Quote Originally Posted by Supersnow845 View Post
VPR needs a way to not fall apart in downtime which is difficult because it relies so heavily on constantly keeping its buffs up (SAM is technically similar but SAM bursts a lot harder and can get its buffs up way faster)
This is not the problem, the problem is that samourai's meikyo and sen'ei are time based, and are way stronger than vicewinder, in full uptime viper can compare with samourai on odds minutes because he's supposed to get 50 gauge and a reawaken when a samourai gets a meikyo + sen'ei, but in ultimate with all the downtime, samourai get his meikyo + sen'ei anyway, while the viper doesn't get his gauge and reawaken, the only way to balance that without creating a new skill or new mechanic is to increase the power of the only viper's time based skill, vicewinder(the only other time based skill of the viper is serpent's ire, and to buff it you would have to buff reawaken potency, which in my opinion would be a good choice, but this would not be as impactful as a vicewinder buff in ultimate).
Keeping the buffs up is clearly not a big deal for a viper, specially when we see that the viper's problem is in P1 and P2 in FRU, where there is absolutely no problem to keep the buffs up. Just use vicewinder after every downtime(except after light rampant).