After starting to play Rune Fencer and sucking at it, and after gradually improving and becoming a decent Rune Fencer, I was left wondering about several things. This job will always be compared to PLD, as PLD is the tank to be in this game. Each one of these jobs has its strengths and weaknesses.

One glaring issue is the availability of "ultimate" weapons. PLD has access to three relic weapons, 3 empyrean weapons, and one mythic weapon. In comparison, RUN has access to one Ergon weapon (which are still more difficult to make than all 3 R/M/E's). Now granted you won't see a PLD put on a Ragnarok or Caladbolg for tanking, but that's not the point. PLD has access to more "ultimate" Great Swords than RUN does, despite RUN having a higher rating in it. RUN also has a higher sword skill than PLD has a Great Sword skill. Because RUN is (along with GEO) the youngest job in the game, it gets seriously shafted about weapon availability. I fail to see how adding RUN to Ragnarok and Caladbolg would "break" the job.

Another issue is damage output. RUN is not intended to be a damage dealer, this is a fact. However, the concern is sword vs Great Sword. Logically speaking, equipping a two handed sword would allow you to deal more damage, but this is not true from my experiences. This has mostly to do with the GS weaponskills. This could be adjusted if RUN was given Torcleaver, which is a strong WS in its own right, or if Dimidiation was adjusted to have similar mods to Torcleaver. I would also like to point out there are other GS WS's, which could be better (notably Spinning Slash and Ground Strike).

Another way to make GS's stand out a bit more is to maybe give the WS's more utility. Sword has 4 utility WS's: Flat (stun), Circle (AoE), Sanguine (hp drain), Requiescat (non-elemental damage). GS has 2: Shockwave (a pathetic AoE sleep range), and Herculean slash (paralyze). Maybe if Dimidiation temporarily lowered a monster's accuracy (5% maybe?) would help. Or maybe repurpose another WS so it heals status aliments even. That would certainly give more incentive to use GS as a tanking weapon.