75 replies to this topic

[typographie]

Stigma, on 06 February 2013 - 12:09 AM, said:

I still believe the million dollar question is actually : Is this build better than a 5 Signets Warrior?

Red's build uses "For Great Justice!" and Signet of Rage, actually activating both, already able to maintain nearly 100% Fury uptime with some group benefit before we consider anything else.

Yes, he makes some decisions that seem wasteful, but at least he's not using all five of his discretionary skill slots on passive signets to get ~9% crit. This is at least a smarter build than that, as are most things at level 80.

Edited by typographie, 06 February 2013 - 06:22 AM.

[Red_Falcon]

Asbodai, on 05 February 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

You appear to have some haters, I don't blame you for not wanting to reply. However, I am very intrigued by your build. Whether the Lyssa boon is 5 seconds or 10 can be verified simply enough in game, so let's leave that aside.

What I would like to know is confirmation that the Swiftness, Fury and Might when using SoR stacks with the Lyssa proc. Let's just assume that the Lyssa boon is 5 seconds for now, obviously 10 would be awesome... so, please confirm whether:

When you ding SOR, both swiftness and fury will tick for 52.5 seconds, being [30 (from SOR) + 5 (Lyssa)] * 1.5 (50% boon increase from 30 points in tactics + 20% choccy cream). Might will simply stack 6 times (5 from SoR and 1 from Lyssa) for the first 7.5 seconds and then drop to 5 might for the remaining 37.5 seconds (30*1.5 - 5*1.5).

Given SoR recharge can be reduced to 48 seconds you have permanent swiftness and fury and 81% might from one skill. I can live with that (if it stacks of course). If Lyssa ticks for 10 then I congratulate your build, it would be pretty amazing.

Thanks for your reply (hopefully).

Yes, they all stack.
You indeed have perma swiftness, fury and 5-8 might with this build.

Stigma, on 05 February 2013 - 07:49 PM, said:

I was just trolling but your build does look interesting. If someone gets around to it before I do tonight I would really work out the math behind it because you're confusing the +% Damage with +%Critical Damage. The core of a full berserker build comes from the +% Critical Damage. The core of your build comes from Empowered (getting +2% from every boon).


http://wiki.guildwar...Critical_damage

One would really need to sit down and crunch the numbers between a spec'ed out full berserker warrior (+30% Crit damage from armor) and a Knight of 9 Boons builds based on the equation:

Critical Hit Expected damage = Base damage * ((0.50 + (Critical Damage / 100)) * (Critical Chance / 100) + 1)

http://wiki.guildwar....ical_hi<br />t

I don't really care about boon durations for now so...from just a rough calculation based on some assumptions it yields:


I threw in a Knight geared Warrior with full Lyssa runes as well just to gauge the damage. The closeness of these numbers look really interesting to me. These numbers are generated with Epitaph's interpretation of your build. We would really need to see your REAL trait tree

In the calc you consider 38% dmg increase which is just the non-godmode situation.
I calculated 38% with just 4 boons (Fury, Might, Swiftness and Vigor) and no OMM, which is the worst possible situation, but during a nine boon situation you get this:
+12% zerk trait
+10% GS trait
+18% empowered (2% * 9 boons)
+5% sigil of force
+3% stick and move
Total = 48% damage increase.

This gets as high as +58% during OMM (which has an uptime of 56.25%) on the OMM'd target.
Overall the damage increase you get during a fight floats to an average of 48%.

So yes, according to your calcs with this build even in the worst situation (38% increase) you're still outDPS'ing a full glass cannon.

=======

On another note, I have to apologize for not re-testing this after the nerf.
Lyssa runes were actually changed to 5s even in PvE which means 7.5s godmode instead of 15s.

While the build is still mathematically a ton better than a glass cannon even with the nerf (even with no runes for that matter), it needs Rune min/maxing again.

I'm wondering if it wouldn't be more efficient to stack Ruby Orbs and replace the sigil with Strength to maximize might gain and base damage.

If you have any idea or math it's all welcome.

Edited by Red_Falcon, 06 February 2013 - 09:20 AM.

[Sagramor]

I got a crazy idea. Fix the build link in the OP. Still showing Longbow traited, only one sigil, no runes, no gear, etc. for me.

[Stigma]

I've completed my comparative spreadsheet. These are relative damage values as they can really be anything because it's entirely dependent upon the opponent (monster or player) you're hitting or to be more precise - solely dependent on the opponent's armor. ie. I can hit a bunny for 1056453.... damage or a WvW supply camp NPC for 120 damage etc.

There are two numbers highlighted in black which is raw physical attack damage and the second one accounting a relative conditional damage value w/ the assumption of a normalized average at to tick per attack. I wanted to include the Bleed damage due to the fact that some builds due take into account the Arms line a whole lot more. Might and Condition damage are both normalized by Critical Chance.

As you can see from the orange numbers, your 9 Boon build (of any variation) offers a much higher Base Damage than the others. However, due to Anet's way of calculating actual damage dealt...


Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target's Armor)

Damage Coefficient = (skill-specific coefficient) / (target's Armor)

Expected damage = Base damage * ((0.50 + (Critical Damage / 100)) * (Critical Chance / 100) + 1)

... it also needs to take into account a Critical Multiplier which does throw around the final damage numbers quite a bit.

Critical Multiplier = ((0.50 + (Critical Damage / 100)) * (Critical Chance / 100) + 1)

Critical Chance = Round((precision - 831.36) / 21.16)

Edited by Stigma, 06 February 2013 - 07:42 PM.

[lalangamena]

Sagramor, on 06 February 2013 - 01:23 PM, said:

I got a crazy idea. Fix the build link in the OP. Still showing Longbow traited, only one sigil, no runes, no gear, etc. for me.

this ^

have no idea what is the build you're talking of...

[Mjölner]

Seek, and you shall find: http://www.gw2db.com...-the-nine-boons
He made this on the official forum as well.

[Strife025]

Extreme damage and 30 points in tactics? You should work on your buzz words...

Not to mention the blatant mis-information that glass cannons have 22-25% damage even though taking 3 traits already puts you at 32% base damage and the fact that you don't include crit chance in that calculation which is 90+% in glass cannon builds.

This gives you significantly more survability with omnom pies and more damage in full berserker, because 20% more crit chance means 30% more damage with 150% more damage from crit (50% base and 100% from gear).

Depending on your build, some glass cannons take 10 into tactics for empowered and running in an actual 5 person group usually means you'll always have ~5 boons active at a time. So the net benefit of this build over a "glass cannon" is 8% more damage for 7.5s from empowered, which is actually less damage because you're not taking the 10% more damage from bleeding targets. Then you have to factor in you're not getting superior damage from higher crit chance, from ruby orbs, and no 20% cooldown and constant might stacks from GS cooldown and it's not so "extreme" for damage anymore.

So yea... work on those buzz words bro.

Edited by Strife025, 06 February 2013 - 05:51 PM.

[Stigma]

Strife025, on 06 February 2013 - 05:34 PM, said:

Extreme damage and 30 points in tactics? You should work on your buzz words...

Not to mention the blatant mis-information that glass cannons have 22-25% damage even though taking 3 traits already puts you at 32% base damage and the fact that you don't include crit chance in that calculation which is 90+% in glass cannon builds.

This gives you significantly more survability with omnom pies and more damage in full berserker, because 20% more crit chance means 30% more damage with 150% more damage from crit (50% base and 100% from gear).

Depending on your build, some glass cannons take 10 into tactics for empowered and running in an actual 5 person group usually means you'll always have ~5 boons active at a time. So the net benefit of this build over a "glass cannon" is 8% more damage for 7.5s from empowered, which is actually less damage because you're not taking the 10% more damage from bleeding targets. Then you have to factor in you're not getting superior damage from higher crit chance, from ruby orbs, and no 20% cooldown and constant might stacks from GS cooldown and it's not so "extreme" for damage anymore.

So yea... work on those buzz words bro.

Check out my spreadsheet above where I used all of Anet's actual equations. A full Berserker type build still has far more damage output while taking into account criticals and Might. I'm not directing this specifically at the OP, but everyone who claims high damage is somewhat misleading and should be always relative to that. A glass cannon build exists on a totally different damage plane...

Edited by Stigma, 06 February 2013 - 07:55 PM.

[KrayZ33]

Strife025, on 06 February 2013 - 05:34 PM, said:

Extreme damage and 30 points in tactics? You should work on your buzz words...

Not to mention the blatant mis-information that glass cannons have 22-25% damage even though taking 3 traits already puts you at 32% base damage and the fact that you don't include crit chance in that calculation which is 90+% in glass cannon builds.

This gives you significantly more survability with omnom pies and more damage in full berserker, because 20% more crit chance means 30% more damage with 150% more damage from crit (50% base and 100% from gear).

Depending on your build, some glass cannons take 10 into tactics for empowered and running in an actual 5 person group usually means you'll always have ~5 boons active at a time. So the net benefit of this build over a "glass cannon" is 8% more damage for 7.5s from empowered, which is actually less damage because you're not taking the 10% more damage from bleeding targets. Then you have to factor in you're not getting superior damage from higher crit chance, from ruby orbs, and no 20% cooldown and constant might stacks from GS cooldown and it's not so "extreme" for damage anymore.

So yea... work on those buzz words bro.

I don't think the link is leading to the correct build, since he is talking about berserker's power and what not but it shows 30 points into defence and what not

and I can't approve of the "you got all the boons in 5 mans anyway"-part because thats rarely the case unless you build your own ideal group.

this build is basically about "Glasscanon - Lyssa vs Ruby Orbs"
but since Lyssa doesn't add 15 seconds its pretty much clear who's the winner

however you are correct on the "false information" part, its so wrong in so many places

he adds +sigils +omm and whatever else to his 58% but doesn't do so with the cookie-cutter build nearly everyone uses atm.
false 'facts' everywhere, not a very nice guide.... should be deleted -  sry bra

Edited by KrayZ33, 06 February 2013 - 08:07 PM.

[Sagramor]

KrayZ33, on 06 February 2013 - 07:58 PM, said:

I don't think the link is leading to the correct build, since he is talking about berserker's power and what not but it shows 30 points into defence and what not

and I can't approve of the "you got all the boons in 5 mans anyway"-part because thats rarely the case unless you build your own ideal group.

this build is basically about "Glasscanon - Lyssa vs Ruby Orbs"
but since Lyssa doesn't add 15 seconds its pretty much clear who's the winner

however you are correct on the "false information" part, its so wrong in so many places

he adds +sigils +omm and whatever else to his 58% but doesn't do so with the cookie-cutter build nearly everyone uses atm.
false 'facts' everywhere, not a very nice guide.... should be deleted -  sry bra

^^^ This

[Stigma]

The link actually got bugged out by GW2Guru's forum. It's happened to me before. Visually his link says "....the-nine-boons" but the actual hyperlink brings it back to his Invincible Berserker traits. He was probably workin on both when he copied and pasted.

Edited by Stigma, 06 February 2013 - 08:37 PM.

[Strife025]

Yea I used the other link to find the correct build, which is 25-0-0-30-15.

But that part was confusing at first as well.

Edited by Strife025, 06 February 2013 - 10:33 PM.

[Red_Falcon]

Stigma, on 06 February 2013 - 08:37 PM, said:

The link actually got bugged out by GW2Guru's forum. It's happened to me before. Visually his link says "....the-nine-boons" but the actual hyperlink brings it back to his Invincible Berserker traits. He was probably workin on both when he copied and pasted.

I'm sorry about the link bug but I have no idea why that even happens.
On my PC the build shows correctly.

This is the link:

http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/2627-knight-of-the-nine-boons

Oh btw I new, zerkier version of the build, the Empowered Knight.

Edited by Red_Falcon, 07 February 2013 - 10:41 AM.

[mEsA]

And what gear do you use ?
Full berserk Trinkets and Knight Armor with those lyssa runes ?

[Lord_Demosthene]

For the fellow berserker theorycrafters here, ruby orbs don't provide highest DPS for you. Rune of the Ogre will provide higher base damage, critical damage and DPS, despite marginally lower critical chance in nearly any circumstances. Rune of the ogre will be replaced by Rune of Strenth in terms of effectiveness, once RoS (6) bonus is fixed. That, and the benefit of dog summon.

Easy test: go to pvp island, use steady weapons, compare with berserker amulet and trait distribution. Due to the way weapon damage works, result shouldn't be distorted. If still not convinced, check for highest normal & critical damage, through repeated bashing of test golems with normal weapons.

As far as Sigil of Force vs Sigil of Air/Fire, the latter will provide higher damage output with this build, given high power and crit chance. SoF is preferred due to it's small AoE. As with most things, I recommend testing it in actual game as opposed to pulling a DPS sheet out of your ass. But then again, mileage differs, and so does the experience. What works for you doesn't have to work for me.

[Nikephoros]

Lord_Demosthene, on 07 February 2013 - 04:04 PM, said:

Easy test: go to pvp island, use steady weapons, compare with berserker amulet and trait distribution. Due to the way weapon damage works, result shouldn't be distorted. If still not convinced, check for highest normal & critical damage, through repeated bashing of test golems with normal weapons.

Nothing you can do in spvp builds will replicate having Ruby Orbs, so I'm not sure how you're able to make an apples to apples comparison there.

[keithstoneheart]

Let's compare Red's http://www.gw2db.com...mpowered-knight vs 20/25/0/10/15 (Puandro's Highest).

The only differences I can spot is
-Attack of Opportunity
+Signet Mastery
-Ruby Orbs
+Rune of Lyssa
All of a sudden, it's a brand new build! I personally use 20/25/0/10/15 with another offhand and two other utility.

Maybe we failed to define a Normal Zerker build..

While soloing, sure you might have higher uptime on fury/swiftness/vigor, but I have 10% dmg. You aren't doing damage while casting Warhorn skills btw.
While in a group, perm fury/swiftness/max might is not uncommon during combat, there are other members sharing those with you, so Signet Mastery is redundant, Attack of Opportunity pumps out more %.

Regarding Rune choices, again short duration, you only have 6 sec there in the Empowered build. There are better dps food than 20% boon duration. In party situation, a large portion of that 6 sec boon aren't going to be unique, you are just extending duration on existing ones, thus no sufficient % increase from Empowered again.
2/2/2 might duration, ruby orb, full strength all provide more dmg than lyssa. Since party usually has 25stacks of might already, I went with Ruby.

Question1: is Empowered 1.5% or 2%, can someone verify that for me.
Question2: Lord_Desmosthene pushed for Ogre Runes, might be interesting, someone wanna run some numbers?

Edited by keithstoneheart, 07 February 2013 - 07:54 PM.

[KrayZ33]

Quote

Let's compare Red's http://www.gw2db.com...mpowered-knight vs 20/25/0/10/15 (Puandro's Highest).

The only differences I can spot is
-Attack of Opportunity
+Signet Mastery
-Ruby Orbs
+Rune of Lyssa
All of a sudden, it's a brand new build! I personally use 20/25/0/10/15 with another offhand and two other utility.

Maybe we failed to define a Normal Zerker build..

as I said, its pretty much just Lyssa vs Ruby Orbs, I don't get how you can call it a different build.with just that.
and from what I can make out ruby orbs are probably still better.

12% crit damage 100 power 84 prec (orbs)
vs
150(?) precision + ~2% damage (lyssa) overall

rly?

signet CD 42 seconds, lyssa buff 7 sec with *some* boon duration
so its up 1/6 of the time
6-7 buffs (you get might and fury up with any other build too, swiftness most of the time too)  * 1,5% dmg = 10,5% / 6 =~1,7% overall

what am I missing, I don't get it

I feel trolled

Edited by KrayZ33, 07 February 2013 - 09:35 PM.

[keithstoneheart]

KrayZ33, on 07 February 2013 - 09:11 PM, said:

as I said, its pretty much just Lyssa vs Ruby Orbs, I don't get how you can call it a different build.with just that.

Sorry, what I was trying to say it that the build is unoriginal:
1. Only deviated 5 trait points away from the standard Zerker build
2. Changing rune choice to something rather questionable.
3. Claiming that it's far superior than the standard build.
Any takers on the % testing for Empowered?

[KrayZ33]

Quote

All of a sudden, it's a brand new build!

oh the irony, didn't see it the first time I read it

Quote

Any takers on the % testing for Empowered?

just take it as 2%, it doesn't really matter much
wiki stated its somewhere between 1% and 2% a few months ago, now it says 2%

so it was probably closer to 2% from the beginning

Edited by KrayZ33, 07 February 2013 - 10:23 PM.

[Stigma]

It's like Apple's patent wars. GW2Guru is the official patent office. The worse thing isn't the fact that the internet is flooded with GW2 builds with minor variations it's actually the fact that certain GW2Guru members will flat out flip out or cry if you even resemble their builds.

Lord_Demosthene, on 07 February 2013 - 04:04 PM, said:

For the fellow berserker theorycrafters here, ruby orbs don't provide highest DPS for you. Rune of the Ogre will provide higher base damage, critical damage and DPS, despite marginally lower critical chance in nearly any circumstances. Rune of the ogre will be replaced by Rune of Strenth in terms of effectiveness, once RoS (6) bonus is fixed. That, and the benefit of dog summon.

Oh and Rune of Ogre is like the poor man's version of Rune of Scholar. 5% to summon a dog when you're hit? You trolling??? Personally i rather not want to be hit. How much HP and toughness do you have on a Zerker build to afford getting hit enough times to trigger a 5% dog summon?? I have to get hit 20 times before I can summon my OP rock dog.... and with a 1 min cool down.

Rune of Scholar is a much more logical choice as it advocates not taking damage and keeping good positioning and dodging and comes with higher % Crit Damage and a 10% damage bonus.

keithstoneheart, on 07 February 2013 - 06:17 PM, said:

Let's compare Red's http://www.gw2db.com...mpowered-knight vs 20/25/0/10/15 (Puandro's Highest).

The only differences I can spot is
-Attack of Opportunity
+Signet Mastery
-Ruby Orbs
+Rune of Lyssa
All of a sudden, it's a brand new build! I personally use 20/25/0/10/15 with another offhand and two other utility.

Maybe we failed to define a Normal Zerker build..

By my calculations based Anet's damage equations the 20/20/0/10/20 trait line gives at least 5% less damage than 20/25/0/10/15. This is one case where the opposite happened. The increase in raw % Damage from 25 in Arms (+10% Damage on bleed) actually does a bit more damage than the +5% Critical damage from 20 Discipline. I'm talking about a 20/20/0/10/20 Ruby Orb Zerker vs a 20/25/0/10/15 Ruby Orb Zerker though!! If Red Falcon changes his Lyssa build to a 20/25/0/10/15, he'll definitely get the most damage out of it. He can still use the highest damage Zerker trait spec with his 9 boons.

In terms of damage alone, I haven't seen anything that can dish out more damage than a 20/25/0/10/15 Berserker. At least that's what my crappy spreadsheet that I pulled out of my ass told me. I don't really see how one can be a theory crafter without actually doing some math. But I guess if people have just been tossing things together that look right for the past 10 years it's considered good enough.

Edited by Stigma, 08 February 2013 - 03:30 AM.

[Red_Falcon]

Stigma, on 08 February 2013 - 02:52 AM, said:

It's like Apple's patent wars. GW2Guru is the official patent office. The worse thing isn't the fact that the internet is flooded with GW2 builds with minor variations it's actually the fact that certain GW2Guru members will flat out flip out or cry if you even resemble their builds.

As a matter of fact, pretty much all builds around now we discovered back then in BWEs.
My first shout build and first invincible zerker date back in BWE1, if that old site for builds still exists you could still find all these builds with an August 2012 date stamped on it.

I really don't care for patenting, that is something for certain someones who stole credit for BWE shout builds.
As a proof, Epitaph just made a slightly different version of my 9 boon knight one day after I posted mine, and I haven't asked him anything.
I'm actually happy people develop existing ideas in different ways.
My ideal is that this is a game and we're all working together, and since builds in GW2 are not rocket science it should be all free knowledge.

Stigma, on 08 February 2013 - 02:52 AM, said:

By my calculations based Anet's damage equations the 20/20/0/10/20 trait line gives at least 5% less damage than 20/25/0/10/15. This is one case where the opposite happened. The increase in raw % Damage from 25 in Arms (+10% Damage on bleed) actually does a bit more damage than the +5% Critical damage from 20 Discipline. I'm talking about a 20/20/0/10/20 Ruby Orb Zerker vs a 20/25/0/10/15 Ruby Orb Zerker though!! If Red Falcon changes his Lyssa build to a 20/25/0/10/15, he'll definitely get the most damage out of it. He can still use the highest damage Zerker trait spec with his 9 boons.

In terms of damage alone, I haven't seen anything that can dish out more damage than a 20/25/0/10/15 Berserker. At least that's what my crappy spreadsheet that I pulled out of my ass told me. I don't really see how one can be a theory crafter without actually doing some math. But I guess if people have just been tossing things together that look right for the past 10 years it's considered good enough.

Here is some math to compare your 25 arms build with my Empowered Knight build.
We assume base damage 2000, 70% crit rate 230% crit dmg for first, 79% crit rate 235% crit dmg for second.

If target is bleeding:

Spoiler

10% vs bleeders
Hit 1 - 2200
Hit 2 - 2200
Hit 3 - 2200
Hit 4 - 5060
Hit 5 - 5060
Hit 6 - 5060
Hit 7 - 5060
Hit 8 - 5060
Hit 9 - 5060
Hit 10 - 5060
Total damage = 42.020

+9% crit chance +5% crit dmg:
Hit 1 - 2000
Hit 2 - 2000
Hit 3 - 4700
Hit 4 - 4700
Hit 5 - 4700
Hit 6 - 4700
Hit 7 - 4700
Hit 8 - 4700
Hit 9 - 4700
Hit 10 - 4700
Total damage = 41.600

Result = Bleeder build deals 1% more DPS.

If target is not bleeding:

Spoiler

10% vs bleeders
Hit 1 - 2000
Hit 2 - 2000
Hit 3 - 2000
Hit 4 - 4700
Hit 5 - 4700
Hit 6 - 4700
Hit 7 - 4700
Hit 8 - 4700
Hit 9 - 4700
Hit 10 - 4700
Total damage = 38.900

+9% crit chance +5% crit dmg:
Hit 1 - 2000
Hit 2 - 2000
Hit 3 - 4700
Hit 4 - 4700
Hit 5 - 4700
Hit 6 - 4700
Hit 7 - 4700
Hit 8 - 4700
Hit 9 - 4700
Hit 10 - 4700
Total damage = 41.600

Result = Bleeder build deals 6% less DPS.

Against bleeders the first build deals +1% DPS than the second, but deals 6% less DPS against anything that is not already bleeding.
This means every time you hit a non-bleeding mob you need to hit it another 6 times just to remedy the DPS loss.

So I'm not entirely sure that would be the best choice.
Ultimately, you're getting a 1% DPS increase over the 20 disc build in optimal conditions but always risking to lose 6% DPS.

Reliability or risk a 1% increase against a 6% DPS loss chance?
I call personal preference on this one, Stigma.

Edited by Red_Falcon, 08 February 2013 - 10:11 AM.

[numark]

Nice! This is basically the build I used when I first hit 80 on my warrior.  

I still use it now, switching out a couple of traits here and there and it's effective in a lot of things.

-peace

Edited by numark, 08 February 2013 - 06:43 PM.

[KrayZ33]

but you can't really just assume stats, you need accurate CChance numbers and Cdmg because they are whats making the difference between the 5 points.

however. everyone is actually more curious about your Lyssa stuff and why you believe it to be superior in damage. because overall, the 6-rune bonus will do no more than ~2% damage.

Edited by KrayZ33, 22 February 2013 - 11:12 AM.

[Stigma]

Red Falcon keeps using generic MMO damage equations of the past and don't use Anet's equations which takes into account Critical Chance and all procs with vulnerablity and bleed. End of story.

Edited by Stigma, 09 February 2013 - 09:36 AM.

[Lord_Demosthene]

@ Nikephoros

Crit damage and crit chance scale off Power, in terms of producing damage. Any crit-based DPS build builds up a considerable amount of power, high enough to justify investing in crit chance next, then investing in crit damage when the power and crit chance justify getting it or it's not a direct trade-off (for instance, berserker gear with inherent crit not competing with crit chance or power for a spot).

In PvP, despite much smaller crit damage you can get, rune of the ogre passive damage bonus is still hands-down in dps compared to ruby orbs which you could simulate with 25 strength pieces, divinity runes and some imagination. It won't be a direct comparison because there is slight disconnect here in terms of pvp stats vs pve stats.

The point being made here, is that ogre's (6) damage bonus scales off your total damage after all other calculations and is a multiplier (stuff like 5% more damage scale off other multiplier variables as well). In PvE you have even higher power and crit damage ceiling, making the ogre's damage multiplier even more generous in terms of boosting critical damage, not just base damage. You give up roughly 4% crit chance for a significant boost in basic and critical damage, and it's definitely a worthy alternative.

Scholar rune is something I wouldn't recommend in a PvE setting, especially for melee-focused attackers. I agree it has it's fine niche for elementalists and thieves, which can reliably avoid or block damage during their burst sequence, in turn maintaining the 10% damage bonus - but that is WvW stuff mostly, with slighly less validity in spvp.

As far as PvE DPS builds go, I noticed a rather worrisome trend of stacking contextual (dependant) multipliers in order to "maximise" damage, but it should be noted that these provide superior damage only in their short and brief window of opportunity, making them unreliable for optimal DPS in a varied, dynamic setting. Unless you run a static dungeon group and are confident you can maintain 90% of health, while not having to retreat, being able to stay put and deal good dps without being dependant on 90% hp for a minor benefit seems like a superior strategy.

You have to account for risk and variables outside of your control such as team performance, unless risk is minimal, encounter gimped and your timings very precise, scholar rune shouldn't even be considered. It takes but one error or event outside your narrowed vision of how dungeon plays to completely wreck your stacked multipliers such as 3% from stick & move (when preserving dodge is more important) or 10% from scholar (when you're supposed to be in direct contact and deal as much damage as possible, regardless of the damage you take).

If having accounted for all of these you still believe scholar is superior, do use it. If it's not, get a more reliable option. Ultimately, a preference.

Rune of the Ogre for reference:
(1): +25 Power (2): +3% Critical Damage (3): +50 Power (4): 5% chance to summon a rock dog when hit. (Cooldown: 60s) (5): +90 Power (6): +4% damage

160 power, 3% crit damage, 4% overall DPS increase after all other calculations. As far as I'm concerned, it's an alternative worth consideration. Rune of the Strength - still appears bugged for me. Once it's fixed, it could be a third strong alternative to ruby orbs, short of scholar and ogre (I have no strong opinion on rune of the pack as of yet).

My personal verdict:

- ruby orbs are economical choice for either burst or dps-oriented, physical damage specs
- rune of the ogre is generally an upgrade in dps and burst alike to ruby orb, significantly more expensive at TP
- rune of the scholar is generally an upgrade for burst builds with good damage mitigation, it's debatable whether it's a superior dps choice over rune of the ogre in actual fighting conditions
- rune of the strength could be a rival to rune of the ogre, in might-stacking builds that don't reach their full (25 might stack) ceiling in group scenarios (once the rune's 6th damage bonus works)

Edited by Lord_Demosthene, 09 February 2013 - 12:16 PM.

[Nikephoros]

Feel free to show the math that shows in a typical DPS build that Ogre has better DPS.  Unlike others, I have an open mind and I'll always use whatever the best options are to min/max.  So if you can prove it, I'll believe it.

[Stele]

Double checked on my Guardiam who has Runes of Lyssa.

Boon duration on activating elite is 5 seconds in PVE.

[malevolence]

Ok, I have been running this build from Red and also the classic 20/25/0/10/15 on my full exotic berserker gear + berserker ascended gear (back and rings) + a berserker GS, all gear with ruby orbs (need to buy the Lyssa runes).

Half of guru's forum will hate me for saying this, but the 2 builds from Red do more damage than the 20/25/0/10/15, a bit more, but they do, unless, there is something I am doing wrong or maybe to the fact that 20/25/0/10/15 extra damage depends on bleeding.

, I will test it further and post as soon as I get the runes.

[KrayZ33]

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.....all gear with ruby orbs (need to buy the Lyssa runes).

so you didn't try the lyssa runes? and how is a build with 30 points into tactics supposed to deal more damage than a build which went for damage all the way?

yep, I do hate you for saying that, thats just bullshit, it doesn't even have to do with Red's build being bad or whatever, its impossible - unless all the traits are bugged, which they are not.

Quote

unless, there is something I am doing wrong or maybe to the fact that 20/25/0/10/15 extra damage depends on bleeding.

- not sure if serious -

Edited by KrayZ33, 11 February 2013 - 06:12 AM.