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The point about Aegis and RUN is that SE wanted to make a magic tank when they had already buffed the crap out of PLD in regards to MDT. With the ability to get -87.5% MDT between Aegis, Shellra V, and a Defending Ring (You'd have a lot of other DT gear, of course, but that's not the point), there is absolutely no way RUN can compete with that. Epeolatry is a stop-gap, a bandaid, and for how expensive it is, it's not anywhere near good enough. RUN can't get MDT anywhere near as good as PLD can, because PLD can get that -87.5% to 8 elements at once, whereas RUN is limited to, at most, -72.5% to a single element. Not only is PLD capable of absorbing more magic damage, but RUN can't even get its own -MDT for a single element to the level PLD can for all of them.
SE kept buffing Aegis and kept buffing Aegis until they worked themselves into a corner. Any 'rebalancing' of Aegis is going to be a nerf, and, furthermore, it still won't fix the problem that already exists. Even if you bring Aegis' MDTII down to 25%, which is where it originally was, it's still better MDT for 8 elements than RUN can get for a single one. If you bring it down further, you have nerfed the thing to worse than its original, 75 version.
The only way they can put RUN where it was supposed to go, and make it was it was supposed to be, is majorly buffing its magic mitigation in some way. Majorly. And that is not possible without a serious change to how RUN functions, since RUN can only do three elements at a time, whereas PLD, again, can get more MDT against 8 elements than RUN can against 3. They just seriously, seriously have backed themselves into a corner. To make RUN a better magic tank than PLD would either require nerfing Aegis, or making RUN even sturdier against magic than PLD currently can be, which would make it practically invincible.
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Well that's part of why I suggest large magic evasion boosts. Aside from being thematically in line with Rune Fencer's abilities and style, resist states consecutively halve the damage from magic. I'm not sure if this is done before or after MDT check, but either way, it's outside of that term and therefore is a powerful form of MDT2, and also gives resistance to all status ailments. And it's exceedingly simple to implement. It may not be quite as reliable as straight MDT2, but in sufficient amounts it is quite a benefit.
Yes, I would like RUN to be a superior magic tank to pld, but that ship sailed with the Aegis upgrades. Now I'm just trying to give it a competitive chance to be an alternative in more content. If we go with Magic Evasion Bonus VI (+72 Magic Evasion) and middle of the road with my Foil suggestion (+100 Magic Evasion), that gives RUN a +172 Meva advantage against all elements and debuffs, before we even start applying barspells and runes. With this, it actually becomes more feasible to split runes, though you can still stack them if you want. With trait, Foil, barspell, and 3 runes, you can be exceptionally resistant to 4 elements and still have excellent defenses against the other 4, and that's assuming you need to split your runes up like that. With a large baseline Meva bonus from trait and Foil, one barspell can basically act as a 4th and 5th rune of one element without needing Vallation/Valiance as much for damage mitigation since you're pretty likely to get some resist states with that much magic evasion. Which means you can focus your runes and therefore JAs on the elements aligned with the most dangerous moves you expect to face.
I don't mind Rune Fencer focusing on certain elements over others, it's an elegant style that is in line the Rune Fencer theme, compared to the simple turtle power of paladin. It's just too narrow right now, the game's arsenal of enemies does not forgive such a narrow focus.
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As I understand how the rune MDT works, you get -15%MDT per rune harbored (against the element that rune is strong against), but this term is multiplicative with normal MDT, like Fan Dance gives -95%PDT~-20%PDT (depending on merits and gear) and is multiplicative with normal PDT. So a RUN with capped MDT (which is not at all hard to do), harboring two Lux and one Flabra, would take .5 * .7 = .35x normal Darkness damage and .5 * .85 = .425x normal Earth damage. The multiplicative nature of it is actually counterproductive. It's like with DA/TA/QA and OAx. Having a lot of both is good, but the more of one you have, the less effective the other becomes. 3 Runes without any MDT gives -45% MDT for that element. 3 Runes with capped MDT is -72.5%, which is relatively less ('cause that's how multiplicatives work, I hate math).
Point I'm trying to make is the very abilities that are supposed to make RUN a magic tank are in and of themselves crappier than a level 75 PLD shield, which can get you -75% MDT against all elements, instead of just one.
Magic Evasion is not enough. It would help. What Rune Fencer would need, if we want to keep in the theme of fencer and magic tanking, is have parry apply to spells and attacks that deal magic damage. Just have the RUN have a straight up chance to just completely deflect the spell. Not resist, a check before resist. I'm not exactly sure what all of the differences are between the magic resist checks and the accuracy equations, but just have a straight up level comparison + macc and parry comparison, and give RUN the ability to just completely parry magic attacks so they don't even get to the resist step. And allow it to work for everything.
Monsters with stupidly high macc will still be able to land spells, but a RUN with sufficiently high parry will still have a good chance to avoid them. It gives RUN a reason to go for more +parry, which a fencer would want, it makes it a better magic tank, which it needs to be, and it fits thematically. Whereas mere warriors might deflect an arrow off their shield, or monks block a blow, a rune fencer parries spells and curses and hexes, deflects them as others would normal slings and barbs and arrows.
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There are two problems with that:
#1: The parry change you're talking about is probably more work than the devs are willing to put in. It's a cool idea, but it's unlikely to be implemented, especially given the position the devs are in right now and November looming on the horizon. Plus, it would be unreliable. I'm trying to suggest an adjustment that uses mechanics that already exist in the game and are not hard to implement. Magic evasion has existed since the game's inception, and I'm not even talking about changing how it works, just adding it as a trait to RUN (the trait already exists since blu can set it) and adding it to Foil.
#2: In the amounts I'm talking about, magic evasion is enough, and solves multiple problems at once. Keep in mind that at 900 skill with a Dunna, geo vex gives -95 macc and attunement gives +95 meva, for a combined total of effectively +190 meva. With my middle suggestion of +100 to Foil, and +72 from tier 6 trait, that gives you almost the same effect as vex+attune before barspells and runes or actual geo buffs that might be applied. Considering how powerful vex+attune is at mitigating magic damage and effects, I think the changes I'm suggesting would be sufficient.
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After looking up the current thought on how magic accuracy and magic evasion are used to resist spells, I'd say that that change might be too much. Not in and of itself, as it's quite clear that a Dunna GEO can effectively give +190 magic evasion. The problem is that nothing exists in a vacuum. +362 effective magic evasion, on top of the magic evasion on RUN-usable armor (which I want to say tends to be high-ish), that could well make the RUN effectively invulnerable. Especially when you throw bar spells on top of that, although that is for single elements.
From what I have been able to find, Foil does not add magic evasion, but a bonus to regular evasion against TP moves; I have not tested this myself, but I consider the source reliable. It is not enough to simply increase magic evasion (although that goes a long way to helping the problem). Perhaps Foil, in addition to the evasion against TP moves, could give the RUN increased Magic Defense Bonus. RUN already gets Tier 7 Magic Defense Bonus, which is +22 MDB. Have Foil, on top of its current effects, give +Magic Defense Bonus, capping at... I dunno. +22 at 500 Enhancing. If every ~22 points of Enhancing gave +1 MDB, a RUN without any Enhancing Gear or Merits, but capped Enhancing, would get +17 MDB. MDB, as far as I know, has nothing to do with the effects of debuffs, but it could go a long way to make up for the advantage PLD has in general magic damage reduction over RUN.
But then again, perhaps a large increase to just magic evasion is the way to go. In my experiences so far on RUN, the problem has seemed to be not the level of resistance and damage reduction I can achieve, but the limitation to 3 or less elements at once. Which, of course, a flat increase would help resists.
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Yes, that's why I gave a range, and another advantage of my suggestion. The numbers are flexible and easily balanced, 100 was the middle of the range I gave. If they get the trait for +72, even +50 on Foil would be substantial. I don't really count magic evasion on ilvl gear since that's already accounted for in content levels. And it's supposed to work in addition to barspells, not in a vacuum. Runes and JAs used while they're active make you essentially invulnerable to that element anyway, so beefing up base magic evasion by at least ~100 points or so allows a barspell to act as a 4th and 5th rune of one element, and lessens the need to stack runes to be effective, allowing more flexibility. In my experience, runes and vallation reduce magic damage by a lot more than just 72%, and it's probably because the massive boost in magic evasion against an element provided by 3 runes is bringing the damage way down. Resisting consecutively halves magic damage with each resist state achieved (x1/2 > x1/4 > x1/8), and this stacks multiplicatively with mdt and mdt2 because they are different terms in the equation. If you can beef up your magic evasion to help achieve these resists, stacking runes of one element to get sufficient resistance from the magic evasion boost of Runes and sufficient extra MDT from vallation becomes less necessary, which opens up options when you have an enemy that can rapidly change elements.
I also suggested MDB in addition to or as an alternative to magic evasion for Foil. I prefer magic evasion for both thematic reasons as well as performance reasons, but it should get something. It's rune fencer's one unique spell. Atm Foil is only a physical evasion boost against enemy's special attacks. And I still think they should get magic evasion bonus as a trait, reaching tier 6 at or before lv99.