Guild Wars 2

Which one is better? Soldeir has better condition removal but Hoelbrak would increase my damage significantly. I play an Altruistic Healing support guardian so which would be considered better? (The stats on the soldier runes are negligible)

I do a lot of dungeons, and the party condition removal is amazing. You’ll probably run with Shouts a lot of the time due to your build, so conditional removal is basically delicious frosting on top of your delicious cake.

The soldier runes only affect myself…

Everyone seems to think Soldier runes are great. They are, for warriors. For guardians, most of us commonly only use (for shouts) SY and HTL, meaning bascially we have 1 shout that removes conditions from ourselves and allies. Why? Because SY prioritizes the pulling of conditions and not curing of them (for some stupid reason) so unless you’re allies have zero conditions which is almost never the case, you’re pulling more conditions onto yourself without curing them, which kinda makes the Soldier rune’s effect useless imo. I ran with soldier’s for weeks, and it’s my firm opinion that there are MUCH better options.

And furthermore, Pure of Voice (the guardian trait) which does the same thing as Soldier’s runes bat also affects the party, is also useless. (again, my opinion.) Because it’s buffed, and only works with half of our shouts, and the other half just don’t work with it. Look for other sources of condition removal. Sigil of Purity, Purity Trait, Contemplation of purity even, anything. There’s tons of other, more effective alternatives. That being said, i don’t suggest Hoelbrak either, but i guess it’s okay.

@DangerMickey

Wrong, the soldier runes remove a condition from any ally(including you) that is affected by your shouts.
If you focus on a defensive path and use 3 shouts,then Runes of the soldier are a good choice.

Also don’t take the Pure of Voice trait, “Hold the Line” and “Save Yourselves” shouts randomly fail to remove conditions and never give a boon in return.

What about Hoelbrak runes, does the -20% condition duration and extra damage compare to removing condition? Allied condition removal isn’t a concern for me, most people I run with have some form of condition removal.

One last point of mine: With an AH Guardian, you rely on your shouts most often for two things: healing (AH proc and Regen) and Protection. Therefore, say you run two shouts and signet of judgement or whatever else. You’re relying on the SAME two shouts both things, cond removal and protection/healing. Seeing as Protection is PHYSICAL damage mitigation, which does nothing for conditions, I firmly believe that you do NOT want your physical dmg mitigation AND condition removal on the same cooldown, that’s just killing your efficiency in my opinion. <- add that to the points i listed earlier, and to me, Soldier’s runes become less and less useful.

Use -40% condition duration 70vit food and:

More dmg and -20% condition = Hoelbrak

More tougness and -25% stuns and -25% condition duration = Melandru

We talkin bout at least -60% condition duration of imobilze chill and cripple.
Do the math lol. Helps tremendously. Conditions wear off ya faster and stun time feels like it gets halved in duration pretty much.

You can remove those conditions all day long, they still get reapplied Better make them stay shorter if they gonna keep coming back imho.

^good advice. If my build didnt eat conditions for breakfast, id definitely consider that route.

Hostility.4961:

Use -40% condition duration 70vit food and:

More dmg and -20% condition = Hoelbrak

More tougness and -25% stuns and -25% condition duration = Melandru

We talkin bout at least -60% condition duration of imobilze chill and cripple.
Do the math lol. Helps tremendously. Conditions wear off ya faster and stun time feels like it gets halved in duration pretty much.

You can remove those conditions all day long, they still get reapplied Better make them stay shorter if they gonna keep coming back imho.

Been running Perfect Inscriptions, Purity and the -36% condition (much cheaper than the 40) food and the survival increase in WvW is quite nice. Been debating Melandu Runes but not sure if the -25% condition duration would be better than losing 165 vitality from the Soldier Runes. Something tells me no.

I run full melandru’s (mainly for the toughness) the rune is not a viable option without the food. So if your build means you have to use different food. Don’t go melandru.