I’m main-ing Serpentine this season. Here are my thoughts. Ask me anything.
SUMMARY: A mid-level perk that works better on big maps allowing players to run toward objectives or power positions while taking reduced damage by opponents. It has the potential to be an above average perk if it receives a proper buff.
DEFINITION: Player receives 10% damage reduction (note: this includes explosives even though codm only mentions bullets) after sprinting for 2 seconds. This buff is immediately deactivated upon jumping, sliding or shooting.
STRENGTHS and RECOMMENDATIONS:
* Best used as a point A to point B perk, running toward an objective or power position—surviving opponent’s shooting across the map.
* Also good for general retreating, like in Capture the Flag or Uplink game modes.
* Ideal for playing on large maps (ie Terminal, Crossfire or any Ground War map) that have open spaces players need to cross.
* Enemy guns with “Disable” equipped DOES NOT slow a player enough to deactivate Serpentine.
* Light Weight is a perk that naturally pairs well, but I prefer to pair it with perks or tacticals that heal quickly (ie Fast Recover, Stim Shots) allowing me to reengage in gun fights faster after reaching my destination.
* Players can also pair it with perks that eliminate any slowdown, keeping Serpentine activated (ie Dauntless, Survival Training).
* When paired with operators skills that sprint (ie Bull Charge, Equalizers and Shadow Blade) players take advantage of the damage reduction buff. Shadow Blade and Equalizers deactivates Serpentine after using the fire button.
WEAKNESSES and WISHES:
* 10% damage reduction and the 2s delay to activate it is too weak for aggressive and melee players to use. Naturally, players will read the description and want to use an smg or shotgun and rush everyone. it, but it’s not suited for that style since it can’t be paired with Gung-Ho.
* It’s better for mid-range fights where the damage reduction allows players with slower mobility run toward power positions safely, heal up and continue the fight.
* Vanguard released this perk with a 20% damage reduction and no activation delay. This made it a good perk. Codm should match this or at least find a better balance by reducing the activation delay and raise the damage reduction to at least 15% if not more.
* Side note: In Vangaurd players see the Serpentine icon when shooting an enemy equipped with it notifying damage inflicted is being reduced. Codm should add a similar feature.
FINAL THOUGHTS
* It has the potential to be good with the right buff, but in its current state it won’t replace Quick Fix, Toughness, Cold Blooded, Ghost, Gung-Ho in ranked. Too many better options in the green perk space even with the stated strengths I mentioned. Unless there’s a change I don’t see myself using it past this season—especially after rank resets.
5 Comments
Is the perk useful? I don’t play aggressive
Thank you so much for this info, I was wondering if it’s worth to use it!
Yeah but it should suck. Why should a melee person basically get an extra health bar because they have a perk? You might as well include a perk that does extra damage then. If it got the buffs you wanted it would be as broken as persistence
Not a question, but I just can’t see any scenario here I would ever use it as it is. There’s a delay before activation, it only works while sprinting, so no slide peeking, or any elementary basic movement, etc, and the damage debuff is literally almost useless, -10% damage is just a single extra shot, which with how fast TTK is atm, it’s almost inconsequential. And in many cases that won’t make a difference since the debuff often doesn’t take away enough damage to even need another shot
I can see your running across big maps point, but even then, most people slide and jump while running, coupled with the delay, you’ll almost never have activated. Plus, again, the damage debuff is almost useless given how fast guns shoot and ttk atm. And to give up any good green perks for something that makes virtually no difference for ttk and has no passive bonuses or any upsides?
I just feel like it needs a rework/ good buff
Reasons why this perk is trash:
1) It’s glitched, and sometimes i’ll run for literally 20 seconds until it finally activates
2) The moment you need to hip fire, jump, slide ADS, or do anything but *run* the perk turns off, making it impractical to choose over Gung-Ho or Quick Fix
3) You basically need to play like a bot and do nothing but run for this perk to even *slightly* be viable, and even then, you’re only saving yourself 10% less damage in a gunfight.
To put that in perspective, that’s approximately 1 extra bullet you can take before dying, where as quick fix doesn’t require any movement to activate
I understand the dev’s gave it these penalties so it wouldn’t be overpowered but it *definitely* needs a rework. Even if it were a Red perk atm i can’t see a scenario where players would use it