Guild Wars 2

Considering my first set of ascended for my necro. I don’t raid, I mostly do world PvE but want to start doing fractals on my necro, did a few low ones today in exotic berserker gear and enjoyed it well enough. I don’t have the means to put a full meta Viper set together since I’m missing a few episodes of LS2, too.

Any suggestions? Is Viper worth it still after they basically destroyed Rise? I know I can always Mystic Forge change later as well, so that’s always an option down the road if it gets buffed again, but in the mean time should I just go berserker or some zerk/valk hybrid?

I have Ascended Viper set sitting in my bank and waiting when I want to play with some conditions again. Right now I’m playing with Ascended Valkyrie and Berserker mix for the time being.

In my opinion both playstyles are still fun to play so I’d say pick the build you enjoy the most. I usually bring my Viper set to WvW and play PvE with more power.

PS. Viper was my first ascended set for my Necro.

Make ascended zerker and buy exotic viper. The difference in zerker is bigger direct dmg stats scale better while the difference on the condi side is much smaller between exo and asc.

I made vipers first tho since i already had exotic zerker.

If you do not raid, berserker works very well in PvE. You will have the most build variety going power.

You can use viper’s for fractals but it is not necessary. Viper’s is best for bosses that melt slowly.

Flumek.9043:

Make ascended zerker and buy exotic viper. The difference in zerker is bigger direct dmg stats scale better while the difference on the condi side is much smaller between exo and asc.

I made vipers first tho since i already had exotic zerker.

I have full exotic berserkers armor/weapons with full ascended zerk+valk trinkets now, as well as a full dire exotic set that I use in WvW, but that wont give me a very accurate depiction of how Vipers would play. I also played around with a full Rampagers set some time ago and wasn’t crazy about the damage, but didn’t give it enough time to really work out the rotations and everything. It felt slow in most PvE content, whereas zerk absolutely plows through map completion/random PvE stuff. I will say that I miss the range that condi gives, though.

Honestly, I’m kinda leaning towards berserker just because it’s more enjoyable in PvE content. That being the case, is full berserker the way to go, or do I mix in Valk here and there? If possible I kinda want to use zerk weapons at minimum because I have a warrior and revenant that I can toss them to if I want.

After the nerf, I went back to Berserker. While not the best dps in the game, you can take a hell of a lot more damage than other high dps professions despite being full glass yourself (especially in T4 fractals where Eles and thieves tend to get 1 shot).

The thing about viper’s, just like every piece of equipment with condition damage as a stat, is that Necromancer is trapped into camping sceptre auto attack.

What Necromancer needs for equipment stat’s is power, ferocity, and expertise, for example. Of course, other professions could make good use of that, too.

Even though berserker Necro is under-powered, it can be tanky in the presence of constant nuisance conditions and attacks. I think that is why it has grown in popularity in PvE.

Speaking strictly to fractals, I would do ascended Viper’s…

Since the Jagged Horror nerf, if you look at the numbers from a theorywars’ing standpoint, GS/X certainly seems like it’d be better… But in actual gameplay, condition is still going to massively out perform in t4’s for a couple of reasons.

1) The enemy toughness vs vitality scaling. Although they addressed this a few patches ago, it’s still not spot on and favors a condition build.
2) Conditions do damage when you’re not. Whether it’s evading enemy attacks, re-positioning yourself, avoiding AoE fields, or rezz’ing downed opponents, there’s a lot of time in t4’s where you’re not just blindly attacking the boss. Conditions continue to do damage while you’re off doing other things.
3) Afflicted. About 1/2 of the fractals at t4 sport the Afflicted Instability. Being able to transfer these conditions back to the enemy rescaled with your Viper stats greatly boosts the DPS of your basic rotation.
4) Social Awkwardness. A power necro means another player up in the melee range adding to the social awkwardness damage/healing reduction.
5) Epidemic. You can’t always use this, but when you can, it’s super OP.
6) Elitist LFG. A lot of times in the LFG, you’ll see groups that say “condi only,” not saying these guys are right… But it gives you an option of joining more groups.

That said, I do prefer power necro for the Nightmare Challenge Mote.