Greivers Vs Vipers

[Genesis.5169]

So i got a question if i'm using axe as my main an only swaping to scepter at range should i be gearing for grievers or vipers?

I feel like running grieving stats is more of a scepter thing but i could be wrong i don't know gaurds like i know mesmers advice please thanks in advance.Yes i'm wearing baltahzar runes and yes i'm part sinisters.

[LeSavage.1359]

Whats the purpose of part sinister?both scepter and axe has high power coefficients, go full grieving

[Westenev.5289]

EDIT: Sorry, misread.

I use full grievers for Firebrand - it works well enough with Rune of Balthazaar. Guardian has the traits to hit 100% condi duration for burning, so there's little need for Vipers.

[Genesis.5169]

@LeSavage.1359 said:Whats the purpose of part sinister?both scepter and axe has high power coefficients, go full grieving

Greivers + some sinsiters and currently the meta, but alot of those builds i've seen primarily use scepter, i barely use mines so i was wondering if that's spec was more optimized for scepter over axe.

@Westenev.5289 said:EDIT: Sorry, misread.

I use full grievers for Firebrand - it works well enough with Rune of Balthazaar. Guardian has the traits to hit 100% condi duration for burning, so there's little need for Vipers.

Ah thanks ill take a look at the power damage coming out of axe thanks.

[Kam.4092]

If you mainly use axe, then go Viper's

Viper's is very powerful. It brings out the extra power of axe with the Axe Trait. Both the Grieving and Viper setups are close, but Viper's ends up being ahead single target wise, and Grieving/Sinister being better for AoE.

For Grieving you take Zeal/Radiance, and with Viper's you take Virtues instead of Zeal. Virtues with the axe is extremely powerful.

I personally use Viper's, because I always go for the highest single target setup. The AoE is still great, and I love the axe over all the weapons. You basically camp axe, and swap to Scepter for ranged, and before you use the Tome.

With Grieving you use axe/Scepter or sword/Scepter. Grieving gains more from Zeal DPS wise. Grieving can also help keep Fury up when using Sword.

It's worth noting that with the Viper's set up it makes you able to chose another Heal instead of the mantra Heal which is used for added DPS from Balthazar Runes. The Viper set up uses Renegade Runes.

The meta has changed to Viper's, but builds haven't been updated on [qT]. Snow Crows's site is updated though.

I hope my reply helps.

[Asum.4960]

Guardian is in this very weird spot in GW2 where actually multiple things are viable (gasp).

In short, you can run Grievers and camp Scepter or Viper's and camp axe (with the bleed trait but lower tome charges) and do about the same damage.

I heard here and there that the Viper variant actually has a bit more DPS, but we are talking 0.x% here, while the Grievers variant obviously benefits from the extra Tome charges in term's of burst and added utility, while also camping a ranged weapon instead of being melee, improving your performance on mechanic/movement heavy fights.

E: I prefer the Virtues variant even on a Grievers setup by now, but still with Archivist of Whispers, taking Purging Flames and Loremaster. Still using Axe most of the time as secondary weapon for the grouping/cc. Sword for max DPS though, but it is a minor increase as well.

[Odokuro.5049]

I use Sinister, no need for +Condi duration, when you can achieve 100% Burn duration w/ Runes/Sigils/Food. Grievers is alright if you want your non-Condi attacks to hit harder when you crit, but Sinisters is good enough for me.

[LeSavage.1359]

@Genesis.5169 said:

@"LeSavage.1359" said:Whats the purpose of part sinister?both scepter and axe has high power coefficients, go full grieving

Greivers + some sinsiters and currently the meta, but alot of those builds i've seen primarily use scepter, i barely use mines so i was wondering if that's spec was more optimized for scepter over axe.

If you are talking about build from quantify, that helmet and shoulder sinister looks more like a typo than "meta"

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I've done only a few tests on a (nearly) full grieving set.

Zeal/Radiance Quickfire + ArchivistVirtues/Radiance Loremanster + ArchivistVirtues/Radiance Loremaster + Unrelenting Criticism

All in all, the differences between the builds is very little. As far as damage goes, Virtues/Radiance Unrelenting Criticism was the highest. The lowest are the Zeal specs. The simple reason is this: The permanent and buffed Justice is more valuable than the stat bonuses that the zeal line gives. A zeal build spends a lot of its time doing attacks with the axe while Tome of Justice is on cooldown. Even with its 3 direct damage component, a Grivers set built for condi has nothing on a zerker set built for zerker.

[Rennie.6750]

The differences are minimal. I run a mix of grievers and sinister with 2 viper parts to minimise food costs and the only difference I noticed is I had to run firebrand 3-3-3 instead of 113 to get very close to the max theoretical dps. In practice it's more versatile, you're not punished for camping scepter if you need to go range for a bit in a fractal as the extra tome burst makes it up for it afterwards.