Runes for general Heavy Armor Viper Set?

Howdy Folks,I'm in the process of making a set of viper's heavy armor. I play Gaurd and Rev mostly with a splash of War when they start feeling stale. qT shows they all use different runes. I'm usually fairly gold starved, because I make poor financial decisions with fantasy money and i get bored when I just focus on one class. What would y'all recommended as a general set of runes that would work for all 3? I was leaning 4 Nightmare 2 trapper but wanted see if the community had any suggestions.

Well, for a safe place , Balthazar. I am in the same spot as you,because i tend to swap between Firebrand and Renegade. And i have the same viper armor with balthazar runes.

I know this is counter-intuitive to your request, but I would consider not sharing the armor. The impact the runes have on your damage is greater than the difference between exotic and ascended. You are better off in exotics with the right runes than ascended with the wrong ones.

Listen to Ardent, tho if you still Want a allaround set the trapper nightmare setup is Fine for cps Condi renegade and maybe even for firebrand

If you only have one set, make it Viper with Renegade runes. Viper / Renegade is optimal for condi berserker, and very close to optimal (< 1% off) for condi firebrand. You do take a pretty substantial hit on condi renegade with that setup, however (~5%) - enough so that you'd want to use a set of exotics with the right runes instead.

@Ardent Heretic.8216 said:I know this is counter-intuitive to your request, but I would consider not sharing the armor. The impact the runes have on your damage is greater than the difference between exotic and ascended. You are better off in exotics with the right runes than ascended with the wrong ones.

This is quite sound advice, though viper gear is quite expensive even as exotic. Ideally you'll want seperate sets.

@Ensign.2189 said:If you only have one set, make it Viper with Renegade runes. Viper / Renegade is optimal for condi berserker, and very close to optimal (< 1% off) for condi firebrand. You do take a pretty substantial hit on condi renegade with that setup, however (~5%) - enough so that you'd want to use a set of exotics with the right runes instead.

Also good advice. Viper+Renegade runes should have you covered for most heavy condi builds except maybe cPS due to low might uptime. You could also go 4 Nightmare + 2 Trapper (100 condition damage + 25% condi duration) and get 2 different sets of ascended trinkets (Sinister and Viper mix), then mix and match trinkets for maximum conditi duration and rest sinister.

@Dstroya.6705 said:Howdy Folks,I'm in the process of making a set of viper's heavy armor. I play Gaurd and Rev mostly with a splash of War when they start feeling stale. qT shows they all use different runes. I'm usually fairly gold starved, because I make poor financial decisions with fantasy money and i get bored when I just focus on one class. What would y'all recommended as a general set of runes that would work for all 3? I was leaning 4 Nightmare 2 trapper but wanted see if the community had any suggestions.

Since you're looking at Quantify, I assume this is just for raiding? If so, then 4xNightmare/2xTrapper is the best all-purpose option. Condi duration matters a lot in raids and bosses don't clear them. You won't be perfect for everything, but you'll be close. Don't sweat someone arguing over a miniscule golem DPS loss - the raid won't reflect golem conditions and a sneeze will mean more than that to your DPS against any boss.

@mygamingid.5816 said:

@Dstroya.6705 said:Howdy Folks,I'm in the process of making a set of viper's heavy armor. I play Gaurd and Rev mostly with a splash of War when they start feeling stale. qT shows they all use different runes. I'm usually fairly gold starved, because I make poor financial decisions with fantasy money and i get bored when I just focus on one class. What would y'all recommended as a general set of runes that would work for all 3? I was leaning 4 Nightmare 2 trapper but wanted see if the community had any suggestions.

Again, bear in mind that nightmare/trapper is a major dps loss (5-10%, I believe) for Firebrand. It would be simpler if there was a one-size-fits-all, but that isn't good for game balance.

Much closer to the low end of that, which isn't bad at all - hardly "major" in any realistic sense and still well above many other builds. Would you rather have an imperfect Firebrand put up 35k-36k or a perfect Condi Engi with 34k?

@Cyninja.2954 said:Also good advice. Viper+Renegade runes should have you covered for most heavy condi builds except maybe cPS due to low might uptime. You could also go 4 Nightmare + 2 Trapper (100 condition damage + 25% condi duration) and get 2 different sets of ascended trinkets (Sinister and Viper mix), then mix and match trinkets for maximum conditi duration and rest sinister.

4 Nightmare + 2 Trapper is ideal for DPS renegade and good for PS berserker (ideal for very good groups where you don't need Aristocracy). It's awful for DPS berserker and DPS Firebrand (basically unplayable, more than 10% off of benchmark).

Viper + Renegade is ideal for DPS berserker, very good for DPS firebrand (~0.5% off ideal benchmarks) and acceptable for PS berserker (~2% off the Nightmare + Trapper benchmark). It's only really poor for DPS renegade, where you'll be ~5% off the benchmark (kind of a big deal for a DPS build).

So while you can't get a rune set that is 'good' for every build, you can pick between warrior + guardian or warrior + revenant and have a set that's solid for at least two out of three.

Unplayable?? C’mon! “Don’t be a class nazi. Every class can do the job if played correctly. You don’t need the highest possible damage to kill a boss.” is right there on qT’s site. Teams completed these exact same raids back when 30k was really impressive and now you’re shaming a build that does even more DPS just because it’s not perfect. At a 5% drop, you’re looking at less than 1900 DPS on a golem - much less than that in a raid. The 10% figure is less than 3800 DPS - again much less than that in an actual raid. It’s ridiculous how much people overstate golem charts...

@mygamingid.5816 said:Much closer to the low end of that, which isn't bad at all - hardly "major" in any realistic sense and still well above many other builds. Would you rather have an imperfect Firebrand put up 35k-36k or a perfect Condi Engi with 34k?

Please understand that my argument is that it would benefit the OP more to keep their exotic set with correct runes on one character and simply upgrade the other character rather than try to half-upgrade both. I am in no way telling them that they must optimize, just how to do it if they wish to.

@Ardent Heretic.8216 said:

@mygamingid.5816 said:Much closer to the low end of that, which isn't bad at all - hardly "major" in any realistic sense and still well above many other builds. Would you rather have an imperfect Firebrand put up 35k-36k or a perfect Condi Engi with 34k?

I’m okay with it, but that doesn’t come without cost. Exotic gives up a bunch of attribute points: 16 each off of two minors, 20 off of one major, and 30 off for infusions. For four-stat sets, that’s 19 off two majors and 11 off two minors, plus the infusions. Agony will keep you out of high-level fractals, too.

@mygamingid.5816 said:I’m okay with it, but that doesn’t come without cost. Exotic gives up a bunch of attribute points: 16 each off of two minors, 20 off of one major, and 30 off for infusions. For four-stat sets, that’s 19 off two majors and 11 off two minors, plus the infusions. Agony will keep you out of high-level fractals, too.

Which is a tiny fraction of your total. 10% off of optimal Firebrand DPS is more than the difference between optimal full ascended with the right food and utilities, and full exotics (including weapons!) with welfare food and utility.

I am not going to advise someone to use a gear set that so poorly matches their spec that they would be better off in rares and exotics than using it.

So, a 34k imperfect Firebrand is worse than a perfect 31k Daredevil?

@mygamingid.5816 said:So, a 34k imperfect Firebrand is worse than a perfect 31k Daredevil?

Apples and oranges. If the exotics Firebrand does 36k with right runes, take that over the ascended with wrong runes Firebrand doing 34k. That's the only point we're making.

I'm saying that there are a lot of worse options that would make the list if you're not running with a dedicated experienced and perfectly-equipped team. It'd still be exceptional for a PUG.

@mygamingid.5816 said:I'm saying that there are a lot of worse options that would make the list if you're not running with a dedicated experienced and perfectly-equipped team. It'd still be exceptional for a PUG.

Very accurate, but irrelevant to OP's request. They asked advice on which runes to use. OP clearly wants to compromise since multiple ascended sets would be expensive. We are discussing the value of an ascended upgrade with a rune downgrade. Since the runes outweigh the rarity, we recommend leaving one character in exotics as to allow the other two to receive a proper upgrade, rather than compromising their upgrade to unintentionally downgrade the first character.

@Ardent Heretic.8216 said:

@mygamingid.5816 said:I'm saying that there are a lot of worse options that would make the list if you're not running with a dedicated experienced and perfectly-equipped team. It'd still be exceptional for a PUG.

The OP is discussing one set of ascended & runes between 3 characters. The exotic thing was dragged in...

@Ardent Heretic.8216 said:

@mygamingid.5816 said:I'm saying that there are a lot of worse options that would make the list if you're not running with a dedicated experienced and perfectly-equipped team. It'd still be exceptional for a PUG.

Please reread the part where TC says:

@Dstroya.6705 said:Howdy Folks,I'm usually fairly gold starved, because I make poor financial decisions with fantasy money and i get bored when I just focus on one class.

Even exotic vipers gear is quite epensive (and from reading TCs opening I doubt they have a completed vipers set). The question by TC was clearly about how he can get 1 ascended set (which he is in the process of crafting) that fits all 3 classes and at least sort of works. Suggesting he make a 2nd set for other characters which can easily reach 200-300 gold total if using viper gear and proper runes is NOT the option they are willing to go for and most likely do not have the financial ingame means.

As far as ideal runes and stats. I have no problems toping and beating damage classes on my outdated cPS warrior build (full ascended Viper with Aristocracy runes) in pugs. People are that bad. So even a 10-20% drop in a competent players hands is a no issue.