Guild Wars 2

Which rune is better for you ? And why or when the x rune may work better under x build ?
What do you think guys , i wanna learn your opinions

I went from the Centaurs to Air, mostly because I wanted a bit more damage but didn’t want to give up the speed boon. The Centaurs can be especially great if running a support build, greatly so in WvW, but I decided to be a bit more selfish (since I play staff/GS and w/ triple bounce so peeps get plenty of boons if they are close to the action anyway). The lightning procs all the time, and and I find it, and the extra crit damage, pretty handy.

It really depends!

I find the premise of the air runes excellent and I understand why people use them – you get a minor run speed boost, increased crit damage and a chance for a rather pokey proc when your hit.

The centaurs give you a very high uptime of runspeed and +power, it’s even better if you pair up with someone else who uses them because the buff stacks so you then have permanent uptime on it.

As I’ve gotten better on the mesmer ive drifted away from Air runes to Centaurs because I find I get hit a lot less, so the primary reason to sacrifice longer runspeed uptimes for random damage spikes is less and less of a winning argument between the two.

Hi good question

It depends on playstyle and spec aswell. If you play a “in their face mele and shatter” you will take hits, eather from retaliation or from them. The majority you will avoid yes but the 10 sec cd on air will be proced every time you go in so it will be a help to your burst. If you thu use a range kite them and do dmg It can be arguable if the centaur is better.

For my buid and guide Air is best because the playstyle, also the crit dmg is a core of the burst setup.

Feel free to see some of the vids, air is again discussed in the guide. This said I DO NOT say that air is best in al gear and specc setups.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/guide-WvWvW-Shatter-cat/first

/ Osicat

Air runes are vastly more expensive, which is a good enough reason for me to use centaur.

Cub Discus Gig.2176:

As I’ve gotten better on the mesmer ive drifted away from Air runes to Centaurs because I find I get hit a lot less

If the “when hit” effect of the Runes of Air work the same as the Runes of the Nightmare, then the effect can proc when your illusions are hit as well.

I only used the Nightmare runes for a very short period until I acquired my Centuar runes (TA Rabid armour for the stats), and it became very apparent that illusions getting hit counted as your character getting hit as far as the runes were concerned.

So yes you yourself are getting hit less often, but are your illusions as skillful at avoiding incoming damage?

Centaur runes do have some added utility in WvW situations running around with a small party, since air runes don’t grant team swiftness. Now, do I really love my teammates that much that I’d give up damage for them? I think my main motivation for sticking with centaur runes is that they came free with my Zhed’s armor.

I feel my damage is fine so I am willing to sacrifice red numbers for more reliable swiftness, and mesmer’s biggest weakness is speed, so its centaur for me.

I mostly run solo and fish for 1v1,1v2s, so if you always run in a group, use Air as others will provide swiftness for you.

Another consideration is your damage spec. If you are running berserker gear, you will get a better return from Runes of the Air. +10% crit damage plus Lightning Strike (which scales on power AFAIK) will do more for you than a bit of extra power. And the +15% bleed from centaur runes will do almost nothing for you.

If you are running rabid gear, then Runes of the Centaur are usually better, especially in WvWvW. Do yourself a favor and pick up a Sigil of Earth to take advantage of the +15% bleed. Every time you use Blurred Frenzy or Confusing Images you’ll be thankful for it, and more than likely that will do more damage than a Lightning Strike w/o any real power behind it. Even if my BF crits 3 times, that’s only 150 damage for me, but every bleed proc is over 500 damage.

The centaur runes will also give you a bit of extra power to help your MW not suck as hard (esp if you are using MW with a confusion spec). Not to mention rabid builds tend to run a bit more defensive so the extra swiftness duration is a bit more helpful here to kite or hit ’n run while your conditions do their thing.

depends on what you need

personally i took rune of the centaur because i needed a constant speed boost for WvW, which the mesmer lacks, and since i have 30 point in chaos and i mainly use a staff, it’s perfect.

as for rune of the air, the speed boost is jut a minor bonus, meaning it’s not the real purpose of the rune, it’s supposed to give a little bit of extra DPS when you’re specced for precision and crit dmg, which could be good for 1 on 1 combat.

but as an overall impression, rune of the air is just not worth it, centaur is much better.

SoggyFrog.4170:

Centaur runes do have some added utility in WvW situations running around with a small party, since air runes don’t grant team swiftness. Now, do I really love my teammates that much that I’d give up damage for them? I think my main motivation for sticking with centaur runes is that they came free with my Zhed’s armor.

Also depends on the teamsetup. The team I run with always have swiftness up from other sources and not anyone in the group use centaur runes.

@RapidSausage, I would not call 10% crit dmg and a regular 3-6k hit little bit of extra dps. In 1 vs 1 especialy vs thiefs is sent from heaven as it take em down to 50-60% when they attack, even in a 3 vs 1 its often give a good boost to the burst.

Ofc al this is diefferent oppinions and I talk form my perspective whene burst dmg is a major interest and swiftness for group fight is no problem. Even for solo romaing I dont have porblem move around fast with a combo of staff 2, blink and air swiftness.

/Osicat