Guild Wars 2

The stats of Ruby Orbs give about the same dps as the stats from a Rune of the Scholar. So the difference between both is the 10% modifiers. At worst (you never have higher than 90% of your hp) Ruby orbs and Rune of the Scholar will have about the same dps (we are talking about 0.4% difference). How much the scholar rune will be better depend than the ruby orb will depend on how much you can keep your 10% modifier up.

I’d say it depends on the group your with, the class you play & how well you play said class.

Some are much easier to keep above 90% then others due to their innate ability to regain health outside of the main self heal.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

I’d say it depends on the group your with, the class you play & how well you play said class.

Some are much easier to keep above 90% then others due to their innate ability to regain health outside of the main self heal.

No its not. Even if you at never above 90% for the whole run, Rune of Scholar and Ruby orb would have the same overall dps. If that’s the case, use a Flame Legion Rune or a Ranger rune, not ruby orbs.

I recommend gems to a lot of people who are newer and are usually rocking WvW exotics they got from leveling in EOTM (too many WvW badges…) and they won’t be able to get the upgrades out.

Otherwise if you got the cash, there’s lots of other options that are pretty decent.

Kodiak.3281:

I recommend gems to a lot of people who are newer and are usually rocking WvW exotics they got from leveling in EOTM (too many WvW badges…) and they won’t be able to get the upgrades out.

Otherwise if you got the cash, there’s lots of other options that are pretty decent.

Unless flame legion skyrocketted in price, it’s quite cheap as well and I believe the better option.

Well even if they are not really high in price. Rune of Flame Legion are currently 70 silver each. Its not a bad idea for new player to use ruby orbs on unsalvageable exotic armor, especially since not all profession/build have a good return off those runes. But other than that, Ruby orb is not a really good option.

In terms of the original post,

I flubbed. Forgot to finish testing things & realized what items I was comparing were incomparable.

Yeah, Schoalar > Ruby Orb for sure.

Big I’m not really seeing how Flame Legion trumps Scholar. I see the benefit of FL, but the +Duration, % chance to Burn & +Damage vs Burning foes doesn’t seem to beat Scholar’s Ferocity bonus & flat 10% bonus damage.

The burning chance is low, has a 10 second cool down & requires you to be in melee. 20% duration is almost nothing really… And the 7% bonus damage will only by up half the time, maybe?

Did I miss something (I happens).

B

Flame legion doesn’t beat scholar unless you are getting very little uptime on the scholar bonus.

And I believe the assumption is 100% burning uptime, which really isn’t hard to get in groups unless you just happen to have a composition where you’re the only one applying burns.

Flame Legion don’t trumps scholar. It’s just a cheap alternative that does the job better than 95% of the other rune.

Flame Legion was 16 silver a pieces when we started to talk more and more about it as a cheaper alternative. Now its 56 silvers a pieces, a bit more expensive than it used to be, but still better than the 3.67 gold Scholar cost. That’s 18.66 gold less, which is a good amount for a new, casual player or for someone looking to gear up an alt.