I bet you thought this was a question thread, didn’t you? Hah! I bring answers!
Now, if you are like me, then you’re an awesome person. Congratulate yourself on that fact. But also, you are probably wondering about the new Viper set. It is a set of Power, Condition Damage, Precision, and Expertise Armor. Expertise being a new stat that affects condition duration, and increases duration by 1% for every 15 points of expertise.
However, I must shatter your hopes and dreams now. You are not like me. Because if you were like me, then you would’ve put the work in to analyze these sets. Exotic Level:
Full Armor: 357 Power, 357 Condition Damage, 196 Precision, 196 Expertise
2-handed weapon Weapon: 205 Power, 205 Condition Damage, 113 Precision, 113 Expertise
1-handed Weapon: 102 Power, 102 Condition Damage, 56 Precision, 56 Expertise
You probably knew all that. But, the black diamond stats are a bit more elusive:
Exquisite Black Diamond Jewel: 20 Power, 20 Condition Damage, 60 Precision, 60 Expertise
Orichalcum Black Diamond Ring: 77 Power, 77 Condition Damage, 42 Precision, 42 Expertise
Orichalcum Black Diamond Earring: 64 Power, 64 Condition Damage, 35 Precision, 35 expertise
Orichalcum Black Diamond Amulet: 102 Power, 102 Condition Damage, 56 Precision, 56 Expertise
Now, as I don’t know of any exotic level viper’s backkpiece, I"m substituting in a rabid back piece + Exquisite Black Diamond Jewel. This is without runes and sigils.
A full set is 1066 Power, 1096 Condition Damage, 600 Precision, 579 Expertise. Compare that to sinister, which is 878 Power, 899 Precision, and 1289 condition damage. But lets put these numbers into a more readable manner:
Sinsiter Set:
1878 Power
46.8% Crit chance
1289 Condition Damage
1.23 Crit Mod
2317 Effective Power
99 Bleed Damage
331 Burn Damage
111 Poison Damage
55 and 130 Confusion Damage
74 Torment Damage
Viper’s Set:
2066 Power
32.5% Crit Chance
1096 Condition Damage
1.1625 Crit Mod
2401 Effective Power
38.6% Condition Duration
88 Bleed Damage
301 Burn Damage
99 Poison Damage
48, 118 Confusion Damage
65 Torment Damage
That extra condition duration is what makes the set. In the long run, Viper’s effectively does 38.6% more damage than listed with each of its conditions. I’m not going to do the math, because I am assuming you can see it is plainly more than Sinister. The Viper set has higher effective power (that is, direct damage), and higher overall condition damage, making it superior to Sinister in most ways.
Terrified at the thought of having to buy a new set, you are probably stammering and trying to come up with a variety of excuses to say why it is Sinister is better than Viper. Well, with just the base level exotic stats, that is as close as Sinister is going to get to Viper. For example, if you were to give max might to both sets, then you would get the following:
Sinister:
3232 Effective Power
144 Bleed Damage
Viper:
3273 Effective Power
133 Bleed Damage.
An observant person would note that the difference between condition damage is static: it is 11 points per bleed. So, the 38.6% increase in duration cannot be compensated for.
“But our sets already have some condition duration!” you scream, horrified as your reality melts before my awesome logic. “If I have condition duration already, then I won’t need Vipers!”. Well… you probably still do.
I decided to make an equation to check how much condition duration would be needed for Sinister to surpass Viper. It works something like this:
Sinister Bleed Damage x (1 + Condition Duration) = Viper Bleed Damage x (1.39 + Condition Duration).
You can substitute in any condition you want. I’m going to put in bleed
99 x (1 + Dur) = 88 x (1.39 + Dur)
9/8 x (1 + Dur) = 1.39 + Dur
9/8 + 9/8 Dur = 1.39 + Dur
1/8 Dur = 0.265
Dur = 2.12
Yes, fear my mighty maffs! Tremble before Algebra! Anyway, what that 2.12 means is that your total additional condition duration must be 212% from traits/runes/sigils before Sinister does the same condition damage as Viper. The more might you add, the larger this percentage gets, because the difference in condition damage between the two sets is always a static number.
Normally I would just say “Run Viper you fool!” and be done with it. But, there is an asterisk here. Or there might be. I’m not sure. Anyway, the issue is that condition duration is capped at 100%. Or it might be. This means that, although Sinister can never truly match viper in condition damage, Viper becomes redundant after that 100% threshold is hit. This is… actually quite hard to do. For Viper’s to start becoming redundant, you need to have 61.4% condition duration from traits/runes/sigils. And specifically condition duration, not just stuff like Lingering Curses. Now this threshold is quite achievable for certain classes, with rune bonuses hitting 45% and Rare Veggie Pizza bumping it up to 65%. Meaning that you would switch out a few pieces of Viper Gear for Sinister.
The reason for this is Sinister’s secret weapon: non-cooldown influenced crit procs! The effective power between the two sets is close enough that it isn’t too big a deal, but Sinister at base will proc crits 44% more often than Vipers (27% under fury). This is only important for procs without cooldowns, however, and these procs usually don’t make up a large portion of condition damage. Because of the low overall influence of crit based procs, the duration from viper outranks the crit proc from sinister. But, if your duration is scraping the threshold of redundancy, then you should start swapping out Black Diamonds for Charged Ambrite.
There is a small caveat, though. Viper gear affects all conditions, including disabling ones that don’t necessarily do damage. Most builds can only get near 100% condition duration with a single kind of condition, let alone all of them. But with Viper’s, you can get 100% in all of them. Just use x 2 Trapper rune (10%), x 4 nightmare Rune (15%), Sigil of Malice (10%), Rare Veggie Pizza (20%), and Toxic Focusing Crystal (10%), and in a full viper set you will achieve 103.6% condition duration in every condition. If you have things that boost conditions like Signet of Midnight, you can start knocking off bonuses and mats and put them in other places.
So unless you are running a mono-condi build with a lot of crit procs, Viper is going to be your go-to condi set. It does more direct damage, it does more condi damage, it is more versatile. As such, it is better to build. The more fury and might you add, the better Viper gets. And to be frank, I’m not even sure swapping out to Sinister pieces is even the best way to build at the 100% threshold, as there is always the option of changing the build around to have less condi duration bonuses in other places. Change out Sigil of Malice for Sigil of Bursting, for example.
If conditions aren’t capped at 100%, then Viper is better than Sinister in every case except primarily non-cooldown crit dependent builds, to which I can’t think of an example.
Tl:dr RUN VIPER YOU FOOL!
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
(I only do so rarely, but it was well deserved in that case.)
