Guild Wars 2

Currently in the process of switching from power reaper build to condi (viper horror) for advancing into higher level fractals. Ascended viper armor/weapons are obvious, but what would be the best trinket/backpiece choices? Viper is not an option for trinkets since I don’t raid. Do I have to bite the bullet and do the tedious LS2 achievements for the ascended sinister trinkets or would one of the original sets (e.g., rampagers) work well enough for high level fractals? The metabattle build only has viper or sinister options for trinkets.

Personally I would say do the Ls2 achievements for the Sinister trinkets. Even if you start raiding they will last you for a long while. However if you are really that opposed to doing LS2, just go with Rampagers (considering they are the same as Sinister but with precision as the main stat – more crits for more bleed trait proc).

Rabid or Rampager will work just fine.

A quick FYI though, if you haven’t done the HoT act IV achievements yet, do those, you can slot the amulet you get as Vipers, so that’s nice.

As for which between Rabid and Rampager, I don’t know the math but I’d bet it’d be pretty close. For purely Fractals the extra toughness isn’t something to scoff at, however that becomes a liability if you ever do decide to try raids. So I’d let that be the deciding factor, if you plan on trying raids on your necro I’d just go Rampager, if you don’t then Rabid is very nice as well.

My Necro right now is set up with a Sinister Amulet and one earring then the rest of the pieces are Rabid and he does just fine in any fractal (necros are strait OP in fractals), I would have gone Rampager but I happened to have Rabid stuff laying around from regearing my Engi and just went with that.

Plus, wouldn’t Target the Weak in the Curses trait line make up (at least in part) for the decreased condition damage in the rampagers trinkets compared with sinisters? I haven’t done the actual math.

Also, with vipers gear plus rampagers trinkets (or sinister trinkets) is there an issue getting to 100% condition duration for bleeds, etc.? Or can it easily be accomplished with food?

Food is 20%, Toxic Focusing Crystal (just under 1g each) is an additional 10%.

Base just armor/weapons viper is 21% duration.

Malice Sigil is 10% for all
Agony sigil is 20% for bleed
Geomancy is 3 (10s base) stacks every weapon swap
Earth is a 60% chance on crit for 1 (5s base) stack of bleed every 2s

Runes:
Berserker is just condi damage/power and 5% damage
Thorns is a hefty though variable condi damage with 45% poison duration (poison not to be overlooked)
NightmareX4+TrapperX2 is 25% duration to all condis at a loss of condi damage
Nightmare X5 + Black Diamond is ~15-16% duration (expertise on diamond)

Those are the variations I’d be considering, couldn’t tell you which is best. Agony Sigil + Malice Sigil + Berserker runes is a nice chunk of condi damage and full bleed duration, but you lose Geomancy which is roughly 6 stacks of persistent bleed (once you get rolling), that’s a hefty loss. Nightmare X5 has you at 97% bleed ~100 less condi damage, but you get the geomancy sigil. Nightmare X4TrapX2 has you at 106% bleed but your poison gets a nice boost as well, but losing even more condi damage (probably not the best option). And Thorn Runes + Agony Sigil would get you over max on both bleed and poison and somewhere between the nightmareX5 and Berserker options on condi damage (depends on stacks) but again loss of geomancy.

Basically… tough question!