Firebrand Rune Choice

Hey o/

I have been playing my Firebrand with the Superior Rune of the Renegade which gives Condi damage, Ferocity, and flat 7% bonus Condi damage which is what I saw was being used on QTFY (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Renegade )But I was looking at some runes and I saw that the Superior Rune of the Beserker gives Power, Condi Damage, and a flat 5% increase to both condi & power based damage (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Berserker)Would Beserker not be a better choice considering that Firebrand still dishes out a fair amount of power based damage? I trust the people who set up the benchmarks tested this, but thought it worth asking anyway

If you are playing condi you should use Balthazar runes.

I saw that was an option but did not really like it. I am not using the healing mantra at the moment and I am using Fire Meat Chilli food + Viper gear, so I think I have enough duration.

@Thani.8569 said:If you are playing condi you should use Balthazar runes.

Balthazar Runes are meant for the Grieving/Sinister gear set-up, where you only max out burn duration, and the rest of the damage comes from power.

The reason why Renegade is superior can be seen in the build guide you were referencing, or even by your own ArcDPS tests. Using the benchmark video by qT, you can see that the top three Power damage from sources, i.e. Orb of Wrath, Symbol of Punishment, and Zealot's Fire contribute only 18.1% of the total damage, compared to 76.7% from Burning. In other words, a 5% increase to 18% is less meaningful than a 2% increase to 77%.

Granted, your DPS won't be too far apart, in the grand scheme of things, if you decide to use Berserker runes.

If you go with grieving and/or sinister, use Balthazar runes. If you go full viper's use renegade runes. You can get to 100% burning duration with:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Fire_Meat_Chili

And other shit.

Thank you for the replies. Interestingly I tried out Balthazar Runes with my Viper great and my DPS went up! buy like 2k. So I dunno, it seemed to have worked, maybe because I get to spam my heal mantra too

If you are using Viper, try

@RabbitUp.8294 said:If you are using Viper, try

, it looks to perform better than qt's.

Interting, uses Sigil of Malice rather than Bursting, and Veggie Pizza rather then Meat Chillie. Will try it out thanks!

@Omnicron.2467 said:

@RabbitUp.8294 said:If you are using Viper, try

, it looks to perform better than qt's.

You also get to use Permeating Wrath, so it's actually better against multiple targets, while the Quickfire build loses damage.

@Omnicron.2467 said:Thank you for the replies. Interestingly I tried out Balthazar Runes with my Viper great and my DPS went up! buy like 2k. So I dunno, it seemed to have worked, maybe because I get to spam my heal mantra too

If this is the case it’s due to either:1) You somehow weren’t condition duration capped during your test (not using food maybe?).Or2) You just got more lucky crits and/or happened to be more effective at pulling off the rotation.