Guild Wars 2

Trying to decide what runes I should go for for a soldier stat reaper, and I’m undecided between runes for chilling or good old fashioned strength runes, or maybe you guys have found a good rune set that’s outside the curret meta? Anyone got suggestions? I plan on playing my reaper as a front line brawler mainly reliant on RS

I’m going to try svanir if my laptop is fixed during the beta weekend.

I’d say probably stick to Strength runes. They work well with necro in general, and the aoe shroud auto is great for might stacking

I played quite a lot of soldier reaper last beta and, to be honest, there is not much difference from what you would usually run. Hoelbrack runes are pretty good to keep CC off of you, strength are great for might stacks, traveler let you stick to targets easier when in RS. I found my sustain/survivability to be good enough with soldier’s amu, so I did not go for defensive runes. Runes of the soldier are not worth it because you will not be running shouts, and you are much more valuable as a debuffer rather than as support.

I think it depends on what game mode you plan on playing your reaper. PvE is a no brainer really, Strength or Scholar. In WvW if you don’t go BM or DM and take Spite Hoelbrak runes are a good substitute for Strength to maintain tons of Might and worry less about conditions since people can increase their condi duration much more than they can in PvP (plus huge reduction on soft cc with Relentless Pursuit.) In PvP I’m thinking of taking either Hoelbrak or Ice. Ice runes don’t let you maintain huge might stacks as long or Str/Hoelbrak runes but with the upcoming changes you can get 50% chill duration and maintain a similar %based damage buff as Strength runes.

I was using strength runes on my soldier reaper and it was doing quite well. However, I think ill change to valk armor and keep strength runes.

If you trait into spite, strength and hoelbrak are logical choices. If you don’t go into spite, pack runes will give you better damage instead as they give you more precision and fury half of the time.

Well if u not gonna only use the Shroud mechanic to get Crit chance, Id say Pack for that Power and 125 precision but just my taste. I dont want to be totally plain out of Shroud.

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

I played quite a lot of soldier reaper last beta and, to be honest, there is not much difference from what you would usually run. Hoelbrack runes are pretty good to keep CC off of you, strength are great for might stacks, traveler let you stick to targets easier when in RS. I found my sustain/survivability to be good enough with soldier’s amu, so I did not go for defensive runes. Runes of the soldier are not worth it because you will not be running shouts, and you are much more valuable as a debuffer rather than as support.

Why wouldnt we run shout? They seem quite awesome, doing damage, giving buffs, debuffing the enemy and reducing CD based on # of targets hit. On paper at least they sound great

I’m also running soldier armor and i’ll be going with Trooper runes, which as i’ll be running at most 4 shouts it works great in mobs.. ofc it changes depending on mobs and when fight bosses.. but the runes still allow me other options else where stat wise.

pepsis.5384:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

I played quite a lot of soldier reaper last beta and, to be honest, there is not much difference from what you would usually run. Hoelbrack runes are pretty good to keep CC off of you, strength are great for might stacks, traveler let you stick to targets easier when in RS. I found my sustain/survivability to be good enough with soldier’s amu, so I did not go for defensive runes. Runes of the soldier are not worth it because you will not be running shouts, and you are much more valuable as a debuffer rather than as support.

Why wouldnt we run shout? They seem quite awesome, doing damage, giving buffs, debuffing the enemy and reducing CD based on # of targets hit. On paper at least they sound great

In PvP I value Relentless Pursuit higher as a trait since it allows us to stick to targets really tightly, so I do not believe that Augury of Death is worth taking in that spot. In addition, I can not see myself taking more than two shouts as my 6-10 skills, since I believe that we have much better options for those slots.

I am not saying that shouts are completely unviable and shout builds will not work, I just believe that the necromancer’s role of a heavy debuffer is really valuable and I do not believe that overcommiting to a shout support playstyle would be worth it. Of course, I could be completely wrong on that one, it really all depends on how the meta swings, but at least for the current PvP reality, signets and wells are really good utility options, and the shout heal is nothing special.

From last BWE:

Hoelbrak for WvW
Strength for PvE
Aristocracy for condi builds

Experimented with Ice, found it interesting but ultimately chill has little to no impact in PvE, even with the +7% damage buff. It simply can’t compete with might stacking. This may change if planned changes to chill on PvE mobs goes live.

Svabir was worse than useless. Has the same problem as vamp runes in DS.

Another option is Melandru, though I use Hoelbrak.

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

pepsis.5384:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

I played quite a lot of soldier reaper last beta and, to be honest, there is not much difference from what you would usually run. Hoelbrack runes are pretty good to keep CC off of you, strength are great for might stacks, traveler let you stick to targets easier when in RS. I found my sustain/survivability to be good enough with soldier’s amu, so I did not go for defensive runes. Runes of the soldier are not worth it because you will not be running shouts, and you are much more valuable as a debuffer rather than as support.

Why wouldnt we run shout? They seem quite awesome, doing damage, giving buffs, debuffing the enemy and reducing CD based on # of targets hit. On paper at least they sound great

In PvP I value Relentless Pursuit higher as a trait since it allows us to stick to targets really tightly, so I do not believe that Augury of Death is worth taking in that spot. In addition, I can not see myself taking more than two shouts as my 6-10 skills, since I believe that we have much better options for those slots.

I am not saying that shouts are completely unviable and shout builds will not work, I just believe that the necromancer’s role of a heavy debuffer is really valuable and I do not believe that overcommiting to a shout support playstyle would be worth it. Of course, I could be completely wrong on that one, it really all depends on how the meta swings, but at least for the current PvP reality, signets and wells are really good utility options, and the shout heal is nothing special.

I plan on trying out a trooper rune shout build. Mainly this is to see if they could have potential use over a signet build which I have grown bored of in casual play. I do agree that augury of death needs to grant shouts a new type of functionality for shout builds to be viable.

Maybe having them just remove one boon on hit? Maybe have them apply a debuff AoE like more chill or weakness, or a boon like fury or might or even stability (hehehe). I think one of my main suggestions will be to add new functionality to this trait, as it’s somewhat lacking otherwise, although I understand Elbert’s choice to leave it as a control variable by which to gauge the effectiveness of the buffed/reworked shouts.