Boon Chronomancer Rune Choice

[Aquiaxsapphire.2631]

Heya! With the semi-recent balance patch and Alacrity becoming a boon, I was wondering about how useful the Firebrand runes still were for a choice.

 

Before the patch, I had opted to grab them over Leadership because of how much time it can take to get Runes of Leadership, but I'm now worried that I'll have pretty reduced effectiveness with it, since it only applies its big duration boost to quickness and not alacrity.

 

How big of a hit would it be? Is it still alright to use Firebrand over Leadership, or should I suck it up and start doing a bunch of Dragon's Stand?

 

I've wanted to try and get into raiding for a bit, I've just been sort of scared to, since I don't really have a group of people I know to play with, and I don't want to under-perform and drag anyone down if I join them, so I'm wanting to make sure that I'll be able to do well enough.

[kventura.8356]

If you are going full boon chronomancer then its Revenant Runes, but if you are going support "hybrid" chronomancer then its leadership runes

[Aquiaxsapphire.2631]

> @"kventura.8356" said:

> If you are going full boon chronomancer then its Revenant Runes, but if you are going support "hybrid" chronomancer then its leadership runes

 

Really? I haven't heard of using Revenant runes before, but I'd not mind picking up a set. What makes them the best choice for that? Wouldn't it give less duration?

[Pyroatheist.9031]

Revenant runes are awful, I have no idea why anyone would suggest using those. The loss of effectiveness from leadership to firebrand is huge because of the change to alacrity. Now that alacrity is a boon, you absolutely must cap your generic boon duration. That becomes quite hard to do with firebrand runes.

[Refia Montes.3205]

> @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> Revenant runes are awful, I have no idea why anyone would suggest using those. The loss of effectiveness from leadership to firebrand is huge because of the change to alacrity. Now that alacrity is a boon, you absolutely must cap your generic boon duration. That becomes quite hard to do with firebrand runes.

 

It's a suggested Rune choice when you're running Chaos by SC. The main reason for taking Revenant is to add Resistance to your boon pool, allowing Arcane Weavers to deal more damage.

[Pyroatheist.9031]

> @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > Revenant runes are awful, I have no idea why anyone would suggest using those. The loss of effectiveness from leadership to firebrand is huge because of the change to alacrity. Now that alacrity is a boon, you absolutely must cap your generic boon duration. That becomes quite hard to do with firebrand runes.

>

> It's a suggested Rune choice when you're running Chaos by SC. The main reason for taking Revenant is to add Resistance to your boon pool, allowing Arcane Weavers to deal more damage.

 

There's absolutely no way a 2% increase some of the time for a weaver is going to out-compete either higher uptime on alacrity...or literally anything. Even on a huge target golem that's only a difference of 900 dps (base of 45k). This is storm crows providing build suggestions without yanking their heads out of their ass and looking at reality.

[Hiemdal.4367]

Not holding my breath, but I'm still hoping the Seeker and Diviner stat combinations (Power, Precision, Ferocity, Boon Duration) make their way from PvP to PvE someday. It's been a long wait though : /

[Ojimaru.8970]

> @"Aquiaxsapphire.2631" said:

> Heya! With the semi-recent balance patch and Alacrity becoming a boon, I was wondering about how useful the Firebrand runes still were for a choice.

>

> Before the patch, I had opted to grab them over Leadership because of how much time it can take to get Runes of Leadership, but I'm now worried that I'll have pretty reduced effectiveness with it, since it only applies its big duration boost to quickness and not alacrity.

>

> How big of a hit would it be? Is it still alright to use Firebrand over Leadership, or should I suck it up and start doing a bunch of Dragon's Stand?

>

> I've wanted to try and get into raiding for a bit, I've just been sort of scared to, since I don't really have a group of people I know to play with, and I don't want to under-perform and drag anyone down if I join them, so I'm wanting to make sure that I'll be able to do well enough.

 

The loss of Alacrity up-time will be a big hit, if you're using Runes of the Firebrand. Luckily, the Crystalline Ore costs for Leadership Runes have been halved if purchasing from Dragon's Stand, while the gold cost is lowered if purchasing from WvW.

 

If you're running Minstrel gear and Chaos, you can also opt for Runes of Durability.

[Refia Montes.3205]

> @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > > @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > > Revenant runes are awful, I have no idea why anyone would suggest using those. The loss of effectiveness from leadership to firebrand is huge because of the change to alacrity. Now that alacrity is a boon, you absolutely must cap your generic boon duration. That becomes quite hard to do with firebrand runes.

> >

> > It's a suggested Rune choice when you're running Chaos by SC. The main reason for taking Revenant is to add Resistance to your boon pool, allowing Arcane Weavers to deal more damage.

>

> There's absolutely no way a 2% increase some of the time for a weaver is going to out-compete either higher uptime on alacrity...or literally anything. Even on a huge target golem that's only a difference of 900 dps (base of 45k). This is storm crows providing build suggestions without yanking their heads out of their kitten and looking at reality.

 

The thing is, with Chaos you would need less boon duration since you have tons of boons on yourself. Chaos ensures that you can output 10-13 boons at any given time permanently. That includes Quickness, Protection etc. It's not that they bring Revenant runes solely for resistance, but they bring it because other runes won't bring anything worth to a Chaos build. Leadership will overcap you, Firebrand runes are garbage, etc. Hence the choice of Revenant runes, since at least it gives you an additional boon to spread.

[Pyroatheist.9031]

> @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > > @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > > > @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > > > Revenant runes are awful, I have no idea why anyone would suggest using those. The loss of effectiveness from leadership to firebrand is huge because of the change to alacrity. Now that alacrity is a boon, you absolutely must cap your generic boon duration. That becomes quite hard to do with firebrand runes.

> > >

> > > It's a suggested Rune choice when you're running Chaos by SC. The main reason for taking Revenant is to add Resistance to your boon pool, allowing Arcane Weavers to deal more damage.

> >

> > There's absolutely no way a 2% increase some of the time for a weaver is going to out-compete either higher uptime on alacrity...or literally anything. Even on a huge target golem that's only a difference of 900 dps (base of 45k). This is storm crows providing build suggestions without yanking their heads out of their kitten and looking at reality.

>

> The thing is, with Chaos you would need less boon duration since you have tons of boons on yourself. Chaos ensures that you can output 10-13 boons at any given time permanently. That includes Quickness, Protection etc. It's not that they bring Revenant runes solely for resistance, but they bring it because other runes won't bring anything worth to a Chaos build. Leadership will overcap you, Firebrand runes are garbage, etc. Hence the choice of Revenant runes, since at least it gives you an additional boon to spread.

 

Leadership are still going to be by far the most stat-efficient runes you can bring. 10 boons is 30%, swap sigil is 33%, leadership is 30%, now you're at 93-100% without any gear stats for it. You go full zerk or whatever you'd like at this point.

 

The key is that 30% boon duration is equivalent to 450 concentration, and let's not forget that leadership runes are also still giving you 36 all stats. This is vastly more stats than any other set of runes in the game, making leadership far more efficient than any other choice. This is also why you use the sigil of concentration: no other sigil provides anywhere close to that much stat efficiency. If you try to hit 100% boon duration in any other way, you're wasting stats.

[Refia Montes.3205]

> @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > > @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > > > @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > > > > @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > > > > Revenant runes are awful, I have no idea why anyone would suggest using those. The loss of effectiveness from leadership to firebrand is huge because of the change to alacrity. Now that alacrity is a boon, you absolutely must cap your generic boon duration. That becomes quite hard to do with firebrand runes.

> > > >

> > > > It's a suggested Rune choice when you're running Chaos by SC. The main reason for taking Revenant is to add Resistance to your boon pool, allowing Arcane Weavers to deal more damage.

> > >

> > > There's absolutely no way a 2% increase some of the time for a weaver is going to out-compete either higher uptime on alacrity...or literally anything. Even on a huge target golem that's only a difference of 900 dps (base of 45k). This is storm crows providing build suggestions without yanking their heads out of their kitten and looking at reality.

> >

> > The thing is, with Chaos you would need less boon duration since you have tons of boons on yourself. Chaos ensures that you can output 10-13 boons at any given time permanently. That includes Quickness, Protection etc. It's not that they bring Revenant runes solely for resistance, but they bring it because other runes won't bring anything worth to a Chaos build. Leadership will overcap you, Firebrand runes are garbage, etc. Hence the choice of Revenant runes, since at least it gives you an additional boon to spread.

>

> Leadership are still going to be by far the most stat-efficient runes you can bring. 10 boons is 30%, swap sigil is 33%, leadership is 30%, now you're at 93-100% without any gear stats for it. You go full zerk or whatever you'd like at this point.

>

> The key is that 30% boon duration is equivalent to 450 concentration, and let's not forget that leadership runes are also still giving you 36 all stats. This is vastly more stats than any other set of runes in the game, making leadership far more efficient than any other choice. This is also why you use the sigil of concentration: no other sigil provides anywhere close to that much stat efficiency. If you try to hit 100% boon duration in any other way, you're wasting stats.

 

Revenant has also has an all stats distribution so that point is moot.

 

Yeah sure, you could probably go with full Zerk and Leadership at that point, but for what benefit? Increased 500-1000 personal dps? Remember that youre bringing a Chaos/Inspiration Chrono which has no DPS traits to back up the benefit of running full Zerk. An additional boon would yield more as you said 900 per Weaver, bring one you already benefit from it, bring 2 it already outweighs it.

[Pyroatheist.9031]

> @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > > @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > > > @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > > > > @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > > > > > @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > > > > > Revenant runes are awful, I have no idea why anyone would suggest using those. The loss of effectiveness from leadership to firebrand is huge because of the change to alacrity. Now that alacrity is a boon, you absolutely must cap your generic boon duration. That becomes quite hard to do with firebrand runes.

> > > > >

> > > > > It's a suggested Rune choice when you're running Chaos by SC. The main reason for taking Revenant is to add Resistance to your boon pool, allowing Arcane Weavers to deal more damage.

> > > >

> > > > There's absolutely no way a 2% increase some of the time for a weaver is going to out-compete either higher uptime on alacrity...or literally anything. Even on a huge target golem that's only a difference of 900 dps (base of 45k). This is storm crows providing build suggestions without yanking their heads out of their kitten and looking at reality.

> > >

> > > The thing is, with Chaos you would need less boon duration since you have tons of boons on yourself. Chaos ensures that you can output 10-13 boons at any given time permanently. That includes Quickness, Protection etc. It's not that they bring Revenant runes solely for resistance, but they bring it because other runes won't bring anything worth to a Chaos build. Leadership will overcap you, Firebrand runes are garbage, etc. Hence the choice of Revenant runes, since at least it gives you an additional boon to spread.

> >

> > Leadership are still going to be by far the most stat-efficient runes you can bring. 10 boons is 30%, swap sigil is 33%, leadership is 30%, now you're at 93-100% without any gear stats for it. You go full zerk or whatever you'd like at this point.

> >

> > The key is that 30% boon duration is equivalent to 450 concentration, and let's not forget that leadership runes are also still giving you 36 all stats. This is vastly more stats than any other set of runes in the game, making leadership far more efficient than any other choice. This is also why you use the sigil of concentration: no other sigil provides anywhere close to that much stat efficiency. If you try to hit 100% boon duration in any other way, you're wasting stats.

>

> Revenant has also has an all stats distribution so that point is moot.

>

> Yeah sure, you could probably go with full Zerk and Leadership at that point, but for what benefit? Increased 500-1000 personal dps? Remember that youre bringing a Chaos/Inspiration Chrono which has no DPS traits to back up the benefit of running full Zerk. An additional boon would yield more as you said 900 per Weaver, bring one you already benefit from it, bring 2 it already outweighs it.

 

It's simply not an efficient use of stats. Even without damage boosting traits, a chrono will be able to pull at least 1.5k additional dps by changing their gear stats. Alternatively, you could go something like zealot's and get both damage and very powerful heals, allowing you to actually drop to a single druid and adding a whole additional dps player, which would obviously outweight another 900 dps per weaver.

 

On top of all of that, you're forgetting that this is only the perfect weaver dps scenario too. Many bosses aren't large hitbox, so that drops you down to 36k right there. 99% of weavers aren't gonna pull 36k, so that drops you to 30k for the great ones and maybe 25k for your normal good weaver. Now all of a sudden you're down to just a 500 dps boost per weaver from resistance...but wait, that resistance won't even be up 100% of the time! Even if you share resistance every single SoI, you're still only at 40% resistance uptime, so now you're down to just 200 dps gain per weaver in our realistic case, or 360 dps in the picture perfect target golem dps.

 

So yeah, go ahead and optimize your build with a silly rune set to get 200 dps gain from weavers that you may or may not even have in your squad if you want, but the intelligent choice is always going to be to get leadership runes and enjoy additional build flexibility and far better all-around support.

[Refia Montes.3205]

> @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > > @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > > > @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > > > > @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > > > > > @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > > > > > > @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > > > > > > Revenant runes are awful, I have no idea why anyone would suggest using those. The loss of effectiveness from leadership to firebrand is huge because of the change to alacrity. Now that alacrity is a boon, you absolutely must cap your generic boon duration. That becomes quite hard to do with firebrand runes.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > It's a suggested Rune choice when you're running Chaos by SC. The main reason for taking Revenant is to add Resistance to your boon pool, allowing Arcane Weavers to deal more damage.

> > > > >

> > > > > There's absolutely no way a 2% increase some of the time for a weaver is going to out-compete either higher uptime on alacrity...or literally anything. Even on a huge target golem that's only a difference of 900 dps (base of 45k). This is storm crows providing build suggestions without yanking their heads out of their kitten and looking at reality.

> > > >

> > > > The thing is, with Chaos you would need less boon duration since you have tons of boons on yourself. Chaos ensures that you can output 10-13 boons at any given time permanently. That includes Quickness, Protection etc. It's not that they bring Revenant runes solely for resistance, but they bring it because other runes won't bring anything worth to a Chaos build. Leadership will overcap you, Firebrand runes are garbage, etc. Hence the choice of Revenant runes, since at least it gives you an additional boon to spread.

> > >

> > > Leadership are still going to be by far the most stat-efficient runes you can bring. 10 boons is 30%, swap sigil is 33%, leadership is 30%, now you're at 93-100% without any gear stats for it. You go full zerk or whatever you'd like at this point.

> > >

> > > The key is that 30% boon duration is equivalent to 450 concentration, and let's not forget that leadership runes are also still giving you 36 all stats. This is vastly more stats than any other set of runes in the game, making leadership far more efficient than any other choice. This is also why you use the sigil of concentration: no other sigil provides anywhere close to that much stat efficiency. If you try to hit 100% boon duration in any other way, you're wasting stats.

> >

> > Revenant has also has an all stats distribution so that point is moot.

> >

> > Yeah sure, you could probably go with full Zerk and Leadership at that point, but for what benefit? Increased 500-1000 personal dps? Remember that youre bringing a Chaos/Inspiration Chrono which has no DPS traits to back up the benefit of running full Zerk. An additional boon would yield more as you said 900 per Weaver, bring one you already benefit from it, bring 2 it already outweighs it.

>

> It's simply not an efficient use of stats. Even without damage boosting traits, a chrono will be able to pull at least 1.5k additional dps by changing their gear stats. Alternatively, you could go something like zealot's and get both damage and very powerful heals, allowing you to actually drop to a single druid and adding a whole additional dps player, which would obviously outweight another 900 dps per weaver.

 

Sure, Leadership is a really efficient rune set. It really is, but your claim of 1.5k more additional dps over changing some of your commander pieces in your Zerk+Commander set seems false, unless you show me proof otherwise. [Here's a Commander/Zerk variant using Chaos](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhIQNAR8cnsIClohFpBWpBMrhlUjq8DOhCgcAKhAo+Zr2rF-jxCFQBFSdD0pRAhKfsjOkroE0e7PkGNB4TlkCcQAQiSIAcEACAkAEyUZKYmmpZammpZqy0MNTz0MNTz0MNTzUA-e)

and [here's the full zerk variant you suggest.](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhIQNAR8cnsIClohFpBWpBMrhlUjq8DOhCo+Zr2rlcAKhAA-jBCFAB2pDpQ1fQS5X77PkmmhCOIAXpEEgjAQmiAgQCsqSVVVBA-e), I doubt that 80 power and 450 ferocity would make a large difference there.

>

> On top of all of that, you're forgetting that this is only the perfect weaver dps scenario too. Many bosses aren't large hitbox, so that drops you down to 36k right there. 99% of weavers aren't gonna pull 36k, so that drops you to 30k for the great ones and maybe 25k for your normal good weaver. Now all of a sudden you're down to just a 500 dps boost per weaver from resistance...but wait, that resistance won't even be up 100% of the time! Even if you share resistance every single SoI, you're still only at 40% resistance uptime, so now you're down to just 200 dps gain per weaver in our realistic case, or 360 dps in the picture perfect target golem dps.

>

Of course this isn't about its usage in every encounter. You would only use it when you're stacking Weavers (good ones mind you) against a large target boss. Otherwise you would just run other variants of Chrono. It's optimized so that you let your Weavers just do as much as damage as possible while the supports are left to do the mechanics.

 

> So yeah, go ahead and optimize your build with a silly rune set to get 200 dps gain from weavers that you may or may not even have in your squad if you want, but the intelligent choice is always going to be to get leadership runes and enjoy additional build flexibility and far better all-around support.

 

Well, that was never the point, I was just explaining the reason behind Revenant runes. Leadership runes is really the go-to for support Chrono definitely, as you can run it with any trait combination. But there's a merit to running Revenant as I explained.

 

[ButcherofMalakir.4067]

If you have 6 weavers with 40k dps. Revenant runes give 4,8k dps boost. Not to mention resistance might be usefull

[kventura.8356]

> @"Aquiaxsapphire.2631" said:

> > @"kventura.8356" said:

> > If you are going full boon chronomancer then its Revenant Runes, but if you are going support "hybrid" chronomancer then its leadership runes

>

> Really? I haven't heard of using Revenant runes before, but I'd not mind picking up a set. What makes them the best choice for that? Wouldn't it give less duration?

 

https://discretize.eu/builds/mesmer/boon-chronomancer

 

just take a read on this...Will explain everything much cleaner.

[Pyroatheist.9031]

> @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> Of course this isn't about its usage in every encounter. You would only use it when you're stacking Weavers (good ones mind you) against a large target boss. Otherwise you would just run other variants of Chrono. It's optimized so that you let your Weavers just do as much as damage as possible while the supports are left to do the mechanics.

 

> Well, that was never the point, I was just explaining the reason behind Revenant runes. Leadership runes is really the go-to for support Chrono definitely, as you can run it with any trait combination. But there's a merit to running Revenant as I explained.

 

Fair enough, but when considering the issues with uptime and realistic dps, I think you'll find that it's more efficient to optimize in a different way even if you have multiple great weavers on a large hitbox boss. The single exception might be KC, but you don't exactly need optimized damage for that, so it's kinda whatever.

 

> @"ButcherofMalakir.4067" said:

> If you have 6 weavers with 40k dps. Revenant runes give 4,8k dps boost. Not to mention resistance might be usefull

 

1. Good luck buffing 6 weavers, please let us know your secrets.

2. Good luck getting 100% resistance uptime cause you only get 40% maximum from Rev runes with a perfect rotation.

3. Good luck finding weavers that do 40k dps on a boss that isn't a target golem.

 

 

[ButcherofMalakir.4067]

> @"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

> > @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> > Of course this isn't about its usage in every encounter. You would only use it when you're stacking Weavers (good ones mind you) against a large target boss. Otherwise you would just run other variants of Chrono. It's optimized so that you let your Weavers just do as much as damage as possible while the supports are left to do the mechanics.

>

> > Well, that was never the point, I was just explaining the reason behind Revenant runes. Leadership runes is really the go-to for support Chrono definitely, as you can run it with any trait combination. But there's a merit to running Revenant as I explained.

>

> Fair enough, but when considering the issues with uptime and realistic dps, I think you'll find that it's more efficient to optimize in a different way even if you have multiple great weavers on a large hitbox boss. The single exception might be KC, but you don't exactly need optimized damage for that, so it's kinda whatever.

>

> > @"ButcherofMalakir.4067" said:

> > If you have 6 weavers with 40k dps. Revenant runes give 4,8k dps boost. Not to mention resistance might be usefull

>

> 1. Good luck buffing 6 weavers, please let us know your secrets.

> 2. Good luck getting 100% resistance uptime cause you only get 40% maximum from Rev runes with a perfect rotation.

> 3. Good luck finding weavers that do 40k dps on a boss that isn't a target golem.

>

>

 

Yea, my bad:D but with 3 weavers 30k dps and 40% uptime you get 720 bonus dps. Thats not much but the reason you run chaos is all the boons. If there are phases then u get more dps from resistance. Also on some bosses resistance is rly good. You can run leadership and more berserker gear but i am not sure if your dps increase by more then those 700 when you are buffing most of the time

[Exciton.8942]

The advantage of rune of leadership is to cap 100% boon duration w/o sigil of concentration. This makes much better freedom on your skill rotation. You can also get a lot of healing power to make yourself a secondary healer as well. I think for 99% of the player base, rune of the leadership will be the way to go.

[Carighan.6758]

> @"Refia Montes.3205" said:

> Yeah sure, you could probably go with full Zerk and Leadership at that point, but for what benefit? Increased 500-1000 personal dps? Remember that youre bringing a Chaos/Inspiration Chrono which has no DPS traits to back up the benefit of running full Zerk. An additional boon would yield more as you said 900 per Weaver, bring one you already benefit from it, bring 2 it already outweighs it.

 

I always thought that the full-zerker is a *side effect* if bringing Chaos, not the other way around. More boon duration wouldn't benefit you, if you're not the tank you might as well run zerker (or whatever, really, could do Nomad as the tank tbh :tongue: ). The point would be the extra boons from Chaos, and since it also brings that minor then you no longer need Comm gear.