49

learning curve - 9 / 10
payoff - ? / 10

the amount of beatdowns you take at the beginning is discouraging to anyone however once you get past that and learn her initial hard techniques such as FFF, seismo cancelling consistently in matches, etc etc, that’s when the fun begins. for me the payoff is just seeing how much better my viper’s getting as i play her more b/c she’s fun to me. ryu was too boring for me to keep playing him.

50

Learning curve 8/10
Payoff: 7.5/10

I love playing viper, but her payoff isn’t that great after putting in the time.
It might just be me though since I have to play against people who know the viper match up very well
and the occasional random rufus knocking me out of a tournament. Started playing Sakura and mind fucking everyone like I do with Viper.

51

At first, I thought the payoff for playing Viper was really great because I was just mindfucking people left and right for easy stuns/wins.

However, as time goes on and everyone is learning her tricks…her mindgames are getting less effective. Most of her tools are not safe at all, so it’s simply about guessing right or losing IMO.

Learning curve: 8/10 (there is a lot to learn but inputs aren’t as crazy as people make them seem)
Payoff: 7/10

52

double post.

53

Learning Curve - 9/10
Payoff - 9/10

I have picked up Viper about a month ago as another main and feel I am making progres but I have experience so many frustrating matches, training sessions and arse whoopings that at times I almost packed it in. Hoewver, having stuck with her, I have made quite a bit of progress and am really enjoying playing with her. She really is just too much fun. Only reason I didn’t give her a 10/10 for payoff is she takes way too much damage and fighting someone like Sagat, Zangief and Honda is just annoying as you can work so hard to do serious damage and then in a matter of a few moves they could level the score. I main Abel and this is basically the same issue I have in that Abel and Viper are both very good characters, but in most cases you have to work 2-3 times harder than the other player to grab a win. But I wholly recommend Viper to anyone. She forces you to up your execution.

54

learning curve 12/10 (not combo wise, I could do her fff and sjc in like a week, but its he flame kick, knowing how and when to use em and siesmo strings tricks n shit, and staying safe)
payoff 15/10 i love using her…and she beats all the top tiers imo…she can really fuck someone up especially when u can effectively read ur opponent…it just sucks that the honda and zangief matchups are impossible unless ur playing someone dumb…i personally like the bison match…so payoff goes to 9/10 unless u counter pick those two matches…

55

geif match up is not too bad if u know how to string seismos. Honda is pretty bad though. Learning curve is pretty deep just to get use to how she moves since she real mobile. payoff 10/10 learning curve 5/10

56

Learning curve 10/10
Pay Off 2/10

Never in my life I’ve used negative edge until I started playing with Viper. Doing what she does, and I don’t mean the combos (which are pretty easy) are really hard speciall since I am about to gather 1000 games online.

Pay Off is a joke for me, after 1000 games I have a crappy 37% where sometimes I just wanna sell my game for 1 dollar. I can do consistently FFF and extreme low BK offline, but online, is just not possible. Everyone is spamming shoryukens and with only 2 actives frames on fierce, you are just asking for a srk, ultra or srk, ex fadc then ultra.

Viper is for japanese players with japanese internet speeds. If by any chance you are playing with only 3 bars pick a top tier. Don’t waste your time like I did for more than 10 months. It’s not worthy.

57

learing curve 10/10
pay off ?/?

it really depends i mean you can master everything and still lose its just that viper isnt a solid character overall she relies heavily on mix ups and usually, pros dont fall for mix ups. She is a type of character that you costantly need to practice executions and find new tricks for her. If not, people would always know when and how you gonna cross em up or not thats why viper is confusing. Sometimes it works and sometimes it dont. It really depends on how good your opponent is and how well he is familiar with mix ups. Using a character like viper that relys on mix up aint too good unless you got perfect executions and ground pound your way to victory. I jsut learned to do lk lk lp sj ultra and its useful to me now. I thought it was insanely hard and yes it is insanely hard but hitting it puts a smile on my face so i do it all day =D REmember if ya wanna use viper on a high level LIVE IN TRAINING MODE and just mess around and practice executions everyday

58

Learning Curve: 10/10
Pay Off: 8/10

I’m a Chun player. I mainly picked up Viper because I wanted to help a friend who’s new to the game and he wanted to main her. He loves execution heavy and high risk/high reward characters. So I got to learning what she can do. I gave up on her in the past but I let the execution thing get to my head. After I overcame my mental obstacle, I worked my fingers to the bone to learn most of her shit so I may then pass my knowledge on to my friend. He’s not able to play often so he asks me a lot of questions so I do a lot of experimentation and research for him. I’ve a few levels above him in Viper play but for how long he’s been playing, he’s been catching up quite a bit. As for my payoff, I’m enjoying her a lot and considering to make her my second main. I haven’t had many opportunities to test her off against my fighting game scene but I look forward to playing her more competitively. Maybe the payoff score will improve in the future.

59

curve: 10/10
pay off: 9001/10

started as a gief main, thought i was hot stuff. then i hear viper’s the hardest character in the game to play with and i figure, “hey zangief is pretty hard too (LOL)”. tried viper for giggles against the comp, got pwnt on easiest. started practicing with her afterward. could not get the ex seismo xx sjc, burning kick for the first week i played with viper. just seemed so bizarre. and the cancels took me a good 3 weeks to get down, not to mention FFF. but when i won that first legit, non-button mashed game on xbox live… jesus christ it felt like i had transcended my mortal shell and become something much more than human. it was awesome. viper only gets fun-er the more i use her. so much depth, so many mindgames, so much DAMAGE. <3

60

curve: 10/10
pay off: 9001/10

started as a gief main, thought i was hot stuff. then i hear viper’s the hardest character in the game to play with and i figure, “hey zangief is pretty hard too (LOL)”. tried viper for giggles against the comp, got pwnt on easiest. started practicing with her afterward. could not get the ex seismo xx sjc, burning kick for the first week i played with viper. just seemed so bizarre. and the cancels took me a good 3 weeks to get down, not to mention FFF. but when i won that first legit, non-button mashed game on xbox live… jesus christ it felt like i had transcended my mortal shell and become something much more than human. it was awesome. viper only gets fun-er the more i use her. so much depth, so many mindgames, so much DAMAGE. <3

61

I don’t main Viper, but from experience of playing her, I’d say
Learning Curve: 10/10. Her advanced stuff is reeeeeally difficult. It makes Gen’s stance change look like Shoryuken>FADC> Ultra easy. I’m still trying to figure out Seismo chaining.

Payoff: 9/10.
I say this because a good Viper can just destroy people.

62

Honestly I think some parts about how hard her execution is are a little exaggerated, as I learned to FFF in a week (in training mode. Still trying to incorporate it in my game but I never try it online because of lag). Honestly I thought Gen was harder execution wise but I didn’t put much work in him I was just messing around with all the characters. Mind you I usually like playing games like Guilty Gear and Blazblue, so I’m more used to longer combos and cancels.

Anyway so far the payoff is great. On XBL my win/loss ratio isn’t great because lag makes me drop combos in addition to execution mistakes so I lose more often than I ‘should’, so I mostly just try to take away matchup experience instead of abusing lag to win. Play to learn instead of play to win.

It’s always satisfying when I actually do win because I trained my opponent to counter throw after an overhead and killing them with and instant air BK lol. Feels so diabolical.

63

Learning Curve - 9/10
Payoff - 10/10

To clarify, the learning curve is high because you need to spend a lot of time on her. To get one trick down in training mode is one thing, but to do it as a natural habit in online matches is another. And Viper has many, many tricks.

In the long run if you master every single little category of Viper’s tricks and moves, you will eventually get the concept of mix-ups, combos, techs, and footsies down. Your execution will improve, thus making other characters much easier to learn by that point. So basically payoff in the long run is higher skill. However payoff for winning or losing matches with Viper depends entirely on your opponent, and it may not be that rewarding sometimes when you lose to a lower-skill shoto.

64

Learning Curve - 10/10

Took me a month to finally be able to consistently land her low traj bks, seismo strings, and FFF. I have yet to master HJC ultra from normals and the meterless FADC, mostly because I don’t see myself using these too much. Instant burning kicks I still have trouble executing.

What makes Viper so difficult to play is that you need to learn her tricks to be able to play her at a decent level. Unlike other characters gimmicks which are mostly just situational (i.e. Chun’s Focus Dash cancel to Ultra 1) or are just for show (i.e. Chun’s c.hp to lighting legs), Viper’s tricks are an essential part of her game. She needs to be able to FFF, cross up bk, low trajectory bk, or string seismos in order to stand a chance. She has to rely on these tricks just as much as Ryu has to rely on his fireballs. Without it, she virtually has nothing else to rely on. <btw the Chun examples are because I main her too>

Payoff - 7/10

To the average gamer, her payoff does not justify the effort in learning her. It would if she turned out to be one of the best characters in the game, but the truth is she’s mid tier at best. You’d get better results just learning a shoto in the amount of time you’ll spend on learning her.

BUT…

Intangibles

So why even pick her up? Because she’s so FUN to play! She does everything flashily! She’s a crowd-pleaser. None of her matches will ever be boring because of her playstyle. Plus, there is the personal satisfaction in being able to one of the more difficult characters in the game.

65

casually

learning curver 7 or 8
pay off, 7 or 8

only reason why ppl think shes paying off is because the same bk crossup or bk spam works on random net players.

Rarely do you see any good vipers, there are literally a handful, sanford, wolfkrone, flash in north america.

Observing their play, its really hard to get consistent with her. Evo proved it.

If you assess her competitively

Learning curve 9
Pay off 7

To play at a high level not only must you know her inside out, but due to her bad matchups and random losses that shes susceptible to.

66

10/10
10/10

67

Good thread I decided to start training with
viper since I’m an ibuki main. I hit a wall
will ibuki I NEED to sjc effectivly to get her to the next level. And that’s a huge part of viper game too so here I am. Anybody else in my shoes

68

learning curve 8/10. I think she is difficult at first, but after a while, she only has a couple of gimmicks and combos. Reward is not so great. She dies too early and it requires you to go on the offense mostly. But I use her because she has cool hair and has a suit. And she’s fun to play. So much different than the whole cast of ssf4.