Gearing for fractals

[EpicName.4523]

I am not a big fan of fractals, but occasionally do them in the hope of getting a mastery point or doing the daily.

The thing I seem to enjoy most in this game is farming for certain skins and making my character look cool. For this I need gold and fractals seem a good way to get some while also acquiring ascended gear.

My first non-boosted hero is a Dragonhunter which sits at 65 agony resistance with ascended berserker accessories, greatsword, torch and scepter. And here comes my "dilemma".

I picked guardian as my first because I heard it is not complicated to play. Still, I 'd like to have an easy time playing without too much pressure and still be a wanted profession in fractals.

I heard that 3 profession are very desirable in raids - mesmer(tank or support), druid (support)and warrior (dps). Are they the most wanted for fractals as well? Do you have trouble getting party as a guardian in higher tier fractals? I've also been told that condition damage is overall superior for high-end PvE. Fractals however, have a lot of trash mobs - is condi damage still the way to go for harder fractal difficulties? Can a power build outperform a condi based one?

I like making alts of every profession. My warrior will eventually get to 80 and I think I can use him instead of a guardian simply because of the higher demand. Gameplay is very similar anyway. Warrior also seems to be pretty brainless to play as well compared to say, a mesmer which only gives him a bonus point.

Something else also bothers me. If you make a budget Firebrand with Carrion exotics and Balthazar runes, you can achieve very good results without having Viper stuff to maximize dots since you only rely on burning. So, If you want to gear something in ascended, wouldn't warrior make more sense for the cost? If Firebrand can perform well in cheap Carrion while Berserker needs Viper, better to gear the warrior and leave the guard? The lack of agony resist on the guard can be overcome with stronger infusions I assume.

[sigur.9453]

Short answer:DH is pretty fine for factals and raids. (not "topdog" though)In Fractals Power is better then condi, since all the fight are shorter. In Raids, it depends on the boss, but with DH you are "viable" everywhere.Warrior is demanded a lot, but there are also a lot of warrior players out there, (warriors are mostly used for a support-ish role, and the groups just need one), keep that in mind.My advise: "rank up"with one class in fractals, try some of the easier raid bosses, and over the time you will more or less drown in asc. gear. (which you can statswap btw.)

[Turin.6921]

Actually DH is very good for fractals. So it is a good choice. It has good utility, great burst for adds and generally power is better than condi in the higher level of fractals. Although both viable.

Warrior is important for CM fractals but not as a DPS but as a banner support. Same goes for raids although the DPS builds are pretty good as well. Spellbreaker for power and Berzerker for condi.

Since you already have a DH i would use him as a power DPS class and use the viper for the berzerker to also have a banner support char that is useful for the more difficult fractals.