U25 - Class Update - Rune-keeper

[Daenirion]

I agree on principle that rezzes should be nerfed all around, but I disagree on the timing. I don't think it's good to "start somewhere" and nerf them one by one, creating a situation like the Fate stone nerf that leaves the class who is the first to get the nerf underpowered

All the classes received their first balance pass now. The devs have said they'll do smaller updates across more classes in the future. Such a rezz pass would be a good idea, take one update to adjust rezzes across all classes at the same time

No I 100% agree. Maybe the way I've communicated it was poor. It would obviously be quite moronic to nerf DNF and leave all the other combat rezzes as they are now for who knows how long. That's why it would be nice to hear SSG's stance on the matter at some point. Also the main reason why I've brought it up again in this thread.

[Kander]

No I 100% agree. Maybe the way I've communicated it was poor. It would obviously be quite moronic to nerf DNF and leave all the other combat rezzes as they are now for who knows how long. That's why it would be nice to hear SSG's stance on the matter at some point. Also the main reason why I've brought it up again in this thread.

Yes I agree with you, rezzes should be less frequent than they are, but this is a thread and an update about RK changes only, so if you suggest we nerf DNF because of that we might be left with a healer with an even worse rezz than we have already for blue line while taking months or a year to change other rezzes if they ever do it.
In all fairness, wanna nerf dnf in red line, it's fine by me, maybe nerf it so that WITH LEGACY we can only keep it in one target at the same time. But the need to make a blue line rezz viable is more important in my opinion, as suggested before, just copy minstrel's Rally skill into RK and change name and icon and it'll be fine.

And certainly ability to buff group offence or defence should be buffed. My suggestion here is to make Rune of Restoration heal out of your fellowship too. Then instead of buffing it further (which might need too honestly) make it give a small deffensive/offensive buff to everyone in its radius, doesn't need to be huge, something like 10% melee/ranged/tactical damage/-10%inc damage. Or even an incoming healing aura. Something like that would make the skill desirable. ATM you just use it cause you can fit it between animation of other skills so you don't really sacrifice anything but heal is really insignificant. Making it raid wide is something which makes more sense too, it's a ground object that is pulsing heals around it, I don't see the point on it being limited to your group only, same as fates entwined stone (which considering it's only 20% damage reduction now it's not gonna save a group from ignoring mechanics).

[Mukor]

Yes I agree with you, rezzes should be less frequent than they are, but this is a thread and an update about RK changes only, so if you suggest we nerf DNF because of that we might be left with a healer with an even worse rezz than we have already for blue line while taking months or a year to change other rezzes if they ever do it.
In all fairness, wanna nerf dnf in red line, it's fine by me, maybe nerf it so that WITH LEGACY we can only keep it in one target at the same time. But the need to make a blue line rezz viable is more important in my opinion, as suggested before, just copy minstrel's Rally skill into RK and change name and icon and it'll be fine.

And certainly ability to buff group offence or defence should be buffed. My suggestion here is to make Rune of Restoration heal out of your fellowship too. Then instead of buffing it further (which might need too honestly) make it give a small deffensive/offensive buff to everyone in its radius, doesn't need to be huge, something like 10% melee/ranged/tactical damage/-10%inc damage. Or even an incoming healing aura. Something like that would make the skill desirable. ATM you just use it cause you can fit it between animation of other skills so you don't really sacrifice anything but heal is really insignificant. Making it raid wide is something which makes more sense too, it's a ground object that is pulsing heals around it, I don't see the point on it being limited to your group only, same as fates entwined stone (which considering it's only 20% damage reduction now it's not gonna save a group from ignoring mechanics).

If they don´t make dnf in blue an active rezz they should even reduce the cd (in blue), so more can be prevented to stay dead.

[Chris91]

One more bug (or at an annoying "feature"):
Rune-sign and Epic cannot be used at 0 attunement.. given that they are both attunement builders they should be (min 1 attunement makes no sense and just feels awkward)

[pudupudu]

I think the single target healing is in a better spot. Would be nice if rks got some unique debuffs or abilities while healing, because right now they dont even come close to bears and minis. They still have a higher hps and great buffs (mini) and debuff (bear). Would be cool to see rk heals on a more similar level with them. In a raid theres no advantage for a healing rk, even with the changes.

[Zvim666]

My ex kin use to stack as many RKs as they can for that reason left out hunters,champions and wardens dps cause they though that those two dnfs per rk was more useful and important than those classes.Probably wasnt only my ex kin that thinks like that when they find a hard content.Also in 3 man instances rks always preferred for that pre rez from another dps class.So yes in my opinion dnfs should be removed from dps specs and have them only on blue.You have rez anyway while out of combat and if you want to go blue and heal you will still have the 2 dnfs in combat.

DNF is handy but it has diminishing returns, if your raid group is that bad that it depends on major recovery to get by then typically the RK are the first to die which makes the DNFs somewhat unreliable. If you can't get by with 1 RK plus combat rez from 2 healers and 1 to 2 captains then the group has bigger issues.

If the fight is AE heavy then RK are a very good dps class but if it is single target then hunters have superior damage. The problem Champions have is they can't change their damage type to fire and miss out on substantial fire mitigation debuffs on the mobs that benefit hunters and RK, they are also melee so inherit the baggage of being melee. Their pros do not offset the cons sufficiently, that isn't a RK problem it is a melee vs range problem and also Champions don't bring as much to the table as other classes do.

We usually run with a lot more hunters than we do RK, our heavy RK runs are usually the worst from my experience.

Do I think DNF should be removed from DPS spec? No. It would make content marginally more challenging early on if it does, it would however create a wider gap between those that can do the content and those that can not. It wouldn't in any way impact those that can easily do the content, it would impact those that can borderline do the content or have to wait a number of gear tiers before they can do the content.

There should be plenty of scope to place restrictions on abilities or modify how they work at higher difficulty tiers, ie minstrels can't flop in pretty much any significant raid, it doesn't mean you need to take the ability away entirely. I think going up tiers of difficulty should do things like alter cooldowns of various abilities, particularly combat rezzes, DNFs, etc.

You have to be careful about arbitrary alterations, like the change to Oathys, the net result was that fewer captains were invited to raids. I think now that we are at the end of the major class balance phase there should be more finesse used to make small alterations to class balance, it is undesirable to have a rollercoaster effect where Beorning is best healer by a long shot, then it is RK, then it is Mini, etc because going from hero to zero is what causes people to rage quit the game entirely. They invest a lot of time and effort bringing a class to a good position and on a whim they are now garbage. We need to smoothen out the balance process. It is fine if one class or another is better or worse at one type of fight or another but balance should be microsurgery, not chainsaw type of hacking at classes.

[Arandour]

If the fight is AE heavy then RK are a very good dps class but if it is single target then hunters have superior damage. The problem Champions have is they can't change their damage type to fire and miss out on substantial fire mitigation debuffs on the mobs that benefit hunters and RK, they are also melee so inherit the baggage of being melee. Their pros do not offset the cons sufficiently, that isn't a RK problem it is a melee vs range problem and also Champions don't bring as much to the table as other classes do.

I have already ask to give us the opportunity to change the damage type to fire so we can benefit from lore masters,nobody listen and also many people from other classes attack me for it.

[Hephburz-2]

Again. This is the Runekeeper class update thread. Not a class superiority debate.

Case and point RKs are underpowered currently - can we please focus on the big picture here.

[Mukor]

Again. This is the Runekeeper class update thread. Not a class superiority debate.

Case and point RKs are underpowered currently - can we please focus on the big picture here.

Red rks aren´t this underpowered atm.
Ok they´re the worst on high skill level but for this they´re the best on low skill level. And there is no big difference between this two levels on rks.
If they should be better im high skill level. The class must get much more complex. That low skill level gets punished with low dps and high level benefied with the dps other classes can reach on high skill level.

[Arandour]

Red rks aren´t this underpowered atm.
Ok they´re the worst on high skill level but for this they´re the best on low skill level. And there is no big difference between this two levels on rks.
If they should be better im high skill level. The class must get much more complex. That low skill level gets punished with low dps and high level benefied with the dps other classes can reach on high skill level.

Agree.RKs do more damage than the 90% of hunters and champions out there with out even have to try,When i play my RK i play with one hand cannot say the same for my champion or even my hunter tho.The other 10% are extreme high skilled players that have to weapon swap,make perfect rotations,had good support etc and even from those they are close.You put on a raid a brand new RK with basic knowledge and he do more or same dps from every other dps class in the group unless couple of them are high skilled and have some support.
He is right tho, in a perfect group with the perfect setup and the perfect players,RKs will do less dps on single than other dps classes,but from my experience 12+years now the perfect group is very rare cause 90% of the players out there are casual or raiding casual.
Heph is in a good kin that all or at least most of them know what they do and he feels under powered among the other good players in his kin when it comes to single target but i am pretty sure cause he is good player that when he join pugs or other non kin group raids he does way to more dps than others most of the time no matter the class.

[Hephburz-2]

Ok I will admit, that RKs are in better position than some classes at low skill levels, and if SSG has no desire to make the class more difficult to play, then I’m sorry, but you cannot keep punishing high end RKs. There is still some dps disparity in skill level between good and bad RKs, yes perhaps the disparity is lower than between other classes, such as between good and bad champions - but this is not the players fault and we should not be punished for it. Red RKs need more dps specifically at the high-end skill level to remain competitive.

[Mukor]

Ok I will admit, that RKs are in better position than some classes at low skill levels, and if SSG has no desire to make the class more difficult to play, then I’m sorry, but you cannot keep punishing high end RKs. There is still some dps disparity in skill level between good and bad RKs, yes perhaps the disparity is lower than between other classes, such as between good and bad champions - but this is not the players fault and we should not be punished for it. Red RKs need more dps specifically at the high-end skill level to remain competitive.

Then the class need a much bigger rework.
Sonthe gap with skill increases. Or a bad rk will bei Ablehnung top do 80-90% dps of a high end Champions etc. wie perfect support.

[Hephburz-2]

No one is denying that the class needs a major skill overhaul, and has already been suggested multiple times throughout the thread. The reality is, it clearly isn’t within the scope of this class update, so instead, all we can do is ask for temporary fixes - which includes bumping red rk dps to be more in line with other classes at the high end skill level / content.

Rather than forcing the players to suffer because of design flaws with the class.

[Kander]

I get the problem here, low skilled groups already favour having nearly exclusively red rks as dps because on low-skill level rk's outparse every other class, if you buff raw % of rk damage then you're gonna get nearly no chances of getting a spot in a PUG or an average kin group because all will be taken by rks, and only in high end kinships and high end skill levels you're gonna be able to play hunt/champ or even Burglars. And that's a problem for balance.

This balance pass should have been also focused on changing how fire line works and making it harder to play, so you can make it competitive end game while not making it absurdly good for PUGs and average groups so that the only dps class that exists there are RK.

But that's too risky tbh. Just look at red burglars, good ones are the #1 dps with no contest at all, while bad ones are behind RKs even. Complexity of a class is a good thing for players but a really bad thing from a developing point of view, they usually fall into unbalances. Just like back in the time when wardens tanking most skilled players were nearly godmode and average tanking warden was borderline viable as main tank. That's what I mean. Back in throne I remember we were nearly 1/10 of end game warden population who tanked throne t2c effectively.

So again, the most complex the class the harder to balance it, so that's probably why they didn't take focus on red line as well as blue line (they made blue more complex though), because they fear they might not be able to balance every trait line in a single balance pass if they make everything more complex. That said, fire is not in a terrible spot atm, it got slightly lower potential than other classes but buffs the group dps and got nearly a guaranteed spot in a raid even at end game, got decent AOE too while dpsing single target. I mean, they should fix searing embers stacking between different rks but to me it's not a catastrophic problem if rk damage doesn't get buffed that much unless they want to make the class more complex.

All said, that depends on wether they would do a red-line-only rework in the near future (few months) so that it is not considered "Fixed". I mean, B2 build is not terrible if they acknowledge for the fact that red line is yet to be changed in another update.

[Ranmazu]

• Expanded Fates Intertwined radius to 20m & increased stone max vitality 50%.

Fates Entwined Rune-Stone can't even die so why do you buff it's 'vitality'? xD omg... I don't know what to say

[Olebenny]

Fates Entwined Rune-Stone can't even die so why do you buff it's 'vitality'? xD omg... I don't know what to say

I saw that too, but maybe all rune stones got a morale buff? I think we hold our tongue till we actually see it, then we can laugh a little or nod our heads at a nice little morale boost for my heal stone that always dies so quick D:

[Chris91]

• Mending Verse will stay as-is for now. In recent tests it remains an overweight component in the healing rotation and we want to see if these other changes (particularly the cast time fixes), allow for more balanced and interesting rotations as players get used to the new values.

Last Beta (#2.5) it was down to about 30% of our HPS (compared to 65% on live) in my pure single target tests, obviously much less in AoE, I would not call that overweight. The single target rotation as of last beta works really well, please no experiments

• Rousing Words ~20% reduction in heal/pulse (somewhat overpowered in the last round, so it's splitting the difference).

This skill was overpowered? I guess it depends what you look at, the healing was extremely powerful, but the downtime large as well. I'll be honest I don't really understand what "splitting the difference" in that context means? The skill is getting a straight nerf, right?

Because overall, our AoE HPS was NOT OP. My Bear consistently healed for 10-15% more on group members with just AoE heals

Like, if you look at the HPS of Rousing Words only during the uptime (meaning while channeling) that was very strong
If you factor in the downtime (the long CD) the HPS of Rousing Words wasn't that strong at all

So yeah, I'm not opposed to the magnitude nerf, but the CD should be reduced as well

• Searing Words from separate sources should now stack on a single target.

This change is good

• Expanded Fates Intertwined radius to 20m & increased stone max vitality 50%.

Vitality is meaningless, but the range increase is important and a good change

• Reduced Word of Exaltation bubble magnitude down by -5% (to ~35% max).
• Fixed broken string reference for Word of Exaltation damage reduction effect.
• Increased Unwavering Confidence by ~12%.
• Increased Rune of Restoration heal pulse by ~30%.
• Bombastic Inspiration initial heal increased ~10%.

These changes won't really affect the big picture, I guess, so yeah, whatever

[Hephburz-2]

Expanded Fates Intertwined radius to 20m & increased stone max vitality 50%.

Is this increasing the radius of the stone to 20m? Also, would just like to add, increasing the max vitality of the stone by 50% is pointless, considering the stone can't be defeated even it falls to 1hp, unless this has been changed, which would prompt such a change???

Still would like to see the stones cooldown brought BACK down to 60s from 90s to compensate for the nerf to its -% damage reduction.

Searing Words from separate sources should now stack on a single target.

FINALLY.

Still waiting on overall increase to redline DPS, but this will certainly make taking more than 1 RK at the highest skill level / content, less of a hinderance.

Increased Unwavering Confidence by ~12%.
Increased Rune of Restoration heal pulse by ~30%.
Rousing Words ~20% reduction in heal/pulse (somewhat overpowered in the last round, so it's splitting the difference).
Bombastic Inspiration initial heal increased ~10%.
Mending Verse will stay as-is for now. In recent tests it remains an overweight component in the healing rotation and we want to see if these other changes (particularly the cast time fixes), allow for more balanced and interesting rotations as players get used to the new values.

Due to the other changes, as pointed out before, currently ok with where mending verse is, would still prefer to see an increase to the pulse duration, but thats a personal preference, will have to report back on HPS changes once tested.

Additional suggested changes:

- Still waiting to see a cooldown reduction for Concession and Rebuttal.
- Still waiting for Healing RKs to have some kind of offensive buffing capabilities to rival that of Beorning/Minstrel - as it stands, Blue RK is still not a preferred alternative to either.

[ChrisJaij]

Runekeeper needs buffs not nerfs...

The runekeeper need to compete with beos and minis! He already had less aoe heal than both of them... now it get nerfed...

Even with more hps than beo and mini, runekeeper would still be worse. Why? Because he cant debuff the target like beos or buff the group with anthems like minis...
At the last Beta runekeeper had the around the same single target hps as the mini and less than the beo... And the runekeeper had less aoe hps than both.

The biggest problem is that the runekeeper brings nothing special...
Beos can debuff the main target and increase the dps of the whole group
Minis can buff the whole group with anthems

This together with strong aoe heal brings beos and minis in another league.

Runekeeper need some strong buffs or debuffs and more hps... if you dont give him some strong buffs or debuffs you need to give him atleast stronger hps...
The only reason runekeeper found a place in raids were the strong dmg taken reduction buff from "Our Fates Entwined" and earlier the strong single target hps.. but i dont thing that stronger single target hps than beos and minis would be enoght.

If you have one beo and one mini in your raid you have enought heal.. so you dont want so switch one of them with a runekeeper (even if he heals more), because you would lose group dps and get nothing.

[Bitza]

Additional suggested changes:

- Still waiting to see a cooldown reduction for Concession and Rebuttal.
- Still waiting for Healing RKs to have some kind of offensive buffing capabilities to rival that of Beorning/Minstrel - as it stands, Blue RK is still not a preferred alternative to either.

I'm also waiting for the stones to be raid-wide rather than fellowship only. It just seems fair.

[Ranmazu]

I saw that too, but maybe all rune stones got a morale buff? I think we hold our tongue till we actually see it, then we can laugh a little or nod our heads at a nice little morale boost for my heal stone that always dies so quick D:

Rune of Restoration isn't affected by that change.
Fates Entwined is.
I guess we are now allowed to laugh about it now

[Hephburz-2]

Healing;

• Runesign of Winter initial heal still cannot be critted.
• Rousing Words still does not apply the glorious forshadowing inc heal buff.
• Frost Affinity trait from blue that prevents any further +% incoming heal boosts still has not been fixed.
• Rune of Restoration still only healing for 2.5k a tick (At level 120, without having upgraded bag/runestone to the new cap), I still maintain this should be increased to 5k at a minimum to compensate for the incoming lv130 stat/morale inflation.

After more testing of Fire, I was able to get around 83k ST DPS over a 3 minute parse on the dummy, which seems reasonable considering my hunter friend was parsing at around the same level - and obviously Hunter will benefit from both RK and LM, whereas RK will only benefit from the LM, so Hunter should be doing more damage.

If this continues over to live, I would argue that Fire seems to be in a "decent" spot, however this will all depend on scaling towards lv130, as both of these parses were carried out at level 120, and without upgraded LIs to the new caps.

Additional Changes;

• Still waiting to see a cooldown reduction for Concession and Rebuttal.
  
• Still waiting for Healing RKs to have some kind of offensive buffing capabilities to rival that of Beorning/Minstrel - as it stands, Blue RK is still not a preferred alternative to either.

[Chris91]

RUNEKEEPER Bugs and Issues:

I listed under bugs things that are very clearly not WAI and under issues other things that are problematic for various reasons and should be changed

BUGS

• First blue line trait still "sets outgoing healing modifier to 20%" rather than adding "+20% outgoing healing modifier" making other sources of outgoing healing modifier useless
• Rune-sign Initial heal can't crit
• Initial healing of the Essay of Exaltation HoT effect is not affected by Tactical Healing Rating at all
• Bubble potency legacy increases the 0 attunement bubble by 37,8% but the full attunement bubble by ~18%. It seems to additional bubble morale we get from attunement cash out is not affected by the legacy at all

ISSUES:

• Our AOE healing which was already the weakest of all classes was nerfed this patch, please reduce the cooldown on Rousing Words to compensate
• We still have no offensive support, suggestions have been made in this thread
• Scribe a New Ending still has a long animation
• Glorious Foreshadowing buff still lasts 20s while Writ of Health is 24s (since both are applied by the same skill, those should sync up)
• Rousing Words still lasts 4,5s but only 4s are actually useful due to it pulsing every 1s, please reduce the channel time to 4s so that it ends right after the last pulse
• Rune-sign and Epic for the Ages, despite being attunement builders cannot be used at 0 attunement

Will edit this post with anything additional that I find

[jomanjy]

Blue Rk this build is actually worse than the previous one imo. - i kinda laughed at the morale increase of fates -

SO MANY UNFIXED BUGS, please consider fixing those before the update coming to live.

- the initial heal of rune-sign of winter DOES NOT crit at all
- Rousing Words does not apply the glorious forshadowing inc heal buff
- frost affinity does not allow us to go above 90% OH - it is not a bug but can you please change that -.
- rune of restoration DOES NOT crit at all as well. - maybe you should consider buffing the morale of that stone since that is the one that can actually be destroyed instead.

now about the changes:

- rune stone still absolutely useless, maybe you don't have an end game toon so let me illustrate, the rune stone tooltip is 2.5k , end game players with T2 raid gear can have average of 120-150k morale, tanks have around 350k+ morale...so how is 2.5k HoT every 3 seconds is useful again ?

- i feel like Bombastic inspiration didn't even get buffed, it still feels very low, and the heal/Hot doesn't get increased everytime you tier it up to t3.

- the bubble nerf was fine, but the main issue still there.... DPS RKs can still have access to a 35% morale bubble WITH 20s CD, which seems very overpowered, considering the a regular 12 man raid can have at least 2-3 RKs...please make the % morale bubble only available in blueline.

- rousing words was fine before the nerf considering it is the only AOE heal we have and how long the cd is, but it is not bad after the nerf still.

now here are my suggestions maybe there is hope:

- buff rune stone by a huge amount or change it entirely to something like -3% incoming damage - and increase its morale -

- reduce Mending verse cooldown to 2 seconds or increase Mending verse Hots duration.

- fix scribe a new ending animation delay

- increase the cashout heal from Bombastic inspiration.

- increase Bombastic inspiration initial heal

- increase all HoTs by at least 15-20%

- increase the splash heal of Efta more - initial splash heal still kinda low -

- make rune-sign of winter stack with the RK blue line passive

overall: RK still need a lot of changes to be able to compete with beornings/Minis imo and you nerfed even further this beta. they lack utility,aoe heals,good support, please considering listening to the feedback before going live.

[Kander]

RUNEKEEPER

• First blue line trait still "sets outgoing healing modifier to 20%" rather than adding "+20% outgoing healing modifier" making other sources of outgoing healing modifier useless
• Rune-sign Initial heal can't crit
• Initial healing of the Essay of Exaltation HoT effect is not affected by Tactical Healing Rating at all
• Bubble potency legacy increases the 0 attunement bubble by 37,8% but the full attunement bubble by ~18%. It seems to additional bubble morale we get from attunement cash out is not affected by the legacy at all

ISSUES:

• Our AOE healing which was already the weakest of all classes was nerfed this patch, please reduce the cooldown on Rousing Words to compensate
• We still have no offensive support, suggestions have been made in this thread
• Scribe a New Ending still has a long animation
• Glorious Foreshadowing buff still lasts 20s while Writ of Health is 24s (since both are applied by the same skill, those should sync up)
• Rousing Words still lasts 4,5s but only 4s are actually useful due to it pulsing every 1s, please reduce the channel time to 4s so that it ends right after the last pulse
• Rune-sign and Epic for the Ages, despite being attunement builders cannot be used at 0 attunement

Agree on everything.
RW: Reduce cooldown to 12s maybe to compensate.
Fix rune sign initial heal.
Scale properly Essay of exaltation heal.
Do something to rune of restoration I feel like devs missed an extra 0 before the % sign to make it viable. But instead of buffing its HPS I'd add a damage reduction or damage increase aura around it.
Need to offer some kind of support too.
Also NEED in combat rezz.