Viper, Terrible or Great?

5 bots where it beats avenger, and all of them vs meta bots. Does about the same as avenger vs bots with 50% damage resistance (fenrir and mender, one of which is meta worthy and the other a high priority target) and better than avenger vs 66% damage resistance (t falc is for sure meta).

Ao guang is rare but if you saw one then viper wins out easily. Then there is the case of THE meta bot, leech. Makes avenger look like a dart gun when you line them up in front of a leech with viper dealing more damage but bouncing back less damage while with avenger you lose more health just to deal less damage.

3 bots on the list -where viper does better than avenger- being meta means there will be many good cases for this weapon and even while it isn't in it's prefered environment it still has about 2/3 the damage an avenger has and more accuracy so it will do fairly well. Problem is, viper is specialised while avenger is decent at everything.

You fail to see the battle side of. While your numbers work on paper and put viper as the worse weapon on the battlefield it depends on what robot you use it on, for instance a falcon, fenrir, bulwark, leech, ao jun or greek bot may walk out into the open and return with either low or zero damage.

Also there is situation to consider, we are playing a team game after all meaning you are more likely to have an enemy target another teammate rather than you. So if you take the situation in you can easily do your full damage without hardly moving from cover OR taking damage.

Your paragraph here also ignores that 1, avenger and glory have low damage outside of 350m and the other 2 that you listed only have 350m range meaning their damage tapers off to zero there. 2 There is also the problem of slow projectiles from ember, and if you brought up calamity then there is lock on to worry about.

Vipers long exposure matters not, so long as you pay attention to the battlefield. Also the weapons we have listed here all have problems with range while viper doesn't have one (or at least a miniscule problem) so it can hit the enemy wielder of these weapons while taking low damage.

Im surprised no body mention pilot skills....To make avenger great you need sharp shooter and speed shooter, but viper does not have (or not need) the 2 skills. So save some gold and 2 skill slots.

I did mention this, the viper is hittin smaller targets.

Yes you did mention viper is hitting smaller targets, but my point is most people compare Viper with Avenger with Sharp Shooter and/or Speed Shooter, which Viper don't have (or don't need).
For apple to apple comparison, I think it's more fair to compare regular Avenger with Viper, then compare enhanced Avenger with Viper again to see if it's worth to spend 2 skill slots for the Avenger...

IMO Avenger is Au intensive (2500Au per + 2 Pilot skill + whatever you need to roll the right skill), Viper can be Ag only (WS).

speed shooter isn't all that worth it, if you have the space after mechanic, roadhog, armour master and any bot specific abilities plus shot grouping then go ahead but it hasn't given me much of a noticable difference on my avenger.

I have. Which is why I said I prefer avengers.

but if you paid any attention to what I said then you would prefer viper, it is more accurate as well so you don't have to get very close, since the t falcons almost all use glory that is important.