Guild Wars 2

Now that Heart of Thorns is done and people have already unlocked their Elite Specialization runes and are selling them on the Trading Post, it’s time for that discussion again.

What is the best rune for Mesmer? Post results and your tests!

For me I personally found Rune of the Chronomancer to be pretty underwhelming when I could be using Scholar or Strength. The last ability you get from the rune is pretty useless as there are only two wells that are useful/worth playing at all.

I also tested the Berserker rune in a PU condi build and I was impressed though if I wanted full condi I would just use Travelers, Perplexity or maybe Antitoxin.

Rune of the Berserker for condi hybrid of any kind (Viper, Sinister or Rampager).
Rune of the Nightmare for full condi (Rabid, Dire).
Rune of Perplexity for condirupt.

From the glkittenter side of things, Rune of Strength or Pack Couple well with your Gs3 and Shattered Strength, and this is polished off with Time Marches on in a Dom/Duel/Chro Build, very glass, yes but super effective.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Rune of the Berserker for condi hybrid of any kind (Viper, Sinister or Rampager).

Have you done the math to support that?

I’m currently using just enough viper for +15% duration and the rest sinister with 5 nightmare + coral orb. Gives me +60% duration (15 viper, 15 nightmare, 10 malice, 20 signet) and 90% with food.

If berserker runes are better, Ill swap the rest of my sinister armor over to viper for the full +20% (think its closer to 21%) it gives.

Rune of the beserker 6th bonus is bugged?.?

denis.9487:

Rune of the beserker 6th bonus is bugged?.?

Last time I check it was. The +5% condition damage was not working. I made a bug report post.

Mikkel.8427:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Rune of the Berserker for condi hybrid of any kind (Viper, Sinister or Rampager).

Have you done the math to support that?

I’m currently using just enough viper for +15% duration and the rest sinister with 5 nightmare + coral orb. Gives me +60% duration (15 viper, 15 nightmare, 10 malice, 20 signet) and 90% with food.

If berserker runes are better, Ill swap the rest of my sinister armor over to viper for the full +20% (think its closer to 21%) it gives.

Oh, no, I haven’t compared Nightmare’s 15% duration to the Berserker bonuses.
That’ll be an interesting comparison, actually. I may do that tonight.
I was just making an assumption based on the size of the bonuses, and the comparison I did before between Malice and Bursting (Malice won, but not by too much) for PvE.

A quick rundown of the differences…
Nightmare+Orb:

• +14 condi damage
• +20 precision
• +14 power
• +15% condi duration

Berserker:

• +100 power
• +5% damage
• +5% condi damage

For power, Berserker nets 86 more power.

5% condi damage is actually unusual, because unlike Bursting it’s not directly increasing your condi damage stat. To compare without doing the whole build math, we’ll need to find out the % increase from 14 condi damage and compare that.
And the result is…insignificant at 1900 starting condition damage (bleeds gain 0.6% damage).
At 1000 starting condition damage, 14 condi increases to 1% damage for bleeds. That barely increases by the time you get down to the 700 crossover point (below which you’re doing less damage with conditions than pre-June). So that’s at least 4% condi damage increase in Berserker’s favor.

So now we’re comparing the 20 precision and 15% condi duration to 4%-5% condi damage and 5% damage.
20 precision is almost 1% crit chance, which without any ferocity is about a .5% damage increase and a 1% increased proc chance on Sharper Images.
So let’s say that’s a wash with 1% damage in a hybrid build, and drop Berskerker’s bonus down to 4%.

So now we’re comparing 15% condi duration against:

• 86 power
• 4% damage on attacks and reflects
• 4%-5% condition damage.

While it’s possible the condi duration will come out ahead, my first-blush is to say Berserker’s probably comes out ahead in that calculus.

Edit: this is all assuming they fix the condi damage piece of Berserker, of course.

PvP, I’m still running pack -_-u

If I were running a build with more might stacking in it, str would also do.

On my Zerkerberker Mesmer I’m running Daredevil rune :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuid9trOORU

All the posts about condi Mesmer and lately hybrid power-condi mesmer is making me consider going Viper’s + Assassin’s setup up so that I can have dps for both situations. IIRC in raid, there were mobs/bosses that were immune to power damage and vulnerable to condition damage and vice versa?

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Rune of the Berserker for condi hybrid of any kind (Viper, Sinister or Rampager).
Rune of the Nightmare for full condi (Rabid, Dire).
Rune of Perplexity for condirupt.

I love you.

All those runes I have. In was so excited for the rune of the berserk. Been running rune of the ele beforr this. Now changed it and I can see the difference.