Q:
Hi all!
Finally about to buy T3 cultural!
But I am very much in doubt as to what runes to use. I have a set of berserker gear with Melandru runes on them, I could transmute that set (although it already looks nice). I also have some Hoelbrak runes stashed away, so making a new zerker set with those would not be too costly. Anyway, I want to do it right, because transmutation crystals are actually quite expensive.
So I’ve been thinking about the pro’s and cons between the two. I intend to use the set in WvW (small group and solo roaming) and a little bit in PvE I guess. Builds is mostly Mace/shield+GS (0/20/20/0/30), but sometimes, for my love of a certain weapon, Hammer+GS (0/10/30/0/30).
Couple questions.
Does Melandru reduction affect Fear? Do the stun and condition duration reductions stack?
Does Melandru affect daze/knockdown?
And finally, what rune would you choose and why?
A:
First, if you decide Melandru, don’t waste your current Melandru set on a transmute, just buy a new throwaway Melandru set from the Temple of Melandru in Cursed Shore. 252,000 Karma.
>Does Melandru reduction affect Fear?
Yes, condition duration reduction applies to Fear (but not stun duration reduction, even though stun breaks break Fear).
>Do the stun and condition duration reductions stack?
No. Two different things. However, the condition duration reduction does stack with other condition duration reduction, like on Dogged March and Lemongrass Poultry Soup. Same with stun duration reduction, stacks with other stun duration reduction from other sources.
>Does Melandru affect daze/knockdown?
Not sure about this one. I want to say no b/c daze and knockdown are technically different from stuns. But never tested that, and GW2 has tons of inaccurate tooltips.
>And finally, what rune would you choose and why?
>I intend to use the set in WvW (small group and solo roaming) and a little bit in PvE I guess.
Definitely new zerker set + Hoelbrak Runes, in a WvW/zerker version of the PvP Skull Cracker build. Use that for solo/small group, and then the standard 30/0/0/10/30 for PvE (won’t be quite as damaging as full Scholar Runes, but close enough). Then transmute the Zerker/Melandru set to something more zerg-worthy. That’ll cover all your bases.
(edited by kurtosis.9526)
Dude, thanks for the great answer and handy advice!
The Melandru karma thing, never thought about it.
About the condi and stun reduction stacking, I know they generally don’t. I just remember somebody, I think it was Defektive, posting about one month ago that regarding fear, they actually did stack. I might do some testing later on to make sure.
I’ll test dazes and knockdowns also.
Again, thanks!
Interesting, they’re not supposed to stack according to the wiki, but sometimes ANet’s patches change things in subtle ways, so maybe they do now.
But overall I find Melandru Runes + Dogged March + Lemongrass Poultry Soup + 2x Stun Break Utilities + Mobile Strikes + Hammer/GS or Hammer/Sw/WH to be unCC’able and highly resistant to condition spam in zerg battles, regardless of such nuances.
Also, fwiw, if you’re buying a new gear set primarily for WvW, full zerker is not the only choice, even for small group roaming.
There are certain pieces of gear that are optimal for Crit Damage, and the rest aren’t:
All Ascended trinkets
Exotic Amulet/Earrings
Exotic trinket gem slots
Shoulder/Glove/Boot Armor
1H Weapons
For roaming you can put together a more survivable build than pure Zerkers, which focuses your gear stats on Power/Crit Damage/Vitality/Toughness, and then gets its Crit Chance from traits like Unsuspecting Foe and Heightened Focus, and Fury.
The benefit vs full Zerker is significantly more survivability but wth similar damage against stunnable enemies – players, trash mobs, veterans. The drawback is lower damage vs non-stunnable enemies like Champions, dungeon bosses, players with Stability or Invuln.
So it won’t get you into any full Zerker dungeon speed runs, if that’s something you care about, but is more forgiving in any content, and potent against anything stunnable.
PS – the way Unsuspecting Foe works is pretty cool – any stunning ability that also damages, like Earthshaker and Skull Crack, apply their stun first then their damage. So their damage is buffed by anything that applies to a stunned target – UF in this case. So any Earthshaker or Skull Crack against a stunnable target automatically gets 50% Crit Chance.
Again, good advice. I’ve already put together the gear set I want, which gives me 100% crit chance if fury is up and my target is stunned (so 30% base). All other slots go to cavalier. I do wish to have maximum crit damage, and with my set-up I will have 3200 attack, 30% base crit chance, 3k armor, base vit and 100% crit damage.
I sure would like cavalier armor to be available other then a lucky fractal drop… Just not a viable option to farm it.
I don’t slot vitality on my warrior, as i feel it is kind of a waste with such huge base HP. 19k HP (often 20 due to WvW bonusses) is enough for me, especially given our reasonable cleansing options.
I think I will wait till the next balance patch to see if they don’t decide to destroy warriors again due to all the QQing. If not, then I’ve made up my mind.
Thanks for the feedback!
Also, fwiw, if you’re buying a new gear set primarily for WvW, full zerker is not the only choice, even for small group roaming.
There are certain pieces of gear that are optimal for Crit Damage, and the rest aren’t:
All Ascended trinkets
Exotic Amulet/Earrings
Exotic trinket gem slots
Shoulder/Glove/Boot Armor
1H Weapons
Could you explain that in more detail? If I understood it the right way, one should boost crt DMG only on shoulder/gloves/boots OR on ascended trinkets?
So Cavalier and Berserker parts should be slotted here?
The idea behind it is that trinkets and gloves/boots/shoulders give you the highest return in crit damage compared to raw stats. For instance, if you get soldiers gloves, you get 24 toughness and vitality. If you change that to valkyrie, you get 24 vitality and 2% crit damage, effectively giving you 1% crit damage for every 12 toughness you lose.
Now look at your helmet for comparison. That gives you only 1% crit damage per 16 raw stat invested! You can maximize stat gain like this if you want to create a more balanced build.
Oh. My. God. I should have remembered the temple armor "-.- I just sold all of my superior siege today to buy melandru runes for my GS burst set…
Could you explain that in more detail? If I understood it the right way, one should boost crt DMG only on shoulder/gloves/boots OR on ascended trinkets?
No, both shoulders/gloves/boots AND ascended trinkets… AND everything else in that list should have Crit Damage on it.
Doesn’t matter if it’s Berserker, Valkyrie, or Cavalier, as long as it has the max possible Crit Damage (eg, not Celestial which only has partial Crit Damage).
Everything not on that list should have non-Crit Damage pieces, be it Soldiers, Knights, Sentinels, etc.
The idea behind it is that trinkets and gloves/boots/shoulders give you the highest return in crit damage compared to raw stats. For instance, if you get soldiers gloves, you get 24 toughness and vitality. If you change that to valkyrie, you get 24 vitality and 2% crit damage, effectively giving you 1% crit damage for every 12 toughness you lose.
Now look at your helmet for comparison. That gives you only 1% crit damage per 16 raw stat invested! You can maximize stat gain like this if you want to create a more balanced build.
Exactly. Here’s all the the theorycrafting on that I’ve bookmarked, for anyone who wants the details:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/18q7oe/not_all_slots_are_created_equal_dos_and_donts_of/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/18voh7/a_long_painful_analysis_of_effective_power/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/12dmi5/tip_stat_optimization_with_crit_damage/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/18xcr7/a_question_of_stat_optimization_power_precision/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/115mln/power_vs_precision_vs_critical_damage_what_do_we/
(edited by kurtosis.9526)
Again, good advice. I’ve already put together the gear set I want, which gives me 100% crit chance if fury is up and my target is stunned (so 30% base). All other slots go to cavalier. I do wish to have maximum crit damage, and with my set-up I will have 3200 attack, 30% base crit chance, 3k armor, base vit and 100% crit damage.
I sure would like cavalier armor to be available other then a lucky fractal drop… Just not a viable option to farm it.
I don’t slot vitality on my warrior, as i feel it is kind of a waste with such huge base HP. 19k HP (often 20 due to WvW bonusses) is enough for me, especially given our reasonable cleansing options.
I think I will wait till the next balance patch to see if they don’t decide to destroy warriors again due to all the QQing. If not, then I’ve made up my mind.
Thanks for the feedback!
Sounds good! You really only need to max Health too if you want to fight in big zerg battles, which it sounds like isn’t a priority for you, so focusing more on Precision is fine. Having a base of 30% Crit Chance instead of 9% means you don’t need Heightened Focus and can get Burst Mastery or something else there instead.
Oh. My. God. I should have remembered the temple armor "-.- I just sold all of my superior siege today to buy melandru runes for my GS burst set…
Tell me about it, hate it when something like that happens. If it makes you feel any better, at least you didn’t waste 50 laurels on the wrong Ascended pieces…
Not affiliated with ArenaNet or NCSOFT. No support is provided.
All assets, page layout, visual style belong to ArenaNet and are used solely to replicate the original design and preserve the original look and feel.
Contact /u/e-scrape-artist on reddit if you encounter a bug.