The Life of a Rune Fencer

[Nightfox]

I've been playing RUN since a couple weeks past the release of Seeker's of Adoulin. A job that felt as if it had no hope has improved dramatically over the year. Though there is still very minimal use for RUN in a party setting, I still try to find more uses. Content that I've found the most satisfying for RUN are reives, including wildkeepers. With good gear and merits they can tank quite well, until hate caps of course, as with any tanking job. I've tried to bring my RUN to delve or High Tier Battlefields with little success on group invites to try it out. I hope to try it out with a low man linkshell party in the future. My gear is not the best, but it is still high enough to be able to experiment.

My main set is:

Aettir
Tzacab Grip
Honed tathlum
Futhark bandeau +1
Twilight torque
Ethereal earring
Spellbreaker earring
Runeist coat +1
Runeist mitons +1
Dark ring (physical damage -4%, magical damage -4%)
Dark ring (physical damage -4%, magical damage -4%)
Evasionist's cape
Flume belt
Runeist trousers +1
Futhark boots +1

There is room for improvement obviously, but that is for another topic. Having tanked for a while, there is still a plethora of problems i face. This includes hate, damage, and physical survivability. RUN's magical defense capabilities are very impressive, i have no problems with it as it should be. Against anything that deals heavy physical damage and/or high level, it is very weak. I have capped skills in everything for RUN and merits in greatsword, evasion, parrying, STR, DEX, AGI, Rune Enchantment/Vallation effect 5/5, Inspiration 5/5, battuta 4/5, and Rayke 1/5. For job points so far I only have Rune Effects 2/10 and elemental sforzo effect 1/10. I'm still improving my RUN quite a bit but i feel there needs to be major upgrades aside from just gear and merits still.

- Hate system still needs to be revamped quite a bit

As with each tank job in the game, this is the leading factor in tanking problems. There have been posts that adjustments will be made, so until then i can only wait.

- "Battuta" is an amazing job ability, lower recast or higher duration is critical.

This ability changes things dramatically, such as when hit by wildkeeper reive weakness abilities or low on HP. I've been saved countless times by it, at least until it wears off.

- More higher tiers of the job trait "Inquartata".

Parrying needs to be more heavily enphasized on RUN, it is crucial to survivability on anything physical.

- New Effusions

More runic abilities to deal magical damage, gain/keep hate, and/or aid in dehibilitating enemies would be helpful.

- New Wards

More runic abilities to ward physical damage, gain/keep hate, increase parrying, and/or defend against high damage abilities would be helpful.

- New Abilities geared towards keeping hate and increasing parrying and/or evasion.

Parrying and evasion are the keys to tanking for rune, it would be helpful having abilities to aid in this. An ability with a 5m recast and 2hr duration which assists in increased job performance would be nice, such as velocity shot for ranger, but increasing in parrying and evasion.

- New ability or trait for increasing physical resistance.

Physical survivability is still the fall of any RUN, even small increases to physical defending capabilities can help.

- New spells

Spells to defend against physical damage, shave damage off light and dark based spells, and/or aid in holding hate on enemies would be helpful.


And finally....

- Allow "Valiance" to double duration on surrounding party members and have dramatically increased range.

I feel very strongly about this. Having this ability reach party members including mages on the back lines can increase RUN's favorability in parties. To be able to ward off heavy magical damage and grant fast cast if merited would be very helpful to everyone in the party.

I would like to see RUN used more in current content and hope this thread will be at least read by the developers in time to consider adjustments for the september update, thanks for your time.


- Nightfox

[FrankReynolds]

- New Abilities geared towards keeping hate and increasing parrying and/or evasion.

Parrying and evasion are the keys to tanking for rune, it would be helpful having abilities to aid in this. An ability with a 5m recast and 2hr duration which assists in increased job performance would be nice, such as velocity shot for ranger, but increasing in parrying and evasion.

The ergon weapon should have had an incredible parry rate like PLD shields have for block / mdt.

[Einalem]

I agree that Battuta is strong, when up.
As far as up-time versus recast, the only part I find odd is 1:30 Duration, where things like Swordplay are 2 Mintues.
I wouldn't mind a middle ground, though.
Halve the Parry proc rate added by Battuta and add it as a baseline to Inquartata or in a separate trait if need be.
That would give more baseline Parry survivability and not diminish the usefulness of Battuta.

[Grekumah]

Speaking about parry, we do not have any plans to make adjustments to Battuta or Inquartata. We have to be very careful when making adjustments to improve the activation rate of parry since it nullifies physical damage and as such we’d like players to carefully choose when to use Battuta.

While we do not have any plans to increase the effect duration of Valiance, we do plan on increasing the range of the effect and we are looking to address this in the September version update.

[FrankReynolds]

Speaking about parry, we do not have any plans to make adjustments to Battuta or Inquartata. We have to be very careful when making adjustments to improve the activation rate of parry since it nullifies physical damage and as such we’d like players to carefully choose when to use Battuta.

It's not really a choice. You either need it or you don't. When you need it, you need it all the time.

[Nightfox]

Speaking about parry, we do not have any plans to make adjustments to Battuta or Inquartata. We have to be very careful when making adjustments to improve the activation rate of parry since it nullifies physical damage and as such we’d like players to carefully choose when to use Battuta.

While we do not have any plans to increase the effect duration of Valiance, we do plan on increasing the range of the effect and we are looking to address this in the September version update.

Thanks for the response, Grekumah. I understand that parry cannot be increased to high to prevent RUN from becoming very powerful. And i am excited to hear that valiance range will be increased, hopefully dramatically. Not to sound pushy or impatient, but if you could let the dev team know to make more adjustments faster to put RUN out there would be nice. It took a year and a couple months to get to this point of still being left out, and GEO has more use and is needed far more often than RUN. Would be nice to see some dramatic job changing adjustments to RUN to push it out there. I would like to tank in contents like Delve, High-Tier Battlefields, and New Skirmish. Right now that is very far from happening though due to time limits and other strategies being much better. I am slowly building RUN mythic without paying for high purity bayld, but earning through reives. I am far from that goal this way, but an Aettir RUN should be able to do things as well. Thanks for the response.

- Nightfox

[Afania]

I woukd like to tank in contents like Delve, High-Tier Battlefields, and New Skirmish.

Not trying to say RUN is as good as PLD, but RUN can already tank in above content.

[Nightfox]

Not trying to say RUN is as good as PLD, but RUN can already tank in above content.

Not without being in runs with friends, I've never once seen a shout asking for a RUN on my server, when i am on at least. The time limit in such content with rune fencer in its current state is also a problem. There are strategies with pld and DD and/or rng, but not with RUN.

[Malithar]

Not without being in runs with friends, I've never once seen a shout asking for a RUN on my server, when i am on at least. The time limit in such content with rune fencer in its current state is also a problem. There are strategies with pld and DD and/or rng, but not with RUN.

Welcome to MMOs, where the bandwagoners, elitist, noobs, sheep, or whatever you may call them cling to a single posted strat that has worked, and will not deviate without an extreme buff to said not-shouted-for job, or a situation arises where the shouted job absolutely can't be filled.

Many jobs fit into this. War and Drk may not have quite the oomph of Sam post SC update, but they're still more than capable DDs for any content, same deal with a fair number of other DD jobs. When's the last time you've seen them shouted for? How often do you see Geo shouted for? Sch? Blm? Smn? These are all jobs that while maybe having an issue or three that need worked out, are more than capable of filling a role in content. Whether the player base at large accepts that or not isn't really something the developers can control, short of massive buffs, and even that doesn't always have the intended effect. Geo is downright ridiculous at the moment, barring ballads for your backline, it destroys what Brd is capable of doing, specially an Idris Geo. Have you seen them shouted for though?

Chances are, even if you're desperate and will risk taking a Run over a Pld, you won't get a good Run. How many good Runs do you know? Personally, I know one. That doesn't give me much confidence at all that shouting for one will turn up a good result, I'd more than likely end up getting a Run that swore by /Sam to tank and had full 119 AF/Relic at best, and thought they were a badass. At least with Pld, you kind of assume if they have Ochain and an Aegis, they at least have an idea of what they're doing.

Many of those same strats designed for Pld and Rngs can and do work with Run as well. It can surely get a bit messy, doubly so if the Run gets unlucky or lacks specific sets, but it's plenty do-able.

[Afania]

Not without being in runs with friends, I've never once seen a shout asking for a RUN on my server, when i am on at least. The time limit in such content with rune fencer in its current state is also a problem. There are strategies with pld and DD and/or rng, but not with RUN.

RUN/NIN act like a PLD in a tank+RNG setup. It's the same strategy, just using different job to execute it.

You shouldn't use /shout to determine a job's strength, because:

1) 90% of the /shout pt setup can't be a real indication of a job's strength.

For example, GEO is the best job for the stunner spot in delve1 since GEO can do buff/debuff AND stun + Nuke. Most of the /shout pt on my server still /shout for a....SCH. Which is a much worse alternative than RDM and GEO for the stunner spot.

No delve pt ever /shout for jobs like COR, instead they /shout for MNKx3, while COR provide more contribution than 1 single MNK can provide. COR is also a good skirmish3 job and ppl don't /shout for it either, instead they /shout for MNKx3~4 >.> While MNK x3~4 can clear skirmish just fine it's not ideal to have an entire pt full of MNK but no COR.

Half of the ceizak pt /shout for a RNG before flurry2 update. Pretty sure before flurry update RNG isn't as ideal as namas SAM in ceizak.

I think ppl need to stop using "no one /shout for X job" to argue whether a job suck or not. Most /shout pt do things completely wrong nor /shout for ideal job/setup. If you want to argue about X job suck, you need to use game mechanics/gears and compare players playing/gearing right. Ppl don't /shout for a GEO because most GEO doesn't have proper DD/cure/stun set to contribute enough, despite GEO is a superior alternative to SCH. Ppl don't /shout for a COR because most COR/WHM, despite COR is still a superior alternative to 3rd MNK.

Most ppl don't /shout for RUN because most RUN don't even play the job like a real tank.

2) Most of the time, you can send /tell and ask if you can join on another job, even if the pt lead didn't /shout for it.

70% of the time I can get an invite on a different job, just saying.

That being said, if you do that, don't suck on the job. I often get invite on COR even if the pt wasn't /shouting for it, but when I get invite I do make sure I do enough contribution so they have a good impression on the job. There are several pt that /shout for SAM or MNK for delve, I bugged the hell out of leader for a spot on COR when they said COR suck. After I got the spot I often do enough dmg contribution so they all shut up.

You can try to send a /tell when pt is shouting for a PLD, but make sure you can do the job(keep hate and not die) just fine on RUN. Again, RUN can tank marj/AA/DM just fine, but if you suck/fail then you can't really complain about ppl not /shouting for it. It doesn't change the fact that RUN can do the job just fine though.