Jump to content
  • Sign Up

I'd like to see better rune diversity


Recommended Posts

Particularly for power builds. Nothing competes well with Scholar. In fact I'm not even sure scholar would lose out to say eagle or Ogre if you didn't have 100% uptime on the damage bonus: Ogre's doesn't give a good bonus outside the 4% bonus and Eagle's lacks power - power is still way more valuable than precision in most cases. Eagle's is very situational as it's possible to overcap crit depending on the gear setup (some power builds already feature some assasin's making the precision less valuable). There's not really anything else that gives the huge bonuses that scholar does at tier 6 and always gives probably the best stats for power dps - power and ferocity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's all Scholar is, a raw damage boost. Fireworks with my traits gives me 100% vigor uptime. 5% damage doesn't mean anything if you're lying on the ground.

@Firebeard.1746 said:Eagle's lacks powerAnd its incredibly affordable by comparison. For the price its a great damage boost. It's almost like not everything is equal and everything has a place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Firebeard.1746 said:Particularly for power builds. Nothing competes well with Scholar. In fact I'm not even sure scholar would lose out to say eagle or Ogre if you didn't have 100% uptime on the damage bonus: Ogre's doesn't give a good bonus outside the 4% bonus and Eagle's lacks power - power is still way more valuable than precision in most cases. Eagle's is very situational as it's possible to overcap crit depending on the gear setup (some power builds already feature some assasin's making the precision less valuable). There's not really anything else that gives the huge bonuses that scholar does at tier 6 and always gives probably the best stats for power dps - power and ferocity.

Scholar are not meta for all classes. Berserker uses thief, chrono eagle without spotter, weaver flame legion and a couple more builds exist aswell. Precision > power below critcap. you would never use assassins if this wouldnt be the case.Strength runes are also very good in solo situations. dont underestimate the might duration.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@XenoSpyro.1780 said:That's all Scholar is, a raw damage boost. Fireworks with my traits gives me 100% vigor uptime. 5% damage doesn't mean anything if you're lying on the ground.

The damage bonus from scholar is 15% from ferocity if you are crit capped (100% crit chance) even without the +5% > 90% health bonus.


All that needs to happen is lowered >90% health damage bonus on scholar's. It was shaved from 10% but then 125 ferocity was added to it (which is 8.3% if at crit cap) which made zero sense to me.

The only time you would not use scholar is if you can use thief runes. It isn't practical in fractals when you have AR to supplement precision. Likewise eagle runes have only 50% uptime on the 10% bonus unless it's trash mobs.

Some of the prevalent power runes that might have seen use if the bonuses were more even:

  • Spellbreaker (175 power, flat 7% vs boonless and also 100 precision) --- when you run power chronos boons are more or less nonexistent unless they are reapplied constantly
  • Eagle (175 precision, 225 ferocity = 15% crit, 10% damage bonus vs <50% health)
  • Golemancer (300 ferocity , 100 precision ... no damage bonus) --- this should not be improved as it is a dungeon rune I think
  • Mesmer (175 power, 100 precision, 10% damage bonus vs dazed)
  • Thief (300 precision, 100 condition damage, 10% flanking bonus) --- this only became relevant after the extra 125 precision was added as 6th bonus
  • Flame legion (175 power, burning modifier relevant for guardians since it's more or less 7% damage bonus always)
  • Strength (175 power, 5% damage bonus under might) --- this could be a little more generous given it has no ferocity bonus
  • Ogre (175 power, 100 ferocity = ~6.7% crit , 4% flat damage bonus without conditional)
  • Infiltration (175 power, 100 precision, 10% damage bonus vs <50% health) --- similar to eagle rune
  • Pack (175 power, 125 precision , but lack of damage bonus makes it iffy for group scenarios and fractals)
  • Deadeye (175 power, 100 ferocity and a semi-useless 6th bonus)
  • Dragonhunter (175 ferocity, 100 power)
  • Rage (175 ferocity, 5% damage bonus) --- needs help
  • Divinity , for reference is +78 to all stats and a flat 10% health bonus (of those stats only three matter: power , precision, and ferocity for a total of 234 total stats added)

For example on power soulbeast if you punch it through the snowcrows calculator with spotter+banner+ assassin's presence (no empower allies), where they don't mention quickness or 25 vulnerability:

! 24.5K scholar with health bonus! 23.5K eagle rune 50% uptime! 23.4K thief rune (flanking)! 23.4K scholar without health bonus! 22.7K golemancer rune or mesmer rune with 20% daze uptime

It's a similar scenario if you run it through discretize's calculator with 150AR assuming standard buffs , slaying potion , force + impact sigils using marksmanship instead of skirmishing:

! ~3.67K Scholar with active bonus (effective power 37,605)! ~3.64K Spellbreaker (effective power 37,364)! ~3.63K Eagle , only versus <50% targets (effective power ~37,261)! ~3.62K Thief (effective power 37,116)! ~3.55K Flame Legion (effective power ~36,438)! ~3.53K Ogre (effective power ~36,230)! ~3.5K Scholar without active bonus (effective power ~35,815)! ~3.5K Strength (effective power ~35,757)! ~3.42K Pack (effective power ~35,134)

With the soulbeast raid build (skirmishing variant) in discretize:

! ~3.56K Scholar with bonus (effective power ~36,476)! ~3.45K spellbreaker / Flame Legion! ~3.43K Ogre! ~3.4K Eagle! ~3.39K Scholar without bonus (effective power ~34,739)! ~3.39K Strength! ~3.2K Pack

Put Berserker through discretize calculator with the minimum 150AR (ideally you want more for warriors that need precision):

! Thief: 4.93K , assuming you can flank! Eagle with bonus: 4.92K , only versus <50% targets! Scholar with bonus: 4.92K! Spellbreaker: 4.87K! Flame Legion: 4.77K! Ogre: ~4.74K! Scholar without bonus: ~4.69K! Strength: ~4.68K! Pack: ~4.6K

Power DH's discretize results:

! Scholar with bonus: 3.68K! Spellbreaker: 3.6K! Eagle: 3.59K! Thief: 3.54K! Flame Legion: 3.53K , not factoring in burn duration! Ogre: 3.53K! Scholar without bonus: 3.5K! Strength: ~3.47K! Pack: ~3.37K! Exuberance: ~3.27K

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What are all these changes supposed to achieve?

There will nearly always be a "best to use" rune for a specific purpose. In case of power damage while crit capped it's scholar for most classes even with some benefits versus some select other runes. There are specific cases where certain runes are better than scholar, most often related to achieving the crit cap, in other cases this is achieved via assassins gear over berserker.

Nerf scholar and all that will happen is that a different rune will take its place as "best to use for power damage when crit capped". It's nearly impossible to achieve perfect balance to make multiple runes equally desirable unless you give them the exact same stats and make the 6 piece bonus irrelevant in all scenarios (because perfectly balancing this bonus would be impossible).

Instead of nerfing scholar they should rather add 1 or 2 more rune sets which have the same baseline stats bonuses (Power and Ferocity) which would not achieve a diversion from having a best in slot rune, but would open up some variety for players who want non perfect alternatives (or even adequate alternatives for not <90% hitpoints).

Then there is the issue of reaching the crit cap. If runes with precision were buffed, you eventually phase out assassins gear, one of the few gear combinations which some classes use next to berserker. Which would then again lead to complaints about lack of stat diversity on gear.

Perfect balance is not needed for runes and sigils though imo. Why? Because PvE is not the only game mode in this game and not every rune/sigil has to be made desirable for PvE. We already have imperfect balance for PvE which is fine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Infusion.7149 said:Nice effort but you made quite a lot of errors. In fact the slb build without scholar has higher effective power than the scholar one. Scholar takes skirmishing while thief rune build takes marksmanship. Obviously using a rune with precision does nothing on an already critcapped build.15% critical dmg are NOT 15% dmg. the 8.3 critdamage from 6th bonus translate to ~4% or less total damage. Closer to 3% for high ferocity builds. There will always be one best offensive rune. The difference between them is way smaller than you think. Ferocity is the weakest stat of the 3 offensive power ones. Other runes are stronger as soon as a build needs a lot of precision. Thief runes 6th bonus is far stronger than scholars bonus. Its just the random condition dmg that makes them not best in slot for everyone.Scholar runes were uncontested meta years ago with the 10% dmg mod while above 90% health. there are a lot of competetive options now and scholar is not in all cases optimal. Fractals are an outlier because you just fix low critchance with more ar instead of using another rune with precision.Also even on critcapped builds flame legion pulls ahead for fresh air weaver and you always have to factor in the 5% scholar bonus. burning will have a 100% uptime, your health threshold wont.In fact strength 6th bonus was 7% at first but it got nerfed because it was too strong compared to other runes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Nice effort but you made quite a lot of errors. In fact the slb build without scholar has higher effective power than the scholar one. Scholar takes skirmishing while thief rune build takes marksmanship. Obviously using a rune with precision does nothing on an already critcapped build.15% critical dmg are NOT 15% dmg. the 8.3 critdamage from 6th bonus translate to ~4% or less total damage. Closer to 3% for high ferocity builds. There will always be one best offensive rune. The difference between them is way smaller than you think. Ferocity is the weakest stat of the 3 offensive power ones. Other runes are stronger as soon as a build needs a lot of precision. Thief runes 6th bonus is far stronger than scholars bonus. Its just the random condition dmg that makes them not best in slot for everyone.Scholar runes were uncontested meta years ago with the 10% dmg mod while above 90% health. there are a lot of competetive options now and scholar is not in all cases optimal. Fractals are an outlier because you just fix low critchance with more ar instead of using another rune with precision.Also even on critcapped builds flame legion pulls ahead for fresh air weaver and you always have to factor in the 5% scholar bonus. burning will have a 100% uptime, your health threshold wont.In fact strength 6th bonus was 7% at first but it got nerfed because it was too strong compared to other runes.

If I made "a lot of errors" feel free to replicate it. There's quite a bit of conjecture here rather than hard numbers.

https://old.discretize.eu/https://snowcrows.com/gearoptimizer/

The old scholar rune without the 10% health bonus is the same as deadeye rune basically or ogre with 10% conditional instead of 4% flat bonus with ~500dps on top from the rock dog. The 8.3% from ferocity is tacked on via distributive law of mathematics so the lower your scholar uptime is the better the current iteration is. All damage multipliers compound off it. You'd see lower damage on just about every build while the damage with the bonus was a bit higher (to the tune of 1% for Power DH , closer to 2% for Power BS and Soulbeast).

Strength runes were not reworked in the 2018 rune patch, they were reverted from 7% to 5% after a brief time of several months at 7% bonus in 2014.

Right now in WvW you're more likely to see scholar rune on a power damage character than any other rune. So this idea that it isn't used in WvW is false. The only time it isn't used is if people are trying to build in toughness then durability, trooper , or monk runes for supports are used. That's not counting fringe tactics such as speed runes on everyone with swiftness or a full squad using golemancer runes.

For a while "primarily fire" staff weavers that used Pyromancer's Puissance ran the Strength rune but after the changes to the trait to benefit PvE it is highly unlikely to re-emerge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I, in no way want Scholar's nerfed, I just want there to be more options, especially for people with trust issues XD. All of the situations mentioned here are not status quo, most of the time, on a zerker's set, you want Scholar, I'm fine that there's edge cases, but it's not like there's a real choice, if you're being optimal, for most power builds, the option is basically scholar's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Infusion.7149 said:Nice effort but you made quite a lot of errors. In fact the slb build without scholar has higher effective power than the scholar one. Scholar takes skirmishing while thief rune build takes marksmanship. Obviously using a rune with precision does nothing on an already critcapped build.15% critical dmg are NOT 15% dmg. the 8.3 critdamage from 6th bonus translate to ~4% or less total damage. Closer to 3% for high ferocity builds. There will always be one best offensive rune. The difference between them is way smaller than you think. Ferocity is the weakest stat of the 3 offensive power ones. Other runes are stronger as soon as a build needs a lot of precision. Thief runes 6th bonus is far stronger than scholars bonus. Its just the random condition dmg that makes them not best in slot for everyone.Scholar runes were uncontested meta years ago with the 10% dmg mod while above 90% health. there are a lot of competetive options now and scholar is not in all cases optimal. Fractals are an outlier because you just fix low critchance with more ar instead of using another rune with precision.Also even on critcapped builds flame legion pulls ahead for fresh air weaver and you always have to factor in the 5% scholar bonus. burning will have a 100% uptime, your health threshold wont.In fact strength 6th bonus was 7% at first but it got nerfed because it was too strong compared to other runes.

Ferocity is not WEAKER, 15 ferocity = 1% crit damage. Past I think 75% crit you'd be even with precision which is 22-21 for 1%. It gets even more cheap per point of damage the higher your precision goes/if you have fury uptime. Also, it's uncapped. Crit caps. They're both necessary but I don't think your reasoning is correct. These numbers are estimates, but the idea holds, if you math it out, ferocity easily starts beating precision at certain breakpoints. Granted, the higher one goes, the more the valuable the other becomes. But there's also a boon (fury) that increases crit, no gear required, making ferocity even more attractive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Firebeard.1746 said:I, in no way want Scholar's nerfed, I just want there to be more options, especially for people with trust issues XD. All of the situations mentioned here are not status quo, most of the time, on a zerker's set, you want Scholar, I'm fine that there's edge cases, but it's not like there's a real choice, if you're being optimal, for most power builds, the option is basically scholar's.

Can you elaborate on how these alternatives to scholar runes should function? Do you want to see more rune sets with power and ferocity as well as some sort of conditional damage modifier? Should runes with power and precision or precision and ferocity simply give more of those stats? Is the profession you are playing supposed to influence which runes are among the more optimal choices?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Infusion.7149 said:Nice effort but you made quite a lot of errors. In fact the slb build without scholar has higher effective power than the scholar one. Scholar takes skirmishing while thief rune build takes marksmanship. Obviously using a rune with precision does nothing on an already critcapped build.15% critical dmg are NOT 15% dmg. the 8.3 critdamage from 6th bonus translate to ~4% or less total damage. Closer to 3% for high ferocity builds. There will always be one best offensive rune. The difference between them is way smaller than you think. Ferocity is the weakest stat of the 3 offensive power ones. Other runes are stronger as soon as a build needs a lot of precision. Thief runes 6th bonus is far stronger than scholars bonus. Its just the random condition dmg that makes them not best in slot for everyone.Scholar runes were uncontested meta years ago with the 10% dmg mod while above 90% health. there are a lot of competetive options now and scholar is not in all cases optimal. Fractals are an outlier because you just fix low critchance with more ar instead of using another rune with precision.Also even on critcapped builds flame legion pulls ahead for fresh air weaver and you always have to factor in the 5% scholar bonus. burning will have a 100% uptime, your health threshold wont.In fact strength 6th bonus was 7% at first but it got nerfed because it was too strong compared to other runes.

Ferocity is not WEAKER, 15 ferocity = 1% crit damage. Past I think 75% crit you'd be even with precision which is 22-21 for 1%. It gets even more cheap per point of damage the higher your precision goes/if you have fury uptime. Also, it's uncapped. Crit caps. They're both necessary but I don't think your reasoning is correct. These numbers are estimates, but the idea holds, if you math it out, ferocity easily starts beating precision at certain breakpoints. Granted, the higher one goes, the more the valuable the other becomes. But there's also a boon (fury) that increases crit, no gear required, making ferocity even more attractive.

I just calculated it for holo which has low ferocity. At an artificial 99% crit the statweight is precision > power > ferocity.At 100% its power > ferocity. The difference is a lot bigger for high ferocity builds aswell.You need low ferocity or close to unobtainable power levels to reach the ferocity > power situation. Bloodlust + writs + ea would bring you there but thats not very realistic. Even then the difference would be extremely small and ap would immediately swing it in another direction. And i made this for holo which gets only 350 ferocity from traits.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Firebeard.1746" said:I, in no way want Scholar's nerfed, I just want there to be more options, especially for people with trust issues XD. All of the situations mentioned here are not status quo, most of the time, on a zerker's set, you want Scholar, I'm fine that there's edge cases, but it's not like there's a real choice, if you're being optimal, for most power builds, the option is basically scholar's.

It does not matter if you want scholar nerfed or other runes "buffed" or changed or whatever.The fact will remain that unless runes/sigils are absolutely identical in their benefit to a specific role, there will not be balance. Sure, the differences can be made smaller, but perfect balance is near impossible.

If you are being optimal, you will always gravitate to 1 rune set for a specific task. If it is not scholar, it will be a different rune set. The current situation which we have is close to what I described: we have almost as good rune sets, some even better than scholar in specific situations for specific classes, but in most cases scholar is on top because it gives the most benefit (if players are above 90% life which somehow keeps getting forgotten here and which I can guarantee many will not be consistently outside of golem benchmarks). That is without just copy pasting the scholar stat bonuses and altering the 6 piece bonus a bit.

So again, besides introducing a bloat of near identical rune sets, how exactly is this meaningful choice supposed to get introduced?

You have options to scholar right now. You simply dislike the trade-off amount which you have to suffer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Because people keep reiterating tired points without numbers, here's what you get with discretize's calculator set to 0AR and no infinite potion (i.e. no fractal potion contributions):Spotter , banner, and sigil of force+impact are used with fruitcake / superior sharpening stone and bane signet is unchecked because not every group is running DH. Starting with all specs of warrior because it's a special case where Thief rune is the defacto standard outside of fractals. Also by using Ogre rune and normalizing for the bonus scholar rune used to have we can compare versus the pre-change scholar rune.

Power BS in berserk mode , 0AR aka raid scenario with spotter not bane signet , 3% on impact sigil

! Thief 3582! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 3568! Eagle 3507! Scholar w/ bonus 3507! Spellbreaker 3466! Flame Legion 3386! Ogre 3373! Eagle , 50% uptime 3348! Scholar w/o bonus 3340! Strength 3323! Pack 3257! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 3243

Power BS not in berserk mode,

! Thief Rune 2679! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2664! Eagle 2622! Scholar w/ bonus 2622! Spellbreaker 2590! Flame Legion 2526! Ogre 2519! Eagle , 50% uptime 2503! Scholar w/o bonus 2497! Strength 2479! Pack 2435! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2422

Spellbreaker (magebane+ Pure Strike)

! Thief 3230! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 3215! Eagle 3169! Scholar w/ bonus 3169! Spellbreaker 3123! Flame Legion 3046! Ogre 3040! Eagle, 50% uptime 3025! Scholar w/o bonus 3018! Strength 2990! Pack 2937! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2933

Core warrior (leg specialist)

! Thief 2757! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2743! Eagle 2703! Scholar w/ bonus 2703! Spellbreaker 2665! Flame Legion 2600! Ogre 2594! Eagle , 50% uptime 2580! Scholar w/o bonus 2575! Strength 2551! Pack 2506! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2494

Soulbeast - marksmanship

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2630! Thief 2629! Scholar 2586! Eagle 2585! Spellbreaker 2564! Ogre 2487! Eagle, 50% uptime 2568! Scholar w/o bonus 2463! Strength 2450! Pack 2412! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2391

Soulbeast - skirmishing

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2705! Scholar w/ bonus 2655! Spellbreaker 2572! Ogre 2557! Eagle 2542! Thief 2533! Scholar w/o bonus 2528! Strength 2522! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2459! Eagle, 50% uptime 2427! Pack 2405! Exuberance 2346

Power DH

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2627! Scholar w/ bonus 2596! Eagle 2596! Thief 2575! Spellbreaker 2550! Flame Legion 2484! Ogre 2484! Eagle, 50% uptime 2478! Scholar w/o bonus 2472! Strength 2438! Pack 2398! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2388! Exuberance 2300

Power Chrono - no danger time

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2073! Thief 2002! Scholar w/ bonus 1960! Eagle 1960! Spellbreaker 1933! Flame Legion 1875! Ogre 1875! Eagle, 50% uptime 1871! Scholar w/o bonus 1867! Strength 1840! Pack 1820! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 1803

Power Chrono - with danger time

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2388! Scholar w/ bonus 2360! Spellbreaker 2321! Eagle 2310! Thief 2275! Flame Legion 2258! Ogre 2258! Eagle, 50% uptime 2205! Scholar w/o bonus 2248! Strength 2215! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2171! Pack 2170

Power weaver - Bolt to the Heart w/ Superior Elements

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2647! Scholar w/ bonus 2612! Eagle 2555! Spellbreaker 2552! Thief 2528! Flame Legion 2506! Ogre 2503! Eagle, 50% uptime 2439! Scholar w/o bonus 2487! Strength 2459! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2407! Pack 2387! Exuberance 2327

Power tempest - fresh air , signet of fire equipped

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 1825! Thief 1813! Scholar with accuracy sigil 1813! Scholar 1795! Eagle 1795! Spellbreaker 1782! Ogre with accuracy sigil 1742! Ogre 1725! Strength with accuracy sigil 1716! Strength 1699! Pack 1677! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 1658! Exuberance 1600

There's no need to powercreep everything else when Scholar rune bonus can simply be toned down. Even without the health bonus it is high performing and within margin to Ogre rune (which is basically scholar rune +4% before the 2018 rebalance) and unlike other runes, it also has an effect on WvW. You can't flank or remove every boon in WvW all the time but with scrappers and minstrel firebrands in your squad you can definitely maintain high uptime on scholar's.

For holosmith, if you're in any form of PVE party at all (this is the fractal/raid/strike forum, right?) with a banner from warriors there will never be a scenario where you want precision. I don't know where that notion came about. Berserker's in full ascended is 50.76% crit chance, +20% from fury, +15% from High caliber, +4.76% from banner (100 precision / 21 precision per %), +10% from Hematic Focus vs bleeding (which you generate even if nobody else does), is already 100% crit chance. Don't need a calculator to optimize that when there's absolutely no need for it. The same holds true for power daredevil running signet of agility (180 precision).

Also, unless your revenant is falling asleep and/or running Swift Termination over Dance of Death the scholar uptime will naturally be high. Boon herald runs roiling mists which makes fury count for 40% crit chance , meaning you are at 90% crit chance while running full berserker's. Unlike renegade which loses a chunk of crit chance while dodging, that also applies to WvW.

This is unlike power reaper where you could argue when it isn't in shroud then you need precision. However, if you're playing power reaper you're already putting yourself at a severe disadvantage from the beginning and all your heal classes will hate you because of how shroud works.

The net effect of shaving down scholar rune would be also shaving down any large DPS differences between DPS classes that use it (i.e. everything not a warrior).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@"Firebeard.1746" said:I, in no way want Scholar's nerfed, I just want there to be more options, especially for people with trust issues XD. All of the situations mentioned here are not status quo, most of the time, on a zerker's set, you want Scholar, I'm fine that there's edge cases, but it's not like there's a real choice, if you're being optimal, for most power builds, the option is basically scholar's.

It does not matter if you want scholar nerfed or other runes "buffed" or changed or whatever.The fact will remain that unless runes/sigils are absolutely identical in their benefit to a specific role, there will not be balance. Sure, the differences can be made smaller, but perfect balance is near impossible.

If you are being optimal, you will always gravitate to 1 rune set for a specific task. If it is not scholar, it will be a different rune set. The current situation which we have is close to what I described: we have almost as good rune sets, some even better than scholar in specific situations for specific classes, but in most cases scholar is on top because it gives the most benefit (if players are above 90% life which somehow keeps getting forgotten here and which I can guarantee many will not be consistently outside of golem benchmarks). That is without just copy pasting the scholar stat bonuses and altering the 6 piece bonus a bit.

So again, besides introducing a bloat of near identical rune sets, how exactly is this meaningful choice supposed to get introduced?

You have options to scholar right now. You simply dislike the trade-off amount which you have to suffer.

My premise was not to make them the same, I said "nothing competes well with Scholar's"

I understand this will always be the case, but the stat/damage differences are just too big rn imo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Infusion.7149 said:Because people keep reiterating tired points without numbers, here's what you get with discretize's calculator set to 0AR and no infinite potion (i.e. no fractal potion contributions):Spotter , banner, and sigil of force+impact are used with fruitcake / superior sharpening stone and bane signet is unchecked because not every group is running DH. Starting with all specs of warrior because it's a special case where Thief rune is the defacto standard outside of fractals. Also by using Ogre rune and normalizing for the bonus scholar rune used to have we can compare versus the pre-change scholar rune.

Power BS in berserk mode , 0AR aka raid scenario with spotter not bane signet , 3% on impact sigil

! Thief 3582! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 3568! Eagle 3507! Scholar w/ bonus 3507! Spellbreaker 3466! Flame Legion 3386! Ogre 3373! Eagle , 50% uptime 3348! Scholar w/o bonus 3340! Strength 3323! Pack 3257! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 3243

Power BS not in berserk mode,

! Thief Rune 2679! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2664! Eagle 2622! Scholar w/ bonus 2622! Spellbreaker 2590! Flame Legion 2526! Ogre 2519! Eagle , 50% uptime 2503! Scholar w/o bonus 2497! Strength 2479! Pack 2435! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2422

Spellbreaker (magebane+ Pure Strike)

! Thief 3230! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 3215! Eagle 3169! Scholar w/ bonus 3169! Spellbreaker 3123! Flame Legion 3046! Ogre 3040! Eagle, 50% uptime 3025! Scholar w/o bonus 3018! Strength 2990! Pack 2937! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2933

Core warrior (leg specialist)

! Thief 2757! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2743! Eagle 2703! Scholar w/ bonus 2703! Spellbreaker 2665! Flame Legion 2600! Ogre 2594! Eagle , 50% uptime 2580! Scholar w/o bonus 2575! Strength 2551! Pack 2506! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2494

Soulbeast - marksmanship

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2630! Thief 2629! Scholar 2586! Eagle 2585! Spellbreaker 2564! Ogre 2487! Eagle, 50% uptime 2568! Scholar w/o bonus 2463! Strength 2450! Pack 2412! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2391

Soulbeast - skirmishing

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2705! Scholar w/ bonus 2655! Spellbreaker 2572! Ogre 2557! Eagle 2542! Thief 2533! Scholar w/o bonus 2528! Strength 2522! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2459! Eagle, 50% uptime 2427! Pack 2405! Exuberance 2346

Power DH

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2627! Scholar w/ bonus 2596! Eagle 2596! Thief 2575! Spellbreaker 2550! Flame Legion 2484! Ogre 2484! Eagle, 50% uptime 2478! Scholar w/o bonus 2472! Strength 2438! Pack 2398! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2388! Exuberance 2300

Power Chrono - no danger time

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2073! Thief 2002! Scholar w/ bonus 1960! Eagle 1960! Spellbreaker 1933! Flame Legion 1875! Ogre 1875! Eagle, 50% uptime 1871! Scholar w/o bonus 1867! Strength 1840! Pack 1820! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 1803

Power Chrono - with danger time

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2388! Scholar w/ bonus 2360! Spellbreaker 2321! Eagle 2310! Thief 2275! Flame Legion 2258! Ogre 2258! Eagle, 50% uptime 2205! Scholar w/o bonus 2248! Strength 2215! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2171! Pack 2170

Power weaver - Bolt to the Heart w/ Superior Elements

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2647! Scholar w/ bonus 2612! Eagle 2555! Spellbreaker 2552! Thief 2528! Flame Legion 2506! Ogre 2503! Eagle, 50% uptime 2439! Scholar w/o bonus 2487! Strength 2459! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2407! Pack 2387! Exuberance 2327

Power tempest - fresh air , signet of fire equipped

! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 1825! Thief 1813! Scholar with accuracy sigil 1813! Scholar 1795! Eagle 1795! Spellbreaker 1782! Ogre with accuracy sigil 1742! Ogre 1725! Strength with accuracy sigil 1716! Strength 1699! Pack 1677! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 1658! Exuberance 1600

There's no need to powercreep everything else when Scholar rune bonus can simply be toned down. Even without the health bonus it is high performing and within margin to Ogre rune (which is basically scholar rune +4% before the 2018 rebalance) and unlike other runes, it also has an effect on WvW. You can't flank or remove every boon in WvW all the time but with scrappers and minstrel firebrands in your squad you can definitely maintain high uptime on scholar's.

For holosmith, if you're in any form of PVE party at all (this is the fractal/raid/strike forum, right?) with a banner from warriors there will never be a scenario where you want precision. I don't know where that notion came about. Berserker's in full ascended is 50.76% crit chance, +20% from fury, +15% from High caliber, +4.76% from banner (100 precision / 21 precision per %), +10% from Hematic Focus vs bleeding (which you generate even if nobody else does), is already 100% crit chance. Don't need a calculator to optimize that when there's absolutely no need for it. The same holds true for power daredevil running signet of agility (180 precision).

Also, unless your revenant is falling asleep and/or running
Swift Termination
over
Dance of Death
the scholar uptime will naturally be high. Boon herald runs roiling mists which makes fury count for 40% crit chance , meaning you are at 90% crit chance while running full berserker's. Unlike renegade which loses a chunk of crit chance while dodging, that also applies to WvW.

This is unlike power reaper where you could argue when it isn't in shroud then you need precision. However, if you're playing power reaper you're already putting yourself at a severe disadvantage from the beginning and all your heal classes will hate you because of how shroud works.

The net effect of shaving down scholar rune would be also shaving down any large DPS differences between DPS classes that use it (i.e. everything not a warrior).

You tell people barely clearing content that they're doing worse now because of your sensibilities. The high-end PVE in this game is hard enough without nerfing some of the meta tools for it. If they are nerfing scholar's they need to nerf every boss/encounter in the game accordingly.

Also, just as a bit of clarification: The thief numbers are assuming 100% flanking uptime, correct? That bonus, if halved to match scholar doesn't compete. Just pointing it out to the person trying to tell me that precision is stronger. It's not. The popular precision runes just have good 6-tier bonuses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Firebeard.1746 said:You tell people barely clearing content that they're doing worse now because of your sensibilities. The high-end PVE in this game is hard enough without nerfing some of the meta tools for it. If they are nerfing scholar's they need to nerf every boss/encounter in the game accordingly.

Also, just as a bit of clarification: The thief numbers are assuming 100% flanking uptime, correct? That bonus, if halved to match scholar doesn't compete. Just pointing it out to the person trying to tell me that precision is stronger. It's not. The popular precision runes just have good 6-tier bonuses.

If you want more rune diversity, either you would need to buff everything or nerf scholar rune bonus. The scholar rune without bonus is competitive enough already after the 2018 rebalance, as shown above. Even if the bonus were 2 or 3% it would be high performing.

The thief rune bonus is assumed 100% uptime on both discretize and snowcrows. Even with 0% uptime if you are far from crit cap of 100% crit chance it is decent enough compared to other options. With a 50% uptime it is about on par with spellbreaker runes in most cases.

There's a 9% or so spread between the non-meta options and Scholar , which is going to be larger than any shave to Scholar rune bonus could possibly achieve. There does not need to be any adjustment to raid bosses or encounters because they are mostly designed before Scholar had powercreep in the 2018 rune rebalance which boosted the base ferocity stat. This in turn means if scholar uptime is extremely low or non-existent then the damage increased roughly 3% for all groups running the rune. Average benchmarks for all classes have also generally gone up except for staff weavers (due to meteor shower nerf) and ascended food was added. Plus some of the hardest ones are typically condi comps anyway (for example Twin Largos , Soulless Horror , Sunqua Peak). Dragon Response Missions and Strikes are definitely not balanced with optimized comps running scholar runes as baseline ; fractals don't really have a timer at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find that Eagle, Ogre, Pack, Scholar and Strength, are all heavily used in Power-based builds. Pack runes are especially common as they allow certain boons permanent uptime without going all-in on Boon Duration.

Keep in mind "raid" comps are only used in Strike Missions, raids, sometimes in Fractals if its a high-end effort. The reason being is that your party is less reliable in 5man content, simply due to lack of sheer numbers, you need to bring a few players completely overloaded with specific builds to obtain the same results as a 10man comp, and lack of understanding of this skews the community viewpoints.

Non-Scholar builds are heavily used in areas where players need to rely on themselves more and their party less. And I think that's what most alternative builds in the game are for and they're in a pretty good place for that right now.

Also, some classes have a harder time staying at max health due to fewer active defenses.

Confusing math, metrics and "what-ifs" for real-world situations is the mistake that game developers make that turns games into trash. I'd recommend the community not make the same mistake, because a war of numbers isn't anywhere close to the real thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Firebeard.1746 said:You tell people barely clearing content that they're doing worse now because of your sensibilities. The high-end PVE in this game is hard enough without nerfing some of the meta tools for it. If they are nerfing scholar's they need to nerf every boss/encounter in the game accordingly.

Also, just as a bit of clarification: The thief numbers are assuming 100% flanking uptime, correct? That bonus, if halved to match scholar doesn't compete. Just pointing it out to the person trying to tell me that precision is stronger. It's not. The popular precision runes just have good 6-tier bonuses.

Is that based on your feelings or math? I used a simple excel sheet for that. For Holo with metabuild i got 0.029% increase in damage for 1 point of precision at an artificial 99%. Currently you critcap without it but just one nerfed trait would put it in that area. Crit at 50% had a 0.4% gain while fero was extremely weak with 0.018%Power had like 0.0275% and ferocity 0.0252%.Fero > precision is possible but not with meta builds. You would need very low base ferocity. All builds have ferocity traits which push them beyond that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:You tell people barely clearing content that they're doing worse now because of your sensibilities. The high-end PVE in this game is hard enough without nerfing some of the meta tools for it. If they are nerfing scholar's they need to nerf every boss/encounter in the game accordingly.

Also, just as a bit of clarification: The thief numbers are assuming 100% flanking uptime, correct? That bonus, if halved to match scholar doesn't compete.
Just pointing it out to the person trying to tell me that precision is stronger. It's not
. The popular precision runes just have good 6-tier bonuses.

Is that based on your feelings or math? I used a simple excel sheet for that. For Holo with metabuild i got 0.029% increase in damage for 1 point of precision at an artificial 99%. Currently you critcap without it but just one nerfed trait would put it in that area. Crit at 50% had a 0.4% gain while fero was extremely weak with 0.018%Power had like 0.0275% and ferocity 0.0252%.Fero > precision is possible but not with meta builds. You would need very low base ferocity. All builds have ferocity traits which push them beyond that.

Show me which meta build from infusion I was quoting is actually doing better point-for point against precision? I looked at most of them, and even when thief won, it's wasn't by 5% margin it should have if crit was really carrying the day. Thief was only beating anything because of extra damage bonus in the T6 trait. Eagle, in none of the ones I looked at won, which, by the way, would have been the indicator that precision is a stronger stat as Eagle has an almost comparable T6 damage bonus and gives precision over power. Crit wasn't winning anything.

So basically you're telling me I'm wrong because there's ONE profession and spec against the other 10 that happens to have such insane base ferocity that it's finally close to even and precision barely does better (in a VERY circumstantial case)? I did concede as much before that the two multiplicative stack, but I'm not wrong scholar is meta is most cases. And IS meta with the right comps and you hitting crit cap (and is meta according to the SC site, STILL, on your chosen class).

I explicitly mentioned circumstances forcing crit higher as a reason ferocity scales better, not sure why we're having this debate. You can't change your runes on the fly unless you're all leggie, so if you're sane, you'd pick scholar's just so you're performing optimally in your best circumstances. I also mentioned crit capping. Not sure why you're focused on such small and circumstantial margins SC shows Scholar's as meta for a reason, and infusion's numbers prove that. Swapping between the two would be WAY too expensive for someone who isn't already all leggie. The only thing you're right about is that there are breakpoints where precision is better, but if you read my OP, it's pretty clear I mentioned this.

I guess we agree but you misreading me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Firebeard.1746 said:So basically you're telling me I'm wrong because there's ONE profession and spec against the other 10 that happens to have such insane base ferocity that it's finally close to even and precision barely does better (in a VERY circumstantial case)? I did concede as much before that the two multiplicative stack, but I'm not wrong scholar is meta is most cases. And IS meta with the right comps and you hitting crit cap (and is meta according to the SC site, STILL, on your chosen class).

I've chosen holo because it has low base ferocity from traits. Only builds with lower ferocity are dh and chrono. chrono has damage mods only working on crits so its instantly precision > everything for chrono..I explicitly mentioned circumstances forcing crit higher as a reason ferocity scales better, not sure why we're having this debate. You can't change your runes on the fly unless you're all leggie, so if you're sane, you'd pick scholar's just so you're performing optimally in your best circumstances. I also mentioned crit capping. Not sure why you're focused on such small and circumstantial margins SC shows Scholar's as meta for a reason, and infusion's numbers prove that. Swapping between the two would be WAY too expensive for someone who isn't already all leggie. The only thing you're right about is that there are breakpoints where precision is better, but if you read my OP, it's pretty clear I mentioned this.

Of course you change runes or have multiple sets if you minmax. isnt this what its all about? Only 5 players in a group have spotter unless you play with soulbeasts. If you look closely at the sc or ln builds you will see that they mention those situations.If you raid berserker would take thief runes because the no flanking runes are niche. Solo you would often take eagle. Virtues dh takes thief aswell.Not sure what infusions numbers are but they are not effective power. no idea what discretize calculates there.

Effective power for warr with spotter:

!Thief: 21336!scholar: 21165 with accuracy instead of impact aswell. 21138 with full precise infusions otherwise.

!Without spotter:!Thief: 20937!scholar: 20766!no sane warr would primarely play scholar in raids.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SNOWCROWS GEAR OPTIMIZER OUTPUTS for a 10 man squad

With only 10 man buffs (banners + frost spirit) and 0% scholar uptimeNo empower allies , assassin's presence , spotter or other 5 man profession buffs ... because someone said "less reliable parties"...

ENGINEER

  • Holo - 17,549.25 Eagle | 17,531.09 Scholar 0% uptime | 17,290.56 Thief (not in top 50 results) ---> effectively even

Sword has 5% weapon strength variance

RANGER

  • Soulbeast Skirmishing (spotter self supplied but not needed) - 22,790.75 Eagle | 22,682.90 Thief | 22,682.68 Scholar 0% uptime ---> effectively the same, below 0.5% variance
  • Soulbeast Marksmanship - 23,455.40 Thief (Furious stone) | 23,441.08 Thief | 23,123.14 Eagle | 22,062.12 Scholar 0% uptime ---> never can match thief rune (bonus must exceed 6%)

Axe weapon strength variance is ~10% ; longbow ~ 8% ; dagger ~3%

THIEF

  • Daredevil - 20,353.32 Eagle (Keen observer unchecked , Twin fangs set to 0% scholar uptime) | 20,146.47 Thief | 19,589.93 Scholar 0% uptime ---> even without scholar bonus ~40% > 90% health is sufficient to be even due to Twin Fangs

Staff has 6% weapon strength variance

GUARDIAN

  • Power DH - 17,582.44 Eagle | 17,487.26 Scholar 0% uptime ---> effectively the same, below 0.6% variance
  • Power DH Perfect Inscriptions (discretize build basically) - 17,896.73 Eagle | 17,853.46 Thief | 17,198.80 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 4% effective scholar bonus to be even

Sword and Greatsword have 5% weapon strength variance

MESMER

  • Chrono with danger time - 18,741.26 Eagle | 18,549.05 Thief (Furious Stone) | 18,530.68 Thief | 18,092.60 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 3.5% effective scholar bonus to be even
  • Chrono without danger time - 16,249.63 Thief (Furious Stone) | 16,224.96 Thief | 15,949.73 Eagle | 15,190.22 Scholar 0% uptime ---> never can match thief rune (bonus must exceed 6%)

The above is why unless you stack mesmers with slow sources (and use Chronophantasma) the damage is only on par with other meta classes.

ELEMENTALIST

  • Power weaver, bolt to the heart - 16,890.68 Eagle | 16,760.95 Thief | 16,202.02 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 4% effective scholar bonus to be even (80% uptime with current bonus)
  • Power weaver, fresh air - 15,746.60 Eagle | 15,642.85 Thief | 15,117.07 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 4% effective scholar bonus to be even
  • Power tempest - 11,619.65 Thief | 11,464.93 Eagle | 10,948.71 Scholar 0% uptime ---> never can match thief rune even in current state without spotter (bonus must exceed 6%)

The power loss is blunted by Power Overwhelming trait used on weavers.

WARRIOR

  • Power berserker - 20,500.99 Thief | 20,228.71 Eagle rune | 19,368.31 Scholar 0% uptime ---> never can match thief rune (bonus must exceed 5%)

NECROMANCER

  • Power reaper - 17,842.09 Eagle | 17,161.21 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 4% effective scholar bonus to be even

REVENANT

  • Power "boon" herald - 17,768.52 Eagle | 17,305.52 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 2.7% effective scholar bonus to be even (easy on rev)

If the scholar bonus is reduced to ~3% then up to half of the builds would be marginally better using eagle due to the damage bonus on eagle. Other runes aren't in the Snowcrows calculator and the gap to pack runes and others that are present in the calculator present larger differences. Eagle rune has a large ferocity bonus on top of the damage bonus as mentioned in my first post in this thread.

The key difference in calculators is the sigils and runes aren't specified. Snowcrows' calculator will more likely drop impact for accuracy and in this scenario spotter was omitted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...