Rune Fencer, Adjustments Sorely Needed.

[hideka]

* Original is in RUN forums.
so i have reached 99 RUN and ive done alot of experimenting with subs, stratagies and gear building... but all of my experimenting has led to one uniform result: We suck.

1: Physical Defense
in order for a job to "Tank" they need to be able to negate a generous amount of damage, both from Physical and magical sources. Ninja negates the majority of incoming physical damage with very little inborn magic mitigation, Paladin negates a balance between Physical and magical.
Rune fencer is intended to be the "Magic Defender" of the spectrum.

this is what i currently see the balance of Tanks in the game as


Rune fencer is sorely lacking in both physical defense and magical defense. i can under stand the physical short comings, however the majority of the damage a monster will deal is PHYSICAL making them grossly ineffective tanks. subbing SAM or NIN helps to alleviate this pain, however those are things that are not native to the job, thus should not be factored.

rune fencers magical negation capabilities are decent, but they are FAR from being the best.
1A: RUNES
from a defensive stand point the Resistance gained should be slightly higher at 99, aproximately +50 per rune.
1B: Wards
The recast on these abilities are HORRENDOUS. the recasts for these abilities should be HALF of what it is now, with the same durations.


2: items that should be added to the Game or adjusted.

Job Abilities:

Runic Projection
Effusion
Level 10
Recast 60 Seconds
Target Monster
Range 16
Effect:
Consumes one rune: Deals Elemental damage to target matching rune consumed. Generates High levels of enmity.

Elemental Influx
Ward
Level 50
Recast 2:30
Duration 1:00 or one absorption
Target self
Absorbs the MP Utilized from incoming Magic matching your current dominant rune. expires after one activation.
Absorption mechanics: 1- 33% 2- 66% 3- 100%

Ethereal Bond
Job ability
Level 90
Recast 10 minutes
Duration 2 Minutes
Convert all incoming Physical damage to non-elemental magic damage.
incoming "Spell" damage is not subject to resistance while this effect is active.

Riposte
Job Ability
Level 40
Recast 5 Minutes
Duration 4 Minutes
Increases Attack speed and parry rate for every attack parried. effect resets upon taking "Spell" Damage

Runic Attunement
Job trait
Level 90
Runes grant a chance to absorb incoming elemental damage (5% chance per rune)

Sure Grip
Job trait
Level 30
Increases Store TP & Attack power when utilizing a two handed Weapon.
(+5 STP +5 Attack per level, level gained every 19 levels +20 to each total)


Runes
i feel the additional effect from runes utilizing a 2handed weapon are too weak. please increase them by 50%

[Sparthos]

Job needs some native Cures even if its only up to c3.

The argument that this eats into PLDs forte is negated by PLDs access to superior physical protection and the ability to knock down magical damage with Aegis.

If PLD is to be the wall that eats physical hits at the cost of being a DD lightweight, Rune Fencer should be the more DD heavyweight adept at eating magical damage at the cost of being a PDT lightweight.

Considering most monsters employ physical hits this is a significant downside. Switching into PDT gear will interfere with the RUN damage output and trying to use /SAM would put native spells on a longer cast timer.

[Horadrim]

Job needs some native Cures even if its only up to c3.

I have to disagree.

This, ironically enough, is the only thing it doesn't need. If SE was to add them, it would basically be a cop out to avoid having to do real modifications to the job to make it work properly. Proper, unique damage mitigation properties paired with increased utility of Parry/Evasion for the job (via low cooldown JA's and perhaps additional traits) is what the job needs.

What's the point of having 22 jobs if our answer to imbalance is "just give it exactly what the other job that does a similar role has."

At that point, we may as well normalize all damage/traits/abilities and just make your job choice completely cosmetic.

EDIT: The problem right now is that SE isn't willing to actually accept the input of the community and want to put out modifications specifically based on templates designed without touching the game. The people who know what jobs really need are the ones who have been playing them for a long time and these forums are full of great, reasonable ideas that SE should try to incorporate... but never does. (Sure there are tons of bad ones, but that's what quality control is for.)

If the right people in the community had more say-so, this game would get a lot better a lot faster.

[Sparthos]

As it stands Parrytanking has been tried before and failed. Unless you want to give RUN the same type of JA that NIN has that allows for a massive spike in Parry rate which goes against your idea of making the job "unique" I don't see what you think parry is going to do when your rate is floored on most things significant.

As for evasion, isn't that the realm of NIN and DNC already? The reality is with as many jobs as FFXI has something's got to give and this case its probably best to give players access to native cures on the wannabe tank job. It's a matter of self-sufficiency and the ability to choose more subjobs from the current options in addition to supplementing your decent eva and high parry rates.

NIN has evasion and shadows.
PLD has defensive JAs and healing magic.
RUN has evasion and parry and some light regens.

RUN has access to similar gear, wants to be the go-to on magically oriented mobs and that's unique but its a DD without any real ability to support itself and so its MP pool goes to waste.

Giving the job cures still differentiates it from PLD and NIN by having a little of both while not having everything the other two tank classes possess. It would have greater survivability but pale in comparison to PLD, evasion but not the physical damage mitigation abilities of NIN and still have a niche as a damage-oriented support tank that specializes in magical damage.

[Tennotsukai]

Something should be done with this job, for sure. Other than enspells and absorbing magic damage rarely... my blu can do every bit as a Run and more. They need to tank better and need to do more damage. Are they even useful in any content yet?

[Horadrim]

As it stands Parrytanking has been tried before and failed. Unless you want to give RUN the same type of JA that NIN has that allows for a massive spike in Parry rate which goes against your idea of making the job "unique" I don't see what you think parry is going to do when your rate is floored on most things significant.

You know... I'll never understand what's up with people and jumping to old stuff during speculative conversations...

Yeah, I realize that parry tanking and evasion tanking without evasion bonus traits is a thing that has been tried and doesn't work. That wasn't my point.

My point was that the job has its own themes and shoehorning in elements of other jobs isn't necessary if they add the appropriate traits, abilities, gear, and spells for the job to achieve its goals without straight copying existing jobs. No, it doesn't have to have a move that spikes parry proc -- but it does have A-rank parry for a reason, so there should be ways for it to utilize that.

My point was that advancements to the job should come in the form of things that are unique to the job (like gear or JA's that convert a portion of incoming physical damage to magical and mitigates them using Magic Defense Bonus, perhaps) and shouldn't require just tossing pre-existing elements on top of it like old band aids.

RUN, as you said, is a damage-oriented tank that specializes in magic damage -- well let's focus on those elements of it have ways for them to achieve their goals within those confines as opposed to just throwing Cures in like they're a panacea that'll fix the problems it is going to have.

[Luvbunny]

Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui
Thanks for the feedback.
(And also thanks for starting a feedback thread.)

Please continue to leave your feedback on the new jobs and monsters in the new areas. We are currently focused on pretty much everything since all the new armor hasn't been acquired just yet. There are a couple of tricks for playing as the new jobs, so please aspire to become a true rune fencer. (Not the noobie rune fencer I was during the YouTube stream...)

[Alhanelem]

The argument that this eats into PLDs forte is negated by PLDs access to superior physical protection and the ability to knock down magical damage with Aegis.

you can't really base balance around every PLD having an aegis. The fact is not every PLD will have one, it takes a fair amount of time and gil (not as much as it used to but still, its a lot more work than just buying some shield off the AH). The fact that people are often regarding PLD as not playable without one is a problem to me. a RUN certainly deals with magic better than a PLD without an aegis does. I do agree that the resistance afforded by runes should be increased.

I was, however, perplexed by the lack of even low tier cures on the job- but I can see how adding them would be a "cop-out" as someone else said. I'm just beginning with RUN now so I can't comment with great depth,

I think the job still needs to be a bit more physically sturdy, just because even magically oriented mobs will stil do a fair amount of physical damage.

[Horadrim]

I think the job still needs to be a bit more physically sturdy, just because even magically oriented mobs will stil do a fair amount of physical damage.

I honestly feel like damage mitigation via conversion is the route RUN may go, but we can only hope to wait and see what SE does. The game has a slew of "converts damage to" effects as well as a bit of gear that reduces one type of damage to increase another (Wiglen Gorget, for example), I imagine they are going to put a higher focus on this -- since RUN can easily reduce magic damage down down from thousands to single digits -- I imagine a bit of +Magic damage% would make a good RUN laugh more than anything else.

This gives them a unique style of handing damage mitigation and control, as RUN is the only job in the game with such heavy control over how much magical damage it suffers.

[Sparthos]

You know... I'll never understand what's up with people and jumping to old stuff during speculative conversations...

Yeah, I realize that parry tanking and evasion tanking without evasion bonus traits is a thing that has been tried and doesn't work. That wasn't my point.

My point was that the job has its own themes and shoehorning in elements of other jobs isn't necessary if they add the appropriate traits, abilities, gear, and spells for the job to achieve its goals without straight copying existing jobs. No, it doesn't have to have a move that spikes parry proc -- but it does have A-rank parry for a reason, so there should be ways for it to utilize that.

My point was that advancements to the job should come in the form of things that are unique to the job (like gear or JA's that convert a portion of incoming physical damage to magical and mitigates them using Magic Defense Bonus, perhaps) and shouldn't require just tossing pre-existing elements on top of it like old band aids.

RUN, as you said, is a damage-oriented tank that specializes in magic damage -- well let's focus on those elements of it have ways for them to achieve their goals within those confines as opposed to just throwing Cures in like they're a panacea that'll fix the problems it is going to have.

How is adding Cures taking away from the theme of the class?
How many monsters spam magic without throwing out physical blows?
Even if you're being chain nuked how does that impact needing to be self-sufficient as a tank?
Why can there not be room for more tools in RUNs bucket to cut down on damage, restore ones HP bar?

It doesn't even have to be a straight Cure1-3/4 but some option to heal yourself in burst as a survival tactic. Perhaps consuming runes? Something involving evasion/parry? Charging a heal through a JA then popping the JA again for a burst heal?

Something to give the job better survivability. There is no reason why BLU should be able to cure itself in burst in addition to soaking magical damage while having better traits than the "tank" job Rune Fencer.