Viper DPS Rotation, Openers, and Abilities — Dawntrail 7.0

This page contains pre-release information compiled from various sources to provide a general overview of how the Job should function once 7.0 comes out. While this information has been confirmed and analyzed by various brains within the Final Fantasy XIV Theorycrafting community, it should still be taken with a grain of salt. All information is subject to change with the full release of Dawntrail.

Starting with the Dreadwinder combo allows us to get all of our personal buffs up as quickly as possible. You then roll right into Reawaken for a full burst window, and then finish by re-applying buffs and running a couple of Uncoiled Fury casts to finish off.

The Viper has a simple 3-hit Weaponskill rotation which can be utilized using two buttons, which are automatically replaced by the second and then third steps of the combo. This looks quite confusing at first, but is actually quite simple in execution. The explanation is meant to be read while following along with the image to the right.

• First and foremost: Ignore the Job Gauge for now. I'll get to that a bit later!
• The first hit of the combo is either Steel Fangs or Dread Fangs, as seen in the image. Steel Fangs deals much more damage than Dread Fangs, but the latter inflicts a debuff onto the enemy which increases the damage you deal, similar to Reaper's Death's Design.
• The second hit is a choice of two actions. Steel Fangs turns into Hunter's Sting, which provides you with a damage buff while Dread Fangs turns into Swiftskin's Sting, which provides a haste buff, instead. These two options are always the same, no matter which option you chose first, and both actions always transform.
• The third hit is a choice of four actions, but you only ever can choose from two of them, based on the option chosen for the second hit, as shown in the flowchart.
  • Hunter's Sting unlocks Flanksting Strike over itself and Flanksbane Fang over the other button. Both are Flank positionals.
  • Swiftskin's Sting unlocks Hindsbane Fang over itself and Hindsting Strike over the other button. Both are Rear positionals.
  • Each of these options provides you with an additional buff that will increase the power of a different option. This is a static rotation in the order of Flanksting Strike → Hindsting Strike → Flanksbane Fang → Hindsbane Fang and then it repeats. Additionally, on pressing one of the third hits, your Serpent's Tail action will turn into Death Rattle for additional damage. Each time you land a third hit of this combo, you gain 10 Serpent Offerings, colloquially referred to as Juice or Snilk (snake milk).
• Once you have one of those special third-hit option buffs, the next time you press either one of the first hits, your glowing buttons will guide you toward the improved third hit. This is indicated in two ways - first is by the action itself lighting up, and the second is by the glow on your Job Gauge (seen below). Which side lights up indicates which skill to hit - left side for Steel Fangs and its transforms and right for Dread Fangs and its transforms. This bonus is +100 Potency, so you should always be following the directions.
• As you can see in the image, the rotation of these 4 third hits will also naturally force you to alternate the second hits back and forth, which makes it easy to maintain both of the buffs they provide.

In addition to this, there is Dreadwinder. This combo also has 3 hits to it. The first hit always applies the same debuff as Dread Fangs - increasing its duration by 20s to a maximum of 40s. The second and third hits may be used in either order. Hunter's Coil provides the damage buff and has a Flank positional, while Swiftskin's Coil provides the haste buff and has a Rear positional. Each of these allows you to utilize Twinfang and Twinblood Bite and gives you 5 points toward your Serpent Offerings gauge. The Hunter's Coil buffs Twinfang Bite and Swiftskin's Coil buffs Twinblood Bite. Each of Twinfang and Twinblood buff each other, so the overall string looks something like:

Dreadwinder → Hunter's Coil → Twinfang Bite > Twinblood Bite → Swiftskin's Coil → Twinblood Bite > Twinfang Bite

This order of actions can be seen in the opener image, above. Each of these three GCDs are longer than standard - a base of 3.0s GCD spin compared to the standard 2.5s - so weaving in these two actions is easy, regardless of ping.

While executing the standard rotation elements above, you will rapidly fill your Serpent Offerings gauge, sometimes referred to (as explained above) as "Juice" or "Snilk" - in case either term has caused you any confusion. On reaching 50 points on the gauge, you can execute Reawaken, an area-of-effect Weaponskill that unlocks access to a series of Generation skills, named from First through Fourth. In order, these actions naturally replace 1st Steel Fangs, 2nd Dread Fangs, 3rd Hunter's Coil, and 4th Swiftskin's Coil. You also gain access to Ouroboros which replaces Reawaken itself. Pressing Ouroboros ends your burst phase immediately, so make sure you save it for last.

After each hit of the four Generations, you will have 1 off-gcd action - a Legacy of matching order - First, Second, Third, and Fourth. As seen in the opener, the Reawaken phase is a relatively straightforward series of button presses.

On pressing Serpent's Ire, our 120s cooldown action, you gain one free usage of Reawaken that costs no Offerings. This is how we're able to execute it immediately in the opener, and it facilitates our double-Reawaken burst window at every even minute in the future! In general, Viper is resource positive, so you will always have excess Offerings and need to plan accordingly.

One big tip - Reawaken does not break your Steel or Dread Fangs combo attacks, but it does break your Dreadwinder combo, so plan accordingly!

Whenever you hit Dreadwinder or Serpent's Ire, you gain a Rattling Coil. These appear as small red gemstones on your job gauge. Each one can be spent individually to execute Uncoiled Fury. This is a strong action with a 3.5s base recast, longer still than Dreadwinder. It also triggers an off-gcd combo with Twinfang and Twinblood, in that order, turning them into Uncoiled Twinfang and Uncoiled Twinblood. This skill can be executed at range. While it is useful for damage in the opener, beyond that it can be used whenever you would like while you have Rattling Coils. It is best saved when forced to disengage from the boss for mechanics or to correct your rotation sequence leading up to a burst window.

As Viper lacks any damage-boosting cooldowns, our "burst" will rely on the buffs coming from our allies, which all align neatly with the 120s - 2 minute - window. This can be tracked internally via the cooldown for Serpent's Ire. We pop it very early in the opener so that when it comes off of cooldown, we press it immediately, buffer with one additional GCD, and then activate Reawaken. We should have enough Offerings to then immediately re-enter Reawaken after the first one finishes. If our party is doing well, this should allow us to land two Ouroboros under their buffs for a massive damage gain.

Using these two windows back-to-back, however, will last for over 22 seconds, so it is imperative that we refresh our buff timers and, more importantly, our third-hit buff timers just before entering the first one. As such, when you see your Serpent's Ire cooldown nearing full (say, 10-12s remaining), you want to make sure your next two combos are the base three hit combos originating from Steel and Dread Fangs, prioritizing getting the buff timers up. Remember, Reawaken won't break these combo chains, so you are safe to start one, execute the double Reawaken and then finish it off after!

All of our basic actions have directly analogous area of effect actions. The entire Steel Fangs and Dread Fangs combo becomes based from Steel Maw and Dread Maw with Hunter's and Swiftskin's Bite providing the same buffs as you should expect by now, and Jagged Maw and Bloodied Maw acting as the third hit to those combos, each one buffing the other, just the same as the standard 1-2-3. They even provide Last Lash, an aoe version of Death Rattle.

Dreadwinder has a similar analogue in Pit of Dread with a shared cooldown and Hunter's and Swiftskin's Den following them up. The Den actions trigger combos from Twinblood and Twinfang - Threshes - as follow-up off-gcd actions.

Uncoiled Fury and the entire Reawaken combo are also all aoe by default. As such, when fighting trash mobs in dungeons, your rotation is basically unchanged, just utilizing the aoe versions of your normal skills. Currently, most aoe actions are a gain on two targets, with the exception of the Pit of Dread combo requiring three.

The most concise way to describe the general gameplay is that you are managing a damage and haste buff, similar to Samurai, while maintaining a debuff on your target, similar to Reaper. These three enhancements happen naturally by performing your rotation, but during burst windows they may become a concern, especially if you are performing multiple Reawaken combos in rapid succession. Viper does not have any raid buff utility or personal mitigation options available to it. It is a purely selfish melee DPS job.

Thank you for reading through this preliminary information about the upcoming Viper Job in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail. Please be sure to check back after release for more concrete information.