Greetings from the Runekeeper Dev!

[revoked]

And they fail to mention the severe penalties those classes have. Champs have pretty much zero defense and a healing penalty. Hunters are basically screwed in melee or when faced with a mob...and nothing worth mentioning for self healing as I recall. If RK's were to have a boost in AOE, especially with something like fire, they better get as severe a penalty as champs do.

While that was true of champs before, champs now have outstanding survivability with a variety of bubbles as well as the ability to use + incoming healing on relics. Pretty much any 3 and 6 man content can be tanked by a champ without difficulty, often running in fervour. They are not nearly as squishy as they used to be and most champs I know do not feel they have any survivability penalties at all. I don't play one, but healing them, they are not squishy at all now.

Hunters do not have the survivability of a champ, but they have quite a few cc options and even their own bubble now, which seems to be up all the time. I do have a max level hunter and find inherent survivability much better than an RK even though I do not play it very well. Power may be more of a balancing feature for hunters...but I am not sure after the fate changes.

In any case, I would not say either of those classes have severe survivability penalties to balance out their dps...certainly no more than the survivability challenges on an RK.

[Jestina]

Champs lose B/P/E when in fervour which they are in ninty plus percent of the time...so even in heavy armour it feels more like you're in paper. Champs are also not capable of heal stacking and they are a melee class...not sitting back at range tossing fire/lightning. For survivability RK's are at the top of the list, probably right under Warden. Not much of a survival challenge for RK's with the heals they get and being ranged.

Champs can't run around spamming lightning and a heal either.

[Fasin]

Just to clear something up, survivability is not determined by your ability to self heal yourself, although that helps. It is determined by your mitigations. Champions can go up to 70%, at which point they are taking half the damage that Runekeepers take with 40% mitigation. Hunters can go up to 50%, at which point they are taking 25% less damage then Runekepers. Champions and Hunters can't reach cap without cramping their dps, but the mitigation difference will still be there in a slightly lesser form. I will happily give up my ability to B/P/E as well as any self heals and bubbles while dpsing in exchange for taking 50% less damage. Although to be clear Champions have both self heals and bubbles along with their mitigation.

[Raven-EU]

Champs lose B/P/E when in fervour which they are in ninty plus percent of the time...so even in heavy armour it feels more like you're in paper.

My P/E is about 2% on my Rune-Keeper meaning that I basically never Parry or Evade so that argument is moot.

Heavy armour mitigation can go up to 70% in a high survivability build. Rune-Keepers are cap:ed at 40% meaning that I, as Rune-Keeper, take about twice as much damage per hit compared to a Heavy armour class.

Champs are also not capable of heal stacking and they are a melee class...

Heal stacking? You mean having a tier-3 Writ of Health going and Prelude to Hope? The Writ is half decent, I'll give you that, but Prelude to Hope just isn't worth it unless you're trying to change attunement. Mending Verse requires healing attunement. Epic for the Ages is available once every 3 minutes. All my good bubbles require healing attunement. A minor bubble that's on a 3 minute cooldown... Sure we can stack up the healing reeeel guuud in DPS attunement. "Yeah but you have Steady Hands" Ok... Every two minutes I can heal myself...

not sitting back at range tossing fire/lightning. For survivability RK's are at the top of the list, probably right under Warden. Not much of a survival challenge for RK's with the heals they get and being ranged.

Did you just look at the skills Rune-Keepers have and assume stuff? I'm trying very hard to take what you write seriously but there's just too many gaping holes in the arguments...

Champs can't run around spamming lightning and a heal either.

I'll give you that point. Rune-Keepers are way cooler than Champions.

[bbk4114]

And they fail to mention the severe penalties those classes have. Champs have pretty much zero defense and a healing penalty. Hunters are basically screwed in melee or when faced with a mob...and nothing worth mentioning for self healing as I recall. If RK's were to have a boost in AOE, especially with something like fire, they better get as severe a penalty as champs do.

Question: at what level was a champion at 5600 morale?

That's what I am currently at in order to raise my dps. My RoR and WoH don't provide 7k + restoration for those mobs that hit for 7k plus. AND I can't burn them down as quickly as a champion either.

I think we've already got the sacrifices in place. Now some of us would like to see a return on that.

[ScrettleSllim]

PVP RK's

Skill build:
The build up to get some good CC/DPS and try to pop survival skills is difficult at best and openly roaming a ranked warg can have half your morale gone but the time you get out of the starting stun. we do however have attument consumables we can use but for every fight I get they just seem to be consumed 50-100 in a good day. switching healing and dps depending on the situation etc.
Maybe a consumable or buff on an item or set of gear would be awesome.... PVP bonus with 30s CD


Annoying: Do Not Fall to [Affinity] changes
The changes to our other defensive skill Do Not Fall to [Affinity] which is now subject to our last dps skill type used.
getting destroyed by a BA in 3 seconds rank doesn't really matter these days for a Pay to Win player. Not only in PVP but Raid/groups etc.

[EldarQuendi]

Welcome and thanks for introducing yourself to us. I hope the input from this thread helps some. I have played the rk since moria but didn't really start raiding until Mirkwood(lvl 65) was end-game. I've seen many changes and honestly think rk's are in a very good place. I mostly heal PvE raids so that's where my perspective comes from for the most part. After reading through here I've seen some great and maybe a few far reaching hopes from fellow rks. I am going to try and stick to the flaws or shortcomings I see as honestly there is lots of room for many creative ideas if we go into what would be cool if.....

Healing:

RKs can struggle greatly with healing on the run. For 10 secs every minute we can put out about 3-4 mending verses with a few really light preludes or armaments and when healing on the run is necessary this can come up very short. One great example of this is ToO Acid wing. When the acid rises and someone gets hit by accident or gets hit by a fumarole those few mending verses may not be enough while healing tank, or worse you may have already used calming verse before on the adds to drop aggro and its not available. Some options could be maybe with Fates Entwined up or at 9 attuned healing, WoH becomes insta cast. I'd be open for anything that helps even just a little healing on the run.

Prelude to hope has become more of a hassle than its value almost. You can keep it in a decent healing rotation and keep it on the entire fellowship but doing so doesn't substantially increase hps. I don't think we NEED it to be much larger of a heal as rk hps is in a good spot. So maybe adding 1% inc. healing buff to it, changing it to an aoe so you just apply it once every so often to fellowship, or even working this into the healing on the run by making its reapplication apply all the former HoT's at once before putting new HoTs up(ie if 6 pulses left until it expires adds all 6 pulses together and heals for that then applies new HoT) then you could spam prelude on the person who needs the heal on the run.

Some great ideas have already been posted for mending verse. Mastery is just horrible for a skill that will 90% of the time be on the tank, inc healing/morale/-%damage all decent ideas. Anything useful for a tank I would agree with.

That Which Does Not Kill Us dps buff honestly rarely lasts long enough to be useful. Just about anytime you have to burn a target quickly the whole group is taking damage and so buff is gone before it gets any use. Maybe lower the buff but let it last the whole time without dropping when target is hurt.

Do Not Fall rezz has a huge attunement penalty, its managable while not dropping All Fates Entwined most of the time but with lag, which my server is never short on, it will be dropped before I can pop an emblem.

Their weapons shall not harm us wound/fear/poison/disease should work for ALL pot-able effects in game. However there are a few such as in Honour Guard of Battle for Erebor which it doesn't work for. If you are going to render it ineffective for some and not other pot-able effects maybe change what it does. Just doesn't seem right, if it can be potted then this skill should work.

Their weapons shall not harm us and Do Not Fall to X already have cooldown and attunement penalty, maybe remove the induction and make a quick skill. Not usable on the run, still with quick animation, just not a long induction.

Armaments of X, I concur with the posts just asking for a bit longer duration, 45 secs to 1 min would be more appropriate I believe.

Also some heals from rks don't crit. All sources should be able to crit but i believe Rousing words/epic for the ages group portion/ and heals from stone still don't crit.

DPS: I have less to say here as in general I prefer healing. Not going to get into output as I have seen 1-2 great rks put out some GREAT numbers in both AoE and Single target. Most of our raid group runs combatanalysis so we all can compare and see who's coming up short, lately rks have held their own on dps.

Fire:

My biggest issue is with the aoe's being such different ranges. Honestly I would be happy if the range of all our aoe's was just homogenized. Having 2 with only 3m range(fiery ridicule/essence of flame) while another is 8m range(scathing mockery) and the occasional insta cast WoC with 5m range makes it hard to judge and consistently use aoe. I think 5m range seems more appropriate as honestly 3m range is very small and ridicule/essay already have a max of 3 targets anyway so 3m range restriction is a bit small.

General:

I am on the side that wishes for a way for rk's to chose the stats for LI's. I know many have said they don't want to be like mini, etc. etc. However, we are the ONLY class in the game that does not have to option to have customized additional stats with an item if we chose to. Guards/Wardens can chose the stats with shield, Champs/Cappies have the option to use one hander and with off hand(weapon for champs/shield for cappies) they then can chose which weapon for specific stat buffs, Mini's get shield, LM's get a second weapon with stats they can chose to use and stats on main hand(double bonus), hunters get off hand, burg's get off hand. RK's only get to chose a 2 hander with random stats without an item that gives stats, and honestly I am tired of getting icpr/power pool/tactical mitigation. If not an item to put in secondary weapon/shield slot, then please make a scroll that resets the ID'ed stats of an LI that you can buy at skirmish camp, I would buy 80 of those till i got decent stats, however the stats given are not nearly as high as those on secondary weapons/shields now, so i believe secondary weapon would be optimal.

Chisels need to be updated a little, they are falling behind the curve a little.

Would like the trait frost-burn to have writ of cold tier down again also. :P

That was much more than I figured I was going to tackle, sorry for wall of text guys, for those who didn't just skim and skip past it thanks. And again welcome to rk community as our new dev Jinjaah.

[Isy]

Some really interesting ideas and comments from the community so far. As for me, I would love to see the changes focus largely on the damage-dealing aspects of the Rune-keeper. A switch to skill-trees opens a lot of opportunities for making both lightning and fire rotations more exciting, more potent and better integrated with Frost skills. With this in mind, my top 3 changes would be:

#1 Tactical-ranged auto-attack
As DPS ratings increase with ongoing game developments RK overall damage output is relatively decreasing as we only have melee auto-attack. This means that for the RK to do optimal damage output we need to be in melee range, which is completely counter-intuitive to the class design. Giving us a ranged tactical auto-attack will increase our damage output bringing us more into line with the output of Burglars, Champions and Hunters while still at range.

#2 Fire & Lightning & Frost
I know a lot of players bemoan the rotation of fire-skills as it is staid and simplistic, but I find the lightning rotation to be in a similar state. I'd like to see the existing skills and their corresponding traits reconsidered. Instead of fire-traits affecting target number (essentially making the fire-line the only option for AOE) the line could benefit from a new mechanic similar to the charged effect, with traits increased DoTs, crits and reducing inductions for more fast-paced combat options. Lightning skills could do with some reduced cooldowns and an expansion of the charged effect to impact more skills. To truly expand both rotations I would love to see Frost-skills blend with your skillset depending on how you trait. For example, traiting Lightning could make Frost skills insta-cast on the move, traiting Fire could make give Frost skills an additional Frost-DOT, while traiting Healing could make Frost skills zero attunement. You could go further and add a Frost skill (damage + 5-second root), and alter 'Flurry of Words' by your trait setup (i.e. slows target traited lighting, heavy damage traited fire, party buffs when traited healing). Frost-skills would benefit greatly from reduced cooldowns and a legendary trait (as a replacement to Steady Hands) that increase their potency. By enhancing Frost, blending Frost skill use with traitline and reducing cooldowns it'd open up a LOT more options for which skill to use.

#3 AOE & Fire/Lightning Viability
Finally, AOE is currently limited to 3 targets and Fire traiting. This suits Fire-users to an extent, but limits functionality of lightning. Sure it is nice to see Fire and Lightning have different styles, but I would love to see both Fire and Lightning as equally viable in a wide-range of situations (PVE, PVP, Landscape, Instances, Raids) so players can select between Fire and Lightning based on preference of style (motile, kiting, high-crit vs high-offence, DoT, "turret) not situation. To do this, AOE needs to be the realm of both trait-lines, ideally attached to an enhanced set of Frost skills that can bettered through traiting, legacies and legendaries. Meanwhile the weakness of Fire-line (you can't move while casting) also needs addressing, perhaps through the introduction of a constant Fire-aura that a RK develops as they use more and more fire skills, that increases RK defences as the aura builds in potency, and causes damage to those foolish enough to come close to an enraged fire-RK.


The update to RK healing last year hugely benefited that aspect of the class; our healing output is great and we have nice variation in rotation, although some changes could be beneficial: merging the 'Scribe a new ending' with 'Mending Verse' would be a nice combo, swapping the physical/tactical mastery buff from the mending verse legacy to Prelude to Hope would make more sense e.t.c.

[bsc200311]

Their weapons shall not harm us wound/fear/poison/disease should work for ALL pot-able effects in game. However there are a few such as in Honour Guard of Battle for Erebor which it doesn't work for. If you are going to render it ineffective for some and not other pot-able effects maybe change what it does. Just doesn't seem right, if it can be potted then this skill should work.


The skill "scribe a new ending" while healing traited is a very powerful skill. it has no cd but still retains the 20 sec cd dps traited

[87_Suited]

PVP RK's

Skill build:
The build up to get some good CC/DPS and try to pop survival skills is difficult at best and openly roaming a ranked warg can have half your morale gone but the time you get out of the starting stun.

If this is the case then the given RK has quite a bit to work on, mitigations mainly. It is very difficult for a good RK (that mouse turns and has good movement/coordination/timing) to lose to a shadow warg regardless of rank. (even with 4 red OPs). In addition, auto-win skills such as PI/armour of storm are not required either.

Assesment is made assuming the warg also has good movement and knows how to obtain positional damage and has a good skill rotation.

40% tact mit, 40% crit defense, 13 audacity renders the RK in Godmode.

[Fasin]

PVP RK's

Skill build:
The build up to get some good CC/DPS and try to pop survival skills is difficult at best and openly roaming a ranked warg can have half your morale gone but the time you get out of the starting stun.

This is simply not true, I run around in the moors without Audacity (I enjoy the challenge, I also pvp Fire traited), and even with the extra duration on the stun as well as the lack of incoming damage reduction a ranked Warg still doesn't get me very far below half health during the stun.

I do have 10k health and maxed mits, but still. That's not going to happen with full Audacity.

Runekeepers are godmode in the moors at the moment, plain and simple. Our whole Lightning line is built around bursting dps periodically. In order for it to be viable in PvE, it has to be near godmode in PvP. It is currently not very viable in PvE, but even so it's pretty close to godmode in PvP. We do not need any PvP buffs. At all.

[Serisan]

Champs lose B/P/E when in fervour which they are in ninty plus percent of the time...so even in heavy armour it feels more like you're in paper. Champs are also not capable of heal stacking and they are a melee class...not sitting back at range tossing fire/lightning. For survivability RK's are at the top of the list, probably right under Warden. Not much of a survival challenge for RK's with the heals they get and being ranged.

Champs can't run around spamming lightning and a heal either.

Have you played a Warden or a Runekeeper? Either of them. Really.

A Runekeeper might be as survivable as a Warden that only stays in Recklessness and wears straight DPS gear with no Vitality or Morale bonuses. Maybe. Probably not, though, because you can still Potency -> 2x Resolution very, very easily if you really need health.

Playing a Warden intelligently, there are virtually no limits to your ability to wreck the world currently outside of the Moors. I can assure you that there is no such ability on the Runekeeper.

[Isy]

Now the community have had a few weeks to voice their initial opinions, I for one would be really interested to hear some of your initial comments Jinjaah. How do YOU think the class balances with other classes? What areas of the class do YOU think need the most attention? How do YOU feel skill trees will benefit the Rune-keeper over the current traiting system?

[Raven-EU]

I'm starting to wonder if they're maybe waiting for the Player Council. It would be kind'a logical to let the first task of the new Council be the review of the proposed class changed.

[Daiconik]

Greetings!

I've been playing my RK for a couple years now and really I like it.
Some things could be improved but the class is nice as it is!

However I think there is a problem with RK at the moment, and it's the itemization!

- The gold RK items are not good. It's a shame to obtain them and not equip them cause the're bad. Especally when we see the other class items that are great (e.g. compare RK healer hat with the mini healer hat or cpt cloak ... maybe the fire cloak is the only think worth the "gold" class item)

- Some set bonuses are really bad too, like +5% crit on WoH ... really, the same WoH that usually can't crit anyways (RW etc ...) and in the other hand we have +5% crit on all heals for Minis ?? I really dont get it ...

- In U11 we are the only class that doesn't have a PvMP R10 item, really ?


I think we all love our class, but it can be really frustrating to see that our stuff is way worse than other classes!

[JeauxLOTR]

I second Daiconik's opinion above. and as proof, a comment from the 'RK Healing Cloak' thread

Never seen the purple version, heres teal's stats

581armour
150will
38fate
211morale
5%chance@5%outgoing healing
20sduration

A 5% chance for a 5% boost, really? This is not a Gold item, but still, next to what other Classes get - weak. The bonus from The Hat of The Lonely Mountain was one of the few decent bonus to actually make it to live.

[Stealthiness]

I think RKs can stay viable DPS in PVE while "nerfed" in PVP. The base dps should go up but the spike crits should go down. I'm only levelling now but I've noticed that there's a very thin line when questing between killing a mob with barely any crits and killing a mob with Shocking Words and Essence of Storm critting. This might be the case in PVP as well, often turning out in the RKs favour as they have very high crit chance, due to the lightning trait line. Maybe the devs should look at the trait line, getting more +base damage in instead of the critical chance/multipliers.

Not a pro though, so correct me if I'm wrong.