Superior Runes. When are they worth it?

Yeah, and people like you who bring Defy Pain and Endure Pain are why I don't do pickup groups either.

Whatever the hell 'nice rate of damage' means. GG.

qft. lol. If his hero monks are so great, why would he need those two useless pieces of shit on his bar? More damage skills, less tanking ones please.

hey, ive been packing endure pain on my bar in place of a self heal.

ive been running this build

standing slash
crippling slash
knee cutter
drunken master
"i am unstoppable"
endure pain
sight beyond sight
optional

15 +2 swordsmanship
13 +1 strength

its a pretty fun bar to play and endure pain helps out when my h/h fall behind me on account of constant drunken master.

i do agree that defy pain seems a bit unnecessary though.

Havent use sup rune(except vigor) for long long long time, all my chars now only use Major or minor, and minor is a must on monks imo(my monk has 650HP with shield and Axe/sword equip).
Talking about MM, i dont really put a sup rune neither, i dont want to risk just for 1 extra minion to lose my other 9 due to killed by monsters(MM usually run a staff with 20/20/20+1(20), armor +5+5+5 depends on minions and Bloodstained insignias).

I feel you may be missing the point slightly, I'll explain my reasoning.

If someone uses a superior rune, and is targetted by monsters they are forced to kite. If they kite, they are not casting / attacking and thus the rune isn't doing anything anyway. If they stand there, casting away and end up dying, they're stupid, because they should be kiting.

If someone uses a minor rune they are less likely to be targetted and will need to kite less. Ok, so their damage is reduced by a fraction, but they are dealing more damage overall, since the superior rune user is having to waste 3-5 seconds kiting away from an angry enemy warrior.

So yes, you can kite, of course you can kite, but whether you're kiting or whether you're dead, you're not casting spells / attacking, thus you're not adding anything to the team.

I use sups (weapons) on physicals in PvE, minors in PvP. For casters I can't justify the -75 health on any occasion, so my monk and mez sit pretty at 610 HP.

The hero monks are for my softer characters like my elementalist.

Generally for my warrior I just take hench healers since I tank all the damage, and focus my heroes on other things.

Think before you speak.

Anyways, my warrior does fantastically with a rune of Superior strength, and I don't need you telling me how to play the game, build nazi.

About the only time I don't use superiors is in HoM DoA. Any other place in the game doesn't deal enough damage really for that extra health to really "save" you.

I use superior runes my ss necro. He uses a superior curses rune, with a major vigor and a staff with +30hp. The health loss isn't that bad at all.

I never use superior runes on my warrior. They should have almost max health all the time for pve. I use a major axe rune and a superior vigor.

I think people expect necros and monks(most people expect max heals) to have superior runes mostly but I think all the other classes can do just fine without them.

I'm a build nazi who actually plays a decent bar, you're an idiot who sacs 75 hp for two useless skills to buff his hp up. Hmmm, which would I rather be...

As far as your warrior doing fine in PvE... It's PvE, anything works. It doesn't mean it's good though.

*nods*

The extra time on hexes is great, I do the same thing on my mesmer. Also, for farming there are some good exceptions that you didn't mention, like the fact that you need a sup rune to keep Stoneflesh Aura up permanently, for example, unless you have an enchant mod (Totem Axe or whatever) and things like that. I'd say it is worth it for most classes to use the sup rune, as with clever kiting and skill usage, to say nothing of gear and runes, you can make up for the hp loss. I use superiors on my ele, mes, rit, and nec, my warrior, paragon and ranger (going for LS) are all hp hogs :-).

IRT Chicken Ftw:

Sure. You play your way, I'll play mine. Who will have more success? I don't know, because I haven't asked for your regular build. Neither am I going to. I'd rather save myself some inner pain and not know.

Running 16 strength for defy + endure is 19 lower health than running 14 strength and not taking the -75hp from the rune. 75 lower health while not in either, 19 lower health while in both, for an extra duration of 2s on either.

gg

The higher strength also benefits my other skills.

I have tested it and it works better with superior strength.

gg

I understand many builds do not use superior runes. I understand that and I respect that people can play how they want to. I am not asking you to use superior runes, I am saying that with some builds they ARE worth it, which was the original question.

In PvE most of the time I use a superior rune on my monk and its fine, but it really does depend a bit on the area and what I am doing and who I am with. In HM I'm almost always using minor runes instead. Following that logic, I'd say there really is no need for superior runes generally, at least on a monk in PvE, as you're usually better off with the added hit points and you dont take too large a hit to efficiency.

Do math.

DP and ED bonus per attribute point: 14.

Gain of health from theese two skills when using sup rune over minor: 56
Loss of health from using sup rune: -75
Net ballance: -19 hp.

Gain of health from theese two skills when using major rune over minor: 28
Loss of health from using sup rune: -35
Net ballance: -7 hp.

Gain of health from theese two skills when using minor: 0
Loss of health from using sup rune: 0
Net ballance: 0 hp.

Gain of health from theese two skills when using vitae over minor: -28
gain of health from using sup rune: 10
Net ballance: -18 hp.


Result? Sup Strength is liability, even with your build.

Minor rune > Major Rune > Vitae > Superior rune (in your case, anyways).

For almost all characters, I use minors. 14 is the breakpoint for most interesting abilities anyway, and 16 weapon mastery would be only a very minor benefit.

However, for necros and fire eles I use a superior. Minions need to be as high a level as possible (unless a minion bomber, but I use a Rt/N for my minion bomber anyway). For fire eles, skills such as Mind Blast or Glowing Gaze provide a significantly better net energy return at 16 than 14.

Other than that, minors all the way.

mmmm....

minors on everything.

Only exceptions to this are =

My heroes and chars all have sup vigor.
MoW is my dedicated MM and thus has a sup death. Me being his monk though...especially in HM, he's always got infuse condition, dark bond, and me pre-protting him to make sure he doesn't get overwhelmed. (he's not too bright in regards to mob control)

and Zahr Dalsk....you're running Defy and Endure....why? Your elite is nondamage...you're a warrior....why?

I think every hero I have runs at roughly 570 hp+...myself at 625. I still run infuse in PvE, especially in HM...if mob control is lost, keeping MoW alive with infuse has saved me from a mission wipe several times in torment missions.

From what I can tell, the amount of insulting that is showing up on this thread indicates just how murky the issue really is.

It is totally true that you don't need any runes at all to just do the basic part of Guild Wars (win the missions and/or do the primary quest chains in Normal Mode). You just need a good build and have modestly decent gear. By "modestly decent", I mean, "max armor and max damage weapons". Collector gear will accomplish both of these things in a pinch. That doesn't mean that you're not at a slight disadvantage versus a player that has insignias and such, but if you're a skilled player, then you can probably overcome it anyway.

For the most part, it comes down to personal preference. Superior runes do give you extra power, but you're betting on the quality of your healing team to keep you out of spike damage trouble. I can tell you right now that the henchman Lina in Eye of the North does a really lousy job at covering you for spike damage.

For me, I use minors exclusively because I assist in healing and I also don't trust any NPC to use Protective Spirit properly. Maybe it's a bit of arrogance, but I think that I'm the smartest player when I run with all heroes/henchman. If I go down, then NPCs just resort to "default A.I." and that's really terrible.

There is one time where you should consider using a superior rune (other than Superior Vigor, but that's a big "well, duh"), and that's if you're running a minion master. I tend to go with a "minion bomb factory" build on my heroes, meaning that I intentionally use builds that rely on huge numbers of minions, then use Death Nova and purposely detonate them in the enemy's face. Higher Death Magic is not a linear power increase for me. It affects how many minions I can run as well as their level (i.e., damage and health).

However, I will say this. Recently I have noticed that something has happened with my henchmen and hero A.I. and they act like they have brain damage. Stupid cohorts is one thing, but the enemy A.I. seems to not have gotten any dumber, and they love hunting down Livia, leaving me with the unfunny situation of watching her die, and I'm staring at masterless minions that have Death Nova on them. It is making me mad enough that I want to pull off that Superior Death Magic and give up the extra damage just so she doesn't hit the floor all the time.

I consider 19 less health an acceptable trade when it boosts my other strength-using skills.

My warrior isn't my main character anyways, though, so I don't know why I even care.