Viper
Personal information
Combat information
Availability and VA information
Backstory
The staff officer of the Exotic Squad. She can manipulate any human with her verbal trickery and physical beauty.
Specialities
Normal Attack
■ Affects target enemy.
Deals 220.4% ATK as damage.
Skill 1 - Snake Sense
Passive■ Activates when the target appears. Affects all allies.
ATK ▲ 25.98% for 10 sec.
Hit Rate ▲ 11.13% for 10 sec.
Skill 2 - Snake Scale
Passive■ Affects self.
Hit Rate ▲ 3.43%
■ Activates when entering Full Burst. Affects self.
Vamp: Excludes 1 ally unit from enemies' targets for 10 sec. Loses effect when the caster takes damage.
Invincible for 1 sec.
Burst Skill - Snake Bite
Active 20 seconds■ Affects designed 1 enemy unit(s).
Deals 462.85% of ATK as damage.
■ Activates when the designated enemy unit(s) include the stage target. Affects the same enemy unit(s).
DEF ▼ 19.83% for 10 seconds.
Review
Viper is a Burst II Attacker who wields a Clip Shotgun. This makes her a great burst energy generator and also a damage dealer, but sadly her kit is really underwhelming.
Her S1 looked so good on paper when everyone assumed the 'target' meant any enemy appearing on the screen. Sadly, 'target' refers to the elite enemy that appears close to the end of a story stage or to bosses you fight in Interception. To make things worse, the buff not only lasts for 10 seconds, so in boss fights it's close to useless as you will use it during the first few seconds when your team's DPS is at the lowest. As for normal stages, it will only activate right at the end where things rarely matter anyway.
The first part of Viper's S2 gives her a minor buff to Hit Rate, but since she is a Shotgun user, it actually helps her in longer ranges. As for the second part, it's another super confusing skill, but here's how it works. When you enter Full Burst, the Vamp buff will become active on Viper which basically is a reverse taunt - so enemies won't be able to target her for 10 seconds with their single-target skills. Still, this skill has two glaring issues: projectile attacks that are already flying toward Viper will hit her and remove the buff, and also AOE attacks that hit the whole party will also deal damage to her - and also remove the buff.
Viper's Burst is just as underwhelming as her other skills. She basically deals damage to a single enemy and if by a miracle while playing on auto, the random enemy will be the 'target' mentioned in S1, she will also decrease its DEF. If you play on manual you can aim her Burst and make full use of it. This makes the skill useless in story stages and only usable on bosses, but why would you bother to use Viper there if the only thing she brings is the 10-second ATK buff at the beginning of the battle? We don't know.
Overall, if not for Viper's damage output, which is among the best in the Burst II category, she would be sitting at the bottom of the tier list. So you can safely use her in your team if you lack Rupee/Centi/Dolla as her damage can help you clear the stages you're stuck on. Just keep in mind that her skills currently are useless and they need to release a character that synergizes with her.
As for PVP, since she's a Shotgun user, you can use her in your Shotgun team, but she won't replace any of the current Shotgun meta characters.
Ratings
Pros & Cons
Pros
great burst energy generation,
great damage for a Burst II character.
Cons
weird and hard-to-use kit,
her ATK buff is just useless in 90% of the content,
Vamp buff has glaring issues and in 99% of scenarios does nothing,
her Burst as it targets a random enemy, so even against a Boss with ads, she might target an add and waste the Def debuff (on auto-play).
Full design
