Boon Duration: Let me first say that my first few builds after level 80 were focused around boon duration. I have two sets of exotic armor (one with Soldier’s stats the other Knight’s) with boon duration extending Runes, nearly identical to what you have on yours. I had a third set (Berserker’s) that did have those Runes, but I actually replaced them yesterday.
Here’s my take on why I started to shy away from boon duration as such a focus:
Swiftness: In your particular case, you are already using Warhorn. So, with zero boon duration, your Warhorn provides 10s and SoR provides 30s. Since Warhorn’s Charge skill is on a 20s (untraited), that is less than half of SoR’s traited cooldown of 48s. As such, if you pop Charge then SoR, you can get two more activations of Charge before SoR comes off cooldown. Bottom line, for every activation of SoR, you get 2 activations of Charge. In the end, that’s 50s of Swiftness during SoR’s traited 48s cooldown. With zero boon duration. Obviously, when not using the Warhorn, your uptime drops significantly. Even then, a traited SoR gives 60%+ uptime on Swiftness alone. TLDR: untraited Warhorn + traited SoR doesn’t really need any boon duration.
Fury: Being such a huge bonus to crit chance (and by extension, damage) this is important. Untraited, FGJ provides 8s on a 25 second cooldown and SoR provides 30s on a traited 48s cooldown. So, you can’t quite activate FGJ often enough to keep two activations per activation of SoR, but it’s very close. You would have a few seconds of gaps of Fury. Obviously, traiting for a Shout cooldown reduction gives at least 20% boon duration, so that alone ensures Fury is up constantly. TLDR: Some minor boon duration would be helpful for truly permanent Fury, but the gap is minor.
Might: Might is a bit different story, since it isn’t a duration stacking boon like Fury and Swiftness. With a reduced cooldown FGJ, a ~60% Might duration bonus can be permanently double up FGJ. Traited for FGJ cooldown reduction guarantees 20%, so another 40% would be needed from additional points in Tactics or Runes. FGJ already has an ability to keep 3 stacks of Might up 100% without boon duration bonuses, so in essence the cost is to get the additional 3 stacks, worth 105 Power. You could simpy pull 10 points out of Tactics and place them in the Strength line instead and just about be equal (yes, discounting other effects like minor traits, vitality gained, etc). Now, for a traited SoR, it already has >60% uptime on the 5 stacks of Might. The heavy investment in boon duration can extend that to 100% (and you’re particular case, ever so slightly beyond). In the end, you can have 11 Stacks of might up permanently, with a few seconds of 16. TLDR: The investment in boon duration yields a permanent 105 Power and higher uptime on an additional 175 Power (with very short bursts of an additional 175 Power).
Vigor: What can I say… 100% uptime on vigor, what’s not to love? Seems like a heavy investment though.
Stability: A few extra seconds of stability could be difference between life and death, but again seems like a heavy investment.
So, I say all this from someone who has used boon duration builds and enjoyed them. I just am starting to wonder if the boon duration drug is overly addictive and lures folks in for ever more boon duration regardless of the cost.
Let me do a comparison:
- Replace all your Runes with a set Rune of Strength: You still get 20% Might duration, but gain 140 Power and 5% damage bonus. You wouldn’t quite be able to sustain double FGJ and a single SoR worth of Might, but the uptime is over 90% for both. The 140 additional Power and 5% damage bonus from the Runes should easily make this up from a damage perspective and I am quite convinced your average damage output would be greater. By giving up the 2x Water and 2x Monk Runes, you’ve lost 30% boon duration (the additional healing power is almost trivial), but as I showed above, this would really only have an impact on Vigor and Stability with a loss of 3s and 2.4s respectively.
So, I don’t mean to be negative-nelly, if you like the build, go for it. I enjoyed my boon duration builds. What is NOT discussed here is the impact to your allies as boon duration is based on the giver of the boon. So, if you’re playing with non-warriors, your build and activation of FGJ can give maintain 6 stacks of Might and have high uptime of Fury which could be very beneficial to your party. If you are playing with other warriors, the cumulative effect of stacking FGJ’s means lot of easy Might.
Bottom line, TLDR: I would say don’t worry so much about the points spent in Tactics as it unlocks traits that can be beneficial. But, at least consider a different set of Runes. I think the damage delta would be worth the loss of duration on Stability and Vigor myself.
