Guild Wars 2

I wondered what runes are best for a fairly typical 4/4/0/0/6 power shatter build in pvp. The main options seem to be Runes of Strength, Runes of Rage and Runes of the Pack.

Modeling these is a little tricky since we need to estimate average might stacks and (where applicable) fury up time (yes I know you shouldn’t be getting hit). Based on eyeballing my stats while fighting the class NPCs in HOTM I noticed the following:

Runes of Strength: average 11 stacks of might, spiking up to 21
Runes of Rage: average 7 stacks of might, spiking up to 12. Approx 66% rage uptime
Runes of the Pack: average 8 stacks of might, spiking up to 15. Approx 40% rage uptime

(If somebody has more time it might be worth videoing a good number of fights and doing a frame by frame analysis to determine the uptime numbers more rigorously.)

Using a quick and dirty model, we can try and compare these:
effective power = power * (1 + (crit chance * crit damage))

Runes of Strength

(1): +25 Power
(2): +10% Might Duration
(3): +50 Power
(4): +15% might duration; 25% chance when struck to gain Might.png might for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 5s)
(5): +100 Power
(6): +20% might duration; +7% damage while under the effects of Might.png might.
Link

Base stats:
2213 power
44% crit chance
193% crit damage

0 stacks might
(2213) * (1 + (0.44 * 1.93)) = 4092.3 effective power

11 stacks might
(2213 + 11 * 35) * (1 + (0.44 * 1.93)) * 1.07 = 4958.6 effective power

25 stacks might
(2213 + 25 * 35) * (1 + (0.44 * 1.93)) * 1.07 = 6110.1 effective power

You can see why runes of the strength are popular with classes who can stack might! These are correspondingly expensive. Remember the conditional 7% damage multiplier does not apply to phantasm damage.

Runes of Rage

(1): +25 Ferocity
(2): +10% Fury Duration
(3): +50 Ferocity
(4): 25% chance when struck to gain fury for 15 seconds. (Cooldown: 30s)
(5): +100 Ferocity
(6): +20% fury duration; while under the effects of fury gain +5% damage.
Link

Base stats:
2038 power
44% crit chance
205% crit damage

No fury, no might
(2038) * (1 + (0.50 * 2.06)) = 4137.14 effective power

66% fury up-time, 7 stacks of might
(2038+ 7 * 35) * (1 + ((0.50 + 0.2 * 0.66) * 2.06)) * (1 + 0.05 * 0.66) = 5428.7 effective power

66% fury up-time, 25 stacks of might (for fun)
(2038+ 25 * 35) * (1 + ((0.50 + 0.2 * 0.66) * 2.06)) * (1 + 0.05 * 0.66) = 6926.8 effective power

Note the 5% damage multiplier is only there 66% of the time.

These seem heavily underrated and are very cheap. Like the Runes of Strength the conditional 5% damage multiplier does not effect phantasms. If you have somebody to blast might for you these seem amazing for personal dps.

Runes of the Pack

(1): +25 Power
(2): +10% Swiftness Duration
(3): +50 Power
(4): 25% chance when struck to grant nearby allies Might, Fury, and Swiftness for 10s. (Cooldown: 20s)
(5): +100 Power
(6): +20% Swiftness Duration; +125 Precision
Link

Base stats:
2213 power
50% crit chance
193% crit damage

No fury, no might
(2213) * (1 + (0.50 * 1.93)) = 4348.5 effective power

40% fury up-time, 8 stacks of might
(2213 + 8 * 35) * (1 + ((0.50 + 0.2 * 0.4) * 1.93)) = 5283.7 effective power

40% fury up-time, 25 stacks of might (for fun)
(2213 + 25 * 35) * (1 + ((0.50 + 0.2 * 0.4) * 1.93)) = 6544.7 effective power

Runes of the pack seem quite strong, and those buffs help your phantasms. They are a lot cheaper than the runes of strength. I think these are my favorite since they effect phantams too.

One thing this does underline is how important boon stripping is in the current meta. Hambows for example will have 20+ might most of the time and with sigils of intelligence they’re going to crit a lot.

Arcane thievery means your enemies can take the might stacking runes for you, and you can use something else.

Rage is kind of meh and out classes by pack all day long. I wouldn’t be surprised if rune of citadel and rage had similar numbers since citadel gives power and fury but a bomb is meh.

I would go pack on Mesmer

Ross Biddle.2367:

Arcane thievery means your enemies can take the might stacking runes for you, and you can use something else.

Mmm that’s an interesting thought. I wish the CD on it was a tad lower

I’ll run the numbers on Citadel later.

Neurophen.9738:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Arcane thievery means your enemies can take the might stacking runes for you, and you can use something else.

Mmm that’s an interesting thought. I wish the CD on it was a tad lower

I’ll run the numbers on Citadel later.

Once you have the stacks and do the burst, you don’t really need a second casting of it :p

Runes of the Pirate all day. Ma birdie!

Don’t forget Runes of the Ranger.

Xavi.6591:

Don’t forget Runes of the Ranger.

Runes of the Ranger’s passive doesn’t count illusions as companions afaik.

is the bomb on citadel the exploding one that launches or kbs?

StickerHappy.8052:

is the bomb on citadel the exploding one that launches or kbs?

It’s just a little bomb i think like the engineer bomb auto

VengefulShoe.5761:

Xavi.6591:

Don’t forget Runes of the Ranger.

Runes of the Ranger’s passive doesn’t count illusions as companions afaik.

Didn’t used to, but post-patch apparently does now.

How about Runes of Hoelbrack?

I used to run them on my mes for quite a lot time.
If you don’t have any kind of condi cleansening, -25% condi duration seems pretty usefull.

Runes of the Citadel: I noticed about 7 stacks of might on average with the double runes of battle, occasionally spiking up to 11.

Runes of Hoelbrak: I noticed about 9 stacks of might on average with the double runes of battle, occasionally spiking up to 17.

Runes of the Citadel

(1): +25 Power
(2): +10% Fury Duration
(3): +50 Power
(4): 25% chance when struck to gain Fury for 15s. (Cooldown: 30s)
(5): +100 Power
(6): 20% Fury duration; 50% chance when struck to summon a bomb. (Cooldown: 15s)
Link

Base stats:
2213 power
44% crit chance
193% crit damage

I didn’t have a lot of luck with the bomb with these vs the NPCs in HOTM. I think in 10 mins of testing it proced 5x and each time the npc was either not near it or downed. I don’t know how hard this hits.

No fury, no might
(2213) * (1 + (0.44 * 1.93)) = 4092.3 effective power

66% fury up-time, 7 stacks of might
(2213+ 7 * 35) * (1 + ((0.44 + 0.2 * 0.66) * 1.93)) = 5171.5 effective power

Not sure these are worth it over another rune set. Super cheap however.

Runes of Hoelbrak

(1): +25 Power
(2): +10% Might Duration
(3): +50 Power
(4): 25% chance when struck to gain might for 10s. (Cooldown: 5s)
(5): +100 Power
(6): +20% might duration; -20% condition duration applied to you.
Link

Base stats:
2213 power
44% crit chance
193% crit damage

0 stacks might
(2213) * (1 + (0.44 * 1.93)) = 4092.3 effective power
9 stacks might
(2213 + 9 * 35) * (1 + (0.44 * 1.93)) = 4674.8 effective power

Not the best option for pure damage, but the -20% condition duration is nice, and is even better in combination with Lemongrass Poultry Soup. Semi-expensive.

this post is quite interesting, I’ve been using orbs this whole time but I’ve been wanting to get some nice runes, guess i’ll go with pack, flat stats seem to be the most effective way to power up phantasm dps

Pack Runes are definitely my favorite rune post-patch. I’ve tried Strength, but since your phantasms don’t benefit from your might stacks, it really doesn’t increase your DPS much IMO.

Pack runes give you fury, which you can’t easily get otherwise, better raw stats (same power and 6% more crit chance than strength runes) and really high swiftness uptime with staff from chaos armor and chaos storm. Running around with a friend who has the runes too is a big threat since you can easily maintain perma fury and swiftness as long as you’re bulky enough to sponge 4 hits every 20 seconds.

EDIT: and Citadel runes are basically just a worse version of pack runes. No swiftness, no might, and 6% less critical chance from the raw stats. The bomb can hit like 1.5k on a crit, but it tends to reveal you while you’re stealthed more than it does useful damage. And trust me, I wanted runes of the Citadel to be good, I had 1.3k of them before the patch came out.

Fox.3562:

Pack Runes are definitely my favorite rune post-patch. I’ve tried Strength, but since your phantasms don’t benefit from your might stacks, it really doesn’t increase your DPS much IMO.

Pack runes give you fury, which you can’t easily get otherwise, better raw stats (same power and 6% more crit chance than strength runes) and really high swiftness uptime with staff from chaos armor and chaos storm. Running around with a friend who has the runes too is a big threat since you can easily maintain perma fury and swiftness as long as you’re bulky enough to sponge 4 hits every 20 seconds.

EDIT: and Citadel runes are basically just a worse version of pack runes. No swiftness, no might, and 6% less critical chance from the raw stats. The bomb can hit like 1.5k on a crit, but it tends to reveal you while you’re stealthed more than it does useful damage. And trust me, I wanted runes of the Citadel to be good, I had 1.3k of them before the patch came out.

Just want to point out a few things
Might boon increases your main stats (power & condition damage) and since illusions borrow mesmer main stats —> your phantasms do benefit from your might stacks.
Fury boon, on the other hand, doesn’t affect phantasms crit chance.

keenlam.4753:

Fox.3562:

Pack Runes are definitely my favorite rune post-patch. I’ve tried Strength, but since your phantasms don’t benefit from your might stacks, it really doesn’t increase your DPS much IMO.

Pack runes give you fury, which you can’t easily get otherwise, better raw stats (same power and 6% more crit chance than strength runes) and really high swiftness uptime with staff from chaos armor and chaos storm. Running around with a friend who has the runes too is a big threat since you can easily maintain perma fury and swiftness as long as you’re bulky enough to sponge 4 hits every 20 seconds.

EDIT: and Citadel runes are basically just a worse version of pack runes. No swiftness, no might, and 6% less critical chance from the raw stats. The bomb can hit like 1.5k on a crit, but it tends to reveal you while you’re stealthed more than it does useful damage. And trust me, I wanted runes of the Citadel to be good, I had 1.3k of them before the patch came out.

Just want to point out a few things
Might boon increases your main stats (power & condition damage) and since illusions borrow mesmer main stats —> your phantasms do benefit from your might stacks.
Fury boon, on the other hand, doesn’t affect phantasms crit chance.

Maybe it’s supposed to (I do remember reading that in patch notes a lonnnnng time ago) but I’m 95% sure it does not. I tried it in sPvP with 18 stacks of might on just me, and it didn’t increase my duellist’s damage at all. Then I put 18 stacks of might on just my duellist and he hit significantly harder (as he should).

Fox.3562:

keenlam.4753:

Fox.3562:

Pack Runes are definitely my favorite rune post-patch. I’ve tried Strength, but since your phantasms don’t benefit from your might stacks, it really doesn’t increase your DPS much IMO.

Pack runes give you fury, which you can’t easily get otherwise, better raw stats (same power and 6% more crit chance than strength runes) and really high swiftness uptime with staff from chaos armor and chaos storm. Running around with a friend who has the runes too is a big threat since you can easily maintain perma fury and swiftness as long as you’re bulky enough to sponge 4 hits every 20 seconds.

EDIT: and Citadel runes are basically just a worse version of pack runes. No swiftness, no might, and 6% less critical chance from the raw stats. The bomb can hit like 1.5k on a crit, but it tends to reveal you while you’re stealthed more than it does useful damage. And trust me, I wanted runes of the Citadel to be good, I had 1.3k of them before the patch came out.

Just want to point out a few things
Might boon increases your main stats (power & condition damage) and since illusions borrow mesmer main stats —> your phantasms do benefit from your might stacks.
Fury boon, on the other hand, doesn’t affect phantasms crit chance.

Maybe it’s supposed to (I do remember reading that in patch notes a lonnnnng time ago) but I’m 95% sure it does not. I tried it in sPvP with 18 stacks of might on just me, and it didn’t increase my duellist’s damage at all. Then I put 18 stacks of might on just my duellist and he hit significantly harder (as he should).

Me and Pot tested on my ele I supplied the might stacks. Can confirm

99% sure phantasms do use the mesmer might stacks. Will test later tonight to be sure.

edit: yes, stacked might on myself phantasms started hitting much harder as expected.
edit: tested both in PvE and HotM, didn’t test in WvW/PvP.

frifox.5283:

99% sure phantasms do use the mesmer might stacks. Will test later tonight to be sure.

edit: yes, stacked might on myself phantasms started hitting much harder as expected.
edit: tested both in PvE and HotM, didn’t test in WvW/PvP.

You’re right. I just retested it and the might stacks are increasing the phantasms damage. When I tested it before, it was when AI damage in sPvP was bugged, so maybe that had something to do with it. I still don’t think I would pick Strength runes over Pack though. Unless you have bountiful interruption, mesmers don’t might stack particularly well. Sigils of Battle could work, but I don’t think I can ever give up sigils of Energy since the vigor nerf, and sigils of air would probably still be higher DPS.

Really interesting, perhaps you just discovered why phantasms were occasionally doing crazy damage. (I know the devs hot fixed some scaling issues but I was never able to reproduce some of the crazy hits people claimed)

Neurophen.9738:

Really interesting, perhaps you just discovered why phantasms were occasionally doing crazy damage. (I know the devs hot fixed some scaling issues but I was never able to reproduce some of the crazy hits people claimed)

I don’t think it had anything to do with might. I was hitting 11.5k warlocks on glass thieves in sPvP, and keep lords were hitting 6k auto attacks without any might.

alvarez.3159:

Runes of the Pirate all day. Ma birdie!

They’re stronger than people give them credit for. If the enemy doesn’t cleave down the bird it causes quite a lot of damage, and the Might uptime is significant. Plus the “Yarr!”.

I’ve not tried them this patch but the rock dog from the runes of the ogre hits decently hard too.

Use ranger runes?

I don’t see how Rune of the Pack even contends with the other two. Having good stats is fine, but damage modifiers are always better if you can keep the modifier up consistently.

Also, the damage modifiers not affecting phantasms isn’t a big deal in a shatter build. Your shatters do most of the damage, and a 5% or 7% increase to that makes a big difference, especially when you crit.

The damage bonus from criting is much higher than 7%. With runes of the pack you’ll have 70% crit rate whenever fury procs. Maybe more with different sigils.

I find of Ranger or eagle (if ranger ever gets nerfed again for mes) with double doom to reduce regen that counters shatter builds on a sword/x+GS set up with mental torment. It’s good for just shutting things down and ending them (little bit harder vs players who know how to out play it) I find it more appealing for 1v1s and skirmishes.

Now Strength runes, GS+Staff, halting strike with double crit proc sigils. I find is very very good in a team fight and acceptable 1v1 (tho may take longer) but to me feels awkward when roaming. Skirmishes feel meh.

Both builds are good and although everyone is really into strength runes right now I’m still willing to hold onto precision/ferocity.

The generalized way I see it is: If your banking in Mental Torment go for ferocity. If your relying on halting strike get more power

Neurophen.9738:

The damage bonus from criting is much higher than 7%. With runes of the pack you’ll have 70% crit rate whenever fury procs. Maybe more with different sigils.

That’s true, but with our low access to fury it’s not consistent enough. You can pretty much always have 6+ stacks of might on you, but you can’t always have fury on you. So although the crit damage is higher, the amount of overall damage you get from Strength runes is more consistent, and I believe it will result in more damage.

I’m still going to experiment with it though, since you’ve shown that it’s worth trying out. Thanks for that.

I’ve been wondering too what you power shatter mesmers were using for runes (particularly in pvp). I feel that Strength synergizes most with our role, as it helps our burst the most. +7% damage on a shatter combo is great. I liked Lyssa Runes a lot, to for awesome mass invis escapes, condi clear, and stability stomping, but they seem rather weak post nerf.

I don’t really see Rage or Pack as very viable options considering how little we have fury or swiftness up. I don’t value the procs very much for any of these sets, as they’re unlikely to proc at an ideal time, especially since I’m trying my best not to be hit, anyway.

Anecdotelly I’m finding the procs to fire quite regularly and I try not to get hit too. I’d suggest trying them in hot join and decide if they work for you.