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.

[Louvre]

Allright. Instead of just using my torch and scream: "Burn him! Burn him!", I will ask this:

With the upcoming changes to the lightning skills, wich apparently look mostly like nerfs (specially on Epic Conclusion trait Closing Remarks), and the changes to the critical/devastate chances, what would you say will be their purpose in pve?

And also, how do you think the lightning skills will evolve? (let's say during next year).

[AkhorahilEvernight]

Okay, I'll shoot:

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?)

2. Are there any intentions to change the comparative levels of RK DPS compared to Hunter/Champ/Burg, or RK Healing to Minstrel? (That is, if such happens, is it intentional or not?)

3. Are there any intentions to make the roles of the RK more distinct (e.g. to make Healing more dependent on traiting heavy Heal, or Lightning on traiting heavy Lightning)? Or alternatively, less distinct. (To me, the new traits look like they make it harder to attempt a hybrid role.)

4. Will it be possible to toggle off the AoE from FR under Conflagration of Runes? (In some fights, CC is heavy or you can't use AoE attacks for other reasons, and it would be a little weird to have to either unslot Conflagration of Runes or not use FR, the basic attack of the Fire line.)

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?

[Nevril]

I've just one question in my mind right now:

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?

[AkhorahilEvernight]

I've just one question in my mind right now:

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?

I second this. We can tell that you like EftA and want us to use it, but the casting time is simply too long for it to be useful in anything but a few corner cases (it's no use landing a big heal if the tank is already dead). Spreading the healing out over a channeled heal instead of a long induction time would be perfect.

(Or maybe a heal version of Charged (the current Lightning Chisel thing) that allows for a much faster EftA casting when it's up.)

[Syntastic]

I've just one question in my mind right now:

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?

This. Very much this.

Any other question I have can wait for the dev diary to be out. All I ask is that it be clear and concise, with some background, and reasoning about the changes you are making. ie Please don't limit yourself to listing the changes. If uncapped stats are the basis behind some changes, please tell us.

[Isy]

Thank you for taking the time to come and answer questions. I have tonnes, but I will try to keep the list short (for now!):

Utility Skills:

(1) Why the increase of neutral attunement cost on our utility skills? High attunement is important whether DPS/Healing, so why "punish" us for using utility skills?

(2) Can the Blade Shall Not Wound and Fang Will Not Poison be consolidated (Loremaster changes for ISengard is doing this for wound/disease removal for example)?

(3) What purpose do you see the "legendary" skills Steady Hands having, now that we can get neutral attunement so easily with utility skills now?

(4) "Fall to our Wrath" was orginally due to get a bit of a boost in this update, but Beta folks haven't mentioned this... is this "legendary" skill still going to be made a bit more... "legendary"??


Healing Skills:

(5) Has there been any changes to Epic for the Ages. It is widely seen as a skill that does not fit well with our other heals and the induction is simply too long, even when traited, for only a mediocre heal. Is this skill going to see any changes? If not, why not?

(6) Am very grateful for the "throughout combat" state of the pre-rez with Isengard, but another common gripe has been with "All Fates Entwined". You use it (for high-power cost), when at maximal healing attunement: but, you can then not use utility skills (calming verse, self-motivation) without breaking the toggle. Is this something you might consider adjusting (even if with legacy, trait, trait-set-bonus), so that the toggle doesn't drop off unless, say, 5 healing attunement?

Overall Class:

(7) I know this is a bit vauge, but what were your overall goals of this update for the Rune-keeper. A lot of class changes have come in, and sometimes these have been explained, other times not at all. I think we'd all appreciate hearing your intentions for the RK: do you still want them to be top-tier healing and top-tier DPSing (if traited/attunement/geared-up)? do you feel they are generally in a good place, or do you have longer-term changes in mind? do you see their DPS as comparable to CHamp/RK DPs, how about healing compared to a mini? Do you intend fire/lightning to produce similar DPS, or are you aiming toward lightning for levelling and quick fights, with fire for raiding?


Feedback

(8) Lastly, I just want to emphasise how frustrating it has been not hearing about the upcoming RK changes early enough. I felt that other classes were given ample opportunity to provide feedback and discuss changes with their respective Devs. This often led to the update shifting slightly in tone based on this feedback, hopefully making the changes more welcome by the community. I understand from your comments that you've been keeping an eye on the wants/rants of the RK community, but do you think next time you could please, please come and communicate your own thoughts, so we know what to expect and can provide construcive feedback? We won't fiery ridicule you too much


Cheeky Bonus Questions

(9) Could you consider making "Calming Verse" a toggle skill, if we equip both Linnod traits?!

(10) I know you said before that our frost skills wasn't something you were looking to expand, BUT these skills and their debuffs are an aspect of the Rune-keeper which really can make big differences. Have you considered a legendary trait (perhaps to replace the increasingly defunct 'Steady Hands' perhaps?) that would enhance our frost skills? e.g. make flurry of words a permenant hotspot, and boosting other frost moves e.t.c.

[Ozthorn]

Regarding the new PvMP riffler... so not only does the RK have superior slows and excel at run-and-gun, he can now negate the slows of all creeps for his entire fellowship?

What is the thought behind this riffler and what is the counter-balance?

[MechFierce]

Regarding the new PvMP riffler... so not only does the RK have superior slows and excel at run-and-gun, he can now negate the slows of all creeps for his entire fellowship?

What is the thought behind this riffler and what is the counter-balance?

+1 for an answer on this please.

Even though the poster above kind of exaggerated a little bit, it does screw with pvmp balance which is already quite delicate.

[SashaPayneDiaz]

Thank you for starting this thread, your introduction was hilarious!

So now that we've been completely disarmed by humor (well maybe not), I'm curious about how healing in general might be changing with the Isengard release. There appears to be more dependence on traiting and equipment both for healer and healee and perhaps putting more responsibility for healing output on those receiving heals.

Are the healing skill output reductions compensation for trait, equipment and stat buffs? What effect on net healing should we expect with this release? Should we expect healing to be more complex (more complexity to acheive the same output as before the release)? Should we expect healer endurance to more dependent on power now or less?

[Anoir]

Finally... been waiting this since June 8th but lets just skip the questions of why you werent here, why we had absolutely no feedback possiblity and why coulndt you even post a single post in almost 3months and get to the real questions!

1) What is the point of having NO tactical crit multiplier on lvl 75 armour or jewellery? You do realise that alot of people will use they old lvl 65 jewellery, cloaks and armour just because it has tactical crit multiplier and the lvl 75 armour doesnt? Not very good way getting people interested about lvl 75 gear I must say...

2) Why the hell there no new frost skills or updates into them? Dint we ask specially somekinda cool new updates into Frost skills, yet from reading stuff I find there is none. Like lets look at Flurry of Words... 10mins in redesigning this skill could make it actyally cool

3) I love the buff to fire, please dont get me wrong on this, i love it, i havent even tried it yet but I will! Im just asking... why nerf lighting so much that now we basically _Have_ to trait fire to keep up with other classes DPS? Why not just adjust both into same line and let people choose... I can see people not liking fire but still choosing it because the group/raid makes you to so they have enough dps.

4) I know this was asked before but i will re-ask it in hope it will get answered more likely.. whats the reason behind the steady attument skills cost change? I already hate it when im healing full attument, with All Fates Entwhined on (requires certain attument level to keep it on) and I have to buff myself with Calming verse or Self Motivation and I drop enough attument that All Fates will be removed and I will be hoping myself I dont die for next 10seconds... annoying. And will be even more annoying now that I have to do more healing to get back to high attument..!

5) Will the Improved Rousing words will give everyone healed a writh of health been fixed by the time of Live Release?

6) Why are all of our new skill changes called "Improved "Something"? Its a small thing I know but lets look at the Minstrels for example.. they have new improved skills but they arent named "Improved "Something"

7) When writing the Dev diary, can you please give us exact numbers on how much each skill had damage decreased/increased? Its cool/depressing to read for example "Shocking Words, damage increase" and "Ceaseless Argument" decreased damage" but it leaves ALOT to guessing how much % is the damage upraged/downgraded.

Thats all I have for now.. I dont have a problem with the nerfs really, I think fire line is gettting cool buffs.. I still dont get why healing is nerfed but oh well, might be fine.

The problem I have is the ZERO possiblity of us to feedback to You... Just please.. answer some of these questions and get people excited for Isengard

[Bradegor]

Greetings ZC, i´m from Spain, nice to meet you; i came from the migration and i´m very pleased to see you putting this. I hope you forgive my poor English, and also forgive my long question for you:

itemization of Legendary Items and attunement system makes hardly, if not impossible, for a RK to both DPS and heal in a raid in a serious way. So, we either work as a healer, or as DPS. While i believe that, despite the short range of our, ranged DPS, the DPS aspect of the RKs make them still worthwhile and able to compete with hunters, i don´t believe that healing RKs can compite for a healing spot, taking similar gear and player skill.

Minstrels and RKs before RoI could bring more or less the same healing (minstrel excel in spot healing and RKs on continuous damage healing, tank healing), while minstrels had more utility: a reliable in-combat rez, buffs, DPS fellowship buffs, dread removal... there was a big difference and hence most raidleaders had prefered minstrels over healing RKs for healing in raids. Only specific fights as Fear in OD needed RK, but could be done with DPS RKs.

After RoI, and i will believe you that RK healing will be on par with minstrel healing (although i admit i´m doubtful about it), are you planning to be healing RKs, and only healing RKs -it would be overpowered to give more utility to DPS RKs- some more utility so we can compete with fairness with minstrels for a healing spot?

If not, i consider that a minstrel will bring way better things for a raid than a RK on a healing spot: same healing, better and more utilities, and overall better DPS with a minstrel than with a RK. And considering Lotro is an old game where many people have many characters, most raidforces can choose among healers. Something that doesn´t happen in fellows where healing RKs will be taken ... but in raids, which are harder than fellows and on first, learning stages where you need maximum efficiency, looks like there will be no competition between minstrels and RKS.

I own a raidforce where our minstrel, switching books, can keep all the fight the DPS buffs while losing almost no HPS. I guess this will stay, even will improve, after RoI.

Is there any chance that healing RKs can be as good, any day, to a minstrel so the raidleaders can freely chose among them?

[Fasin]

Is Epic for the ages being buffed? Any plans to make Flurry of Words a skill I want on my bar? Are you coming up with a way to deal with the attunement drops while using All Fates Entwined? With an increase to steady attunement being added to all (or almost all) steady attunement skills, is there going to be any buff to steady hands?


Question barrage

[revoked]

I'm going to second some of the questions posed with some variations. Sorry for the long text.

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?

Statements in approved dev diaries that minis are the 'best healers' and evaluations of champ dps in the beta threads by Orion saying champs and hunters are close (but nowhere mentioning RKs even being in the running) suggest an intention to make RKs clearly (if possibly slightly) less effective in both those roles. Understand that for players who love their RKs, that amounts to being told in raids and instances, "We'll take a champ/hunter for dps or mini for healing unless we can't find one, but don't worry if we don't have enough we can take an RK, I suppose." Or alternatively, "Why don't you get on your hunter/champ/mini alt, it will be much better here..and here...and here. Oh and here, too." Is the intention that really well played RK with finely tuned rotations will be on par (within 5% let's say) with hunter/champ for dps and with mini for healing, but an averagely played RK is going to be noticeably behind an averagely played champ/hunter/mini?

2. Following from that, what is the vision for the utility and unique strengths an RK will bring to an instance and raid.

Until now and even moreso with proposed updates, minis have had the clear advantage in useful skills to bring to raid -- buffs, dread removal, real and reliable rezzes, ability to deal with large spike damage and full group damage. RKs have been seen as excellent at main healing tanks, they provided an viable way to deal with major healing or predictable major damage debuffs through their bubbles. Overall at end game with experienced players, I would say the evaluation is either can be good, some instances are easier for RKs and others for minis. But for overall utility, minis win out by a large margin, unless the instance can be made much easier by avoiding a major lightning/fire/frost or wound/poison attack. Then you wanted at least 2 RKs, though they could dps or heal.

Proposed changes seem to be modifying much of our current utility, adding AoE with fire but eliminating the chance to avoid attacks in place of a general % to resist and hitting our healing/dps hard with the attunement changes when utility functions are performed. Where is the place, for both dps and heals, that devs see RKs being a distinct advantage to a group?

3. Why are the attunement penalties so high for all neutral skills?

Is the intention to force a choice between utility and access to emergency heals as well as dps? Is it part of an overall direction to make all classes choose between their roles, sacrificing dps or heals for other utility?

4. Have the impact of attunement changes been considered for AFE?

AFE is one of my favorite RK skills, though using it can be risky. With the attunement changes, an RK providing any utility to the group will almost never be able to use it. Can the attunement requirement be changed?

[MrWarg]

What is your shoe size?

[Overtone]

Your time is important ZC and I respect that. Please note that I'm gathering my information from the beta Patch Notes and some beta feedback. Briefly, my questions:

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

2. Due to the increased steps in Steady Attunement skills is it your intention to force us to manage our Attunement more closely, like Champs (Fervor) and Hunters (Focus) must manage their skill pools?

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?

Was Lightning really that far out of balance with other DPS classes? Were there just too many Lightning ezmoders facerolling their DPS rotations? Was it necessary to bring Fire up to speed?

4. Why the straight ahead nerfs to our Healing skills like PtH, MV and WoH? Why the nerf to our Bubbles WoE and EoE? As you know, the class is alread short on group buffs so maintaining some increased Healing and mitigation to what little we have seems like a fair trade-off. The RK now appears to be decidedly inferior to the Minstrel for Group and Raid heals.

5. The changes to Blade Will Not Wound and Fang Will Not Poison are garbage. At this point, why not simply consolidate those two skills into an overall resistance buff? The resist bonus they provide appears to be marginal and using both at the same time is a waste of attunement.

6. Why no changes to improve Epic of the Ages? I know you have done a lot of work for it already, but EotA continues to be a fail heal. It is our one real spike damage recovery heal and could really be handy if given the correct love.

Thank you for any answers to the questions above. On the more positive side, the changes to Fire look fantastic. Fire actually looks like the way my RK will be rolling in RoI for the most part. The change to Rousing Words looks pretty great as well, as long as it works. Additionally, Shall Not Fall This Day looks to finally be a viable rez and I appreciate the change.

[Alad.]

I have been and will always try to be transparent.

Thanks for opening up this thread Zombie.

My question is one that affects all Rune-keepers, but also other tactical classes. It's about a subject I've been wondering about for a very long time. Most of the stat effects on combat are transparent, and the rest can be inferred. There are 2 subjects that I've never seen devs talk about transparently, and so I wish you could talk about them here, now:

1) Exactly how does Fate affect Tactical Critical Multiplier? I don't expect you to give me the exact formula if you cannot, but a reliable explanation and even an analogy to some other better known relationship would be a great help. Why are the 3 Multipliers (Melee/Ranged/Tactical) not part of the character stat panel data?


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?

Thanks!

[ANewMachine]

I've just one question in my mind right now:

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?

Gotta second this one. Whatever you want the skill to be, the players by and large obviously don't like it that much in its current form.

Also, are there any plans to expand RK utility when healing? Many players, especially when deciding who to bring in raid situations, see the Minstrel's buffing ability as a key lack in the Rune-keeper. Our utility looks to be taking a nerf (via higher Attunement shifts), and is really just healing by any other name to begin with (Do Not Fall is just damage negation, which is effectively healing, and Blade/Fang are best used when they prevent DoTs, overall). And even when they do recognize what utility we have, everyone knows that a DPS RK can cast these skills just as easily, while still allowing for another Minstrel with all those delicious buffs to tag along. So, more utility in healing? [Edited to bold the actual question]

[archangel45]

i'm in beta have lvled up my RK to 74. i also have a minstrel that i auto lvled from 65 to 75 to do some instances with a couple of friends.

i give this as a little background so you can see why i'm asking the question...

What is your general philosophy for the RK in terms of healing?

the rousing words change means i can now keep a teir 3 WoH on the entire group a lot easier so i can see why some changes are made.

but i'm just curious as to what your vision for RK healing is.

i always saw the RK is a class the tried to prevent damage or pre heal it so that instead of waiting for damage to hit we would stop it from happening or already have heals on a person to be proactive not reactive.

[Therubor]

Two things:

1. Are RKs going to be tuned towards AoE or Single-Target? Because tuning us to AoE, IMHO, should make us more viable for fellowships than making us single target, which would make us a squishier version of Hunters.

2. Are we getting more AoEHoTs such as Rousing Words?

Thank you for your time, your answers, your shoe size, and your favorite kind of cereal.

[Fin.]

I play my RK as main healer, so questions regarding that:

#All fates entwined is a really great skill, but it comes with the cost of being a power drain and hard to keep up because of required healing attunement. Fair balance.

With the changes to neutral attunement skills(upped cost) it will be almost impossible to keep AFE regularly up. It will be very situational skill which can be maintained for very limited time. Is such change intentional?

#EftA is a great skill in theory, but it does not integrate well at all into healing rotation. Currently it is all about quick decisions and almost non-stop skill spamming (in raids). There is simply no breathe time for such long induction skill. It is much more safe to rather renew hots on multiple targets, than start casting one big heal, which will most probably will over-heal anyway. One mending verse and prelude to hope is enough to take care of some random dmg on a person(non-tank) in raid. It is safer and quicker than EftA. When it comes to tank, stone+prelude+t3 writ+few stacks of mending verse+captain+healing from 2nd healer is enough to keep him at 90+% morale. Basically every time you use EftA there is a risk that either:
a) it will over heal(because of all other raid healing), or
b) the amount of healing it gives to single target is less than amount of healing that could be done by healing multiple other targets

So my question is, can you tell us in which conditions you see EftA as a skill worth using?

[ShammWoww]

Thanks for the thread!
I love love love the fire changes! It definitely makes it possible to be a true fire RK, so thank you!
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.
Will we be seeing more gear with this on it at level 75, or does this go along with the "reducing the effect that critical hits do while upping the overall base damage" shift in lightning DPS.
Thanks!
-Sham

[Belaeren]

Thanks for making this Q&A thread, ZC! I haven't seen the changes for myself in Beta so will reserve judgment until it all goes officially live, but I do have some questions & comments (echoing what others have asked):

1) Why did you reduce the crit damage rate per buff from the Closing Remarks trait? I am guessing you are trying to boost DPS of average skills while reducing top-end damage of Epic Conclusion - potentially the net, average result will be identical DPS over time. But why? Most lightning-traited RKs absolutely love planning for EC use by maximizing buffs and timing the EC attack until the exact perfect moment, hoping for a mega hit that makes them shout in glee. Even if net DPS is the same in either model I wish the top-end EC hits could have been retained. I want eye-popping fun moments not a middle-of-the-road bland play result within a narrower damage band.

2) Why does use of Calming Verse push us 3 steps closer to neutral attunement? I hope I have misread this. I always trait dual Linnods so I get the +10% damage with insta-cast (I hate waiting for inductions). So I'm maniacal about re-activating this skill whenever it expires, and an extra large swing back towards neutral attunement with each use makes no sense to me.

2a) As someone else suggested, can you please make Calming Verse a toggle skill like the new IDOME and (I think) the Wisdom skill for LMs, if we have dual Linnods traited? I may be maniacal about re-applying the skill but it is annoying to do so.

3) Not a question, just a comment: while I like the fire line, the prime reason I play an RK instead of an LM or Hunter is for ranged DPS *ON THE MOVE*. This means, lightning skills are my prime mainstay. I like to run and even jump around while shooting lightning out of my fingertips, even when not needed, just for pure grins. While I appreciate your improvements to the fire line to make it a fun, alternate style of play, please don't mess with the lightning line since I really want to retain the run-and-gun playstyle that RK affords. I suspect a lot of other RKs would agree with this sentiment.

[Sandgorgan]

So you'll be here for a long weekend where most of the forum base will not be on to ask. Well played...

Why has it taken so long to address the community?
Why is everyone lining up to kiss your @ss?
I'm sure you've simulated all the dps changes to both fire and storm. In the end when properly equipped, are we expected to have an overall increase in dps, or will we have to grind/trait/LI for months to achieve the same dps we had at 65? (I'm sure the Zombie boi's will come rushing to your defense, but this is exactly what happened from Moria to Mirkwood, we threw away LI"s and equipment and when we were finally done, we were parsing the same dps)

[ShammWoww]

So you'll be here for a long weekend where most of the forum base will not be on to ask. Well played...

Why has it taken so long to address the community?
Why is everyone lining up to kiss your @ss?
I'm sure you've simulated all the dps changes to both fire and storm. In the end when properly equipped, are we expected to have an overall increase in dps, or will we have to grind/trait/LI for months to achieve the same dps we had at 65? (I'm sure the Zombie boi's will come rushing to your defense, but this is exactly what happened from Moria to Mirkwood, we threw away LI"s and equipment and when we were finally done, we were parsing the same dps)

so have you been on beta to try it out? I have, and I love the fire changes.