Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Dawnbreaker.6215

Dawnbreaker.6215

I want to start building a full ascended medium armor set but I don’t really know what gear to chose. I’ve seen great arguments in favor of both 3. Recently I’ve heard Viper has become the main meta for Engineers, but I fear some people still insist in zerk builds for dungeons or that Celestial might be a better all-around choice.

I only do PvE.

What are your opinions?

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Ivantreil.3092

Ivantreil.3092

Viper if you are going for p/p condi (gengerally the most accepted build), zerker if you wanna go power bomb, celestial sounds more like a wvw build option.

PvP Rifle Engi player no matter how dark the meta is.

Metabattle: Drunk Engineer build

(edited by Ivantreil.3092)

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Daedraz.1650

Daedraz.1650

For dungeons, the build won’t really matter assuming you’re not running something really bizarre and nonsensical like a cleric engi. For t3+ fractals and raids, viper p/p all the way.

The only caveat to playing condi engi is that its dps relies on mastering a rather complex rotation that takes some training and practice to get used to. You sort of need to develop an internal clock to intuitively know when certain skills on kits are off cooldown or not, etc.

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Dawnbreaker.6215

Dawnbreaker.6215

So Viper is the most reliable choice for PvE?

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Ardid.7203

Ardid.7203

If you want to do Raids, probably viper is the more easily accepted, then berserker (But viper is useful for both, condi and power setups, while zerker only works with power).

If you are fairly good in active defense in the open world, (know how to evade, block, invul, etc) viper is perfect. You can reorganize your build anytime without needing to change armor.

If you are not that good, or if you don’t like to be on continuous killing machine paranoia, and prefer a more relaxed experience, then Celestial is your answer: you can use all kind of builds with celestial in the open world without fear of dying instantly, you can afk for a few seconds even middle-combat, and just walk across most mobs without worrying. But you will not be killing anything fast.

“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Jerus.4350

Jerus.4350

Raids you’ll want Vipers usually, the things other than just DPS that Engi does fits that build better. Fractals either works fine. Dungeons you’d want Zerker as a things die so quickly dropping one quick burst rotation is all you have time to do a lot of the time.

I’d say invest in Vipers, come back and grab a second set of zerker at some point.

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Ghotistyx.6942

Ghotistyx.6942

If you don’t already know, what you really want to do is make the cheapest set of ascended armor possible, and then mystic forge it into whatever stats you want. This makes Viper much, much cheaper. You could make zerker first, and mess around to see if you like it before converting to viper. If you want to focus on wvw, then you can also convert to celestial if you want.

Specific builds in PvE only matter in raids and T3+ fractals. WvW zerging is all about not dying and group support, and WvW roaming is most relatable to spvp. Consider what you want to do and go from there.

Fishsticks

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Nate.8146

Nate.8146

Celestial armor with celestial/zerk/viper(or whatever condi) accessories. Swap to whichever accessories you want to boost that particular build. I’ve been rolling that setup for years and I’m loving it. And my bank account is also loving it.

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: zaced.7948

zaced.7948

raids → viper
everything else → zerk

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: wcengineer.8793

wcengineer.8793

raids -> viper
everything else -> zerk

Hi, may I ask for fotm, do engi go viper too? And if viper build, we must learn the rotation right? any generic or specific rotations? Like burn first followed by bleed etc. Kinda lost about this.

Would deeply appreciate yours or anyone else advice.

Thank you!

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Ivantreil.3092

Ivantreil.3092

raids -> viper
everything else -> zerk

Hi, may I ask for fotm, do engi go viper too? And if viper build, we must learn the rotation right? any generic or specific rotations? Like burn first followed by bleed etc. Kinda lost about this.

Would deeply appreciate yours or anyone else advice.

Thank you!

I recommend you to find your own rotation, coni engi rotations are so complex at the point that we don’t have specific and/or mandatory rotations, the only thing your rotation is asking for is to use your burning skills as most as possible.

PvP Rifle Engi player no matter how dark the meta is.

Metabattle: Drunk Engineer build

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: wcengineer.8793

wcengineer.8793

raids -> viper
everything else -> zerk

Hi, may I ask for fotm, do engi go viper too? And if viper build, we must learn the rotation right? any generic or specific rotations? Like burn first followed by bleed etc. Kinda lost about this.

Would deeply appreciate yours or anyone else advice.

Thank you!

I recommend you to find your own rotation, coni engi rotations are so complex at the point that we don’t have specific and/or mandatory rotations, the only thing your rotation is asking for is to use your burning skills as most as possible.

Thank you very much for your advice. I will work out on me.

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Jerus.4350

Jerus.4350

For condi ‘rotation’ I like to time shrapnel grenade to my pistol skills, Basically pistol skills → one other skill → Shrapnel grenade, then when shrapnel grenade is used a second time pistol skills will be ready. That’s kind of the core of my rotation, between that I’ll get a firebomb or two, concussion bomb, napalm, the poison mortar shot, freeze/poison grenades and toolbelt skills, filling any vacant time with grenade1.

With fractals though I spend a decent amount of time blinding enemies with mortar/bomb/grenade/FT which has me deviating from the normal damage rotation. Blinds seem to be very underrated by many but they are a godsend in many fractals.

Also, yes condi will work great in fractals, and really it’ll work well everywhere, just if you want to min/max as fights get shorter (say < 10s) power becomes better, so dungeons/open world I typically find power to be better.

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Sarahfull.4930

Sarahfull.4930

Both power and condi engi work for teir 4 fractals. I constantly have pre-made groups with 1 power engi (me!) and 1 condi engi (I have two friends who love condi).

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Ivantreil.3092

Ivantreil.3092

Ill give an example of my rotation, i like to use Incendiary ammo + Grenade barrage combo as opener, proceed, to put napalm + air blast >> Use bomb damage skills (toolbelt too)>> Use grenade damage skills >> Use pistol damage skills, after that, my rotation gets complex, but its a good way to start :P

PvP Rifle Engi player no matter how dark the meta is.

Metabattle: Drunk Engineer build

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

raids -> viper
everything else -> zerk

Raids requires both to be efficient for all fights. For VG, Trio, Matt, KC and Xera I suggest power.

Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”

(edited by Xyonon.3987)

Which Gear? Viper VS Berzerker VS Celestial

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Posted by: zaced.7948

zaced.7948

raids -> viper
everything else -> zerk

Hi, may I ask for fotm, do engi go viper too? And if viper build, we must learn the rotation right? any generic or specific rotations? Like burn first followed by bleed etc. Kinda lost about this.

Would deeply appreciate yours or anyone else advice.

Thank you!

both are fine in fotm. viper give you more dps but i personally prefer zerk for more utility you can change on the fly. in many situations having the right utility (reflect, stun for breakbars, etc) is imo more valueable than dps. highly min maxed specialized fotm groups are excluded from that but in those there usually is no place for an engineer anyway.
and yes, not only for condi but for engineer in general you should learn and internalize the rotations. missing even one cd on even one or two of your dps skills really shows in overall dps. this is especially important for burning-applying skills with condi engi.
as already said before it’s best to find a rotation on your own, that you can pull off instinctively. while this might not give you the “perfect” dps it will come closer to it than tryharding something you can’t pull off. that “perfect” 64-step rotation on metabattle was scrapped for a reason.

@xyonon: while that’s somewhat true you can most raids with condi but on the other hand some you can’t do with power due to the dps discrepancy. given you have only resources for one armor set for raids i would prefer viper first and zerk second.

(edited by zaced.7948)