The Viper did not need a buff.

Two hits to kill flak and nano-weave infantry was just fine. Having no way to deal with tanks was fine.

Really, it should require two hits to kill ALL non infiltrator infantry targets because it is already such a beastly weapon, so please drop the splash damage from 600 to 550 (to a total on hit damage of 950).

Please stop adding one hit kill BS where it does not need to go.

Signed,

Fortress, a player with 10k Viper Kills (the third highest in the game) and a Viper K/D of 58 and KPH of 123.


(That means I know what I'm talking about).

But...but...with these changes I will soon be able to be as good as my Hero Fortress!!

This change surprised me too!

only change I'm 500% sure is plain wrong. It's already the best Lightning AI gun, now it's the best farming tool in the game. do we need this??

It has been underused because players don't know it's effectiveness. blatantly OP now.

I'm a Lightning Driver

P.S.: Daddy is using it. and noone has ever seen him using bad stuff

I have to wonder if the overall kill data shows differently. If mostly good players are using it, then it would surely show some pretty crazy stats. I've always found it quite good, but requiring two shots might butcher it. Making it too splash oriented would probably make it preferable to HE.

It's the default weapon on the lightning, so noobs bring the average down. Much like the shredder and the basilisk, it's incredible in the right hands. People dismiss it as 'trash', though, because defaults.

It already requires two shots most of the time as a direct hit currently does 1050 damage, which is not enough to one hit kill anyone with one level of flak or one level of nano-weave. (except infils, but w/e)

Though the nano-weave nerf would push it to a one hit kill without any changes in weapon damage, I feel that's a mistake. The weapon is too accurate and fires too quickly to award it a one hit kill, which is why I want it to be two shots to kill minimum.

Actually Fortress you're wrong, and here's my proposal:

1) Buff Viper damage to infantry to be infinity
2) Increase outer splash range to 500-600 meters
3) Increase rate of fire to 11k RPM
4) Increase projectile velocity to hitscan speeds

thanks

Don't be ridiculous. You know the game engine can't handle an RPM that high without crying.

yea, that is the problem with that suggestion

It looked perfectly balanced to me

Viper vehicle damage changes (aproximate):

• Harasser: +43%
• Sunderer: +75%
• Lightning: +54%
• MBT: +16%

Viper can never get too much love. Go eat a pine cone.

Did they change the damage to ESFs? I don't remember it killing them in just four hits before... at least that's how it is on the PTS.

If it took two hits I'd just use HE or HEAT. It's harder to hit infantry with the viper especially at long ranges, so it'd be kind of weak if it didn't one shot in the ranges it is effective with. It's also only decent vs. infantry really. If it wasn't good at farming infantry it'd just have no place at all.

...?!

Unless you are one of the two people ahead of Fortress in Viper kills, then I'm going to have to say you're wrong.

It was already stupid good at farming infantry.

I don't care much on the AI side. On a weapon that fires as fast as the Viper, 1 or 2 hits is a negligible difference. Spawn shield spamming won't be affected either way.

But the Viper needed some love in its AV role. TTKs against other vehicles were so far out of line with the L100 series that the HEAT was a straight upgrade from the Viper. The only reason it isn't beaten by the HE variant is the longer reload on that one.

While it's true that it takes minimal certs to make it two shots, I feel like I still kill in one shot more often than two. I guess maybe grenade bandolier and ASC are more popular than I thought, or I run into a lot of damaged players. You're right that two shots most likely wouldn't ruin the weapon, though. I think that without flak armor, a direct hit and a relatively close splash to kill would be reasonable enough.

Players who use certain weapons extensively can lose touch with what it's like for the average player to use a weapon.

The viper certainly can wreck infantry and if you learn the drop and how to lead it's projectiles and so on and so on, yeah it would eventually become overpowered in certain users hands. For the average player though, or one that's not as much of a tanker, it's very situational and performs poorly at long range.

I've seen videos and killboards with absurd amounts of HE/HEAT and even AP sniping kills with lightnings vs. infantry as well, it's sort of the way it goes when there's a bunch of infantry and not enough tank counters around - they can't simply shoot you like any other infantry so you can often "farm" them. Many of them also just kind of ignore the tank and try to avoid it, leaving it for other players who might have a better AV loadout or whatever, except then a whole group of infantry thinks this and the tank is just casually clobbering them all.

The viper is the extreme of that, but that's still the only thing it's good for.

If they nerf it, they should at least change the lightning default to HEAT, and players can decide for themselves whether to get something more dedicated to anti-infantry.