Guild Wars 2

Hayashi.3416:

Pack > Scholar > Strength

Pack is used for crit deficient classes, scholar is used for high crit classes and strength is used for high AoE might classes. Using the wrong type for the wrong class is a DPS loss at a potentially higher cost.

I didn’t think you were right, so I did the math for Whirling Wrath using pvp zerk stats and the math supports it.

Here it is with just the spin damage, assuming no boon duration increase.
http://i.imgur.com/X8cIZop.png

Here’s the gist:
Strength runes isn’t all that great considering the options.

Scholar runes will be better if you add fury into the mix, but you need to be above 90% hp. Full health all the time without fury is still worse than Pack runes.

Pack runes give 10 second boons every 20 seconds, so I used half boon effectiveness as an average. Pack runes is better than Scholar runes even considering full health all the time and half boon effectiveness. If anyone else in your party has pack runes, you can assume full boon effectiveness which should outpace scholar drastically if you ever fall below 90% hp.

Retaliation already does 300 damage with 2k power, and is already affected by armor. I’m happy with retaliation being strong against multi hit skills, because I don’t have enough blocks for all those hits.

That said, I would like to see it reworked, or have better traits that aren’t boring % damage modifiers. It would be cool if retaliation healed you for portion of it’s damage, or if each tick of retaliation reduced the damage of the next attack you take, or if retaliation did double damage when blocking.

Runes of Strength are fine if you always pug. Every time I have a slow dungeon run, I look down at my boons and see we don’t have enough might. At the same time, I’ve never been in a group with consistent 25 stacks of might and thought that we weren’t killing stuff fast enough. I’ve always been happy with that speed and felt no need to optimise further. If we don’t have 25 stacks of might, we’re usually not killing stuff fast enough to stay above 90% hp anyways.

If you’re running with a static group, or willing to be picky about who you pug with, then scholar is better.

This thread is to discuss which of these two traits can give the best dps increase. This is very hard to do, even with a dps meter, because it depends on way too many things that can’t all be accounted for. This includes things like:
How many allies are in your stack, including pets?
How often can you stay stacked 240 units from your target?
How often will you be disabled?
How often will you be below 50% HP?
How often will you or an ally rally?
How often will you or an ally be attacked?
How often will that attack be an AoE?

With that in mind, I hope to determine the maximum dps potential for Shattered Aegis as best as I can. First, to get an idea for just how often to can apply aegis, take a look at this chart: http://i.imgur.com/lo2voY1.png

It’s only meant to be a visual representation of all possible aegis applications in a perfect scenario. The important part is the math which comes later. For now, just notice that there are two build options. One uses Zeal, Valor, and Virtues. The other uses Zeal, Valor, and Honor. Honor allows for the highest aegis application potential through protective reviver, however, it requires that you constantly revive an ally. Reviving nonstop can hardly qualify as a build, but is included for the sake of completeness. In the future I aim to update this chart with more information pertinent to Shattered Aegis, such as its effects with Wrathful Spirit, Might of the Protector, Retributive Armor, Invigorated Bulwark, Pure of Heart, and Unscathed Contender.

Here is that same information broken down mathematically, assuming the following: Berserker build with 2375 power
Every aegis inducing skill is used ASAP
Every aegis inducing skill applies the maximum allowed aegis (Communal Defenses Exception where 5 is applied)
Every aegis shatters ASAP
Every aegis hits the maximum number of targets

Virtue of Courage = 6 aegis per 65.25 seconds =
6*631*5/65.25 = 290 dps
Virtue of Courage with Courageous Return = 6 aegis per 30 seconds =
6*631*5/30 = 631 dps

Retaliatory Subconscious = 1 aegis per 30 seconds =
1*631*5/30 = 105 dps

Retreat! = 5 aegis per 40 seconds =
5*631*5/40 = 394 dps

Valorous Defense = 1 aegis per 30 seconds =
1*631*5/30 = 105 dps

Communal Defenses = 5 aegis per 15 seconds =
5*631*5/15 = 1051 dps

Add all of those up and you get 1945-2286 dps depending on how often you rally or revive, given Courageous Return. At least half of that is Communal Defenses which I only calculated affecting 5 allies. Now that we have a good idea of what to expect from Shattered Aegis under perfect conditions, we can decide whether or not it’s better than Symbolic Avenger.

Symbolic Avenger gives you 10% more damage to enemies standing in your symbols. Therefore, Shattered Aegis must be greater than 10% of your current DPS to outperform Symbolic Avenger. If the 1945-2286 dps from Shattered aegis is worth 10% of your overall dps, we see that you must already be dealing 19,450-22,860 dps for Symbolic Avenger to be equal to Shattered Aegis (under absolute perfect conditions). This is assuming you always have a symbol active, which is only possible with Hammer 1 and the Writ of Persistence trait. You can get close with with Mace 2 and the Invigorating Bulwark and Writ of Persistence traits. Otherwise, you can only hope to use a symbol once per weapon swap. Greatsword can only give you a 6 second symbol every 16 seconds. Staff can give you a 6 second symbol every 12 seconds. That 10% damage from Symbolic Avenger suddenly becomes a 5% damage increase if you only have a symbol active half of the time.

I think hands down Shattered Aegis wins in large stacks, such as open world events. Not so much world bosses however, since you often aren’t being attacked during a burn phase. As far as PvE, there is one thing I haven’t touched on yet, which is the fact that aegis is a block. Even disregarding perfect scenarios, every aegis applied (shattered or not) is less damage taken, less CC taken, less conditions endured, less healing needed, less deaths, etc. for all party members. This alone should increase dps output for your whole party.

Last but not least, Shattered Aegis is just a cool trait. How can you call yourself a Guardian if you don’t guard? This trait rewards you for going block heavy, for the sake of defending your team.

Let me know what you think, where I might have gotten something wrong, or why you prefer Symbolic Avenger.

Dom.4859:

This only works with 5+ closely packed targets, there’s no way this deserves a nerf. It would never be reproducible in any PvP capacity, and it doesn’t really matter in PvE.

It’s doable in WvW, but not so much sPvP. I tried, but there’s just too much dodging, cleanse, cc, etc. to really be reliable or even fun. Best I got was 15 stacks.

If anything should get a nerf it’s Rune of Fire and Rune of Air. This type of burst stacking is possible because both of those runes count as hits towards Virtue of Justice passive procs. With Supreme Wrath, you can trigger Virtue of Justice multiple times using a single skill. And of course this makes Permeating Wrath trigger multiple times using a single skill.

http://www.twitch.tv/p_e_z/c/6886060