Guild Wars 2

Seems like Mesmers are really being utilized for their boon potential in any type of group content (whether its 5 man or 10 man).

This being said, unless you solo farm, Commanders seems to have replaced Assassin’s/Zerk for nearly all content. (This is especially true for Chronotank roles in raids)

Edit – I did some calculations and compared Assassin’s vs. Commander’s stats: In order to ensure best comparison, I removed all items except for armor, and here are the final stats:

Assassin’s: 0% boon duration, 1565 power, 33.48% crit chance, 183.07% crit damage – individual DPS: 2768.39 DPS

Commander’s: 13.8% boon duration, 1634 power, 30.86% crit chance, 162.53% crit damage – individual DPS: 2673.224

Individual DPS generated using DPS calculator: (http://jsfiddle.net/GNEFd/10/embedded/result/)

Seeing this, I would GLADLY sacrifice 90 DPS for nearly 14% extra boon duration for the party. That’s potentially 3+ more autoattacks and a couple of skills per person…making the 90 DPS lost seem like complete peanuts. And for those who dont know what 90 dps is – this means that a boss that dies in 28 solo hits from you will instead die in 27. In fights this long, the boon duration and party benefits have already exponentially paid off.

It is pretty clear to me that Commander’s is better than Assassin’s.

Lastly, having Commander’s means you can also go full Zerk trinkets, as Commander’s natural boost in toughness should be enough in Raids to suffice as a tank (the most “meta” use for Mesmer). This is unlike Assassin’s, which needs toughness trinkets mixed in. Ultimately, this means that Commander’s personal DPS could end up matching that of Assassin’s in raids, while simultaneously outputting higher boon duration.

No. Assassin’s/zerk is still meta, if you need toughness gear grab a piece or two of knights. You get boon duration from other sources that don’t cost as much personal DPS ( food, sigils if needed, herald etc ). And chrono runes are better than leadership with SoI which is really good.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

No. Assassin’s/zerk is still meta, if you need toughness gear grab a piece or two of knights. You get boon duration from other sources that don’t cost as much personal DPS ( food, sigils if needed, herald etc ). And chrono runes are better than leadership with SoI which is really good.

As far as armor goes, I would gladly take Commander’s and sacrifice the ferocity from Assassins/Zerk for increased boon duration for the entire party. We are talking about the difference between 70% (food/rev) to nearly 100% (food/rev).

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

No. Assassin’s/zerk is still meta, if you need toughness gear grab a piece or two of knights. You get boon duration from other sources that don’t cost as much personal DPS ( food, sigils if needed, herald etc )

like, how does this zerk/sin personal dps discrepancy measure up to the difference in team dps, team utility, etc, from the extra +/-30% boon uptime?

Astra Lux.2846:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

No. Assassin’s/zerk is still meta, if you need toughness gear grab a piece or two of knights. You get boon duration from other sources that don’t cost as much personal DPS ( food, sigils if needed, herald etc )

like, how does this zerk/sin personal dps discrepancy measure up to the difference in team dps, team utility, etc, from the extra +/-30% boon uptime?

Furthermore, having commander’s means you can go full zerk/sin trinkets because commander’s gives you the toughness boost you need to separate from the rest of your team in raids (as chronotank).

If boon duration is capped at 100% then Rev (50%) + leadership runes (30%) +boon duration food (20%) will cap you so you won’t need commanders gear.

Just a general reply to everyone. If you think you need more boon duration you can add sigil of concentration into the mix. That’s 100% with food and herald. However this isn’t always even needed since chrono has a lot of other ways to get quickness. Furthermore, sigil of concentration is better than running runes of leadership, and while the toughness from commanders is nice, it would be better to run something like knights.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Just a general reply to everyone. If you think you need more boon duration you can add sigil of concentration into the mix. That’s 100% with food and herald. However this isn’t always even needed since chrono has a lot of other ways to get quickness. Furthermore, sigil of concentration is better than running runes of leadership, and while the toughness from commanders is nice, it would be better to run something like knights.

The thing is that the +50% duration from Herald is far from guaranteed. There will be times where you don’t have the boost…especially in chaotic raids that involve split tactics (ie. Gorseval).

Furthermore, in fractals or other 5 man dungeons, you aren’t guaranteed to even have a Herald. The extra 30-60% in addition to food is a HUGE boost here. Sure, you do maybe 10% less personal DPS, but your party’s DPS experiences a huge boost with all of the extra boon uptime from Commander’s/Leadership.

Nearly all of the meta Chronotanks I’ve seen in raids (ones with Eternal titles) are running Commander/Leadership.

Good Tofu.9376:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Just a general reply to everyone. If you think you need more boon duration you can add sigil of concentration into the mix. That’s 100% with food and herald. However this isn’t always even needed since chrono has a lot of other ways to get quickness. Furthermore, sigil of concentration is better than running runes of leadership, and while the toughness from commanders is nice, it would be better to run something like knights.

The thing is that the +50% duration from Herald is far from guaranteed. There will be times where you don’t have the boost…especially in chaotic raids that involve split tactics (ie. Gorseval).

Furthermore, in fractals or other 5 man dungeons, you aren’t guaranteed to even have a Herald. The extra 30-60% in addition to food is a HUGE boost here. Sure, you do maybe 10% less personal DPS, but your party’s DPS experiences a huge boost with all of the extra boon uptime from Commander’s/Leadership.

Nearly all of the meta Chronotanks I’ve seen in raids (ones with Eternal titles) are running Commander/Leadership.

‘The thing is that the +50% duration from Herald is far from guaranteed. There will be times where you don’t have the boost…especially in chaotic raids that involve split tactics (ie. Gorseval)."

About the only fight in the current raid wing that I can think of that you wouldn’t have it up 100% of the time is when you have to split to kill the 4 spirits at gorseval. But unless you have a 3 or so other players with you during the split you shouldn’t be applying quickness, and out of those 3 players one should be a herald.

“Furthermore, in fractals or other 5 man dungeons, you aren’t guaranteed to even have a Herald. The extra 30-60% in addition to food is a HUGE boost here. Sure, you do maybe 10% less personal DPS, but your party’s DPS experiences a huge boost with all of the extra boon uptime from Commander’s/Leadership. "

I was talking about a optimal team comp, in addition rune of the chronomancer is still better than rune of leadership even if your lacking herald 50% boon duration but can still run SoI. It’s debatable whether commander gear is better in a random team comp for fractals/dungeons without math.

“Nearly all of the meta Chronotanks I’ve seen in raids (ones with Eternal titles) are running Commander/Leadership.”

Even if most of the top players were running something doesn’t make it the best, and it’s very debatable in the first place what top players are running.

Dont want to start a long quote chain, but two points:

1. If boon duration can exceed 100% , there is no doubt that commander+ leadership is better. This should be tested out.

2. As far as SoI goes, it is not better in a standalone setting. You almost need the 50% boost from Herald as it solely depends on the amount of quickness you can stack on yourself. If you only have 0-20% (dep on food), you are at most spreading 1-3 secs of quickness to everyone else (which can easily be replaced by a Well of Action).

Good Tofu.9376:

1. If boon duration can exceed 100% , there is no doubt that commander+ leadership is better. This should be tested out.

It shouldn’t exceed 100% unless facet of nature allows you to break it. Unless someone says otherwise 100% is the cap.

There is absolutely 0 reasons for a chronomancer to be there without a herald in any raid at the moment.

Good Tofu.9376:

Dont want to start a long quote chain, but two points:

1. If boon duration can exceed 100% , there is no doubt that commander+ leadership is better. This should be tested out.

2. As far as SoI goes, it is not better in a standalone setting. You almost need the 50% boost from Herald as it solely depends on the amount of quickness you can stack on yourself. If you only have 0-20% (dep on food), you are at most spreading 1-3 secs of quickness to everyone else (which can easily be replaced by a Well of Action).

“2. As far as SoI goes, it is not better in a standalone setting. You almost need the 50% boost from Herald as it solely depends on the amount of quickness you can stack on yourself. If you only have 0-20% (dep on food), you are at most spreading 1-3 secs of quickness to everyone else (which can easily be replaced by a Well of Action).”

Like I said I was talking about optimal situations and seeing as a large part of instanced content is raids where you want to optimize your group comp. And I didn’t mean SoI over WoA I meant SoI, WoA, and WoR as your utilities.

The problem I have with building around Boon duration is that high level fractals hate boons.

Considering raids commander gear \ leadership runes just not worthy imo. With decent revenant + 50% is garanteed and + 20% from food = + 70% is enough to keep quickness for burst phases (for 4-5 ppl). With runes of chonomancer + WoE + WoA + WoR + SoI + 70% boon duration you can share additional ~30s of quickness (9 wells * 2s quickness from 1 well * 1.7 boon dur) per 50s-70s rotation. For runes of leadership to be more profitable, base quickness (without runes) should be like 100+ seconds per rotation (0.3*x >= 30s -> x=100s)
Even for chronotank better just swap 1-2 trinkets to cavalier/else to have merely most toughness.
MB another story if you wanna spread other boons (protection/stab through chaos line?) or keep quckiness for full raid – didn’t test it.
The eternal btw

Why not exotic trinkets + Silver Doubloon?

+4% boon duration = 60 concentration stat points

Solo and 5 men: kitten zerk mix + chrono runes
Raid aka 10 men: kitten zerk mix + leadership runes (knight trinkets to tank)

Similar to Condi duration, Boon duration caps at +100% as well.

In a typical Dungeon or Fractal situation the typical Assassin/Berserker Phantasm build works just fine and pushes out enough Quickness and alacrity to last well beyond the encounter.

If you’re doing Raids (or anything that goes beyond the 5-man team) you’ll need to break out the spreadsheet and see where you can budget to get in extra sources of Quickness. A lot of factors go into play such as team comp and Sub-squading. Also, Signet of Inspiration Shenanigans goes pretty far in reducing the need for boon duration .

Unless you’re Tanking, Commanders should be avoiding as Toughness will interfere with the dedicated Tank causing that player to tack on toughness that surpasses yours (commander armor alone is puts you at ~1200 toughness). DPS is still needed stats are better invested in squeezing out that extra tiny bit of DPS instead of investing it into buffering yourself so Assassin/Berserker is still the way to go if you’re not tanking.

savacli.8172:

Unless you’re Tanking, Commanders should be avoiding as Toughness will interfere with the dedicated Tank causing that player to tack on toughness that surpasses yours (commander armor alone is puts you at ~1200 toughness).

^this

Xyonon.3987:

savacli.8172:

Unless you’re Tanking, Commanders should be avoiding as Toughness will interfere with the dedicated Tank causing that player to tack on toughness that surpasses yours (commander armor alone is puts you at ~1200 toughness).

^this

The problem is, Chronos are always the tank in higher end groups….at least for VG and Gors.

I can definitely see the extra boon duration being helpful in Gorseval and Sabetha (at least from the Commander’s armor alone…this will put you close to 100% with food+rev).

Furthermore, I can see Commander’s being beneficial in 5 man fractal instances that may not have optimal team setups….here you need as much boon duration as you can get.

Perhaps Commander’s/Chronomancer setup would be a good balance for both worlds?

interesting tought, i probably gonna need 2 leadership equips i’ll look into that “good tofu”. gimme some time to respond …

Ok, so those are the two options:

Assassin + Leadership + Tankstuff:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-TxBBABAcSAyTvQXK/GV9n+3fIgHAwZKBJFAgDjA-e

Commander + Leadership + Tankstuff:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-TBCBQBdR5BCV/5MKBxiSMAcSAyjeh+t/QAeAAkCYghRA-e

So to get to the same toughness, compare the stats etc. Commandership got a bit more damage with the same tankyness, yet the main problem there is the boon duration. 43.8% is a terrible number. You’d require 46% boon duration to get all the 0.25sec quickness to the next second. So you’d lose a few quickness tics with that equip, unless you go for the boonduration food and an overkill. But wait, there’s this option too:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-ThCBQBdRJHCVNYUq5cGlgYRpAAOJA5RvA/2fAjKDCwDAgUAAOMC-e

A HUGE mix, but in the end guys – it’s all the same, just the 2nd option doesn’t work that well. So either go full leadership + tank trinkets + dura food, OR the last one strange ultra mix, so you can save yourself the leadership runes for 600 crystalline ore :P

greez!

Xyonon.3987:

Ok, so those are the two options:

Assassin + Leadership + Tankstuff:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-TxBBABAcSAyTvQXK/GV9n+3fIgHAwZKBJFAgDjA-e

Commander + Leadership + Tankstuff:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-TBCBQBdR5BCV/5MKBxiSMAcSAyjeh+t/QAeAAkCYghRA-e

So to get to the same toughness, compare the stats etc. Commandership got a bit more damage with the same tankyness, yet the main problem there is the boon duration. 43.8% is a terrible number. You’d require 46% boon duration to get all the 0.25sec quickness to the next second. So you’d lose a few quickness tics with that equip, unless you go for the boonduration food and an overkill. But wait, there’s this option too:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-ThCBQBdRJHCVNYUq5cGlgYRpAAOJA5RvA/2fAjKDCwDAgUAAOMC-e

A HUGE mix, but in the end guys – it’s all the same, just the 2nd option doesn’t work that well. So either go full leadership + tank trinkets + dura food, OR the last one strange ultra mix, so you can save yourself the leadership runes for 600 crystalline ore :P

greez!

The first build (assassin), you have a +20% boon duration food. So please subtract -20% from the number shown. The second build (with commander), you don’t have it.

This means that Assassins alone gives 0% boon duration, while Commander’s gives 13.8% boon duration.

I removed all items except for armor, and here are the final stats:

Assassin’s: 0% boon duration, 1565 power, 33.48% crit chance, 183.07% crit damage – individual DPS: 2768.39 DPS

Commander’s: 13.8% boon duration, 1634 power, 30.86% crit chance, 162.53% crit damage – individual DPS: 2673.224

Individual DPS generated using DPS calculator: (http://jsfiddle.net/GNEFd/10/embedded/result/)

Seeing this, I would GLADLY sacrifice 90 DPS for nearly 14% extra boon duration for the party. That’s potentially 3+ more autoattacks and a couple of skills per person. The 90 DPS lost is peanuts in comparison.

Furthermore, if you were to factor in Chronomancer Runes on either armor set (for the quickness stacks that you can then spread with Signet of Inspiration), you can achieve the following with with each armor set:

Assassin’s: Runes+Revenant+Food -> 70% boon duration
Commander’s: Runes+Revenant+Food -> 83.8% boon duration

The extra 13.8% can add on another 6-8 seconds of quickness throughout a full rotation, which may end up being the difference between achieving 100% quickness uptime and not. This isn’t even mentioning all of the other boons that can be spread as well, such as Might, Protection, Regen, etc.

Knowing how chaotic things get in raids, I’d much rather have the extra ~14% boon duration as 1/3-1/2 of the time the Chronotank isn’t even attacking at all (instead we are casting wells, blocking, dodging, pulling, etc.). The 90 personal DPS lost in Commander’s is literally unnoticeable.

In a Raid situation, maybe, and only if you’re Chrono taking. Otherwise, again, you’re costing someone else points to overcome your Commander gear’s toughness.

As far as boon duration goes, it’s a balance. And honestly, Mesmer/Chrono is about thinking outside the box with all the tools we have. We can CS to multicast skills as well as effectively shortening Cooldowns on skills that have CD’s that last longer than CS (TW, notably in this case). On top of that, we have Signet of Inspiration that can act as a Boon duration hack. Grab the trait that casts Signet of Inspiration on a Phantasm cast, and you’ll be able to cover a lot more players more frequently.

Now, if you’re claiming that the “new meta” extends outside of Raids I would have to disagree. Most encounters (if not all) in PvE outside of Raids end with plenty of quickness/alacrity to spare. In which case why would we need an extra 13.8% boon duration that doesn’t get used when I can get back that small bit of DPS for ourselves and our Illusions?

savacli.8172:

In a Raid situation, maybe, and only if you’re Chrono taking. Otherwise, again, you’re costing someone else points to overcome your Commander gear’s toughness.

As far as boon duration goes, it’s a balance. And honestly, Mesmer/Chrono is about thinking outside the box with all the tools we have. We can CS to multicast skills as well as effectively shortening Cooldowns on skills that have CD’s that last longer than CS (TW, notably in this case). On top of that, we have Signet of Inspiration that can act as a Boon duration hack. Grab the trait that casts Signet of Inspiration on a Phantasm cast, and you’ll be able to cover a lot more players more frequently.

Now, if you’re claiming that the “new meta” extends outside of Raids I would have to disagree. Most encounters (if not all) in PvE outside of Raids end with plenty of quickness/alacrity to spare. In which case why would we need an extra 13.8% boon duration that doesn’t get used when I can get back that small bit of DPS for ourselves and our Illusions?

However, any encounter lasting longer than 40-50 sec will scale much better with the increased boon duration. This effect multiplied when you have allies close by or are in a party.

Lastly, the 90 dps difference is so miniscule – it makes no difference on mobs that die in 3-4 hits anyways. It literally means that a mob that dies in 28 hits will instead die in 27 hits (see OP for calculations), and by then the extra boon duration will have more than paid off (especially in your example case when you likely wont have a Revenant around for the extra 50% boon safeguard).

I think people are really failing to see that the dps difference between Assassin’s and Commander’s is so small. Its actually quite imbalanced as to how good Commander’s is in comparison.

Good Tofu.9376:

I think people are really failing to see that the dps difference between Assassin’s and Commander’s is so small. Its actually quite imbalanced as to how good Commander’s is in comparison.

Imbalanced? Hardly.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Good Tofu.9376:

I think people are really failing to see that the dps difference between Assassin’s and Commander’s is so small. Its actually quite imbalanced as to how good Commander’s is in comparison.

Imbalanced? Hardly.

Not sure if you are being sarcastic, but asking a support class that spends half of its time casting spells to give up 1/28th personal dps in exchange for 13.8% better party support is a ridiculously good deal.

Good Tofu.9376:

I think people are really failing to see that the dps difference between Assassin’s and Commander’s is so small. Its actually quite imbalanced as to how good Commander’s is in comparison.

I think you’re failing to see that a revenant is such a large boost to the party that there is 0 reasons for a chrono to ever be in a party without one. Which brings us all the way back to you not needing commander gear as you can run boon duration food and leadership runes.

Also I do not have much confidence in your dps calculator that you linked it does not take into account a ton of things like cast times, coefficients of different skills, rotations etc. So I would refrain from using it as any form of benchmark.

Good Tofu.9376:

Individual DPS generated using DPS calculator: (http://jsfiddle.net/GNEFd/10/embedded/result/)

Seeing this, I would GLADLY sacrifice 90 DPS for nearly 14% extra boon duration for the party. That’s potentially 3+ more autoattacks and a couple of skills per person. The 90 DPS lost is peanuts in comparison.

Hmm.
Imo you are using this calculator in wrong way. Probably you just inserted power to “Attack” field, when this calculator seems accepts (non-crit) damage inflicted. Plus better not to count only armor stats difference, but difference when all modificators are applied (might stacks fury, banners, traits, phantasms, etc). Probably the difference is more then 90 dps.
Commanders seems very good, but one thing that I don’t like is that this armor gives toughness to you. Very often in my group a dedicated tank have only 1100-1200 toughness (usually full zerk with only cavalier amu). But if mesmer is going to be tank or other tank have more then 1200 toughness – prob not a bad choice.
Full zerk/assasin with sigil of concetration on mh weapon could be a better choice, but usage of this sigil is inconvinient imo (for me at this moment). With this zerk/assasin mix with 70% boon duration seems pretty easy (and cheap! ) to keep perma quickness for 5 ppl. Need to do test for raidwide quickness, but too lazy to farm new gear though. All 3 bosses are relatively easy farmed in my current setup.

You don’t have to subtract anything. You don’t have to calculate with the raw numbers, you have to do it with the final ones. In all builds, the main goal is to achieve 100% boon duration and then try to stay on same toughness and then get max damage out of it. That’s the point I was trying to make.

apharma.3741:

Good Tofu.9376:

I think people are really failing to see that the dps difference between Assassin’s and Commander’s is so small. Its actually quite imbalanced as to how good Commander’s is in comparison.

I think you’re failing to see that a revenant is such a large boost to the party that there is 0 reasons for a chrono to ever be in a party without one. Which brings us all the way back to you not needing commander gear as you can run boon duration food and leadership runes.

Also I do not have much confidence in your dps calculator that you linked it does not take into account a ton of things like cast times, coefficients of different skills, rotations etc. So I would refrain from using it as any form of benchmark.

DPS calcs like that serve as a high level comparison. There’s a more sophisticated one on http://gw2power.com which has more fields for buffs, boons, etc. At the end of the day though it’s just a very generalized chart which is helpful for making decisions such as should I go with the Steak or the Salad.

Coefficients are a big factor as well. So even though Commander’s, on paper, seems to only be missing a few points in the damage column skills like Phantasmal Swordsman and Illusionary Riposte have very high damage coefficients where the damage increase is quite noticeable. Granted, if you’re doing something like stacking just iAvengers they have a much lower coefficient so the damage boost is barely noticeable in those attacks. In effect, even a “tiny” boost in damage has variable impact based on the skill itself. I’m not dismissing that boon duration is helpful, but why would I go out of my way to gear up with Commander’s when not every encounter needs the extra duration? Even a tiny bit of damage increase is still more useful over extended boons that are left to expire long after an encounter was completed.

Again, if I’m in a fractal and want to nuke a boss, I’m gonna grab my Swordsmen, Steak and Soup noms, and abuse CS and/or mimic to get the buffs and boons that my teams need. If I’m in a raid, it goes down to what kind of team I’m in and how much of a demand my boons are.

If you’re not talking raids, then anything outside of full assassin/zerk is unambiguously worse. The fights are static (easy to do rotations) and short. You’ll be able to easily keep 100% quickness during the boss fights with nothing more than a rev facet for 50%. The only exceptions would be awful encounters like thaumanova on certain levels, but no amount of boon duration is going to make that fight less garbage.

In raids it can be more difficult to perform the rotations well (vale guardian in particular), and the fights last long enough that the duration matters. In fractals, if the boss isn’t dead within 30 seconds of smacking it with full party buffs, you need a new team.

Why is everyone still stuck on Rune of Leadership (and also commander’s gear) for boon duration?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Concentration
It’s 33% boon duration, when with herald and boon duration food, is 100% (103% capped) boon duration. It can be timed well. Most importantly, it only takes a sigil slot.

Force & concentration lets you bring rune of scholar, chronomancer, ogre, (scrapper if you want to tank) or even ranger. Regardless of if you think accuracy or air is the better 2nd sigil to force, concentration + one of those runes will have better base stats from the rune/armor combo and % modifiers from the rune (or quickness on well)

Examples:
Xys’s Assassin + Leadership + Tankstuff:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-TxBBABAcSAyTvQXK/GV9n+3fIgHAwZKBJFAgDjA-e
Vs changes I would make:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-TBSBQBaRpBXUGYw9HEl6PmRJIe0LQGlYA4BAQKAAHGB-e
Both cap out on boon duration for quickness BUT my build does ~9% more damage while only taking ~2% more damage. Change trinkets a bit more if that 2% makes a difference.

Even if I wanted to go commanders, which I still think is a waste:
Commander + Leadership + Tankstuff:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-TBCBQBdR5BCV/5MKBxiSMAcSAyjeh+t/QAeAAkCYghRA-e
Ogre+Concentration
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-TxRBQBXRJ2Q2fAP6F4iyjDq+DAeAAmRJIpAGYYE-e

Equal boon duration ~6% more damage.
If you are going a full DPS gear route since your group has someone that tanks (I’m in a more casual guild with varied amounts of skill level and optimization so I can’t even consistently hold aggro at gorsy with 1400 toughness (rabid trinkets)). rune of scholar+concentration is going to be better than leadership+accuracy. I can do the math in a bit.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Why is everyone still stuck on Rune of Leadership (and also commander’s gear) for boon duration?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Concentration
It’s 33% boon duration, when with herald and boon duration food, is 100% (103% capped) boon duration. It can be timed well. Most importantly, it only takes a sigil slot.

For one, the price tag. Raids are the argument battleground here, and it’s hard to justify 130g (the price at the time of this typing) for the typical Raider. If the Sigil were something that I can use everywhere else then it would be an easier decision to make, but we run into situation where all aspects of PvE considered you don’t always make use of extra boon duration.

Second, it’s not completely reliable. Even though it’s a 3 second gap in its proc Mesmer’s won’t always be in a position where it’s convenient to swap the exact moment their Weapon Swap is off cd. In that case I’d much rather have something that’s applied 24/7 is why Leadership/Commander’s are more appealing (they’re also much much cheaper).

One more thought to add though, is that I’ve been seeing people say that ~94% boon duration is the “soft cap.” IF 94% boon duration is all that’s needed then why are people using boon duration food at all? BOUNTIFUL sharpening stone/oil+seaweed salad+sigil+ ONE piece of commander gear and herald would be sufficient boon duration while allowing you to bring 2 modifiers for 21% more damage buff.

For price, 600 dragonite ore and getting a brand new set of armor that won’t be used in fotm, dungeons or sabetha isn’t worth it to me. I would much rather have zerk or sin + scholar or chrono that I could use everywhere. There is also the “price” of having 1 sword in my inventory with 1 sigil on it vs a bunch of armor. Final thing on price (of both sigils and raids), these are raids, I expect my teammates to try and do their best. Part of that means bringing the best gear possible (is that not the essence of this topic?)

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

One more thought to add though, is that I’ve been seeing people say that ~94% boon duration is the “soft cap.” IF 94% boon duration is all that’s needed then why are people using boon duration food at all? BOUNTIFUL sharpening stone/oil+seaweed salad+sigil+ ONE piece of commander gear and herald would be sufficient boon duration while allowing you to bring 2 modifiers for 21% more damage buff.

For price, 600 dragonite ore and getting a brand new set of armor that won’t be used in fotm, dungeons or sabetha isn’t worth it to me. I would much rather have zerk or sin + scholar or chrono that I could use everywhere. There is also the “price” of having 1 sword in my inventory with 1 sigil on it vs a bunch of armor. Final thing on price (of both sigils and raids), these are raids, I expect my teammates to try and do their best. Part of that means bringing the best gear possible (is that not the essence of this topic?)

There are limits.
I wouldn’t expect any raidmates to dish out for a 100+ gold sigil unless it was really that important, in which case I’d expect us all to chip in to pay for it :P

Edit: also, ascended gear is one of the rewards for raiding. Each tier is designed to help you gear up for the next one, albeit not to the degree that previous MMOs have.

Ok, but if people doest want to spend 100 gold for sigil it’s fine but they should NOT claiming for a subpar option to be the “meta”.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Raids-and-Chrono-stats/page/2#post5835578

There isnt a single reason to go with commader gear by math.

There isnt a single reason to go with leadership runes by math.

You need 50% boon duration in party and 94% in raid.

The way who allow you to reach 94%boon duration in raid losing less dps as possible is sigil of concentration.

If you dont want to pay 100 gold then go with surgey runes and 1 doublon.

Leave out commander crap.

aelfwe.4239:

Ok, but if people doest want to spend 100 gold for sigil it’s fine but they should NOT claiming for a subpar option to be the “meta”.

Meta is not about perfect optimization, meta is about what is the accepted upper standard, which tends to follow optimization by nature, but it’s not a perfect correlation.

Expecting everyone to spend 100g for a marginal benefit is probably not meta because it won’t be a common expectation.

In short: if it won’t be expected, it’s not meta, even if it’s a little better.

I still just kinda feel that sigil of concentration is the way to go if you have the money while surging would be an ok secondary choice if you don’t.
I am probably missing something. However, doesn’t collecting 600 Crystalline ore kinda take a really long time. I also may be biased as I am getting gold like crazy from winter’s day drinks right now. What makes 100 gold not a common expectation while collecting 600 Crystalline ore will be a common expectation? Is the difference between the 600 ore and 100 gold really that great to give up on the sigil and get the 6 runes instead? Since the superior runes of surging are faster to get, wouldn’t these be meta by the “acceptance” definition? If you use an accepted standard definition for meta, than wouldn’t the term meta itself be relative? If you are going into a dungeon with a pug than exotic gear may be the accepted upper standard of the group. However, if you are doing organized raids with a guild than ascended may be the accepted upper standard instead. I guess this is just how I feel. Its all well and good. I’m not gonna judge anyone for not having the most optimal gear unless I feel like it is really holding the group back. This goes for sigil of concentration vs leadership runes w/commanders armor as well of exotic vs ascended. However, if you really want the best gear possible, than I would do assassins/zerkers with chrono runes so that you can use signet of inspiration to spread more quickness (while at the same time having lots of power and precision from the runes for more damage). You can then put a superior sigil of concentration in your shield and get your rotations down so you swap at the right time. The name of the game is to just barely get to 100% boon duration while putting the rest into as much damage as possible for your group. The only reason for chrono runes over scholar in raids is the whole using signet of inspiration thing to spread extra quickness to your group (Especially important if the group is moving around a lot).

Rune of leadership x6 = 12g and 600 crystalline ore
Inscription/Insignia for Commander: 0.6g and 100 ore

Actually crafting 6 insignias is another ~18 gold.

If you decided to transmute an extra set of ascended gear, 30 ectos is still another 10g.
Crafting exotics takes 5 linseed oil (ignoring gossamer and leather) which is another 23g.

So…. total cost comes to about 40.6g+prior ascended armor or 53.6g + gossamer & leather AND 700 crystalline ore which is a lot of time. Being able to have better rune#6 bonus, better food, better raw stats can end up being ~33% more damage that what other builds with commander/leadership can do. The sigil price did spike recently but it was at 100g a little while ago. (If you trust me, I’m a high lvl scribe and I if you whisper me in game/mail me raw mats, I could craft it for you; I don’t know if it’s cheaper to craft or buy though). I think the best part though, is that if you are unsure about buying the sigil, slot it in an exotic and try the build. Salvage the exotic and sell it if you decide it’s not for you. The commander build on the other hand… no returns on potentially useless armor.

So 1 weapon/sigil that lets you use one set of armor for ~all of PvE? or lugging around another set of armor that’s half the gold price of the sigil AND 700 crystalline ore and isn’t even needed at sabetha and potential future raid bosses? (Most of my characters do have 160 bag slots and about 100 of them are taken up by gear/stuff; others prefer just 1 set of armor. So space is a concern here.) Your setup doesn’t seem “cheap” to me, especially since I value my time too. If you already invested in the armor, that’s a tough choice to continue using it but the meta and others should have to suffer for your investment.
Bonus: Mesmer using the sigil and chrono runes =)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3xhs8k/king_5_man_vale_guardian_kill/cy4rnpj

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Bonus: Mesmer using the sigil and chrono runes =)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3xhs8k/king_5_man_vale_guardian_kill/cy4rnpj

Yeah, and even on gorsi no updraft mesmer is using sigil of concentration + chrono rune.

The funny part is that the day after hot release when i started to write here about how good chrono rune are there were “forum’s heroes” telling me that chrono rune arent worth.

The funny part is that when 25 days ago i wrote here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Raids-and-Chrono-stats/first how good was the sinergy between sigil of concentration+chrono rune+soi+inspiration soi with math to demonstrate it, i had “forum’s heroes” again telling me they weren’t needed.

Now at the end instead of having people telling “hey you were right concentration is good!” we are still here with people speaking about how marginal is sigil of concentration xD

Anyway:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Meta is not about perfect optimization, meta is about what is the accepted upper standard, which tends to follow optimization by nature, but it’s not a perfect correlation.

Expecting everyone to spend 100g for a marginal benefit is probably not meta because it won’t be a common expectation.

In short: if it won’t be expected, it’s not meta, even if it’s a little better.

If meta is perfect optimization then you’d go for concentration+chrono.

If meta is following the nature you’d go for surgey.

In both case you wont go for commander or leadership cause they are nothing more than the moist uneffective way to get boon duration compared to other 2 options.

Then, since surgey cost nothing and they are still better than commander and leadership (by math) i’d call commander gear\leadership rune the “stupid option” rather than “meta” xD

aelfwe.4239:

If meta is perfect optimization then you’d go for concentration+chrono.

If meta is following the nature you’d go for surgey.

In both case you wont go for commander or leadership cause they are nothing more than the moist uneffective way to get boon duration compared to other 2 options.

Then, since surgey cost nothing and they are still better than commander and leadership (by math) i’d call commander gear\leadership rune the “stupid option” rather than “meta” xD

Not everyone who weighs in on something is taking a side in the larger debate.
I have no opinion on the commander vs sigil discussion, or what the meta will actually be. I was responding to an incorrect understanding of what “meta” means.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Not everyone who weighs in on something is taking a side in the larger debate.

It’s kinda sad using “everyone who weighs in on something” on opinion debate

But luckly they’ve taken side in the thread i linked above and in the link i’ve posted there at the end <3

Want me to quote them? Would be funny xD

aelfwe.4239:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Not everyone who weighs in on something is taking a side in the larger debate.

It’s kinda sad using “everyone who weighs in on something” on opinion debate

But luckly they’ve taken side in the thread i linked above and in the link i’ve posted there at the end <3

Want me to quote them? Would be funny xD

I’m talking about me, bro. You responded to my point about the cost vs the meta as though I was taking sides against you about the commander’s gear, when I was doing no such thing.

Is the sigil bugged and giving more than 7/9s uptime under ideal circumstances?

Looking at sigil of concentration vs leadership runes I guess it comes down to if you can get the rotation perfect for using the sigil. The extra quickness from chrono runes is certainly nice but I guess for someone who’s not the best with rotations or has interruptions because of group skill then leadership would be the better for learning.

aelfwe.4239, can you give an example of sigil of concentration rotation? Sw/sw +sw/sh, no initial clones, no free weapon swap (I mean no weapon swap with 0 CD like at start of a fight)

The thing about sigil of concentration is that you can’t always swap on 10 sec cd for the perfect rotation. Like ToT when it has 12 sec CD right after F5. Soc is imo just not optimal, since it destroys rotations :/

Knox.8962:

Is the sigil bugged and giving more than 7/9s uptime under ideal circumstances?

Nope, it’s not bugged, but the weapon switch fit perfectly with the chrono rotation so it’s not really an huge deal to deal with it

Mak.2657:

aelfwe.4239, can you give an example of sigil of concentration rotation? Sw/sw +sw/sh, no initial clones, no free weapon swap (I mean no weapon swap with 0 CD like at start of a fight)

There’s no difference between starting rotation and normal rotation, you have 2 weapon switch for eachone of the 3 chrono rotation step, whenever you find yourself stucked with no weapon swap with 0 cd it’s your bad.

1st cd wait it’s 18 sec —> you weapon switch 2 times

2nd cd wait it’s 24 sec —> you weapon switch 2 times

Basically if you miss one of the 2 weapon switch between the rotation step you kittened your whole rotation.

Don’t miss them and /win

But still if you dont like sigil of concetration then go for surgey, commander gear it’s the way to get boon duration who makes you lose more stat except you are tanking