If you could only make/get one set of gear would it be power or condition damage?

I already have a set of berserker gear, but I'm thinking about crafting a set of ascended gear for my necromancer. If I wanted one set of gear to do all of the content of the game which should I choose? WvW is not necessary for this, but it would be a nice bonus if it fits in. I would like to get at least make one set of gear for open world pve, raids and fractals.

As much as I love power, if you're only gonna craft one ascended set, then you're far better off with condi (viper or trailblaizers). Higher damage ceiling and great cleave with Epidemic.

Berserker's > Viper's > Shaman's

@Methuselah.4376 said:As much as I love power, if you're only gonna craft one ascended set, then you're far better off with condi (viper or trailblaizers). Higher damage ceiling and great cleave with Epidemic.

I agree with this. Ultimately, though, the cost of switching stats on ascended armor (and weapons) is relatively low, so it doesn't matter that much which you start with. You can change your mind with minimal investment. (Typically, in fact, the sigils or runes will be the most expensive part.)

My playstyle has always been power based, that doesn't stop me from raiding as a condi warrior though. If I had to choose, I'd still go with power. Playing condi warrior is stressful to me, with utility skills being something you usually have to use on cooldown while ignoring some of the weapon skills entirely.

Prefer my steady, meaty hits and using all weapon skills over that any day. So give me my Marauder/Valkyrie set combination I use right now and I'll be happy for the rest of my days.

The necromancer have been design in such a way that it's easier to achieve result with condi builds than with power builds. Simply put, where other are proficient at specializing their damages to reach high number, the necromancer is proficient at diversifying it's damages throught the ability to apply a lot of different conditions at the same time.

From my point of view, if we only talk about damage, the necromancer is the most efficient with any gear that offer both power damage and condi damage at the same time: viper, grieving... etc. I don't feel like core traits can support you well enough to specialize in one kind of damage (and if core traits can't then the elite specializations can't either).

I kinda want to make a celestial set because it kinda fills every role a little. I love being tanky in WvW and having hybrid power/Condi damage, but don't want to gimp myself in pve either. I need to craft legendary armor for my necro, I feel it's the only way to really keep up with necro build diversity without having three or more sets.

My necro rolls in the open world as a Power MM Scourge. He has a full set of exotic Berserker gear, and in the bank he has a set of exotic condi gear, mostly Rabid with a few Viper pieces. I mean to farm him some Ascended trinks eventually. Like the previous poster, I'd love to roll in a Celestial set, but all those charged quartz crystals are a pain.

I always make use of SOS while roaming on reaper.Go shroud use rs2 and go out of shroud. If you do it right, you won't loose any lf.

It's good and it's bad at same time to have it trigger while not in combat.

Bad if you hit mobs and no enemies are around.Good if stealthed up people sneak around you.

Definitely viper because it fills the meta well for scourge and epidemic is a lot of fun but also because you can play as reaper in viper gear without sacrificing too much. I play scourge for when I need to carry/perform in PvE and switch to reaper in open world or when I just want a change. I play both builds in WvW.

I only have one set of Ascended Armor and that's Valkyrie, my weapons are Ascended Berserker as are my Trinkets.

Screw Condi, they took my Power Reapers Job!

(They took our jerbs, durka durh!)

Vipers will be your best bet in that content. In WvW vipers might be a bit too squishy but you can find success if you stick close to a zerg you should be fine. But the recommended build plays very different than the power reaper. Condi scourge is more akin to engineer in play style with the required aoe targeting and heavy use of your f skills. It's very much about resource management, placement, and being proactive. I've seen a lot of scourges drop like a bag of bricks in fractals because of them acting like they are still as tanky as a reaper. You are not. Sand Flair is your primary heal you want, but don't take it unless you know how to use it. It's not a strong heal. It is better for support and is a heal skill you should use early to prevent attacks from dipping into your health and less as a recovery. But no class is impossible to learn. But scourge is one of the more difficult elite specs to learn. Good thing solo pof is a good way to learn.

For PVE I'd go for Power now after the huge nerf in pve Scourge dps in one patch (Making the bursting potential of condi much lower)

The newly buffed power Necro is really enjoyable to play, strong, with lots of CC too.You can even synergize with MM since it doesn't take too many traits to complete the power setup (Just reaper and Spite), and MM is very very durable in the current version of game, with very good CC potential. (One MM line pretty much covers the survivability and condi cleanse in one go)

It is probably single handedly the best solo build in open world, able to solo many Champs that're near impossible to solo by other classes.It is also useful in fractal too due to free meat shield that'd reduce the painful level of adds in higher fractal, plus like I said, very good aoe cc potential = making mobs alot easier. The build also has excellent cleaving potential for adds (GS/ shroud), and excellent single target range damage for boss. (axe)

Condi Scourge is nice and all, but it is really not as strong as previously anymore, plus sustain is much worse in my opinion.(If you play Scourge at launch you'd know how crazy it was lolz..)