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Is it worth switching from sinister/viper to full viper?


cocosan.6952

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Hi!I recently got back into this game and was wondering if it's worth updating my gear.I main a full ascended condi necro (sinister/viper) and so far, so good. It was full sinister at first, but I decided to eventually go hybrid.Now, I've tinkered with the build editor and am unsure if it's worth losing that much condition damage. I figured I could maybe use other buffs for the extra power, if that's really the case.So, I'm really on the fence about this. I've even considered grieving but I'd much rather have expertise over ferocity.So uh...any insights would be greatly appreciated.Also, for the people who might suggest trying reaper/scourge and my answer is no :angry: I did take full advantage of the chillomancer but I like the core shroud much better. And scourge is definitely not my thing, except if it's WvW, which is never. shrug

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@"cocosan.6952" said:Hi!I recently got back into this game and was wondering if it's worth updating my gear.I main a full ascended condi necro (sinister/viper) and so far, so good. It was full sinister at first, but I decided to eventually go hybrid.Now, I've tinkered with the build editor and am unsure if it's worth losing that much condition damage. I figured I could maybe use other buffs for the extra power, if that's really the case.So, I'm really on the fence about this. I've even considered grieving but I'd much rather have expertise over ferocity.So uh...any insights would be greatly appreciated.Also, for the people who might suggest trying reaper/scourge and my answer is no :angry: I did take full advantage of the chillomancer but I like the core shroud much better. And scourge is definitely not my thing, except if it's WvW, which is never. shrug

It really depends what weapon you are using. I mean, scepter direct damage is SO bad that it might be the case that sinister is better than Vipers; I haven't done the math. Personally I like Viper because the condition duration actually has some benefit on ALL conditions as well as the damage ones.

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It really depends what weapon you are using. I mean, scepter direct damage is SO bad that it might be the case that sinister is better than Vipers; I haven't done the math. Personally I like Viper because the condition duration actually has some benefit on ALL conditions as well as the damage ones.

I haven't really considered that scepter has bad direct damage :sweat: I had double daggers at first, both sinister, instead of scepter+dagger, but I can't kite very well with them...I also tried axe and warhorn/focus but it wasn't satisfying enough to bother crafting ascended. Back then crafting ascended took me several months and I kinda did not wanna craft stuff that I wasn't gonna use. I feel like scepter+dagger had the best combo of conditions for me, since each skill has at least one condition.And well, staff is...my go to weapon when i need to put some distance between me and mobs.

But would using full viper mean that I kill stuff slower? I mean, by increased condition duration, that's what I understand.

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Well scepter direct damage is poor but you have to keep in mind conditions have breakpoints. By breakpoints I mean the threshold where putting stats into duration/expertise exceeds that of more condition damage. The only case this doesn't hold true is if you are being cleansed on long duration conditions such as bleeding (as in WVW).The breakpoint for bleeding is 1133 , torment is 1133 vs non moving targets in PVE , poison is 942 , and burning is 655. The caveat here is in this case your bleeding is capped at 100% duration already while on scepter.

Looking at the two build templates you linked , for your sinister build you hit 100% bleeding duration already on scepter and 18% duration on everything else.

The damage is listed as follows for your first (sinister) setup:1,643 burning damage for Life Blast procs (Shroud 1) with Dhuumfire4,783 bleeding damage for Dark Path (Shroud 2)2,018 bleeding damage per strike of the auto attack chain on scepter13,453 bleeding damage from Grasping Dead (Scepter 2)3,871 bleeding damage from Mark of Blood (Staff 2)8,969 bleeding damage from Enfeebling Blood (Dagger 5)1,716 Poison damage from scepter auto attack every 3 attacks598 bleeding from Barbed Precision with a 33% chance3,066 Poison damage from Chillblains (staff 3)

Your second setup linked with viper in it has the following :1,768 burning damage with Dhuumfire (higher by ~7%)4,680 bleeding damage for Dark Path (a bit lower by ~2%)1,975 bleeding damage per strike of the auto attack chain on scepter (a bit lower by ~2%)13,164 bleeding damage from Grasping Dead (a bit lower by ~2%)4,058 bleeding damage from Mark of Blood (a bit higher by close to 5%)1,843 Poison damage from scepter auto attack every 3 attacks (higher by ~7%)585 bleeding from Barbed Precision with a 33% chance3,315 Poison damage from Chillblains (higher by ~8%)

I think it comes down to how much time you spend in shroud. If you aren't spending much time in shroud and the enemies actually last the full duration of bleeding (16-30s) then it will probably be within margin of error. The version with viper is likely more bursty in reality due to higher burning damage.

On top of that if it costs you gold for likely not much difference, I would save the gold.

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@Infusion.7149 said:

I think it comes down to how much time you spend in shroud. If you aren't spending much time in shroud and the enemies actually last the full duration of bleeding (16-30s) then it will probably be within margin of error. The version with viper is likely more bursty in reality due to higher burning damage.

On top of that if it costs you gold for likely not much difference, I would save the gold.

Ah, see, I use shroud a lot actually. So it would make sense to switch, I guess (thanks for doing all that math, it really sheds some light). Then again, I really don't have a lot of gold, since I'm a returning player with very poor money management skills, which is why I was curious if it's even worth it.I'm gonna take your advice for now, and save the gold. The economy in this game has changed a lot anyway and I find it hard to make a lot of money without spending all of my free time online.

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If you play core conditionmancer, you are likely auto attacking with scepter as much as possible. Doing that, you can reach 100% bleed duration fairly easily with equipment, runes and sigils.

Viper's workers better on Reaper because bleeds can be a byproduct of greatsword and traits. Scourge has nearly as much variety of damage but core is confined too much by scepter. Sinister is fine on core though you may not see much difference in dps between it and carrion when all you have is scepter AA. Critical hits and power damage on scepter are notoriously unrewarding.

Giver's weapons can add expertise if you want, too.

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Speaking about PvE:If you play a condi build then you should of course play scepter. This is the main condi weapon for necro. Any other weapon will work better with power gear. The rest of the weapon slots depends on your chosen elite spec. But scepter is the first pick. Some builds do even run double scepter with only different offhand weapons.

Avoid staff in pve, except when you just want to tag lots of mobs for maximum loot.

On your scepter build viper is superior to sinister because pve mobs don't cleanse conditions. So you equip viper gear until you reach the condi duration cap (which is +100% duration) for your main condition (which is bleed for necro) and fill the rest of your gear slots with sinister as sinister trades duration (which you already capped) for damage.

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If you're considering going hybrid in open world pve, i'd suggest grieving instead of vipers unless you plan to solo champions/elites which tend not to die in 10 seconds. Vipers definitely does more damage over time, but that's the point: it takes time. If it's just normal mobs, veterans, story instances etc, carrion/rabid are just fine; sinister/grieving if you want to go glass cannon. Note that you should extend this into trinkets too. I've noticed that your sigils are mainly +condition duration of some sort; perhaps consider a sigil of bursting and malice, so that your damaging conditions do more and all of your condition durations are increased.

Comparing the builds you linked, there is not enough of a difference in gear to make the jump. The thing about grieving and sinister stats are that they're intended for condi-bursts, as well as lifting your basic power damage (more so with grieving due to ferocity bonus).

This is with vipers (and a utility swap from poison cloud to epidemic): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSxAYtjlVwuYhMQGJOuL3reA-zRJYmRNfY0VBhpg/sI9NA-eand this is the same with grieving: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSxAYtjlVwuYhMQGJOuL3reA-zRJYsRNfY0VBhpg/sI9NA-eand with sinister: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSxAYtjlVwuYhMQGJOuL3reA-zxIY/omPM6qgwUwfWk+GA-e

You can see that there isn't much in it, but do bear in mind the synergy of gear stats and traits (notably precision) and whether you just flash shroud for the buffs due to traits or stay in it for #5 and #1.

A final suggestion: go into the pvp lobby and copy the build stats as much as possible (some amulets are not available until you have earned them) and head over to the golem and try them out. Bear in mind that epidemic will be useless in this scenario, but is very handy for open-world.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@Obtena.7952 said:

@"cocosan.6952" said:Hi!I recently got back into this game and was wondering if it's worth updating my gear.
and so far, so good. It was full sinister at first, but I decided to eventually go hybrid.Now, I've tinkered with the build editor and am unsure
. I figured I could maybe use other buffs for the extra power, if that's really the case.So, I'm really on the fence about this. I've even considered grieving but I'd much rather have expertise over ferocity.So uh...any insights would be greatly appreciated.Also, for the people who might suggest trying reaper/scourge and my answer is no :angry: I did take full advantage of the chillomancer but I like the core shroud much better. And scourge is definitely not my thing, except if it's WvW, which is never.
shrug

It really depends what weapon you are using. I mean, scepter direct damage is SO bad that it might be the case that sinister is better than Vipers; I haven't done the math. Personally I like Viper because the condition duration actually has some benefit on ALL conditions as well as the damage ones.

Might I point out that lingering curse affects the base duration of the scepter skills, allowing you to bypass the 100% condition duration cap when wielding a scepter. I've gotten 30s bleed on the auto. For some reason, gw2skills.net doesn't reflect traits like that.

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@"cocosan.6952" said:Hi!I recently got back into this game and was wondering if it's worth updating my gear.I main a full ascended condi necro (sinister/viper) and so far, so good. It was full sinister at first, but I decided to eventually go hybrid.Now, I've tinkered with the build editor and am unsure if it's worth losing that much condition damage. I figured I could maybe use other buffs for the extra power, if that's really the case.So, I'm really on the fence about this. I've even considered grieving but I'd much rather have expertise over ferocity.So uh...any insights would be greatly appreciated.Also, for the people who might suggest trying reaper/scourge and my answer is no :angry: I did take full advantage of the chillomancer but I like the core shroud much better. And scourge is definitely not my thing, except if it's WvW, which is never. shrug

You're losing a lot when you go core necromancer, but I'd still suggest mostly if not all vipers. You gain critical hit chance with target the weak and sure you lose a bit of condition damage but duration tends to be the most important. Something to keep note of as well is you shouldn't care about chill duration. I'd probably go with something more like this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSBFsE2aUZEMQ2HTjRij+i9qG-zRJYmRPfhkSIEXFUZCYwBREGDI2AYZRfL-e

Use the sigil of earth on warhorn when CPC is on cooldown and swap to Dagger when you need CPC active to get the bonus duration and to have an extra transfer to send the conditions. Using plague sending to more quickly and reliably send conditions to foes so you don't have to break flow with deathly swarm since you have that ETB Spiteful spirit strike on shroud enter.

You're not going to be in shroud too long, but having some utility with those signets does give you a bit of a buffer. I'd play with it honestly, but from my experience core necromancer doesn't preform as well as I'd like.

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