Can we get a buff for Viper? (Ultimate content)

[Karuya]

I am playing "optimally" as described on the balance, trying to keep uptime for everything and I still still still struggle in DPS within P1 and P2

Don't worry, there is no way to do good as a viper in P1 and P2, i've killed FRU 4 times as a viper, i played well everytime, and everytime my team had to carry P1 and P2, viper and machinist are so bad that it looks nearly impossible to take them in the team if there is no broken pictomancer to compensate. And you can still consider yourself happy cause machinist is even worse, at least the viper is good in P3 - 4 - 5. I really don't know if there has been a single time in the game when such a lack of balance has occured : picto in ultimate is the most broken thing i've ever seen(at least in P1 and P2), while viper and specially machinist are so trash that they can't even play without a picto in the team.

Oh and in addition, that's not the subject, but since we are talking about the viper, i'd like to add that currently, the viper also has the biggest problem in term of gameplay : since they removed Noxious Gnash, the viper's whole combo system is totally broken, the viper only uses 4 of his 8 possible combos in a full uptime scenario, while SE has made an entire UI for it. I think Noxious Gnash in its previous state was absolutely awful, i don't know if removing it entirely was the best choice but i understand that they did it because it was terrible to use in any situation that was not a single target full uptime. But now that they removed it, we lost half of our rotation.

So they should absolutely make something, like easy solution : reaving fang should give a TWO CHARGES buff(or resource without time limit) that buffs steel fangs two times. By doing just that, they would alternate in a reaving - steel - steel loop, the viper would get back his 8 combos, and those would work in a 12 combos cycle that would loop every around 2 minutes. Everything i said should have already been done in patch 7.1, we're now at 7.15 and nothing has been done while other jobs like ninja, samourai and dragoon got buffed while they were already stronger than viper, i hope something is done really soon because it's starting to get frustrating.

[brinn12]

With PCT being forced in every FRU PF, there is no reason to exclude VPR or MCH, especially for prog. These two jobs are very strong in P3, where you usually have deaths or damage downs. Adds will be harder, but if everyone pushes their buttons, it's not an issue, as intermission should not have any deaths.

I do agree that downtime sucks for VPR. The unfortunate "solution" to this will be removing VPR's personal buffs, mirroring what happened to MNK. VPR lost so much already, why not just lose more?

[Karuya]

The unfortunate "solution" to this will be removing VPR's personal buffs, mirroring what happened to MNK. VPR lost so much already, why not just lose more?

As i said earlier, viper's personal buffs are absolutely not a problem, just like samourai's personal buffs are not a problem at all.

With PCT being forced in every FRU PF, there is no reason to exclude VPR or MCH, especially for prog. These two jobs are very strong in P3

There is not a single phase on this fight where the viper is stronger that the dragoon for example, while the dragoon is fine in P1 and 2. And the viper is not even that strong even in P3 and 4.
Machinist is worse, P3 is the only phase where it is not the weakest dps by a huge margin.
I guess people want to minimize the risk of failing any phase, and seeing how abyssal their dps are on some phases, it's hard to blame them for locking those jobs. Developer's fault.

[brinn12]

As i said earlier, viper's personal buffs are absolutely not a problem, just like samourai's personal buffs are not a problem at all.



There is not a single phase on this fight where the viper is stronger that the dragoon for example, while the dragoon is fine in P1 and 2. And the viper is not even that strong even in P3 and 4.
Machinist is worse, P3 is the only phase where it is not the weakest dps by a huge margin.
I guess people want to minimize the risk of failing any phase, and seeing how abyssal their dps are on some phases, it's hard to blame them for locking those jobs. Developer's fault.

With a PCT, no one cares about P1 and P2 damage. And a (good) VPR is indeed strong in P3, same to MCH. The only "hard" checks are intermission, P3 and P5. Everything else is super easy. I'm only counting P3 and P5 because it's common to have deaths there, but the DPS check is by no means hard. Back in TOP, you would see clean enrages with Relics and dungeon gear. People wouldn't ban any jobs, so why would they ban 5 now?

Excluding SMN/RDM to a caster that's outperforming every other melee by a large % is reasonable. Machinist gets an extra Barrel Stabilizer in P4 by using it before rewind, and it can reach 31k rDPS consistently, some go up to 34k. It's not like you need it anyway, as the P4 DPS check is the easiest and you don't see the enrages being cast in good PFs.

If you're getting bad MCHs or VPRs, you should avoid the players, not the jobs. If you're seeing enrages after swapping a DRG to a VPR, check who you're playing with. 1300 median difference means less than 5%. We'll always have stronger jobs, and if you can't deal with that, you should not be raiding. If you're banning due to a 4% difference when you already have a PCT, it's time to hit that striking dummy a bit more.

[Karuya]

I'm not banning anyone and i'm not saying people should ban anyone, and i guarantee i'm hitting my striking dummy more than you, but it doesn't mean that the situation is fine and nothing should be done. I've done TOP on patch and i clearly remember there was absolutely not this kind of imbalance, the only dps problem in TOP was in P2, if you didn't have white mage or sage or dragoon or reaper in P2 then you would have way more trouble beating P2 easily, but that was not on the same level than FRU and that was on a weird 2 targets situation, on FRU we are talking about full single target imbalance on 2 consecutive phases. What if picto was not broken ? Then you are saying that it would be understandable to ban viper and machinist because it would be too hard to beat P1 and 2.

Anyway, it's not because the fight is feasible with any team that we should not at least hope to see every job perform decently when there are absolutely obvious ways to fix those problems and it should have been done before the ultimate even came out.

[brinn12]

I'm not banning anyone and i'm not saying people should ban anyone, and i guarantee i'm hitting my striking dummy more than you, but it doesn't mean that the situation is fine and nothing should be done. I've done TOP on patch and i clearly remember there was absolutely not this kind of imbalance, the only dps problem in TOP was in P2, if you didn't have white mage or sage or dragoon or reaper in P2 then you would have way more trouble beating P2 easily, but that was not on the same level than FRU and that was on a weird 2 targets situation, on FRU we are talking about full single target imbalance on 2 consecutive phases. What if picto was not broken ? Then you are saying that it would be understandable to ban viper and machinist because it would be too hard to beat P1 and 2.

Anyway, it's not because the fight is feasible with any team that we should not at least hope to see every job perform decently when there are absolutely obvious ways to fix those problems and it should have been done before the ultimate even came out.

You're blaming the developers for VPR being excluded from PFs. This job was more than fine in Savage. FRU is its first on patch Ultimate. Ultimates have different durations and uptime for every phase. A 4% difference in an Ultimate is not unhealthy for the game, as this could mean jobs are not homogenized.

I am not disagreeing that VPR and MCH need changes to perform better in Ultimates. I main MCH and the job has been underperforming for 3 expansions. But it was viable in EW, still is now. Excluding VPR/MCH in parties without PCT is not justified, the issue is just worse when you already have a PCT. What you should do is avoid joining these PFs, if people really are coping for the perfect composition in a fight without relevant DPS checks, rather than looking for good players.

Also you're telling me some people swapped to MCH in TOP because of P2? P4 was a major problem, and many groups struggled with P6 damage. P1 was much harder... For any effect, in PF, TOP would see more clean enrages, and it's not even close. So you tell the people who ban VPR to hit the striking dummy, rather than blame the developers. MCH and RPR were good picks in TOP, and not very good in DSR. These variations are healthy for the game.

[Reylap]

Excluding SMN/RDM to a caster that's outperforming every other melee by a large % is reasonable. Machinist gets an extra Barrel Stabilizer in P4 by using it before rewind, and it can reach 31k rDPS consistently, some go up to 34k. It's not like you need it anyway, as the P4 DPS check is the easiest and you don't see the enrages being cast in good PFs.

MCH getting to 34K rDPS? What kind of substance are you on? Not even the top 99% players can even reach 28K rdps in any fight (ultimate or savage) or in any phase for that matter. Have you even done any of the fights? Or are you speaking this just by looking at streamers?

[HeavenlyArmed]

With PCT being forced in every FRU PF, there is no reason to exclude VPR or MCH, especially for prog. These two jobs are very strong in P3, where you usually have deaths or damage downs. Adds will be harder, but if everyone pushes their buttons, it's not an issue, as intermission should not have any deaths.

I do agree that downtime sucks for VPR. The unfortunate "solution" to this will be removing VPR's personal buffs, mirroring what happened to MNK. VPR lost so much already, why not just lose more?

The solution to not locking out VPR and MCH being to lock out BLM, RDM and SMN is actually not a good solution, just in case anyone was wondering.

[Metricasc]

honestly at this point, it would be something to preserve or refresh applied buffs and passively build reawaken gauge in increments for an extended period of downtime. similar meditate and anatman (before EW monk rework). but one of viper's issues in downtime phases is a common issue with RPR, MCH, and RDM gauge in similar scenarios. but then PCT is also just ridiculous in downtime given it can be used to generate 1 or multiple 1000+ potency nuke buttons which no other classes can really do. and DRG, NIN and MNK more or less operates from a timer which does better upon coming back from downtime.

[Karuya]

Like i said earlier, preserving buffs is really not a problem for the viper, and actually i don't think that the gauge is a problem either, i've killed FRU multiple times and always felt that my buff management and resource was pretty smooth. No, I think that, like you said at the end, the problem is just that those jobs usually have time based skills that are too weak : viper's vicewinder is clearly too weak, machinist drill/air anchor/chainsaw are too weak but should not be buffed too much because drill is the biggest part of machinist dps, samourai looks fine but should actually be a bit higher too, and reaper same as samourai.

I also think that all those jobs should have a higher burst, except maybe samourai who should maybe buffed on his filler or odd minutes instead, but viper, machinist and reaper burst phases are clearly too weak looking at how overwhelmingly strong every raidbuffs are. Again the only melee job that has a weak raidbuff, reaper with a 3% raidbuff, is clearly the weakest with the two selfish jobs, samourai and viper. There is clearly a big problem in term of burst damages between selfish and buffers, and this will never be balanced if selfish don't get a burst that are at least as strong as jobs that have a raidbuff like ninja and picto.

And i'll add one more thing for the viper : actually, i'm pretty sure that the reason why he's weak is because of uncoiled fury. Why? Because since the beginning, SE has been balancing this job with the idea : "ok, viper should never lose uptime, so how should we balance it so it isn't too strong in comparison to other melees?". This is actually a big game design issue, from the beginning i think that the viper should have never been allowed to get 3 stacks of uncoiled fury at the same time, because it is just unfair for other melees, no melee should have a tool that allow them to get so much uptime in comparison to others, and since SE knows that it's unfair from the start, they have given the viper weak damage overall to compensate. We've already seen what happened at the end of patch 7.05 : viper was the weakest melee(with the reaper), and now we see what happens on FRU, viper is just the weakest overall, even when we consider P4 where he is actually supposed to be broken.

I think viper should be allowed to get only 2 uncoild fury at the same time, and i think maybe serpent's ire should not even give a stack, not sure, i always felt like this skill should not give one. But on the other hand, viper should get a big buffs on his reawaken and vicewinder combos.