Multiple sup runes?

Hi. I have yet another newbie-necro question here (my necro just recently hit Level 20, is still one mission away from Ascension, and pretty much has been played only as an MM).

Does it makes sense to use more than one sup rune? For my elementalist, I wouldn't do that, but:

A. Soul Reaping is more valuable than Energy Storage
B. If a lot of your life reduction is sacrifice, having lower HP doesn't look so bad

Some people even claim it's BETTER to have lower HP (e.g., you shouldn't use runes of Vigor and so on), although I'm guessing that with all the ways to suffer harm, that viewpoint is excessive. But is it worthwhile to use superior runes of both Death Magic and Soul Reaping? That one's not so obvious to me.

I'm particularly intrigued with the max-health-doesn't-matter-much theory because I'm inclined to go with the Vampiric Horrors for the self heal.

On the other hand, I like to play with henchies, and doing that as a caster means you take a lot of aggro starting fights, with the obvious sad consequences ...

Bumpety bump

It depends on what you're doing. If you're running a normal pve necro, you'll want to have high hp, as the sac will be covered by your monks. In a more specialized setting, such as orders in PvP, you'll be away from the battle on your own for most of the round, and as such you'll be your only heal (usually with healing breeze.) In that case, a lower sacrifice is very helpful, not to mention the bonus of having higher attributes.

Personally I just use 1 Superior rune (on the scar), a Major Vigour, and Minor Blood/Death/Soulreaping and I think it works quite well, I dont see much of a problem when I do MMing because I mainly only run out of mana when i need to do vampire gaze to stay alive. I run around at the back of a group spamming Blood of the master and healing breeze (on myself) and just constantly summoning new minions.

I dont really heal my minions to keep them up (from their degen), instead I just heal to let them tank the baddies and summon a new minion from the next possible corpse.

I run a double Sup Rune build. You need some sorta offset as well, otherwise it's not that good.

I have a Sup Soul Reaping on my Tunic, then a Major Vigor on my leggings. I would use the Revenant's armor or carry an item that gives a +30 to HP. If your HP is near 400, the math is super easy for sacrifices. Never Sac below 200, and it's
%||HP
5||20
10||40
15||60
17||64
25||100
33||133
50||200 <== Aura of Lich HP reduction


Super easy math.

Now, the benefits are (of course) higher power in your casting potential.If you remember one thing, remember that a necro is not a tank. I see all these fool N/W's or N/A's running in and getting killed. Necros are not tanks. You can play witch hunter, but never tank.

Problems include:Less HP means you can't take as much damage Degen Kills quicker Easier to knock to half health
-Mostly comes into play with necro spells that target above or below a % HP
Benefits includeReduced HP cost of sacrifices.
-Some sacrifices require a sacrifice for healing or life stealing. These aren't very effective if you have high HP because the ammount they steal is less than the sacrifice cost at higher HP Levels. Easier to Heal
-Because you have less HP, you can be retured to full health quicker Grenth's Balance
-Chances are better, with your reduced HP, that you can benefit from grenth's balance.

The question of whether you should/should not use a double sup rune build depends on a few thingsWhat is your character's main focus?
-If your a caster, what are you focusing on? Is there really a benefit to using a sup rune for 2 attributes. Diminishing return
-Most caster classes experience high ammounts of diminishing return on skills after lvl 10. It's then a question of whether the reduction in max HP is merited by the added damage/effect duration. Character use
-PvP characters generally should have more HP, but there are some cases where having less may add stratigic value to a build.

When I decided to take my necro to a double Sup Rune, I knew I'd be loosing quite a bit in HP. It hurts,but it also helps the way I use her. I can put 4 attributes at level 10 (3 native to primary and 1 secondary) and still walk away with decent damage/duration/whatever stats on my skills. With necros, Soul Reaping has some mildly useful elites, but because of its primary benefit, Soul Reaping is the absolute best energy management you can get in any game...PERIOD. For me, keeping that sup SR Rune has become essential. Any other casting class, and I probably wouldn't use a double sup rune, but on necros, there are benefits.

Xenoranger described it very well, but I would like to add a few small items:

It's HIGHLY beneficial to run Dark Bond or other defensive skill.

Those two extra points in SR may not seem like much, but they are cumulative and unbound. So you are going to harvest an extra couple hundred energy from them on a typical run. That's a lot!

MM is like Orders. They are high sacrifice builds, so lower hp, means healing efficiency goes up......and THAT means you are spending less energy on healing, so you have even MORE for other purposes.

**ALWAYS BE AWARE THAT YOUR HP ARE REDUCED!**

Every single time I have died in Cantha, I forgot to renew Dark Bond, and paid for it!

Nice follow up Dragonblood, but...

Quote: Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Well... yea, you don't want to be in the action, stay as far away as possible.

But DB is like a seatbelt. I like to run it, even though I am trying to stay out of the action, as a precaution. Just in case they suddenly go for the MM, Dark Bond almost guarantees they can't spike you down.

AotL... it's not a bad choice.... if you are running DB with it. Cover DB with AotL and when you get hit, your minions gain the benefit of AotL.

I'm not saying there is any one way to do this, but there are options, each with their own tradeoffs. I used double sups without using DB.... pre-nerf. But I had 50-80 minions then. Now, with only 10, DB is very useful to me.

It sounds as if there's a cautious majority favoring double sup runes.

I've played mainly as an elementalist, so I'm spoiled by having a lot of energy available. That also helps bias me.

But if I do it, I'll definitely also invest in an armor set that doesn't use double sups (or just keep a piece around from the old set).

Now, to figure out which armor to get, both for looks (I hate what I pieced together at Droks) and functionality (since I insist on getting new armor for looks).

Honestly, I wouldn't recommend a double sup rune for many casting classes. I only use it on necros b/c necros have nice advantages when you dip into soul reaping and another skill. For an elementalist, I would take a sup rune of fast casting and that's about it. Mesmer, maybe fast casting. Basically, I take the sup rune in the class's primary ability. Overall, it really depends on how you're using that character as to what you should do for runes. You need to evaluate what you're doing before you decide to move to a certain rune combination.Sometimes a double major is better than double (or single) sup, and sometimes a build calls for nothing above a minor rune.

In general...
Theoretically: any ranged class should be able to run as many sup runes as they see fit due to the fact that they should never take damage in pve.
Reality: mistakes happen, and these mistakes often cost player character lives. The additional hp gained by not using a sup. rune gives more time for groups to find a sutable solution to said error; or ability to find a solution whatsoever.
Conclusion:
Power increases with runes. Reliability decreases with runes
As most PUGs need more reliability to begin with...I would go with 1 (sup) rune at best.

However with a MM the general rule smudges due to ways to migate damage; such as Dragonblood pointed out darkbond is a popular choice. This skill makes the build more stable and might allow a double sup rune assuming the build gets off to a quick start with a supply of corpses.

@Xenoranger how do you figure putting a rune of fastcasting on an elementalist?

this is pve.... so you can get away with using up to two superior runes without a problem.

Quote: Originally Posted by xenoranger

I always run a 2 rune build but i have major vigor.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ultimate Sacrifice

On Necro I always have Sup X rune(scar) and Sup Soul Reaping. I often use 3 with a sup vigor. But on any caster, I use 2 sup rune, only on warrior that I use 1 sup(weapon).