in this video I talk crap about the job changes to viper from the critically acclaimed mmorpg final fantasy xiv with new expansion Dawntrail
i stream ff14 sometimes https://twitch.tv/braccs
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#braxophone #dawntrail #ffxiv
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7:04 i meant to say between shadowbringers and dawntrail but u know what i meant >:(
I didn't mention triple awakening but yes technically it's possible under pots. The thing is, it hasn't been shown in practice (yet) to be optimal and doesn't take nearly the same amount of optimization as keeping up a debuff for an entire fight that has many instances of forced UF and downtimes. I love when the TC community comes up with wacky things that could work like that though.
Yeah viper losing the debuff felt bad, i rather they just removed the positional rather than that. Honestly i don't know why devs keep changing classes people like for the sake of the complainers that dont like the job, i miss my summoner, my old main pre EW rather than this braindead lego class that it's now
You know what annoys me the most about the Viper changes?
Because it's not the loss of the DoT. I agree with you that it was more thematic, and I don't think it needed to be "easier" in the first place. But no. What annoys me is that my STARTERS light up on my bar now. It's super distracting. "Press me now" and it's the fucking AoE starter while I'm finishing up my Dreadwinder combo.
Personally, I don't mind classes being braindead simple. I also don't mind classes being complicated. But I DO mind if a class that is one or the other shifts 100% to the other. Summoner being the prime example. I play Summoner now because I like braindead rotations. But I feel like it was a huge slap in the face to players who picked up Summoner because they liked its two minute rotation.
call me a 1st grader but I really enjoy Viper
So, i was one of the people 😮who thought the job on launch or after the range boost patch was great and didnt need changes. So i understand where people are coming from with that. But i always wanted a dual sword job and that aesthetic so im willing to keep playing it. Its still my favorite job. I do think something is missing and they did take something they shouldnt have away.
But ill keep maining it. Maybe it can get some more good changes later this expansion or in 8.0. But whether it does or not, i still like the speedy dual sword feel gameplay wise and aesthetically even if its not as fun as before. I also have savage raided etc so im no stranger to that and am raiding the tier now. Heavensward was the complexity expansion and it almost killed the game even if it was fun. So i doubt they will ever course correct to any insane degree or come anywhere near close again sadly.
I just started this job new, and finally got the rotation down. What the actual fuck man. :/
I only do various normal content, and I feel less mentally interested even in the content I do. Class is just too dull now.
Hundred percent agree. If they were hard set on getting rid of something, I would have rather them remove the positional requirement on the dreadwinder combo rather than remove noxious gnash. It just feels different now.
I feel you, I see jobs becoming easier as a pain. Especially when looking at SMN.
There's nothing wrong with having easy jobs. You shouldn't lobotomize existing jobs to make them as such. And likewise, its fine having 'hard' jobs.
Hell this is the first update for SAM that actually feels like a positive change in a while so I feel your sentiment hard.
Hear me out a little bit, as it's a bit of a rant from me.
I used to be a Monk main. From Heavensward to the end of Endwalker, I played despite all the gutting and continuous changing they did to the job. It felt like every single expansion, we either had to relearn how to play the class completely because of crappy added gimmicks (My seething hatred of Anataman and having to line up the server ticks to do optimal damage), or had what made the class fun removed entirely. We lost Greased Lightning upkeep, we lost stance changes (Fist of Fire, Wind, Etc) and now more recently, positional and the last little bit of upkeep we had with Twin snakes and Demolish. Monk has 2 positional now. And zero upkeep. What we got in exchange was a weird burst feature that you couldn't even blow your big move until the 1 minute mark at best, meaning while everyone was doing their first 30 seconds of their opener, your big finishing move had to wait until one additional charge of , and another derpy system that tried to railroad the way we did our combos. When Dawntrail launched, I looked at the class, looked at the new system, and dropped it.
When I saw Viper had several positional (Arguably more than Monk despite 2 of the positional being basically tied to the 2 moves that are always either flank or rear in your combo.) As well as an upkeep system to some capacity, I was ecstatic because I haven't had the fun of these things since they've decided to continue to change Monk every expansion. I was annoyed when I saw that they were changing Viper and taking away the Noxious Gnash ability debuff that we had to use as our upkeep. I watched a lot of the community dogpile anyone who was disappointed by the removal of this, saying it was better for the class, and that the change didn't mean anything because you could spam Dread Fang (Now changed to Reaving Fang) to keep your debuff up…..kay, but you SHOULDN'T as it had less potency than Steel Fang (At the time)
It felt like if you wanted to optimize your damage, not only did you need to do your positional correctly (Even when spamming TN you'll still have to do them at some point) upkeep your self buffs, time your reawakens with tincture windows so you could maximize your reawakened damage, and still make sure in between that, your Noxious Gnash stayed up without spamming Dread. It was fun and felt rewarding. Unfortunately, I still would hear people say "It's just ungabunga mash glowy buttons" but it was more than that if you were looking to optimize the abilities. I feel like this was a "Loudest wheel got the oil" change. And it felt like this was more for casual players, than the dedicated ones. (This is just my personal opinion.)
Overall, my agitation is that it starts with this small removal. Next they will add some stupid buff gimmick and remove the buffs we have. Then the positionals. Until it literally is just "Press the glowy button" class, and eventually ends up exactly like how Monk has been these past several expansions. (Where they have zero idea what to do with the class anymore) I feel like people want to do big damage these days, but don't want to have to put in as much thinking to do the damage. It just sucks.
'member cleric stance?
I have no right to throw my opinion on the class because of my lack of knowledge and I just enjoy Brax's general opinions about it.
However there's one major factor as a… Ahem person that is in the more in the know nitty gritty portions of programming of the game… Cough
The debuff maintenance might have been axed because of the buff/debuff limit on actors in general. Such as the issues of stuff just not applying to bosses/players.
They've been removing dots a lot in the game due to that limit causing issues. Just a small factor to consider. I don't have anything else relevant to say other than this very small factor from the dev's side.
SMN, DNC and VPR are the most fun classes in the game. Also the easiest. Not a coincidence. I like to have mechanically complex fights and simpler classes.
They did the equivalent of getting rid of kaiten. 7.05 made a lot of people, myself included, a former viper main.
I am an extremely lost former smn main because i cant play it anymore cause its no fun and im struggling to find a class i like to play now. bard is decent i suppose, machinist feels fun but also worries me because i AM having fun with it and its a bit more complicated so i feel as though its going to get hit with simplification beam next………im almost too scared to play a class that isnt braindead stupid easy already……….but i wanna have some fun with it………auuugh
I am very unskilled at the game, so I tend to play the "braindead" (or at least, just on the simpler side) classes. WHM, DNC, RDM and Endwalker SMN. I don't really tank, but when I do I use WAR. Now I have Viper… but it feels almost too simple, even for me.
they reworked viper before i could even try it out
Honesty, my biggest issue is how random and chaotic the next series of button presses are.
Like for the basic three hit combo, I can’t tell what the next required attack is going to be until I look down at it or at the sword bar. The first set is easy, it’s usually one button three times, but the next set could be mixing two together.
What they should have done is make them all a one button press series, doing three attacks one after another on one button. As it is, I can’t focus fully on the enemies and have died from it a few times before since I can’t pay attention to the boss, keep up with the randomness of it, and plan out my next series of attacks. So I can’t rely on muscle memory like I can with my other classes because of it.
Keep in mind I’ve been playing for years and have maxed out most DPS and all of the Tank classes, so I’m not really new to the game overall.
There is also how some of the other attacks work that irks me, but since u can’t remember their names (I never can honestly for any attacks! 😂), I can’t really go into them.
I also play on console with a controller, which helps me commit the attacks into muscle memory since I use logic in the button layout. Like for Viper, if the right blade is glowing, I use the basic attack on the right side, if it’s left I use the left button. Things like that.
Perhaps I need to look into my button layout again and see if I can improve it anymore to make it feel less clumsy.
wait wtf, braxophone? ffxiv??!?
which timeline is this
a new job thats only been out for at least a month is better to change early in its life than later during the expansion and the core of the job is attacking fast not the debuff.
What skin is that for your viper blades?
I said some of these same things earlier this week. The job does more damage, but at cost of skill expression. They took from the fun and skill ceiling to make the job accessible. Now it's one of the easier jobs to play. The resources aren't difficult to manage now; the class just gives the illusion of being difficult. It's basically turned into a "Simon Says, High Reward" job now that you don't have to keep Noxious debuff up. Your personal buffs are easy to keep up; your Awakening gauge is easy to build and use in burst phases; and making sure you don't cap on Uncoiled Fury to make sure you have it for disengage is the only thing you need to watch. Next it's just Simon Says + Flank/Rear alteration.
Square Enix removing essentially the only thing you really could mess up on Viper is hilarious but yet very on par for their decision making in recent years
I said this in a discord call with a few friends: The Viper changes in practice don't change a whole lot as far as efficacy or anything like that. But on paper, I find them incredibly cringe/concerning. Square, I would like to have the ability to make decisions when I play the video game.
8:15 Hello! may I introduce you to Dark Knight my friend
If the class is dead, why play class? Because the class isn't dead, you are just crying over nothing.
Wait Brax plays XIV?
1000% agree, how you gone take poison smh
wtf I didn't know you played ffxiv, noice. Also… Picto supremacy!!!!
Gnash was never once something you had to think about… outside of the odd fight where youre forced to have downtime for 6-8 seconds. The rotation literally sets you up for burst to happen when you had enough time on gnash.
Respectfully, if someone has to actively think about gnash that speaks way more about the player than the job.
Shadowbringers:"Man these newbies don't understand how DRK was different 2 years ago in old expansion"
Dawntrail:"Man these newbies don't understand how VPR was different month ago in old patch"
They have this thing of weakening jobs to elevate another one. Like hollowing out sam to bring up rpr. Or kicking blm in the nuts for pct to shine and let's not forget drk got repeatedly screwed just for war and now pld to shine.
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This version of Viper is superior to the previous only in that keeping a debuff up neither increased or decreased the skill cap or damage potential of the job (because of the combos added), meaning their damage was good enough to not need to be buffed like SAM and MNK. With pictos essentially being the baseline for their balancing numbers, seeing no real change to Viper means the job is still really fun to play and isn't being ruined by ridiculous community outcry about its difficulty or lack thereof.
All in all I believe the "Viper is dead" motif is something mostly shared by reset junkies addled on dopamine and isn't really shared by the vast majority of actual players.
Yeah I kind of agree one reason why I liked nauseous gnash was that it flowed into the rotation naturally and it was easy for me to maintain it whereas I always felt that the reapers damaged thing that I can't remember the name of felt clunky to put in because it wasn't attached to a combo and it was a one-off thing
Unironically why i dropped melee this tier and went for bard, all the melees feel really dumbed down over time and nothing to optimize other than uptime.
BRAX XIV CONTENT?! Sign me up, man.
Hot Take: Players (who dont raid savage)'s opinion on how something plays is just as vaild and important as players who do raid savage.
I 100% agree with you. For me, the "best" part of Viper, which has from the beginning been a rather brain off class, was how well everything was structured around the timer on the Noxious Gnash. You could really optimize your potencies and burst windows by not overcapping. It still wasn't difficult, but it kept it engaging in a way. When they took that away, they removed that structure, and now it's just "press button when button available, profit". Not every class needs to be complex or difficult, but to pivot so hard, so fast feels entirely reactionary on the devs' part, and I feel like it does a disservice to their design philosophy, as well as the players.
The best thing about it now is that I can focus on learning mechanics without losing DPS, because I don't have to think about what I'm doing next on my rotation.
Our friend in background is so cool and such a vibe 😂
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this. The poison management was a nice bit of skill expression and felt good in the brain. Wasn’t HARD as such, was just something more to do.
I see these as valid points. I'm just a hyper casual so ez pz is great for me (I also play MCH lol) But my main role is tank and I play GNB so I understand it's weird for this new job to get mechanics removed. Feels like a disservice to long term players. I haven't played Picto but is it hard to play? Curious because I wonder if they're reasoning is they want a hard and easy job released? I still wouldn't agree though. Especially since they aren't the same category of DPS.
The only reason viper was ever hard, is because the tooltips were absolutely useless. Once you figured out how the basic rotation worked, it is actually a pretty easy and fun class to play with the exception of optimization. Easy to play, hard to master. Which is what I love in a class, and I am really sad that noxious gnash was removed. I still very much enjoy the class, but I'll be huffing on copium hoping that they re-add it in a future patch, like samurai players have been since the removal of Kaiten.
All I see are samurai nerfs, how is it loaded
That feeling of "keeping engaged" during filler is so important for a class like Monk and the change from buff/dots to literal balls really killed the job for me, even after they brought back the old 1-1-2 format for combos. I was huffing on that copium for a bit during launch but after doing a couple of EX runs with MNK I could feel the boredom setting in during filler. No longer did I have to think about buffs and dots and which gcd should I enter Perfect Balance on while upkeeping those timers and how downtime or use of Six-Sided Star would interact with those timings.
Now I play RPR and I'm having a ton of fun in savage. (Irony being I used to think that EW RPR was a job that played itself and was boring compared to the other melees, but now there's more optimization to think about in RPR than my EW mains MNK and DRG. I still love DRG tho <3)
the devs are so god damn afraid to allow players to make mistakes, to me they kinda lost their way after the game exploded in popularity and are now making " a game for everyone " although that might be SE at their back telling them to do so, still the game ( and most of the playerbase ) is more braindead then ever and they are stuck cause they cant take the risk to make big changes without everyone whining