Q:
Questions about the viper horror build
A:
No it is not.
1. The reason for the Reaper line is Reaper Shroud (RS). RS 5 makes an ice field (and helps a lot against breakbars) and when you execute RS 4 in it, you apply A LOT of bleeds on your enemy. This plus RS 3 being your source of stability + RS 2 giving a bit mobility if needed are the reasons for the reaper line.
2. Food, esp. condi duration, should be used when the content is somewhat demanding. I’d say it’s ok if u save it up for raids, T4 fractals and maybe some dungeons like Arah or the Aetherpath. Else you will get along without it as long as you’re not going for record runs.
3. This build works for solo play without any adjustments. Ofc you can make some, but it’s 100% not necessary.
€: got already discussed a couple of days ago https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Why-is-Reaper-part-of-the-Viper-Horror-build
Leader of “Servants of Balance” [SoB], a small guild endemic to the FSP.
(edited by Nash.2681)
1 – Chill damage used to be much more than a bleed, it used to be its own condition, and it was possible to maintain almost perma-chill through some rotation (I dunno never played a lot of condi necro).
2 – Food does make a difference, but for Fractals it shouldn’t matter, for Raids however it does.
3 – For a condi build, there aren’t any major trait changes that I’d reccomend over the base build, but I find that Carrion trinkets make a world of difference when soloing as a condi build.
Hope this helps!
Kittenhunters are mean.
Warriors rock.
So if I understand you correctly, you’re saying that the build is outdated?
1: our chosen Reaper traits focus on buffing the chilled condition. However, the only chill source we have is warhorn 4 with a cd of 18 (I assume the interaction of traits applying fear when blind, and chill when fear, works?) Is it really worth it to trait a whole line for that skill?
You didn’t consider the interactions with the chill-causing traits:
Blinds inflicts chill → dagger 4
Fear inflicts chill → shroud 3
Crits on chilled foes cause a frost nova (your crit chance should be really high with Decimate Defenses)
Btw, warhorn 4 isn’t a chill, blind, or fear; it’s a daze.
2: most of the time I will be operating without food. Are there any differences I should make to the build if I don’t use food?
You can run this build without food in the open world… in fact you can run any build in the open world. In the rare occasion you need food; meta food is expensive, but if you went with the tier just below it, it’s a lot cheaper.
3: being reasonably poor, what changes can I make to the build to be better when I’m doing solo content without swapping armor? Just to be exact: I’ll be using the metabattle build when doing group content, but what do you guys do when you’re alone?
I personally run the same equipment… just change a few things skills around for QoL… e.g. the speed sigil, flesh golem, etc. There are also encounters where certain skills are useless… e.g. epidemic when there is only a single mob. So you need to get familiar enough with your skills and the encounters to tailor your build to suit whatever you’re doing.
1) Aside from the vastly more useful Reaper Shroud, you’re taking Reaper (at least in fractals/raids) for Decimate Defenses, which is basically a free 50% crit chance to boost your bleed stacking via Barbed Precision.
3) Although solo, I usually take Chilling Victory as the might/life force is more useful.
2) As for food, you’re mainly using it to top off your condition duration… But that sort of min/max’ing is really only important in raids.