Guild Wars 2

How do Pack Runes work on Elementalists? It’s on a lot of recommended builds, but as an Elementalist, don’t you want to avoid getting hit?

Thanks!

When roaming in WvW (solo or small group play), permanent swiftness is an absolute necessity. That means going 02066 and spamming auras on cd or going 00266 and using pack runes. The advantage of the latter is that you get substantially stronger traits, however you lose out on the might duration (and possibly -condi) of the traditional hoelbrak/strength.

The getting hit thingy isn’t that big of a deal. The internal cooldown is 20 seconds. On D/D at least it will be proccing quite reliably.

Slotting Pack runes is one of the best thing you can do with your elementalist… Excellent stats: 175 power, 125 precision, +20% swiftness duration. The +20% swiftness duration means you have permanent swiftness from Air I and Arcane Power VIII. Staff, D/D whatever can have permanent swiftness. The Fury and the Might on hit are only the icing on the cake.

Using Speed or Traveller runes for movement speed (on elementalist) are unnecessary because of this rune set.

Just to make sure I read these comments right, you all recommend taking pack over hoelbrak/strength runes? Am I missing something here by thinking that might stacking was our primary objective in a fight?

Nope… Strength and Hoelbrak are excellent choices and superior to the Pack if talking about raw damage output/condi duration… But the Pack is the best if you need movement speed (swiftness) too and you want to keep an offensive mindset. And in solo/small scale mobility is king!

Superior runes of the pack are great for the high fury uptime, and the swiftness. They’re also cheaper than hoelbrak/Strength runes, which is part of the reason they’re so highly recommended.

As for getting hit, of course you dont want to get hit, but it’s unavoidable a fair amount of the time. The swiftness helps you a lot to avoid getting hit in the future.

In regards to larger scale fighting…

When rolling in a large zerg force is where Pack is pretty much the default choice. Most cases you are going to get hit by the enemy Spike and that’s going to translate into the proc always going off in a fight. Also the Swiftness up time, while important, largely is irrelevant in a larger group because you should have 5-10 Guardians spamming Symbol of Swiftness as you go along with any other Eles (most times I am in a group with 5 other Eles and we keep things going with Windborne by ourselves). The stats are super nice however and all around makes it a great selection because of stats, Swiftness and the boon procs.

Generally speaking, for larger scale WvW, you want to check in with your guild and/or server as they may have builds they want people running for WvW. This is crucial because Commanders expect you to be running specific builds with specific abilities/traits at their disposal and it can vary slightly from server to server.

…for Roaming largely disregard the above. Personally I prefer Hoelbrak or Strength for solo but I also mostly use my Shatter Mesmer for solo play so wouldn’t rely on my preferences

just did some calculations last night and came to the conclusion that i’d mean a 0.9% dmge drop compared to strength runes, however that excluded the extra effect of #4. I’d say it’s definitely the prefered alternative for ele’s who got rid of the might stacking meta.

^ I dunno, but if you go for pack runes and thus stack less might, you will most likely need to build a bit less tanky in return, which means you lose out on survivability… if you want to keep your dmg on the same level, that is.

Or do I get that wrong? Has anyone done the math on this?

Saturn.6591:

^ I dunno, but if you go for pack runes and thus stack less might, you will most likely need to build a bit less tanky in return, which means you lose out on survivability… if you want to keep your dmg on the same level, that is.

Or do I get that wrong? Has anyone done the math on this?

I Haven’t done the math, but i believe high fury up time will net you more damage than the +5% from having might, especially in WvW, where you can get might stacks quickly and easily, even in a 5 ele party.

Hamster.4861:

Saturn.6591:

^ I dunno, but if you go for pack runes and thus stack less might, you will most likely need to build a bit less tanky in return, which means you lose out on survivability… if you want to keep your dmg on the same level, that is.

Or do I get that wrong? Has anyone done the math on this?

I Haven’t done the math, but i believe high fury up time will net you more damage than the +5% from having might, especially in WvW, where you can get might stacks quickly and easily, even in a 5 ele party.

Uhm, I mean in comparison to Hoelbrak. How would you think the difference in (theoretical) dps is if you are solo-roaming and fighting someone (be it NPC’s or another player)?

Hoelbrak procs much more might than Pack, and the additional might-duration sums up nicely. It actually adds 6 seconds to Might from blast-finishers and battle-sigil, which means the latter one procs again before the first two stacks from it run out.

There’s an old thread I’ve found from 6 months ago, but some things might have changed since then (for example battle-sigils). Also, he’s using Stone Splinters in the build with Pack-runes, while I’d probably go for Elemental Shielding (aside from a bit different stats overall, but the main factor probably are those 10% from having the trait or not): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Hoelbrak-Strength-vs-Pack-analysis

Pack runes help a lot in grps. But i prefer hoelbraks given that dnd eles rely alot on might.

Saturn.6591:

Hamster.4861:

Saturn.6591:

^ I dunno, but if you go for pack runes and thus stack less might, you will most likely need to build a bit less tanky in return, which means you lose out on survivability… if you want to keep your dmg on the same level, that is.

Or do I get that wrong? Has anyone done the math on this?

I Haven’t done the math, but i believe high fury up time will net you more damage than the +5% from having might, especially in WvW, where you can get might stacks quickly and easily, even in a 5 ele party.

Uhm, I mean in comparison to Hoelbrak. How would you think the difference in (theoretical) dps is if you are solo-roaming and fighting someone (be it NPC’s or another player)?

Hoelbrak procs much more might than Pack, and the additional might-duration sums up nicely. It actually adds 6 seconds to Might from blast-finishers and battle-sigil, which means the latter one procs again before the first two stacks from it run out.

There’s an old thread I’ve found from 6 months ago, but some things might have changed since then (for example battle-sigils). Also, he’s using Stone Splinters in the build with Pack-runes, while I’d probably go for Elemental Shielding (aside from a bit different stats overall, but the main factor probably are those 10% from having the trait or not): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Hoelbrak-Strength-vs-Pack-analysis

I have both hoelbrak and Pack runes on different elementalists, mostly in roaming and 20v20. I’ve noticed that i have higher sustained damage with the Pack runes. I’m critical hitting more often, and my criticals HURT, and the swiftness is just freakin fabulous. I’ve run the pack with Staff, D/D and S/F. I like the pack runes the most for Staff and S/F.

On my hoelbrak set, i’ll say that the ele feels better, and you maintain very high Power. soft CC like cripple and chill falls off at a much more comfortable rate, especially with poultry leek soup. However, The bonus for might uptime on Hoelbrak and strength runes only applies to might that you apply to yourself, which makes this build favor D/D for ease of blasting. Most of the might that I had coming in with most of my fights was stacked for me by guardians, or 4 eles blasting a fire field with eruptions.

Either set is an excellent pick. They just play differently. I think that the swiftness+fury from pack runes is excellent, and if you’re going to build for dueling and small group play, the pack runes will really excel there, giving your party fury and swiftness.

IMO Pack runes are the best power armor rune for your $ at the moment.

pack runes are better. That’s base on my experience with them.

Saturn.6591:

^ I dunno, but if you go for pack runes and thus stack less might, you will most likely need to build a bit less tanky in return, which means you lose out on survivability… if you want to keep your dmg on the same level, that is.

Or do I get that wrong? Has anyone done the math on this?

It’s not like Pack runes are vastly inferior to Strength/Hoelbrak in terms of damage. People seem to always forget about the additional Fury + Precision, you’re critting a lot more with Pack runes compared to Strength/Hoelbrak.

On top of that (speaking D/D here), Pack runes allow for perma swiftness with just Updraft + Staff Air4 (YO ANET IF ANYONE’S READING THIS, OUT-OF-COMBAT WEAPON SWAP FOR ELES IN HoT PLOX), so you can go for Elemental Shielding in the Earth trait line rather than Zephyr’s Boon in Air, which adds a kittenton of survivability and definitely pushes you above any other D/D build utilizing Air traitline over Earth, regardless of rune setup.

With Strength/Hoelbrak your Burning will be ticking for higher numbers, but apart from that I’d say Pack runes are better suited for WvW (especially considering how heavily -condi duration food is abused in WvW, which makes your burning much less valueable anyways).

I use 00266 d/d build. and Pack runes are perfect. provide almost perma swift which is essential for wvw and also that 125 precision helps alot. I’d say pack runes are perfect rune for d/d ele and also its way cheaper than hoelbrak or strength

MidoriMarch.8067:

I use 00266 d/d build. and Pack runes are perfect. provide almost perma swift which is essential for wvw and also that 125 precision helps alot. I’d say pack runes are perfect rune for d/d ele and also its way cheaper than hoelbrak or strength

Yup. There are more benefits in packrunes than hoelbrak/str runes when using the 00266 spec than 02246 or 02066 for dnd.

But it really is playstyle, group use and build/armour type.

Thanks guys.

I think I will go for pack runes then. And since I will crit more and thus trigger Renewing Stamina more reliably, I might as well use Soothing Wave instead of Soothing Disruption.

So…

Build with Hoelbrak
Build with Pack