Viper vs. Grieving

Any reason to really use full Viper (as is recommend by most metasites)?

I’m currently wearing Exotic Grieving armour (I suffered through the Funerary collection) with a Viper Axe (sadly Grieving wasn’t an option for the FB collection Axe) and Celestial accessories (minus Back which is Ascended Grieving - Praise Joko!) and after food I am sitting at very close to 100% Burning. If I were to ditch my Celestial Accessories I’d be hitting it for sure.

So yeah - wouldn’t Grieving (or a mix of it an Viper) by better than full Viper?

IIRC, full grieving vs. full viper builds were rather close to each other, with some 0.x % advantage for viper. A mix will probably lose dps due to condi duration issues. From a gameplay point of view, I switched to viper a while ago and prefer it over grieving, since you are free on how to use your heal skill.

WIth food I'm currently at 98% Burning duration without a single piece of Viper armour (but Viper weapons).

Accessories are as mentioned Celestial.

I take Viper when there are other many other conditions that would benefit from duration or if direct damage is crap anyways ... e.g., Necro with Scepter, it's ALWAYS Viper. I can see on FB, grieving is probably preferred. It might also be easier to craft Viper for some people as well?

From a DPS, I think it matters little unless your damage coefficients on your weapons are terribly low.

Oh yeah I really wouldn’t craft it. As mentioned I got it as a freebie from a collection. :D

You don't go Viper for the burning duration, in fact you can max out at 100% with full Grieving and 0 expertise, by using Balthazar runes (45% burn duration), Sigil of Smoldering (20%), Bowl of Fire Meat Chili (15%). That's 80% total, and the last 20% comes from the Radiant Fire trait.

The difference is that the full Viper setup gives almost 60% duration to all condis, which boosts your bleeds, but also your immobs, which are quite helpful in raids. Plus, you get some QoL by not being forced into Mantra of Solace and having to spam it for dps. Viper is also easier to get, trinkets in particular, especially for those of us that have been spamming LS3 maps all this time. There's also a difference in food, Chili is still quite economical at 20s, but Viper uses Koi Cake, which is dirt cheap at 2s, so you can guiltlessly spam it when doing story and open world stuff.

That been said, the difference in dps is small, and I don't think it's worth it to switch to viper if you already have your stuff. I would say though that you should work on getting trinkets if you have LS3 unlocked.

I wonder how the extra Bleed damage from Viper compares to the extra raw power damage from Grieving...?

Slightly superior, obviously, otherwise grieving would be meta. It's a bunch of small things that create the differences between the two builds (zeal vs virtues, axe primary vs scepter primary, etc) and make a direct comparison beyond the dps numbers difficult.

Viper Benchmarks slighly better, but is less flexible since it means you camp axe (melee) over scepter (ranged) in grieving.

Overall it doesn't make much of a difference though.

If you don't mind using the heal mantra as part of your rotation to proc the Balth runes (and pulsing out aegis is something you should probably do anyway), grieving works just as well as Viper.

Yea I’ve been trying to Aegis my raid buds with the mantra but there seems to be quite a few things that go through it...

@Asum.4960 said:Viper Benchmarks slighly better, but is less flexible since it means you camp axe (melee) over scepter (ranged) in grieving.

I believe viper scepter benchmarks better still.

I went Viper because 1) I already had a viper ascended set from my war and 2) I don’t like using my heal as part of a DPS rotation.

@Dahkeus.8243 said:I don’t like using my heal as part of a DPS rotation.

Well, as a Warrior main you get used to it.

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Dahkeus.8243 said:I don’t like using my heal as part of a DPS rotation.

Personally, I would use Viper Ascended gear just because it's kind of sharable with Warrior and Revenant. Minus the runes, I suppose.

Well i tested both, also hybrid variants. So far full Viper with Renegade runes are definetly better.Renegade Runes vs Sigil of Bursting:Renegade Runes gives you additional 7% Condition Damage and works like Force Sigil but for Condition Damage. Sigil of Bursting only adds 6% to Condition Damage "Stats" and this is a huge difference. This means not only your Burning dmg but also your Bleeding Dmg is stronger than the combination Balthasar + Sigil of Bursting Those 2 Conditions Dmg synergizes very well with Viper + Renegade Runes. Most of your dmg is burning due Tome F1 (Skill 1 - 2 - 4 and 5 - especially 5. Skill 5 gives your dps quite a high burst of Burning. GW2 Builder isnt 100% correct, so you shouldnt trust this site completely.

You will see a bit higher Personal DPS with Grieving + Balthasar Runes + Sigil of Bursting, but overall DPS when you play in Groups - Viper + Renegade Runes + 10% Condition Sigil Duration surpasses the other version.

But in my opinion this is only for min - max builds. Grieving option with Balthasar Runes isnt the best but not far behind Viper option with Renegade Runes (around 1-2%)

I use Smoldering Sigil in my Axe though.

@Oglaf.1074 said:I use Smoldering Sigil in my Axe though.

Ofc., every condi firebrand is using smoldering sigil. But dont forget you are using a main hand and a off-hand weapon. So Axe-Torch which means Sigil of Smoldering and depending what gear you are using: Viper variant - Smoldering + Superior Sigil of Malice // Grieving Variant - Smoldering + Superior Sigil of Bursting.

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Dahkeus.8243 said:I don’t like using my heal as part of a DPS rotation.

Warrior starts the fight with 8k more health, at least. Even as a power chrono I feel more comfortable saving the heal for the phantasm reset, as I rarely feel threatened, and I prefer F4 if I do. But FB feel too squishy to do the same, at least when you are solo.

Don't mix, that's the worst thing to do, better one or the other. As far as I am aware the only site still recommending a grieving build is qtfy? Which is waaaay out of date now. Several nerfs have made the grieving build much worse, and it was only slightly beating out vipers before. Even then that was based on a rotation that involved using your heal to do dps (with balth runes). In actual combat situations Vipers was generally outperforming it with the simpler rotation and being able to use your heal to actually keep yourself alive. Since the nerfs I don't think there is any reason to go grieving at all anymore.

With regard to rotation, this is wrong. Both builds have a fairly easy rotation, but the grieving build doesn't need to care for its AA chain, because scepter doesn't have one. Besides, I'm pretty sure that viper still isn't so far ahead, at least not on single targets.