So, I've just spent a couple days drilling snakebite lineups and that's fun n' all but I've been playing Viper a while and see some suggestions floating around and even get flak for picking her in games.

Viper's kit isn't bad it's just limited in ways other characters aren't. Omen gets a new smoke every 35 seconds iirc, Sova has a new dart similarly. These abilities are so common / powerful that pro players keep an eye on the clock specifically for these time periods expecting ability usage/pushes.

Viper's whole theme is that she can pop stuff every ~6 seconds but has a hard time adjusting to the emergent fight over a round. If she throws her wall before the barriers are up, she's broadcasting that she wants to hit that site. Sure, you can bait some utility with it maybe, but now a third of your kit is gone if you follow through on B.

If you use your poison orb on the spike (it's borderline mandatory for reasons I'll bring up in a moment) that's now half or 2/3rds of your kit used, meanwhile Omen still has more smokes, has a teleport and a blind, other controllers have utility outside of just blocking LoS.

Viper, in my opinion could do with 2 buffs. Make Snakebite able to kill someone sticking the defuse through it's duration. Currently it may be bugged, but a player with some shields and all or the vast majority of their health will not die to a snakebite even if they sit in it for the entire duration. That's absurd, and removes the most important use of a molly in the first place. Likewise, enemies can simple walk/run over it and take maybe 10-40 damage assuming they don't have any shields left.

Applying vulnerable with the snakebite is great and I'm glad it lasts a couple seconds, but you still need to follow up on it unlike other area denial in the game. I love snakebite, but the fact of the matter is if you're trying to slow down a push,clear a corner, or deter a defuse - the most important uses for a molly imo, the snakebite is the only one in the game that can't do it on it's own. You have to wait for the enemy to sit in your decay for a while otherwise it's just a couple seconds of vulnerability. Which, if you set up a one way on B and a wall to rotate with, you don't have decay. You can pick up your orb, sure, but now you're the last one rotating in a race to defuse.

You should be able to recall her poison orb similar to killjoy's bots. Many Vipers have a variety of one way smokes they can use that are within reach to jump and grab, but this qol change would make it comparable to other controllers when you just need to toss something to block LoS now and don't wanna march back to site or wherever for your orb wasting often 10+ seconds before rotating in a game where each round is only 1:40 to begin with.

Being able to snakebite a spike, and have it reliably deter a defuse is the bare minimum for me though. As it is you're burning everything in your kit aside from your wall just to deter defuse when a Phoenix, Brim, Killjoy, etc.. etc.. just have to toss their molly on it and call it a day. Having your smoke orb on the spike is nice but shouldn't be mandatory for the rest of your kit to function.

Viper is fun, but she's often forced into a corner in how she uses her abilities because they either don't work otherwise, or they would waste way too much time when you need to rotate quickly, rush site, etc.. etc.. The entire round isn't even 2 minutes long and half your kit either needs to be manually retrieved or can't be moved at all meanwhile other characters can just lob/toss their LoS blocking utility or spike deterrent wherever they are whenever they need it. I don't think she should be able to move her wall or anything drastic though.

Her ult is also insanely easy to counter just by covering some angles outside of it and spraying, or even just tossing a sova dart in. It only messes with your map if you're inside, so anyone outside can still just fire on the ping/callout/death/whatever of anyone who enters it (assuming they're not just spraying through it until something dies or waiting outside of it to immediately gank her the second she kills someone.

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TLDR:Let us call our smoke back like Killjoy does with her stuff.

Snakebite should be able to kill someone if they sit in it for the entire duration, other mollies kill even faster, but this would at least give it some kind of threat outside of your poison orb/applying vulnerable. This is slow enough they'd get over halfway on the defuse (still weaker than other mollies) but still enough damage that it's not just a silly tickle to anyone not sitting at 1hp in the orb.

Our utility should be able to block recon darts and stuff. Jett/Brim smokes currently stop Sova darts from spotting you even if the dart lands in the smoke and you're standing right on top of it. Omen and Viper utility (aside from her wall) doesn't do this which is really weird/inconsistent. Her ult is the same, the outer wall of it will stop detection but if they just toss a dart in your ult or send someone in to ping you since you have the same vision range as enemies, you're fucked.

These changes are pretty simple, but enable a lot more freedom in how she's played, which means she can play less predictably then "oh there's a smoke orb on the spike, of course. Snakebite once you've suffered decay, yep." and "Oh she ulted, cool let me just spray in like 3 or 4 different angles and if she's not dead in one of those someone can just ping/dart her inside the ult and we fire on the ping from safety."