Guild Wars 2

Before I get into some notes I think gw2 dev’s tried to balance them with a framework like this, so each # bonus should theoretically be fairly balanced with each other runes same # bonus:

+25
+35 / 10% specific condi or boon duration
+50
+65 / 15% specific condi or boon duration or small bonus
+100
+125/ 20% specific condi or boon duration + bonus effect/ or effective 4% damage multiplier

But it breaks down pretty quickly into unbalance…

The superior runes of the trapper give +10% condition duration to all types of conditions as the 2 set bonus, where as the following only give a 10% bonus to one condition and nightmare and mad king only give 5%, trapper #2 bonus is far superior.

bleeding – afflicted/krait
burning – balthazar
chill – grenth
poison – orr
perplexity- confusion
tormenting – torment
nightmare/mad king 5%???

Nightmare and mad king gives 5% and trapper gives 10%… come on now, thats like having the #1 bonus be +50 strength on something instead of +25, absurdly unbalanced.

All the runes that give bonuses when you reach 20% hp need to be buffed. 20% hp is too low and the fights over 100% of the time at this point, considering only scrubs use these 20% hp runes at the moment because they are so bad.

Runes of earth – magnetic aura at 20% hp…
Rune of svanir – becoming a block of ice when at 20% hp… so immobolize yourself at 20% hp, cool, sounds like a benefit for your opponent.
Runes of orr – quickness at 20% hp…

Orr – I mean the #4 gives 50-100% poison uptime and the #6 gives quickness when your about to die, come on even the #4 is vastly more powerful than the 6 set bonus, its absurd.

Certain boons are more valuable than other boons, same with conditions yet they seem to have similar % bonuses.

Runes of the centaur giving +10% swiftness bonus is total crap for example where as +10% might/fury/protection/stability bonus is highly valued. How about balancing these numbers knowing that certain boons are more important!

Strength runes and aristocracy have the same 15% might bonus but strength runes have the additional might stacking element, clearly another example of the runes being imbalanced.

Hoelbrak gives -20% condi duration and antitoxin gives -12% for the number 6 bonus. Please give condi players a balanced anti-condi runeset, this one totally sucks and is imbalanced. Full condi players don’t give a crap about getting might because conditions scales so slowly with condition damage anyways, even a full 25 stacks is like barely 10% dps increase.

The specific condition duration bonuses are just totally useless for the most part due to conditions being hard capped at 100% bonus. Most condi builds hit this 100% duration (whether that is balanced or not is another question) so something that gives + condition duration for a specific thing literally does nothing vs most people.

We need a dev to step up and take responsibility for balancing the runes, which dev changed them last time? Is there any way to contact them again to get them to work on them some more? Is there any notes/confirmation anywhere that the dev’s mentioned how they balance the runes?

I just pointed out some eye-popping stuff, theres a lot more stuff that could use some more balancing in the realm of runes.

Rocketmist.5436:

Full condi players don’t give a crap about getting might because conditions scales so slowly with condition damage anyways, even a full 25 stacks is like barely 10% dps increase.

25 might stacks = 25 * 35 = +875 Condition damage

Burning @1400 condi damage: 678 dps
Burning with might stacks @2275 condi damage: 897 dps => +32% damage increase

Bleeding @1400 condi damage: 112 dps
Bleeding with 25 might stacks @2275 condi damage: 156 dps => +39% damage increase

Im a wvw player so im used to numbers higher, so the s would be lower. Anyways 10 was a lowball, its prolly closer to 20%. But my point being, its not nearly as helpful as a full power build, so having condi runes that stack might are gonna be worse than power runes that stack might, and the overall point was saying how bad the antitoxin runes were in general… theres so many runes in this game I legit have never even heard of someone using let alone trying, and theres a reason why.

While some runes are simply garbage, I would rather the weaker runes be the standard and he current meta runes be weaker. What makes Strength so absurd is less the 5% dmg boost (although it’s a factor) and more the constant might gain for being hit. In fact, for many sets the idea that you get rewarded fro getting hit seems dumb. The biggest offender is Nightmare Runes. The runes make Terrormancer much stronger because randomly getting feared when you hit them can totally screw up your rotation and enable them to start changing you and you had no way to avoid it. If it was on hit it would be much more fair to the player fighting against the runes.

I would like to see runes and even sigils in some cases (fire/air, Battle/Something else on swap like Energy or Doom) go back to being accents/add ons to your build rather than being just as if not more important than your traits. The changes did not open more options, it actually limited them. I would rather have a wide variety of minor changes than a choice between 2 and sometimes no choice at all.