Genuine question!! You'd mentioned hating scholar runes and I keep looking for alternatives because they're so UNGODLY expensive (because of how recommended they are for builds). What recommendation would you have for a DPS build instead of Scholars? (@ratasum)
I'm trying to get more into endgame content so I really would love the advice!!
Hey there! I'm happy to help how I can. Unfortunately this is going to be one of those questions that has a longer and more beneficial answer as well as a shorter, more direct but less beneficial answer, so I apologize in advance and thank you for bearing with me lol.
The short and direct answer is that there are many instances in which runes of the Eagle, the Pack, Strength, and Rage can perform just as well as Scholar for a fraction of the cost. And even when they don't meet the exact output, whichever one works best for your build will get you pretty darn close. Berserker and Ogre are other very solid DPS runes for condi/power hybrids and power DPS respectively, but they've become frequently recommended alternatives to Scholar and their price has risen nearly as high now.
That said, my longer answer is that there is no general direct substitute rune that will work better for all DPS builds all the time, but this is also part of what is wrong with the way that Scholar runes are ubiquitously recommended on meta build sites.
Every rune in gw2 has a fairly unique set of circumstances in which they function best, just as the different classes and specializations all have different benefits and limitations, and the key to a well optimized (or min-maxed) build is to play into a particular niche of combat as hard as you possibly can.
Scholar runes provide a total of 175 power and (now) 225 ferocity in pure stat points, but their main claim to fame is their 6th slot bonus: "Increase strike damage by 5% while your health is above 90%".
For clarity, "strike damage" in gw2 refers specifically to power-based damage or "direct damage". Damage that can critically hit. It does not apply to condition damage.
Strike damage is also mitigated by the target's armor and Toughness stat. Condition damage, on the other hand, is not.
Scholar runes became so recommended because of two misguided notions:
That "strike damage" amplifiers increase all outgoing damage dealt by the player, making them the most important "stat" to stack. And,
That the best defense is always killing something dead faster than it can hit you, and that if you ever take damage the answer is always "git gud".
(People treating defensive stats as "training wheels" for gaming is certainly not unique to scholar-runes enthusiasts, but nothing displays it quite as potently as tying your stats to how often you can keep your HP at 10k/11k.)
The truth of the matter is that there is no shortcut stat to a solid build in this particular game, and it takes balancing a number of stats and fine-tuning traits and skills to optimize your build.
As an example, I'm going to use this Power Deadeye build copied from a popular raid build website. Full details can be seen at the link, but notably it uses full Berserker armor, Scholar runes, and sigils of Force and Impact.
These are the final stats on the Power Deadeye build as given:
This build is noted by its creators as not being beginner friendly, and having a rotation which requires "extreme precision and pristine conditions". I cite this only to better illustrate that this build is intended to be the most optimal thief build for endgame content.
The rotation's main loop is as follows, and the skill screenshots' numbers are based on the attributes of the equipment given assuming the player is above 90% health. It is stated that Malicious Backstab must be used from behind.
This loop provides a maximum total of 15,464 direct damage, plus an additional maximum 5,288 condition damage from one loop. Accounting for the build's perpetual fury bringing critical chance to 99.33%, and the fury-increased critical damage of 270.47%, this increases the total direct damage of this loop to 41,545, and leaves us with a grand total of 46,833 damage per loop.
Now, how close can we get to those numbers on that exact rotation without Scholar runes?
For this comparison, I swapped the Scholar runes for Runes of Strength. Also, noting that the Impact sigils were only giving their base 3% strike damage bonus since this build has no stuns or knockbacks to make use of its secondary feature, I exchanged the Sigil of Impact for Sigils of Strength to synergize with the new rune choice. [Rebuild Link]
The sigil choice plays on the build's near-100% crit chance by giving a stack of might on each critical hit, and with the runes' increased Might duration, this means you will passively accumulate and maintain 15 stacks of might while in combat. So what do the numbers look like now?
In this version of the loop, we get 16,565 direct damage, and 10,418 bonus condition damage. When we account for critical hit the same way we did before, this amounts to 42,035, giving us a grand total of 52,453 damage dealt per loop.
So in this instance, replacing Scholar Runes and Impact Sigils with Strength Runes and Strength Sigils gave this build a DPS increase from the recommended build.
Now, this doesn't mean that every build could be improved by those same changes, but there are often very few changes that would need to be made to adjust a build for the removal of Scholar runes. If nothing else, I hope this helps to illustrate how there is no one-size-fits all answer to runes, let alone to builds as a whole, no matter how popular a specific item is with metagamers.
The key to all builds, DPS or not, is synergy between elements. When equipment, traits, and skills build on each other rather than acting alone, you're going to find way better performance, and usually, have way more fun with your build.
