Class Update - Rune Keepers

[Fasin]

If fire RK does 40-50% of hunter DPS on those dummies, they just plain suck. No way around that.



Kiling opponents with healing LIs, 4 parses on top. No star-lits applied on weapon, no damage legacies. Mediocre mastery, with extremely bad critical luck:


On bottom with capped mastery and fire LIs... So it's just you.

What a waste of forum space.

I'm not talking about general DPS on those pictures... But saying RK does 40% of DPS of hunter is just factually wrong. Saying 65-70% of DPS is way closer to real numbers.

I was maybe a little bit too gloomy about Runekeeper dps in my post. That being said, 65-70% unrealistic.


55-65% seems more likely than my earlier 40-50%.

[Nouri]

Wow, only doing 55% to 65% percent of a hunter's DPS? With that much of a nerf, an RK would not be able to get a spot in a raid as a DPS class.

I have a friend who once said that the SSG folks have a unique ability to turn a simple lane change in to a plunge off the highway, over the cliff, and slam into a tree course adjustment. I was laughing then. I'm not laughing now :/

[Happychappy]

Nothing learnt.

May as well delete red line from the RK if this is the best they are going to do. Then we can see cries of Hunter/Champions are OP etc and get them nerfed down. Never ending cycle.

[Oelle]

ILI System needs a change that scales ILI mainstat with level of character that wields it.
That alone would get tacticals up again where they belong, while fixing several other issues (scaling, the stupid crystaljumps from physical ILIs...).
Plus: RK class-work hasnt yet started. They may be #### for raiding for some months, but they'll be back as soon as they are targeted with changes. I doubt SSG will let them be useless for longer and really hope class changes will have all classes be viable before u23 comes.

[commdorvis]

I doubt SSG will let them be useless for longer

You are playing with fire here, buddy. What if they become the new Wardens, or worse, Beornings?

[Crookedmouf]

Dear Dev(s)

As far as red line RK goes, nerfing the DPS rune and taking away our second rune IS gutting the class as a top tier DPS. Like people said, you'll bring one for raids for their debuffs, and then fill the rest with hunters. I don't see how this is good for "balancing" the game.

As far as blue line RK goes, they are still second rate healers. Yes, I've done current raid content with an RK healer on 2 out of 3 bosses, but that's with a mini healing as well, and many have seen the entire raid solo healed with just 1 minstrel. In order to make blue RK relevant, you need to take a look at bubbles and damage prevention skills.
All Bubbles: Across all classes, bubbles are laughable non-skills that have fallen from usefulness due to lack of scaling. Why? Bubbles should be about 10x their current potency.
Word of Exaltation: The 10% damage reduction and 10% incoming healing this skill gives is great, but the HUGE flaw is that it only stays active as long as the 3k bubble is present. This means 1 hit and your damage reduction is gone. Make this buff remain even after the bubble is broken and it becomes a useful skill.
Essay of Exaltation: Same problem with damage reduction/incoming healing buff going away here. Another problem with this skill is that the heal is pitiful. This is supposed to be the one OH S#$@! heal skill of the RK and it falls very flat.
Rune of Restoration: Currently a skill not worth using. The healing doesn't scale with your stats/healing runes and it doesn't heal for much either. Possible solutions are 1) Make it pulse every second instead of every 3 seconds, 2) Make it heal for more, or 3) Make the heal scale with stats/healing runes.
Prelude to Hope: This is another skill that doesn't and shouldn't get used ever. The amount is heals is completely not worth the skill animation. Increase the base heal of this skill by about 5 times, and keep it non-stacking, and you might actually have a place for it in a healing rotation.
Epic for the Ages: I'm on the fence about whether this skill is worth using currently, leaning towards no. The splash heal is pointless due to its 5m range and the skill's induction makes it hard to justify using.

[xcentralx]

Healing skills need more utility as well, the idea behind rk seems to be heal reduction and buffing your heal target via Inc healing bonuses rather than raw huge heals as mini does. But few skills give any of this, mostly just the lack of raw healing is what's present, and it's too low at that.
Rune of restoration and prelude to hope both have laughably low healing ability, which is fine but they should ahave a dmg reduction and/or Inc healing attached to it, maybe it only applies on crits, but some utility should be added.




Also more depth of rotation and skill function would be something to look into, this could utilize the currently under utilized attunement system, ei. When you reach full attunement it triggers a buff or rousing words procs passively as you use other skills (skill needs to be boosted in healing). Use a CD to keep these attunement related buffs/abilities from being too much.
Skill chain, if>then mechanics; if prelude to hope crits on a target it resets a bubbles CD or sets you next heal skill to 100% crit chance but maybe that's op, wait minis already have that...
Crits should have some mechanic attached to them, whether it spreads a HoT, does aoe healing or creates a stacking buff that gives a crit mag buff at 5 stacks, some mechanic should be added.
A bubble being able to proc the expiration heal from bombastic is a great example of this rotation and skill mechanic idea. Do more of that, less of bolster spam. Depth and mechanics please.


Inductions on the move. Every other healer can do it. There's no reason not to allow rks.
Also bombastic has a full 1s delay after use. That should be normalized with other skills.

[siipperi]

Epic for the Ages: I'm on the fence about whether this skill is worth using currently, leaning towards no. The splash heal is pointless due to its 5m range and the skill's induction makes it hard to justify using.

1.5s Induction isn't that bad, but it's totally worth using. Of course it needs range improvements. Improvements that most of RK healing skills need.

[xcentralx]

Epic for the ages is worth using but only barely, on the fence is the best way to put it. The inductions too long for a tight spot, the heal isn't that big, the aoe is small and a tiny radius. The HoT is also small for the induction time. Epic needs tweaking for sure.

[Nouri]

I'm wondering..... since they've talked about doing a class update for all classes, including RKs, and they haven't really gotten to RK updates yet, why break raid RKs now when they don't yet have a plan for them in a class rework?!?!?!

[Happychappy]

I'm wondering..... since they've talked about doing a class update for all classes, including RKs, and they haven't really gotten to RK updates yet, why break raid RKs now when they don't yet have a plan for them in a class rework?!?!?!

No idea. they should have been done now as well. This update hits them more than other classes that are being updated now.

[Oelle]

Imo, all tactical classes should have been updated together with a change to the ILI system and a nerf to the tactical runes.

Doing these changes at separated times just creates issues. RKs dont need huge changes, just like red minstrels or red LMs. All they need is some changed numbers on dps skills and viable scaling with ILI mainstats that dont rely purely on relics. The mechanics of these classes doesnt have to be changed. They work and are fun to play with. Which isnt the case with some other classes/traitlines...

Not this update destroys red RK. Mordor did. Then, Mordor got a bad bandaid fix with the relics and as that bandaid was a bad idea to begin with, it gets kinda reverted now. Which leaves tactical dps behind again.
Tactical dps mainstat should raise just like physical dps on weapons does. but both shouldnt have those stupid jumps that physicals have with crystals. Both should raise with characterlevel.
Something like 250 mainstat plus 5% per level after 100 plus 0.5% per crystal should be used. plusminus what makes sense and comes out from testing.
Whatever the result is: scaling with characterlevel should happen.
And it doesnt make much sense to get dps at a certain level before these changes apply.
Buffing RK back with 264 mainstat plus 50 or whatever from a relic and then months later giving them 450 mainstat just needs the buffs undone when that happens.

[Trreacherous]

HEY EVERYONE if you are going to post parses don't post a 6 second parse. What garbage is that? Yea Fire RK is dead and people are now calling for a nerf to utility. I'm just unsubbing after update if they go live and going back to eso. Take my money elsewhere if its that bad. That's really the only thing you can do if you're not happy with a product is stop paying for it.

[Joedangod]

Yea Fire RK is dead and people are now calling for a nerf to utility.

Yes, utility should be nerfed and at the same time DPS should be improved. Nobody is calling for RK nerfs alone.

[siipperi]

HEY EVERYONE if you are going to post parses don't post a 6 second parse. What garbage is that? Yea Fire RK is dead and people are now calling for a nerf to utility. I'm just unsubbing after update if they go live and going back to eso. Take my money elsewhere if its that bad. That's really the only thing you can do if you're not happy with a product is stop paying for it.

Maybe read the context? My text was never about DPS but landscape performance difference between absolutely best geared RK vs horrible geared RK because clueless arguments of RK being in bad spot for landscape, difference which which is non-existing, both kills targets in matter of seconds. And I already commented on RK DPS so..

[SavileRow]

Every single one of these comments on the proposed class changes for all the Freep classes is laughable, laughable I say.

Try playing a Creep.

[JeauxLOTR]

Every single one of these comments on the proposed class changes for all the Freep classes is laughable, laughable I say.

Try playing a Creep.

Catering to the creeps at the expense of PvE is what is going to ruin the game.

[Giliodor]

Catering to the creeps at the expense of PvE is what is going to ruin the game.

(Excuse me if this is not what you meant, but I've seen this going around on the BR forums).

Vastin said why the changes to the tactical runes were made. It wasn't because of PvMP. It was because he didn't like how it played out. Rightfully so.

Class balance changes aren't made because of PvMP. They're made because the balance has been broken for years. If they made them for the sake of PvMP, burgs would be the first on the chopping block. They're not. The devs don't care about PvMP. Stop spreading this misinformation.

By the way, even if class balance was done for the sake of PvMP, how would that be a bad thing? It's in the phrase "class balance". Balance. That's what a game should always strive for.

[Seschat]

So we've heard several pages of thoughts about Red line.

And we all agree Blue line needs help to compete with Minstrels.

But things have been quiet about Yellow line.

For background, I mostly run landscape with my RK, and some group activities with my Kin/friends. I prefer the responsiveness of Yellow over Red, and enjoy (to put things in classic City of heroes terms) the Dominator DPS/CC playstyle. For Corruptor game play (DPS/Debuf) I have my Lore-Master.

[Trreacherous]

Nobody is calling for RK nerfs alone.

But that's what we are getting. I didnt see any threads or calls for a buff lol just a "nerf op," and "OMG in combat res nerf OP"

[Trreacherous]

So we've heard several pages of thoughts about Red line.

And we all agree Blue line needs help to compete with Minstrels.

But things have been quiet about Yellow line.

For background, I mostly run landscape with my RK, and some group activities with my Kin/friends. I prefer the responsiveness of Yellow over Red, and enjoy (to put things in classic City of heroes terms) the Dominator DPS/CC playstyle. For Corruptor game play (DPS/Debuf) I have my Lore-Master.

I think yellow line is hopeless because of its design and finesse. There are far too many ways the damage gets mitigated or resisted and even one resist will absolutely tank your dps. Finesse was the death of yellow line. It would take a complete overhaul of the yellow line or the way the damage works to make it viable again. I miss lightning believe me. The mobility was amazing and far more fun then the fire turret we are left with.

[Joedangod]

But that's what we are getting. I didnt see any threads or calls for a buff lol just a "nerf op," and "OMG in combat res nerf OP"

No, you're not getting RK nerfs. You're getting tactical damage relic nerfs. Those just happen to affect raid RK's. Just be patient and wait for RK's turn to come up for class balance work, you'll likely see mit debuff reductions, rez nerfs and guess what? DPS buffs.

[siipperi]

I think yellow line is hopeless because of its design and finesse. There are far too many ways the damage gets mitigated or resisted and even one resist will absolutely tank your dps. Finesse was the death of yellow line. It would take a complete overhaul of the yellow line or the way the damage works to make it viable again. I miss lightning believe me. The mobility was amazing and far more fun then the fire turret we are left with.

Attack speed is really what kills yellow DPS and CnR being on such long cooldown considering what huge benefit it's to DPS, but it's quite broken skill already in PvP. Main skill crits up to 90k followed by DoTs doing 70-80k damage on creeps. I have been doing 50k DPS as yellow RK in raid without fully optimized build and just for testing purposes. It's not great but quite enjoyable for soloing. Still it needs faster attack duration. It's just one of those lines that can't really challenge red line without being broken, but even being within 20-25% of reds DPS would be great, attack speed would help there a lot.

[Fasin]

No, you're not getting RK nerfs. You're getting tactical damage relic nerfs. Those just happen to affect raid RK's. Just be patient and wait for RK's turn to come up for class balance work, you'll likely see mit debuff reductions, rez nerfs and guess what? DPS buffs.

They're Runekeeper nerfs. nobody cares about the boost loremasters or minstrels get from these runes. That may change after the update, but really, the relic nerfs are just runekeeper nerfs.

[Oelle]

They're Runekeeper nerfs. nobody cares about the boost loremasters or minstrels get from these runes. That may change after the update, but really, the relic nerfs are just runekeeper nerfs.

huh? minstrel and LM dont get nerfed with not having good damage? why? because they never had raid-viable dps anyway?
just because one isnt raidviable doesnt mean that a nerf is no nerf.
and the healing rune nerf hits minstrel and cappy harder than rks, because they scale roughly twice as much with tactical healing. its just beornings that dont feel a big change there, because they nearly dont scale at all.