Guild Wars 2

I’m beginning to get some items where it say eg:

[Magic something] (1/2)
1.) 10% to whatever
2.) +5 to something else

Now I can see that the 2.) is grey and the 1.) is hmm green I think. Why is that? Is the grey not active? How do I get the 2.) active?

I did try to find the answer on Wiki, but just got lost…..

Those are runes. You need two pieces of equipment with the rune in it to gain both effects.

Oh so I need some matching items for them to activate? Like a set?

Yes but it’s not really worth going out of your way to get rune bonuses on low level items. It won’t make much of a difference and you’ll out level the gear soon and find more.

heh! Yeah I guess I do. Thanks for answering.

just to add, at high level’s you can have a set of 6 runes. it will say something like:
1) +5% something
2) +12 this
3) +4% another thing
4) summons something
5) +25 that
6) summons awesomeness

Those are called superior runes. You need 6 of them on different armor items to have the full effect. Like Arsenic touch said dont worry bout it too much, if you find two of them same by accident then use them both. if not just wait till your 80 and you can build your ultimate armor set

Thanks Mercury, I dont worry to much about it, just wondered. At the moment I’m skritt-like “uhhh shiiny!” and just go with what I find.

Yeah, it is pretty much a set bonus for having all of the same type of armor, like in other games. But here, you can actually match them to the armor style you prefer instead of being stuck with something fugly.

I think the system might have been inspired by Dragon Age specifically since the developers started talking about how to handle armor sets not long after that game came out, and they’re an important part of your gear in DA1.

But basically the idea is to let you build your own set. You get the same kind of benefits as other games give you for wearing a matching set but you’re not tied to a particular style and don’t have to go looking for specific pieces. (I remember one of the devs saying the problem they have in a lot of games is that by the time they’ve finished collecting an armor set they’ve out-levelled it and need to get something else.)

Wow had set bonuses long before DA. Just wanted to mention that.

But yeah, its set bonuses. Not really item set bonuses, just the runes. You can use the runes in whichever armor you want.

Blackwolfe.5649:

Wow had set bonuses long before DA. Just wanted to mention that.

But yeah, its set bonuses. Not really item set bonuses, just the runes. You can use the runes in whichever armor you want.

I know. I wasn’t suggesting DA invented the idea of set bonuses, just that I think that’s the game that got Anet thinking about how they wanted to approach it.

Apparently there was some joking on their Facebook and Twitter accounts (and possible elsewhere as well) that work on GW2 was going to be on hold for “research” purposes when DA came out (they said similar things about a few other RPGs too) and not long after that they started talking about how they were going to handle item sets. It could be a coincidence of course but considering DA put a lot of empasis on sets (you could generally buy mismatched armor of the highest tier available to you from most merchants, or get it from drops, but having a matching set made a big difference) I think it’s quite likely it drew their attention to the issue.

For lower levels, ignore the bonuses, you actually get less stats when you are using minor runes.

For instance, I could get 2 runes.
Say Minor rune of the eagle
10 precision 1/2
7 power 2/2

or….

I could get 2 different runes.
Minor rune of the eagle
10 precision 1/2
&
Minor rune of Rata Sum
10 Precision 1/2

more gain this way, I do this for all my alts, the only minor runes I actually make sure to have 2 of is Minor Rune of Divinity. The other 4 are always 4 different runes each giving just the first bonus.

Hopefully I explained this clearly enough to be understandable.