Superior Runes. When are they worth it?

I <3 Chromo drakes. They're fun.

Back on topic.

Just use those minors, unless you're an MM, then load up on a superior and get dark bond, maybe infuse condition.

1. Sigh.... I remember back when it was "omfg! You don't use a sup rune?!?! What a nub!" Now it's "omfg! You DO use a sup rune?!?!? What a nub!" My how the times have changed. It seems the only constant in life is that other players must be ridiculed as noobs...

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2. As for the notion that more health keeps aggro off of you...
Precisely. High health doesn't make aggro go away, it just shifts it off to someone else on the team. I've got 4 thoughts on that:

• Nobody thinks very highly of the mending wammo who avoids aggro through high health/AL/regen until he's the last man standing, then gets torn apart by a dozen monsters. Why is it any better when an ele with a minor rune avoids aggro because of high health, until they're the last man standing, then gets torn apart by a dozen monsters?
• Since aggro has to go somewhere, about the only use I can think of for moving it around via life totals is maybe getting it off the monks and onto the other squishies (since it's already in your backline if monks are being hit). Is having your ele gutted by a big ugly char better than having your monk gutted? Maybe marginally so. If that's the case, then the appropriate maxim would not be: "use minors," but rather "monk use minors, and everyone else use major/sup."
• Unless the idea is to get aggro shifted away from the all squishies to the tanks? But that's just not going to work. Monsters consider more than just health. And you're not going to get a big enough health advantage on your casters to overcome the AL difference and make the tanks look tastier.
• It may not work at all because of monster class bias. I distinctly recall an experiment that showed monsters prefered a 60AL monk with 500+ hp to a full buffet of 7 otherwise-naked warriors wearing 0AL festival hats with sup runes. The experimenters concluded that monsters simply have a "class bias" for certain sorts of casters, particularly monks, all other factors be damned. Now, I'm in no position to say whether that experiment was properly conducted or if the AI has changed since then, but it is something to think about before you redo all your headgear.

In sum: Using high health as a way of avoiding aggro is a pretty silly idea on the whole.

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3. As for the notion of health as a "safety buffer"...
I want to start by subdiving this into two separate notions. That should help clarify that Ensign and Avarre are (I think) saying two different things, and maybe go some ways towards clarifying the issue for odly.

Taken abstractly, what happens to your health bars is the result of a comparison between two rates: the rate at which your healer(s) push red bars up, and the rate at which the monsters push those red bars down, as modified by your team's damage-prevention (prot+armor buffs+block+minion damage soak+etc). As long as the former rate exceeds the latter, you'll be cruising along at near max health. This is what Odly thinks is ideal. On the other hand, if the latter rate exceeds the former, your red bars are going to steadily head down towards death. At that point, how much health you have is a measure of how long you can continue "deficit spending" - more health gives you more time to kill enough monsters to get your healing rate above the monsters' post-damage-prevention damage rate. I think this is what Avarre is talking about with dipping down to 1hp on every character. I think it would be better described as a "final resource" than a "safety buffer." The tertium quid here springs from the fact that healing and damage aren't smooth and continuous, but rather bumpy and discrete. How much health you have is also a measure of how big a "bump" you can digest without someone dying. In this sense, health truly is a "safety buffer," and I think that's what Ensign is talking about.

So we have now two notions: health as a final resource, and health as a safety buffer.

I don't much care for aggressive play while using health as a final resource. It makes a very dangerous assumption about monsters dying on schedule so that their damage rate falls below your healing rate when you need it to. Frankly, I've never seen a group with such consistency of pace that the amount of damage monsters got off before they died had a variance smaller than 75. In fact, I've never seen a group that even came close to that sort of consistency. Moreover, this style of play requires memorization of monster positions and careful aggro, because a single unplanned-for monster is going to delay the moment when the rates equalize long enough that you die. Not that I have anything against memorizing monster positions and careful aggro, I just wonder why, if you have to be slowing down to do those things anyway, you aren't just using pull-tank-nuke tactics?

As for health as a true "safety buffer," I'm not sure how much difference 75 really makes. If a margin of error is what we're looking for, then, ideally, you want a healthbar that's long enough so there's a point where, if the monk heals you, it won't be an overheal, and, if the monk doesn't heal you, you don't die on the next hit, or next X hits. 75 health only matters if it can increase the number of hits it takes to move you from that point to dead such that the monk gets a significantly larger response window. 75 health doesn't matter fwith 60AL against an aatax, since you're dead in two hits with or without it. 75 health doesn't matter against a spined aloe, since the monk's response window is gigantic with or without it. 75 health would matter in a situation like this: monk has a 120hp heal, the monsters hit for 300, and you're looking at 405hp vs 480hp - in one case the monk can miss the heal and get another chance, in the other you die. How frequent is that sort of scenario as opposed to the other two? I'm really not sure. But I don't think it's hugely common.
Perhaps a more useful way of looking at it is: Given the monsters' damage rate, how much more time does 75 hp give your healer(s) to respond? If it gives them twice as long, or 50% longer, or even 33% longer, maybe it's a good deal to go minor. Less than that, you're probably better off trading that health away for attribute points. It all comes down to what monsters you're fighting. I don't have a clear enough picture of damage rates across the game, but my instinct is that most monster damage rates are going to be either too high for 75hp to make you live a moment longer, or too low for the healer's window to increase by a significant proportion.

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Recap of 2 and 3:
Using minors to shift aggro to the rest of your team is probably not worth it, except maybe for monks. Using minors so that you can play aggressively while using life as a "final resource" is very risky, and the tactics that reduce the risk are just as slow as the tactics used by sup-users to "play around" their low health. For me, the jury's still out on using minors so that you have a larger "safety buffer" in response times, but it's not looking too promising.

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4. Minion masters....
Indeed. This, combined with the increases in minion damage, minion life, minion armor, and an additional minion make the minion master the paradigmatic clear-cut case in favor of some builds needing a sup rune no matter what.

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5. "Duality" builds...
For the most part, I've held my tongue on this topic, and I'm going to continue to do so. Just one bit of food for thought:

There's nothing new about this concept. It's at least as old as sticking a MM in the group and running the whole party headlong into aggro knowing that the minions will soak all the damage. Running the whole party headlong into aggro and relying on your damage-prevention and healing to see you through has been criticized as the ultimate "noob maneuver" ever since I can remember... regardless of whether or not it worked. So, why is it that when we give it a fancy name and stick the damage-prevention skills on paragons this tactic goes from being a "noob maneuver" to the totally in-vouge "it" build of the century?

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6. "Oh snap" moment of the day:
I laughed.... hard.

As has been pointed out, there is no such thing as 'covering for the sup'. Here is an analogy; you can pay $30 for a cookie, which is expensive, but luckily a buddy also happens to owe you $30.

Your argument is that it's ok to pay $30 for the cookie, because you "make it back" when your buddy pays you what he owes you. The argument other people are making is that the baseline scenario is getting that $30 from your buddy, and it doesn't make spending $30 on that cookie a good idea.

Well I don't understand. So why don't you explain it to me? Why is a Superior Rune of Energy Storage almost instant merchant bait, but everybody is scrambling for Minor Runes of Energy Storage? Why is a rare item less valuable than a common item in Guild Wars?

Sup energy storage runes are merch bait because the -75 health isnt worth the extra 6 energy. Rare items are worth more because they can come with better mods and usually max stats than a common item will.

Because the rune system of Guild Wars is poorly designed. The diminishing returns offered by the increase in attribute over 14 (13, actually, in many cases) makes the pretty gold lettering of a Superior rune the only good thing about it.

EDIT: Superior runes are good when you're using them to lower your maximum health for whatever reason (sacrificing health, 55 builds), but the fact that the downside of runes (the maximum health loss) is the best part of them in most situations (better than the additional attribute points) is an embarrassing design flaw.

What you said instead I use [skill]Aura of the Lich[/skill]. Tanking better than a 55 in most circumstances is simply awesome

Atleast someone gets most of it.

In most cases yes the superior runes are worth it, but thats also where the best players usually have a back up piece of armor with a minor when the situation warrants agaisnt it.

I'm not about to jump in and defend use of either Superior or Minor, so before this thread gets closed because of all the JACKASSES spamming images, I'd just like to get one question in:
If Health is the biggest single determining factor in which player a monster attacks first (which people pro-minorseem to have made it out to be), wouldn't the best choice be to load your Warrior with a Superior and a Major, to get his/her Health lower than the rest of the party, so aggro is always focused on him/her? Wouldn't, by most arguments for pro-minor, this be the most effective way to tank, even better than simply corner blocking? I have never used a Superior on my Warrior, but after hearing so many people swear by the High-HP/No-Aggro "rule," I'm tempted to try it.
I think HP is only one of many factors in determining which target a monster will pick first. As you can see in The Deep from Chaos Storm mobs, weapons have a large role on which spells get cast on who. And after playing through The Deep on hard-mode countless times, I have begun to believe that mobs cannot discern which class a player is. Armor is obviously a factor in choice of target, as is weapon and probably health. But class? No.
Like someone said before me; a long time ago, you were considered a noob for not using a superior rune. It seems the tables have turned.

I'm an old fashion wammo and I don't have any sup runes and I still last longer than most I'm usually that last standing of course there are most times when I'm the first killed (wammo need I say more) but I'm thinking about getting atleast 1-2 of them (vigor is a must) I could care less about the squishes lol (sarcasm I like them they keep me alive!)

Just look to high level PvP, minor runes everywhere. So clearly builds work with minor runes. Stop and ask yourself "Why do I need a major or superior rune?" Wanting a little more damage or a few more points of healing isn't a good enough answer. That answer better be "it enabled me to hit a break point." I run 12+3 mysticism and 12+1 scythe on my dervish because that major rune enables me to hit the breakpoint for +5 energy on enchantments and gives me a stronger energy engine. I run 12+2 Weapon on my warrior because there is no break point to hit for my weapon skills. An extra few points will give me a marginal increase in damage, but the extra health lets me shrug off more stuff.

Ask yourself, how much more can you push things with 600 health over 455 health? I can play much riskier with 600 HP, I can aggressively push a boss and take a 300 damage hit much better. If I take DP I can shrug it off more effectively. Guess what, sometimes it is more efficient to die and get rez sigged, death pacted, or sig of returned while taking a bunch of the enemies with you. Panicking, having the team scatter, and run halfway across the map trying to break agro is slow and tends to lose people in the process anyway.

As for the prot spirit arguement, even with 600 HP prot spirit is still effective in PvE. Spirit bond is extremely energy efficient in PvE (it mitigates about 800 damage for 10 energy.) You should also have small prot for situations where the enemy doesn't use large packets of damage. In fact you should be asking yourself "Why the #$!@ don't we have prot spirit and shield of absorption?" if your team doesn't have those skills.

Heck, just use minor runes because I said so. You won't regret it. When you can see the breakpoints then you can use majors and sups.

Too lazy to comment on everything, but for this:
The idea is that the lower-armor warrior gets the aggro and keeps it, and he's easier to heal and prot because of his higher armor than a high health but low armor squishy would be. So, yes, you can play with the AI so that they do what you want them to do: attack the warrior with 116 armor.

So if I can kill them faster with a Sup rune on, go for it?

BTW, you rarely should play it that closely no matter if you are wearing a sup rune or not. You can always pull back and heal. Focus your fire, play smart, and take your time.

So every char should have 6-7 enchantments and a ranger dropping a 16BM symbiosis (butchered that one) all the time? Don't forget the Sup vigor, 4 vitaes, and +60 in your hands (which means you can't play a dagger assassin cause that -30hp from not having an extra mod means your build is always noob).

A character has 480 to modify up or down. You are correct to think of things in terms of advantages and disadvantages, but wrong to start from the "practical" maximum.



... (this is the short form of saying "Double! Double!")


Exactly. IMO there are runes you need for your build, either sup, maj, or min, and ones you don't. FIND THE RIGHT ONE FOR THE JOB.



Bad analogy. A better one would be saying that every character has 590 HP or whatever is like counting chickens before they hatch. You don't have whatever HP you've got is until you've finished your build and making all of your modifications.


What MistressYichi said.


CHunter, that would sound reasonable, but I guess it's everyone for himself. You let those monks die just to show how much more elite you are when the mobs pick on him first.

If your only concern is holding aggro as effectively as possible, there's nothing that beats a 55 monk in starter armor. Monsters see armor, they don't see DR prot, and glue themselves to a 55 tank.

The reason you'd use a Warrior tank is because it tends to stay alive better through more hostile environments, disruption, and mistakes. The Warrior will stay alive for a good while even without a team. 55 Monk often won't.


You can say that in most cases the superior rune is worth it and technically be correct. However in situations where the superior rune is worth it, it didn't matter at all whether you had it or not. That is the bulk of PvE, against small mobs of minimally threatening monsters that you blow up quickly before running to the next mob. If you are doing something completely non-threatening, then by all means put on superiors, and get yourself clearing zones 2, 3% faster from the difference.

However I don't ever concern myself with tweaking builds for really easy encounters. I build for the bad situations when you aggro multiple dungeon mobs, or for playing in nastier hard mode zones. In the situations where the choice actually matters, when the difference is between succeeding and taking deaths in an encounter, superiors are virtually always a liability.

I fixed your post so that it was no longer self-contradictory. However, it's still wrong: Monsters consider more than just HP; they also look at AL, proximity, regen, and possibly class and/or weapon type. Having a warrior with less heath than the casters is not going to make aggro magically stick to him, at least not up until the point where the life difference is so big that he actually IS an easier target to kill, despite his higher AL -- at which point you gain little to nothing by foisting the aggro onto him.

By and large, most groups that stick aggro on a single tank get it there by not putting anyone else within the range the monsters will consider; and then keep it there by (1) avoiding skills that cause monsters to "re-aggro" and (2) exploiting the AI pathing (ie corner block). Who has 75 more health than whom never enters into it.

The concept of 75 extra hp as a safety buffer has some merit to it. I'm not sure if I (or 99% of other players) spend enough time in the few places where it matters to make it worth the inventory slot for an extra headpiece. And I certainly don't think it's worth going minors all the time just to have a safety buffer for a few places I rarely go. But at least the idea is well presented and makes sense. On the other hand, the idea of using the difference between a minor and a sup for aggro control is just silly.

-4 damage each pulse equates to a total of -20 damage all together. Pretty big difference to me.

High health totals keep you from getting crippled by high death penalty.

the MM can have 10 minions without it. As far as my other chars i seldom use a superior.


heres a question on runes and such. Could u set up a hero as a 55 and take him/her farming. just flag them and use skills.

~the rat~

I usually use a sup in PvE and arenas (except arena monk). In HA and GvG spikes are a greater threat, so minors make more sense there. The debate: "this person is a nub for using/not using a sup", is an old and stupid one. Just use whatever you feel like.

Yes I seen some one do it with olias turned him into an effective MM had a flesh golem and a few high lv minions.

Minion Master --> Superior Death Magic.
+2 Minions, with higher level minions (more damage, HP, Armor)

Blood Necro with saccing skills --> Superior Blood Magic.
Instead of Awaken the Blood, for +2...saving you a skill-slot and the pain of double the sacrifice

55 anything --> superiors
obviously you cannot achieve 55Hp any other way

Expertise/Leadership breakpoints
energy consumption is vital to both Rangers and Paragons and these two classes have the largest propensity to split attributes along 3 or more lines making it hard to get 14 spec with minors

Spiritspam (Communing)
Higher level spirits last longer, and it is usually worth the trade-off considering the high recharge of spirits


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Other than these situations, you are hard pressed to have a build that HAS to have superiors. Dervishes have an advantage in this sense since their armor gives them innate +25HP meaning it can offset a major just with one vitae rune.

That said, I use one superior on every character and have an extra headpiece with no -HP on it for DP and/or when the going gets tough. How's that for the best of both worlds?

It is wrong to believe that 16 over 14 attribute has no real advantages, the question is how much advantage the difference is. Most of the time the difference is minimal since the skills themselves scale with breakpoints causing 16 spec to have no real advantage over 14 spec. A great example here is inspired hex as it holds 10 energy at 14, 15, and 16 spec (not that anyone uses 16 Inspiration magic...).Obviously, it is a nonissue in PvP since you cannot swap armor meaning you are relegated to minors and at most a major.

In PvE, some skills already mentioned in this thread gain roughly 50% more efficiency (Mind Burn is +2 more energy over 14 spec, Essence Strike/Glowstone/Glowing Gaze is +2 more energy over 14 spec, etc). The larger the duration/effect of the skill, the more difference 16 has over 14 if the skill scales with spec. However, the recharge has to be taken to consideration, since if you have a Blinding Flash that lasts say 6 seconds instead of 8 it won't matter as much since it is 4 recharge. It matters more on skills like wards where there's a 1 second downtime on 14 spec, which has a minimal effect regardless.
Weapon Mastery has even less gain in this sense, since the skills don't have a huge increase past 14 spec (diminishing returns). For a monk, +2 Divine Favor means 6 more health every time you use a monk spell so again that is a nonissue.

I guess I'm in the minority with Sups on all hats of the same attribute. I just keep my health above 480 (and usually above 500) and don't really worry about it. I've even started making some armor sets with a Sup and a Major with no apparent issues.

I guess if you've got a setup to use a warrior hero to run in and grab aggro before the rest f the group goes in, the extra 75 health would be useful.

Simple solution to all this. Go to merchant. Look at prices of Superior Runes. 100G superior runes, not worth it.

Expensive Superior Runes, worth it. If the price is being driven up by the player base ( even if some of them are stupid), then there is a demand for these Superior Runes. Many players want them, find them useful, etc. So the more you pay, the better it is, at least according to the market place.

My personal solution, Several head pieces for my necro each with a different superior on it for Death, Curses, and Blood. I switch out as needed for my build of the moment. I use Death and Curses a lot and blood not so much.

In that case, I agree that sups tend to be worse... they have too much health and probably can outheal any extra damage that the sup would give you.


A pragmatic solution.

When you want 55 life. Duh?

Myself and my hereo all use sup runes.

Back in 2005-2006 people would have flamed anyone not using a sup rune in their main attribute. Now all I see is people (as always) jumping on the bandwagon.

Has the game gotten noticably harder? No

Does the extra 25hp lossed make all that much difference when choosing between a superior or major rune? No.

If you can't live without that extra 25hp, you suck. If you realize you suck, then it prob best if you go back to playing Puzzle Pirates or Pokemon.

If anything the game has gotten far easier as the campaigns have rolled on.

So I ask, why the change in heart?

Things fall out of favor as the common builds change and evolve. Maybe because the game got easier people realized they didn't need that extra damage. Maybe because of survivor, people stopped liking -hp. Maybe the people that prefered Sup runes have left.

I'm in the camp of "there's no right answer."

In the PVE portion of the game, you are constantly balancing beteen the most efficient offense and a just-sufficient defense. The extremes are stupid. If you think the most important thing is not dying, you could run 4-5 monks, earth-ward eles, all survivor insignias, etc. It would take forever to clear one group of mobs. Conversely, if you're all about offense, you could act like the destoyers and not bring any monks to a battle and load up on Sup runes for maximum firepower. This "glass cannon" would shatter rather quickly.

I've always taken 1 Sup run on me and all my heroes. This means I have to boost a bit on the defensive side to avoid the accidental spikes mobs occasionally dish out. This translates, generally, into taking 2 monks plus a little defensive augmentation. I'll bring extra interrupts and wards, plus I throw LOD on my MM and lose flesh golem.

If I went all minor runes, could I lose a monk? No. Could I reduce defense and boost offense. Sure. Would this swapping of skills make up for the reduction in my primary attributes across my character and heroes? Maybe. I doubt it, but I can't rule it out.

Given that mobs rarely spike except by accident, my gut is that the majority of cases, you're better off with Sup runes. But given the near-infinite customization of skills bars, any difference between is minor.

This thread is about minor versus Superior, not Major versus Superior. Also, Major runes are -35 hp, not -50.

It's because you cannot armor swap in PvP now and hardmode was introduced. Thing is, you can still swap armor in PvE...so it's a nonissue (at least for me)

I browsed..sue me.

People really use a minor over a super just because of the loss of 75hp?? lol wow..if you suck that bad there is always Teletubbies the game...might be more along the lines of some peoples playing ability.

It's no wonder GW is treated as a 2nd class MMO by everyone else.

Long live H/H!

im all for sup cause it helps my damage which takes care of the things that are trying to kill me anyways i would rather have a great defense then great health and healing in this game

Since bored PvPers now try to claim hegemony over PvE matters (it's not like we already haven't enough high-horsed "High End" PvErs) they start argueing about the loss of 75HP as a crucial factor (as they did when armor-swaps became history) and thus we have the same shit discussions again. In All the HM-teams I've been people were using superior runes, especially Eles and Necros, and nobody failed.

Saying things are good because they work in PvE is about as logical as basing skill balance on RA.

It's not a question of what works. It's a question of what, in any given situation, will work the best.

I put superiors on Minion Masters and on the damage attribute of Elementalists. And that's about it. Seems like this is generally the consensus.

Couple of points to be remembered:

> It's all about breakpoints. If use of major/sups in some combination enables you to be just above breakpoint in 4-5 skills you use a lot, and you can offset the health pen with Survivor insignias and Vitae, then that's a sensible use of major/sup runes. Optimising FTW.

> Do some people on here only play 1 build, and/or only have one set of armour? Most of my chars have 2 sets, often with swappable gloves/headgear so I can tweak runes around supporting specific builds. It's those breakpoints again.

An example here....

I have a AB Ranger build I made that is:

Marksmanship 14 (11+3)
Expertise 12 (10+1+1)
Wilderness Survival 10 (10)

This was based around hitting breakpoints of 5 second burn on Burning Arrow, 48% energy saving (BA cost 5), 10 second Dodge and Troll Unguent +8 regen.

Key point here is that most skills seem to have their key breakpoints around 14. This is the number that a primary can hit in that profession with headgear and a Minor rune. With 90% of skills there's no difference in the performance of the skill @14 and @16. This is particularly true of a lot of Mesmer skills.

So like I say, Ele's and Necroes yes, Rangers sometimes, Mesmers/Warriors/Monks never.

Oh and another point:-

In PvE my skill bar is half filled up these days with Norn, Sunspear and Kurzick skills, so who needs Superior runes now? In fact who needs attribute runes at all when only 2 or 3 out of 8 skills are attr-linked?

And minors don't work the best in any situation in PVE, whereas it is mandatory in PvP. I repeat why:
* You can swap armors in PVE. You cannot in PvP.
* You can easily remove DP by canycanes and such in PVE. You cannot in PvP, unless you're winning (and so you don't have DP or few).
* You can use imba PVE skill to negate damage down to <10% of the source in PVE. You cannot in PvP.
* You can cheat AI in PVE, by using low HP+tank versus the rest of the party in wards and under SY! et TNTF!(so big HP and Big AL). You cannot in PvP.
* You can use consumables and blessings to boost AL, HP, Etc... beyond reasonnable in PVE. And since GWen, even titles bring you +HP or + energy or whatever. You cannot in PvP.
* Mobs don't know how to spike, which skill to interrupt, which enchant to remove, when not to cast/attack when they're hexed to death. People do in PvP.
In short, PVE is sincerely truly fundamentally different from PvP.

That's not the minor over the superiors runes that saves you in PVE. That's the use of Imba PVE skills and stupid AI trying to fight through blind/wards/shouts/passive enchants/hexes.
I don't say that you should go with 200 health and 3 sups runes. But one sup for the job you're doing is okay, unless it doesn't bring anything to you (not more damage or more efficiency). If you want HP take survivors and HP mods and shields and such.
Before people began to use minors in PVE, URgoz and Underworld already existed and Sups were used. People tend to bring what's work in PvP for PVE. That would be true if PVE and PvP hadn't complety separated far from each other since Nightfall. You will only see successful BiP-Healer's Boon teams in PVE because that's were they can exist.

Well... I've finished now.

You win.

/Yayyyyyy

Yes, because people actually calculate with a scientifical approach what works best under any given situation and when everything's approved by a circle of sages they start to log into GW and start to have fun, erm play, erm test....or not.

I'm not attacking you but there's a line where people can reach the same goal (simplified: the title) with fun and where people want maximum optimization through and through with all details and concepts, risks. It's basically a waste of time.

I only run Major's in GvG, and in HA some builds use superiors. HA is more fast paced so things like Superior runes on Fire Elementalists is key. Although that does not mean you don't make up for it as much as possible with Survivor/Vitae on your armor.