Rune Fencer Merit Ability List

[Zirael]

[*]Rune fencer stats
We understand that there are aspects that make it difficult for rune fencer to act as a tank and players often see them as being in a support role instead.

With the addition of the rune fencer merit point category as well as artifact equipment, we plan on making adjustments to make it more possible for rune fencers to tank and shine even more on the support front. [/list]

If I understand this correctly, you understand that RUN fails as a tank (if you fail to parry physical attack, you tear like toilet paper) and DD (Attack penalty to Resolution against strong enemies) and the best it could be used for is support role, namely, one job ability (Valiance: 3min duration, 5min recast), so you will give it buffs akin to SubtleBlow+25 to make up for it?

[Zhronne]

Greetings,
Physical damage mitigation
Moving forward we plan on adding more equipment that reduces physical damage taken for all jobs, not only rune fencer.

The fact that paladin is the job that is most apt to deal with physical damage will not change; however, our goal is to bring other jobs closer to where paladin is currently.

Rune fencers are not supposed to be strong defenders against physical damage, and as such we have no plans to add stats that will make them like a paladin.

Yai more inventory wasters! I'm so happy!

After the trend with Puppetmaster and after that SMNs, BSTs and what not it seems that SE wants to balance everything's that broken through gear.
Awesome, right?

[Yinnyth]

Thank you for addressing our concerns, Camate, but I get the feeling there a few things that the dev team and the EN playerbase don't see eye-to-eye on as far as runefencer goes.

When comparing magic defense between the current rune fencer and equipment to a paladin that is completely decked out, a paladin with Aegis will be better at reducing the magic damage of all elements. However, since rune fencer excels at elemental defense, they are also extremely strong towards status ailments in addition to elemental damage.

They should be strong to status effects, yes. If an enemy only does ice damage and the only status effects he inflicts are bind and paralyze, then awesome, RUN will do above average defensively against that enemy. Most enemies can inflict several kinds of status effects though, and RUN can't even reach 100% resist rate for 1 status effect from "even match" enemies.

The best cure for a status effect is a healer who spams -na spells regardless of whether or not the effect was resisted. The best cure for a large swathe of status effects is fealty.

And until RUN gets barlight and bardark, they're not going to be very good at blocking the status effects which really matter anyways.

Also, the effects of Aegis only apply toward the paladin, while rune fencers are able to spread the elemental damage reduction effect to party members making them extremely beneficial in party situations.

RUN has two abilities which affect party members: one for all and valliance. One for All does almost exactly the same thing that PLD's rampart does, minus the fact that rampart also gives defense to the party members. So valliance is the unique thing that RUN does which sets them apart from PLD. 3/5 minutes, we can reduce the damage taken from one element by 45%, provided valliance doesn't get dispelled.

There are 8 elements of damage, and most enemies make use of more than one. Because of this, it's hardly ever worth bringing a RUN along. The thing which makes RUN unique does not make RUN useful.

These are not the only adjustments that will be made, so rest assured that we will continue to adjust this job.

Now this is something we do agree on, and I'm ok with waiting. I'm just worried that things which prevent RUN from proving themselves useful to a group may not be seen as such by the developers.

[Rwolf]

[list=1][*]Physical damage mitigation
Moving forward we plan on adding more equipment that reduces physical damage taken for all jobs, not only rune fencer.

The fact that paladin is the job that is most apt to deal with physical damage will not change; however, our goal is to bring other jobs closer to where paladin is currently.

Rune fencers are not supposed to be strong defenders against physical damage, and as such we have no plans to add stats that will make them like a paladin.

If the focus is on keeping Paladin as the most apt to deal with physical damage, then why is Rune Fencer (the job that is advertised as a magical tank) not the most apt to deal with magical damage?

Bringing other jobs closer to physical damage taken -50% cap (which I'm not sure what job can't other than RUN) will not improve RUN's standing as a tank. It just makes it worse.

Currently Paladin is the most apt to deal with both forms of damage as they go beyond the damage caps and they still have almost complete status ailment resistance through Fealty, gear that stacks to reduce overall status ailments and access to support jobs with their native Enhancing magic skill to boost it further.

[list=1][*]Comparisons to paladins with Aegis/Ochain
When comparing magic defense between the current rune fencer and equipment to a paladin that is completely decked out, a paladin with Aegis will be better at reducing the magic damage of all elements. However, since rune fencer excels at elemental defense, they are also extremely strong towards status ailments in addition to elemental damage.

Also, the effects of Aegis only apply toward the paladin, while rune fencers are able to spread the elemental damage reduction effect to party members making them extremely beneficial in party situations. When adding job-specific equipment to rune fencer moving forward, we will be paying careful attention to the balance between them and Aegis/Ochain and be making necessary adjustments.

The comparisons to Paladin with Aegis/Ochain is valid.

1. Of course the community is comparing a "completely decked out Paladin" with the current Rune Fencer because they are providing feedback on what Rune Fencer needs in gear going forward to excel at elemental defense more than any other job.

2. You (the development team) concur that a Paladin with Aegis is better at reducing magic damage of all elements. Therefore they excel at elemental defense from an overall point more than Rune Fencer.

3. Rune Fencer is not "extremely strong" toward status ailments. Even with the correct element runes, bar-element, bar-status, and Pflug, I still get hit with status ailments, especially on harder targets (Very Tough and higher) which Rune Fencer is supposed to be able to tank.

4. Distributing elemental damage reduction most of the time, is not enough especially when a large part of that is limited to 1 element. Rune Fencer can't deal as much damage as current 2-handed damage jobs. They also can't tank anything in Adoulin as everything has high accuracy and attack, and will bypass their evasion and shadows to tear them apart. So their party slot is supposed to be justified on simply reducing magic damage of a single element? And the brief One for All? There are other jobs who do the exact same thing and have other roles they can fill.

[Glamdring]

Greetings,

1. Physical damage mitigation
   Moving forward we plan on adding more equipment that reduces physical damage taken for all jobs, not only rune fencer.
   
   The fact that paladin is the job that is most apt to deal with physical damage will not change; however, our goal is to bring other jobs closer to where paladin is currently.
   
   Rune fencers are not supposed to be strong defenders against physical damage, and as such we have no plans to add stats that will make them like a paladin.
   
   
2. Comparisons to paladins with Aegis/Ochain
   When comparing magic defense between the current rune fencer and equipment to a paladin that is completely decked out, a paladin with Aegis will be better at reducing the magic damage of all elements. However, since rune fencer excels at elemental defense, they are also extremely strong towards status ailments in addition to elemental damage.
   
   Also, the effects of Aegis only apply toward the paladin, while rune fencers are able to spread the elemental damage reduction effect to party members making them extremely beneficial in party situations. When adding job-specific equipment to rune fencer moving forward, we will be paying careful attention to the balance between them and Aegis/Ochain and be making necessary adjustments.
   
   
3. Rune fencer stats
   We understand that there are aspects that make it difficult for rune fencer to act as a tank and players often see them as being in a support role instead.
   
   With the addition of the rune fencer merit point category as well as artifact equipment, we plan on making adjustments to make it more possible for rune fencers to tank and shine even more on the support front.
   
   These are not the only adjustments that will be made, so rest assured that we will continue to adjust this job.

1. Physical damage mitigation-ok, so Rune isn't meant to be good in this arena. I can accept that, you have said we were a magic tank, fine. I still have concerns about this but they'll be addressed below where the concerns overlap.

2. Comparasins to paladin... VALID! Paladin is-at least many think-the only designed traditional tank, nin was an exploit of shadows that the players ran with and SE decided to embrace-seeming to be designed as a hybrid puller/medium DD but the shadows made it more since players didn't mind burning Shehei, the eva tanks are even less designed to work as such (although dnc clearly has some tank in the design) but with the way abilities scaled into end-game post lvl 75 they became valid-especially with a dedicated curebomber. But Rune is meant to be a designed tank, and therefore should be comparable-even if in a reciprocal nature-to a pld. Now, I understand the pld that strong is wielding a full 99 relic or equivalent, so a rune with the same might be just as tough. BUT SE has already stated we will get no Relic or Full Empy weap equivalent and with all due respect to those saying "mythic" I haven't seen a peep about that since that early job announcement so I'm assuming that went the way of Bst's +Pet TH gear until I see differently. I'm fine with a non-relic Run not matching a full relic pld, but if that is the case then we need an option for a full relic rune to match a full relic pld in terms of survival.

3 Stats

ok, this is also partially in response to #1 since there is an overlap. You might want to remind the devs that almost every mob added in the new content excells at physical damage! In other words, WHAT THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE TANKING? Seriously, this is a core issue with this job if you mean us to be a tank. It's like making us superresistant to biological attacks and then not having any biological attackers. I'm not saying to adjust the prey you guys have added, I have many paladin friends and they are thrilled to have their jobs back. But as you add more you might want to look at giving us a party role with the prey you add. And keep in mind, making it magic heavy doesn't do jack if it can still 1-2 shot us with physical attacks-especially if a pld tanking the same mob will be fine regardless of which damage type it uses.

Now, assuming you give us something to tank we still need a means of holding hate-without our own personal pet thf. These days hate is held primarily on the basis of melee damage dealt since the making of ZERG UBER ALLES the only acceptable strategy for all content; translation-Rune BOHICA ("Bend Over, Here It Comes Again"), as we are only moderate DD for melee-and no magic damage dealt. You want to keep us on GS primarily, fine with me, but then we need a grip from hell to match a Greatsword from hell to allow us to stay at the top of the hate list. Maybe some more magic tools, too.

So, we're going to have to hold you to that last sentence because you (SE, not you Camate) still have a LONG way to go to make this job realize your vision of it.

[Cljader1]

Now, assuming you give us something to tank we still need a means of holding hate-without our own personal pet thf. These days hate is held primarily on the basis of You want to keep us on GS primarily, fine with me, but then we need a grip from hell to match a Greatsword from hell to allow us to stay at the top of the hate list. Maybe some more magic tools, too.

This Hate issue might be solve with the Rune Enchantment merits, by reducing our rune application to zero, spamming runes multiple times will be our primary hate tool. Spamming a rune 6 times is equivalent to a provoke, I like this change I just hope plds don't start to complain about it.

[Losie]

[*]Physical damage mitigation
Moving forward we plan on adding more equipment that reduces physical damage taken for all jobs, not only rune fencer.

The fact that paladin is the job that is most apt to deal with physical damage will not change; however, our goal is to bring other jobs closer to where paladin is currently.

Rune fencers are not supposed to be strong defenders against physical damage, and as such we have no plans to add stats that will make them like a paladin.

There seem to be few, if any, situations which call for a tank more capable of handling magic damage than physical.

[*]Comparisons to paladins with Aegis/Ochain
When comparing magic defense between the current rune fencer and equipment to a paladin that is completely decked out, a paladin with Aegis will be better at reducing the magic damage of all elements. However, since rune fencer excels at elemental defense, they are also extremely strong towards status ailments in addition to elemental damage.

Also, the effects of Aegis only apply toward the paladin, while rune fencers are able to spread the elemental damage reduction effect to party members making them extremely beneficial in party situations. When adding job-specific equipment to rune fencer moving forward, we will be paying careful attention to the balance between them and Aegis/Ochain and be making necessary adjustments.

Two things here:

First off, regarding the second section and the remark about status ailments: That's true on status ailments, however if it's more than one element, i.e. requiring different runes of the switching of runes, than the ability to mitigate status is nearly irrelevant anyway. The same problem in dealing with more than one element is present in dealing with more than one status ailment - it takes 20-some seconds to swap runes, and much longer for any Valiance/Vallation/Pflug to swap, as they do not appear to update dynamically, but only based on what runes are active *when used.* The status ailment protection is also self only. The group elemental damage reduction from val- is nice, but.. the enmity generated is absolutely ridiculous. For tanking it's great, but for providing support it screws up tanking for anyone else.

As for the comparing of Aeg/Ochain vs RUN - it may be an Apples to Oranges comparison, but realistically it *is* the comparison players will be making. There are more PLDs out there with one and/or the other of the two shields now, and with the creep of levels and gear, more and more are obtaining them all the easier. You'd have been lucky to get into ANY delve run at first without ochain or aegis, the items are simply THAT good. Until RUN gets a class-specific item on the same astounding level of Ochain/Aegis then your quote essentially says they will not measure up. You put a new tanking job into a game with one class already in which is designed to tank anything with two end-all-beat-all ultimate shields at their disposal.

So yeah:

* RUN can resist ailments, but few at a time and far between, recast and rune switch time does not support this.
* RUN can protect group, but again recast does not support full time, minutes of no protection, and it screws up aggro.
* Aegis/Ochain may be an 'unfair' comparision to RUN, but it's a realistic one. An ideal scenario would to have had RME weapons ready for RUN so that there would be an item that could be added to help make up the gap created due to the poor itemizations that Aegis/Ochain represent (let's be honest, they are astoundingly good shields and seem to have been made by devs who didn't expect to ever need to make an item players would want more).

Any, to emphasize it more - Even IF some mob was ailment heavy and AE heavy, it would still deal physical damage and smack a RUN around way more than PLD, so the benefits above end up being pretty moot.

[Yinnyth]

As a follow up regarding Camate's statement that RUN is extremely strong to status ailments, I've thought even further about the topic. In my opinion, the status effects in order of worst to very annoying are:

Death (darkness?)
Weakness (unknown element)
Charm (light?)
Edit: Encumberance (unkown element)
Terror (darkness?)
Stun (thunder)
Amnesia (fire)
Doom (darkness?)

this is mostly ignoring status effects which are easily removed because any good tank will have a good healer, and a good healer will easily remove any other status effect as soon as it happens. What RUN needs to set it apart as far as resisting status effects goes is the ability to reliably resist these more annoying status effects, but the most annoying status effects (besides amnesia) have no barspell specifically for them, and (besides amnesia and stun) have no elemental barspell which can touch them.

So RUN is like a gimpy WAR who takes less damage from one element of magic and often resists one of the lesser status effects which can easily be removed anyways. Give RUN some bardeath, bardoom, barcharm, barterror, barweakness, barstun, barlight, and bardark, and then we can talk about their ability to resist status effects as though it's something which makes them useful or unique. Until then, it's a cute little gimmick, about as useful as the fact that anytime a puppet gets a status effect, the master can deactivate, then deus ex automata.

[Kincard]

I don't think the dev team understands that people don't have very much confidence in their ability to add a JSE that makes RUN even as useful as PLD (Read: not very) when Ninjas are running around with 3 JSE super katanas which are actually all garbage. (Yes I know they're the best katanas, that doesn't mean they're good)

And while it's unfair to compare a job without all the potential unlocked to jobs that have been around for a while, maybe that's a clue to the devs that maybe for once they should finish development on something before releasing it and then acting surprised that people think it sucks.

[Nebo]

Rune fencers are not supposed to be strong defenders against physical damage

A job that is weak against physical attacks is not a tank. A job that cannot deal with just basic auto-attacks is not a tank.

There are no monsters that use only Magical attacks and only of one element. This means RUN is not valuable in a support role either.

FFXI is a pretty cool game. You should try playing it sometimes. You might get a feel for the updates that it actually needs.

There is no strategic reason to bring the RUN job to anything right now.