User:NeverLoseGuy/ViperExpensive

Imagine...

You have less than 10 golds, probably, and you need to make sure your character well-equipped before they face their adversaries such as Pocket Raptors in the Heart of Maguuma.

Or maybe this is just your 55th alt character, and you want to make sure this guy can defend himself if you ever send him to the Desolation.

I'm going to cover both Power and Condition builds here:

Power

• For Power, if you're spending anything more than 2 golds for an armor piece or weapons, you're doing it wrong. This does not apply to runes or sigils which can get expensive (though you can also just use cheaper options temporarily). Generally speaking, you want to get "Named Gears" such as Devona's, Nika's and Zhed's armor pieces. All of these are in Berserker stat, which is what you want to deal maximum damage.
• For weapons, you would want to filter your Trading Post by stats, ideally Power, Precision, and Ferocity. Pick the cheapest option, and make sure your weapons are level 80.
• Trinkets are a little more complicated, as you have an option of either farming Living World currencies/Laurels, or buy from Trading Post, which will inevitably cost you more, and you will be stuck with Exotic rarity trinkets (which isn't bad, mind you, but it's something to keep in mind).
• You might be asking yourself, "What about other stats that aren't just pure damage? What if I want more tanking and stuff?"
  • First off, get that tanking idea out of your head. You simply don't just "tank" damage, not without having to either dodge or do something else at some point to make sure you don't get trampled by a bunch of Centaurs. Even with a lot of sustains, as I would call it, it's best you look out for any signs of incoming attack and avoid it altogether. If that is not possible, then you dodge, block, or ready yourself to heal the damage you just took to the face.
  • But okay, you want to solo Balthazar Priest or whoever in Auric Basin. Probably a bad idea to begin with, but I'll indulge: there are some stats that can be partially, or even fully, used in place of Berserker to increase defensive stats, such as Toughness and Vitality. It usually costs just as much, if not more, to do so, and you end up losing the ability to take your current gears to instanced contents such as Raids or Fractals, which is why I do not recommend it.

• So let's look at some of the stats that, to me, are actually worth something and not straight up garbage (and those that are):
  • Assassin's - Works best as a supplemental piece(s) for when your build needs extra precision. Generally, you won't have issues with maxing out your critical hit chance at 100%, but in some cases where you just happen to play a class that doesn't give you that for some reason, Assassin pieces can help boost your Precision to that level.
  • Knight's - Works best as a supplemental piece(s) for when you need a bit of Toughness in your build. As mentioned earlier, you generally don't need it, but when the worse comes to worst, using Knight pieces sacrifices a little bit of Ferocity, while maintaining roughly the same amount of Power and Precision for your build.
  • Dragon's/Marauder - Unnecessary, but it will not make you hit like a wet noodle. These stats gives you Power, Precision and Ferocity like Berserker, with extra Vitality added into the mix. Because it is a combination of 4 attributes, rather than 3, you end up in theory, getting more value out of your gears. At the same time, a portion of your damage is now given to Vitality instead, which reduces your outgoing strike damage. These stats usually sees limited uses, such as Power Reaper, where you can easily max out Critical Chance, even with Berserker gears. You would likely see these more in WvW where defensive stats actually matter there.
  • Soldier's - No. You are lacking Precision and Ferocity, two of the crucial attributes needed to make sure you can actually punch a bandit and not slap their cheeks. It was said to be "training" gears for new players, but because of its severe lack of damage, I find it to be a noob trap more than anything else.
  • Celestial - No. Celestial stat, despite being a "do-it-all" stat, leans heavily towards Condition Damage. This is because strike damage relies on 3 attributes, and not 2 like condition damage does, never mind the fact that all your power damage stats are now severely crippled and distributed elsewhere (like Healing Power which you don't even need if you're not a healer).

Condition Damage

• For Condition Damage, things aren't so simple. While your build uses more stats efficiency (2 stats needed for damage versus 3), you will likely need to use Viper's and not much else, and your runes/sigils of choice will also be different depending on what conditions your class provides.

• To show you what I mean:
  • Ranger focuses primarily on Bleeding, and Poison.
  • Thief focuses primarily on Poison, with an additional choice of either Bleeding or Torment, depending on your weapons equipped.
  • Even on the same profession, equipping a different elite specialization can completely transform the main conditions you are applying. Virtuoso for example, is a prime example, as it not only focuses on Bleeding primarily, but it's also the only build that heavily makes use of Rampager's stat, which makes it more or less proprietiary and not interchangable with Mirage.

• That being said, the general goal you want to achieve is to max out Condition Duration, affected by your character's Expertise. This particular attribute plays a very important role in extending your Condition Duration, and thus your damage output. Note that there is usually breakpoint somewhere that requires math, and I'm not doing that. Rather, I would prioritize maxing out the Condition Duration, and not go overboard, as any extra Expertise will be not be accounted for and thus wasted.

• So how do you get Viper's gears? For weapons, look for Abomination weapons on Trading Post, as those typically cost only around 1 gold. Armor and trinkets are going to be expensive there, so Stat-selectable gears, such as Invader's, Bladed (chest piece will require Verdant Blink night meta), or Lunatic armors (recipes are seasonal, so be sure to grab them when Halloween arrives), will all serve you better. Similarly, trinkets can be obtained by spending Living World currencies or Laurels.

• This brings me to the next point: if you do not have access or, for some reason, need to use other stats that isn't Viper:
  • Sinister - Works best as a supplemental piece(s) for when your build has already maxed out Expertise. This would be the "next best thing" to Viper due to the main focus being Condition Damage, as well as having Power and Precision, the latter which, is often tied with inflicting extra stacks of conditions. Unfortunately, gears associated with this stat are just as if not more expensive than its Viper counterparts, so chances are, you might as well go Viper's anyway.
  • Carrion - Best temporary condition gears that also works as a defensive option. In terms of core stats, Carrion is one of the two condition stats that is worth taking due to their main focus being Condition Damage, while still having at least one offensive stats to go alongside Toughness/Vitality. In this case, it's Condition Damage, then Power and Vitality. Power doesn't do much on its own, but any damage is better than no damage, and Vitality can help if your class ends up making use of it to convert into other offensive stats (typically either Condition Damage or Expertise). Because of the lack of expertise, you will be forced to use a rune that compliments your class' available condition, and only one condition, which isn't ideal, but still workable. You will not have any Precision, but it's not going to be the end of the world for condition builds, save for a few niche cases.
  • Rabid - Best temporary condition gears that also works as a defensive option. Just like Carrion, your build has Condition Damage as a major stat, but with Toughness and Precision as secondary stats, the latter which can be used by some builds for extra conditions depending on traits selected. Unfortunately, because of the increased Toughness, you cannot bring this into Raids, as some bosses will target players with highest amount of Toughness, which can mess with the positioning of your Squad.
  • Celestial - A chonky yet controversial option. I said it because Celestial is one of the most, if not the most expensive stats you can get your hands on, which is a problem because it's often recommended to new player as a "do-it-all" option, when they barely have any golds to spend on anything. Having all stats evenly distributed means you will do less damage, and has less Condition Duration, but you also have a bit of everything that can be proven useful depending on who you're fighting against. Being a "generalist" option, you are likely to do fine on your own, but any attempts to do instanced PvE content will likely get you booted off the Squad.
  • Ritualist/Traiblazer - A really chonky option. These two stats share similar attributes, focusing on Condition Damage and Vitality as their major attributes, and either Toughness (Trailblazer) or Concentration (Ritualist) as minor ones. Typically, these are overkill, as a Necromancer can have up to 31k health pool just by going full Ritualist/Trailblazer alone, but because they share the same major stats as Viper's, they practically do not lose any damage in terms of condition side of thing, and since strike damage isn't the main focus of condition builds, you usually don't lose much anyway.
  • Grieving - Use at your own risk. I say this because it certainly is a fun stat to make use of, and the only "true" hybrid stat as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, it still leans heavily into Condition Damage even if it has all three attributes needed for strike damage to work. This is because you are only missing Expertise, which chances are, you can max out with runes/sigils and the traits you have selected, while you still need to deal with less stats compared to Berserker.
  • Dire - No. Dire is basically a worse version of Trailblazer, having no Expertise to make use of its condition damage, which would force you to rely on a single condition to deal damage. This, on top of having 2 defensive stats, and virtually no strike damage whatsoever, makes it a poor option.

Too much information here. What's the take away?

• Run Berserker for power, Viper's for condition damage. Anything else is usually reserved for niche uses or downright bad.
• Max out Critical Chance for power builds (take  Fury into consideration too), Condition Duration for condition builds.
• Focus on "Named Gears" so that you can get the cheapest options.
• If you have trouble surviving, consider changing traits, skills and weapons before changing gears (unless it's a relic, which can have desirable effects).
• Food and utility items can give extra stats and buffs like granting  Might on critical hit. Be sure to use them even if you're not struggling.
• Dodge or block incoming damage. Facetanking is not a good idea, unless you know you won't die from the incoming hit.
• Celestial is not a "get out of jail" free card in terms of gameplay. It will do you fine, but it isn't the best of everything, just because it has everything.
• Please for the love of God, do not use Soldier's gears.