Viper is a fun melee DPS that uses two swords that can combine into a single twin-bladed sword. How to play it as a beginner in FFXIV? Megastar shared a guide for Viper beginners on his YouTube channel. Let's find out.
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Basic Single Target Combo and Sword Gauge
Both Steel Fangs and Dread Fangs are the first part of your combo. When you use them, you'll notice the sword gauge will be orange on both sides. Orange indicates that you used the first part of the combo.
Dread Fangs will apply a debuff called Noxious Gnash to your target for 20 seconds, increasing your damage dealt to the target by 10%. It can also be extended to 40 seconds.
The next part of the combo is Hunter's Sting or Swiftskin's Sting. Both will give you different buffs based on which one you use. This will make the sword gauge blue and orange on both sides. The blue means that you used the second part of the combo.
Hunter's Sting will grant you a 10% damage buff for 40s seconds called Hunter's Instinct, while Swiftskin's Sting will grant you a buff called Swiftscaled that reduces your GCD timer by 15% for 40 seconds, making you able to attack faster.
For the last part of your combo, if you used Hunter's Sting, it'll be Flanksting Strike or Flanksbane Fang, which are flank positionals. Or if you use Swiftskin's Sting, it will be Hindsting Strike or Hindsbane Fang, which are rear positionals.
Using any of these will also reset the sword gauge. Whenever you use any combo finishers, it'll grant you a buff that'll buff the next combo finisher in the combo. Each button will also be surrounded by an orange dotted border, indicating which one to use.
You can technically do whatever you please, but the combo will automatically guide you to reapply both buffs and use the correct combo finisher. The outer border of the sword gauge will also indicate which button to press in the combo.
AoE Combo
The AoE combo operates in a similar fashion. The first part of the combo is either Steel Maw or Dread Maw. Dread Maw will apply Noxious Gnash to all nearby enemies for 20 seconds. Then, there is Hunter's Bite or Swiftskin's Bite, with the former granting you Hunter's Instinct and the latter granting you Swiftscaled. Then, it will be Jagged Maw or Bloodied Maw. Using either of the combo finishers will grant you a buff that'll buff the next combo finisher. The sword gauge and the buttons themselves won't tell you which one to press besides the combo finisher, so keep an eye on your buffs or alternate between them.
The combo finishers will also trigger Serpent's Tail. It will change into either Death Rattle for the single target combos or Last Lash for the AoE combo.
Twin-blade Combo
Moving on to your twin-blade combo, you'll start by pressing Dreadwinder, a weapon skill with a 40-second cooldown and two charges. This will apply Noxious Gnash and allow you to use either Hunter's Coil, which has a flank positional, or Swiftskin's Coil, having a rear positional. Hunter's Coil will give you Hunter's Instinct, and Swiftskin's Coil gives you Swiftscaled.
Both of these weapon skills will change Twinfang and Twinblood to Twinfang Bite and Twinblood Bite, respectively. Pressing Hunter's Coil will give you a buff called Hunter's Venom, which will buff Twinfang Bite and then buff Twinblood Bite. Pressing Swiftskin's Coil will give you a buff called Swiftskin's Venom, which buffs Twinblood Bite and then buffs Twinfang Bite. Like the main combo, the abilities will have an orange dotted border to show you which ones to press. These abilities are off-global and must be pressed before your next weapon skill. If you press another weapon skill without using both off-globals, you'll lose them and cannot press them until you use either Hunter's or Swiftskin's Coil. So, make sure to press them.
Twin-blade AoE
The AoE version of Dreadwinder is Pit of Dread. Pit of Dread shares a cooldown timer and charges with Dreadwinder. Using Pit of Dread will apply Noxious Gnash to all nearby enemies and allow you to use either Hunter's Den or Swiftskin's Den. Using either will change Twinfang and Twinblood to Twinfang Thresh and Twinblood Thresh, respectively. These will also give you the same buffs as the Dreadwinder versions. The off-globals will have an orange dotted border to help you know which ones to press.
Rattling Coil
At level 82, you will unlock Uncoiled Fury and the trait Vipers Rattle. Whenever you use Dreadwinder, Pit of Dread, or your level 86 ability Serpent's Ire, you'll gain one stack of Rattling Coil. These Rattling Coil Stacks can be spent on Uncoiled Fury, which is a ranged weapon skill that does quite a bit of damage.
At level 92, Uncoiled Fury will change Twinfang and Twinblood to Uncoil Twinfang and Uncoil Twinblood, respectively. Like the Dreadwinder weapon skills, you must press these off-globals before pressing another weapon skill. You also have a normal range attack, which is Writhing Snap.
Reawaken
Upon reaching level 90, you will unlock Reawaken and your Serpent Offerings Gauge. Whenever you use the combo finisher of either your main combo or your AoE combo, you'll gain 10 Serpent Offerings. Whenever you use either a weapon skill from Dreadwinder or Pit of Dread, you'll gain five Serpent Offerings. When you reach 50 Serpent Offerings, you can use Reawaken. Serpent's Ire will now grant the ability to use Reawaken without spending any Serpent Offerings. Reawaken will change Steel Fangs, Dread Fangs, Hunter's Coil, and Swiftskin's Coil to First, Second, Third, and Fourth Generation. These need to be pressed in order from First to Fourth, as each combo action will massively increase the damage of the next one.
At level 96, during Reawakening, The Reawakening button will change to Ouroboros, which is a finisher for the Reawakening combo, so make sure to use it after the Fourth Generation. At level 100, each of the Generations will change Serpent's Tail to First, Second, Third, and Fourth Legacy. Each Legacy is an off-global that should be pressed between each weapon skill to make the combo do a lot of damage. Vipers have a gap closer called Slither, which you can use to close the distance between yourself and your target. You can also jump to another party member using this as well.
Hope it helps. You can refer to this page to learn more about the Viper job actions and combos. Happy gaming, Vipers!
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