Guild Wars 2

Runes could definitely use another look. I know we just got a bit of a retouch on them, but there’s still a lot of glaring issues. One of the big themes seems to be that a lot of runes are thematically and in base concept good, but then they have a wasted slot that summons a useless and often detrimental minion. Stuff like Ogre and Privateer for example. They could be stat balance alternatives to Str and Scholar, but they both only have 5 bonuses instead of 6. Why not replace the broken minion with something like 5% damage to weakened foes or 3% damage to bleeding foes? There’s so much room to have more than a couple useful rune sets. The game doesn’t need a dozen sets that summons minions, considering the near universal loathing for minion summoning items, and especially in sets that would otherwise appeal mostly to classes that have no minions.

“near universal loathing for minion summoning items” I’d love to see your scientific peer reviewed study on that. You know, except for the fact that there isn’t one and its simply your opinion. Some people don’t like them, some do, the real issue is when things like Pirate runes come about and are just way too strong (mainly because the bird it summons evades as much as an S/D thief does).

I’m fine with summon runes, they should still be balanced appropriately, but there is nothing innately wrong with the idea of a summon rune. There are a lot of other runes that are worthless, I’d focus a rune rework on those.