Rune Fencer, Adjustments Sorely Needed.

[hideka]

so i have reached 99 RUN and ive done alot of experimenting with subs, stratagies and gear building... but all of my experimenting has led to one uniform result: We suck.

1: Physical Defense
in order for a job to "Tank" they need to be able to negate a generous amount of damage, both from Physical and magical sources. Ninja negates the majority of incoming physical damage with very little inborn magic mitigation, Paladin negates a balance between Physical and magical.
Rune fencer is intended to be the "Magic Defender" of the spectrum.

this is what i currently see the balance of Tanks in the game as


Rune fencer is sorely lacking in both physical defense and magical defense. i can under stand the physical short comings, however the majority of the damage a monster will deal is PHYSICAL making them grossly ineffective tanks. subbing SAM or NIN helps to alleviate this pain, however those are things that are not native to the job, thus should not be factored.

rune fencers magical negation capabilities are decent, but they are FAR from being the best.
1A: RUNES
from a defensive stand point the Resistance gained should be slightly higher at 99, aproximately +50 per rune.
1B: Wards
The recast on these abilities are HORRENDOUS. the recasts for these abilities should be HALF of what it is now, with the same durations.


2: items that should be added to the Game or adjusted.

Job Abilities:

Runic Projection
Effusion
Level 10
Recast 60 Seconds
Target Monster
Range 16
Effect:
Consumes one rune: Deals Elemental damage to target matching rune consumed. Generates High levels of enmity.

Elemental Influx
Ward
Level 50
Recast 2:30
Duration 1:00 or one absorption
Target self
Absorbs the MP Utilized from incoming Magic matching your current dominant rune. expires after one activation.
Absorption mechanics: 1- 33% 2- 66% 3- 100%

Ethereal Bond
Job ability
Level 90
Recast 10 minutes
Duration 2 Minutes
Convert all incoming Physical damage to non-elemental magic damage.
incoming "Spell" damage is not subject to resistance while this effect is active.

Riposte
Job Ability
Level 40
Recast 5 Minutes
Duration 4 Minutes
Increases Attack speed and parry rate for every attack parried. effect resets upon taking "Spell" Damage

Runic Attunement
Job trait
Level 90
Runes grant a chance to absorb incoming elemental damage (5% chance per rune)

Sure Grip
Job trait
Level 30
Increases Store TP & Attack power when utilizing a two handed Weapon.
(+5 STP +5 Attack per level, level gained every 19 levels +20 to each total)


Runes
i feel the additional effect from runes utilizing a 2handed weapon are too weak. please increase them by 50%

[Karbuncle]

Some of these are pretty good.. I mean it saddens me they'll never be added... but a lot of them are well thought out.

I wouldn't be surprised if Suggestion #2 was a Cat 2 merit at some point.

[orakio]

I feel that rune fencer magic mitigation is a little better than you give it credit for Hideka.... but not much. Additionally ninja magic mitigation is better than that too, so long as it isn't a -ga spell. You are absolutely right though in that the physical mitigation of rune fencer is so far below the other tanks as to make it unlikely to be a tank except in extreme niche circumstances. Even non-tank primary classes like mnk and sam have significantly higher physical mitigation than rune does.

Absolutely agree about the CD's for wards being too long as well.

What I think we need to identify is what type of tanking this job is really supposed to do though. If they JUST want it to be a magic tank then the job needs SERIOUS help in the damage dealing department to give it any sort of use outside the niche magic tank. If they want it to be an all the time tank, just better at magic tanking than other tanks and slightly worse at physical, then it needs serious defensive adjustments. I think that ideally they can treat it like dancer at let the player choose the alternate path for their rune fencer, to be a mage-tank+ dd, or to be a full time mage-tank and physical tank.

I have been doing some brainstorming of my own on ideas for merits and things rune could use and looked at Dancer as a model of some really great merit abilities that really help define the role of the job, even if dancer isn't exactly used in most endgame content now. Using Fencing terms as ability names sense that already seemed to be the trend for Rune Fencer.

Group 2 JA's
Redoublement
Job Ability
Level 75 (Merit)
Recast: 5 Minutes
Duration: 3(5?) Minutes
Effect: While in this stance you have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance of countering attacks that you parry. Additionally you have +2/4/6/8/10 Enmity for each active rune you harbor as well as -1/2/3/4/5% PDT that may exceed the PDT cap. As a result of your defensive focus your effusion recasts are increased by 15% and your rune enchantment damage is reduced by 30%.

Broken Time
Job Ability
Level 75(Merit)
Recast: 5 Minutes
Duration: 3(5?) Minutes
Effect: While in this stance you attack 10% faster and your attacks have a 5/10/15/20/25% chance of dealing triple damage on their rune enchantment effect. Additionally your Effusions recasts are reduced by 15%. As a consequence your Ward recasts are increased by 30% and your resistances generated by rune enchantments are reduced by 15%.

As for Group 2 Job Traits, I really like your Sure Grip and Runic attunement ideas, and wouldn't mind either as a merit Job Trait or a built in one as well.

Group 2 Job Traits
Froissement
Job Trait
Level 75 (Merit)
While Face to Face with an enemy you have 3/6/9/12/15% chance to reduce damage from physical attacks and weaponskills by 50%

As for Group 1 Merits, I think we can look at effusion recasts + ward recasts as general groups, and then also look at some fun additional effects. One thing that I think that would be really useful here is a way to get a 4th rune enchantment. Would also look at a boost to swordplay for a 4th group 1 merit.

Group 1 Merits
Rune Enchantment Effect
Level 75 (Merit)
First point grants 1 Additional Maximum Rune Enchantment(New Max of 4). Each additional point increases the effectiveness of your Rune Enchantments by 5% for a max of 20% increased effectiveness.

Swordplay Effect
Level 75 (Merit)
Grants the rune fencer 1/2/3/4/5% increased attack and 1/2/3/4/5% increased magic defense while Swordplay is in effect.

Of course, everything is subject to number tweaking and change

Also want to add one last little thing.
Embolden
CD for this ability is way too dang long considering the other negative effect of 50% reduced duration. This ability is a net loss for things like regen/refresh which makes it essentially useful for....protect/shell/barelements? Reduce the Cd or reduce the spell duration penalty to just 33% so that refresh/regen at least aren't a net loss.

[Muras]

I just recently got RUN to 99 so I haven't had the chance to play around with it much, but I was thinking an ability along the following lines might be useful.

Convert Runes
Lv75 (Merit maybe?)
Recast: 3 min
Duration: 1.5 min (If applicable)
Converts current runes into certain attributes. For example:
Ignis: Attack+
Gelus: Magic Attack Bonus+
Flabra: Evasion+
Tellus: Defense+
Sulpor: Accuracy+
Unda: Magic Defense+
Lux: Recover HP
Tenebrae: Recover MP

The potency of the buff or HP/MP recovery would depend on the amount of runes of that particular type. Something like Ignis x2/Unda would give a hybrid buff of attack and a little bit of M.DEF. Lux x2 and Tenebrae would heal and give a little MP. Depending on the potency this ability could be quite useful, especially for MP recovery which I find RUN lacking in a little.

[Horadrim]

2: items that should be added to the Game or adjusted.

Job Abilities:

Runic Projection
Effusion
Level 10
Recast 60 Seconds
Target Monster
Range 16
Effect:
Consumes one rune: Deals Elemental damage to target matching rune consumed. Generates High levels of enmity.

Elemental Influx
Ward
Level 50
Recast 2:30
Duration 1:00 or one absorption
Target self
Absorbs the MP Utilized from incoming Magic matching your current dominant rune. expires after one activation.
Absorption mechanics: 1- 33% 2- 66% 3- 100%

Ethereal Bond
Job ability
Level 90
Recast 10 minutes
Duration 2 Minutes
Convert all incoming Physical damage to non-elemental magic damage.
incoming "Spell" damage is not subject to resistance while this effect is active.

Riposte
Job Ability
Level 40
Recast 5 Minutes
Duration 4 Minutes
Increases Attack speed and parry rate for every attack parried. ]effect resets upon taking severe damage. (Maintaining Foil becomes important to keeping your tanking boons active. Add effect to Foil: "Chance to prevent Riposte reset upon taking special damage."

Runic Attunement
Job trait
Level 90
Runes grant a chance to absorb incoming elemental damage (5% chance per rune)

Sure Grip
Job trait
Level 30
Increases Store TP & Attack power when utilizing a two handed Weapon.
(+5 STP +5 Attack per level, level gained every 19 levels +20 to each total)



Runes
i feel the additional effect from runes utilizing a 2handed weapon are too weak. please increase them by 50%

I like a lot of these, they are in line with what I think the job needs too.

My changes in bold italics.

En Passant
Lv. 40
Recast: 5 minutes
Duration: Instant
Expend Runes to step through a distracted enemy, delivering a chance attack that generates large amounts of enmity.
Actual Effect: Equalizes enmity between you and the mob's current target.
Rune Modifications = O: Averages enmity equally between the two, 1: +10% Gain/-5% Lost, 2:15/-10, 3:20/-10

Basically, if the enemy gets pulled towards a mage or heavy DD after spike damage or heai, you can spike your enemity to match theirs. The more runs active, the more bonus enmity you gain and the more the lose.

Full Body Action
Lv. 90
Recast: 10 Minutes
Duration: 1 minute or first Effusion used.
Grants Magic Attack Bonus based on number of runes active (10/20/30) and enhances next Effusion based on current TP.


Half-Sword Posture
lv. 99
Trait: Grants a small (5%~10%) chance to counter incoming attacks while using a 2handed weapon based on Parry skill. Counter attacks may (15% chance) cause severe slow (30%, decays in 5 seconds) effect that decays over time.


I feel RUN AF/Relic/Empy should have "Converts physical damage into non-elemental magic damage" as well. That Magic damage should be subject to MDT-, MDB, but not Resistances.

Side note, for anyone interested RUN uses "Great Swords" because it is a "Longsword" Fencer and FFXI (as well as most video games and anime) misrepresent sword classifications:

http://www.thearma.org/essays/Longsw...n_Fencing.html

The Longsword classification includes everything up to around 160cm in length, and the largest non-ceremonial standing combat swords were mostly less than that. The terms Bastard Sword and Great Sword were actually originally used to designate swords LESS than the maximum length of the Longsword classification but of specific origin and design. "Bastard" swords (which we almost always see as huge, hulking Cloud-like swords) were called that because no one knew where they came from originally -- i.e. literally bastards in the design sense.

[Glamdring]

If they honestly expect us to be an anti-magic tank they need to get some +enmity, no question. And it needs to be on the JOB not on gear, and not on merits either-merits are supposed to be a choice to customize the job, not a mandatory build. Gear would not be fair because the 2 designated tanks actually have enmity building abilities, and can still get gear to add more, which puts us in the hole. GS does plenty of damage, but it's too damn slow, a native haste spell or ability wouldn't hurt. And just some more GS choices. Our regens are quite nice, but pld cures give more enmity. Flash has too low of a recast. Foil is just too long between casts, and too short of duration, and most of the time it seems to get burned on a nothing TP move, not one of the mega damage ones you want it to block. Physical damage, that's mixed, sometimes I'm just laughing at it, other times my HP drops like a stone.

Obviously, you need a good sub. I had some fun /war, it's not bad. But parry skills too damn slow and doesn't proc enough-that's not just a run issue, but if our A+ is meant to be a defense it needs to work a bit more. /whm-which is what I used leveling it is fun but enmity is an issue. /dnc... it's ok, but it doesn't mesh well with our main job build, due to the runes and a slow 2H weapon. I'm going to try /rdm, maybe the nukes will do the enmity and the Fast cast would be useful.

Just preliminary thoughts, I gotta go to work.

[orakio]

To be fair Glamdring, a lot of the intial testing on Rune Fencer enmity has shown moderately useful values of enmity on the rune activations as well as wards and other ja's. Nothing amazing mind you, but those + flash/foil as well as the higher DD than paladin should all help with enmity generation. One of the bigger issues I see though is enmity loss from damage taken, something that ninja and paladin both have significantly reduced values on. Rune will either need to massively out-generate the enmity of paladin or ninja to hold hate, or have a much much better way of reduced enmity lost through damage taken (or just sub /nin on everything).

[nyheen]

I just recently got RUN to 99 so I haven't had the chance to play around with it much, but I was thinking an ability along the following lines might be useful.

Convert Runes
Lv75 (Merit maybe?)
Recast: 3 min
Duration: 1.5 min (If applicable)
Converts current runes into certain attributes. For example:
Ignis: Attack+
Gelus: Magic Attack Bonus+
Flabra: Evasion+
Tellus: Defense+
Sulpor: Accuracy+
Unda: Magic Defense+
Lux: Recover HP
Tenebrae: Recover MP

The potency of the buff or HP/MP recovery would depend on the amount of runes of that particular type. Something like Ignis x2/Unda would give a hybrid buff of attack and a little bit of M.DEF. Lux x2 and Tenebrae would heal and give a little MP. Depending on the potency this ability could be quite useful, especially for MP recovery which I find RUN lacking in a little.

THIS is not a bad idea at all. this should be on the new rune abilities list

[Covenant]

First off, let me just say I'm a level 16 Rune Fencer. While I've played FFXI since American release, I recently took off for almost a year and came back with "Seekers" release.

Reading the post I think Rune Fencer should be what "Redmage Tank" used to be. Physical stances and job abilities while nice I'd prefer a method to avoid using the RUN/NIN or RUN/WAR mode.

Two easy spells to add... a Stoneskin II and/or Blink II. How these spells would behave could be worked out at some other point. My basic wishlist is a spell/rune reliant caster to mitgate damage. Unlike, Paladin doesn't rely on heavy gear. Unlike Ninja that doesn't rely on Ninjitsu(though this is purely thematic).

I could even support a modifier on rune use to increase the base effect of regular stoneskin and/or blink spells.

While were at it, why not include a fire rune "provoke". Something that attachs directly to mob that increase all enmity effects by X %?

[Glamdring]

To be fair Glamdring, a lot of the intial testing on Rune Fencer enmity has shown moderately useful values of enmity on the rune activations as well as wards and other ja's. Nothing amazing mind you, but those + flash/foil as well as the higher DD than paladin should all help with enmity generation. One of the bigger issues I see though is enmity loss from damage taken, something that ninja and paladin both have significantly reduced values on. Rune will either need to massively out-generate the enmity of paladin or ninja to hold hate, or have a much much better way of reduced enmity lost through damage taken (or just sub /nin on everything).

Ok, back and I now have more time to devote to this subject. 1st, several posts on this thread, all with viable ideas, therefore knowing who we are trying to reach out to, expect none of them to happen.

2nd, until we get our merits/JSE hard to know the totality of how SE is going to end this job design, so with the caveat that I'm commenting on an incomplete work in progress...

a. yes, runes do generate some enmity. However, we aren't popping runes that often for it to matter much. I'm not asking that to change, I get enough of that with Pup popping manuvers and most of us have read the complaints about that 3 seconds per minute cutting into your DPS and how it's ruining your life, causing mental anguish, raping your soul and whatever-FYI, BS dramaqueen arguments probably are doing a DISservice to the idea when you are trying to represent a legitimate concern-the point is, that little bit of enmity isn't enough for a legitimate tank manuver. so, ideas: 1. High enmity generation from En-damage effects, helps both Rune and rdm, drk with Endark and Pld with enlight, win-win; I think the mechanic is different on dnc that this probably WON'T effect Samba effects, 2. Additional effect (small, but felt) on each element, stackable, patterned after those which can be gotten on elemental magian trials, i.e. Attack+ for fire, Acc+ for thunder, Def+ for earth, etc., stackable, used properly this should add some extra volatile enmity to our mix.

b. Increase enmity from our regens/refresh-including that from our autoregen, may need to think about this tho' since that is a status effect and if tied to the trait would impact pld, whm and smn since it would likely apply to autorefresh as well

c. increase our spikes potency, and thus the enmity they generate-also, the additional effect para or stun should help with our physical damage difficulties.

d. increase the pool of weapons/armor we can use within the classes we are on now, there are some viable pieces not out of character for Rune that would help with enmity, either from native +enmity traits to increased damage, haste, whatever.

e. Increase parry proc rate, especially if you add a Riposte possibility, with enmity generation tied to Tactical Parry trait

f. we need and deserve a Bash trait, and getting whacked upside the head/on the behind with the flat of a GS should piss anything off, additional effect Knockback

g. Job ability Flip, Instant, use every 90 seconds; in keeping with our more agile combat style compared to pld, yet less subtle compared to nin an ability to flip over the target to be at the rear, inflicts a 1 second stun with a 10% chance of it being a 5 second stun, interupts whatever action is occuring, but reduces our chance to resist a critical for 5 seconds due to vulnerability during the flip.

h. give us Cover, identical to Pld.

i. some offensive magic, I'm thinking the blm elemental DoT spells (Burn, etc.), which would also allow us to increase the En-damage effect of our runes.

j. reduce our spell interruption rate, this will help with recasting SS, Phalanx and spikes during combat.

That's just off the top of my head.