Guild Wars 2

ThiBash.5634:

The boon duration from say, Arcana, goes a long way in making up for the loss of stats you would otherwise get from say, Fire Magic. But only if you make sure you use at least some might stacking and other boons. Elemental Attunement seems a must for any ele boon duration build because of its spammability and long duration.

It would be interesting to see how effective Arcana is in providing stats like power to an ele using it. If we just take Sigil of Battle, and assume it refreshes on cooldown, we get 6 stacks of might on average. At 30% boon duration, that would mean 7.8 stacks on average, or 1.8 might gained, which equals 65 power or so. Compared to the 300 power you get from Fire Magic, that’s pitiful.

However, you also gain near-perma fury (=420 precision) from the same attribute line. Assuming 50% uptime, it adds 210 precision on average. Adding the 210 precision to the power and condition damage from the sigil of battle, that sums up to+340 offensive stat points.

Add to that the might from combos, the extra protection and regen and I think you might actually get more ‘stats’ from boon duration that you would get from attributes. Or gear for that matter.

This is exactly how I viewed it, and during my tests it’s definitely what I found to be true.

If I forewent my 30 arcana for 20 fire and 20 air, I still couldn’t reach the 2600 power I sit at (on average) nor the 3000 I sit at towards the 60 second mark during a fight.

The extra precision wouldn’t counteract the perma fury I get from the arcana minor trait, (it is perma with 75% duration, making air 10 useless) and perma protection makes our effective armor a ton higher. Higher than if I went 30 into earth.

I can’t find a situation where boon duration doesn’t make me more effective. Even when a boon duration ele is boon corrupted, if you’ve played smart, you should have your “oh kitten button” and be able to build up those boons again, as we aren’t paper without them.