having Noxious. It's not awful, but it is awkward. I'm okay with how it is now, but I actually would prefer having Noxious back. I won't be upset of they don't bring it back, but I will always kinda miss that minigame...
Edit: AoE does feel better, though. Not having to worry about making sure each enemy is marked while also not accidentally overstacking the debuff is nice. Man. Now I'm torn.

I'm glad to hear you've come around. Thank you for trying it in content and sharing your thoughts! It definitely just makes things feel a little "emptier" in an actual fight, no? 1 -> 1 -> X -> 2 -> 2 -> X combo design is just a lot more boring, and Viper doesn't have a lot more going on than that. And no more choosing when to use Dreadwinder to avoid overcapping, no more setting up for burst phases. . . There's just so much less to do now. The job feels like nothing.

Also, on a different subject, I've seen lots of players in the JP forums complaining that, now that all three combo stages come with their corresponding FlAsHiNg ShInY sWoRd, that it's a lot more confusing to tell which combo part you're on, and I agree. Without memorizing colors or skill icons, you're even more (as one brilliant JP player put it) "a slave to the flashing hotbars." (Not to mention I find the BRIGHT YELLOW SWORD for the enhanced combo starter kind of ugly and out of place. . .)

I've been really heartened by seeing so many different communities -- these forums (in multiple languages), subreddits, Twitter, and in game -- coming together to protest the Viper changes. Please keep it up, my friends -- they listened about positionals, and they listened about Ice Paradox. Maybe they will listen about this if we just fight hard enough.

[Chrali]

Well, never thought I'd end up posting anything, but here we are. I don't like the changes. Tend to bounce between half a dozen jobs, or more, per expansion, as none have felt fun enough to keep playing for extended periods of time. Then in comes Viper and changes that, until it too is changed. This sucks.

I know maintaining the debuff might not feel like much to some, but it honestly was the one thing you'd actually have to pay some attention to. It sure makes it far less annoying during big trash pulls to try to apply it to everything, but for single target, the job has lost a part of what made it engaging to me.

[LeSkeLeT]

hello!
since yesterday debuff Noxious Gnash has desappeared, is it a bug or it's their will?

[TheAmazing3]

I finally set up my forum account so that I could contribute to speaking out against this change.

I enjoyed VPR when it came out. It was a simple but fun job. I liked the marginal but engaging decision making of whether I should refresh my noxious gnash in preparation for future burst or do more damage with my other combo starter. The class had very little to think about but it was just enough to keep the brain turned on.

After the changes, VPR no longer has anything to think about. It's like a blank slate for a melee that hasn't had anything added to it. Like being synced down to level 30 and only using a 1-2-3 combo on other melees. I was scared when I read the job changes, then I went and tried it once the servers were up. It's not the same, it's boring. The fun is gone.

The worst thing is I don't understand why. Players who do not care about playing properly would have just not kept their debuff going anyway. How does this improve anything for them? What is now the point of the second combo anyway? Alternating your 1 combo and your 2 combo is not fun, or engaging, just look at monk, which, in my humble opinion, was completely ruined once the free-flowing design of the combo system was removed back in... Shadowbringers, I think? But I digress, the end result of this change is that I will no longer play VPR and at least one thing that I thought they did a great job with in Dawntrail is now gone.

Dev team, please revert this change. Viper, as it was at launch, was great design for a simple but engaging job that a more casual player could enjoy because of how active and flashy it was. The change has done nothing for the casual player, it has exclusively ruined it for the rest of the players. It has gone against the design of having two combo buttons to flow between, there is no difference between the combos now, the second one may as well not exist. It was not necessary to make this change four weeks after the job launched.