Nightmare Runes vs. Tormenting

[Asum.4960]

Math was never my strength, but I'm slightly confused by the seemingly universal recommendation of 4 Nightmare + 2 Trapper Runes for Scourge.Doesn't full Viper + Malice Sigil (+ Barbed Precision) + Nightmare + Trapper + Fell Beacon + Sand Soul (even considering only 1 or 2 Shades on average) overcap Bleed duration quite a bit, not even considering Food (nearly 20% wasted duration)?At the same time, it doesn't quite get Torment and Burning to 100%, unless I'm forgetting something (it's nearly 100% with food though).

Wouldn't Viper + Malice + Smoldering + Tormenting + Trapper + Fell Beacon + Sand Soul be able to cap Bleed, Burning and Torment easily at 100%, even allowing to switch one or two sinister pieces in, while "only" sacrificing the proc/swap Sigil on the offhand for Smoldering?

I guess the question is, is ~120% Bleed, ~95% Torment and Burn duration + proc sigils better than 100% Bleed/Burn/Torment duration with some Sinister Pieces, or is my Math just completely off, which is also a strong possibility?

Or is the difference so marginal that you might as well go Nightmare, considering the current Price of Torment Runes is 70g for 4 Runes, while Nightmare runes also slightly increase the duration of debilitating conditions (in the case of Scourge unfortunately only cripple really)?

Massively overcapping duration just seems odd to me, so let me know before I commit to a set of Runes.

[Really.3582]

No you can reach 100% with no issues.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArf7IWSGMqjwSoVFlzuWBA9zabduC-jxxXABDr8DglHmV9nsVCOq+B6eCANuDApAWUvF-e

Furious tuning crystal pushes you to 95% with the last 5% coming from a shade, but 90% would be probably good enough with high enough uptime on 2 shades.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

The opportunity cost is in the sigil slot. Is a sigil worth 5% burning and Torment duration? Generally speaking, no.

Since you are still using 2Trapper, you gain nothing on the stats for runes.

[Asum.4960]

That does mean the 20% increased Bleed Duration from Barbed Precision goes completely to waste though, correct?

[Vitali.5039]

@Asum.4960 said:That does mean the 20% increased Bleed Duration from Barbed Precision goes completely to waste though, correct?

Correct, but it can be still useful to cap bleeding when you don't use expertise foods/nourishments for Open World

[Kanto.1659]

You could be on to something. Though Really is right, of course, he does not mention how the Furious Tuning Crystal costs 34s per use and the rare veggie costs 29s per use.

On the other hand your setup with four Tormenting + 2 Trapper + 1 shade + super veggie pizza (3 silver) and Smolder sigil puts us at capped torment, bleed and burn. It costs us a sigil though, be it Earth or Geomancy or whatever is the current meta which might just make it a wash.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

I don't bother using consumables (other than cake gun) for open world content, so Barbed precision still helps out there. In a raid scenario, you're going to be using the food regardless of your build setup, so that's a wash.

[Anchoku.8142]

If you are in a raid group, capping duration is the meta but outside of that you may want more sustain, which will set you below the cap and open up the trade-space between offensive stats, runes, signets, and defensive stat's like vitality, toughness, and healing. There is nothing wrong with having two or more sets of equipment and a variety of consumables.

[Maxzero.4032]

@Kanto.1659 said:You could be on to something. Though Really is right, of course, he does not mention how the Furious Tuning Crystal costs 34s per use and the rare veggie costs 29s per use.

On the other hand your setup with four Tormenting + 2 Trapper + 1 shade + super veggie pizza (3 silver) and Smolder sigil puts us at capped torment, bleed and burn. It costs us a sigil though, be it Earth or Geomancy or whatever is the current meta which might just make it a wash.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Red-Lentil_Saobosa

A lot cheaper then Rare Veggie Pizza.

[Tobias.8632]

Even if you lose a bit of efficiency when not using optimal foods, you can get by with saobosa and icicles just fine and have the option to minmax further with the expensive crystal if you ever feel the need to

The other setup is probably fine, but you lose a bunch of damage due to not having the geomancy sigils, which you get a lot of value out of doing this rotation

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

I actually really like https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Cactus_Fruit_SaladCosts about 12s to make and lasts for 60mins.

[Kanto.1659]

At 12g a Tormenting Rune it would take a lot of food and crystals to break even.

[Glott.7239]

A lot of people still underestimate the usefulness of and Sand Savant opposed to Demonic Lore. The 33% increased torment damage locks juicy on paper but even with high alacrity you can barely even maintain two shades and there radius is rather small. This means Sand Savant grants you about 10% general condi duration and on a very mobile bosses you possibly regain damage through better coverage. It will probably be best to switch depending on the encounter. Demonic Lore for stationary bosses, like Sabetha or Cairn, Sand Savant for more mobile ones like Matthias or Xera, where the higher target cap for Nefarious Favor might also become useful. Then switching Malice Sigil in or out depending on that.

[Kumouta.4985]

Don't forget you yourself are a mobile sand shade, glott.Dlore is best for damage as long as the user has the skills to use small radius skills or stay in melee range. Plus greater shades don't stack. I don't understand why you would even consider crippling your damage by switching to sand savant in a raid.

[Lily.1935]

@Really.3582 said:No you can reach 100% with no issues.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArf7IWSGMqjwSoVFlzuWBA9zabduC-jxxXABDr8DglHmV9nsVCOq+B6eCANuDApAWUvF-e

Furious tuning crystal pushes you to 95% with the last 5% coming from a shade, but 90% would be probably good enough with high enough uptime on 2 shades.

You are actually pushing yourself to 104% with one shade out using that combination. If you have either a banner warrior or engineer with pinpoint distribution and 25 might you hit 99% condition duration before the summoning of your Shade. Even without the banner buff if you have perfect infusions you hit that 99% mark before you summon a single shade. Adding a black Diamond to that puts you at 100% with might and the pinpoint distribution. This is all thanks to the way Fell beacon works. Full might is going to give you between 3-4% condition duration which puts us in an awkward position where we always have more than enough but we can't lower it because we'll end up at 99% if we try to.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@Lily.1935 said:

@Really.3582 said:No you can reach 100% with no issues.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArf7IWSGMqjwSoVFlzuWBA9zabduC-jxxXABDr8DglHmV9nsVCOq+B6eCANuDApAWUvF-e

Furious tuning crystal pushes you to 95% with the last 5% coming from a shade, but 90% would be probably good enough with high enough uptime on 2 shades.

You are actually pushing yourself to 104% with one shade out using that combination. If you have either a banner warrior or engineer with pinpoint distribution and 25 might you hit 99% condition duration before the summoning of your Shade. Even without the banner buff if you have perfect infusions you hit that 99% mark before you summon a single shade. Adding a black Diamond to that puts you at 100% with might and the pinpoint distribution. This is all thanks to the way Fell beacon works. Full might is going to give you between 3-4% condition duration which puts us in an awkward position where we always have more than enough but we can't lower it because we'll end up at 99% if we try to.

No you don't. Fell Beacon doesn't work like you describe.

Stat conversion traits only work off of gear stats.

[Sephylon.4938]

From my experience, healing power scaling on most barrier skills are too low to be worth taking healing power, and base amounts are high enough to not need it. This may change in the future though, much like druid healing, since it seems counter intuitive to me to have a healing build that doesn't need healing power.

[Glott.7239]

@Kumouta.4985 said:Don't forget you yourself are a mobile sand shade, glott.Dlore is best for damage as long as the user has the skills to use small radius skills or stay in melee range. Plus greater shades don't stack. I don't understand why you would even consider crippling your damage by switching to sand savant in a raid.

No no, that's not quit right. You are not a really shade, your shades are only pulsing the same effect out als you do when using any F-skill so yes, F5 Desert Shroud will also apply torment around you BUT every time it pulses you'r shade will also use it's "auto attack" if you will. That's the one you see in the tooltip of Manifest Sand Shade and the ONLY skill that will actually proc Dhuumfire you will not deal any burning by yourself and you gonna lose 1 stack of torment per pulse of Desert Shroud, if the boss doesn't stay in the shade. As i sad, it really depends on the encounter, it's not as easy as "if you have skill..." in a messy fight it might be better to take the shotgun approach.

Edit: Also normal shades don't stack for damage either. Only the effect of Sand Soul stacks with the number of shades and a greater shade counts as 3 normal shades towards this.

[Lily.1935]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Really.3582 said:No you can reach 100% with no issues.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArf7IWSGMqjwSoVFlzuWBA9zabduC-jxxXABDr8DglHmV9nsVCOq+B6eCANuDApAWUvF-e

Furious tuning crystal pushes you to 95% with the last 5% coming from a shade, but 90% would be probably good enough with high enough uptime on 2 shades.

You are actually pushing yourself to 104% with one shade out using that combination. If you have either a banner warrior or engineer with pinpoint distribution and 25 might you hit 99% condition duration before the summoning of your Shade. Even without the banner buff if you have perfect infusions you hit that 99% mark before you summon a single shade. Adding a black Diamond to that puts you at 100% with might and the pinpoint distribution. This is all thanks to the way Fell beacon works. Full might is going to give you between 3-4% condition duration which puts us in an awkward position where we always have more than enough but we can't lower it because we'll end up at 99% if we try to.

No you don't. Fell Beacon doesn't work like you describe.

Stat conversion traits only work off of gear stats.

Really? My testing says otherwise.

[Fatalyz.7168]

@Lily.1935 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Really.3582 said:No you can reach 100% with no issues.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArf7IWSGMqjwSoVFlzuWBA9zabduC-jxxXABDr8DglHmV9nsVCOq+B6eCANuDApAWUvF-e

Furious tuning crystal pushes you to 95% with the last 5% coming from a shade, but 90% would be probably good enough with high enough uptime on 2 shades.

You are actually pushing yourself to 104% with one shade out using that combination. If you have either a banner warrior or engineer with pinpoint distribution and 25 might you hit 99% condition duration before the summoning of your Shade. Even without the banner buff if you have perfect infusions you hit that 99% mark before you summon a single shade. Adding a black Diamond to that puts you at 100% with might and the pinpoint distribution. This is all thanks to the way Fell beacon works. Full might is going to give you between 3-4% condition duration which puts us in an awkward position where we always have more than enough but we can't lower it because we'll end up at 99% if we try to.

No you don't. Fell Beacon doesn't work like you describe.

Stat conversion traits only work off of gear stats.

Really? My testing says otherwise.

From the Sept 24 Patch notes:

• Fixed a bug in which stat conversion traits were converting temporary stat increases from buffs, traits, and boons.

If you are getting a bonus from Fell Beacon, because of any boon, trait, or buff, it is a bug, and should be reported.

[Lily.1935]

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Really.3582 said:No you can reach 100% with no issues.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArf7IWSGMqjwSoVFlzuWBA9zabduC-jxxXABDr8DglHmV9nsVCOq+B6eCANuDApAWUvF-e

Furious tuning crystal pushes you to 95% with the last 5% coming from a shade, but 90% would be probably good enough with high enough uptime on 2 shades.

You are actually pushing yourself to 104% with one shade out using that combination. If you have either a banner warrior or engineer with pinpoint distribution and 25 might you hit 99% condition duration before the summoning of your Shade. Even without the banner buff if you have perfect infusions you hit that 99% mark before you summon a single shade. Adding a black Diamond to that puts you at 100% with might and the pinpoint distribution. This is all thanks to the way Fell beacon works. Full might is going to give you between 3-4% condition duration which puts us in an awkward position where we always have more than enough but we can't lower it because we'll end up at 99% if we try to.

No you don't. Fell Beacon doesn't work like you describe.

Stat conversion traits only work off of gear stats.

Really? My testing says otherwise.

From the Sept 24 Patch notes:

• Fixed a bug in which stat conversion traits were converting temporary stat increases from buffs, traits, and boons.

If you are getting a bonus from Fell Beacon, because of any boon, trait, or buff, it is a bug, and should be reported.

I thought that was a feature not a bug.

[Aceofsppades.6873]

@Lily.1935 said:

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Really.3582 said:No you can reach 100% with no issues.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArf7IWSGMqjwSoVFlzuWBA9zabduC-jxxXABDr8DglHmV9nsVCOq+B6eCANuDApAWUvF-e

Furious tuning crystal pushes you to 95% with the last 5% coming from a shade, but 90% would be probably good enough with high enough uptime on 2 shades.

You are actually pushing yourself to 104% with one shade out using that combination. If you have either a banner warrior or engineer with pinpoint distribution and 25 might you hit 99% condition duration before the summoning of your Shade. Even without the banner buff if you have perfect infusions you hit that 99% mark before you summon a single shade. Adding a black Diamond to that puts you at 100% with might and the pinpoint distribution. This is all thanks to the way Fell beacon works. Full might is going to give you between 3-4% condition duration which puts us in an awkward position where we always have more than enough but we can't lower it because we'll end up at 99% if we try to.

No you don't. Fell Beacon doesn't work like you describe.

Stat conversion traits only work off of gear stats.

Really? My testing says otherwise.

From the Sept 24 Patch notes:

• Fixed a bug in which stat conversion traits were converting temporary stat increases from buffs, traits, and boons.

If you are getting a bonus from Fell Beacon, because of any boon, trait, or buff, it is a bug, and should be reported.

I thought that was a feature not a bug.

sent called it a bug fix. And they've worked like that for the longest time before POF

[Lily.1935]

@Aceofsppades.6873 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Really.3582 said:No you can reach 100% with no issues.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArf7IWSGMqjwSoVFlzuWBA9zabduC-jxxXABDr8DglHmV9nsVCOq+B6eCANuDApAWUvF-e

Furious tuning crystal pushes you to 95% with the last 5% coming from a shade, but 90% would be probably good enough with high enough uptime on 2 shades.

You are actually pushing yourself to 104% with one shade out using that combination. If you have either a banner warrior or engineer with pinpoint distribution and 25 might you hit 99% condition duration before the summoning of your Shade. Even without the banner buff if you have perfect infusions you hit that 99% mark before you summon a single shade. Adding a black Diamond to that puts you at 100% with might and the pinpoint distribution. This is all thanks to the way Fell beacon works. Full might is going to give you between 3-4% condition duration which puts us in an awkward position where we always have more than enough but we can't lower it because we'll end up at 99% if we try to.

No you don't. Fell Beacon doesn't work like you describe.

Stat conversion traits only work off of gear stats.

Really? My testing says otherwise.

From the Sept 24 Patch notes:

• Fixed a bug in which stat conversion traits were converting temporary stat increases from buffs, traits, and boons.

If you are getting a bonus from Fell Beacon, because of any boon, trait, or buff, it is a bug, and should be reported.

I thought that was a feature not a bug.

sent called it a bug fix. And they've worked like that for the longest time before POF

Boo. they ruined it. Not going to say fixed because because that'd suggest it was broken in some way.

[SirPrizeBartSachs.4670]

@Asum.4960 said:Math was never my strength, but I'm slightly confused by the seemingly universal recommendation of 4 Nightmare + 2 Trapper Runes for Scourge.Doesn't full Viper + Malice Sigil (+ Barbed Precision) + Nightmare + Trapper + Fell Beacon + Sand Soul (even considering only 1 or 2 Shades on average) overcap Bleed duration quite a bit, not even considering Food (nearly 20% wasted duration)?At the same time, it doesn't quite get Torment and Burning to 100%, unless I'm forgetting something (it's nearly 100% with food though).

Wouldn't Viper + Malice + Smoldering + Tormenting + Trapper + Fell Beacon + Sand Soul be able to cap Bleed, Burning and Torment easily at 100%, even allowing to switch one or two sinister pieces in, while "only" sacrificing the proc/swap Sigil on the offhand for Smoldering?

I guess the question is, is ~120% Bleed, ~95% Torment and Burn duration + proc sigils better than 100% Bleed/Burn/Torment duration with some Sinister Pieces, or is my Math just completely off, which is also a strong possibility?

Or is the difference so marginal that you might as well go Nightmare, considering the current Price of Torment Runes is 70g for 4 Runes, while Nightmare runes also slightly increase the duration of debilitating conditions (in the case of Scourge unfortunately only cripple really)?

Massively overcapping duration just seems odd to me, so let me know before I commit to a set of Runes.

With two shades out, you can cap 100% burn and torment duration. With only one shade out, you'd end up with about 95% duration. I suppose you're asking if the geomancy sigil does significant enough DPS to warrant that loss of 5% condition duration? It probably does, but the difference might not be that significant. A fully buffed geomancy sigil does around 1600 dps, and that's assuming you always land it every 9 seconds.

Still, you aren't going to sink gold into those expensive tormenting runes over the dirt cheap nightmare runes are you >.>