Mixing Grieving & Viper Gear?

Hi everyone!

So when Firebrand first came out it was the one spec which could make use of Grieving efficiently, however Vipers was also viable and it is what I had available so I went with that so long. However, since then, there are now build which prefer Viper gear over Grieving. Now I was planning to slowly start aquiring my Grieving gear, but thinking about it I am actually quite happy with having Expertise instead of Ferocity. So I am happy to keep full Viper's. but I already have a grieving ring and necklace, and I can now easily buy the other grieving accessories in the Fractals. I was thinking of using Grieving accessories and Viper armour and weapons, but I am not sure if this makes any sense, trading half my Expertise for a boost in Ferocity

No matter what stats your gear has, maximising burning duration is the most important thing for a FB build. Viper does it by expertise and can go for renegade runes, grieving needs balthasar runes but no expertise. Since mixing runes does not make sense, mixing grieving and viper gear is probably rather sub-optimal.

thanks for the reply, this is what I suspected the case to be!

I'm a personal fan of mixing the sets for exactly 15% boon duration from viper's. Using full grieving you need some rather expensive food to meet your burning cap, with 15% expertise from vipers you can run a mostly grieving build and use any random condition damage food you like.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJAsfnsADFBjdBDWCBEEhF/BzKAUBqTZPoKUGa/i2RHpA-jRiAQBmV5AAeAAQ7EAwV1XkqeAbqEEG7PASlcQUFiAAHAjX8AY8xHf8xHvrHf8xHf8xHf8xHvUAPqsC-e

All you need (assuming full ascended) is Viper's Back, both Accessories, one Ring and your Pants. It is technically SLIGHTLY less stat efficient, but your wallet will thank you.

All you need is Sigil of Smoledring (+20%) rune of balthazar (+45%) your trait Radiant fire (+20%) , and Bowl of Fire Meat Chili (+15%)100% without any expertise/viper

Food is easy/cheap to craft if you run the world since a while

Thanks for the info!

I ran some numbers and with Vipers you get

Sigil of Malice (10%), Sigil of Smoldering (20%), Expertise (38%), Radiant Fire (20%) & Fire Meat Chilli (15%) = 103% Burning Duration.So you can shave off some of the Viper Expertise for Grieving and bring it down to 100%This allows you to use Renegade runes which gives you 175 Bonus to Condi Damage and 7% Condi Damage Boost.I confirmed you can shave off 105 expertise from a Full Viper build which means you can exchange one Viper ring and and one earring for Grieving

With Grieving it is mostly the same except you have Balthazar instead of Expertise

Sigil of Malice (10%), Sigil of Smoldering (20%), Balthazar Rune (45%), Radiant Fire (20%) & Fire Meat Chilli (15%) = 110% Burning Duration.This allows you to remove the Malice sigil for Bursting and get the 6% bonus on your base condi damage and also gives you the extra burning from the heal mantra.I know people do not really like using the mantra for damage, but you do not have to, you do not lose burning duration or damage compared to the viper set if you do not, but it is a nice option.

It seems to me however the Viper gear has better flexibility and damage, since you get some extra condi damage into your build and you can take a few grieving pieces. You lose a lot of ferocity obviously, so I am not sure how that compares to the gain in condi damage.

I have full Viper's set on Firebrand (ascended and I use renegade instead of balthazar runes) and together with the Chili food I achieve ~97% + burning duration. Now my question: is it really necessary to get to 100% for that if I have 1s burn I get 2 seconds be cause they round it down? Or does my burning get 1.97s instead of just 2? Thanks for clarification.

@Omnicron.2467 said:Thanks for the info!

I ran some numbers and with Vipers you get

Sigil of Malice (10%), Sigil of Smoldering (20%), Expertise (38%), Radiant Fire (20%) & Fire Meat Chilli (15%) = 103% Burning Duration.So you can shave off some of the Viper Expertise for Grieving and bring it down to 100%This allows you to use Renegade runes which gives you 175 Bonus to Condi Damage and 7% Condi Damage Boost.I confirmed you can shave off 105 expertise from a Full Viper build which means you can exchange one Viper ring and and one earring for Grieving

With Grieving it is mostly the same except you have Balthazar instead of Expertise

Sigil of Malice (10%), Sigil of Smoldering (20%), Balthazar Rune (45%), Radiant Fire (20%) & Fire Meat Chilli (15%) = 110% Burning Duration.This allows you to remove the Malice sigil for Bursting and get the 6% bonus on your base condi damage and also gives you the extra burning from the heal mantra.I know people do not really like using the mantra for damage, but you do not have to, you do not lose burning duration or damage compared to the viper set if you do not, but it is a nice option.

It seems to me however the Viper gear has better flexibility and damage, since you get some extra condi damage into your build and you can take a few grieving pieces. You lose a lot of ferocity obviously, so I am not sure how that compares to the gain in condi damage.

You should never be running without Sigil of Bursting, even in the viper's build. Condition damage is always greater then condition duration. Viper's build generally won't hit burn cap, it'll always be 3.8% off from cap (even using full viper's) if you want to use renegade or berserker runes.

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:Now my question: is it really necessary to get to 100% for that if I have 1s burn I get 2 seconds be cause they round it down? Or does my burning get 1.97s instead of just 2? Thanks for clarification.

Conditions deal damage only on each scheduled tick, but if you have a remainder on your duration, it will be multiplied against a whole ticks damage and that scaled damage will happen on the next tick. So if you had a 2.5 second burn for 100 damage a tick, you would see 100 - 100 - 50 damage across three seconds, even tho its "technically" a 2.5 second duration.

I run full grieving with antitoxin runes. Fantastic as far as I am concerned. I have more sustain and do more damage as well.

This whole question is more complicated. In some weapons/class combinations ingame, even Sinisters should be considered (think, necro Secpter). I doubt that's the case for Axe, but considering Axe also applies bleeds and burns, I can't help but think the best approach is to max CONDITION duration in general, then cap burning (rune/sigil/food), then the balance with mixed/condi/power gear.

My current setup is full Asc. Vipers with Runes of the Flame Legion, Sigil of Force and Malice. That's capping the burning at a little more than 100%, that's giving 50% increase on the bleeding and IMO, a good balance of condition damage and direct damage stats. You can choose whatever food to tweak (which is what food should be for anyways). I usually run Fire Flank Steak and Tuning Crystals.

My biggest problem with this build is that DoT builds are usually sustain builds, but without some attention in defensive stats, Guardian doesn't make a very good sustainer. You really have to burst your Condis as often as possible.

@Obtena.7952 said:This whole question is more complicated. In some weapons/class combinations ingame, even Sinisters should be considered (think, necro Secpter). I doubt that's the case for Axe, but considering Axe also applies bleeds and burns, I can't help but think the best approach is to max CONDITION duration in general, then cap burning (rune/sigil/food), then the balance with mixed/condi/power gear.

Axe bleeds only last 1 second, on the auto, 3 seconds on the symbol (which is arguable weather or not that's even a DPS increase with its huge delay and short duration). Bleeds account for maybe 5% of your total damage if you are lucky.

It's been proven by multiple raid guilds (qt included) that a grieving setup will flat out be the most optimal DPS build. That said, the other's aren't that far behind, play what you like.

I personally still feel however, the Balthazar Runed mostly Grieving with Viper's pants, ring, both accessories and back item to be the most versatile build. It allows you to run full burn duration from gear alone(has EXACTLY 15% duration from expertise), allowing you to use your food slot to tweak your stats for the content you are running.

@Bookah.3026 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:This whole question is more complicated. In some weapons/class combinations ingame, even Sinisters should be considered (think, necro Secpter). I doubt that's the case for Axe, but considering Axe also applies bleeds and burns, I can't help but think the best approach is to max CONDITION duration in general, then cap burning (rune/sigil/food), then the balance with mixed/condi/power gear.

Certainly, if the OP wanted to, he could have just went to the qT website and got the standard 'raid meta' answer. Still, the question of which one to use isn't any less complicated. From what I read, the OP could just proceed with the gear he has and probably not suffer much or at all; people tend to forget that within the randomness of their base weapon range, a percent here or there because of slightly different gear is simply a wash. There are pros and cons to either camp. I believe that extended durations, especially in raids, allows you more breathing room.

What's everyone's weapon sets for Condi FB? And what about sets for a Power variant?

This should be optimal in nearly every scenario after the nerfs to quickfire.

If you want a little extra cushion for survival, This is within 0.15% of the other setup and gains about 1700 HP for virtually no DPS tradeoff (Approximately 50 DPS on a golem).

@"Bookah.3026" said:It's been proven by multiple raid guilds (qt included) that a grieving setup will flat out be the most optimal DPS build. That said, the other's aren't that far behind, play what you like.

Not after the last Quickfire nerf. Viper with Virtues has better dps, easier rotation, and gains dps instead of losing against multiple foes. Plus, you get to run Virtues, which gives you tome cd reduction, and a bit more sustain from Resolve passive, which is always active with the FB trait.

By the way, has there been any systematic comparison of grieving vs. viper with the different possible trait setups? After the latest quickfire nerf, of course. I know there was one reddit post which seems to have started the discussion about new virtues builds, but I've never seen an actual comparison.

@CptAurellian.9537 said:By the way, has there been any systematic comparison of grieving vs. viper with the different possible trait setups? After the latest quickfire nerf, of course. I know there was one reddit post which seems to have started the discussion about new virtues builds, but I've never seen an actual comparison.Basically with the virtues setup, and using axe for your primary damage MH, the sinister gear is better than the griever stuff. all of the possible setups that mix viper/griever/sinister are very close though.

I am confused, where does Virtues come in? I do not see what it brings in terms of damage Master of Consecrations and Permeating Wrath does not seem with all the other useless passves you get.

Radience gives you Renewed Justice, Radient Fire, Radient Pwer and Amplified Wrath got a really nice damage boost to Burning damage .Zeal gives you Fiery Wrath and Kindled Zeal among other things which increases damamge vs Burning foes and increasing your condi damage.

Both of these seem really good with Vipers or Grieving

@Omnicron.2467 said:I am confused, where does Virtues come in? I do not see what it brings in terms of damage Master of Consecrations and Permeating Wrath does not seem with all the other useless passves you get.

Radience gives you Renewed Justice, Radient Fire, Radient Pwer and Amplified Wrath got a really nice damage boost to Burning damage .Zeal gives you Fiery Wrath and Kindled Zeal among other things which increases damamge vs Burning foes and increasing your condi damage.

Both of these seem really good with Vipers or GrievingThe axe AA chain hits 6 times because of the phantom axe. That means every one of your AA chains procs Permeating Wrath 2x per target hit. Compare that to the 1.2x you get from the untraited VoJ passive, and also the reduced cooldown from the ToJ, and you end up picking up a lot of damage. The old Zeal setup was running with Quickfire, which means you got 0 VoJ passive procs in that setup.

Permeating Wrath on an axe/t FB is REALLY strong. If you have fights with multiple adds, it goes to completely ridiculous very quickly.

@Knox.8962 said:

@Omnicron.2467 said:I am confused, where does Virtues come in? I do not see what it brings in terms of damage Master of Consecrations and Permeating Wrath does not seem with all the other useless passves you get.

Radience gives you Renewed Justice, Radient Fire, Radient Pwer and Amplified Wrath got a really nice damage boost to Burning damage .Zeal gives you Fiery Wrath and Kindled Zeal among other things which increases damamge vs Burning foes and increasing your condi damage.

Both of these seem really good with Vipers or GrievingThe axe AA chain hits 6 times because of the phantom axe. That means every one of your AA chains procs Permeating Wrath 2x per target hit. Compare that to the 1.2x you get from the untraited VoJ passive, and also the reduced cooldown from the ToJ, and you end up picking up a lot of damage. The old Zeal setup was running with Quickfire, which means you got 0 VoJ passive procs in that setup.

Ok I understand now, thanks!

If you are fighting a Raid boss without adds, do you go back to zeal?

@Omnicron.2467 said:

@Knox.8962 said:

@Omnicron.2467 said:I am confused, where does Virtues come in? I do not see what it brings in terms of damage Master of Consecrations and Permeating Wrath does not seem with all the other useless passves you get.

Radience gives you Renewed Justice, Radient Fire, Radient Pwer and Amplified Wrath got a really nice damage boost to Burning damage .Zeal gives you Fiery Wrath and Kindled Zeal among other things which increases damamge vs Burning foes and increasing your condi damage.

Both of these seem really good with Vipers or GrievingThe axe AA chain hits 6 times because of the phantom axe. That means every one of your AA chains procs Permeating Wrath 2x per target hit. Compare that to the 1.2x you get from the untraited VoJ passive, and also the reduced cooldown from the ToJ, and you end up picking up a lot of damage. The old Zeal setup was running with Quickfire, which means you got 0 VoJ passive procs in that setup.

Going back to the main point I would not mix the gear, stick with one or the other. In terms of 'upgrading' to grieving I would be wary. The recent changes probably have affected the balance. If you look at qtfy based on the benchmarks they made before the changes though they said grieving was only slightly better. They are looking at a perfect rotation in ideal conditions on a golem. The viper's build was almost the same, but because you aren't using balthazar runes you aren't throwing your heal in for extra dps. Which makes the rotation slightly easier to pull off, and in actual combat situations probably makes a viper build actually slightly better, and you aren't losing your heal to try to do damage. So bear that in mind before investing in a very expensive grieving set.

@Eruaph.4039 said:Going back to the main point I would not mix the gear, stick with one or the other. In terms of 'upgrading' to grieving I would be wary. The recent changes probably have affected the balance. If you look at qtfy based on the benchmarks they made before the changes though they said grieving was only slightly better. They are looking at a perfect rotation in ideal conditions on a golem. The viper's build was almost the same, but because you aren't using balthazar runes you aren't throwing your heal in for extra dps. Which makes the rotation slightly easier to pull off, and in actual combat situations probably makes a viper build actually slightly better, and you aren't losing your heal to try to do damage. So bear that in mind before investing in a very expensive grieving set.

Plus even when grieving was better, they conceded that it was only superior by like 1-2% extra dps