Guild Wars 2

assuming a
-lvl 80 elementalist
-full ascended berserker gear with infusions
-no might or fury or any group buffs
-100% damage modifier uptime on any rune.

the result is the dps with an 1.0 modifier attack every second (equals a traited ranger long range shot at max range). however, every attack scales with these values, so the percentage values (compared to scholar) are quite correct.

5732 scholar (health above 90%)
5465 (-4,7%) flame legion (needs burning enemy)
5363 (-6,5%) Strenght (needs might boon on you)
5108 (-10,9%) any other power rune
5340 (-6.8%) pack
5418 (-5,5%) eagle (assuming 50% uptime of the buff)
5629 (-1,8%) ranger (active companion)
5647 (-1,5%) thief (attacking from behind)
5232 (-8,9%) rage (fury boon required)
4795 (-16,4%) melandru (just for comparison if someone is not using dps runes)

important notes
-fury and group precision buffs (ranger spotter, banner of discipline) can increase critical chance on the precision runes (eagle, ranger, thief) beyond 100%, decreasing their effectiveness.
- some of the damage modifiers are hard to maintain.
- not using bufffood will decrease your damage by around 6,1% (around 7-8% if you are not full ascended. I used toxic sharpening stone for my calculations, in dungeons you want to use 10% slaying potions for 10% extra damage

conclusion:
some heavily underrated choices are very good for you dps. the precision runes are great dps boosters, they can even beat scholar by a very small margin.

recommendations

budget (below 10g)
- flame legion (ele, guard, engi)
- thief (always stay behind the enemy, does not work with ground skills like lava font)
- ranger (for ranger ^^and mesmer, works with every summoned pet and even consumables)

pug
- pack (nice for groupwide fury uptime, not depended on conditional modifiers)
- scholar
- strenght
- thief
- ranger

organized (full groupbuffs)
- strenght
- scholar

build used
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWmMIiBBAjeCbhMZEAKAHA5SGCSBA-ThBBABYt/o8DgLAQe6AC4BAUp6PnpEMAwBwv/GAO/8zP/8z73f/93f/tUARMsC-e

I don’t have the same result as you. If i’m using the same build as you and the same specification here the difference in dps% compare to scholar.

Ranger : – 2.3%
Flame : – 4.8%
Strength : – 6.6%
Pack : – 6.9%
Eagle : – 6%
Thief : – 1.9%
Rage: – 8.7%

They all are below Scholar. But these number are irrelevant. For example, they don’t count any condition damage, which will profit Power runes over Precision or Ferocity runes. It will also boost Flame legion compare to others. The fact that you use sharpening stone instead of slaying potion, or accuracy instead of night or no vulnerability will boost lower damage modifier runes compare to higher damage modifier runes. The fact that you are not using buff, also change the situation. You can argue that most pugs don’t have full buff, but I’ll argue that no pugs have zero buff.

I’m not saying that those are wrong choice, but this point out that the numbers will change a lot depending on the situation.

Here some more specific criticism.

Rune of the Thief only work if you hit from behind. This is more limiting that you seem to think.
- Almost all of the big Ele attack won’t proc it (Lava Front, Meteor Shower, Icebow 4, etc.)
- If it can work well on a boss, it’s useless against group of mobs,
- Mesmer can’t control from where their phantams will come,
- Guardian main dps come from symbol and Whirling Wrath, both of which won’t proc the 10%.
In the end, this rune can only achieve this kind of damage on a Thief, maybe a Ranger or Warrior.

Rune of Ranger Only work with a Ranger or Mesmer. Otherwise it’s a complete waste. Elementalist solo can achievement something no too bad with 2 elementals.

Flame Legion Power Engineer don’t give burning and Condi Engineer don’t use that runes. So that’s a bad advice. It would only work for engineer in two situation. In a home made build or if you count that any party will probably have perma burning in a dungeon.

Pack There is way better way to give fury than waiting to be hit. Especially, since most group don’t have problem with fury. If you need it, change trait/skills. Pack is a great rune for solo, but not for group.

good critics, but some answers:

slaying potions will affect all builds the same way. 10% more damage is always 10% more damage, no matter how many multipliers you will add. that is simply a wrong statement.

Flame Legion and engineer: The meta build has the napalm skill on flamethrower which applies around 14 second of burning if placed at a boss. Also engi can simply trait for incendiary powder instead of modified ammunition for burning uptime.

Thief rune, well nothing to add. I did not consider ground target skills. My bad.

Scholar: well some miscalculation, my bad. The other are right but scholar is around 130 too low. I edit the first post

I just wanted to show with some quick calculations that other runes can achive good dps too. Scholar buff is very hard to maintain if you don’t know all the attacks, just add a -9,1% damage reduction for scholar if below 90% health. Not everyone has a specific weapon for every dungeon in his inventory, strenght runes are expensive (and only useful on warrior tho) and flame legion damage modifier is much easier to maintain than scholar (you basically just need a guard in your group)

is there a difference between behind and flanking?

EcoRI.9273:

is there a difference between behind and flanking?

no, thief rune works with both. it is even in the description of the rune

You are right about the damage modifier.

For the engineer. True Napalm is great to give burning. But it’s the only skill and you can end up with zero burning pretty easily if something don’t go as plan. I’m just not that comfortable to propose Flame legion on an engineer unless they take Incendiary powder.

Now our numbers are pretty close.

Just some more numbers just for fun. With Ruby orb the difference in dps is 8.2% so very similar to Rune of Rage. At almost the same price and without the additional fury from the rune, you can see that it’s never worth using Ruby Orb now.

Here all the numbers, but in full buff situation.

Ranger : -1.8%
Flame : – 5.2%
Strength : – 7%
Pack : – 8%
Eagle : – 5.6%
Thief : – 1.8%
Rage : – 6.9%

Interestingly, Eagle Rune get really close to Flame Legion in those situation (Didn’t saw that coming. But the additional burning and initial burst (Icebow) still put Flame Legion ahead in most situation.

Also Rage Rune go higher on the list in full buff situation. Probably because Ferocity became more important that Power at those high levels. A Ferocity with power or precision as secondary could be a very good rune.

wait rage is6.9% better than scholar? im soooo confused

Forgot some ‘’ – ’’ in there. Sorry.