Guild Wars 2

This pertains to WvW and D/D

I am always thinking about ele stuff.

So previously it was all about boon duration now many people take a specific focused rune like ogre. While Effective Power isn’t a completely accurate calculation of damage it can give you somewhat of an dea between 2 builds which will do more damage.

Maybe alot of people know this or I am not really bringing anything up new but if you have 30 in arcana is there a better choice than boon duration for dps?

I ran some the same direct damage builds into buildcraft take ogre for example good dps rune right? With only 30% boon duration you are probably looking at maybe at best 16 stacks of might and you won’t maintain that for very long. So lets say 13 realistically if you have the same gear and trinkets boon duration runes will do more damage once it reaches 20 might stack which is really easy and can be maintained easily with 22 probably being where you would sit if everything goes your way. With ogre you won’t have 100% uptime on fury realistically with 75% boon duration setup you will realistically have 100% fury uptime the 75% boon duration allows you to not focus on stacking if your stunned, dazed, or knockdown and still maintain 17+ stacks easily.

So it is really frontloaded damage vs backloaded damage. The beginning of the fight the dps specific rune will be better for damage but after about 15 seconds of the fight boon duration is better all while healing you more since regen will last longer, protection lasts longer.

I have 2 armors one is a more focused rune set and another is boon duration but I can’t really see at all why take any other setup up if you plan to kill people in WvW than boon duration with 30 in arcana and D/D. Divinity runes which are really popular aren’t even in the same ball park.

The biggest downside I see is that it can be stripped but that can happen if you have boon duration or not so it isn’t really a problem imo.

Not just stripped, mesmers can steal your 25x might boonstack at full duration.

Boonstacking works better for PvE, it’s very unreliable for PvP applications of any sort. And my Ele is a 90% boon duration build – I simply won’t recommend it for WvW.

I feel the same way about Boon Duration on an Ele as the OP. It seems to be the best on a 30 Arcana Ele over most other choices. The interaction between Elemental Attunement, Sigil of Battle, and other ways Eles have to produce boons makes them perfect candidates to spec for full boon duration in WvW.

Given that, I’ve kind of just run around with Traveler Runes because these days I’m super lazy and just wanna go fast without pressing anything or giving up a utility slot. Vwoom.

yea i think boon duration is probably still best… hoelbrak is pretty good also what with all the condis floating around

Fishbones.6914:

yea i think boon duration is probably still best… hoelbrak is pretty good also what with all the condis floating around

Agree hoelbrak is a very good rune

i use 2 melandru, 2 water and 2 traveler

I m quite happy with them

Hey Ozii,

I’m in the camp that switches a lot. I own two identically skinned Knight’s armor sets with two different runes on them. On one I have boon duration, the other divinity runes.

There’s likely a better in-between, but I appreciate them both. I find this to answer your question (and I run several variants of the 30 arcane, some with 10, 15, 20 in air, 10 in earth and anywhere between 10 and 30 in water.):

My sustained damage is great with boon duration. It’s incredible in a larger 5v5 fight, also incredible in a smaller fight, but you do have a higher chance of things stolen from you. At the same time, that’s unlikely. Having fought hundreds of duels in the past few days, I’ve had several boons ripped, never one stolen. That’s not to say it hasn’t happened. With Boon Duration, I have permanent protection, 20 stacks of permanent might, permanent regeneration, permanent fury.

With divinity, I feel much more bursty. Where I might hit 6k with a fire grab, i’d hit 7.5 maybe with divinity at it’s highest. I mostly use my Boon Duration now, but this is still a good set. It stacks 13-16 might stacks permanently, but the biggest pain is ensuring I have fury when I need it.

LordByron.8369:

i use 2 melandru, 2 water and 2 traveler

I m quite happy with them

I gave this a go today dropped my water runes for 2 melandru and so far it is pretty good. Have to duel a engi but against P/D thief it held up good. My other set I just switched from melandru to hoelbrak so the dps there is much better but it is glassier.

Mbelch.9028:

Hey Ozii,

I’m in the camp that switches a lot. I own two identically skinned Knight’s armor sets with two different runes on them. On one I have boon duration, the other divinity runes.

There’s likely a better in-between, but I appreciate them both. I find this to answer your question (and I run several variants of the 30 arcane, some with 10, 15, 20 in air, 10 in earth and anywhere between 10 and 30 in water.):

My sustained damage is great with boon duration. It’s incredible in a larger 5v5 fight, also incredible in a smaller fight, but you do have a higher chance of things stolen from you. At the same time, that’s unlikely. Having fought hundreds of duels in the past few days, I’ve had several boons ripped, never one stolen. That’s not to say it hasn’t happened. With Boon Duration, I have permanent protection, 20 stacks of permanent might, permanent regeneration, permanent fury.

With divinity, I feel much more bursty. Where I might hit 6k with a fire grab, i’d hit 7.5 maybe with divinity at it’s highest. I mostly use my Boon Duration now, but this is still a good set. It stacks 13-16 might stacks permanently, but the biggest pain is ensuring I have fury when I need it.

I found my inbetween to be 2 Traveler, 2 Water and 2 Ruby Orbs. Gives me slightly less damage than Celestial if I have my boons stripped but is far superior to both Celestial and boom duration when I’m stacked. The only draw back is that there’s less room for errors in terms of might stacking but I feel it’s worthwhile for that little extra flexability.

I use Divinity Runes on Celestial Chest and Pants( pants recipe is around 12gold or more) rest of the pieces I use PVT. Asceneded Beserker Amulet, 3 Cav accessories and 1 knight ascended. Ascended dagger Cav with battle and Ceslestial Superior Accuracy off hand or a Focus off hand Beserker with Superior Accuracy (The Anomaly buhaha cause it looks fuffy). Remember to use a beserker exotic as a off hand to stack Bloodlust. Then Swap back. This way with stacks from bloodlust, wvw guard stack, wvw offensive stacks, food oil, you roll super damage and run a gentle 0 20 0 20 30 or a 0 15 10 15 30 or super glassy 0 25 0 15 30. I like Stomp 12k crits with 70% crit as DD on burst with 100+ crit damage> I still die if I get jumped in a by condition spikes if not in focus mode. Focus is the best vs conditions and heavy zergs. D/D great for mobility and burst. Might go travelers I don’t think extended boon duration needed just the momentum or it becomes a crutch. I suggest lots of condition removals and no when to stand you ground and die or run if roaming.

My boon duration setup is 4xAltruism 2xTraveler, for the extra might on both myself and my team.

I run 2 monk(25 healing, +15% duration) 2 water(25 healing, 15% duration) and 2 traveler runes(10 all stats, +2%critical dmg, +15% duration) as a boon duration set up and i like it more than any other rune set up ive tried. It might not be as bursty as say, divinity runes, but the ability to sustain 20 stacks of might, near perma regen, perma vigor and so on more than makes up for the slight increase in unbuffed damage from a different set for me.

Monk/traveler/water is also the way for me.

I moved my boon duration set to my celestial gear because it lacks power and toughness, and therefor gains more might that helps with condi output, and brings the power up exponentially when coupled with bloodlust. It also increases the time on protection. I use this for D/D 3-5 man roaming, and sometimes in dungeons, as boon duration makes all of our boons carry over to our allies, and friendly npcs.

My PVT set is melandru, and knights has travelers. As to whether I have chosen the best sets to have those rune sets is yet to be determined. I have a zerker set with eagle runes for staff. I use the knights and zerker for staff, and zerker for s/d pve.

With 30 arcana, and no boon duration from gear, I average 13 stacks as D/D. That’s good enough for me. Most of the time spent in WvW is cleansing/ breaking out/ kiting when solo roaming. As thus, knights/traveler, and pvt/melandu excel at making it take the absolute longest for non-zerkers to get me even close to dying, if at all. While I might not win, I don’t die if I’m smart enough to break away when necessary. I really only die, roaming, to running into more enemies while having already used my cds in escaping others.

I miss having boon duration on either knights or pvt, though. Because having the swiftness kind of makes up for not running 25% movement speed. It’s a passive speed boost that works without wasting cds, though. At times I have even used windborne dagger instead of the vigor on crit, just to make a certain build work my way. I really dislike using signet of air.

With celestial I use power+vit food.
With staff I use 200 power on kill + 10% crit food.
With knights/pvt I use anything with power or vit on it as it doesn’t matter much.

I wonder, you guys running boon duration, are you more partial to -condition duration food, or +boon duration food ?

Another really good food as D/D front liner is Loaf of Saffron Bread

katniss.6735:

I moved my boon duration set to my celestial gear because it lacks power and toughness, and therefor gains more might that helps with condi output, and brings the power up exponentially when coupled with bloodlust. It also increases the time on protection. I use this for D/D 3-5 man roaming, and sometimes in dungeons, as boon duration makes all of our boons carry over to our allies, and friendly npcs.

My PVT set is melandru, and knights has travelers. As to whether I have chosen the best sets to have those rune sets is yet to be determined. I have a zerker set with eagle runes for staff. I use the knights and zerker for staff, and zerker for s/d pve.

With 30 arcana, and no boon duration from gear, I average 13 stacks as D/D. That’s good enough for me. Most of the time spent in WvW is cleansing/ breaking out/ kiting when solo roaming. As thus, knights/traveler, and pvt/melandu excel at making it take the absolute longest for non-zerkers to get me even close to dying, if at all. While I might not win, I don’t die if I’m smart enough to break away when necessary. I really only die, roaming, to running into more enemies while having already used my cds in escaping others.

I miss having boon duration on either knights or pvt, though. Because having the swiftness kind of makes up for not running 25% movement speed. It’s a passive speed boost that works without wasting cds, though. At times I have even used windborne dagger instead of the vigor on crit, just to make a certain build work my way. I really dislike using signet of air.

With celestial I use power+vit food.
With staff I use 200 power on kill + 10% crit food.
With knights/pvt I use anything with power or vit on it as it doesn’t matter much.

I wonder, you guys running boon duration, are you more partial to -condition duration food, or +boon duration food ?

Another really good food as D/D front liner is Loaf of Saffron Bread

-condition duration food all day everyday no substitute for me personally. I don’t run ether renewal so it helps alot. I keep the omnomberry cream on me for groups with my 2 traveler 2 monk 2 water set that is all PVT armor with PVT ascended amulet. I have a few different trinket sets I use when I run my PVT set sometimes I focus on healing or just get as bunker as possible or run it with my dps trinkets.

When it is staff time I run power and crit damage food or precision and crit damage food.

My main roaming set is – condition duration food though.

WTB Healing Power – Precision – Critical Damage accessories. That would make PVT sets more appealing for me.

Valk is still a good option because power is great for Eles, and the Vit is great for condi management. Running without precision (aside from 10 in air) is why I’ve leaned toward celestial trinkets 99% of the time for every set (with PVT backpiece).

After patch, if you’re going the diamond skin route, you’ll probably want to get as much clerics or celestial in as you can. You won’t need to worry as much about low toughness, and the extra condi damage will make up for the power drain. The vitality won’t be as big of an issue vs condis, but possibly vs burst from zerker mesmer or thief.
I gather most people aren’t convinced that the patch will be worth switching out of current bunker meta. Especially the 0/30/30/0/10 spec. that was mentioned. However fresh air/anti-condition sounds fun. And you get the stab on earth swap option. I’ll definitely be experimenting a lot, and buying more sets. Possibly Apoth.

katniss.6735:

WTB Healing Power – Precision – Critical Damage accessories. That would make PVT sets more appealing for me.

Valk is still a good option because power is great for Eles, and the Vit is great for condi management. Running without precision (aside from 10 in air) is why I’ve leaned toward celestial trinkets 99% of the time for every set (with PVT backpiece).

After patch, if you’re going the diamond skin route, you’ll probably want to get as much clerics or celestial in as you can. You won’t need to worry as much about low toughness, and the extra condi damage will make up for the power drain. The vitality won’t be as big of an issue vs condis, but possibly vs burst from zerker mesmer or thief.
I gather most people aren’t convinced that the patch will be worth switching out of current bunker meta. Especially the 0/30/30/0/10 spec. that was mentioned. However fresh air/anti-condition sounds fun. And you get the stab on earth swap option. I’ll definitely be experimenting a lot, and buying more sets. Possibly Apoth.

I’d argue you’d want to double up on toughness/vitality/healing power.

Toughness is the only way you’ll take a hit, so you may as well have as much spiky armor as possible. Increase the vitality so the threshold is larger.