Guild Wars 2

Hey! I just hit 80 with my ranger, and i’m curious as to what runes are good. I’m currently running a combination of PTV and berzerker, suggestions?

Traveller! \o/

But moving on from them….

Rune of the Ranger is actually pretty good, cant go too wrong with melandru, but beyond that I dont know much unless you want to talk condition runes^^

Scholar is better than Ranger if you can stay above 90% health. So maybe only for 1500 range Longbow builds.

I like traveller for wvw, free mobility means a lot. With sword/GS you can keep up with swiftness when you’re not gaining it from someone else.

Kilger.5490:

I like traveller for wvw, free mobility means a lot. With sword/GS you can keep up with swiftness when you’re not gaining it from someone else.

I don’t have armor with a full set of traveler runes, so I can’t say for sure if this is or isn’t an issue. But assuming the 25% speed boost doesn’t affect the pet, you’re giving up about 50%-70% of the pet’s DPS against a moving target vs Signet of the Hunt. That’s the difference I’ve been getting timing pet kill times against the running golem with/without SoH. Anywhere from roughly 2x to 3.5x as long to kill.

I have a dozen traveler runes banked, but have been hesitant to put them on my ranger for this reason.

IMO traveler isnt a good option for rangers currently. The reason being, with signet of the hunt you AND YOUR PET get a 25% speed boost, with traveler, ONLY YOU get the speed bonus, not your pet, so the problem is, your pet is super slow and cant keep up with a moving target in WvW or PvP, unless you trait for pet speed, which is a lost trait slot IMO. You could give your pet perma swiftness, but then you would also basically have perma swiftness, which would make the traveler speed bonus a bit redundant.

In PvE pet speed is a lot less important, but there are much better runes for PvE than traveler IMO, and i assume you are considering traveler for WvW.

As for rune suggestions, depends what your after. PvE, Scholar is great, for WvW there are many good options. Ranger (prec), Dwayna (regen), Melandru (anti condi), Undead (condi), Fighter (Power, Toughness), Scholar can be good (power/crit).

Guys agility training gives 30% speed to the pet for 10 points in Skirmishing…

Can’t confirm wheather it stacks or not with SoH though.

have u ever outran ur pet? with or without any kind of speed boost?

Somebody show me a video of ur ranger leading the pet by 1000 units pls.

For WvW I really like increasing boon duration AND getting the 3 stacks of might on heal from altruism (running 2 water/4 altruism). If you go nature line you get that might to last 14-15 seconds and every stack of might you get is 2 stacks the pet gets.

Adds up quick with mighty roar, the horn, and weapon swapping. Will be even better when you swap pets after Dec 10th.

Agility training does not stack with SotH.

Speedlight, there has been numerous tests done with the pet on moving targets with and without SotH and the DPS is reduced by around 50% without SotH active. This is on a moving target WITHOUT a speedbuff/swiftness so your pet damage would be decreased even further if your target has a speedbuff signet/runes or swiftness. Search the forums if you dont believe me.

I’m aware of the testing done on the DPS of pets versus moving targets, but now I’m curious, does anybody recall whether it made that much of an impact on spiders? If not, I’ll go and do some forum searching.

Ever since my switch to travelers runes, and especially since they made immobilize stacking a thing, I’ve been using dual spiders, particularly with my shortbow and spirits/traps. I haven’t noticed a loss in damage at all, but that could also be attributed to people paying less attention to the spiders hitting them since the spiders aren’t chasing them around and all. So it could just be visual psychology, since with nothing chasing them, they perceive to be taking less pressure from a pet.

Solandri.9640:

Kilger.5490:

I like traveller for wvw, free mobility means a lot. With sword/GS you can keep up with swiftness when you’re not gaining it from someone else.

I don’t have armor with a full set of traveler runes, so I can’t say for sure if this is or isn’t an issue. But assuming the 25% speed boost doesn’t affect the pet, you’re giving up about 50%-70% of the pet’s DPS against a moving target vs Signet of the Hunt. That’s the difference I’ve been getting timing pet kill times against the running golem with/without SoH. Anywhere from roughly 2x to 3.5x as long to kill.

I have a dozen traveler runes banked, but have been hesitant to put them on my ranger for this reason.

Melee pets will suffer badly against moving targets but if you run spiders for instance speed does practically nothing, I love the runes personally getting an extra utility slot is worth alot more to me but I also do run spiders and I don’t have any BM points either.

I will concur with that, speed bonuses affect range pets a lot less than melee ones. Spiders and devourers don’t need the speed bonus to stick on target, since they shoot from range, so if you must run traveler, use these pets. If you insist on using melee pets though, travellers is probably not a good option.

Holland.9351:

Scholar is better than Ranger if you can stay above 90% health. So maybe only for 1500 range Longbow builds.

and at that point, Infiltrator Runes are even better then that again.

For zerker;
Rune of the Ranger
Rune of the Pack
Rune of the Wurm (the last rune effect adds flat out 3% bonus damage, which is quite a bit)

For conditions:
Rune of Perplexity (its OP as hell)
Rune of Scavenging (tried these recently, they were surprisingly good, if you are low on cash)
Rune of Adventurer (if you got Vigorous renewal, this one is really nice as you get all your endurance back in a flash)

For tankier stuff:
Rune of Exuberance (tested this on my clerics tank. I would actually consider this over the two next runes on this list)
Rune of the Dolyak (with high healing power, this one is a must. you get 85hp/sec passive healing in addition to what you get from Natural Healing and Signet of the Wild. Total passive healing can easily reach 300hp/sec)
Rune of Solider (again, if you run tankier builds and natures voice in particular, this is the rune for you)
Rune of Altruism (the "DPS support choice) or….
Rune of the Water (simply put, "The bonus 6 heals for 690 + 0.5 * Healing Power at level 80 and has a radius of 600 ". With 1200 healing you easily get 1290 instant heal ontop of your healing skill. very handy indeed)

Any build:
Rune of Speed or Rune of the Traveler (either one give 25% movement speed, which means you get 1 more utility slot freed up)

Prysin.8542:

Rune of the Dolyak (with high healing power, this one is a must. you get 85hp/sec passive healing in addition to what you get from Natural Healing and Signet of the Wild. Total passive healing can easily reach 300hp/sec)

Hmm, when did Rune of the Dolyak started to get affected by healing power? Afaik, it regens for a fixed 30 hp/sec. Did this change?

OGDeadHead.8326:

Prysin.8542:

Rune of the Dolyak (with high healing power, this one is a must. you get 85hp/sec passive healing in addition to what you get from Natural Healing and Signet of the Wild. Total passive healing can easily reach 300hp/sec)

Hmm, when did Rune of the Dolyak started to get affected by healing power? Afaik, it regens for a fixed 30 hp/sec. Did this change?

its 85/sec according to wiki.

Never used them before so I dont know, but wiki says this:

“The regeneration granted by the 6th tier of the superior rune heals 30 HP every second and does not show up as a boon. As such, the effect stacks with other sources of regeneration. "

Personal choice? Rune of the Undead. I like the condition damage and toughness boosts.

Solandri.9640:

Kilger.5490:

I like traveller for wvw, free mobility means a lot. With sword/GS you can keep up with swiftness when you’re not gaining it from someone else.

I don’t have armor with a full set of traveler runes, so I can’t say for sure if this is or isn’t an issue. But assuming the 25% speed boost doesn’t affect the pet, you’re giving up about 50%-70% of the pet’s DPS against a moving target vs Signet of the Hunt. That’s the difference I’ve been getting timing pet kill times against the running golem with/without SoH. Anywhere from roughly 2x to 3.5x as long to kill.

I have a dozen traveler runes banked, but have been hesitant to put them on my ranger for this reason.

Using them isn’t a bar to getting them back – if you don’t have the gold to break down exotics then wait a bit and then try.

I’d like to know the differences between what you are using and Traveler and you seem to be farther along in cash than many

jcbroe.4329:

I’m aware of the testing done on the DPS of pets versus moving targets, but now I’m curious, does anybody recall whether it made that much of an impact on spiders? If not, I’ll go and do some forum searching.

The spiders lose about 45% of their DPS against a moving target (i.e. it takes them almost 2x as long to kill). But I think this is mostly an artifact of the moving golem path. It makes a circuit around a structure which blocks line of sight, so the spiders are constantly moving to reposition themselves to regain LoS.

There is some DPS loss due to direction changes causing the spider attack to miss, and the target moving out of (or completely avoiding) the poison field. But the impression I got from my testing was that the majority of the lost DPS is due to the LoS issue. I suspect the spiders would fare considerably better against a moving target in an open environment (unless the target was constantly moving away from you).

They lose about 40% with Signet of the Hunt. The time spent running around to regain LoS is shortened with SoH, but not by much.

atheria.2837:

Using them isn’t a bar to getting them back – if you don’t have the gold to break down exotics then wait a bit and then try.

I’d like to know the differences between what you are using and Traveler and you seem to be farther along in cash than many

I know, but I didn’t amass that much cash by frittering it away.

Are there test golems in WvW? In that case I could just put them on some blue or green armor to test (I’ve got plenty of BL salvage kits). I’m reluctant to put them onto exotic armor to use as my everyday set, just for a subjective measure of how well (or poorly) they work. At least not until they add ascended armor and I can get a character improvement for crafting an extra exotic set.

Cufufalating.8479:

Never used them before so I dont know, but wiki says this:

“The regeneration granted by the 6th tier of the superior rune heals 30 HP every second and does not show up as a boon. As such, the effect stacks with other sources of regeneration. "

Yeah, that’s what the official wiki says, and also matches the amount of regen I recall getting when I used these back in the day…

@Solandri;

Thanks for the numbers. Interesting.

I only at this point am using my pets as a source of immobilize to lockdown enemies and lol autoattack spam them to death with the shortbow, and either traps or spirits (mainly just for the burning pressure on my condi build).

With no BM investment, I’m not really sure of the exact DPS I’m losing without Signet of the Hunt, although on trap builds and spirit builds, that extra utility slot is much appreciated.

I haven’t really noticed a drop in my performance since switching away from SotH and to Travelers Runes though, so either people are getting worse and worse at the game, or I’ve adapted to not having the best possible performance available on my pet. Or, spiders are just amazing, except for that irritating poison field.