Superior Runes. When are they worth it?

I became involved in a discussion which has caused me to decide to look at the way I play the game. A self-evaluation if you like. The discussion was one regarding the use of Superior Runes. It has been brought to my attention that a monk, using a Superior Rune, may have certain...weaknesses, and that actually, the +2 attributes and the -75 health is not worth the extra healing, which is often only around 10 HP.

This started me thinking. If this is the case for Monks, what about other professions? A rash statement would be that this method of thinking can be applied to professions across the board, in particular with "the squishies", as Casters are at a greater risk of being targeted by monsters.

My most used character is my Elementalist. When one looks at the damage values for spells on the great and glorious Wiki, it can be seen that reducing the rune to a minor rune will only result in losing out of a couple of points of damage. An example could be Teinai's Heat, where each pulse is only reduced by 4 damage for switching from a Superior Rune to a Minor Rune This of course is the same across the board. Necromancers using Spiteful Spirit would only lose out on 4 damage each time SS is triggered, Mesmers in actual fact, wouldn't lose any points of damage on Energy Burn, though Backfire would be reduced by 14 damage. Necromancers and Elementalists do have skills which can compensate this loss in the form of Awaken the Blood and Glyph of Elemental Power.

And what of the Physical Damage Dealers? On the face of it, reducing the rune to a minor rune, from a superior rune will, as with the Casters, only reduce a skill's effect by a few points. Thinking about the reasoning behind a Caster using a minor rune however, which is to gain more health and therefore not be targeted by enemy mobs, what would happen to the party as a whole if this principle were applied to the Physical Damage Dealers? Well, from what I can see, nothing would change. Everyone would gain 75 health and we would be in the same predicament as we were in before.

So perhaps it is viable to keep a superior rune on those classes with the higher levels of armour? If a Warrior or Paragon were to be able to draw the enemy fire better, that should allow the Casters to sit pretty at the back and be less at risk of being targetted?

But there are always exceptions, right? Well, I think there are at any rate.

• Farming is clearly an exception, as most farming builds are centred around invincibility. A 55HP monk wouldn't be a 55HP monk without superior runes.
• Defensive Spirit Spamming, in my mind, is also an exception. If a Ritualist is sat at the back dumping spirits down, there is no great reason for him/her to become too involved with the fight? Let's not forget that spirits are weak little things, and the higher rank in Communing, the greater health they have, and the more damage they can absorb.
• A Minion Master's number of minions is reliant on Death Magic. 16 Death means 10 minions. Perhaps the one extra minion is not required, I'm not sure what sort of a difference one extra minion would make.
• A Life Barrier/Life Bond Monk who sits far away spamming Blessed Signet. That doesn't really matter too much if they have a superior rune, well, in PvE anyway where your foes have no brain.

So now I'm looking for some input.

What classes, or builds, benefit from the extra couple of attributes, over and above those which I have listed?

Also, are my assumptions/deductions/statements fair and generally plausible?

Note: I am, throughout this post, referring to PvE, unless otherwise stated, though I'd be happy to hear thoughts from the PvP side of things.

Edit: Correcting Typos.

You are on the right track, kinda.

I prefer to run minors on almost characters. The only occasional exceptions are rangers and paragons (dual majors due to attribute spreads), because they are most capable of surviving due to armor and position. Obviously as well, PvE builds that are not at as much risk can run maj/sup too.

There are often threads about players dying in incredibly short times to mobs. Usually, having 600+hp, or upper 500+armor boosts, would prevent death that was too immediate (with proper positioning) for the monks to deal with it.

Instead of trying to mess with monster targeting too much, think of why monsters don't go for the high health people. They're a lot harder to kill. Thus, even if aggro doesn't cooperate, you're not going down as easily. This becomes especially important when you have DP.

As for when to take sup vs. minor, it really depends on the builds you run. The key thing to look out for is immense scaling in the last two points from 14 to 16.

Minion masters with 16 DM have significantly stronger minions (2 extra levels), and can carry an extra minion. Always worth bringing a sup there. The same thing goes for spirit spam.

There's a few skills that scale heavily from 14 to 16. With mind blast, for example, a sup rune is the difference between +3 net energy per cast and +5. It's probably worth it to bring it then, although less so than with the minion master. It's a good idea to bring a minor rune headpiece to switch in case you get DP here.

As for physicals, if it's normal mode, aggro will hold however you want it to. If it's hard mode, monsters will be tear-assing around in a semi-random fashion, almost never targeting the high AL targets, no matter how high or low their health is. I'd have your physicals stick with minors, unless they need to hit an important breakpoint.

I don't follow my own advice a lot of the time because I like to see big numbers, though :P

I prefer 14 divine favor, 12 healing and 11 protect for my monk. Using major DF, major HP and minor PP. Nothing she can't handle.

I love superior runes as a warrior, and having a lot of +armor equipment/skills and stuff like protective spirit and shielding hands. Mobs will stick to me like glue when I have ~400 HP, while ignoring the squashy casters with more hitpoints then I have. The armor and spells negates most damage.

Don't forget that a Superior Vigor is almost always worth it :P
And I find that on elementalists a single superior rune is worth it.

Depend on the character I use really, on warrior and assasin (yes I do have one) I used 1 major runes -35 health isn't that bad when there're insignias and +30 weapon mod, they both have superior vigor as well. 1 Major rune is the core set up for all of my heroes as well.

As for my mid liners and casters, I used superior runes. 14-15-16 att points for some caster does have a lot of different, in term of duration of hex, condition and total dmg. So I like to max them out, I also use superior vigor on all of them. Normally their health would be some where in 480-510 area.

Ah ha, Superior Vigor of course, is a whole other matter. It's nice when you can afford it, most of my characters stick with Major Vigors as it's only 9 health difference...for a huge price increase.

And about the Superior Ele runes, yes, Mind Blast is a good example of that...when I run Mind Blast I often only use Fire Attunement and Glyph of Elemental Power as there is no real need for Glyph of Lesser Energy...and GoEP means an extra energy gain off Mind Blast.

You raise some interesting points.

For myself, I agree that in most instances, the small benefits gained from the sups don't outweigh the penalty. As you mentioned, what difference is 1 more minion really going to make? That said, using a sup vigor would somewhat ameliorate the use of a sup skill rune, making it reasonably feasible.

Another thing to keep in mind is that, while the individual increase in damage might seem fairly negligible, skills which produce (rapidly) recurring effects can benefit from the small increases in damage as a lot of little bits can add up to a sizeable chunk.

I'm thinking in particular of Barbs and Mark of Pain (though there are many others). Barbs, for example, does +14 dmg per phys hit at 14 curses; at 16 curses (using Awaken the Blood), that goes to +17. Now, +3 per hit doesn't seem like that much at first glance but when you've a W, a R and several minions pounding on that target every ~2 secs, all those +3s add up to a lot of extra dmg. Throwing a sup curses into the mix would add another big chunk of additional dmg.

As far as throwing sups on Ws goes, it's my understanding that enemy AI targets not just lowest health, but lowest health/lowest armor. Lowering a W's healther wouldn't reduce their AL and enemies would still go for the squishies. And since Ws are intended to take a lot of damage while the casters do their thing, lowering the Ws health would be somewhat counterproductive.

Personally, I used to run 1 major on my nuker and my SS; as I used maor vigors and +30H off-hands, it wasn't really wasn't a problem. Even so, I've gone back to using just minors now.

I will sometimes throw a major on a hero, not for the attribute boost but because I'm cheap - majors are 100g vs. several hundreds or 1 plat + for some minors nowadays; I figure they can deal with it until I come across a salvageable minor to replace it with.

I'm primarily a mesmer and will always either wear a sup domination or sup illusion. The extra time it adds to hexes or the extra damage I do through the various spells are critical to me. VERY rarely to almost never will I not have one of those 2 fields at 16. I'm not sure if other mesmers play this way but I honestly can't picture myself only using minor runes or using a major inplace. Every second my hex stays on is worth the hp hit to me.

Next exmaple for an ele: just take a normal SF bar with Searing Flames + Glowing Gaze (+1 rune = 8 energy back, +3 rune = 10 energy back) so it can make a difference ... for me at least.

I think for a sin the extra in dagger mastery and or critical hits can be worth it.

Dagger mastery increases the damage per hit, the chance for a critical hit and the chance for a double hit. If a skill winds up being a double hit it can make a huge difference in damage.

And the sin is supposed to use speed or skills to avoid being hit in the first place so the extra health is not as much of a factor.

Plus there is the energy gain on critical hits.

I know minor vs superior does make a big difference, for instance, with the standard sin build vs Magni the Bison. Also with the increased energy demand given to black spider a couple of updates ago the timing for the A/Me tomb farmer build is kind of dicey and every little boost makes a big difference. So I think the superior runes are definitely needed there.

So for a sin, depending on the build and what your are doing with it, the superior runes can be useful.

I can't think of a whole lot of reasons to use sup runes in PvE. In PvP you might want one, just to get that little extra edge. I've also heard that a warrior with 16 points in his weapon skill is one of the most potent options you can go for.

There is very little difference between 14 and 16 weapon mastery, not worth it.

PvE rejoices in numbers and maximum dps, and in which area does the superior rune actually proof itself as a disadvantage?

Rangers and Paragons have some important breakpoints to meet so they're fine with dual majors. For other classes, there's usually no need. A simple rule is to start with all minors, and if you feel you can afford losing health to superiors, go ahead and change.

hm, an age old discussion. but a good one. I myself run my heroes with all major runes. -70 health to boost their primary and their main build att. works for me. This used to be a bigger issue before they lowered the penalty for major runes. But, with inflating rune prices, I see more players are taking advantage of the Maj.

But for me, SS Nec. I personaly prefer Sup Curse to get 16, AtB with Blood @ 10 = Curse @ 18. losing 4 to 8 dmg per trigger of SS or Mark of Pain is a VERY big deal to me, concidering the number of times these spells trigger. In my opinion, to Sup or not to Sup depends on the class and the advanteges and disadvantages for each.

Making this choice, for me, I attampt to balance all charachters, be them my toons or heroes, between high health and armor bonuses. so, i dunno. works well for me. I never much prob in PvE. I haven't had to retry a mission since I bombed out last month on Ruins of Morah...(4th try, win) grrr.. but hey. Major runes rock since the -HP reduction.

Which is why my melee/ranged aren't getting sup runes. My casters have it, altough. I like seeing big numbers, and I can kite. I try to boost my health by other means though, so when I don't need ench. weapons I switch to fort. sets, or run +45^enchanted stuff... it helps when I want to maximize my damage.

Not really they run about 14k now vs a major at 2.5k with 9 health difference so the major is the best bet.

They are so expensive because they don't drop, the last one I got was in Prophecies like a over year ago, never got one to drop in Faction's , or NightFall, and have not seen one yet in EotN

I have Superiors on all of my headpieces (I own one for each stat), and to be honest I'm thinking of switching down to Majors on all four. Being a Spirit Spammer as a Ritualist nowadays is absolutely pointless, so we've got to be doing other things.

However, I'd have to take a good look at the common skills I use, their breakpoints, and determine what I can get away with. In all cases though, I certainly think that for casters, the more HP you have, the less you get targetted by monsters. And that is crucial in some areas. I frequently hear (and often say) "Why the heck do the monsters always come after me?" by those characters with low health. I think it's time to switch up to something a little sturdier. If I live longer and have more opportunities to cast (less disruption from baddies, no kiting), that makes me more effective for the group.

I saw a couple drop in Nightfall, but nothing for about 6 months or so as far as Superior Vigor goes.

Surely if you're kiting, you're not doing your job, and so the superior rune becomes worthless? It's like Mhenlo in Eye of the North. The monsters LOVE to target him, nearly every time. Noone get's healed. Why? Mhenlo's kiting.

If only we could check what the henchmen wield to make sure they didn't give Mhenlo a -20HP inscription...because that's all I ever hear him say.

In an ideal group, just about every can run 3 superior runes. After all, tanks will block the agro.

In real world, high health = good. I'm not talking about Ascalon in normal mode.

Everything is fine, until someone gets a bit of DP. Then, a character with 560 health will be down to some 500, but a character with 430 health will be down to 350. And that does make a difference.

There's plenty of areas, where you get hit for 250-500. And having lots of health means dying in a single hit, or surviving long enough to be healed and protected.

In GW:EN, there's other dangers as well. Life stealing, ranger spikes, those Johun melee, Twisting Jaws. You cannot effectively and consistently prot against those.

There are breaking points in attributes. 14 is usually enough.

A 10% increase, to one target. It works decently against bosses, and can come handy in combat. But it's not game making or breaking.

But since you're using an enchantment, that one can get shattered for some 120-140 damage.

Elite dungeons.

Last mission in NF, where Abaddon hits entire group for 400 damage.

Hard mode.

Anything with life stealing, degen, armor ignoring damage (shards of orr comes to mind).

In all those, you can run the group as holy trinity, and pray that tank doesn't lose agro. If that does happen, then the group wipes anyway. But for anything semi-balanced, high health comes handy.

I ALWAYS take a superior rune. Stronger necro minions, more ele damage, more warrior damage (and more health from Endure Pain + Defy Pain, please don't say it's a bad elite since in teams with lots of warriors I'm usually the last one standing in a wipe and I put out a nice damage rate), stronger Splinter Weapon, etc.

75 health loss? Doesn't matter when I use my hero monks, they are very good.

I believe that contrary to some poster above me, superior attribute runes are well worth it in PvE, while minors/majors should be used for most occasions in PvP.

As someone said, while in normal mode, if aggro is controlled correctly the squishies will be pretty safe. Actually this is mostly true in hard mode too, what with the snares generally used, etc. However, if the monster does get a choice, he will go for the low-AL targets as a priority.

It's important to understand the difference between HP levels between the monsters you fight in high-level PvE and the players, as well as the relative inability of monsters in PvE to coordinate spikes. Generally speaking if you're talking about getting "spiked" in PvE we're talking about an insane damage monster skill. 500 or 600 hit points here aren't going to make too bloody much of a difference here, if PS isn't up.

The difference, for example, between SS at 13 and 16 might seem trivial, but in fact, it is anything but. The damage increase is exponential. The curse will both stay longer and do more damage per second. And, this is a situation that's more open to debate than minion mastery. Someone asked, what difference does one extra minion make? Not too much, but the extra LEVEL of the minions... that makes one hell of a lot of difference.

This said, I have lately begun to invest more and more in hit points for some jobs, since I have learned to live with less and less energy. This however does not mean forsaking superior attribute runes, merely switching attunements to vitaes, radiants to survivors, +E mods to +HP mods.

"I put out a nice damage rate"

Superior Scythe mastery rune is necessity for my derv. If I use some Avatar at PvP Superior Mysticism rune is must too. (At PvE i use that perfect sunspear skill :P ). My Necro can't live without Superior Curses and Superior Soul Reaping. Superior Divine Favour is needed too.

Well, same question for PERFECT weapon mods. Do you REALLY need that +30hp axe grip for 5k when you can get +29hp for 500g? Is it really worth it? You are not weaker with that nearly perfect than with perfect. BUT! This is a game. People just WANT good equipment. And when you have two superior runes, you have to equip Superior Vigor rune. It costs pretty much, but when you have other superior runes to boost ur attributes to PERFECT, you think that it is really needed. And then it is. That's why superior vigor runes costs so much. Simple.

The only place where I can see an attraction in a superior Soul Reaping rune is when you run an MM with Masochism. For any other build I believe it is a disservice.

Nice thread

I never use sup runes, 75 health is a bit too much for me, I tend to use majors on rangers and casters and minors on monk/melee. when a critter slips past the melee he will always target some caster and the monk will still have his hands free to heal him.

Even on an mm I don't use sup runes, it is true that he can maintain 10 minions that way, but there aren't 10 minions alive ALL THE TIME, that should be taking into consideration when you are trying to calculate DPS.

In PvE there's no reason NOT to use superior runes unless you're solo farming or something.

Prot spirit becomes more effective with less health.

I repeat, ad nauseum, that you should upgrade your MMs, whether real or hero, to 12+3+1 Death Magic. What should be considered when trying to calculate damage output is the difference between a level 17 and a level 18 Bone Fiend, and the difference between a 15 and 16 Order of Undeath, among other things.

Minion masters *should not run* high maximum HP. A moderate maximum HP makes maintaining the army much easier.

By that logic, everyone should use a 55HP setup?

Protective Spirit loses it's effectiveness when high amounts of enchantment stripping is around, especially Necromancers with Chilblains, not to mention you need a lot of monks in your party to "maintain" it on everyone. It's not the cheapest skill in the world either come to that.

Yes, you can easily "get by" in normal mode PvE when everyone has superior runes. But when it comes to everyone using Superior Runes...like I said in the OP, there is no incentive for monsters to leave the monk alone...

I'm liking this viewpoint:

The reason you do not use this logic is because the number of PvE monks that will preprot you with prot spirit can be counted on one hand.

Absolutely no reason to use Superior Runes in most situations, unless you're really spreading your points thin.

Health is always the last line of defense.

Even Protective Spirit can't save you from degen or lifesteal.



Speaking of which, Protective Spirit (and Shelter, to a lesser extent) just needs to get nerfed already. This 55 nonsense has been going on for years, it's amazing that they still haven't fixed it.

Protective Spirit needs to calculate 10% of your base Health (instead of your actual health, as it works now) which is 480 Health at level 20. So yes, PS would become "weaker" as you level up but become "stronger" if you have more than 480 Health.

I wouldn't take Death Penalty into account, since it would mean that higher DP = stronger PS, which is also nonsensical.

I use min runes in PvP.
I use sup runes in PVE.
PvP is not the "base model" for PVE if you ask me. People tend to much to reproduce habits they take in PvP for PVE thinking its the right choice as it saves their butt in PvP.
IMHO in PVE:
For monks, 600+ HP is the norm.
For every other character, use sup runes, with minor helm ones aside. The dedicated "tank" can even take more runes to lower his health so he will be the only one targeted.
If you meet a hard mob, like a boss ele, switch to minor runes.
If not, there is no need to stick with minor. If your monk can't handle a 480 HP guy in PVE, I seriously question his abilities. There is no 700+ damage spikes from mobs in PVE, excepted bosses. Remember that PVE is grind. The couple +damage you will inflict will be the couple + seconds you will gain. A MM in Minor will deal significantly less damage through his mobs, as well as the SF ele, the Dragonslasher, the SS necro...
Unless you plan to go on very hard zones, like vainquishing (and yet...) or DoA or Urgoz/whatever, stick to Sups and switch to minor if you face big mobs/have DP.

Depends, monsters in hard mode DO spike, same as in PvP. On the other hand, taking a good PvP skill like frenzy on your warrior in PvE is downright daft. Same as I would prefer triple chop over eviscerate in PvE.

My opinion about professions that MUST have 16 always in the main attribute:

- Necromacer // Minions (no discussion), Hexes (noticeable difference, specially elites), Blood (really noticeable because the low damage it does)

- Elementalist (if doing AoE) // the difference in damage is really noticeable in time, time of the burning, etc.

- Others professions not really important. Exceptions: Monk (smiting), Mesmer (some builds), and Ritualist (channeling).

across my characters and heroes it varies widely.

Really depends on build too, on timed skills i like to have them up fr as long as possible, so if it the case that a superior would cause somethign to be constant rather than witing a 5 secs for recharge i will use the sup if necesarry.

My mesmer is running abut in armour desigend for fast casting, so it has sup fast casting, with sup vigor, becuase i use it with secondary profs mainly i dont have any other runes on it for attributes, instead i use them to up health and energy. this works well to give me a much faster caster.

My MM usually have a sup death on them, though some of the heroes have major, due to expense. when using a sup though i always put on a major ore sup vigor,

No PvE monster groups "spike" except through sheer luck. There is no coordinated effort to their behavior.

Well then I fought some pretty lucky monsters, believe me, I've seen numerous occasions in which high health works.

In Hard Mode though, they tend to make a bee-line for whoever seems weakest. As a consequence, when they open fire on that player, they hit hard, all at once, thus spiking.

I guess having HM monsters "spike" who you want them to (the high-armour target) is all part of the game.