Rune-keeper Q&A with your host, Zombie Columbus

[Zombie_Columbus]

Pull up a chair, friend. It's been a while since we talked. Yes, yes, I know I should have been here sooner. I'm sorry, it is my nature to sit back and listen when perhaps I should talk. But no matter, you are not here to hear of my personal problems, are you? No, you want to know more about your precious, don't you...

NDA has been lifted, but Dev Diaries are not all out yet. You've heard about all the fantastic and frightening changes to items and stats. You've read about what overpowered things that vile other class received and some of the hideous nerfs the hated ZC is forcing on you, hmmm?

Well, I can't promise you the sun and stars, but I have been and will always try to be transparent. During these dark times before the expansion hits and you see first hand what the future brings, there is the unknown. And the unknown is scary, isn't it? Of course it is, it's our nature to fear the unknown, to fear change! And rightly so. For all the good it can bring, change also bring closer the entropy that ends all, eh? As beings of order in a universe of chaos, we all must strive to maintain the world about us! We are not horrible creatures from beyond the veil of... eh... what was i talking about again?

Right, MMO classes. Rune-keeper changes in Rise of Isengard. Philosophies of the class you know and love. Intentions for the future. Regrets of the past. My shoe size. Ask anything you wish, but be ignored at your own peril! I'll be on and off over the weekend, chatting when I can.

1. Are there any intentions to shift around the relative power levels/usefulness of Fire/Lightning/Healing? (That is, if such happens, is it intentional or not?)

When taken as a whole, lightning and healing should stay where they were, fire will get some buffs, and some AOE capabilities will be added in. Utility skills will "cost" a little more and traitlines will mater more.

5. EDIT: All Fates Entwined... it's extremely annoying to keep up, as it requires 9 Heal attunement to even keep running (and you can't do Calming Verse or Self Motivation or Wound/Poison bubble or Do Not Fall while running it, or it goes away). Is it intentional that it should be this hard to use, and if not, are there any plans to move it down to a lower attunement (maybe 6 Heal attunement?) instead?

AFE is definitely short-listed for me. Keep eyes open in a future update for changes there.

Will Epic for the Ages be changed in something useful and more in accordance with the other skills? Like a single target channelled or HoT skill instead of a direct heal one with a huge powercost and cast time?

Ah, EftA... The problem is that despite what many thing, EftA heals more and faster then Bolster Courage. More then anything, the skill needs nerfs. Yeah, I know, none of your believe me Try spamming back to back BC's and see how many you can use in a minute, then try the same thing with EftA (traited of course).
But despite it's incredible potency (yeah, I know you still don't believe me) the skill is despised. During very early beta, I made attempts to change the skill to a longer cooldown ability with a shorter cast time. Kind of a spot/emergency heal. This was met with near universal hatred, and I was informed that the skill was just fine without my meddling. I was taken aback by this, and decided to not touch it for RoI.

1. What is the overall intention of where the RK is expected to stand relative to hunter/champ/burg for dps and relative to mini/captain for healing?

[This text has been edited for clarity]The RK should be equivalent to a top tier DPS (Champ / Hunter) when in DPS mode, and a top tier healer (Minstrel) when in heal mode.
RoI beta saw a lot of changes stats, weapon damage numbers and even a re-drawing of the implement damage curve. Like Moria, this expansion has dug deep and changed a lot. Yet the RK's basic design intention has not changed: RK's can preform as main healers or main damage dealers, depending on gear and trait selections. As data from RoI comes in, we will make changes if needed.

1. Why the attunement step increases on some of our Steady Attunement skills?

In practice, RKs can get up to max atonement very quickly, especially with the change to Fiery Ridicule. The momentary bumps in peak damage or healing that the utility skills charge was a bit too low. The consolidations of stats that RoI introduced has let us do a pass on the utility skills, buffing up a few. With that pass, we decided to make the attunement cost of them go up a bit, especially on skills that are highly potent (Self-motivation, Calming Verse.) Some skills I know are a little weak after this change, and I will keep my eye on them.

3. The base damage for some of our Lightning skills saw an increase. However, the critical and Tactical Multiplier damage for Lightning was nerfed severely. Why?

It wasn't, it went from 30% to 25%, and the new 4-set bonus will add at minimun 8% bonuse damage on top of all that.
Unless you mean Epic Conclusion. In that case, it was all about tightening the top and low end damage to preserve dps while reducing spike damage a bit more.

2) How is Miss Chance calculated? And why is it there? Especially now with the introduction of Finesse, and from a bit earlier with resistance penetration, you are clearly going in the direction of a more reliable event outcome calculation system, i.e. effect versus counter-effect, add a zest of randomness and let's see who wins! Miss chance seems to be a clumsy character's attribute (oh look, he missed! For no reason!) Does Agility also affect Miss Chance for tactical skills? Lastly, why isn't the Miss Chance in the stat panel too?

I don't believe any RK skills can "Miss". This means that the miss chance, which as you correctly say is reduced by agility, is not rolled for any RK skills. HOWEVER, (and this comes up all the time) all skills in the game have a change to roll a "Miss" when used against over-level monsters. It is regrettable that the same verb is used for both, as they are different things.

My question revolves around gear. Currently, our gear provides alot of tact crit multiplier, however, I saw very little level 75 gear with this on it, and as a result, lightning to me felt "unpowerful". Mind you that this was also before the 4 set bonus was fixed, so my point may be moot.

We are actually ageing "Tactical Crit Multiplier" out of the gear pool. While it might be returned in the future, it is a clunky, non-sclar stat that is not fun to have around. Look for Tactical Offence rating, Critical Rating and Finesse for your DPS gear, as well as the attributes that feed into them (Fate, Will).

Why is everyone lining up to kiss your @ss?

If this has been @ss kissing, I don't want to see you guys angry.

1. Why is the Writ of Health version applied by Improved Rousing Words not the one that tiers down, and is the one that just disappears?

Bugged, and fixed ^_^

6. Why is the second set bonus on the RK raid Armour (FR reduces the cool down of essay of flame by 3s) so bad? Why have RK set bonuses never been good?

I cannot imagine how you would think that bonus is not amazing. Improved Essay of Flame is a beast and FR is more spam-able then ever!

This is the best troll post I've seen in awhile....

My idea: Add a 5th set bonus to benedictions of peace changing all fates entwined to 6 or 7 healing attunement requirement instead of 9.

Well now, I'm going to look like a real hack...

1. Why no offensive utility group buffs or mob debuffs for the RK? (especially while healing)
2. Why no offensive rune as an alternative to Rune of Restoration?[/b]

1- The short answer is, because not every class needs everything. Way back before initial release, the RK had a lot more debuffs/buffs. It was felt that a class that can be a primary DPS and a primary Healer should not have quite so much utility, so we toned them down a bit. While they are not as potent as some of our classes who are primarily support, the RK still has a decent number of support skills. A concern that I hear loud and clear, and one that I have discussed with other devs since before the RK launched, is the difference between the RK and the Minstrels capabilities as healers. The question is the amount of utility that they can provide while healing. Some amount of the equation must be that the RK can more meaningfully switch to a dps role, but it cannot be the whole of what they bring. I guess the long answer is less of an answer, and more a big "Yeah, we know, and we think he's in a good place relative to the other classes for now." The extensive Minstrel revamp may change this, or it may not. If raid leaders routinely turn RK's down, do tell. Raid leaders, if you think RK's are not worth bringing as a main dps or healer, do tell.

2- Because we don't want to add any more skills, and we don't have any massively under-preforming traits to alter into mutators for the skill. There was some thought in early RoI of allowing the rune of Endurance to change into an offensive one if you are offensively attuned, but I felt that some of the utility the class brings, namely constant AOE healing while in DPS mode, would be reduced.

Aaaaand that's a wrap! I hope you enjoyed this half as much as I did. When the dev diary comes out (someday...) I'll be around to answer more questions.