A Bit of Rune Fencer Feedback

So, far I've really been enjoying this job but there's just a few things that bug me about it. The first thing is that I'm spend almost all of my time in battles either using abilities or casting spells. There are so many effects to balance that it can get a bit ridiculous it's like playing solo RDM used to be. I feel this job is in desperate need of a composure-like ability or job trait.

Another thing is that given how dependent on Enhancing Magic our job is you'd think it'd have access to Erase or Haste or Temper or Gain-skill, however we have access to none of these spells. I feel RUN should at the very least have access to Erase, the others I could see upsetting balance a little bit but Erase it should definitely have.

Foil is something that is also missing it's mark pretty bad, the duration of the spell versus it's MP cost are just awful and with that 1 second casting time you can't get it up fast enough to stop ~50% of TP moves at the very least it should have a .5 second casting time and probably a lower MP cost, that's just my opinion though. I still seem to get hit by most TP moves when it's up anyway.

Yeah SE still got alot of work to do with run, however they took a big step in the right direction. Composure like ability is highly needed on run, I have to fulltime at least 10 buffs during battles "Shadows, 3 runes, aquaveil, stonskin, icespikes, protect, shell, foil, vallation/valiance" and the runes constantly have to be reapplied because of gambits and lunges. I really dont like embolden its god awful really, its never worth it because it short the duration of the buff by 50%, SE needs to completely restructure this ability.

Next Liement Ward is awful i mean awful, it only last 8 seconds, and it wipes vallation/valiance upon it use. Moreover, as a run/nin i never let my shadows fall just to make a attempt to absorb a magic spell. This needs to be addressed, fixed and possibly restructured. I would like to see this ability become useful, Liement ward should get first priority over shadows in the lines of protection, for example the lines of protect should go Liement Ward > shadows > stoneskin before you take a hit.

I agree with you on Embolden. The ability is kind of bad because the spells cost the same amount of MP but in the long run are worse. I know it's for emergency situations but with the way you have to play RUN if you find yourself in an emergency situation you're probably already dead because the job just can't take raw hits. It's all about preparation with RUN. If it were 200% potency and 50% duration it might actually be worth using.

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Originally Posted by Xerius

I agree with you on Embolden. The ability is kind of bad because the spells cost the same amount of MP but in the long run are worse. I know it's for emergency situations but with the way you have to play RUN if you find yourself in an emergency situation you're probably already dead because the job just can't take raw hits. It's all about preparation with RUN. If it were 200% potency and 50% duration it might actually be worth using.

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I dont think they can give 200% increase potency to embolden because that will intrude on rdm second 2hr ability and rdms will call foul, embolden should maybe be changed to some type of stance that offers 2 buffs. Embolden reminds me of have last resort use to be for drks, SE took years to fix it I hope it doesnt take the same period of time for them to address this. Next Liement Ward need to be fixed badly, make this ability actually help run, it cannot last only 8 seconds.

I find Embolden's only place really is with Protect IV solo to make it protect V or Protectra V when received because of its already long duration, matching the 10 min recast. Anything with SCH perpetuance also would be ok, since the extended duration would counter-balance the side-effects of Embolden. Other than that, really isn't worth its salt.

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Originally Posted by Delvish

I find Embolden's only place really is with Protect IV solo to make it protect V or Protectra V when received because of its already long duration, matching the 10 min recast. Anything with SCH perpetuance also would be ok, since the extended duration would counter-balance the side-effects of Embolden. Other than that, really isn't worth its salt.

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That's how I have been using embolden since I have gotten it. I always embolden + highest level protect unless I need it for shell. Shell V with embolden is ~36% magic damage reduction. One should easily be able to cap MDR with that if needed.

By the way this needs to be said, run restorative capabilities are absymal, regens dont cut it. We should be able to use light runes to restore hp, runes need more and better uses. I was watching a pld tank hurkan and I was like damn I wish i could do that. I was trying to tank tchakka and that didnt go to well, why because run cant mitigate physical damage and special attacks eat through shadows and battuta. Futhermore, pld is superior at reducing all kinds of damage, there not strong against physical damage and weak at reducing magical damage, so why run have to be strong agianst magic damage and weak against physical. Moreover, aegis pld is better at reducing magical damage than run.

Run need to have caps lifted off it in the field of magic damage reduction, ability to parry, ability to evade, and JA that dramatically increase physical/magical evasion. Run need more powerful original spells, and we should be able to greatly mitigate physical damage and be superior at mitigating magical damage. SE has alot more work to do.

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Originally Posted by Cljader1

special attacks eat through shadows and battuta.

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This is being addressed in the August update, where fewer shadows will be eaten by AOE TP moves if you are wielding a 100+ weapon in main hand.

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Originally Posted by Cljader1

Run need to have caps lifted off it in the field of magic damage reduction, ability to parry, ability to evade, and JA that dramatically increase physical/magical evasion. Run need more powerful original spells, and we should be able to greatly mitigate physical damage and be superior at mitigating magical damage. SE has alot more work to do.

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RUN already has a far superior parrying cap, and with Batutta 5/5 it's around 38%. Assuming that the likes of Bereaver and Senbaak will get parrying on them too, this means we might have half a chance of getting near to that cap on stuff that matters, too.

I'll hold judgement until I see what we get. If it's terrible though, I'll be putting my merits back into H2H and Shijin Spiral, since MNK is getting all of SE's love right now.

yeah but we only get to break the parry cap with battuta for 90 secs, pld breaks damage caps with its GEAR. No other job can do that, it break damage reduction caps with burtgang and aegis, run needs to break parry cap in a similiar way. We need more than a 90 second cap break.

probably AF gear will have parry stuffs

IMO the biggest issue with RUN atm is the gear selection... The choices, especially for a "tank" are absolutely deplorable in the lvl 30-60 range... The main cause that I personally believe is responsible for this is the lack of "Chain Armor" options. RUN is suppose to be a tank, at least that's what I keep hearing... Limiting them to Scale Armor seems a bit questionable at best... Ninjas can even use heavier armor than them...

Proposal: Introduce some lower level job non af specific gear (like every other class has). Allow RUN to equip up to Chain Style Armor.

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Originally Posted by andotaco86

IMO the biggest issue with RUN atm is the gear selection... The choices, especially for a "tank" are absolutely deplorable in the lvl 30-60 range... The main cause that I personally believe is responsible for this is the lack of "Chain Armor" options. RUN is suppose to be a tank, at least that's what I keep hearing... Limiting them to Scale Armor seems a bit questionable at best... Ninjas can even use heavier armor than them...

Proposal: Introduce some lower level job non af specific gear (like every other class has). Allow RUN to equip up to Chain Style Armor.

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Eh, Chain armor is still a little heavy. I think the only reason NIN are allowed to equip is because actual Ninja were known to wear chain mail, or at least a light-weight variant. RUN on the other hand is very light armor driven and the reasoning behind it makes sense. It's just a poor execution in a game where even elementals fight using physical attacks. I don't believe the type of armor is a limiting factor with RUN. It is its limited ability to take physical damage between elemental attacks which is exacerbated by its intended use of parrying/evasion skill having a rate cap, surpassed only by a merit ability that is active 3/10ths of the time. The other 7/10ths (or 3.5 minutes) you're sitting there flapping in the wind.

Really hoping this AF will come through with a strong DEF stat, 1-2 pieces of -DT, a good amount of generic MDB for those occasions when you are not stacked 3 runes high in an off element, and at least one piece that will extend the duration of Battuta or Swordplay, enough so that we can alternate between the two.

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Originally Posted by Delvish

Eh, Chain armor is still a little heavy. I think the only reason NIN are allowed to equip is because actual Ninja were known to wear chain mail, or at least a light-weight variant.

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You are very correct, Historically Ninjas, like pretty much every other martial warrior of the time wore chain armor to some degree. You seem to justify a ninjas usage of chain simply based on a real world version of our ffxi ninja. While I am in no ways making a case against ninjas wearing chain, I am simply highlighting that your opnion of them using it being "reasonable" based on a real world comparison, which is fine...

What's not fine is that you seem to be under the impression that there are no Real world comparisons with RUN that would justify the usage of heavier armor. The reality is that the martial art of fighting with Great Swords, which is Highlighted in the "Codex of Wallerstein" is very much linked to the usage of heavy armor. The reason that I use the "Codex of Wallerstein" as an example is because it's easily one of the best examples of fencing with a Great Sword.

Now, none of this really matter because FFXI is a fictional universe very lightly inspired by things in Reality thus neither of our real life comparison hold any weight... My real reason for suggesting chain armor is based on my personal play through experience thus far. The role they seem to be pushing RUN into is not really a role at all, your point about Elementals doing physical dmg highlights this perfectly... No matter how resistant to magic damage, there will always be large amounts of physical damage to deal with. In theory, evasion and parry may seem like good ways of adding additional defense however there is no doubt that even with merits ect, they still come up way short...

You mention the desire for higher DEF on our "af", which I most certainly agree with you on however this does nothing to help alleviate the vast majority of gear issues seen by this class prior to 99. The ability to equip chain armor would drastically improve the current issue and would be far easier to do compared to adding large amounts of new higher def RUN gear across many of the levels.

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Originally Posted by Cljader1

yeah but we only get to break the parry cap with battuta for 90 secs, pld breaks damage caps with its GEAR. No other job can do that, it break damage reduction caps with burtgang and aegis, run needs to break parry cap in a similiar way. We need more than a 90 second cap break.

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I think Aeigis needing a nerf is the bigger issue here.

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Originally Posted by andotaco86

I think Aeigis needing a nerf is the bigger issue here.

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Not only does Aegis need a nerf, but then SE needs to look into tanking as a whole once again.

PLD is only an acceptable job if it has Aegis or Ochain (preferably both) depending on the mob you're fighting. RUN needs a similarly powerful weapon/item to mitigate damage on an acceptable level. Unfortunately this mythical piece of gear doesn't even exist.

Both of these aside, now that people are killing Tojil on a regular basis, the only tanking job worth it's salt, is once again... MNK. And with the new 2 hour JAs coming soon, MNK can counter 100% of the time for a small period, with their immensely powerful fists to deal even more damage whilst not taking any.

After the update my Senbaak will have +188 parry. I'm not sure if that will put me above the cap. That would be nice if it did then Batutta just becomes an ability if you want to inflict damage on Mnk type mobs doing Hundred Fists.

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Originally Posted by Darthmaull

After the update my Senbaak will have +188 parry. I'm not sure if that will put me above the cap. That would be nice if it did then Batutta just becomes an ability if you want to inflict damage on Mnk type mobs doing Hundred Fists.

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Unless the parry skill on 100+ weapons behaves differently than your native skill, even above cap you will still only parry at best, 20% of the time. That would however be an interesting way (post-99) to make RUN an efficient tank if the added skill is not applicable to the current parry cap.

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Originally Posted by Darthmaull

After the update my Senbaak will have +188 parry. I'm not sure if that will put me above the cap. That would be nice if it did then Batutta just becomes an ability if you want to inflict damage on Mnk type mobs doing Hundred Fists.

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The current parry cap is 5%. Always has been.

Inquartata at 99 allows an additional 13%, pushing the cap up to 18% for RUN. Regardless of your skill > mobs skill, the cap is 18%.

Battuta adds 4% per merit on top of this cap for 1:30 duration. Final hard cap of 38%.

So, as Delvish said, unless they fundamentally change the way that parrying caps, you shill shouldn't see more than 38%. Though tbh I doubt that in delve/WK reives we'll even reach cap on the NMs anyway.

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Originally Posted by Babekeke

The current parry cap is 5%. Always has been.

Inquartata at 99 allows an additional 13%, pushing the cap up to 18% for RUN. Regardless of your skill > mobs skill, the cap is 18%.

Battuta adds 4% per merit on top of this cap for 1:30 duration. Final hard cap of 38%.

So, as Delvish said, unless they fundamentally change the way that parrying caps, you shill shouldn't see more than 38%. Though tbh I doubt that in delve/WK reives we'll even reach cap on the NMs anyway.

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rly? becaus http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Parry on bgwiki it lists the hard cap as 20% and I recall you yourself in another post mentioning you were getting a greater than 50% parry rate with battuta up, which a 20% hard cap would allow
heck I've parsed greater than 5% parry on sam >_>
however it would be nice to see "enhances inquarta" or "unlimits parry rate" on rune af

I'm not sure which site I've seen it on but there was something mentioned about the +188 parry on the new weapons when equipped in the main hand, will increase parry rate. I'm not sure by how much.

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Originally Posted by Reaper

rly? becaus http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Parry on bgwiki it lists the hard cap as 20% and I recall you yourself in another post mentioning you were getting a greater than 50% parry rate with battuta up, which a 20% hard cap would allow
heck I've parsed greater than 5% parry on sam >_>
however it would be nice to see "enhances inquarta" or "unlimits parry rate" on rune af

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I had assumed that I was just eyeballing it wrong. I also just went back to where I had got my info from and it seems I was mis-reading the info there. I was sure that it capped at 5% so I guess I just made what I was reading fit into that lol.

But yeah, you're right. 20% is base. If we can cap it, that's a total of 53% parrying with 5/5 Battuta, 33% without, and here's to hoping that if an AF piece increases Inquartata, it is actually useful to full-time, at least whilst tanking (can we dream of haste, -PDT and inquartata up?)

5% parrying rate is actually the floor rather than the ceiling, but that's an easy mistake to make. The parrying skill VS "something that monsters have that's probably just level" check is not a kind check, and usually floors parrying rate on anything vaguely difficult regardless of a player's parrying skill.

It'll be really interesting to see how the new +Parrying Skill weapons affect all this, since the better ones stand to increase Parrying Skill by half or more its current value.

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Originally Posted by Babekeke

This is being addressed in the August update, where fewer shadows will be eaten by AOE TP moves if you are wielding a 100+ weapon in main hand.

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Thanks Matsui for screwing this option for us. On that note -PDT will also not be a primary stat on new gear, so probably just one peice now. Unless RUN AF has significant boosts to Battuta and/or Inquartata, we can say goodbye to tanking anything in Adoulin.

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Originally Posted by Delvish

Thanks Matsui for screwing this option for us. On that note -PDT will also not be a primary stat on new gear, so probably just one peice now. Unless RUN AF has significant boosts to Battuta and/or Inquartata, we can say goodbye to tanking anything in Adoulin.

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Yeah, I'll get my AF, see how it performs, then likely remove all of my great sword and resolution merits, and put them back into H2H and Shijin Spiral.

It's a shame. I was looking forward to playing RUN.

Originally Posted by Babekeke
This is being addressed in the August update, where fewer shadows will be eaten by AOE TP moves if you are wielding a 100+ weapon in main hand.



I'm confused on how that screws us up.

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Originally Posted by Darthmaull

Originally Posted by Babekeke
This is being addressed in the August update, where fewer shadows will be eaten by AOE TP moves if you are wielding a 100+ weapon in main hand.



I'm confused on how that screws us up.

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Because they now said that it's NIN main only >.>

Oh. Didn't know. It doesn't really affect us because we never had it. I think if we get parry to activate nearly as much as it does with Batutta, then we should be ok. Let's see what the new activation rate will be with the new skills on weapons and on AF.

Called the one piece of -PDT. Full set gives +10 MDB along with copious amounts of evasion/MEva. Tons of other stats too (though many of them come with being iLvl 109 pieces. That being said, I've been playing around a lot as RUN and find I do surprisingly well. No data to produce on parry rates at the moment that I've seen, but as far as job quests go, RUN does remarkably well. I tanked the fish while everyone else sent pets at it and was able to resist charm quite often through Tenebrae x3/Pflug. Dropped it only to Sulpor x6 > Battuta, Vallation, Gambit, Lunge. Elemental for GEO AF3 quest is also completely dominated by a group of RUNs. Barstone/Petrify + Lux x3 and you're pretty well defended from anything it shoves at you.

That being said, I've only gone so far as soloing 1 Tough at a time in Yorcia Weald, so our abilities in supertanking are still lacking and NMs are still pretty far out of the way. Step in the right direction with this AF, but still have work to do.

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Originally Posted by Delvish

Called the one piece of -PDT.

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I believe 2 do I think the hands and the pants both have -pdt but since it's only 5% might as well only be 1 piece but I completely agree that this is a really really nice set for RUN. I've been able to tank much better with it and the refresh/regen buffs are very nice. The fast cast is also really useful. Only thing I see being a problem is that we're probably going to be stuck in this suit for quite a while because of how good it is for the time being.

With all that Evasion in the full Runeist set, it would be surprising if anything below an EM monster or Delve NM could string together enough hits to warrant more than the -PDT it has. Tried it out with a Frenzied Mantis (rated DC) and it barely touched me enough to justify casting Regen.

A bit disappointed Attack wasn't included in the set at all but not too despondent since the Dux Scale Mail set didn't have any, either.

Don't forget the Evasionist's Cape also adds an extra -3% to physical damage and fits on par with the stats of emp jse accessories.

*** Edit 8-11-2013***

But if your looking for more -pdt with artifact then so far from what I can see or know of, the parts to add in are:

Twilight Torque -5%
Flume belt -4% converts 2% to mp (A must have for Rune when you think about it)
Evasionist's Cape -3%
Rune Af hands and feet -5% (both pieces together)
* Dark Rings x2 1%~6% (thats a max of -12% pdt if your lucky and you might get a decent second or third augment also)

**Jelly ring -5% pdt +5% Mdmg.

I don't want to add in earings unless they exist or do alot of gear swapping except for maybe weaponskills. buit with the best stats on rings, thats a total of about -29% pdt. I don't know if it can get any higher for rune but so far thats actualy not bad considering how hard the mobs can hit in Adoulin. There's the boots from Peacekeepers for an extra +3% (-32%) , however I'd replace them with Rune's Af feet once they are farmed/purchased.


*Because the stats are random you'll need to luck out at least on a -5% pdt or have a good second stat like Spell Interruption Rate reduction or more Magic damage reduction.

**Only used at low levels untill decent dark rings can be farmed.

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Originally Posted by Xerius

I believe 2 do I think the hands and the pants both have -pdt but since it's only 5% might as well only be 1 piece but I completely agree that this is a really really nice set for RUN. I've been able to tank much better with it and the refresh/regen buffs are very nice. The fast cast is also really useful. Only thing I see being a problem is that we're probably going to be stuck in this suit for quite a while because of how good it is for the time being.

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Ah you caught me. It's just too easy for stats to get lost in all that help text now...

If we aren't tanking, there are better pieces of gear to wear than this, naturally. But as a tank/soloist, 629 def with my current configuration without protect. 809 with embolden protect IV. The DEF helps quite a bit. Toss in the evasion with it, they are all pretty solid pieces. I hate trading the boots with +48 Evasion in for the Thurandaut boots with -3% PDT though.

At ~800 def, with AF having an extra 26 def over thurandaut, the extra def buys you:


0% -PDT in gear = 26 def grants just over -3% PDT
10% -PDT in gear = 26 def grants just under -3% PDT
20% -PDT in gear = 26 def grants just over -2% PDT
30% -PDT in gear = 26 def grants just over -2% PDT
40% -PDT in gear = 26 def grants just under -2% PDT
45% -PDT in gear = 26 def grants ~-1.5% PDT

All based on physical damage based on attack V def. -PDT is still best for non attack based physical damage.

The less def you start out with, the more -PDT you gain from 26 def.

EG. @ 400 base def, and 0%PDT in gear, 26 def is = -6% PDT.

The extra def over other options is reducing the damage we take significantly. So while the legs may only have -3% PDT, the def/vit bumps them up to around the same damage reduction as dux +1, + they have haste and lots of other goodies :D. The def on the hands is amazing too, especially with an additional -2%PDT.

Full credit to Motenten for def vs -PDT findings!