As a midcore player, the Viper changes made me realise exactly why it is that I like some jobs' DoTs and debuffs and not others, because I'm fine with Bard's DoTs for example (I'm not always completely on top of maintaining them, but I'm fine with them) and also don't mind Reaper's Death's Design, but I didn't really like Noxious Gnash. And what I realised is, debuffs that I can throw in whenever I need to (albeit at the cost of a GCD) to maintain them are fine, but I don't like ones that are side-effects of core rotation abilities and thus force you to plan your rotation around them *all the time* (for example if your rotation is thrown off by having to dodge a mechanic) rather than just working out where they should slot into an ideal rotation. Also, all debuffs are kind of annoying when it comes to adds or mob packs, but for single-target ones like Bard's DoTs I mostly just don't bother applying them in those cases, and for AoE ones, again, you can throw it in whenever with something like Death's Design, but for Noxious Gnash it was always really irritating to have adds join the fight in the middle of a combo, meaning I was kind of stuck doing hits on them without them being debuffed before the rotation cycled back around. And for all that I am not super into optimising my rotation, knowing a DPS loss like that was happening *outside of my control* felt... not great. Actually worse than knowing I'm losing DPS through my own fault, weirdly enough. Basically I like some complexity in combat but not too much, and to me, maintaining Noxious Gnash felt like a bit too much. Either way, Viper quickly became a melee DPS I actually enjoy playing both before and after the change, and as someone who doesn't hate but also doesn't super love any of the previous melee jobs, that's all I really hoped to get out of it. Finally, in the name of balance, one thing I do dislike about the Viper changes is: there was absolutely no reason to rename the abilities????
My only gripe with the change is that i dont like the name changes. Dread Fangs, Pit of Dread, and Dreadwinder are better names than Reaving Fangs, Vicepit, and Vicewinder
For me it's simple. The job was fun before the change and for me it's still fun. For me, job aesthetics are awesome and I personally am still having a blast. Did it need more than a month before they made changes? Yes it did. Is the job still fun? Also yes so. . . .ok I guess???
As a midcore player (I've got some extreme and savage experience, but never on a long-term regular basis) who doesn't like Death's Design as a concept, I've warmly welcomed the removal of Nox and Viper feels so much better to play for it thanks to the gained flexibility. Nox felt like a drag before, pulling the actual fun parts of the job down. For instance, it felt bad anytime a new enemy appeared and you were already in the middle of a big combo. Reawaken is supposed to be your big flashy reward, but whoops, if the boss suddenly went into adds mode while you're in the middle of RA, the rest of it just felt wasted instead of rewarding. It's nice to just... be able to use your cool abilities and enjoy their impact and primary functions in your rotation, rather than using them when Nox lets you do so long enough. I also appreciate the more focused attention the job now requires, now that you don't have to look at the boss' debuffs as much. Death Design is an idea that has always been cool on paper, but to me has now been a failure when it comes to actual fun twice. Reaper can applies their debuff whenever, but because of that, it feels like an interruption of your actual rotation, and it's still a hassle to make sure you've tagged every enemy in a dungeon pull. Viper tried to the opposite approach of making the debuff a part of the rotation, but what this meant is that it wasn't always available when you might need it, and that felt bad for no fault of your own. It's a good remark that Viper really becomes fun when the fight is challenging and requires you to think about your tools, otherwise the job does kinda play itself. But that doesn't seem like too much of an issue when DT has clearly adopted the philosophy of making casual bosses reasonably challenging. And there's nothing wrong with an 'easier' melee (I don't personally find the other melees harder by any big extent, but whatever). So yeah, I didn't hate Nox, it wasn't the end of the world, but I say good riddance to it, and if you ask me, Viper is now the job it feels like it was meant to be.
Only issue I have is no personal mitigation with Viper. It would make it feel less like wet paper when you mess a mechanic up or get hit with a raidwide and Feint is on cooldown.
this is a great video though I want to add something about a comment you made at the start just because something is called viper does not imply poison. viper/snake/cobra are all terms used when used in real world of martial arts is used to imply speed and fluidity as well as pinpoint attacks to vulnerable areas. since gaming cannot really replicate that kind of combat games tend to add stuff like poison to it to simulate the whole death by a thousands cuts nature that a "viper" style would have. its really hard to program say slashing someone tendon and how they would affect their ability to keep fighting.
Even though I mostly play Reaper and don't have much experience playing Viper, I can see why they removed Nox. The duration of the debuff is short enough that there becomes a constant need to work around it rather than working around the enemy. I think extending its duration might have also helped Nox, but just removing it was probably the most optimal solution.
People may still disagree, but I stand on it. I want to adjust to the fight, not to my debuff. However, when you bring this up, people have strokes. I think it’s because they have a preconceived notion that NG made the class worth playing when it would have been a hindrance. Viper is constant damage.
Some people are just obssessed in gatekeeping jobs. Those people want to keep jobs difficult to play so they can feel better about themselves that they are among the few who can optimally play them. Those people hate SE for making every job accessible to everyone. I enjoyed both versions of the VPR but I have no qualms with those who prefer one over the other, but don't tell me it's for the overall health of the game to keep some jobs with high skill ceilings or the job is no longer fun to play. Why wont they just admit that they want to feel special, then I'd have more respect to those people. I have watched videos on the VPR change with the opposite reaction (brax & rinon), and let me tell you their video are seeping with elitism. Why not play VPR with one hand and a blindfold so those people can feel special and record themselves doing it so they can brag about it on the internet.
When I leveled up the viper at 100 I was not really liking it, I really wanted it to be my new main job, but Noxious Gnash was such an hindrance, and was preventing me to really enjoy the job. What was the point of having the coils, which give such an amazing level of flexibility during disengages, when you had to use them most of the time in a fixed manner to allow noxious gnash to get refreshed just at the right time? Another wasted potential was in the fact that VPR, is able to delay positions thanks to the coils and Dreadwinder/Vicewinder, but since Dreadwinder also refreshed the debuff you couldn't really use it to delay your positionals. Also during some dungeons where you had to switch between different single targets, like the final boss of Alexandria, refreshing the gnash was definitely the worst part... It felt so clunky, it's like there was the potential for a class that gave you the freedom to setup amazing burst phases, or prepare for long disengage or non positional windows, without losing any dps... and everything was dulled down by that damn debuff. I was about to drop VPR and get back to play NIN, but then I heard about the 7.05 changes, and decided to endure a bit more, untile 7.05 dropped... and my god I am so glad I did it. I love VPR now it's exactly how I wanted it to be, it's fast very fast, with amazing mid range capabilities (just like NIN is) and allows you to set up and delay your positionals very easy in case you can't comply them. Is just so fun to play and I am really enjoying it.
Extremely grateful that you made this video because I feel like you put forth a lot of the points I've been arguing as well but people just seem to gloss over. One thing that I would add is when you brought up ultimates you mentioned how NG's removal will help with timings and this is so understated by others it's insane, another thing that's really important about this point is in phases like dsr with the meteors where anytime in the future we may have had to deal with multiple enemies like that having to put NG on all of them just to do our optimal damage is abysmal ESPECIALLY when a lot of our kit is already inherently aoe like reawaken and uncoiled fury. I'm not a fan of it on reaper either but at least with reaper they can just press death's design on thordan when he comes back whereas we'd have to plan our whole rotation around very inconsistent meteor death timings because we can't go back in our combo to reapply quickly and dreadwinder being our only other option to get it up instantly, while also dealing with our speed and attack buff it just becomes a mess if they have any phases like that. Again I'm just really glad you made this video so there's at least one other person bringing up positive points for the removal, even more so because you heavily play viper and I feel like a lot of people who don't heavily play it are gut reacting because the removal on surface level does just make it seem like they're trying to blindly simplify the job for a small amount of people who apparently asked for this, but as you said I think there's still a ton of optimization that can be done with the job and I like your mindset that we get to plan more for the fight as opposed to the debuff which I think is healthier overall
I have a weird perspective in that I got bored of it and dropped it even before Noxious Gnash was removed. I will mostly be talking from a savage perspective, not casual content, and this will be long lol, but interested in your thoughts on these points if you've got the time: 1) As you addressed, Noxious was one of the few things VPR uniquely forced you to think about beyond fight mechanics because of the potency gain of using twinblade > dread fangs whenever off CD and then not dropping the buff, combo string, and finisher buff while in double RA. Now, you hardly need to think about anything at all surrounding double RA. 2) I disagree that the skill ceiling is high and it was never high to begin with. VPR optimization is entirely about when to spend or hold uncoiled due to melee downtime and how this might affect buffs/timing of double RA. The changes just made this optimization even easier than before as you no longer need to concern yourself with twinblade reapplication or reapplying earlier or later than you usually would. 3) Where I think VPR suffers the most for me is the choice and consequence or complexity of optimization as compared to every other melee (RPR to a lesser degree than the others). Every melee job is forced to optimize around the same things: buff windows/rotational alignment, (melee) downtime, and positionals. Because VPR’s only option for optimization is a solution for downtime that you get for free, will almost never affect your buff windows, and is never a DPS loss, 2 of the 3 challenges are resolved with just one decision: whether to hold or to spend uncoiled differently. A good comparison here is to ninja, which does not have a loop that can be disrupted and also has a few downtime tools like phantom kamaitachi, ration, and suiton, but these are situational or come at a potency cost in the case of ration being used outside of trick or kamaitachi usage potentially forcing a bhava or bunshin’d GCD out of buffs. It gets even worse compared to less flexible/looping jobs like SAM, which may have to now adjust their entire loop because they had to enpi for a GCD causing them to be a GCD behind raid buffs. I think you unintentionally hit the nail on the head at 10:05 when you say that Viper’s depth is fight dependent, not rotationally dependent. That is a detriment to its depth IMO because every other melee has depth dependent on the fight AND the job/rotation itself.
All very good points, thanks for sharing. 1) That's the reality of the changes unfortunately. Double RA is definitely easier to set up - whether or not that's a good thing is up to opinion. I lean towards it being good because it allows for more rotational freedom, and this kinda extends into point 2: 2) The skill ceiling hasn't been met yet, because the very high-end 0.1% opti that the job is capable of is hypthothetical and can really only be tested on paper at the moment. Theres aspects that revolve around Offering management, kill times, navigating true downtime (untargetable), fight specific skill speed opti, differing group strats and compositions, and pot window opti that depends on a lot of factors which I think is pretty unique across the dps - closer to Endwalker non-standard black mage and non-standard reaper. None of these aspects can really be tested right now because all of the available level 100 fights are full uptime. The only downtime presented is just disconnects, which Viper excels in compared to the rest of the melee, and is why it's the best dps job in the game right now. The closest taste that we have for this skill expression opti is in M4S at the 4 minute and 6 minute burst windows, but even then it only scratches the surface because the untargetable downtime is still pretty short. There's also a good amount of opti around Reawaken timings to use the longer recasts of Ouro for similar functions of Vicewinder, of which you have to time it to be exact 11 seconds before it happens - and this timing changes depending on what sks you run. This can also influence positional uptime. Viper also has different sks tiers that sim really close to eachother, one beating the other depending on certain factors. We arer resource positive at base 2.5, and this surplus rises the faster gcd we go and forces more Reawakens - introducing multiple phases with long bouts of downtime creates a challenging puzzle for us to optimize around. We may need a specific sks to generate enough offerings to Reawaken at precise times, whether it's burst windows or some other use. Dawntrail doesn't have any of these kind of fights yet - I'm hoping FRU will be a good environment to test all of this out in. I go back to TOP and DSR for this alot, the problem is we can't test it because level 90 VPR is completely different from level 100 VPR. All of this "testing" is in a spreadsheet, which can only tell so much without needing concrete evidence. Being a job so infinitely customizable is what makes the ceiling still high. Problem is, there's just not a lot to customize around right now. 3) Fully agree. Uncoiled Fury has too much benefit with little to no drawbacks. NG used to keep it in check a little because holding/using it had consequences. Now it's free reign, and a 1,020 potency RANGED ability that we generate 4 times every 2mins shouldnt be free reign, especially when looking at the balance between melee. Actually making a video adressing this as we speak so I'll hold off on specifics - stay tuned ;) And yeah I can agree with you on the depth being a detriment. The only counterpoints I can come up with are extremely rare and specific examples that may or may not work depending on a lot of stuff.
@@jeremyjoyner9796 possibly - think we'd run into the same issues I talked about tho. If the duration is longer than 40s, that also means Dreadwinder would want to be the only thing that refreshes it mathmatically speaking. And it would lose that complexity that people liked from deciding between steel/dread fangs Idk man, Nox just limited creativity when optimizing fights. Definitely give it a shot - the job flows very well and is very fun if you like high apm. My only gripe with it is how Rattling Coils are only spent on Uncoiled Fury
I liked viper before and I like it now. I like how the combo flows now by going through the two openers and I agree with you on being able to more easily work around vicewinder to have stacks of rattling coil available for disengage. I did enjoy the bit of decision making on when to use dreadfangs or dreadwinder to extend noxious gnash, but at times that felt a bit clunky. I’m just happy it’s still a fast job that switches between fast dual weirder attacks and slower twinblade attacks, and I appreciate that like ninja I have the option to disengage if needed.
I think you bring up some really great points, especially about why vicewinder suddenly felt empty after the changes due to optimizing for Nox. From what I've seen so far, people's opinion on the job changes seem to come down to a few different things. If you're a giga-casual then the change is good no matter what. If you're a high end raider, it depends on if you like optimizing to the job or to the fight, or both. FF14 fights are all scripted and easy to execute on loop forever, and the jobs also become that. For me, the fun in a job is learning to play it at the highest level in hard fights, which comes AFTER learning the job, and AFTER learning the fight, then combining the two. Nox optimization added one extra step to reach that end-goal, so when they removed it, they moved the goal-post for players like me. For people who don't really care about optimizing the job to the specific fight, and just want to clear, this is obviously a good change, since its one of the top DPS classes that requires zero thinking outside of double reawaken and UF usage, and double reawaken just becomes muscle memory anyways. I disagree with your feelings towards the VPR changes but great video.
Good points for sure, thanks for watching and commenting - wish I saw your video before I made this so I could've included it. XD After thinking about it a bit and talking with some of the Balance mentors about it over the last couple of weeks, I'd disagree that it moved the goal-post as you said, but rather kept it around where it was by enabling additional opti that otherwise would've been either impractical or impossible to do with Nox. Alot of the opti now falls in the prep before the fights with spreadsheeting and adjusting skill speeds in order to gain something. 2.12/2.11/2.10/2.09 each have their own differences that sim really close to eachother but beat eachother depending on kill time, fight mechanics, and whether or not they can perform different pot windows, like Triple UF or even Triple Reawaken at 2.10 (2.11 can still do it but less of a gain than 2.10). I reference M4S alot for this kinda stuff because it's the only fight of the 4 that can make a bunch of small adjustments to better opti the fight, and your whole rotation can change depending on what projected kill time you're going for or if/when the group holds 2mins anywhere. Also need to see what it'd look like in FRU. All of the fights are full uptime this tier not counting the 16ish seconds in M4. We'll have to be more mindfull about Vicewinder and UF usage, and there's even potential for dead zoning or moving Reawakens around for whatever reason. I'd like to think this was one of the main reasons why the dev team voted to remove it, but that's huffing copium a bit. I liked Nox and wish we at least got to try it out for a tier, but I'm enjoying the spreadsheeting and pre-fight prep I can do now.
As a casual player that does not raid, the changes didn't seem all that big to me, I was worried that the rotation would change, but I was relieved that everything that I knew about stayed the same. Mind you, I don't use food or pots or anything like that. Basically to me, Viper is the first job that feels so smooth and intuitive that I can play it without looking or checking on my hotbar. As a casual I use my 30 second charge ability on cooldown and my 1-2-3 rotation when it's not available. Other melee jobs like samurai, reaper, ninja, monk, etc all seem super complex. Viper doesn't seem like it has any weaving outside the 30 second charge, in which, the weaves light up letting me know what to press! It feels at least to me, super oonga boonga press button that lights up :)
I wanted a dual sword class forever and taking NG away was not going to take me off the job. At first, it felt really bad and im sure thats the impression people walked away with if they left the job right after the change. But as i got used to it, it felt more natural and i could focus on other aspects, like fight design and uptime/hitting every positional and where and how to spend my coils and my vicewinders etc. It wasnt as detrimental to the enjoyment as i originally felt right after the change dropped but it was weird to get used to. Actually, my biggest issue is viper under 90. It feels like the most incomplete job without reawaken and most of its kit. Not only is it extremely weak but it also feels bad in lower level content. Most of the time i can handwave away how incomplete jobs feel beneath current expansion but Viper actually needs some changes to it imo. Its to the point id almost rather go anything else if its not 90+ content despite it being my favorite job in 14 ever.
Elephant in the room? Yes, Dragoon is in my name, it has been for years, but DT made me a Viper player because of aesthetics and job fantasy, it's fast, fun, flashy, and hits a lot of key notes for things I like. As for actual gameplay, I was initially against the removal of Noxious until I thought about upcoming ultimates and even some current fights like Valigarmanda EX where you were forced to save a dreadwinder for the adds phase or lose 10% damage until you could get around to starting your combo again, and the same for when feathers dropped on the arena, the reason the debuff "works" on Reaper is because Shadow of Death is it's own standalone GCD independent from it's combo structure, which is where Viper's fell apart, even having Dreadwinder became mildly tedious to manage for the soul purpose of upkeep on noxious. But as someone who's been prog'ing M4S? Thank GOD i don't have to manage noxious with how diabolical that fight timing feels.
Also, something I want to put into the conversation: regardless of duration, Death's Design is able to be put on and not break any combos the reaper needs to do on his rotation, but for viper, it's necessary for him to put up Noxious Gnash thorough a combo, and he had a stack to put it more duration on it, while reaper can do it basically for free, without locking him out of combos and such. (I think the only restraint here for RPR is you need to use Gibbet/Gallows after Blood Stalk/Unveiled Gibbet/Unveiled Gallows(
Most level headed Viper video coming from an actual Viper main, appreciate your thoughts! Although not the best Viper player myself (I prefer Samurai) I did enjoy Noxious Gnash, but I could see how much of a pain in the ass it would of been to use it when a boss disengages you, only to come back and you have to enter the 2-minute burst window, maybe they could of rectified this by making Dreadwinder just apply and cap out the debuff at 40 seconds? But maybe that would just accomplish the same result we got from Patch 7.05
Thank you! Love your stuff. I don't think changing Dreadwinder to set the duration at 40 would change much of how the job played in 7.0 - it would just allow 1 less use of Dread Fangs per cooldown. It'd also feel kinda weird because you'll always have to overcap by some degree unless you're able to press it under 1s left on the duration. If you let the debuff drop entirely to get the full 40s value, then you lose the 10% damage on Dreadwinder which sucks. Optimizing around this would also lock the cooldown at specific places in the rotation again. Dunno - tricky thing to get right, which is why I think the right call was to remove it as much as I hate to say it. And I like the EW Monk-esque replacement with the alternating combo starters now, but kinda wish they gave us something more unique.
@@VerraXIV Yeah that's totally fair and I appreciate the write up! And thank you! Your videos helped me grasp the job before it was even released and that was really helpful to me!
Bro this whole video is viper job fantasy. What people forget it viper is a monster hunter frist , with the viper title being a metaphor. So it becoming more adaptable to fighters fit more imo. Also feels like were getting tought by a master viper in a job quest when watching this xD
Man you nailed every point in the head for me and 9:25 is probably the best quote to ever describe VPR The job is just such a different experience in fights like m4s and even m3s and it’s a rush to see what you can get away with Every decision in m4 comes together at the canon phase disengage Did you have enough Coils? Did you reapply your buffs so you can smoothly double Reawaken? Remember to not drop your combo starter? I really do wish the job had a defensive though. There are times where if I don’t bloodbath I just fall over
discussions about job designs in XIV is generally very depressing and demotivating because ppl don't want to consider anything outside their perspective, which is ofc the only truth. This video goes the extra mile on finding why something has changed while starting, from my understanding, in a negative opinion of the changes and finds something, as such it deserves a praise. I wish more ppl did this because I feel more ppl would become happier in knowing why something is the way it is.
I was perfectly ok with us losing nox, my biggest complaint is how they also changed dread fangs and steel fangs. I liked the decision making process of "do i reapply buff/debuff with a lower potency attack, or forego that in favor of a higher potency attack". If they had kept that I think the changes would have been perfect
Very methodical video and I appreciate you waiting and seeing before reacting to the changes. I've accepted them at this point though I still wish we had nox personally as someone who likes the very high end spreadsheety kind of optimization. My biggest annoyance was the patch they chose to do it on and I definitely feel like they should have given us at least a tier on the job and changed it before the ultimate if the general perception was nox being too annoying.
I'm not sure if I agree with the idea of rotation build around ng shifting to rotation around fights, I do feel that with it's removal there's a building the fight specific rotation for optimizations is a bit too easy. Right now there isn't a melee that captures the spinning plates feel of EW Monk, launch Viper captured a bit of that feeling and I'm sad to see it removed and a reduction in the skill ceiling.
I agree - loved EW monk and loved 7.0 Viper. But if I think about it, the spinning plates feel of NG didn't really have enough of a "reward" where it did on Monk. Kinda hard to compare now since we never got the chance to play with NG on fights like M3S and M4S that take a lot more resource planning. Don't think the EXs demonstrated a lot of resource juggling - only the 6min burst on EX2, but didn't really have to extensively plan for that like you do in M4S.
I still love it, a fc mate of mine thought the job was butched when NG was removed but I felt like it was more free to do what you wanted with it because you didn't have to babysit the debuff.
I preferred 7.0 Viper more because it felt like there was something to master. Nox gave that potential failure state that I could become better at avoiding no matter what level I was playing at, compared to now where the experience is really empty and boring once you get synced down and even in savage fights for me. It makes me more worried that eventually in an effort to try and make jobs accessible, they'll remove the whole point of why different jobs exist in the first place with them having nothing unique or nuanced to get people interested in a specific job. Aesthetically it's still fun for me to play but it definitely doesn't feel like a "Viper" anymore which really sucks.
Its weird becaude i saw the title of this video and I was like, wow thats a hot take(and i dont play viper, its just the other side is SO vocal). Then i look at the comments and see much more agreement than expected haha
VPR is probably one of the worst class designs in the game, because I needed a guide to even know how the main combo worked, specially when did the positionals appear and which were each. All the information was heavily obfuscated due to the nature of "actions you cannot put on your hotbar", despite how the actual concept is much easier to understand. Now, this is me, and I'm not a bad player but let me ask you; what is your average Catzy Purr'nyan@Louisoix gonna pull? How is that gonna reflect on the damage data, experience of the player and anyone that plays with him? Add to that the problem with AoE being tedious when it's what you're mostly gonna spam until 100 and you have a recipe for disaster. Removing Noxious Gnash has nothing to do with developer intentions, it's just a band-aid fix to the skill issue _(accentuated by all the above)_ of the average player. Removing the failstate of the class just made it so VPR has nothing to think about during all the fight but save coils to disengage _(without losses)_ compared to every single other melee except perhaps NIN, and therefore jump automatically to the top. VPR being so easy and so strong makes it so literally playing any other melee, probably casters too, feel unrewarding as a whole. Look up at PF and tell me how many parties have a VPR, because I lost the count; it's a bad joke. In the current state, the job needs to be nerfed to the ground _(and yes, NERFED, not others buffed because they already broke the entire tier damage checks because of PCT being so frontloaded)_ or reverted, because it breaks the entire system and will force VPR-or-bust parties if they fix damage checks for the next tier.
Totally agree with you on the balance aspect of this. My argument was more in line with job identity and "fun" of the job. For what Viper can do with Uncoiled Fury and how easily and often it can do it, it already puts it miles ahead of any other melee, even NIN. Add on the fact that UF does an absurd amount of damage for basically free, the job is completely broken. Uncoiled Fury is the problem, regardless of Noxious Gnash's existence. When they do eventually nerf this job, I think the total UF potency (oGCDs included) need to be halved at least, and maybe a slight nerf to the dualwield combo gcds. Having a hard-hitting resource that we have to actively spend to not overcap because we generate so much of it, and *also gaurentees full uptime on a melee job* is unbalanced. It's really fun to play with, but it has no business being nearly 1,000 potency. For the health of the game I hope this ability either gets the hammer or, ideally, reworked. Maybe not reworked, but using it should have drawbacks. Rattling Coils could be used for so much more. This was one of my initial disappointments when the job was released - that it wasn't used for anything else. If we had other resources that spent these coils other than just UF, then UF becomes more scarce and its use more deliberate.
@@VerraXIV I agree that Viper is fun don't get me wrong; it has a nice flow aesthetically, feels good performance-wise and it's also relatively easy to pull off. However I think the discussion around it's balance does also raise some pretty good points about class identity; most jobs feel like they have a weakness you have to play around, and in most cases you're rewarded for doing so. That's what people remember. Jobs like Black Mage or Monk wouldn't be the same if they didn't have very restrictive movement and a big payoff, Bard wouldn't be the same without song tweaking, Ninja if you could move during Ten-Chi-Jin. The way that Viper breezes through everything and has a better payoff just hammers in the point that there's nothing going for it, since you cannot delve deeper. Compare this to what would it feel to play caster if Summoner was just way ahead of the game despite being the most consistent _(and simple)_ job. I don't mind easy jobs, they have a place in the game; however I don't think they had that in mind at all when designing it. The true loss is one of the things you mention in the beginning of the video, how it feels _very odd_ that they changed the entire gameplan just before Savage released, never giving it a chance to shine and perform like it should have; a top-DPS dealing class with a constant minigame playing off. _*I also completely agree_ that UF feels very non-commital, like there is something missing.
For me, I think Noxious and Death's Design are fine. They are essentially the equivalent of other jobs having DoTs. With a Damage over Time, you want to activate it as soon as possible and keep it active. If you view Noxious and DD as being Viper and Reaper's equivalents of DoTs- ones where their potency equals 10% of all other actions used during its uptime, it's a much more appealing concept. For Reaper, DD doesn't even break combos and can be extended up to 60 seconds, making it much easier to manage than your average DoT. Viper has a lot to manage, so I can understand the stress people were feeling from it. But it really did harm the job's overall skill expression. It's still a fun job and one of my favorites to play, but I wholeheartedly stand on the side that the debuff should have been kept in. Viper is in a stronger place now for less effort, so it's not a bad change for people who want to use the job to excel for less management. But I personally liked the complexity.
Well... That's the point. NG did not add complexity since it reduced the way you can optimize Viper. More options also means more ways to screw up. So less options means less ways to screw up. So, if anything, the removal of NG is actually adding complexity to the job and every player that like complexity should like the removal of NG as it goes in the right direction.
The mechanic did not add complexity by itself. It's the resource management as a whole; and they made it easier, just like they did Black Mage. It's more accessible and healthier, sure. But for the people who enjoyed having more of a challenge and have the hard work pay off, it was great. That's why I preferred it to stay in. Anyone who's played jobs with DoTs know how to manage the uptime of a timed debuff. The rotation keeps the other buffs up just fine. You only really needed to keep an eye on them if you were doing double (or god forbid Triple) Awakening, where they could easily drop off. Extending the timer of each without removing Noxious would have been sufficient. Just gve them 60 seconds like Death's Design. Viper is in a healthier place, but it's much less engaging now. You don't have to pay attention to anything but the glowing buttons now. It all lines up perfectly. You mainly just have to watch that you don't overcap Uncoiled Fury. What Viper really suffers from right now is weaving, especially during bursts. It's extremely difficult to time weaves with Viper due to how interactive its burst phase is. Unless you time a mitigation during the initial cast of Awakening, you aren't able to properly weave for at least 5 (albiet quicker) GCDs. Reaper's Enshroud works similarly, but they have it easier to weave since they only have 2 required weaves tied to their burst. It gives flexibility for raid buffs and mitigations. And even that isn't really a _problem,_ so much as a "wish we could optimize here" deal. Having mitigations cover two mechanics is easier than ever, so Viper can still cover the core mechanic they're mitigating just fine. It just has trouble covering multiples with proper alignment.
I feel like it's not noxious gnash is a bad thing, more like how viper applies noxious gnash itself. it needs to be more free, but not as free as RPR to keep its complexity a bit, like Vicewinder or Vicepit combo doesn't breaks if you use something else (your combo, reawaken), so you can apply it, use something else like reawaken, and then do the remaining combo. Reawaken also should extends NG on every enemy that got hit by reawaken's damage by 10s, just like WAR's Inner Release. It's such a very simple rework, but Instead of working around it, they decided to remove it completely.
so I think you said it yourself, if the fights are boring as viper then viper becomes boring ergo the default game state is kinda boring. The back to back reawakening combos feel kinda repetitive with nothing in between and the rotation as you've also mentioned plays itself. Uncoiling fury is the single best melee uptime tool in the game which kinda removes the need for optimizing a lot of this fights or greeding uptime like you would most melee jobs. Viper doesnt even really have a buff window to fit them in outside of a few seconds of pot due to their gauge rotation being so long. Other melee jobs have to adjust to having to deal with heavy downtime where as viper kinda gets to play the same way in each fight.
one thing that kinda confuses me is when you say viper difficulty is based on the fight when basically every job is like that to some degree. Sam especially you have to count how many GCD's you you missed by disengaging from the boss and using enpi and adjusting your rotation based on where you are. meanwhile viper just need to use UF or vicewinder for longer gcd uptime or reawaken to be omni positional. like its not bad by any means but def is significantly easier ever since the changes imho.
Unless I misspoke, I didn't really say it became more difficult, it just became more enjoyable imo because we get to use our resources more creatively to navigate more difficult content. Nox kind of limited our choices on what we could do depending on where we were in the timeline and the remaining duration. And true, every job has that degree of optimization with downtime, mechanics, etc. Viper definitely has the best time with these moments with its toolkit.
and i feel like there was more that they could've done more than just remove the debuff entirely maybe extending it from 20-40 to 30-60. idk but it just feels they gave up on the idea entirely instead of fixing it
yeah my stance on the debuff removel is exactly the same as you at first i was like "ok thats bad but at least they didnt make it braindead job" (as they said they will but then when the release the svg patch they changed their mind) but then when i play it i think removing it actually is better here is why : i will speak about dsr and top gameplay as they where the only hard content u can do viper rotation on since the different between 90 and 100 viper is not massive so starting with top : when u start phase 2 and u can cleave the 2 bosses you will have to hit thise bottons reawaken>first generation>uncoil fury from here you cant hit both u get the debuff which then cause u to need to apply the debuff but ofc that will come after u finish your reawaken without it then its continue with the rest of phase 2 as you have to switch target on dsr you could keep your buffs (hast and dmg) for almost all the fight except when going to phase 7 but the problem comes again the debuff as you sometime when killing a boss and going to the other u dont have the deadwinder combo and u find yourself in the roation at the second or thind step comco so you will finish the combo on the new target then apply the debuff which felt bad , ofc as i didnt dive deeply on viper maybe some of the things im talking about could be managed better but thats as far as i can speak
The biggest problem with the VPR changes is IMHO , like you said, the timing. We are in a FFXIV point where job changes and job design are being done with oversemplification in mind and everyone is wondering where this game will end up in a few year. Even if the changes, in the grand scheme of things, are positive, getting a (new) class changed ON the savage patch after a lot of cry about "difficulty" and after having a new expansion with basically 0 ( Yeah Nada, Nisba, ZERO) changes to the classes will wire the discussion on what is actually missing in FFXIV right now and not on the "good" things said changes brought. Oversemplification of Jobs, oversemplification of mechanics, game systems, eck even Oversemplification ( or complete removal some might say) of the MSQ 's Active Gameplay! ( DT was a fucking visual novel) are what the problem is about. But alas the majority of paying player are seemingly not interested in such things and the game direction will follow. Im now just sad the only game with content like XIV is WoW and nothing else, we could really use a competitor tbh.
@@EternaLaw00 Good conversation topic. I know Yoshi mentioned bringing back job identity in 7.2, but oversimplification is definitely a line they need to be careful with crossing. I hope future MSQ patches are more active as well. I'm one of the seemingly very few that enjoyed Dawntrail, but it definitely was a movie instead of a game.
@@VerraXIV Sadly, the 7.2 timing was confirmed by Yoshi-P to be a misunderstanding at the start of the 82th live letter, so we will have to wait longer
another excellent video. I agree with basically everything you said. Im a huge fan of adaptability, and im very much a fan of changes that support that. hopefully the comments can be civil about this XD
Viper rotation is a mess you need to look at the gauge all the time and actions are so chaotic,you need to focus on them instead of the actual fight. I think I hate this job. People saying it’s so easy are actually playing good or what??
How to play viper 101: 1. Do opener 2. Spend Vice 3. Retain buffs Optimization: 1. When to coil 2. When to burst 3. When to pot depending on kill time very fun with viper this tier
You might want to pin this, but: most are agreeing that the real reason Gnash got removed was because of the buff/debuff overload from TOP were abilities were dropping due to too many buffs/debuffs being there and causing some to just drop. While that may not sound fair, remember it was a big controversy when TOP was current. As for Gnash, its more a wound than a venom, so to me, that was a weak argument in favor of flavor. So what it really boils down to is what players like, and if people liked debuff management, they would just play Reaper, which I think all these things plus player sentiment is why they chose to let it go. It also helps explain why they backtracked on positionals, despite promising to remove some or all despite that being mentioned and not Gnash. At this point it is up to the individual player on whether or not they like the changes, but saying the changes are bad just because you don't like them is an incorrect stance. From a game creator perspective, having many people like a change over a few people disliking it is a win, and while that can be bad in some cases, designing a game to cater to a small crowd can also kill your game. Look at Helldivers 2, most players just want to goof off and kill hordes of enemies with their besties, but instead of focusing on that, they would rather nerf weapons to keep artificially increasing difficulty for the handful of people who like it. Now imagine if they continued with that method, do you know where Helldivers 2 population is at? Less than 10% of the peak amount of players they had playing at once on Steam. That's bad, that's REALLY bad. I feel like too many players think "what I like">"what is good for the game" one single person does not pay for the whole of FF14. So each person deserves a class they can at least play to some extent. As for class identity, please ask Xeno, or any hardcore player, how that went in Heavensward, spoilers, but it went tragically. Many had to stop playing their favorite class because it was awful in the raiding scene, something that continued into early Stormblood. Class identity only works if it doesn't cause the class to become a non-pick in raiding content, otherwise it is a hindrance. This wouldn't be as much of an issue of gear could change to match the job, but since each job needs gear specific to it's small groups, then it is REALLY hard to justify excluding certain classes from raiding. Ultimately, if you want a class in the future to have debuff management, I would HIGHLY advise looking into creating class ideas that would make it work naturally in the class and be the focus. To me though, as long as the class is fun, I could care less about these details. Thanks for reading!
@@xL0stKIlah People keep saying it's the top players parsing, but then also claim its the casuals, which is it? You can be mad about the change, but blaming players is hilarious, the devs made the choice, get mad at them.
@@xL0stKIlah AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Going strong? Buddy, as an ex-WoW player, the LAST thing I would use to describe WoW is "Going Strong". Ok, goodbye Mr. Delusional.
Interesting perspective, thanks for sharing. It's definitely a fine line that the devs have to walk to get stuff like this right. I think they peaked in Shadowbringers with job identity and balancing after learning from their mistakes in Heavensward and Stormblood - but it still had its balancing issues. But the imbalance was targeted at speedrunners and the top 0.1% of players creating specific comps that synergized well together that was able to blast through the fights when optimized together. But this was after the tier had been progressed and gear farmed. The fights were still clearable with any job and any comp in the first few weeks. I may be huffing the copium here, but with Viper and even Picto being so customizable, I wonder if this is foreshadowing the return of Shadowbringers-esque job design.
@@VerraXIV Yeah, Shadowbringers design is kinda fun, but let's not forget that many classes still function VERY similarly to how they played in Shadowbringers, just with more OGCDs to weave. But if we could rewind ninja back to Shadowbringers I would be immediately happy, they just massacred that class.
I think they won't change it because its the most played job in the game right now, lol. Why change it when so many people love it? I dislike Viper, but that's ok. i dont need to like every job in the game =/
People don't love it... People play it because it's gigabroken, requires less ability than any other melee and can shorten the gap between a bad player and those minimum 21k rDPS needed for savage.
Real question that’s completely unrelated to the viper topic, what are Rinon’s pronouns? You refered to them as he/him in this video but everything about their presentation screams fem. I’ve checked twitter and stuff but no luck, I really like their content and don’t wanna be rude 😢 This isn’t a gotcha or me scolding you btw, does anyone genuinely know what their preferred pronouns are?
The Job is still good. Sure they removed a dot. What ever...... This is just like how High end players in WoW act with changes. The high end players of FF dont want an actual good melee job being opened to more casual players. Viper unlocks the ability for more casual players to actually be able to do harder content. It has the easiest rotation ever, does very good dps, honestly its hard to die on it since you have 2 charges for your gap closer.... People need to fking relax, You still have Monk, Sam, Dragoon, and Reaper to claim which all have their more complex rotations and most of them can outperform most vipers anyway. Its a good change. Dot management is always garbage and always will be. People that like it like to use it to gatekeep others or trash talk uptime %'s.
As a midcore player, the Viper changes made me realise exactly why it is that I like some jobs' DoTs and debuffs and not others, because I'm fine with Bard's DoTs for example (I'm not always completely on top of maintaining them, but I'm fine with them) and also don't mind Reaper's Death's Design, but I didn't really like Noxious Gnash. And what I realised is, debuffs that I can throw in whenever I need to (albeit at the cost of a GCD) to maintain them are fine, but I don't like ones that are side-effects of core rotation abilities and thus force you to plan your rotation around them *all the time* (for example if your rotation is thrown off by having to dodge a mechanic) rather than just working out where they should slot into an ideal rotation.
Also, all debuffs are kind of annoying when it comes to adds or mob packs, but for single-target ones like Bard's DoTs I mostly just don't bother applying them in those cases, and for AoE ones, again, you can throw it in whenever with something like Death's Design, but for Noxious Gnash it was always really irritating to have adds join the fight in the middle of a combo, meaning I was kind of stuck doing hits on them without them being debuffed before the rotation cycled back around. And for all that I am not super into optimising my rotation, knowing a DPS loss like that was happening *outside of my control* felt... not great. Actually worse than knowing I'm losing DPS through my own fault, weirdly enough.
Basically I like some complexity in combat but not too much, and to me, maintaining Noxious Gnash felt like a bit too much. Either way, Viper quickly became a melee DPS I actually enjoy playing both before and after the change, and as someone who doesn't hate but also doesn't super love any of the previous melee jobs, that's all I really hoped to get out of it.
Finally, in the name of balance, one thing I do dislike about the Viper changes is: there was absolutely no reason to rename the abilities????
My only gripe with the change is that i dont like the name changes. Dread Fangs, Pit of Dread, and Dreadwinder are better names than Reaving Fangs, Vicepit, and Vicewinder
nah fr 😭 dread goes so much harder
How? It's just dread 3x and sounds like an edgy teenager made them up.
@breakthecode4634 if you can't tell the difference between good and bad edge, why are we even talking?
For me it's simple. The job was fun before the change and for me it's still fun. For me, job aesthetics are awesome and I personally am still having a blast. Did it need more than a month before they made changes? Yes it did. Is the job still fun? Also yes so. . . .ok I guess???
As a midcore player (I've got some extreme and savage experience, but never on a long-term regular basis) who doesn't like Death's Design as a concept, I've warmly welcomed the removal of Nox and Viper feels so much better to play for it thanks to the gained flexibility. Nox felt like a drag before, pulling the actual fun parts of the job down. For instance, it felt bad anytime a new enemy appeared and you were already in the middle of a big combo. Reawaken is supposed to be your big flashy reward, but whoops, if the boss suddenly went into adds mode while you're in the middle of RA, the rest of it just felt wasted instead of rewarding. It's nice to just... be able to use your cool abilities and enjoy their impact and primary functions in your rotation, rather than using them when Nox lets you do so long enough. I also appreciate the more focused attention the job now requires, now that you don't have to look at the boss' debuffs as much.
Death Design is an idea that has always been cool on paper, but to me has now been a failure when it comes to actual fun twice. Reaper can applies their debuff whenever, but because of that, it feels like an interruption of your actual rotation, and it's still a hassle to make sure you've tagged every enemy in a dungeon pull. Viper tried to the opposite approach of making the debuff a part of the rotation, but what this meant is that it wasn't always available when you might need it, and that felt bad for no fault of your own.
It's a good remark that Viper really becomes fun when the fight is challenging and requires you to think about your tools, otherwise the job does kinda play itself. But that doesn't seem like too much of an issue when DT has clearly adopted the philosophy of making casual bosses reasonably challenging. And there's nothing wrong with an 'easier' melee (I don't personally find the other melees harder by any big extent, but whatever).
So yeah, I didn't hate Nox, it wasn't the end of the world, but I say good riddance to it, and if you ask me, Viper is now the job it feels like it was meant to be.
Nox was bad from the start, I'm glad the devs realized that very soon after launch
And now everyone makes fun of your job being completely fucking braindead
Only issue I have is no personal mitigation with Viper. It would make it feel less like wet paper when you mess a mechanic up or get hit with a raidwide and Feint is on cooldown.
This. I haven't tried yet but I imagine solo deep dungeon with Viper would be true pain
Gotta have a tradeoff for the damage. But it does feel weird
red mage and dragoon would like to talk
@@IyasuHN2 Them too
this is a great video though I want to add something about a comment you made at the start just because something is called viper does not imply poison. viper/snake/cobra are all terms used when used in real world of martial arts is used to imply speed and fluidity as well as pinpoint attacks to vulnerable areas. since gaming cannot really replicate that kind of combat games tend to add stuff like poison to it to simulate the whole death by a thousands cuts nature that a "viper" style would have. its really hard to program say slashing someone tendon and how they would affect their ability to keep fighting.
Even though I mostly play Reaper and don't have much experience playing Viper, I can see why they removed Nox. The duration of the debuff is short enough that there becomes a constant need to work around it rather than working around the enemy. I think extending its duration might have also helped Nox, but just removing it was probably the most optimal solution.
People may still disagree, but I stand on it. I want to adjust to the fight, not to my debuff. However, when you bring this up, people have strokes. I think it’s because they have a preconceived notion that NG made the class worth playing when it would have been a hindrance. Viper is constant damage.
Facts
Some people are just obssessed in gatekeeping jobs. Those people want to keep jobs difficult to play so they can feel better about themselves that they are among the few who can optimally play them. Those people hate SE for making every job accessible to everyone. I enjoyed both versions of the VPR but I have no qualms with those who prefer one over the other, but don't tell me it's for the overall health of the game to keep some jobs with high skill ceilings or the job is no longer fun to play. Why wont they just admit that they want to feel special, then I'd have more respect to those people. I have watched videos on the VPR change with the opposite reaction (brax & rinon), and let me tell you their video are seeping with elitism. Why not play VPR with one hand and a blindfold so those people can feel special and record themselves doing it so they can brag about it on the internet.
This is what I've been saying! I'd rather play the JOB than a TIMER!
When I leveled up the viper at 100 I was not really liking it, I really wanted it to be my new main job, but Noxious Gnash was such an hindrance, and was preventing me to really enjoy the job. What was the point of having the coils, which give such an amazing level of flexibility during disengages, when you had to use them most of the time in a fixed manner to allow noxious gnash to get refreshed just at the right time? Another wasted potential was in the fact that VPR, is able to delay positions thanks to the coils and Dreadwinder/Vicewinder, but since Dreadwinder also refreshed the debuff you couldn't really use it to delay your positionals. Also during some dungeons where you had to switch between different single targets, like the final boss of Alexandria, refreshing the gnash was definitely the worst part... It felt so clunky, it's like there was the potential for a class that gave you the freedom to setup amazing burst phases, or prepare for long disengage or non positional windows, without losing any dps... and everything was dulled down by that damn debuff.
I was about to drop VPR and get back to play NIN, but then I heard about the 7.05 changes, and decided to endure a bit more, untile 7.05 dropped... and my god I am so glad I did it. I love VPR now it's exactly how I wanted it to be, it's fast very fast, with amazing mid range capabilities (just like NIN is) and allows you to set up and delay your positionals very easy in case you can't comply them. Is just so fun to play and I am really enjoying it.
You put my exact thoughts into words. Thank you. I was going insane
Extremely grateful that you made this video because I feel like you put forth a lot of the points I've been arguing as well but people just seem to gloss over. One thing that I would add is when you brought up ultimates you mentioned how NG's removal will help with timings and this is so understated by others it's insane, another thing that's really important about this point is in phases like dsr with the meteors where anytime in the future we may have had to deal with multiple enemies like that having to put NG on all of them just to do our optimal damage is abysmal ESPECIALLY when a lot of our kit is already inherently aoe like reawaken and uncoiled fury. I'm not a fan of it on reaper either but at least with reaper they can just press death's design on thordan when he comes back whereas we'd have to plan our whole rotation around very inconsistent meteor death timings because we can't go back in our combo to reapply quickly and dreadwinder being our only other option to get it up instantly, while also dealing with our speed and attack buff it just becomes a mess if they have any phases like that.
Again I'm just really glad you made this video so there's at least one other person bringing up positive points for the removal, even more so because you heavily play viper and I feel like a lot of people who don't heavily play it are gut reacting because the removal on surface level does just make it seem like they're trying to blindly simplify the job for a small amount of people who apparently asked for this, but as you said I think there's still a ton of optimization that can be done with the job and I like your mindset that we get to plan more for the fight as opposed to the debuff which I think is healthier overall
I have a weird perspective in that I got bored of it and dropped it even before Noxious Gnash was removed. I will mostly be talking from a savage perspective, not casual content, and this will be long lol, but interested in your thoughts on these points if you've got the time:
1) As you addressed, Noxious was one of the few things VPR uniquely forced you to think about beyond fight mechanics because of the potency gain of using twinblade > dread fangs whenever off CD and then not dropping the buff, combo string, and finisher buff while in double RA. Now, you hardly need to think about anything at all surrounding double RA.
2) I disagree that the skill ceiling is high and it was never high to begin with. VPR optimization is entirely about when to spend or hold uncoiled due to melee downtime and how this might affect buffs/timing of double RA. The changes just made this optimization even easier than before as you no longer need to concern yourself with twinblade reapplication or reapplying earlier or later than you usually would.
3) Where I think VPR suffers the most for me is the choice and consequence or complexity of optimization as compared to every other melee (RPR to a lesser degree than the others). Every melee job is forced to optimize around the same things: buff windows/rotational alignment, (melee) downtime, and positionals. Because VPR’s only option for optimization is a solution for downtime that you get for free, will almost never affect your buff windows, and is never a DPS loss, 2 of the 3 challenges are resolved with just one decision: whether to hold or to spend uncoiled differently. A good comparison here is to ninja, which does not have a loop that can be disrupted and also has a few downtime tools like phantom kamaitachi, ration, and suiton, but these are situational or come at a potency cost in the case of ration being used outside of trick or kamaitachi usage potentially forcing a bhava or bunshin’d GCD out of buffs. It gets even worse compared to less flexible/looping jobs like SAM, which may have to now adjust their entire loop because they had to enpi for a GCD causing them to be a GCD behind raid buffs.
I think you unintentionally hit the nail on the head at 10:05 when you say that Viper’s depth is fight dependent, not rotationally dependent. That is a detriment to its depth IMO because every other melee has depth dependent on the fight AND the job/rotation itself.
All very good points, thanks for sharing.
1) That's the reality of the changes unfortunately. Double RA is definitely easier to set up - whether or not that's a good thing is up to opinion. I lean towards it being good because it allows for more rotational freedom, and this kinda extends into point 2:
2) The skill ceiling hasn't been met yet, because the very high-end 0.1% opti that the job is capable of is hypthothetical and can really only be tested on paper at the moment. Theres aspects that revolve around Offering management, kill times, navigating true downtime (untargetable), fight specific skill speed opti, differing group strats and compositions, and pot window opti that depends on a lot of factors which I think is pretty unique across the dps - closer to Endwalker non-standard black mage and non-standard reaper.
None of these aspects can really be tested right now because all of the available level 100 fights are full uptime. The only downtime presented is just disconnects, which Viper excels in compared to the rest of the melee, and is why it's the best dps job in the game right now.
The closest taste that we have for this skill expression opti is in M4S at the 4 minute and 6 minute burst windows, but even then it only scratches the surface because the untargetable downtime is still pretty short. There's also a good amount of opti around Reawaken timings to use the longer recasts of Ouro for similar functions of Vicewinder, of which you have to time it to be exact 11 seconds before it happens - and this timing changes depending on what sks you run. This can also influence positional uptime.
Viper also has different sks tiers that sim really close to eachother, one beating the other depending on certain factors. We arer resource positive at base 2.5, and this surplus rises the faster gcd we go and forces more Reawakens - introducing multiple phases with long bouts of downtime creates a challenging puzzle for us to optimize around. We may need a specific sks to generate enough offerings to Reawaken at precise times, whether it's burst windows or some other use. Dawntrail doesn't have any of these kind of fights yet - I'm hoping FRU will be a good environment to test all of this out in.
I go back to TOP and DSR for this alot, the problem is we can't test it because level 90 VPR is completely different from level 100 VPR. All of this "testing" is in a spreadsheet, which can only tell so much without needing concrete evidence.
Being a job so infinitely customizable is what makes the ceiling still high. Problem is, there's just not a lot to customize around right now.
3) Fully agree. Uncoiled Fury has too much benefit with little to no drawbacks. NG used to keep it in check a little because holding/using it had consequences. Now it's free reign, and a 1,020 potency RANGED ability that we generate 4 times every 2mins shouldnt be free reign, especially when looking at the balance between melee. Actually making a video adressing this as we speak so I'll hold off on specifics - stay tuned ;)
And yeah I can agree with you on the depth being a detriment. The only counterpoints I can come up with are extremely rare and specific examples that may or may not work depending on a lot of stuff.
@@VerraXIVcould they not have just increased NGs duration? I’m legitimately asking.
(I don’t play Viper but was considering trying it out.)
@@jeremyjoyner9796 possibly - think we'd run into the same issues I talked about tho. If the duration is longer than 40s, that also means Dreadwinder would want to be the only thing that refreshes it mathmatically speaking. And it would lose that complexity that people liked from deciding between steel/dread fangs
Idk man, Nox just limited creativity when optimizing fights. Definitely give it a shot - the job flows very well and is very fun if you like high apm. My only gripe with it is how Rattling Coils are only spent on Uncoiled Fury
As someone who started the job after the changes, I am glad I do not have to manage dots in a zero addon MMO like FF14 for viper
I liked viper before and I like it now. I like how the combo flows now by going through the two openers and I agree with you on being able to more easily work around vicewinder to have stacks of rattling coil available for disengage. I did enjoy the bit of decision making on when to use dreadfangs or dreadwinder to extend noxious gnash, but at times that felt a bit clunky. I’m just happy it’s still a fast job that switches between fast dual weirder attacks and slower twinblade attacks, and I appreciate that like ninja I have the option to disengage if needed.
I think you bring up some really great points, especially about why vicewinder suddenly felt empty after the changes due to optimizing for Nox. From what I've seen so far, people's opinion on the job changes seem to come down to a few different things.
If you're a giga-casual then the change is good no matter what.
If you're a high end raider, it depends on if you like optimizing to the job or to the fight, or both. FF14 fights are all scripted and easy to execute on loop forever, and the jobs also become that. For me, the fun in a job is learning to play it at the highest level in hard fights, which comes AFTER learning the job, and AFTER learning the fight, then combining the two. Nox optimization added one extra step to reach that end-goal, so when they removed it, they moved the goal-post for players like me.
For people who don't really care about optimizing the job to the specific fight, and just want to clear, this is obviously a good change, since its one of the top DPS classes that requires zero thinking outside of double reawaken and UF usage, and double reawaken just becomes muscle memory anyways.
I disagree with your feelings towards the VPR changes but great video.
Good points for sure, thanks for watching and commenting - wish I saw your video before I made this so I could've included it. XD
After thinking about it a bit and talking with some of the Balance mentors about it over the last couple of weeks, I'd disagree that it moved the goal-post as you said, but rather kept it around where it was by enabling additional opti that otherwise would've been either impractical or impossible to do with Nox.
Alot of the opti now falls in the prep before the fights with spreadsheeting and adjusting skill speeds in order to gain something. 2.12/2.11/2.10/2.09 each have their own differences that sim really close to eachother but beat eachother depending on kill time, fight mechanics, and whether or not they can perform different pot windows, like Triple UF or even Triple Reawaken at 2.10 (2.11 can still do it but less of a gain than 2.10).
I reference M4S alot for this kinda stuff because it's the only fight of the 4 that can make a bunch of small adjustments to better opti the fight, and your whole rotation can change depending on what projected kill time you're going for or if/when the group holds 2mins anywhere.
Also need to see what it'd look like in FRU. All of the fights are full uptime this tier not counting the 16ish seconds in M4. We'll have to be more mindfull about Vicewinder and UF usage, and there's even potential for dead zoning or moving Reawakens around for whatever reason. I'd like to think this was one of the main reasons why the dev team voted to remove it, but that's huffing copium a bit.
I liked Nox and wish we at least got to try it out for a tier, but I'm enjoying the spreadsheeting and pre-fight prep I can do now.
As a casual player that does not raid, the changes didn't seem all that big to me, I was worried that the rotation would change, but I was relieved that everything that I knew about stayed the same. Mind you, I don't use food or pots or anything like that. Basically to me, Viper is the first job that feels so smooth and intuitive that I can play it without looking or checking on my hotbar. As a casual I use my 30 second charge ability on cooldown and my 1-2-3 rotation when it's not available. Other melee jobs like samurai, reaper, ninja, monk, etc all seem super complex. Viper doesn't seem like it has any weaving outside the 30 second charge, in which, the weaves light up letting me know what to press! It feels at least to me, super oonga boonga press button that lights up :)
I wanted a dual sword class forever and taking NG away was not going to take me off the job. At first, it felt really bad and im sure thats the impression people walked away with if they left the job right after the change. But as i got used to it, it felt more natural and i could focus on other aspects, like fight design and uptime/hitting every positional and where and how to spend my coils and my vicewinders etc. It wasnt as detrimental to the enjoyment as i originally felt right after the change dropped but it was weird to get used to.
Actually, my biggest issue is viper under 90. It feels like the most incomplete job without reawaken and most of its kit. Not only is it extremely weak but it also feels bad in lower level content. Most of the time i can handwave away how incomplete jobs feel beneath current expansion but Viper actually needs some changes to it imo. Its to the point id almost rather go anything else if its not 90+ content despite it being my favorite job in 14 ever.
Elephant in the room? Yes, Dragoon is in my name, it has been for years, but DT made me a Viper player because of aesthetics and job fantasy, it's fast, fun, flashy, and hits a lot of key notes for things I like. As for actual gameplay, I was initially against the removal of Noxious until I thought about upcoming ultimates and even some current fights like Valigarmanda EX where you were forced to save a dreadwinder for the adds phase or lose 10% damage until you could get around to starting your combo again, and the same for when feathers dropped on the arena, the reason the debuff "works" on Reaper is because Shadow of Death is it's own standalone GCD independent from it's combo structure, which is where Viper's fell apart, even having Dreadwinder became mildly tedious to manage for the soul purpose of upkeep on noxious. But as someone who's been prog'ing M4S? Thank GOD i don't have to manage noxious with how diabolical that fight timing feels.
Also, something I want to put into the conversation: regardless of duration, Death's Design is able to be put on and not break any combos the reaper needs to do on his rotation, but for viper, it's necessary for him to put up Noxious Gnash thorough a combo, and he had a stack to put it more duration on it, while reaper can do it basically for free, without locking him out of combos and such. (I think the only restraint here for RPR is you need to use Gibbet/Gallows after Blood Stalk/Unveiled Gibbet/Unveiled Gallows(
Most level headed Viper video coming from an actual Viper main, appreciate your thoughts! Although not the best Viper player myself (I prefer Samurai) I did enjoy Noxious Gnash, but I could see how much of a pain in the ass it would of been to use it when a boss disengages you, only to come back and you have to enter the 2-minute burst window, maybe they could of rectified this by making Dreadwinder just apply and cap out the debuff at 40 seconds? But maybe that would just accomplish the same result we got from Patch 7.05
Thank you! Love your stuff.
I don't think changing Dreadwinder to set the duration at 40 would change much of how the job played in 7.0 - it would just allow 1 less use of Dread Fangs per cooldown. It'd also feel kinda weird because you'll always have to overcap by some degree unless you're able to press it under 1s left on the duration. If you let the debuff drop entirely to get the full 40s value, then you lose the 10% damage on Dreadwinder which sucks.
Optimizing around this would also lock the cooldown at specific places in the rotation again.
Dunno - tricky thing to get right, which is why I think the right call was to remove it as much as I hate to say it. And I like the EW Monk-esque replacement with the alternating combo starters now, but kinda wish they gave us something more unique.
@@VerraXIV Yeah that's totally fair and I appreciate the write up! And thank you! Your videos helped me grasp the job before it was even released and that was really helpful to me!
Bro this whole video is viper job fantasy. What people forget it viper is a monster hunter frist , with the viper title being a metaphor.
So it becoming more adaptable to fighters fit more imo. Also feels like were getting tought by a master viper in a job quest when watching this xD
viper is a what now
@@fanumtaxreturn a monster hunter, a viper main job is to take down the most dangerous animals/monster that messing up the area around it.
Man you nailed every point in the head for me and 9:25 is probably the best quote to ever describe VPR
The job is just such a different experience in fights like m4s and even m3s and it’s a rush to see what you can get away with
Every decision in m4 comes together at the canon phase disengage
Did you have enough Coils?
Did you reapply your buffs so you can smoothly double Reawaken?
Remember to not drop your combo starter?
I really do wish the job had a defensive though. There are times where if I don’t bloodbath I just fall over
I feel it would have been better if they move it to serpent tail prog.
discussions about job designs in XIV is generally very depressing and demotivating because ppl don't want to consider anything outside their perspective, which is ofc the only truth. This video goes the extra mile on finding why something has changed while starting, from my understanding, in a negative opinion of the changes and finds something, as such it deserves a praise. I wish more ppl did this because I feel more ppl would become happier in knowing why something is the way it is.
I was perfectly ok with us losing nox, my biggest complaint is how they also changed dread fangs and steel fangs. I liked the decision making process of "do i reapply buff/debuff with a lower potency attack, or forego that in favor of a higher potency attack". If they had kept that I think the changes would have been perfect
Very methodical video and I appreciate you waiting and seeing before reacting to the changes. I've accepted them at this point though I still wish we had nox personally as someone who likes the very high end spreadsheety kind of optimization. My biggest annoyance was the patch they chose to do it on and I definitely feel like they should have given us at least a tier on the job and changed it before the ultimate if the general perception was nox being too annoying.
I'm not sure if I agree with the idea of rotation build around ng shifting to rotation around fights, I do feel that with it's removal there's a building the fight specific rotation for optimizations is a bit too easy. Right now there isn't a melee that captures the spinning plates feel of EW Monk, launch Viper captured a bit of that feeling and I'm sad to see it removed and a reduction in the skill ceiling.
I agree - loved EW monk and loved 7.0 Viper. But if I think about it, the spinning plates feel of NG didn't really have enough of a "reward" where it did on Monk.
Kinda hard to compare now since we never got the chance to play with NG on fights like M3S and M4S that take a lot more resource planning. Don't think the EXs demonstrated a lot of resource juggling - only the 6min burst on EX2, but didn't really have to extensively plan for that like you do in M4S.
Great video dude!!
I still love it, a fc mate of mine thought the job was butched when NG was removed but I felt like it was more free to do what you wanted with it because you didn't have to babysit the debuff.
I preferred 7.0 Viper more because it felt like there was something to master. Nox gave that potential failure state that I could become better at avoiding no matter what level I was playing at, compared to now where the experience is really empty and boring once you get synced down and even in savage fights for me. It makes me more worried that eventually in an effort to try and make jobs accessible, they'll remove the whole point of why different jobs exist in the first place with them having nothing unique or nuanced to get people interested in a specific job.
Aesthetically it's still fun for me to play but it definitely doesn't feel like a "Viper" anymore which really sucks.
Its weird becaude i saw the title of this video and I was like, wow thats a hot take(and i dont play viper, its just the other side is SO vocal). Then i look at the comments and see much more agreement than expected haha
VPR is probably one of the worst class designs in the game, because I needed a guide to even know how the main combo worked, specially when did the positionals appear and which were each. All the information was heavily obfuscated due to the nature of "actions you cannot put on your hotbar", despite how the actual concept is much easier to understand.
Now, this is me, and I'm not a bad player but let me ask you; what is your average Catzy Purr'nyan@Louisoix gonna pull? How is that gonna reflect on the damage data, experience of the player and anyone that plays with him? Add to that the problem with AoE being tedious when it's what you're mostly gonna spam until 100 and you have a recipe for disaster.
Removing Noxious Gnash has nothing to do with developer intentions, it's just a band-aid fix to the skill issue _(accentuated by all the above)_ of the average player. Removing the failstate of the class just made it so VPR has nothing to think about during all the fight but save coils to disengage _(without losses)_ compared to every single other melee except perhaps NIN, and therefore jump automatically to the top. VPR being so easy and so strong makes it so literally playing any other melee, probably casters too, feel unrewarding as a whole. Look up at PF and tell me how many parties have a VPR, because I lost the count; it's a bad joke. In the current state, the job needs to be nerfed to the ground _(and yes, NERFED, not others buffed because they already broke the entire tier damage checks because of PCT being so frontloaded)_ or reverted, because it breaks the entire system and will force VPR-or-bust parties if they fix damage checks for the next tier.
Totally agree with you on the balance aspect of this.
My argument was more in line with job identity and "fun" of the job. For what Viper can do with Uncoiled Fury and how easily and often it can do it, it already puts it miles ahead of any other melee, even NIN.
Add on the fact that UF does an absurd amount of damage for basically free, the job is completely broken.
Uncoiled Fury is the problem, regardless of Noxious Gnash's existence. When they do eventually nerf this job, I think the total UF potency (oGCDs included) need to be halved at least, and maybe a slight nerf to the dualwield combo gcds.
Having a hard-hitting resource that we have to actively spend to not overcap because we generate so much of it, and *also gaurentees full uptime on a melee job* is unbalanced. It's really fun to play with, but it has no business being nearly 1,000 potency. For the health of the game I hope this ability either gets the hammer or, ideally, reworked.
Maybe not reworked, but using it should have drawbacks. Rattling Coils could be used for so much more. This was one of my initial disappointments when the job was released - that it wasn't used for anything else. If we had other resources that spent these coils other than just UF, then UF becomes more scarce and its use more deliberate.
Thanks for this comment. This got my brain cooking.
My coils rattling, if you will
@@VerraXIV I agree that Viper is fun don't get me wrong; it has a nice flow aesthetically, feels good performance-wise and it's also relatively easy to pull off. However I think the discussion around it's balance does also raise some pretty good points about class identity; most jobs feel like they have a weakness you have to play around, and in most cases you're rewarded for doing so. That's what people remember. Jobs like Black Mage or Monk wouldn't be the same if they didn't have very restrictive movement and a big payoff, Bard wouldn't be the same without song tweaking, Ninja if you could move during Ten-Chi-Jin. The way that Viper breezes through everything and has a better payoff just hammers in the point that there's nothing going for it, since you cannot delve deeper.
Compare this to what would it feel to play caster if Summoner was just way ahead of the game despite being the most consistent _(and simple)_ job. I don't mind easy jobs, they have a place in the game; however I don't think they had that in mind at all when designing it. The true loss is one of the things you mention in the beginning of the video, how it feels _very odd_ that they changed the entire gameplan just before Savage released, never giving it a chance to shine and perform like it should have; a top-DPS dealing class with a constant minigame playing off.
_*I also completely agree_ that UF feels very non-commital, like there is something missing.
For me, I think Noxious and Death's Design are fine. They are essentially the equivalent of other jobs having DoTs. With a Damage over Time, you want to activate it as soon as possible and keep it active. If you view Noxious and DD as being Viper and Reaper's equivalents of DoTs- ones where their potency equals 10% of all other actions used during its uptime, it's a much more appealing concept. For Reaper, DD doesn't even break combos and can be extended up to 60 seconds, making it much easier to manage than your average DoT.
Viper has a lot to manage, so I can understand the stress people were feeling from it. But it really did harm the job's overall skill expression. It's still a fun job and one of my favorites to play, but I wholeheartedly stand on the side that the debuff should have been kept in. Viper is in a stronger place now for less effort, so it's not a bad change for people who want to use the job to excel for less management. But I personally liked the complexity.
No it didn't and needless complexity is stupid glad it's gone
Well... That's the point. NG did not add complexity since it reduced the way you can optimize Viper. More options also means more ways to screw up. So less options means less ways to screw up.
So, if anything, the removal of NG is actually adding complexity to the job and every player that like complexity should like the removal of NG as it goes in the right direction.
The mechanic did not add complexity by itself. It's the resource management as a whole; and they made it easier, just like they did Black Mage. It's more accessible and healthier, sure. But for the people who enjoyed having more of a challenge and have the hard work pay off, it was great. That's why I preferred it to stay in. Anyone who's played jobs with DoTs know how to manage the uptime of a timed debuff. The rotation keeps the other buffs up just fine. You only really needed to keep an eye on them if you were doing double (or god forbid Triple) Awakening, where they could easily drop off. Extending the timer of each without removing Noxious would have been sufficient. Just gve them 60 seconds like Death's Design. Viper is in a healthier place, but it's much less engaging now. You don't have to pay attention to anything but the glowing buttons now. It all lines up perfectly. You mainly just have to watch that you don't overcap Uncoiled Fury.
What Viper really suffers from right now is weaving, especially during bursts. It's extremely difficult to time weaves with Viper due to how interactive its burst phase is. Unless you time a mitigation during the initial cast of Awakening, you aren't able to properly weave for at least 5 (albiet quicker) GCDs. Reaper's Enshroud works similarly, but they have it easier to weave since they only have 2 required weaves tied to their burst. It gives flexibility for raid buffs and mitigations. And even that isn't really a _problem,_ so much as a "wish we could optimize here" deal. Having mitigations cover two mechanics is easier than ever, so Viper can still cover the core mechanic they're mitigating just fine. It just has trouble covering multiples with proper alignment.
To be honest I didn't feel the change, I'm still doing the same burst window the same has I was doing in patach 7.0
Yep! Only difference in the rotation is you have more gcd freedom in the off minute windows, and setting up the burst windows is more forgiving
I feel like it's not noxious gnash is a bad thing, more like how viper applies noxious gnash itself. it needs to be more free, but not as free as RPR to keep its complexity a bit, like Vicewinder or Vicepit combo doesn't breaks if you use something else (your combo, reawaken), so you can apply it, use something else like reawaken, and then do the remaining combo. Reawaken also should extends NG on every enemy that got hit by reawaken's damage by 10s, just like WAR's Inner Release. It's such a very simple rework, but Instead of working around it, they decided to remove it completely.
Creative solution - this would have been fun. Thanks for sharing
so I think you said it yourself, if the fights are boring as viper then viper becomes boring ergo the default game state is kinda boring. The back to back reawakening combos feel kinda repetitive with nothing in between and the rotation as you've also mentioned plays itself. Uncoiling fury is the single best melee uptime tool in the game which kinda removes the need for optimizing a lot of this fights or greeding uptime like you would most melee jobs. Viper doesnt even really have a buff window to fit them in outside of a few seconds of pot due to their gauge rotation being so long. Other melee jobs have to adjust to having to deal with heavy downtime where as viper kinda gets to play the same way in each fight.
one thing that kinda confuses me is when you say viper difficulty is based on the fight when basically every job is like that to some degree. Sam especially you have to count how many GCD's you you missed by disengaging from the boss and using enpi and adjusting your rotation based on where you are. meanwhile viper just need to use UF or vicewinder for longer gcd uptime or reawaken to be omni positional. like its not bad by any means but def is significantly easier ever since the changes imho.
Unless I misspoke, I didn't really say it became more difficult, it just became more enjoyable imo because we get to use our resources more creatively to navigate more difficult content. Nox kind of limited our choices on what we could do depending on where we were in the timeline and the remaining duration.
And true, every job has that degree of optimization with downtime, mechanics, etc. Viper definitely has the best time with these moments with its toolkit.
and i feel like there was more that they could've done more than just remove the debuff entirely maybe extending it from 20-40 to 30-60. idk but it just feels they gave up on the idea entirely instead of fixing it
yeah my stance on the debuff removel is exactly the same as you at first i was like "ok thats bad but at least they didnt make it braindead job" (as they said they will but then when the release the svg patch they changed their mind) but then when i play it i think removing it actually is better here is why : i will speak about dsr and top gameplay as they where the only hard content u can do viper rotation on since the different between 90 and 100 viper is not massive so starting with top : when u start phase 2 and u can cleave the 2 bosses you will have to hit thise bottons reawaken>first generation>uncoil fury from here you cant hit both u get the debuff which then cause u to need to apply the debuff but ofc that will come after u finish your reawaken without it then its continue with the rest of phase 2 as you have to switch target on dsr you could keep your buffs (hast and dmg) for almost all the fight except when going to phase 7 but the problem comes again the debuff as you sometime when killing a boss and going to the other u dont have the deadwinder combo and u find yourself in the roation at the second or thind step comco so you will finish the combo on the new target then apply the debuff which felt bad , ofc as i didnt dive deeply on viper maybe some of the things im talking about could be managed better but thats as far as i can speak
I liked the 7.0 viper, i stopped playing viper after doing some savage since it's boring when you have nothing to adjust in the fight
The biggest problem with the VPR changes is IMHO , like you said, the timing.
We are in a FFXIV point where job changes and job design are being done with oversemplification in mind and everyone is wondering where this game will end up in a few year.
Even if the changes, in the grand scheme of things, are positive, getting a (new) class changed ON the savage patch after a lot of cry about "difficulty" and after having a new
expansion with basically 0 ( Yeah Nada, Nisba, ZERO) changes to the classes will wire the discussion on what is actually missing in FFXIV right now and not on the "good" things said changes brought.
Oversemplification of Jobs, oversemplification of mechanics, game systems, eck even Oversemplification ( or complete removal some might say) of the MSQ 's Active Gameplay! ( DT was a fucking visual novel) are what the problem is about.
But alas the majority of paying player are seemingly not interested in such things and the game direction will follow.
Im now just sad the only game with content like XIV is WoW and nothing else, we could really use a competitor tbh.
@@EternaLaw00 Good conversation topic. I know Yoshi mentioned bringing back job identity in 7.2, but oversimplification is definitely a line they need to be careful with crossing.
I hope future MSQ patches are more active as well. I'm one of the seemingly very few that enjoyed Dawntrail, but it definitely was a movie instead of a game.
@@VerraXIV Sadly, the 7.2 timing was confirmed by Yoshi-P to be a misunderstanding at the start of the 82th live letter, so we will have to wait longer
@@shard4155 sadgies
another excellent video. I agree with basically everything you said. Im a huge fan of adaptability, and im very much a fan of changes that support that. hopefully the comments can be civil about this XD
Viper rotation is a mess you need to look at the gauge all the time and actions are so chaotic,you need to focus on them instead of the actual fight. I think I hate this job.
People saying it’s so easy are actually playing good or what??
I love Viper. Main Issue i will have until they change it, is the Idle Animations. The Running Animations are something else...
How to play viper 101:
1. Do opener
2. Spend Vice
3. Retain buffs
Optimization:
1. When to coil
2. When to burst
3. When to pot depending on kill time
very fun with viper this tier
You might want to pin this, but: most are agreeing that the real reason Gnash got removed was because of the buff/debuff overload from TOP were abilities were dropping due to too many buffs/debuffs being there and causing some to just drop.
While that may not sound fair, remember it was a big controversy when TOP was current.
As for Gnash, its more a wound than a venom, so to me, that was a weak argument in favor of flavor. So what it really boils down to is what players like, and if people liked debuff management, they would just play Reaper, which I think all these things plus player sentiment is why they chose to let it go.
It also helps explain why they backtracked on positionals, despite promising to remove some or all despite that being mentioned and not Gnash. At this point it is up to the individual player on whether or not they like the changes, but saying the changes are bad just because you don't like them is an incorrect stance.
From a game creator perspective, having many people like a change over a few people disliking it is a win, and while that can be bad in some cases, designing a game to cater to a small crowd can also kill your game. Look at Helldivers 2, most players just want to goof off and kill hordes of enemies with their besties, but instead of focusing on that, they would rather nerf weapons to keep artificially increasing difficulty for the handful of people who like it.
Now imagine if they continued with that method, do you know where Helldivers 2 population is at? Less than 10% of the peak amount of players they had playing at once on Steam. That's bad, that's REALLY bad.
I feel like too many players think "what I like">"what is good for the game" one single person does not pay for the whole of FF14. So each person deserves a class they can at least play to some extent. As for class identity, please ask Xeno, or any hardcore player, how that went in Heavensward, spoilers, but it went tragically. Many had to stop playing their favorite class because it was awful in the raiding scene, something that continued into early Stormblood.
Class identity only works if it doesn't cause the class to become a non-pick in raiding content, otherwise it is a hindrance. This wouldn't be as much of an issue of gear could change to match the job, but since each job needs gear specific to it's small groups, then it is REALLY hard to justify excluding certain classes from raiding.
Ultimately, if you want a class in the future to have debuff management, I would HIGHLY advise looking into creating class ideas that would make it work naturally in the class and be the focus. To me though, as long as the class is fun, I could care less about these details.
Thanks for reading!
@@xL0stKIlah People keep saying it's the top players parsing, but then also claim its the casuals, which is it?
You can be mad about the change, but blaming players is hilarious, the devs made the choice, get mad at them.
@@xL0stKIlah AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Going strong? Buddy, as an ex-WoW player, the LAST thing I would use to describe WoW is "Going Strong".
Ok, goodbye Mr. Delusional.
@xL0stKIlah from my perspective ppl like you ruin the game. Hope this helps
Interesting perspective, thanks for sharing.
It's definitely a fine line that the devs have to walk to get stuff like this right.
I think they peaked in Shadowbringers with job identity and balancing after learning from their mistakes in Heavensward and Stormblood - but it still had its balancing issues. But the imbalance was targeted at speedrunners and the top 0.1% of players creating specific comps that synergized well together that was able to blast through the fights when optimized together.
But this was after the tier had been progressed and gear farmed. The fights were still clearable with any job and any comp in the first few weeks.
I may be huffing the copium here, but with Viper and even Picto being so customizable, I wonder if this is foreshadowing the return of Shadowbringers-esque job design.
@@VerraXIV Yeah, Shadowbringers design is kinda fun, but let's not forget that many classes still function VERY similarly to how they played in Shadowbringers, just with more OGCDs to weave.
But if we could rewind ninja back to Shadowbringers I would be immediately happy, they just massacred that class.
I didn't like it before, I don't like it now. Makes me sad as a melee DPS player that the new job feels gross to me
@@xL0stKIlah 7.0 kneecap the shit out of monk
That’s cuz people are dumb
I think the main thing wrong with Viper is that it doesn't have a disengage lol
Or a personal defensive CD
@Tyrbris viper philosophy is kill it fast enough, and you won't need a defensive 🤣
but it has the strongest semi-spammable ranged attack from any melee in the game, which is extremely useful in the current tier
Uncoiled Fury IS a disengage, and not only that it's a GAIN on it's disengage.
@@GmansGuitarGamza massive one
I think they won't change it because its the most played job in the game right now, lol. Why change it when so many people love it? I dislike Viper, but that's ok. i dont need to like every job in the game =/
People don't love it... People play it because it's gigabroken, requires less ability than any other melee and can shorten the gap between a bad player and those minimum 21k rDPS needed for savage.
@creepypato3984 I disagree. There are quite a few meta slaves for sure. But most people play what they enjoy.
Real question that’s completely unrelated to the viper topic, what are Rinon’s pronouns? You refered to them as he/him in this video but everything about their presentation screams fem. I’ve checked twitter and stuff but no luck, I really like their content and don’t wanna be rude 😢
This isn’t a gotcha or me scolding you btw, does anyone genuinely know what their preferred pronouns are?
your voice is far too low so im out
hi out im dad
The Job is still good. Sure they removed a dot. What ever...... This is just like how High end players in WoW act with changes. The high end players of FF dont want an actual good melee job being opened to more casual players.
Viper unlocks the ability for more casual players to actually be able to do harder content. It has the easiest rotation ever, does very good dps, honestly its hard to die on it since you have 2 charges for your gap closer....
People need to fking relax, You still have Monk, Sam, Dragoon, and Reaper to claim which all have their more complex rotations and most of them can outperform most vipers anyway.
Its a good change. Dot management is always garbage and always will be. People that like it like to use it to gatekeep others or trash talk uptime %'s.