Guild Wars 2

I’m looking for opinions of people who have had experience with revenant on what rune set would be most optimal for rev/herald in pve content such as fractals and raids. Both rage and strength seem like solid options (I’m still not sure how that invocation trait influences fury) maybe even scholar although I’m not a fan of that rune set. I would like feedback from people who have done the dps math and have had experience with the class. thanks!

Strength do more dps than rage, but scholar more than both if you can keep over 90% health. But on a melee class, i find that to be difficult since your always on the front lines.

Not everyone will agree, but here’s the way I look at it. Since I don’t pvp, and the active on facet of strength is very good, I will use it often. I expect to keep facet of darkness on most of the time. If I have to exit Glint and need fury, I can always activate F2. Therefore, I don’t need fury duration. Therefore, I prefer strength/Hoelbrak to rage.

Strength rune is alright, a little bit of more dps since it provides a decent amount of power, along with higher time on might(able to stack more than usual during fights)
(talking about rune only)
Strength of rage, more ferocity, so going for a crit build would be the best choice, not to mention revenants get THE BEST fury/crit chance traits, so shouldn’t be hard to pull off.

I already tried the strength rune and was doing overall around 6k-12k unrelenting assault and roughly 3k-5k+ or so crits on auto attacks(keep in mind this is with 10+ stacks of might)
It felt like it was missing some thing in the end though, least for me.
I’m planning on trying out runes of rage first since they’re cheaper and thanks with traits+sigils, he can easily pack 24% more dmg, while with strength, he only packed around 12%-18% more dmg(depending on amount of boons you’d have, along with other stuffs)

The way I really see it on paper from the triats, sigil, runes, rune of rage provides a lot more than rune of strength if built correctly. More overall dmg % with minimal effort, still able to maintain 10+stacks of might, more ferocity.

based on my calculations, Runes of Strength give anywhere between 2-5 more might stacks in comparison using only Facet of Strength + Facet of Nature. The difference is how often you can trigger shared empowerment. With Facet of Strength alone, you can only trigger it every 3 seconds, so you get around 11.9 stacks of might. If you can trigger it every second, you get about 18.9 stacks of might. Granted the might stacks do last signficantly longer.

However, a set of runes of rage has 2 major advantages over strength ones. 1) Ferocity over Power. With a crit based build, getting a bit more ferocity might see a slightly larger increase in damage as opposed to power.

2) They are significantly cheaper. Once the dust settles and the meta is finalized, we’ll know which of these two is better. I would say go with Rage at the start as it’s a couple gold to buy a set (or even 2) where as Strength is VERY expensive. If you have to replace Rage runes, okay…run a Fractal or two to make up lost gold. If you have to replace strength runes with rage…yeah…I just can’t in all good consciousness say that’s a good idea when so many other classes can use Strength runes (like Necros, Reapers, Scrappers, and Warriors).

I might be mistaken, but I’m assuming my calculation is correct:
Runes of Strength increase your power by 175 points. If you max out your power, thats an increase of ca. 6.6%.
Runes of Rage increase your critical damage by 11.6 % (wiki says, that crit dmg is increased by 1% for every 15 points of ferocitiy)

So difference is not really great.
That means the answer to the question depends on whether or not you are able to get perma rage and/or 25 staks perma might. And therefore it depends on your team.

You won’t need the strength duration with a ps warrior. In this case, the rage runes might be the better option.
On the other hand, playing solo u might want the extra rage of rage runes.

Personally, i’ll be using rage runes.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAscin3guNSuQ7JRboVlsP0rS4IaWJ4EdskFNFidMppNtDIARwugJshA-TBCBABVcKAMa/hLVrpSVFOTJIWK/A4JAkn+gAAHA/23++bgzP/8zP/8+93f/93fLFQELtA-e

That’s the build I’m planning to use. It’s designed to reach 100% crit chance with Ranger’s spotter and Warrior’s banner. Didn’t want to waste precision.
Just for better understanding.

Assuming all buffs strength wins by a trivial amount. You should be able to maintain fury all the time so you won’t benefit from rage. You are far from hitting a glass ceiling with might yourself though so strength would be better. It’s possible to not cap out on might in groups (pugs, downs, didn’t prestack, etc) and especially for solo (where they would really shine) so I’d say go with strength if you have the gold.

I still think, Rage is better.
With sigill of strength, shared empowerment, facet of strength, one with nature and unrelenting assault you have many sources of might in and out of combat. Rage on the other hand can be a little bit harder to maintain i think. At least when you’re solo.

But you’re right, the difference between both Runes is trivial.

For the beginning, at least as long as you don’t have access to Herald (which costs 400 hero points after you have unlocked everything else), Rage will be the better option.

After you have unlocked Herald it’s only a matter of gold and personal taste i think.

thanks for the feedback guys! I think I will stick with rage until I’m done with my ascended heavy set

Rage > Strength for rev. Strength is somewhat good wth herald but nothing superb.

Bought 120 Rage runes to have 6 for myself and later to sell the rest.

Bought for 11s 34c and now they are over 77s. Will probably increase even more because they are really good for revenant and will help keep close to 100% fury uptime with right traits even without herald/glint. So easy +5% dmg and constant +40% crit chance (with trait) allowing you to pick some other stats in place of precision.

Also with other people Fury and Might can be stacked as easily and rage are cheaper atm. Rage runes also allow for more variated builds than strength runes which depend totally on might generation so it pretty much locks you in herald while rage runes are perfectly fine with every legend.

I’m running Runes of Exuberance because, … Hipster.

I have both Strength and Rage runes , but I tested rage in beta. I found them to work great and the +20% Fury duration is noticeable if you are not a/in Herald and need to camp another Legend longer than expected or your Facet of nature is on cool down. I do not like Scholar because if you are 89% health or lower you get nothing in terms of damage %, and in melee with harder content like HoT mobs its easily one hit or condition on you.

Based on all the other replies the difference is marginal. You will be well off with either set. What is not marginal? The cost between both runes!

Also keep in mind if you have Ascended and have a Warrior and/or Guardian, you might have to broaden your thought process on how those runes affect them and their builds if you plan to play other heavies.

Tomtue.6072:

So difference is not really great.
That means the answer to the question depends on whether or not you are able to get perma rage and/or 25 staks perma might. And therefore it depends on your team.

^^ This.

Btw, nothing beats Scholar in theory.

There are a ton of Runes that provide close to the same results of Strength and Rage depending on consumables and Sigils used. i.e. Runes of the Wurm focusing on Valkyrie/Assassin/Berserker stats for instance is very close (the reason it is less effective is because there is no Captain-like Prec/Pow/Tou Trinket that has Vitality instead of Toughness) Link Example of Build

I suggest trying out several and then deciding (working up to the more expensive ones). Same thing with Sigils … since they are even cheaper and you only need 2-4 versus 6.

ideal group = scholar

solo = strength

average group = rage

bad group = strength

^ This

After thinking about it a lot I went Strength. Mightybird’s assessment is totally right and in most scenarios I will be solo or in a bad group so I will get the most out of the extra stacks of Might. Also the 150 Power vs 150 Ferocity I’m lead to believe that in general 150 power will translate into more damage than 10% more crit damage (but not that much more). The fury duration is largely useless with Herald as you can easily maintain perma Fury even running yourself out of energy, swapping to Shiro, running yourself out of energy, and still have time to get back and have Fury duration. I would use Rage pre-Herald but I’m going to use Travelers while I immediately focus on unlocking Herald so kinda a waste.

Kodiak.3281:

After thinking about it a lot I went Strength. Mightybird’s assessment is totally right and in most scenarios I will be solo or in a bad group so I will get the most out of the extra stacks of Might. Also the 150 Power vs 150 Ferocity I’m lead to believe that in general 150 power will translate into more damage than 10% more crit damage (but not that much more). The fury duration is largely useless with Herald as you can easily maintain perma Fury even running yourself out of energy, swapping to Shiro, running yourself out of energy, and still have time to get back and have Fury duration. I would use Rage pre-Herald but I’m going to use Travelers while I immediately focus on unlocking Herald so kinda a waste.

if i’m not mistaken 150 power = 5% dmg and 150 ferocity = 10% crit dmg
therefore should be: 150 ferocity > 150 power with an average crit chance okitten0%

Mightybird.6034:

ideal group = scholar

solo = strength

average group = rage

bad group = strength

this^ exactly and to add from some thread aeons ago,

“at 2k power, 100% crit chance and 200% crit damage, 1% increased damage = 20 power OR 30 ferocity. Increase power until you hit 3k, at which point 1 power =1 ferocity in terms of damage.”

so its to summarise, it means that boosting power is better when you are under 3k power, ferocity shines above 3k power.

use rage runes and with 25 stack of might(3k power above) => optimal set up

• not sure if the maths still stands and if it is valid because it is so long ago but yeap, mightybird nailed it in terms of how to choose which rune you want to run.

Tarkan.5609:

if i’m not mistaken 150 power = 5% dmg and 150 ferocity = 10% crit dmg
therefore should be: 150 ferocity > 150 power with an average crit chance okitten0%

Thing is that’s 5% base damage though. Using fictional numbers you can see 5% of 1000 is 50 damage. So 2.4 (240%) of 1050 is 2520 where as 2.5 (250%) of 1000 is only 2500. It’s close enough, but still an improvement.

We still have +7% dmg under fury, though.
So fury uptime should be considered as well.

Temihal.8651:

We still have +7% dmg under fury, though.
So fury uptime should be considered as well.

Dont forget that the + damage under boon also stacks with extra damage against vuln’d enemies trait! aaaaand stacks with force sigils.

nobleroar.2078:

Mightybird.6034:

ideal group = scholar

solo = strength

average group = rage

bad group = strength

this^ exactly and to add from some thread aeons ago,

“at 2k power, 100% crit chance and 200% crit damage, 1% increased damage = 20 power OR 30 ferocity. Increase power until you hit 3k, at which point 1 power =1 ferocity in terms of damage.”

so its to summarise, it means that boosting power is better when you are under 3k power, ferocity shines above 3k power.

use rage runes and with 25 stack of might(3k power above) => optimal set up

• not sure if the maths still stands and if it is valid because it is so long ago but yeap, mightybird nailed it in terms of how to choose which rune you want to run.

The numbers are correct. (almost. 20 strength and 30 ferocity in your example both increase the dmg by 2%, so the result is still the same)

15 points of ferocity increase your crit damage by 1%.
Assuming you have 100% crit chance and at least 200% crit dmg (which is easily achieved for the revenant) strength is better than ferocity until the 3000 points mark.

But you have to consider:
Revenant has a trait, targeted destruction, which increases the dmg by 7% while under the effect of fury. And without fury, you loose 40% crit chance.

You will allways have some might stacks… so you might loose some dps if u do not reach the 25 stacks. But even without Runes of strenght the personal might of a revenant comes at least close to this in combat. And most professions have some ways of providing might for the group. So even in a bad group the revenant will have 25 stacks of might i think.

On the other hand, beeing without fury, and even only for a short time, mean a significant dps loss.

That’s why i think Rage is better for the revenant.

Or like a god once said:
“trust my rage”

edit:
with 25 stacks of might the threshold of 3000 points of power (i think you can reach 3500 points with runes of strength)
At this point, ferocity becomes more effictive. Which means, runes of rage grant more dps than runes of strength.

I had a dream last night that the runes or sigils that we get from the herald track gave up +20% damage to elite champions and legendaries lol perhaps this is a premonition of things to come….!