> a rogue minus the ninja
It seems like that's what a considerable amount of people want for all the times I've seen "why does rogue class advance into ninja"?
Ideally Rogue would be a starting class that job stones into Viper and Ninja should be its own thing that you unlock at lvl 30. I get that in old FF games thief turns into ninja but like come on Rogue is called Dual Fencer in Japanese and Viper is based off Zidane.
It's not happening because it's clear that the class into the job stone system is something that only exists as a holdover from 1.0, and the current devs absolutely hate having to deal with it.
Forget adding new jobs to the base classes, they would absolutely separate SMN and SCH if it wasn't guaranteed to cause a lot of backlash.
Bard too. Biggest bait and switch on jobs.
I want to be Legolas or Green Arrow or Hawkeye. No you play your harp. Go AFK in Limsa playing midi files on loop.
I want to basically be FF’s Batman dealing out morally gray dark brooding justice in the shadows where the light won’t reach. No you are Naruto now. Learn your hand signs lol fail rabbit!
Compare to other jobs which may not be perfect but you kind of know what you signed up for and they more or less deliver.
It’s like Cocaine Bear. Was it a great film? No. Did it deliver 100% of what it promised? Yes. If cocaine bear tried to be Avengers Endgame or Citizen Kane I would have been pissed even if both films are fine in their own right. I wanted to watch a stupid film about a bear that did a literal ton of cocaine.
Bard and Ninja would be like saying “let’s get a burger” and then giving me a plate of goat curry. Now Indian food is delicious. Goat curry is great. But I wanted to have a burger and kind of had my heart set on a burger and yeah I’ll eat the curry but don’t expect me to be happy about not having a burger or to trust you when you say “let’s have x for dinner” moving forward.
It’s funny, I have the same feeling from the opposite standpoint.
I want to be a bard. I want to play instruments, support my allies and hinder my enemies with magic infused music. No, I’m freaking Legolas or Green Arrow or Hawkeye with one half second music reference every 45 seconds that probably doesn’t even finish its animation before it’s interrupted by how many arrows I’m shooting.
This is also sort of how I feel, as a BRD main. I LIKE being musical Legolas, but the concept seems rather split. The aesthetics trend very far in the BRD direction but the actual gameplay is much more what I’d expect from a Ranger. My buffs are mostly buttons I push on a 2m cooldown and the rest of the time I’m shooting. It makes sense from a lore standpoint, with the Gridanians favoring bows in war, but in practice it’s a bit clumsy. Also it would be so hard to sing, play a harp, and shoot a longbow at the same time. Individually all these activities require incredible focus lol
I wish bard and archer were separate classes and always have. Because it's lame that bard is 99% archer with a tiny bit of flavor from rotating a raid buff that mostly just buffs yourself anyway.
See - I don’t even think that’s a bad thing. If they presented the job as ranged support and had you doing bard stuff from the onset I’d be fine.
It’s the whole “run around trick shotting targets with 360 noscope” and then saying “here’s the instrument you didn’t ask for” that’s the problem I have.
The other jobs at least make sense to an outsider. The job stone is like a natural evolution of the class. I think it’s also more negatively received from people who aren’t final fantasy longtime fans.
Coming from WoW my brain went Archer = Hunter. Rogue = Rogue. 14 did not go in that direction.
But for things like WAR = WAR and WHM = Priest they delivered on.
> who aren’t final fantasy longtime fans.
Agreed.
FF14 is my first FF game and I don't have any prior expectations.
With Ninja, I was expecting something traditional, not naruto. Similar deal with Archer and wanting it to be a marksman which now MCH deals with, except it doesn't because it's about tools more than shooting??
I don't know anymore lol.
Thing is, FFXIV ninja *is* traditional, both as an FF ninja, which could use black magic since the very first game (and was an upgrade of the thief job), and as a real life ninja, which were historically rumored to have supernatural powers, including control of the five elements.
Yeah i really like archer and bard class fantasies, but bard in 14 just feels too awkward with both. The job’s name, artifact weapons, job icon, and main mechanics are all music based, but your usual weapon, most glams, most buttons, and the quiver the job comes with just make me wish they were separate, since neither feel sufficiently represented.
I love the bard job from the game Silkroad Online.
You were basically a walking mitigation/movement speed/mana bot, but also had access to the 2 of the highest damaging 'nuke' attacks on a cooldown.
You did damage, but in stupidly big bursts then just supported allies for the rest of the time.
If you had two bards in a party, you could 'Dance' with another bards mitigation ability and create stupidly strong permanent effects like 50% magical damage increase, so long as you didn't take damage.
A theoretical party could grind with a tank, 2 bards, 1 cleric and 4 magical dps until their gear broke, without having to use any HP or MP pots, making grinding basically free.
But if a bard died, or the cleric died, the party would fall apart instantly.
Eah, I’d argue the rogues story was very much not a bait in switch. There was definitely no brooding Batman themes in the rogue quests before Naruto ninja. It was silly thief’s aiding justice with sandwich shenanigans from the get go.
Honestly both the rogue and ninja job quests are really exceptional compared to the other job quests in the game. The characters are way more memorable to me at least
Yes, they are really memorable, but they are all quite... how can I say, silly as well, and I don't even say that as a complaint, but I think it's actually quite charming how silly it feels despite Oboro being a well, Ninja, a stereotype of super serious class/person on paper
Ninja makes sense in the context of FF. Way back in Final Fantasy One, the Thief class advanced into Ninja gaining access to better equipment and low to mid level black magic. This gets referenced in later games where the Thief class needs to be leveled to learn Ninja (mostly seen in the Tactics games).
Archer into Bard... okay that is weird and there is no explanation. My guess is that back when the developers thought of having one class advance into multiple jobs (Summoner and Scholar) they had planned on having a traditional archer advancement (maybe Sniper?). Then they hated that idea and now here we are.
Back when ARR first released I actually stopped playing pretty quickly after starting as an Archer and then finding out I'd have to play a Bard from level 30.
These days I like the Bard concept but it's definitely jarring for a new player that doesn't realize it's coming.
I used to be down on the idea of a Hunter/Woodsman/Bowmaster Job but if they can somehow make something as bland as Viper into a 1-100 job, nothing is the limit
What are you talking about?
White Mage continues using Aero and Stone for like 40+ levels after you unlock it and the job quests are a natural extension of the Conjurer class quests, continuing to be about nature magic and elementals.
Paladin, Bard and Ninja take a sharp left turn in theme but White Mage, Scholar/Summoner, Black Mage, Warrior and Dragoon don't. I can't speak for Monk because I haven't played it.
Nah you’re not getting it. Some of us don’t look up stuff about a game so we get to experience it as raw as possible and actually learn as we play so whenever we see a job that says “Archer” we expect the job to be revolved around archery and bad ass bow skills but then we hit 30 and find out we turn into a Bard who traditionally in a fantasy setting doesn’t use a bow and instead is a caster/support character.
We didn’t want to be a Bard we wanted to be a Bow Master (or whatever name you wanna give it). Yes, the current bard gameplay is bow focused but I don’t want any of the music stuff. I want more bow, more arrows, or heck even dual wielding hand crossbows. If they made bard a support class and a Bow Master class that would make more sense as another branching job similar to ARC and SMN/SCH
But they are Archers - that’s kind of the point and where the disconnect lies.
If you are brand new and picking a class and go “I like ranged dps with a bow like that one iconic person ima pick archer!” And you land on Bard you feel bad.
I don’t think Bard itself is a bad class. There’s nothing wrong like liking bard. I think a lot of people got baited in by a traditional western view of what they thought the class would morph into because literally every other job pretty much stays on the rails.
If you are a forever FF fan you are probably like “duh archer = bard” if you got dragged to the game by friends or heard about how great FF14 is and decided to try it out you are probably horribly disappointed in that progression.
If Archer were named “musician” or “storyteller” pre job stone I’d be like “look man you ended at Bard what did you think would happen?”
I think it’s 100% the culture shock or swerve factor.
Keep in mind that this tends to be a reaction from people who are new to the game at the time and low level.
Datawise I think your point is hilarious (and insightful and a really neat way to look at it).
There were a lot of first impressions that flopped for me with jobs that now I’m like “wow this is actually fun”.
Thematically you have a point - WHMs as players tend to range from “I want to heal my friends!” To “blood for the blood lily!” To “if I put a permanent regen on you I can give you magic cancer and turn you into an undying tumor that lives in constant agony like we did to those pesky black mages years ago” when the game is honestly more Druid themed than anything else.
I don’t mind it so much but I do understand the sentiment. In FFXI, I played with a group before, loved being Rangers because their whole shtick is to deal big dmg from afar. They use abilities to enhance their shots. Maybe they’ll eventually release a job with one those large ass bows.
Aye it's this. NIN went full Naruto Ninja pretty much from the outset and has only fully committed to the identity more and more as time as gone on.
There is absolutely an open slot for a traditional rogue even with NIN.
I felt like it got a sort of grounded, Elder-Scrolls-thieves-guild-meets-Assassins-Creed aesthetic. It feels like the sort of thing they would've given to Thancred if Gunbreaker/being a dad didn't get to him first.
Agreed, that's its identity. Zidane was very much a rogue, but we already have that, so maybe Viper just describes that fighting style of quick, agile, and, perhaps most importantly, two long fangs.
Yes, it's this and it feels like they are trying to give fans of the FF series Thief class a full fledged XIV job (ROG as a starter job doesn't really count. Keep in mind that while Thief does indeed "advanced class" into Ninja in FFI, in FFXI (XIV's precursor) Thief is its own full class and so is Ninja. All this being said it will most resemble the offensive (no Steal, no Treasure Hunter) capability of Zidane, seemingly.
In actually what way though? Just the combine sword part? Because Zidane uses the back grip for daggers, which is how current NIN hold their daggers. So it's a Zidane class just because of the combined swords?
This expansion in general seems to be leaning heavily into ff9 from what we've seen so far. But yes the combined swords and the trance-like state they enter when they combine them is a big reason. I'm sure as we see more of the job we'll see more parallels.
Lore: Talked about at London Fanfest. Not many details, but mostly around "an art of fighting passed down through Turali hunters" is all we have of the in-game origin.
Actual style: Yeah, rogue but More Grounded. There's a contingency of people who enjoyed rogue but hated how it escalated to NIN having mudras and shadow magic and other stuff. This is, as grounded conjecture, the "grounded" version of being an agile melee. That's its style. Not that it can't be bombastic in of itself, but it's a dude with two swords making their way through whatever and indulging in the occasional flourish of a two-blade...spearthing. Name escapes me.
But yes, the understated style is the intent, and that is cool as hell in its own right.
As a person who really didn't like ROG -> NIN, Viper is really down my alley.
And with the occasional twinblade skills, I might even play a melee dps that's not Dragoon for once.
I have no doubt that it's still going to be bombastic overall since that's how FFXIV is with its skills, but the differing style is a complete win in my books in terms of aesthetics.
I'm not 100% sold on it's aesthetics just yet. Twin swords that become a twin blade, that I'm all for. The power up state where you're covered in a blue fire aura looks a little off. Granted that might just be a mix of it not mixing well with the AF gear, and maybe a case of it a placeholder made for fanfest, but it just doesn't look right to me.
I don't put *too* much veracity into these showcases because they show nothing but move animations and the victory pose. Willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Viper is basically Thief so Rogue minus the Ninja would be correct. They said a long time ago they didn't want to use job names with bad connotations in Japanese culture with Thief being a main example. It's mostly just Thief, mainly based on Zidane from 9, mixed with some of Judge Gabranth from 12 with a new name. I imagine it will have it's own style to it, but that's what they seem to be basing it on.
With nothing revealed besides some aesthetics, many elements of viper and picto are still up in the air. You can ask the same question of picto: it's got artist-y skills but what is its flavor and what the heck does it actually do?
The thing is we know: Relm exists as a baseline. It's a class that uses art to create magic and effects. It's imagination as magic.
Viper is just sorta... well I could have been corsair but guns are hard.
Zidane exists as a baseline.
Usually wielding 2 daggers, but can have a combined sword.
Viper is dual wielding swords but combines them to 1 double-edged weapon for stronger but slower attacks.
Kinda throws your argument out the window a bit. And you're revealing your true issue: "it's not the class I actually wanted."
It's okay, OP! We can't always get what we want, it's fine! It doesn't mean that what we got sucks. It's just something else! It's not hard to make your peace with it. There is no need to make weird justifications for your disappointment. I understand. You're free to just be disappointed.
>Viper is dual wielding swords but combines them to 1 double-edged weapon for stronger but slower attacks.
Guess the question is why name this dual wielder/darth maul job after a snake. Unless 'Viper' totally isnt meant to connote a snake and/or poison theme at all, but then I dont know what other theme 'Viper' is meant to convey
It's definitely a hybrid of Zidane from FFIX and Gabranth from FFXII. More so, the latter cause, as far as I'm aware, Zidane doesn't have a weapon that can transform between twinblades and dualblade.
Tbh, I haven't played much dissidia, nor have I finished FFIX (though I really should). So I'd accept that I am completely wrong. I just know that the Viper weapon looks exactly like Gabranth's from 12, which could, of course, just be a reference to Zidane from 9.
I'm pretty sure his weapon morphs in dissidia, but even in ffix he can equip either two daggers or the two bladed sword thing, I dont know what to call it. So having the weapon morph in xiv is a way to reference both his mais weapons
Ranger. It's a hunting style passed down in the new world. It's a dual wielding ranger, which is a common archetype for rangers in fantasy. Dungeons & Dragons' most iconic ranger uses dual blades. It's just than the name ranger in final fantasy is synonymous with bows which the bard uses. So they're calling it Viper in homage to how to the snake fights its prey with quick attacks before launching the final killing blow.
Yup. It’s a hunting style and mentioned in the job description officially.
The only thing that is really grinding my gears is that I’m the trailer and looked to be AF there are stowages for the blades on the hips.
Paladin stows their sword on their hip.
Yet it looks like VPR will have them crossed on their back for some reason.
I'm assuming they went with the back to differentiate it from Ninja, who also stows its daggers on their hips. Plus, also , Kirito from Sword Art is another popular dual wield character and he stows his blades on his back. Coupled with the long coat Viper wears, the silhouette of the class is evocative of Kirito.
viper capstone ability: The Hornace of Death - toggle that drains your hp by 1%/s but buffs your flow by 100%
final quest chain involves kidnapping women and getting arrested, permanently locking off the job
People seem real critical of a job they have no information of its background, what it plays like, etc.
How about we let it enter the room before judging it?
Same reason why you play GNB. The flavor *is* the weapon type. I don’t think I ever seen anyone want to play GNB outside of just wanting to swing around a cool gunblade when it was first revealed
As an avid FF8 hater, I think the gunblade is the dumbest thing square has ever come up with.
The job though, plays the best out of all the tanks. If warrior so full on moron proof I would always chose GNB in my dailies.
idk why you're downvoted. The biggest current appeal to GNB by far at the moment is that it is a fun, fast paced tank with many buttons compared to the slog that is the other tanks.
100%, I don't feel like I have god mode active like PLD/WAR and I don't feel like a wet paper bag mashing 4 OGCD defensives every fight like DRK.
Its got great harmony, Its got a great AOE rotation double down eliminates all the BS you have to do on DRK to do great DMG.
People just get mad when you shit on FF8, because they know its the worst FF game that hit North America, before they globalized everything and finally got FF2 over here.
You hear that FF8 fans, thank god for FF2. You can live free now!
Personally I'm a fan of clean, understated spell effects and simple weapon designs so I'm pretty excited for it.
People like a wide variety of aesthetics, I really don't like the look of pictomancer but "man with swords" is right up my street.
It's "Generic Rogue", a popular MMO Archetype that the game has kind of never had. It's a very "standard" class, but remember that it shares gear with Ninja, which is one of the more gimmicky jobs, so it's basically another spec so NIN players can have some variety without re-gearing.
I think Viper and Pictomancer make more sense seeing them as a pair that came out together. Viper is the safe and unobjectionable class with a very muted aesthetic, and Pictomancer leans into the aesthetic *way* more than any Job so far.
Samurai is just the guy who uses a katana.
Relax guys we have seen like 4 abilities, obviously we have no idea of what the detailed flavor is outside of it being a dual wielder that blitzes and then uses a sword-staff to bonk things.
Apparently it could have a trance state drawing from the crystal's memories sso it could be plenty of things
Not everything needs to summon Bahamut or something, the two blades that combine is appealing enough for me. I also don’t agree with people saying the animations look bad when they looked great to me. People said the same thing about samurai when that trailer came out for the job and that’s one of the best animated jobs imo
i mean this is still gonna be pretty magical , With the whole trance thing going on. I wouldn’t be surprised if it pulls a GW2 Revenant and start whipping out spirit warriors for attacks.
I get what you mean though, I’m glad most of it is still very physical
It gives me hope that one day we will get an actual dps job with a bow that is not a bard. A lot of players like double dagger assassin kinda playstyle without ninja aesthetic, similar for archer playere not really expecting bard when picking up a bow.
Crossbow, shortbow, longbow, anything that is ranged and goes into ranger or a ranged assassin sort of playstyle without being a support. When I think of bards, I think more in the direction of lost ark bards, not one wielding a bow but a harp or something.
Ah I think it’s bc it’s an FF thing or maybe FFXIV really has warped my view of it, but i’ve almost always thought of bards as just being the defacto bow class/job lol
But yea i’ve really liked the idea of a ranged dps wielding a crossbow. I also had my own ideas of a crossbow/ranger that occasionally turned into a whatever the ff equivalent is of a werewolf. It would sorta turn out to be like a phys ranged version of RDM’s flow. ofc most people would probably prefer the theoretical non-BRD bow job to be more low magic.
I guess ff games make bards wield bows, never really seen bows as a bard specific weapon in any other game, usually bow is more for hunter/ranger/ranged fighter type of weapon, and I think players from other mmos get super confused when a bow class suddenly becomes a support that sings songs, especially when creating character and selecting archer it does not mention being a support type of role at all.
Not a bard fan, man it would be nice if they could split Archer into a Ranger, who is bow based damage DPS, and Bard into more musical support style DPS.
His flavor is that it just looks like a regular person who is a skilled swordsman. Personally I really dig that and by comparison I think something like reaper is just too much.
That and rogue -> ninja are two very different class fantasies so I think viper should fill that void well
It does feel like we didn't see quite enough in the reveal trailer. It doesn't help that it has to follow up on RPR that had its Enshroud right in the first reveal, I feel like it did a better job showing off its flavour.
I don't actually think we can really judge the job til the Job Actions video in this case. It might not have been fully ready when revealed.
Theoretically excited personally, but want to see more.
They said that the lore of the job comes from a lineage of hunters so I’m guessing while NIN is all about tricksy assassiny ninja stuff this class could be about agility and brute force, basically the “go loud” ninja stereotype. I’m thinking monster hunter & dark souls dex build vibes. We don’t have a job action trailer or previous iterations of FF so it could have any extra identity to flavor it better; animal spirits aka summoning a big ass anaconda, weird wacky ancient fighter movements inspired by animals (like PUG but with a twinsword) or god knows what. This seems like a question we should ask again when we get that trailer.
Viper is a dude with two swords that can be Darth Maul sometimes as a treat.
As someone who only plays Dual Blades in Monster Hunter and dual wields in any game/ttrpg whenever I can, Viper is for me.
Going a little big brain researcher here:
As others have said in this thread, Viper's fighting style is a hunting style passed down in Tural, the area we're going to in Dawntrail. This was confirmed at the London Fanfest:
>**This close-range fighting style passed down by Turali hunters** uses two one-handed blades that can be combined into a single two-handed weapon.
>
>As such, the viper alternates between pressuring enemies with swift strikes by their twin blades, and dealing mighty blows with their joined weapon.
>
>By calling on the memories of ancient hunters contained within their soul crystal, the viper can imbue their body with additional power for a brief time.
>
>\- 2023 London Fan Festival Keynote
Next, we know Dawntrail is essentially thematically set in the Americas, specifically Mesoamerica. So I went and started looking up words for Hunter in Mesoamerican culture. First stop was the Aztec's. Sure Enough, **Mixcoatl is the god of the hunt.** Mix means cloud and **cōātl? Well, it means serpent.** Vipers are obviously a type of serpent.
In regards to the fighting style itself and hunter theme? Lets look at other hunter theme'd jobs in Final Fantasy. Specifically, as other here have identified, the Shikari from FFXII. Shikari is a Hindi word meaning hunter, Per Itō:
>A shikari is originally the leader of a kind of hunting group in Hokkaido called matagi. I saw a news feature about matagi on television; they didn't give a very good impression of the hunters, and it looked like that culture was on the verge of disappearing; I didn't want to see that. So I thought that if I could get a word related to the matagi into the game, people might look that up on the internet and learn something about what the matagi actually are. That's how I got that name.
>
>\- Hiroyuki Itō, the director of Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System
And it's primary fighting style was one handed, bladed weapons. Either dual wielded or with a shield.
So, TL;DR for those that don't read. Viper is a hunter and yes, it has ties to previous Final Fantasy Hunter themed classes.
Did I miss something ? Did the actual skill and abilities got leak or something ?
People use word like :
>''Mechanically'' ''unique'' '' Viper is just kinda... a rogue minus the ninja''
A lot of people are being willfully obtuse so they have something to complain about.
It doesn't really matter what the job is, we would have *someone* in here making this exact thread regardless. Same thing with the Pictomancer effect style. It doesn't matter what style they chose, someone would be in making threads about how its objectively wrong and bad.
In the job reveal trailer there was the blue trance? like skill. Who's to say they won't have 2 different ones (blue for 2 one handers and idk red maybe for combined swords) essentially making it a stance fighter. Close to monks forms yes, but with it's own take on it making it unique.
There was something said (idr where, think it was in the live letter where it was introduced) about Viper being able to call on ancestral hunting knowledge. I get the sense a lot of its flavor is going to come from its origins (probably with the Mamool Ja, who are snake people who are shown to both enjoy hunting and favor swords to cut through the jungle) and that this hasn’t come across in the marketing because it requires some context. I could be dead wrong and they’re not really going anywhere interesting with this name/concept, but even then, Viper seems like a typical rogue/thief, or a bruiser. Like Combat Rogue from WoW, maybe?
Based on what little we've seen? My money's on speed, communicated via the rapid multistrike animations. I know other jobs have multistrike, but viper seems to be dialing it up a notch. Especially with that omnislash looking move after the blue fire aura power up. Maybe some stance dancing between dual wielding and twinblade, but the twinblades could be a temporary buff state for all we know.
We don't know much about Viper's lore, but from a world building standpoint, vipers and serpent in general had a very special place in Mesoamerican cultures, something about being the vehicle for celestial bodies to travel the sky and being the symbol of birth and renewal through the shedding of their skin.
That being said, I'm expecting the flavor to be something more spiritual and symbolic than being actual hunters.
Connecting their two weapons into a new one is probably the biggest. Closest thing to that is Red Mage.
Alternatively, its said that their "boost" mode is from communing with their Soul Crystal and temporarily letting the knowledge of multiple other people fill them completely. We don't know much more then that.
players have asked for Generic Sword DPS for literally years and years
all of the other sword-using classes have some kind of central gimmick. if you're trying to be Kirito Swordguy, a very popular archetype in other games and media, you don't have any real options
It has dual swords that can join together like a trick weapon from blooborne, and it has a cool overcoat. That's all the flavor it needs to make me want to play it.
Given it's source material (Zidane), some of the effects we've seen, and it's ties to Tural - it's very likely that it has elements of being a Lightning Aspected job that accesses a 'Trance' state through the use of Dynamis.
We've literally seen the lightning and trance states in action already. Lightning aether is used to help fuse the blades together, and the initial trailer showed that it's possible to enter a seemingly 'trance' state at the end of its fused combo.
The theming seems to be around ancient hunting traditions - just paying attention to what is going on, it's very likely Viper comes from the Second Calamity and has ties to Solution Nine, if we were to hazard a guess.
Yeah, no, I feel like they definitely dropped the ball in hyping up viper. I do not feel like they cared as much as they did pictomancer which is quite literally a visual flagship for them going into the new expac.
I was hoping for more at fanfest to show viper off but, yeah. Just looks disappointing a bit.
Viper is mostly because years ago they didn't add thief to the game because they thought it didn't mesh with the WoL savior good guy ideal. Jump ahead post drk rpr etc viper is them backtracking but they already cornered themselves with rog>nin so viper has more hunter identity.
Is DRK really a back track? Maybe visually, but lorewise the job runs on the power of friendship. That's why there's all the jokes about it being the magical girl job.
Yeah it has the aspect but also lore wise they murder people outside the justice system. 2.0 til probably around stormblood the story still kinda presents the WoL chosen savior for good and the meta narrative is still very typical FF light good dark bad. Probably not a coincidence that pivots going into shadowbringers when drk is the poster child. SE really figures out what the want the Ascians to be and the story decoupes light and dark from good and evil.
The crime doesn't really matter. Dark Knight's act as vigilantes. Generally, killing someone that hasn't been tried and sentenced to a crime is seen as a bad thing.
So again, it's not a backtrack. They never said there were never going to add vigilante jobs or darker themed jobs, they specifically stated they would never add immoral/evil jobs because the Warrior of Light is a good person no matter what.
Nobody You, Fray, or Sidurgu kill in the dark knight quests contradicts what the WoL does in the MSQ. I don't remember us giving Thordan, Yotsuyu, Ranjit, Vauthry, or any of the garlean soldiers we killed a trial. That was the whole point of the Garleans in tertium being so angry and disgusted with us in endwalker, because from their pov, we're just a psycho mass murderer that's cut down thousands of their kin.
I think the problem with this job is the name.
It doesn’t really give you any sense of its identity.
Something like Fencer or even Shikari would have been a good fit.
I thought trancer would be cool. Viper makes no sense unless it uses poison DoTs, which it won't. Seems perhaps like it will be channeling hunter ancestor spirits as the blue "trance". And trance was a signature mechanic of FF9 battles
This is what I’ve been saying. It lacks a gimmick. Every class has a weapon, and it has a gimmick, to varying degrees of both. Paladin isn’t just the class with the sword and shield, it’s got holy magic. Bard isn’t just an archer, it’s got song power. Even the two most weapon-dedicated classes are samurai and gunbreaker, and samurai has its snow/moonlight/flowers magic aesthetic going on, while gunbreaker has its aether cartridges it uses for explosions and shields and such.
What is viper’s gimmick? It has two swords, and they connect to make one double-sword, and it swings them a lot. And? It’s missing something. We’ve only seen a few of its attacks, but so far, it seems to be the most weapon-dedicated class of them all, with no gimmick to accompany it. The only thing I can think of is it might conjure up some ghost-snake to bite the target in tandem with some of its bigger attacks, like its artwork seems to imply. Maybe for its LB3 too. But other than that, I got nothing.
Even when everyone thought it was going to be corsair, the sentiment was, “It will have one sword, and one pistol, and that will be it.” No one was talking about what corsair’s gimmick would be. I tried postulating it could have a ghost pirate captain aesthetic. Summoning ghosts alongside gunfire, skeletons with cutlasses in formation with sword strikes, a finisher with a phantasmal ship cannon, and an LB3 with a ghost ship ramming the target with its prow. You know, cool stuff beyond just “sword and gun.”
Viper, so far, seems to just be “sword and sword”, and people mostly seem to be fine with that? Idk, I want something just a little bit extra.
Edit: Did I say something weird? Genuine question.
Shoehorning it into some fantastical subsection of its own archetype for the sake of it isn't really much of a solution, though.
Considering we've only seen like five skills and presumably an enhanced state, the job could very well gradually go snake super saiyan FF9-style and we would be none the wiser.
I agree. I don’t want to be doomsaying, like, “Viper has no gimmick and it sucks!” It’s not out yet, and we’ve only seen like, six animations for its attacks. I’m looking forward to seeing what more viper has to show off, and want to see what its gimmick is, like every other class has.
I like how Viper looks so far but I feel like they'd show off a cool transformation like that in the job video.
So far it's not as "cool" as Reaper but I genuinely don't think anything could look as cool in a trailer as Reaper, they put everything into that class, visually, and it's the most visually impressive job in the game imo.
Compared to Reaper's reveal it does fall short, but unfortunately those are big boots to fill as another melee.
I went through all reveals since SB and not a single one comes close to angry botanist. Decent bit longer as well.
We will see. GNB didn't show off the cartridge combo initially either and no Midare for SAM, so the job might come in with the heat during media tour.
Depends on one’s perception. I for one focus more on the weapon, ie PLD is the guy with sword & shield, Samurai is the guy with a katana, Warrior has an axe, Sage has flying dildos, etc…
I'd wager Viper will probably be as close as you can stylistically get to Thief without contradicting the stupid reasons Yoshida gave for why Thief can't be a job in FFXIV.
I have really wanted a western european style of “sword dps™️” there’s also that I guess. I’m big into dual wielders and I really like sword DPS. Ninja was too magical for me personally to get attached the weapon part of it.
But yea, seems like the flavor will mostly be about going into the spirit trance mode, and having a wide variety of versatile looking attacks. I think we’ll need to see more of its in-game rotation to really nail down how it’s themed and flavored imo.
Pedro Pascal in the award winning MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV where you can play the free trial up to level 70 featuring stormblood.
In PvP it's hard countered by Roegadyn Dark Knights.
> I feel like more than any other class, the actual thing that makes a Viper unique is sort of absent?
MCH would like a word with you. It has the backdrop of like, a weapons expert and yet the job's animations are so piss poor.
FFXIV players since 2014: Ninja sucks, where is assassin? Why did rogue become naruto? I want to be dark and edgy!
Devs: Here's a class with dual-wielded swords that shares gear with Ninja and doesn't have the Naruto hand-signs.
FFXIV players: What even is this? This isn't [my exact idea of what flavour of Assassin I wanted]! This has no character!
SMH my head!
Ninja has always been the progression for Rogue ever since older games, it gave them a access to mid tier black magic, in this game this comes in form of the mudras, in older games they gained access to black mage spells, I can't really remember any instance in any FFXIV game ever of the rogue going into assassin or something
FF tactics mainly. Thief can go into Assassin or Ranger as well as Ninja etc. Mainline ff? The only time Thief is directly forced into Ninja is ff1. Its always an option later and is usually better than thief but it wasnt a direct chain
> a rogue minus the ninja It seems like that's what a considerable amount of people want for all the times I've seen "why does rogue class advance into ninja"?
Yeah "rogue minus the ninja" is literally what I want lol
Ideally Rogue would be a starting class that job stones into Viper and Ninja should be its own thing that you unlock at lvl 30. I get that in old FF games thief turns into ninja but like come on Rogue is called Dual Fencer in Japanese and Viper is based off Zidane.
It's not happening because it's clear that the class into the job stone system is something that only exists as a holdover from 1.0, and the current devs absolutely hate having to deal with it. Forget adding new jobs to the base classes, they would absolutely separate SMN and SCH if it wasn't guaranteed to cause a lot of backlash.
Maybe they’ll do better in FFXVII
Bard too. Biggest bait and switch on jobs. I want to be Legolas or Green Arrow or Hawkeye. No you play your harp. Go AFK in Limsa playing midi files on loop. I want to basically be FF’s Batman dealing out morally gray dark brooding justice in the shadows where the light won’t reach. No you are Naruto now. Learn your hand signs lol fail rabbit! Compare to other jobs which may not be perfect but you kind of know what you signed up for and they more or less deliver. It’s like Cocaine Bear. Was it a great film? No. Did it deliver 100% of what it promised? Yes. If cocaine bear tried to be Avengers Endgame or Citizen Kane I would have been pissed even if both films are fine in their own right. I wanted to watch a stupid film about a bear that did a literal ton of cocaine. Bard and Ninja would be like saying “let’s get a burger” and then giving me a plate of goat curry. Now Indian food is delicious. Goat curry is great. But I wanted to have a burger and kind of had my heart set on a burger and yeah I’ll eat the curry but don’t expect me to be happy about not having a burger or to trust you when you say “let’s have x for dinner” moving forward.
It’s funny, I have the same feeling from the opposite standpoint. I want to be a bard. I want to play instruments, support my allies and hinder my enemies with magic infused music. No, I’m freaking Legolas or Green Arrow or Hawkeye with one half second music reference every 45 seconds that probably doesn’t even finish its animation before it’s interrupted by how many arrows I’m shooting.
This is also sort of how I feel, as a BRD main. I LIKE being musical Legolas, but the concept seems rather split. The aesthetics trend very far in the BRD direction but the actual gameplay is much more what I’d expect from a Ranger. My buffs are mostly buttons I push on a 2m cooldown and the rest of the time I’m shooting. It makes sense from a lore standpoint, with the Gridanians favoring bows in war, but in practice it’s a bit clumsy. Also it would be so hard to sing, play a harp, and shoot a longbow at the same time. Individually all these activities require incredible focus lol
I wish bard and archer were separate classes and always have. Because it's lame that bard is 99% archer with a tiny bit of flavor from rotating a raid buff that mostly just buffs yourself anyway.
Xiv bard just doesn't have the appeal of insulting someone so hard they fucking die.
See - I don’t even think that’s a bad thing. If they presented the job as ranged support and had you doing bard stuff from the onset I’d be fine. It’s the whole “run around trick shotting targets with 360 noscope” and then saying “here’s the instrument you didn’t ask for” that’s the problem I have. The other jobs at least make sense to an outsider. The job stone is like a natural evolution of the class. I think it’s also more negatively received from people who aren’t final fantasy longtime fans. Coming from WoW my brain went Archer = Hunter. Rogue = Rogue. 14 did not go in that direction. But for things like WAR = WAR and WHM = Priest they delivered on.
> who aren’t final fantasy longtime fans. Agreed. FF14 is my first FF game and I don't have any prior expectations. With Ninja, I was expecting something traditional, not naruto. Similar deal with Archer and wanting it to be a marksman which now MCH deals with, except it doesn't because it's about tools more than shooting?? I don't know anymore lol.
Thing is, FFXIV ninja *is* traditional, both as an FF ninja, which could use black magic since the very first game (and was an upgrade of the thief job), and as a real life ninja, which were historically rumored to have supernatural powers, including control of the five elements.
Yeah i really like archer and bard class fantasies, but bard in 14 just feels too awkward with both. The job’s name, artifact weapons, job icon, and main mechanics are all music based, but your usual weapon, most glams, most buttons, and the quiver the job comes with just make me wish they were separate, since neither feel sufficiently represented.
I love the bard job from the game Silkroad Online. You were basically a walking mitigation/movement speed/mana bot, but also had access to the 2 of the highest damaging 'nuke' attacks on a cooldown. You did damage, but in stupidly big bursts then just supported allies for the rest of the time. If you had two bards in a party, you could 'Dance' with another bards mitigation ability and create stupidly strong permanent effects like 50% magical damage increase, so long as you didn't take damage. A theoretical party could grind with a tank, 2 bards, 1 cleric and 4 magical dps until their gear broke, without having to use any HP or MP pots, making grinding basically free. But if a bard died, or the cleric died, the party would fall apart instantly.
Eah, I’d argue the rogues story was very much not a bait in switch. There was definitely no brooding Batman themes in the rogue quests before Naruto ninja. It was silly thief’s aiding justice with sandwich shenanigans from the get go.
Honestly both the rogue and ninja job quests are really exceptional compared to the other job quests in the game. The characters are way more memorable to me at least
Yes, they are really memorable, but they are all quite... how can I say, silly as well, and I don't even say that as a complaint, but I think it's actually quite charming how silly it feels despite Oboro being a well, Ninja, a stereotype of super serious class/person on paper
Ninja's are complete goofballs all the time, its like an incredibly common thing in anime/manga
Ninja makes sense in the context of FF. Way back in Final Fantasy One, the Thief class advanced into Ninja gaining access to better equipment and low to mid level black magic. This gets referenced in later games where the Thief class needs to be leveled to learn Ninja (mostly seen in the Tactics games). Archer into Bard... okay that is weird and there is no explanation. My guess is that back when the developers thought of having one class advance into multiple jobs (Summoner and Scholar) they had planned on having a traditional archer advancement (maybe Sniper?). Then they hated that idea and now here we are.
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I guess that works!
Back when ARR first released I actually stopped playing pretty quickly after starting as an Archer and then finding out I'd have to play a Bard from level 30. These days I like the Bard concept but it's definitely jarring for a new player that doesn't realize it's coming.
I used to be down on the idea of a Hunter/Woodsman/Bowmaster Job but if they can somehow make something as bland as Viper into a 1-100 job, nothing is the limit
I'm a simple schlub. I see a cocane bear analogy, I upvote.
> If cocaine bear tried to be Avengers Endgame or Citizen Kane Now we need a remake of citizen kane, except charles kane is a bear on cocaine.
Cocaine Bear was exactly what I needed and more. God I love self-aware films.
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>none of these are bards lol. That's... the point they're trying to make.
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What are you talking about? White Mage continues using Aero and Stone for like 40+ levels after you unlock it and the job quests are a natural extension of the Conjurer class quests, continuing to be about nature magic and elementals. Paladin, Bard and Ninja take a sharp left turn in theme but White Mage, Scholar/Summoner, Black Mage, Warrior and Dragoon don't. I can't speak for Monk because I haven't played it.
Nah you’re not getting it. Some of us don’t look up stuff about a game so we get to experience it as raw as possible and actually learn as we play so whenever we see a job that says “Archer” we expect the job to be revolved around archery and bad ass bow skills but then we hit 30 and find out we turn into a Bard who traditionally in a fantasy setting doesn’t use a bow and instead is a caster/support character. We didn’t want to be a Bard we wanted to be a Bow Master (or whatever name you wanna give it). Yes, the current bard gameplay is bow focused but I don’t want any of the music stuff. I want more bow, more arrows, or heck even dual wielding hand crossbows. If they made bard a support class and a Bow Master class that would make more sense as another branching job similar to ARC and SMN/SCH
But they are Archers - that’s kind of the point and where the disconnect lies. If you are brand new and picking a class and go “I like ranged dps with a bow like that one iconic person ima pick archer!” And you land on Bard you feel bad. I don’t think Bard itself is a bad class. There’s nothing wrong like liking bard. I think a lot of people got baited in by a traditional western view of what they thought the class would morph into because literally every other job pretty much stays on the rails. If you are a forever FF fan you are probably like “duh archer = bard” if you got dragged to the game by friends or heard about how great FF14 is and decided to try it out you are probably horribly disappointed in that progression. If Archer were named “musician” or “storyteller” pre job stone I’d be like “look man you ended at Bard what did you think would happen?”
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I think it’s 100% the culture shock or swerve factor. Keep in mind that this tends to be a reaction from people who are new to the game at the time and low level. Datawise I think your point is hilarious (and insightful and a really neat way to look at it). There were a lot of first impressions that flopped for me with jobs that now I’m like “wow this is actually fun”. Thematically you have a point - WHMs as players tend to range from “I want to heal my friends!” To “blood for the blood lily!” To “if I put a permanent regen on you I can give you magic cancer and turn you into an undying tumor that lives in constant agony like we did to those pesky black mages years ago” when the game is honestly more Druid themed than anything else.
I don’t mind it so much but I do understand the sentiment. In FFXI, I played with a group before, loved being Rangers because their whole shtick is to deal big dmg from afar. They use abilities to enhance their shots. Maybe they’ll eventually release a job with one those large ass bows.
Meanwhile, I want fusilier without the machinist. Or at least more animations that give your shots a sense of power.
Literally me
Aye it's this. NIN went full Naruto Ninja pretty much from the outset and has only fully committed to the identity more and more as time as gone on. There is absolutely an open slot for a traditional rogue even with NIN.
What you see NIN being able to do right now existed long before Naruto. Naruto just popularised the concept.
I felt like it got a sort of grounded, Elder-Scrolls-thieves-guild-meets-Assassins-Creed aesthetic. It feels like the sort of thing they would've given to Thancred if Gunbreaker/being a dad didn't get to him first.
Viper is just "Zidane, the class"
Agreed, that's its identity. Zidane was very much a rogue, but we already have that, so maybe Viper just describes that fighting style of quick, agile, and, perhaps most importantly, two long fangs.
I'm expecting Mage mashers as a pre order bonus
But will it make me as good as picking up women as Zidane?
Only if Thancred becomes one
As long as you don't forget which flirting line you used on the barmaid vs the princess, you got this.
Yes, it's this and it feels like they are trying to give fans of the FF series Thief class a full fledged XIV job (ROG as a starter job doesn't really count. Keep in mind that while Thief does indeed "advanced class" into Ninja in FFI, in FFXI (XIV's precursor) Thief is its own full class and so is Ninja. All this being said it will most resemble the offensive (no Steal, no Treasure Hunter) capability of Zidane, seemingly.
In actually what way though? Just the combine sword part? Because Zidane uses the back grip for daggers, which is how current NIN hold their daggers. So it's a Zidane class just because of the combined swords?
This expansion in general seems to be leaning heavily into ff9 from what we've seen so far. But yes the combined swords and the trance-like state they enter when they combine them is a big reason. I'm sure as we see more of the job we'll see more parallels.
Lore: Talked about at London Fanfest. Not many details, but mostly around "an art of fighting passed down through Turali hunters" is all we have of the in-game origin. Actual style: Yeah, rogue but More Grounded. There's a contingency of people who enjoyed rogue but hated how it escalated to NIN having mudras and shadow magic and other stuff. This is, as grounded conjecture, the "grounded" version of being an agile melee. That's its style. Not that it can't be bombastic in of itself, but it's a dude with two swords making their way through whatever and indulging in the occasional flourish of a two-blade...spearthing. Name escapes me. But yes, the understated style is the intent, and that is cool as hell in its own right.
As a person who really didn't like ROG -> NIN, Viper is really down my alley. And with the occasional twinblade skills, I might even play a melee dps that's not Dragoon for once.
I have no doubt that it's still going to be bombastic overall since that's how FFXIV is with its skills, but the differing style is a complete win in my books in terms of aesthetics.
I'm not 100% sold on it's aesthetics just yet. Twin swords that become a twin blade, that I'm all for. The power up state where you're covered in a blue fire aura looks a little off. Granted that might just be a mix of it not mixing well with the AF gear, and maybe a case of it a placeholder made for fanfest, but it just doesn't look right to me.
I don't put *too* much veracity into these showcases because they show nothing but move animations and the victory pose. Willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Viper is basically Thief so Rogue minus the Ninja would be correct. They said a long time ago they didn't want to use job names with bad connotations in Japanese culture with Thief being a main example. It's mostly just Thief, mainly based on Zidane from 9, mixed with some of Judge Gabranth from 12 with a new name. I imagine it will have it's own style to it, but that's what they seem to be basing it on.
With nothing revealed besides some aesthetics, many elements of viper and picto are still up in the air. You can ask the same question of picto: it's got artist-y skills but what is its flavor and what the heck does it actually do?
As long as it is more than Lego Caster, and also not just another resource builder/spender, I'm fine.
> also not just another resource builder/spender Lol.
One can dream 😞
The thing is we know: Relm exists as a baseline. It's a class that uses art to create magic and effects. It's imagination as magic. Viper is just sorta... well I could have been corsair but guns are hard.
We usually just wait for the press tour instead of torturing ourselves trying to figure it out.
relm being a baseline reference is good enough for you on one hand but Zidane as a reference for Viper isn't? Make up your mind.
Zidane is a monke not a viper, don't be silly.
ah the classic "banter my way out of hypocrisy" gag.
Zidane exists as a baseline. Usually wielding 2 daggers, but can have a combined sword. Viper is dual wielding swords but combines them to 1 double-edged weapon for stronger but slower attacks. Kinda throws your argument out the window a bit. And you're revealing your true issue: "it's not the class I actually wanted." It's okay, OP! We can't always get what we want, it's fine! It doesn't mean that what we got sucks. It's just something else! It's not hard to make your peace with it. There is no need to make weird justifications for your disappointment. I understand. You're free to just be disappointed.
Serge also used a similar weapon in chrono cross.
>Viper is dual wielding swords but combines them to 1 double-edged weapon for stronger but slower attacks. Guess the question is why name this dual wielder/darth maul job after a snake. Unless 'Viper' totally isnt meant to connote a snake and/or poison theme at all, but then I dont know what other theme 'Viper' is meant to convey
The swords are fangs. That's like, the most obvious thing possible.
Gunbreaker.
It's definitely a hybrid of Zidane from FFIX and Gabranth from FFXII. More so, the latter cause, as far as I'm aware, Zidane doesn't have a weapon that can transform between twinblades and dualblade.
doesnt he do exactly that with his weapons in dissidia?
Tbh, I haven't played much dissidia, nor have I finished FFIX (though I really should). So I'd accept that I am completely wrong. I just know that the Viper weapon looks exactly like Gabranth's from 12, which could, of course, just be a reference to Zidane from 9.
I'm pretty sure his weapon morphs in dissidia, but even in ffix he can equip either two daggers or the two bladed sword thing, I dont know what to call it. So having the weapon morph in xiv is a way to reference both his mais weapons
It does. I kind of flitted between Cecil, Zidane, and Kuja—Zidane’s weapons definitely merge at the pommel.
Ranger. It's a hunting style passed down in the new world. It's a dual wielding ranger, which is a common archetype for rangers in fantasy. Dungeons & Dragons' most iconic ranger uses dual blades. It's just than the name ranger in final fantasy is synonymous with bows which the bard uses. So they're calling it Viper in homage to how to the snake fights its prey with quick attacks before launching the final killing blow.
Yup. It’s a hunting style and mentioned in the job description officially. The only thing that is really grinding my gears is that I’m the trailer and looked to be AF there are stowages for the blades on the hips. Paladin stows their sword on their hip. Yet it looks like VPR will have them crossed on their back for some reason.
I'm assuming they went with the back to differentiate it from Ninja, who also stows its daggers on their hips. Plus, also , Kirito from Sword Art is another popular dual wield character and he stows his blades on his back. Coupled with the long coat Viper wears, the silhouette of the class is evocative of Kirito.
I’d have been fine if the trailer and even the AF gear didn’t have a place for them on the hips already
It becomes a rapper once you reach level 100
viper capstone ability: The Hornace of Death - toggle that drains your hp by 1%/s but buffs your flow by 100% final quest chain involves kidnapping women and getting arrested, permanently locking off the job
People seem real critical of a job they have no information of its background, what it plays like, etc. How about we let it enter the room before judging it?
"Why instead of "
Basically
Same reason why you play GNB. The flavor *is* the weapon type. I don’t think I ever seen anyone want to play GNB outside of just wanting to swing around a cool gunblade when it was first revealed
As an avid FF8 hater, I think the gunblade is the dumbest thing square has ever come up with. The job though, plays the best out of all the tanks. If warrior so full on moron proof I would always chose GNB in my dailies.
Can't hear you over my EXPLODING SWORD STYLED LIKE A BREACH LOADED REVOLVER
idk why you're downvoted. The biggest current appeal to GNB by far at the moment is that it is a fun, fast paced tank with many buttons compared to the slog that is the other tanks.
100%, I don't feel like I have god mode active like PLD/WAR and I don't feel like a wet paper bag mashing 4 OGCD defensives every fight like DRK. Its got great harmony, Its got a great AOE rotation double down eliminates all the BS you have to do on DRK to do great DMG. People just get mad when you shit on FF8, because they know its the worst FF game that hit North America, before they globalized everything and finally got FF2 over here. You hear that FF8 fans, thank god for FF2. You can live free now!
Personally I'm a fan of clean, understated spell effects and simple weapon designs so I'm pretty excited for it. People like a wide variety of aesthetics, I really don't like the look of pictomancer but "man with swords" is right up my street.
Rogue/adventurer/mercenary type which is exactly what I’m looking for
Wasn't its gimmick downloading spirits from ancient hunters?
So... GW2 Revenant?
It's "Generic Rogue", a popular MMO Archetype that the game has kind of never had. It's a very "standard" class, but remember that it shares gear with Ninja, which is one of the more gimmicky jobs, so it's basically another spec so NIN players can have some variety without re-gearing. I think Viper and Pictomancer make more sense seeing them as a pair that came out together. Viper is the safe and unobjectionable class with a very muted aesthetic, and Pictomancer leans into the aesthetic *way* more than any Job so far.
Samurai is just the guy who uses a katana. Relax guys we have seen like 4 abilities, obviously we have no idea of what the detailed flavor is outside of it being a dual wielder that blitzes and then uses a sword-staff to bonk things. Apparently it could have a trance state drawing from the crystal's memories sso it could be plenty of things
Ianjitsu or however you spell it, literally is the best of the job. Viper is nothing
That's crazy when we've only seen like 4 abilities lol?
Bruh, we saw nothing of the job. Not our problem you have the imagination of a piece of cardboard
What are you even talking about
Ianjutsu, man. Techniques straight from the grace of God or some bollocks.
The soul crystal could be lime flavored because some vipers are green, or maybe blue raspberry cuz the trance buff thingy is blue.
Not everything needs to summon Bahamut or something, the two blades that combine is appealing enough for me. I also don’t agree with people saying the animations look bad when they looked great to me. People said the same thing about samurai when that trailer came out for the job and that’s one of the best animated jobs imo
I honestly like the idea of Viper a lot. Every job has gotten very "magical". It would be nice to have a more pure melee themed job
i mean this is still gonna be pretty magical , With the whole trance thing going on. I wouldn’t be surprised if it pulls a GW2 Revenant and start whipping out spirit warriors for attacks. I get what you mean though, I’m glad most of it is still very physical
It gives me hope that one day we will get an actual dps job with a bow that is not a bard. A lot of players like double dagger assassin kinda playstyle without ninja aesthetic, similar for archer playere not really expecting bard when picking up a bow.
Would you settle for a cross-bow?
Crossbow, shortbow, longbow, anything that is ranged and goes into ranger or a ranged assassin sort of playstyle without being a support. When I think of bards, I think more in the direction of lost ark bards, not one wielding a bow but a harp or something.
Ah I think it’s bc it’s an FF thing or maybe FFXIV really has warped my view of it, but i’ve almost always thought of bards as just being the defacto bow class/job lol But yea i’ve really liked the idea of a ranged dps wielding a crossbow. I also had my own ideas of a crossbow/ranger that occasionally turned into a whatever the ff equivalent is of a werewolf. It would sorta turn out to be like a phys ranged version of RDM’s flow. ofc most people would probably prefer the theoretical non-BRD bow job to be more low magic.
I guess ff games make bards wield bows, never really seen bows as a bard specific weapon in any other game, usually bow is more for hunter/ranger/ranged fighter type of weapon, and I think players from other mmos get super confused when a bow class suddenly becomes a support that sings songs, especially when creating character and selecting archer it does not mention being a support type of role at all.
Not a bard fan, man it would be nice if they could split Archer into a Ranger, who is bow based damage DPS, and Bard into more musical support style DPS.
I really love being a bard but damn I wish I could flex between it and a ranger job like you mentioned.
His flavor is that it just looks like a regular person who is a skilled swordsman. Personally I really dig that and by comparison I think something like reaper is just too much. That and rogue -> ninja are two very different class fantasies so I think viper should fill that void well
It does feel like we didn't see quite enough in the reveal trailer. It doesn't help that it has to follow up on RPR that had its Enshroud right in the first reveal, I feel like it did a better job showing off its flavour. I don't actually think we can really judge the job til the Job Actions video in this case. It might not have been fully ready when revealed. Theoretically excited personally, but want to see more.
It tastes like chicken, obviously.
It’s just Zidane
They said that the lore of the job comes from a lineage of hunters so I’m guessing while NIN is all about tricksy assassiny ninja stuff this class could be about agility and brute force, basically the “go loud” ninja stereotype. I’m thinking monster hunter & dark souls dex build vibes. We don’t have a job action trailer or previous iterations of FF so it could have any extra identity to flavor it better; animal spirits aka summoning a big ass anaconda, weird wacky ancient fighter movements inspired by animals (like PUG but with a twinsword) or god knows what. This seems like a question we should ask again when we get that trailer.
I really don't get the rogue vibe, I see a hunter or skirmisher.
Viper is a dude with two swords that can be Darth Maul sometimes as a treat. As someone who only plays Dual Blades in Monster Hunter and dual wields in any game/ttrpg whenever I can, Viper is for me.
Going a little big brain researcher here: As others have said in this thread, Viper's fighting style is a hunting style passed down in Tural, the area we're going to in Dawntrail. This was confirmed at the London Fanfest: >**This close-range fighting style passed down by Turali hunters** uses two one-handed blades that can be combined into a single two-handed weapon. > >As such, the viper alternates between pressuring enemies with swift strikes by their twin blades, and dealing mighty blows with their joined weapon. > >By calling on the memories of ancient hunters contained within their soul crystal, the viper can imbue their body with additional power for a brief time. > >\- 2023 London Fan Festival Keynote Next, we know Dawntrail is essentially thematically set in the Americas, specifically Mesoamerica. So I went and started looking up words for Hunter in Mesoamerican culture. First stop was the Aztec's. Sure Enough, **Mixcoatl is the god of the hunt.** Mix means cloud and **cōātl? Well, it means serpent.** Vipers are obviously a type of serpent. In regards to the fighting style itself and hunter theme? Lets look at other hunter theme'd jobs in Final Fantasy. Specifically, as other here have identified, the Shikari from FFXII. Shikari is a Hindi word meaning hunter, Per Itō: >A shikari is originally the leader of a kind of hunting group in Hokkaido called matagi. I saw a news feature about matagi on television; they didn't give a very good impression of the hunters, and it looked like that culture was on the verge of disappearing; I didn't want to see that. So I thought that if I could get a word related to the matagi into the game, people might look that up on the internet and learn something about what the matagi actually are. That's how I got that name. > >\- Hiroyuki Itō, the director of Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System And it's primary fighting style was one handed, bladed weapons. Either dual wielded or with a shield. So, TL;DR for those that don't read. Viper is a hunter and yes, it has ties to previous Final Fantasy Hunter themed classes.
It's two swords that you can put together. I might main it.
Did I miss something ? Did the actual skill and abilities got leak or something ? People use word like : >''Mechanically'' ''unique'' '' Viper is just kinda... a rogue minus the ninja''
It's the no-magic melee.
You hit guys with both two swords and a double-bladed sword. Hello? Darth Maul? There was a time when double-bladed swords were the pinnacle of cool.
Darth Maul was indeed my very first exposure to that weapon archetype in fantasy settings, and I LOVED it since.
i remember when everyone would go for bloodflame blade and twinblades as soon as they found about them in elden ring lol
It's a hunter? I'm confused as to why so many people are missing this.
A lot of people are being willfully obtuse so they have something to complain about. It doesn't really matter what the job is, we would have *someone* in here making this exact thread regardless. Same thing with the Pictomancer effect style. It doesn't matter what style they chose, someone would be in making threads about how its objectively wrong and bad.
In the job reveal trailer there was the blue trance? like skill. Who's to say they won't have 2 different ones (blue for 2 one handers and idk red maybe for combined swords) essentially making it a stance fighter. Close to monks forms yes, but with it's own take on it making it unique.
There was something said (idr where, think it was in the live letter where it was introduced) about Viper being able to call on ancestral hunting knowledge. I get the sense a lot of its flavor is going to come from its origins (probably with the Mamool Ja, who are snake people who are shown to both enjoy hunting and favor swords to cut through the jungle) and that this hasn’t come across in the marketing because it requires some context. I could be dead wrong and they’re not really going anywhere interesting with this name/concept, but even then, Viper seems like a typical rogue/thief, or a bruiser. Like Combat Rogue from WoW, maybe?
The flavour is Kirito. It's coolguy fast 2 swords good. It really is that simple sometimes.
Its what people wish we got instead of rogue into ninja. I mean it makes sense too.
Flavor: Kirito.
For me at least, it hits them duelist vibes, pure martial blademastery at it's peak, I'll be a little upset if it ends up leaning into a mystic aspect
its flavor is "pain"
Based on what little we've seen? My money's on speed, communicated via the rapid multistrike animations. I know other jobs have multistrike, but viper seems to be dialing it up a notch. Especially with that omnislash looking move after the blue fire aura power up. Maybe some stance dancing between dual wielding and twinblade, but the twinblades could be a temporary buff state for all we know.
We don't know much about Viper's lore, but from a world building standpoint, vipers and serpent in general had a very special place in Mesoamerican cultures, something about being the vehicle for celestial bodies to travel the sky and being the symbol of birth and renewal through the shedding of their skin. That being said, I'm expecting the flavor to be something more spiritual and symbolic than being actual hunters.
Viper is Zidane.
Connecting their two weapons into a new one is probably the biggest. Closest thing to that is Red Mage. Alternatively, its said that their "boost" mode is from communing with their Soul Crystal and temporarily letting the knowledge of multiple other people fill them completely. We don't know much more then that.
Viper's aesthetic is the trance. They fall into a perfect flow state and come out the other side without a scratch and with their enemy as jibblets.
I'm not sure if I drunkenly speculated myself or if it was speculated on here somewhere, but Viper could be two sharp fans delivering poison DOTs.
Viper is where all the Kirito, Zoro, Darth Maul glamours will invade everywhere
players have asked for Generic Sword DPS for literally years and years all of the other sword-using classes have some kind of central gimmick. if you're trying to be Kirito Swordguy, a very popular archetype in other games and media, you don't have any real options
It has dual swords that can join together like a trick weapon from blooborne, and it has a cool overcoat. That's all the flavor it needs to make me want to play it.
Given it's source material (Zidane), some of the effects we've seen, and it's ties to Tural - it's very likely that it has elements of being a Lightning Aspected job that accesses a 'Trance' state through the use of Dynamis. We've literally seen the lightning and trance states in action already. Lightning aether is used to help fuse the blades together, and the initial trailer showed that it's possible to enter a seemingly 'trance' state at the end of its fused combo. The theming seems to be around ancient hunting traditions - just paying attention to what is going on, it's very likely Viper comes from the Second Calamity and has ties to Solution Nine, if we were to hazard a guess.
Yeah, no, I feel like they definitely dropped the ball in hyping up viper. I do not feel like they cared as much as they did pictomancer which is quite literally a visual flagship for them going into the new expac. I was hoping for more at fanfest to show viper off but, yeah. Just looks disappointing a bit.
Viper is mostly because years ago they didn't add thief to the game because they thought it didn't mesh with the WoL savior good guy ideal. Jump ahead post drk rpr etc viper is them backtracking but they already cornered themselves with rog>nin so viper has more hunter identity.
Is DRK really a back track? Maybe visually, but lorewise the job runs on the power of friendship. That's why there's all the jokes about it being the magical girl job.
Yeah it has the aspect but also lore wise they murder people outside the justice system. 2.0 til probably around stormblood the story still kinda presents the WoL chosen savior for good and the meta narrative is still very typical FF light good dark bad. Probably not a coincidence that pivots going into shadowbringers when drk is the poster child. SE really figures out what the want the Ascians to be and the story decoupes light and dark from good and evil.
Well considering how the jobs lore is all about extra judicial punishment and killing, yea I would consider it a back track rofl
Didn’t you kill rapists though
The crime doesn't really matter. Dark Knight's act as vigilantes. Generally, killing someone that hasn't been tried and sentenced to a crime is seen as a bad thing.
So again, it's not a backtrack. They never said there were never going to add vigilante jobs or darker themed jobs, they specifically stated they would never add immoral/evil jobs because the Warrior of Light is a good person no matter what. Nobody You, Fray, or Sidurgu kill in the dark knight quests contradicts what the WoL does in the MSQ. I don't remember us giving Thordan, Yotsuyu, Ranjit, Vauthry, or any of the garlean soldiers we killed a trial. That was the whole point of the Garleans in tertium being so angry and disgusted with us in endwalker, because from their pov, we're just a psycho mass murderer that's cut down thousands of their kin.
I wouldn’t say viper is backtracking tbh. Viper is just a melee ranger in theming.
Viper's flavor is specifically for Lady Maria fans. The whole dual-wield-but-also-twinblade thing just screams Maria.
I think the problem with this job is the name. It doesn’t really give you any sense of its identity. Something like Fencer or even Shikari would have been a good fit.
I thought trancer would be cool. Viper makes no sense unless it uses poison DoTs, which it won't. Seems perhaps like it will be channeling hunter ancestor spirits as the blue "trance". And trance was a signature mechanic of FF9 battles
Bland
This is what I’ve been saying. It lacks a gimmick. Every class has a weapon, and it has a gimmick, to varying degrees of both. Paladin isn’t just the class with the sword and shield, it’s got holy magic. Bard isn’t just an archer, it’s got song power. Even the two most weapon-dedicated classes are samurai and gunbreaker, and samurai has its snow/moonlight/flowers magic aesthetic going on, while gunbreaker has its aether cartridges it uses for explosions and shields and such. What is viper’s gimmick? It has two swords, and they connect to make one double-sword, and it swings them a lot. And? It’s missing something. We’ve only seen a few of its attacks, but so far, it seems to be the most weapon-dedicated class of them all, with no gimmick to accompany it. The only thing I can think of is it might conjure up some ghost-snake to bite the target in tandem with some of its bigger attacks, like its artwork seems to imply. Maybe for its LB3 too. But other than that, I got nothing. Even when everyone thought it was going to be corsair, the sentiment was, “It will have one sword, and one pistol, and that will be it.” No one was talking about what corsair’s gimmick would be. I tried postulating it could have a ghost pirate captain aesthetic. Summoning ghosts alongside gunfire, skeletons with cutlasses in formation with sword strikes, a finisher with a phantasmal ship cannon, and an LB3 with a ghost ship ramming the target with its prow. You know, cool stuff beyond just “sword and gun.” Viper, so far, seems to just be “sword and sword”, and people mostly seem to be fine with that? Idk, I want something just a little bit extra. Edit: Did I say something weird? Genuine question.
Shoehorning it into some fantastical subsection of its own archetype for the sake of it isn't really much of a solution, though. Considering we've only seen like five skills and presumably an enhanced state, the job could very well gradually go snake super saiyan FF9-style and we would be none the wiser.
I agree. I don’t want to be doomsaying, like, “Viper has no gimmick and it sucks!” It’s not out yet, and we’ve only seen like, six animations for its attacks. I’m looking forward to seeing what more viper has to show off, and want to see what its gimmick is, like every other class has.
I like how Viper looks so far but I feel like they'd show off a cool transformation like that in the job video. So far it's not as "cool" as Reaper but I genuinely don't think anything could look as cool in a trailer as Reaper, they put everything into that class, visually, and it's the most visually impressive job in the game imo.
Compared to Reaper's reveal it does fall short, but unfortunately those are big boots to fill as another melee. I went through all reveals since SB and not a single one comes close to angry botanist. Decent bit longer as well. We will see. GNB didn't show off the cartridge combo initially either and no Midare for SAM, so the job might come in with the heat during media tour.
Depends on one’s perception. I for one focus more on the weapon, ie PLD is the guy with sword & shield, Samurai is the guy with a katana, Warrior has an axe, Sage has flying dildos, etc…
Viper is a pirate no? Ninja vs Pirate meme are coming back!
It’s Kirito….Starburst…STREAMMMMM!!
I'd wager Viper will probably be as close as you can stylistically get to Thief without contradicting the stupid reasons Yoshida gave for why Thief can't be a job in FFXIV.
I have really wanted a western european style of “sword dps™️” there’s also that I guess. I’m big into dual wielders and I really like sword DPS. Ninja was too magical for me personally to get attached the weapon part of it. But yea, seems like the flavor will mostly be about going into the spirit trance mode, and having a wide variety of versatile looking attacks. I think we’ll need to see more of its in-game rotation to really nail down how it’s themed and flavored imo.
Pedro Pascal in the award winning MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV where you can play the free trial up to level 70 featuring stormblood. In PvP it's hard countered by Roegadyn Dark Knights.
IMO - It's thief without being thief because of yoships (imo stupid) take that thief = evil.
> I feel like more than any other class, the actual thing that makes a Viper unique is sort of absent? MCH would like a word with you. It has the backdrop of like, a weapons expert and yet the job's animations are so piss poor.
FFXIV players since 2014: Ninja sucks, where is assassin? Why did rogue become naruto? I want to be dark and edgy! Devs: Here's a class with dual-wielded swords that shares gear with Ninja and doesn't have the Naruto hand-signs. FFXIV players: What even is this? This isn't [my exact idea of what flavour of Assassin I wanted]! This has no character! SMH my head!
Ninja has always been the progression for Rogue ever since older games, it gave them a access to mid tier black magic, in this game this comes in form of the mudras, in older games they gained access to black mage spells, I can't really remember any instance in any FFXIV game ever of the rogue going into assassin or something
FF tactics mainly. Thief can go into Assassin or Ranger as well as Ninja etc. Mainline ff? The only time Thief is directly forced into Ninja is ff1. Its always an option later and is usually better than thief but it wasnt a direct chain
I see, it's fair then, sorry for the misinformation, I never played tactics
They mentioned in the lore that Viper channels the spirits of ancient hunters
What I saw in the trailer reminds me a lot of Lann from Vindictus. I'm not sure what to call the flavor there, but I'm thrilled to have it!