Guild Wars 2

Hi there

I usually play 6/5/0/0/3 when soloing, in open world or in dungeons with decent groups, or 0/5/0/6/3 (0/6/0/6/2) with PS + EA to carry bads in dungeons.

Now, so far I’ve been playing with strength runes and GS with sigil of accuracy (+7% crit chance) and sigil of Strength (might on critical hit) and I can keep 25 might up all the time with both builds.

However, I keep reading that the best set up would be sigil of night + sigil of battle on weapon and scholar runes on armor. If I decided to go this way, I would no longer be able to keep those 25 might up (maybe just 10) and I was wondering how much it was worth.

I’ve recently finished to craft my ascended armor and I have to put runes in it: I have to decide between salvaging my previous exotics with runes of strength and apply them to the new armor or get runes of scholar and sell strength’s ones.

The questions are:
1) Is that 10% dmg from night and 5% from battle worth more than 100% 25might uptime? Do you know how much 1 might stack (35power/condi) is in terms of damage %, taking into account I have full ascended berserker gear (weap, armor, trinkets) and always running 6/5/0/0/3 build? Here my build and stats
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJEQFARjMdU5ZfH2ewJaAgAx8hALuGKju2A-T1BBABVcBAwS5HAPAga2fIPdAVqzZKBDAgAczbGAczwmjBIP-w
With banner & fury I get 104% crit chance that becomes 102% when I use SoR (basically always) and 100% if I’m forced to use SoH. This is to ensure I always have 100% crit chance. Also, from some raw calculation I did, assuming that I lose 10-15 stacks of might if I give up on strength runes and strength sigil, that would amount to 350-525 power loss that, in my case, would be 13-20% of power loss. If power is directly connected to dps, that would mean 13-20% dps loss that outweighs the +15% dmg I get from night&battle sigil.

2) Are scholar runes that much of a bigger deal than strength runes? From what I could see, it’s just a 3% more damage that is not always up if your hp drops below 90%. Strength ones provide a reliable 7% AND provide you additional might stacks which translates in better damage. How much is the real difference, at the end of the day?

Thanks for your attention, hoping you can shed light on my doubts and help me avoid wasting money on runes for my new ascended armor.

EDIT: I don’t know why some sentence is underlined lol, can’t change it. Also, the link I provided isn’t fully working and doesn’t show full armor and stats: I have 2578 power, 76% crit chance and 210% critical damage

If you are running with “decent” groups might uptime should not be an issue.

If you run in a premade –
Runes: Scholar.
GS Sigils: Force + Night.
Swap Set: Night or Force + x where x can be something like energy, bloodlust etc.

If you run in PuGs or solo -
Runes: Strength.
Sigils: Battle + x where x can be energy, bloodlust, night or force.

Basically if you are in a premade you run scholar because you will always have 25 (or close to it) might, most likely provided by an ele.

In that case Scholar is better (10% damage + power + ferocity is better than 7% damage + power + a redundant might mechanic).

It is also why sigil of strength becomes redundant and why force/night is more optimal.

If you are going for maximum dps in a pug group with zero/poor might stacking or running solo, then runes of strength is a better alternative due to the might stacking and the fact that you will not always be at 90% health or more. Still even in that case I would not run sigils of strength personally.

Moreover if you are running in a premade and are running as a dps warrior you might want to consider switching to 6/6/0/2/0 and camping GS, your dps output will be larger. If pugging or solo 6/6/0/0/2 or 6/5/0/0/3 or the pug carry PS/EA build as you say are more optimal.

There were some calcs that said you need Scholar’s bonus for X% to be better than Strength runes. (someone can find the calcs)

Personally, I forgo the max personal DPS for the EA + PS with Strength Runes and Night + Strength sigils (I just run AC & CoF, so I always get the 10% bonus from Night)

If you run with a might-stacking Ele and a zerk group, PS becomes redundant – at which point I swap to a Force + Night GS and 6/6/0/0/2.

NOTE: yes, I carry 3 different Greatswords. Force + Night, Night + Strength, Slaying + Strength. I just overwrite the Slaying Sigil if I need it.

I understood about the might stacking but what about the critical chance? If I replace sigil of accuracy (7% crit chance) with sigil of force (5% dmg), I no longer have 100% critical chance.

Taking into account that I have 210% crit dmg, from my point of view it would be more favourable that I get that extra critical hit (2.1 dmg) instead of missing on that damage and get half hit. Is there any way I can calculate till which point it’s convenient to stack crit and from where it’s more convenient to go for pure damage? Once again, take into account that I have full ascended and run with 80power, 60 prec food all the time (The other food is mostly a slaying potion).

If you are running 6/6/0/2/0 (6/6/0/0/2) or 6/5/0/0/3 with full ascended zerk then force is more optimal than accuracy.

Without a sigil of accuracy if you factor in Fury your crit chance should be close to or above 100% making sigil of accuracy a bit pointless if you are running an optimal build.

If you have 100% crit rate and 210% crit damage, dropping to 93% crit rate and getting 5% total damage from force would actually improve your dps, not lower it.

Assume 100 attacks with a base damage of 100 per attack.

Set up A (accuracy sigil, 100% crit chance, 210% crit damage):
100*210 = 21000 total damage. Basically 100 critical hits.

Set up B (force sigil, 93% crit chance, 210% crit damage):
(93*210)+700 = 20230 + 5% from force = 21241.5 total damage. Here we have 93 crits, 7 standard hits and and 5% additional total damage from force.

You want to be running curry butternut squash if you are going for the optima, if you are not 100% certain about the top set up check the following link:

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/12497977-dnt-warrior-build-41514

Fenrir.3609:

If you are running 6/6/0/2/0 (6/6/0/0/2) or 6/5/0/0/3 with full ascended zerk then force is more optimal than accuracy.

Without a sigil of accuracy if you factor in Fury your crit chance should be close to or above 100% making sigil of accuracy a bit pointless if you are running an optimal build.

If you have 100% crit rate and 210% crit damage, dropping to 93% crit rate and getting 5% total damage from force would actually improve your dps, not lower it.

Assume 100 attacks with a base damage of 100 per attack.

Set up A (accuracy sigil, 100% crit chance, 210% crit damage):
100*210 = 21000 total damage. Basically 100 critical hits.

Set up B (force sigil, 93% crit chance, 210% crit damage):
(93*210)+700 = 20230 + 5% from force = 21241.5 total damage. Here we have 93 crits, 7 standard hits and and 5% additional total damage from force.

You want to be running curry butternut squash if you are going for the optima, if you are not 100% certain about the top set up check the following link:

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/12497977-dnt-warrior-build-41514

Thanks for the answer, I just wanted some numbers and didn’t really know how to make calculations, because in some other mmo it worked in another way.

Anyways, even though I am sitting on 98% crit chance, it often happens that in 7 hits, 3 are normal hits. Yeah, rng, true, but it happens too often. That 2% chance of NOT critting feels more like 30%. At the end of the day, I saw bigger HBs by sitting on 100% crit chance and -5% dmg instead of sitting on 97-98% crit chance ad +5% dmg.

I’ll keep my answer short because I don’t actually have the exact numbers you’re looking for.

First of all, I disagree with your choice in sigils mostly because of accuracy. For a warrior it’s simply not needed— even if you go force+night you’ll still be above 100% with banner+fury active.

The base crit chance for 65003 warriors (ascended berserker armor + weapons + trinkets) is 61%, so taking into account signet of fury, food nourishment, fury, BoD, and optionally deep strikes, you will be critting basically as long as you have fury, which will be for the majority of the time. Because of this, I feel you’d benefit more from force over accuracy.

As for scholar vs strength… the general rule of thumb is:
1) PUGs = strength
2) Soloing = strength
3) Organised/good teams with reliable might stacking = scholar

Scholar is the best in optimal conditions, but nowadays it’s more niche instead of being the best everywhere like it kind of was before april 15th. Ultimately it depends on what you do the most, but consider the fact that for high level FotM you need infusions to negate agony damage so if you frequently go with randoms in FotM you’ll be better off with strength runes.

By the way, it’s not only a 3% damage increase with scholar… take into account all of that ferocity that you get as well.