Recently, the Lead Character Designer, Ryan “Morello” Scott, talked about the upcoming changes to Viper on his stream. These changes should make her a more powerful Agent since she is not being played in the competitive events almost at all. Right now, one of her biggest problems is that she only works well with very coordinated teams: that not only requires a good Viper player, but also allies that know how to work with her kit. To use her Smoke Screen effectively, players had to learn perfect spots for it or they would risk it not being deployed, because of roofs or other obstacles.
Even when players learned the best places for the Smoke Screen, this ability is very limited. Yes, it allows the user to smoke two bomb sites at the same time, but only once per round. It takes a long time to deploy, and sometimes, when players try to do it quickly with the usage of a mini-map, it doesn’t land where the mini-map was showing it would, making it useless for the entire round. On top of that, players just got used to the most common places for it, how to play around it and it’s just not as a big threat as it used to be.
“We think this is a very critical buff” claims Morello “and when it comes out, we need to see how she lands afterwards”. The new change is a treat for all Viper mains, because the updated Smoke Screen will go through walls. This will open up many creative places for the Smoke Screen placements and maybe it will be better to save this ability for late in the round, for more critical moments.
There is no doubt that Viper, compared to other Agents, is definitely underperforming. The next thing that Morello talks about is a change for her Snake Pit (chemical zone). The way it works right now doesn’t make it unique or better than any other molotov-like utility. For comparison, Brimstone’s Incendiary ability not only lasts longer, but it also has a bigger area of effect. The new Snake Pit will give a “fragile” effect to players who are standing in it. This will be some kind of vulnerability, but he didn’t get into the details and that’s all we know for now. On top of that, Morello also mentions that if these changes won’t make her strong enough, they might buff her ever further, but for now, he thinks that “this (Smoke Screen) and Snake Pit will make her a lot more potent”.
How do you feel about those changes? Do you have any ideas for a new Smoke Screen or what “fragile” debuff might mean? Like always, leave your thoughts in the comments!
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