Guild Wars 2

You now have access to 25% Movement speed like the other classes!

More importantly, another 15% boon duration rune! Yay!

Daecollo.9578:

You now have access to 25% Movement speed like the other classes!

Point … missed.

Why do we need to get a set of runes and other classes don’t?

Pretty sure it was DRIPPING with sarcasm…

colesy.8490:

Daecollo.9578:

You now have access to 25% Movement speed like the other classes!

Point … missed.

Why do we need to get a set of runes and other classes don’t?

I will be getting it to replace my Signet of Shadows on my Thief.

Why? Because Utility Slots are worth a lot.

Not like you can swap utilities before a fight or anything.

Since i’m currently using 6*Rune of Divinity, the drop isn’t that high (-30 on all stats, -6% crit dmg). The boon and condition duration are mostly useless for my build but i will definitely get myself another set with these runes.

I’ll also give GS another chance since now i don’t have to depend so heavy on Staff #2 for escaping.

Aaaaand their price promptly doubles. Now I’m regretting not farming the Living Gold Mine.

Clockwork Bard.3105:

Aaaaand their price promptly doubles. Now I’m regretting not farming the Living Gold Mine.

Just because they are the new hype. These seem rather nice actually…

Been using Air on my “fight/tank” set … these boys’re looking workable now.

Hm, I dunno… I daresay that Centaur or Air runes are still better for power-builds, and maybe Centaur even are still better for a condition build.

Biggest news this year for WWW players. Prepare for incoming constant QQ about op mesmers now that we aren’t tied to the focus.
Also a nice income spike for Anet as players of several classes buy gems to convert into the approx 60g to buy the set off the TP.

I never understood the need for 25% movement speed. I swap in my focus every so often when out of combat, but it’s really only a minor inconvenience.

The only reason I’d consider using these is for the 15% boon duration in combination with other runes. I just don’t think these are worth it considering what you’re giving up by not using more combat oriented runes.

Where can you get these runes at?

Without question, you’ll have better control/results stats-wise with other runes. But for the casual player- not having to be either switching weapons in and out, or always chasing buffs in the zerg, or counting down seconds before your next line drop = priceless.

Then call me casual cause I will probably get them, lol.

I use Melandru normally and they give good stats for my bunkerish build.
However… I am in dire need of speed. Equipping staff/greatsword for that extra punch, I have no way except chaos storm to give myself speed. Yes I can run with a zerg and get 3+ minutes of swiftness, but as soon as one loose that or just get separated by a tiny bit its like being a flopping fish in a puddle of water. I only have to play my Necro or Thief for 5 seconds to realize how bloody awesome the speed signet is for combat mobility in WvW. Small scale, its truly priceless – mobility is everything. Large scale, it can help alot in following the commander, which again is priceless if its a guild group.

Regarding the Centaur runes, I have them on a set as well and I run traited mantra healing = easy perma swiftness. BUT there is a major flaw in this – I have to use my heal (duh). at 8s cooldown its not a disaster, but it can still mean quite alot when I have the heal available. Not to mention being an idiot and unable to tap it every 10s. Its too kitten easy to kitten up in the middle of a fight and suddenly end up either without heal or without speed. I’d rather focus on the actual combat.

I mean, for a condition build these runes could be very nice, but perplexity is too strong to let go of atm.

After a few hours of testing i can they that they are indeed very nice. I moved from Staff to GS and the iZerker cripple combined with higher movement speed lets me escape from nearly everybody (and they are still Portal + Stealth in case i need some tricks).

The damage i lost from switching my runes gets more than compensated by the GS so all in all i’m quite happy.

Now i only need GS #3 to be useful, Torch #4 to trigger on cast (well, not really since i don’t have any fields now) and 1 more option to fight conditions and i would be perfectly happy.

I really wanted this one when i saw someone link it in guild chat…

But the price tag D:

I do actually really like these runes.

Rune of Speed also gives +25% movement speed. Also, much cheaper too.

But these runes are actually good for many mesmer builds. Unless they made some changes to rune of speed too.

Edit: I’d say they’re better for many mesmer builds. Speed runes could be good for quite a few as well.

Love ’em. My new PvE and WvW (zerker) runes.

<3

Wow, these are really strong all in all. Expertise, Concentration and movement speed. :o

Call me silly, but now having both a centaur rune set and traveler runes set, I still prefer the centaur runes for both WvW and PvE. There must be something wrong with me, given the current prices. On paper, the traveler runes look nice. And sure, you don’t have to time your heals anymore, that’s great and all. Yet in practice, with centaur runes, I run a lot faster and I consistently do more damage. Maybe these runes are good for sPvP?

I have a bad feeling that this is just going to be there answer to Mesmer movement concerns.

Well at least its a slight step up from runes of centaur as we don’t have to blow our heal anymore but its still not really good….

Levetty.1279:

I have a bad feeling that this is just going to be there answer to Mesmer movement concerns.

Well at least its a slight step up from runes of centaur as we don’t have to blow our heal anymore but its still not really good….

But that’s just it. In practice, I don’t think it’s better. It’s only better for a few select occasions. For most builds, and during 95% of your playtime, Centaur runes are better hands down. I’ll take my chances on those few occasions where I blew my heal too soon. Those rare occasions do not justify the overall decrease in damage and decrease in speed 95% of the time.

But again, that’s probably just me being silly. I must have missed the memo or something. I’m pretty sure there are more knowledgeable mesmers out there that could give their insights on this.

I’m one of those people, who just can’t help but try out new things.
So it seems only fit that I relay some of my experiences using these runes.
I play the 20/20/30 condi build, with lots of boons and lots of conditions. From a first glance, the runes of travel compliment this build exceptionally well, since they both have boon duration and condi duration = nice!

Stat wise, they are pretty poor, offering only 30 stat points (to every stat) and 6% crit dmg, which means you get less condi dmg compared to perplexity (of which I was running earlier). However, this does mean, you get more vitality, toughness and healing power.

The negative implication of less condition power, is heavily outweighed by the fact that you’re given 25% movement speed. I juked/stealthed/ran away from 4 JQ just 15 mins ago, and did so for quite a while (they did end up catching me in the end, kitten buggers ). This was only possible, I think, because of the movement speed, due to not easily being captured/outrun by them.

This is merely my own observation, and since I’m new to the mesmer you can completely forget and ignore my two cents here however, I do believe these runes offer some good things, at least to the condition builds.

Dietzen.6127:

I juked/stealthed/ran away from 4 JQ just 15 mins ago, and did so for quite a while (they did end up catching me in the end, kitten buggers ).

My guild leader would have killed me himself if I stayed away from the group that long. That said, if you run a condition build and you roam alone in WvW most of the time, I agree this rune could be interesting in certain situations. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I’m certainly not the most experienced mesmer out there (although I do have quite a bit of experience under my belt in the world that is called WvW).

It’s going to be iffy to argue that the runes aren’t a “proper” solution, come to think of it.

I mean, Guardians got Swiftness on Staff, we got it on Runes, hell, everyone has it on runes now. But since there’s already classes with gear-bound swiftness…

Buttercup.5871:

Dietzen.6127:

I juked/stealthed/ran away from 4 JQ just 15 mins ago, and did so for quite a while (they did end up catching me in the end, kitten buggers ).

My guild leader would have killed me himself if I stayed away from the group that long. That said, if you run a condition build and you roam alone in WvW most of the time, I agree this rune could be interesting in certain situations. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I’m certainly not the most experienced mesmer out there (although I do have quite a bit of experience under my belt in the world that is called WvW).

I do only ever solo roam, so it’s helped quite a bit.
And yeah they were quite adamant to bring me down, I guess it helped the rest of the borderland that they were focused on me

I…want…..this…..rune……on…….PvP!

Isn’t Rune of Speed in pvp? You could possibly use that. Though, I think the 6/6 is bugged atm.

Yeah, dont take superior rune of speed! The +25% movement speed does not work!!! I too tried to go the “cheap” way when I saw the cost of the traveler runes (well actually I had already bought them, then I sold them at a nice profit and got the speed runes for free ^^).

… And now I have 7 useless runes on my Mesmer. I hope Anet fix this in days rather than months. Or never if its anything like Mesmer bugs.

Too bad about the Speed runes. That’s a nice chunk of extra Vitality.

Wow… Mesmers are pretty awesome. Lol They run away now >_>

The sinergy of these runes within the Prismatic Understanding build (20/20/30) is incredible.

Weren’t runes of speed +7% swiftness speed before? Maybe it still works that way and is a text error? Tbh I’d like the old effect more then new one. For new effect, traveler rune seems better.

Running a GS + Staff build with these runes and I’m having a lot of fun/success with it

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Weren’t runes of speed +7% swiftness speed before? Maybe it still works that way and is a text error? Tbh I’d like the old effect more then new one. For new effect, traveler rune seems better.

Devs have confirmed its a bug but given no indication when such a simple thing is going to be fixed.

Sigh… Have to shelf an entire armor set just because of this. Or fork out 40 gold for the traveler runes.

Hm. Maybe Anet knew what they where doing after all.

I like that rune. It gives me a new feeling of freedom for build crafting. I quickly made myself a assassins set with those runes and replaced my rampager with centaur runes there. At least for solo roaming in WvW I will love that one. No need for focus any more. I love it.

Hmm, +25% movement speed on a x6 rune set, or amazing focus skills + 33% swiftness boon on a high duration (20-24s).

Yeah, one’s far inferior to the other.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Hmm, +25% movement speed on a x6 rune set, or amazing focus skills + 33% swiftness boon on a high duration (20-24s).

Yeah, one’s far inferior to the other.

except not everyone takes focus offhand, all the others have various uses, so this rune is excellent.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Hmm, +25% movement speed on a x6 rune set, or amazing focus skills + 33% swiftness boon on a high duration (20-24s).

Yeah, one’s far inferior to the other.

Well let’s look at this analytically.

Focus: Has a skill that gives us swiftness with downtime without reducing focus cd, and increasing swiftness duration, and a pull which can be used tactically, and has a stationary phantasm that although is very strong, and can be traited to reflect projectiles (blocks them by default) it has limited use in WvW and pvp, and even in pve if mobs move around a lot (this applies when it’s used for damage rather than support to be used as a makeshift wall) Although it is a whirl finisher.

Pistol: Phantasm that has 100% projectile finisher when traited with the cd reduction due to a bug, which means that it’ll trigger 8 stacks of bleed (if it crits every hit) plus 8 stacks of confusion (if using a chaos field) and it has a faster rate of attack than the warden, plus its ranged thus doesn’t suffer from enemy mobility (faster ramp up time for damage than the warden, plus the fact that it is ranged makes it overall less susceptible to variables) although its damage per attack (the entire attack between downtimes) is less than the warden, but may or may not be offset by faster attacks between downtime. Has a stun, daze, and blind in one.

Sword offhand: A block that can crit very nicely, with a decent cd and procs a clone, with a very fast attacking phantasm that leaps and does nice damage per hit. Not sure if it acts as a leap, but at times I’ve seen the leap trigger an aura on me at times, but not sure if it was from the phantasm (needs confirmation)

When you weigh the pros and cons of every offhand, not having to use the focus for mobility gives us more build diversity, and perhaps allows us to adapt better, since we can use other offhands during combat now, without sacrificing mobility.

My biggest issue with focus is the warden. Even one step away from its range makes its damage useless. If Anet made it ground targeted or changes its AI so that it maintains its range, then it’ll be good, but every time I use it, even slight movement negates its damage, and it doesn’t block projectiles often enough to be used reliably by itself. I could be wrong about that though.

The runes of the traveler are great because you shouldn’t be relying on a set of runes for damage or survivability to begin with, they should be supplementing your damage or survivability, so there may be issues with your build or gear if your damage or survivability is relying upon a rune to be effective rather than supplemental.

Disclaimer: as with all analyses, it could be inaccurate, flawed, or lacking. But better to look at things rationally than to simply reject things offhand. And doing so requires us to look at things from multiple angles, and to consider the many variables.

Don’t get me wrong, focus is great, but these runes make it less mandatory now considering Mesmer’s lack of mobility without it.

You forgot the torch :O The phantasm sucks, but it provides stealth on a nice cd and condi-remove, if traited (that trait is about the only reason for me to take torch, but it’s a good one).

Iavra.8510:

You forgot the torch :O The phantasm sucks, but it provides stealth on a nice cd and condi-remove, if traited (that trait is about the only reason for me to take torch, but it’s a good one).

3 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds with 80% condition duration, every 6 seconds, removing a condition on cast and another on bounce when traited in a condition meta, hardly sucks.

Gotta build right, gotta use right.

Iavra.8510:

You forgot the torch :O The phantasm sucks, but it provides stealth on a nice cd and condi-remove, if traited (that trait is about the only reason for me to take torch, but it’s a good one).

I knew I was missing something! Yeah the Torch is nice, and the Phantasm needs to be used in conjunction with other traits and skills to be strong unlike other Phantasms that can stand on their own so to speak. The Stealth is amazing to be honest. Particularly when traited, used with Prismatic Understanding, and used with the right combo fields.

There are no other offhands I’m missing right? :O

I’m a huge fan of these runes.

Zumi.6384:

Pretty sure it was DRIPPING with sarcasm…

just because you sacrifice a set of runes for speed, doesnt mean that other classes DONT sacrifice a utility slot, or trait for extra speed when they could be running something much better. Don’t wanna hear “Oh, a rune is not enough!” Thats crap, stop it. You can have that passive 25% now. i actually bought a full set so i WOULDNT have to sacrifice a utility slot. <-ele

I bought these runes for my Mez and what a difference in WvW. I do miss the undead runes I used but the +10’s from these runes help make up for the difference in some aspects.

My survivability jumped about 60% since equipping them. I just wish instead of the +2% crit dmg it currently has that it had -2% condition duration instead!