[K Peculier]

Winged Serpent currently does far too much for a 0m mobility move.

It is insanely strong with how far it goes and with only the measly requirement of being airborne.

Take other skills that offer mobility in the game compared to winged serpent like backflip, crane hop and shift dimension. They're useful in their own right, but they aren't ludicrous in the range of movement they offer and have cooldowns which make them impactful in the grand scheme of combat.

And then we look back at winged serpent. If one person is chasing down a demon hunter using the entirety of their turn to catch up, unless they are a demon hunter themselves-...A dedicated kite build is able to just fly and move to the very far corner of the map again thanks to winged serpent and charge movement and free to spam extremely high range moves or regen hp and fp

Proposal: Range reduced to Rank*1 tiles, instead of Rank+3, Winged Serpent gains a longer cooldown (2 or 3 rounds)

That way it is a tactical investment and decision rather than a no brainer move to use every single turn because they can.

[Autumn]

On my crutches

In comparison to literally every other form of low momentum movement in the game, I think Winged Serpent takes the cake on how egregiously overtuned it is and how much it contributes to the current kiting meta, when people often complain about kiting builds they're going to be talking about Cobra Stance's effectiveness, and winged serpent definitely contributes about 75% of that.

In its current state, a cobra user will use this every single turn by using any form of gaining airborne, whether it is Gain Air from Corbie or Winged Spear, Burn up, Dragon Hover, anything really that pops you airborne, this will give you a very solid approach for a measely 1m cost, to which you can combo into any two strings of moves, the most common of which are knockdowns which set your opponent at a massive momentum deficit.

Flipside even if these skills that pop you airborne were nerfed (which would nerf other interactions with them which are perfectly healthy.), I'm afraid that wouldn't much solve the issue with Winged Serpent itself either, as with Jump cancel you can pop yourself airborne for 0m by being next to an enemy, the strategy afterwards would be to walk up to an opponent unload an ability into them which deals good damage, then fly off out of anyone else's general movement distance in another direction, then turn around using a 1m skill and be able to dodge incoming ranged attacks with snake dancer provided you have good enough dodge to do so.

Winged Serpent kiting is among the most annoying strategies to ever face, if you're a mage you stand no contest, you're always at a momentum deficit, especially if that person you're facing has knockdowns, there's no feasible way to play against them given that winged serpent will always carry you just out of a mage's blink range, it forces you to close the gap for way more momentum than they spent just damaging you normally.

In short, the range of Winged Serpent being severely cut is a very good way to tackle this, and giving it a cooldown so that its not constant every single turn. Other 1 momentum movement have short range or conditions or even long cooldowns (or both). Winged Serpent has none of these except gain airborne which is outrageously easy and cost effective.

[Fern]

Demon Hunter can be a fancy class.

... And a soul numbing one, if only because of Winged Serpent kite. Many people put on the Cobra Stance, then Charge > Retreating Swipe over and over and over. Alternatively, they knock you down and Winged Serpent away... over and over and over... and over.....

Long story short, lowering Winged Serpent's range is for the best. I'm honestly not sure about cooldown, as I find the problem in the distance it makes, some people white spirit it for further soul numbing.

I think making the travel distance Rank*1 tiles is fair enough, really, because it has much more room for catching up compared to the current Winged Serpent. Mainly due to the fact they would be closer.

[Snake]

Now I wonder, with Winged Serpent's utility being limited, will Demon Hunter finally be able to get its well-deserved rework and adjustments in a few aspects that they heavily lack? (Such as a less Momentum-costy FP/HP recovery, ways to deal reliable knockdown or debuffs/crowd control, 'big damage but big cooldown' skill, a transformation with status buffs, etc...) The biggest thing I frown at the class as itself is at how the only worth on it is 'Cobra'. Demon Hunter is not solid at all, it's a horrible class to be mono-used for being so linear and straight up worse than even Spellthief.

I'd like for this 'potency' removed from Winged Serpent, if it ever gets changed, to be moved somewhere, not cast in the shadow realm like Boxer. Just a small consideration, pretty please.

For instance, I'm NOT against Winged Serpent nerfs, fighting against this new trashy strategy of kiting further makes me become a mad ape in regards how Demon Hunter is not being used for being Demon Hunter, but just LOL COBRA.

I'm purely against slapping lol cooldown lol range down and then leaving Demon Hunter to rot, while the class becomes less and less fun and immersive to play. If those nerfs keep happening and other parts of the class don't get compensations, we might as well as call Bonder or Ghost the new 'Demon Hunter' class ICly, purely for being more flashy and effective than the actual class that should have had that from the start.

[Kameron8]

I tried to get Winged Serpent changed some while back to only be free if airborne was caused by Leaping Lizard or Rising Tide. Barring that, a range nerf is an acceptable band-aid to the helicopter pilots flying around with pseudo-autohit immortality.

[Ardratz]

Winged Serpant has always been an issue especially with how much kiting can be done in a fight. I always thought the skill itself should be costing some momentum to use, at the very least 1 Momentum since it costs 0 which is ridiculous for what it can do and especially when you consider how easy it is to get airborne for 0-1 Momentum as well. Though I do agree that giving the skill less movement or a longer cooldown will also go a way to help with the problem it presents.