Guild Wars 2

I know Zerker was the meta for everything, not sure if HoT changed that. I know Fractals are a lot easier, haven’t touched Dungeons in a while.

Any tips from those with experience?

Viper is en Vogue.

Viper or Berserker depending on your class

Dersce.8072:

I know Zerker was the meta for everything, not sure if HoT changed that. I know Fractals are a lot easier, haven’t touched Dungeons in a while.

Any tips from those with experience?

Well, ANet recently reduced the Toughness of enemies post lvl 50 Fractals, so Sinister and Condition sets aren’t as needed IIRC.

Zerker will likely always be meta for strictly Power builds, with Viper being meta for everything else. In terms of raw stat Viper’s four attributes exceeds a regular three attribute piece, and the two primaries of Power and Condi are hardly different from the main stat on a three attribute, something like 15%. But when you consider that you’re getting two good main stats, that far outpaces the performance of Zerker, if and only if your profession/build utilizes both types of damage about equally.

But that’s the rub, as most trait lines across the professions, and indeed skill sets are usually one or the other, not both.

I look at Viper as sort of an all offense version of Celestial. It will likely be meta for most of PvE (barring raids and any need for tanking) and some mid and backline WvW, in both cases where passive defenses are not an issue. It allows traditional Condi builds some oomph when damaging condition immune targets like WvW structures (catapults, etc.) as well as allowing a Burning focused Guardian or Elementalist enough straight damage when facing a burn immune foe such as Molten Effigies.

The only downside is the acquisition, and those darn jeweled patches. Thank goodness there IS a mystic forge conversion recipe active now.

I would say that going forward, the three best armor sets to shoot for on a main are going to be Viper for most PvE, Trailblazer as a Condi tank set (assuming your profession can build for it), and Minstrel as a full support set. The healing power coupled with boon duration on Minstrel looks particularly good for Guardians, Eles, Druid Rangers and Revs. Of course, getting a full Maklain’s set just for raid content may be overkill and premature, but the other two sets look good to me.

Zerker for old tyria content.

What stats is Viper?

Overall, Berserker is still a safe bet. Viper is a close second but only a couple classes can really make the most of condition builds, and Engineer is the only class where condi is an absolute must.

Assassin’s for Chronomancer unless running the one trait that gives 50% crit chance to slowed enemies