I finally decided to give the job a chance leveling it, and honestly I'm not sure whether or not this is a hot take, but I'm finding it completely shallow and uninspired.
At first it looks decently complex, but once the branching combos get into muscle memory, it seems that there's not much else going on. To me Viper is what the current encounter design would be if it was a job - predictable patterns that become trivial once mastered, then all that's left is just visual candy, which has some merit - it's cool to see it in action, but after a while, it just feels a bit hollow.
I also have the feeling that every creative juice went into Pictomancer and whatever was left applied to Viper, excusing the similarities with Reaper. Honestly when the Fanfest showed it, the action trailer let me to believe that Viper would be stance-based (fast dual wield versus slower 2h) that rewarded decision making, but in the end that is purely visuals, and barely noticeable with how fast it goes.
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At first it looks decently complex, but once the branching combos get into muscle memory, it seems that there's not much else going on. To me Viper is what the current encounter design would be if it was a job - predictable patterns that become trivial once mastered, then all that's left is just visual candy, which has some merit - it's cool to see it in action, but after a while, it just feels a bit hollow.
I also have the feeling that every creative juice went into Pictomancer and whatever was left applied to Viper, excusing the similarities with Reaper. Honestly when the Fanfest showed it, the action trailer let me to believe that Viper would be stance-based (fast dual wield versus slower 2h) that rewarded decision making, but in the end that is purely visuals, and barely noticeable with how fast it goes.
Continue reading...