Guild Wars 2

I am building my engie to be condition damage. I have berserker , while checking conditions runes on the wiki I came across two possible “substitutes”. i am unsure if I should change the runes or keep the berserker ones. Which one would you guys recommend?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Berserker
The one I have, good condition buff all around imo.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Thorns
I find this one interesting due to poison dart valley, fumigate, poison gas shell and poison grenade

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Krait
Curious about the bleeding duration and how much it would benefit me

What is your stat layout? It depends entirely on that. If you’re running Viper’s for instance I would suggest you stick with berserker. If you’re intentionally limiting yourself to poison for some reason then Rune of Thorns (but that probably is not BiS) and if you’re running a cheaper high crit (Rampager? Sinister?) build then Krait where you can’t sustain high amounts of burning then Krait simply because bleed applications with the rotation are pretty simple to get and stacking high is very easy.

But it really depends on your condition duration without those runes. Keep in mind that poison, unlike bleeding and burning, gets no trait help so while you get +33% to both bleeding and burning by just taking a trait and actually just choosing the Firearms trait line automatically gives you the bleeding. If you’re choosing Thorns AND Viper’s you’re gimping yourself.

DGraves.3720:

What is your stat layout? It depends entirely on that. If you’re running Viper’s for instance I would suggest you stick with berserker. If you’re intentionally limiting yourself to poison for some reason then Rune of Thorns (but that probably is not BiS) and if you’re running a cheaper high crit (Rampager? Sinister?) build then Krait where you can’t sustain high amounts of burning then Krait simply because bleed applications with the rotation are pretty simple to get and stacking high is very easy.

But it really depends on your condition duration without those runes. Keep in mind that poison, unlike bleeding and burning, gets no trait help so while you get +33% to both bleeding and burning by just taking a trait and actually just choosing the Firearms trait line automatically gives you the bleeding. If you’re choosing Thorns AND Viper’s you’re gimping yourself.

I have mostly the Morbach armor set which uses the Dire prefix (Condition damage, precision and toughness)

eduardo.1436:

DGraves.3720:

What is your stat layout? It depends entirely on that. If you’re running Viper’s for instance I would suggest you stick with berserker. If you’re intentionally limiting yourself to poison for some reason then Rune of Thorns (but that probably is not BiS) and if you’re running a cheaper high crit (Rampager? Sinister?) build then Krait where you can’t sustain high amounts of burning then Krait simply because bleed applications with the rotation are pretty simple to get and stacking high is very easy.

But it really depends on your condition duration without those runes. Keep in mind that poison, unlike bleeding and burning, gets no trait help so while you get +33% to both bleeding and burning by just taking a trait and actually just choosing the Firearms trait line automatically gives you the bleeding. If you’re choosing Thorns AND Viper’s you’re gimping yourself.

I have mostly the Morbach armor set which uses the Dire prefix (Condition damage, precision and toughness)

I thought Dire was Condition / Toughness / Vitality. I believe you just described Rabid. Doesn’t matter, it’s just a name, so setting that aside because you are not running Viper’s (expertise) your best bet would definitely be to take Rune of Thorns off the table. For long engagements rune of the Krait, if you are going the bleed route, would do you well. 4 Nightmare + 2 Trapper would do fine too as it will boost all of your condition durations. If you were taking shorter engagements, say open world, you should stick to what you currently have which is rune of the Berserker.

So to sum up don’t bother with Thorns, you can play with Krait if you want, and Berserker will help end things the fastest versus Krait which is best for longer engagements. Because of the cost though it’s not really feasible to switch between Krait and Berserker so I’d recommend you stick with Berserker since the 7% increase in condition damage works for all of your conditions giving you a stronger base to work from if you want to incorporate all of them into your rotation.

DGraves.3720:

What is your stat layout? It depends entirely on that. If you’re running Viper’s for instance I would suggest you stick with berserker. If you’re intentionally limiting yourself to poison for some reason then Rune of Thorns (but that probably is not BiS) and if you’re running a cheaper high crit (Rampager? Sinister?) build then Krait where you can’t sustain high amounts of burning then Krait simply because bleed applications with the rotation are pretty simple to get and stacking high is very easy.

But it really depends on your condition duration without those runes. Keep in mind that poison, unlike bleeding and burning, gets no trait help so while you get +33% to both bleeding and burning by just taking a trait and actually just choosing the Firearms trait line automatically gives you the bleeding. If you’re choosing Thorns AND Viper’s you’re gimping yourself.

if you ignore the poison duration on thorns and just look at the extra damage you get from the stacks, its about the same as the damage you get from berserker runes. in (nearly) full viper, you can easily contort your gears stats to cap out burning and bleeding with the traits without overcapping. that leaves poison uncapped, and condi engi has some poison, so going thorn runes will cap out a 3rd condi and also give about the same damage on the other 2 condis that get capped regardless.

sooooo it kinda depends on the situation. you need to be getting hit and you need to be in a fairly long fight for thorn runes to match/surpass berserker runes. in short bursty fights or fights where you get 1 shot or fights where you dont get hit at all you wont be able to take advantage of thorns and berserker will be better. which situation more accurately describes your play?

DGraves.3720:

eduardo.1436:

DGraves.3720:

What is your stat layout? It depends entirely on that. If you’re running Viper’s for instance I would suggest you stick with berserker. If you’re intentionally limiting yourself to poison for some reason then Rune of Thorns (but that probably is not BiS) and if you’re running a cheaper high crit (Rampager? Sinister?) build then Krait where you can’t sustain high amounts of burning then Krait simply because bleed applications with the rotation are pretty simple to get and stacking high is very easy.

But it really depends on your condition duration without those runes. Keep in mind that poison, unlike bleeding and burning, gets no trait help so while you get +33% to both bleeding and burning by just taking a trait and actually just choosing the Firearms trait line automatically gives you the bleeding. If you’re choosing Thorns AND Viper’s you’re gimping yourself.

I have mostly the Morbach armor set which uses the Dire prefix (Condition damage, precision and toughness)

I thought Dire was Condition / Toughness / Vitality. I believe you just described Rabid. Doesn’t matter, it’s just a name, so setting that aside because you are not running Viper’s (expertise) your best bet would definitely be to take Rune of Thorns off the table. For long engagements rune of the Krait, if you are going the bleed route, would do you well. 4 Nightmare + 2 Trapper would do fine too as it will boost all of your condition durations. If you were taking shorter engagements, say open world, you should stick to what you currently have which is rune of the Berserker.

So to sum up don’t bother with Thorns, you can play with Krait if you want, and Berserker will help end things the fastest versus Krait which is best for longer engagements. Because of the cost though it’s not really feasible to switch between Krait and Berserker so I’d recommend you stick with Berserker since the 7% increase in condition damage works for all of your conditions giving you a stronger base to work from if you want to incorporate all of them into your rotation.

Thank you, I’ll stick with berserker then

insanemaniac.2456:

if you ignore the poison duration on thorns and just look at the extra damage you get from the stacks, its about the same as the damage you get from berserker runes. in (nearly) full viper, you can easily contort your gears stats to cap out burning and bleeding with the traits without overcapping. that leaves poison uncapped, and condi engi has some poison, so going thorn runes will cap out a 3rd condi and also give about the same damage on the other 2 condis that get capped regardless.

sooooo it kinda depends on the situation. you need to be getting hit and you need to be in a fairly long fight for thorn runes to match/surpass berserker runes. in short bursty fights or fights where you get 1 shot or fights where you dont get hit at all you wont be able to take advantage of thorns and berserker will be better. which situation more accurately describes your play?

Well he already owned the Berserker runes so there was no reason to swap out. The payoff would be way too low.

As everyone else here said – Berserker Runes are the best of us!