User:Raine Valen/Musings/Runes

Runes.
Why are Minor runes better than Superior runes?

Because you're not giving yourself a DP every time you put one on, and you're just about as effective in normal play.

Sure, 16 Shadow Arts might be a necessity for a Perma, and five Superiors make 55ing possible, and BraVe Axe Warriors run Major or Superior Axe Mastery behind their 96 AL, but what about everyone else?

Major runes are supposed to be better. They were intended to be better. But running them just isn't worth the Health loss in most cases.

How do we fix this?

Well, for one, weapon efficiency increase per weapon attribute increase drops off after r12; going from r12 to r13 is only 40% as effective as going from r11 to r12. This makes superior runes pretty pointless for increasing frontlining ability; who wants a squishy frontline, when they can have just about the same thing, plus 75 Health? Making weapon efficiency continue to scale normally after r12 would help to even this out.

Another reason that they aren't run is because one or two more attribute points isn't very much, in all honesty. Your attack skills do, what, two more damage? Your spells heal for 12 more? Realistically, there's not much benefit. In theory, two more damage on an attack skill should add up to a lot more than 75 Health over the course of a match, as should 12 healing, but in practice...

I think Major runes should give you +3 to an attribute. Superior runes should grant +7.

Alternatively (additionally?), there could be some innate benefit of having attributes above 12 (playing your primary class). You get the idea. Make people want higher attributes. As it is now, everyone's happy with r14.
 * "For each rank above 12, your Healing Prayers recharge 2% faster."
 * "For each rank above 12, you attack 2% faster while wielding a Hammer."
 * "For each rank above 12, you cast spells an additional 2% faster."
 * "For each rank above 12, your arrow flight speed is increased slightly."

When running a Superior is +70 heal on WoH, +11 damage on Eviscerate (in addition to increasing your base damage), another two seconds on Guardian, +30 damage on Searing Flames, 20 seconds on your Avatar of Melandru... When your Superior rune is making a noticeable difference, then it becomes viable, considering the cost.

Additionally, this would promote primary class use. Sure, I could take a R/D, but then our scythe is weaksauce. I could take a R/W, but then our hammer is weaksauce. Who knows? Maybe Rangers would use bows, Assassins would put down their scythes, and Necros would... do whatever Necros are supposed to do. Raise minions or whatnot (stronger minions!).

But as it is now, making yourself more open to spike offense for such a small benefit isn't worth it.

There would be one huge downside to buffing runes.

To spare us all the explanation, let me just quote:

"lol axe wars running 2 sups"

Yes, that would be a problem. The one class that commonly runs Superiors with little drawback would be in much the same place as other classes when equipping two runes instead of one. Because 75 Health with 96 AL isn't the same thing as 75 Health with 60 AL; in fact, 75 Health on 60 AL is just about 150 Health on 96.

Same deal with Rangers (Who spikes them, really?). Rangers can lose 75 Health for 7 Expertise easy; why not another 35 for 3 points of Wilderness Survival?

The problem is that when Runes were thought up, someone balanced the wrong thing. Yes, everyone loses the same amount of Health by equipping a Rune, but some classes lose a lot more survivability than others. As someone said, "The thing about Mesmers is that you can just kill them whenever you want to." 75 Health less is a huge difference for a Mesmer. But a Ranger? No sweat.

The numbers on Runes should be adjusted for different classes, or some other effect be added other than Health decrease. For example, if Ranger runes made them less invincible by, maybe, reducing their OMgblockage power, or making it so that they took more than half of every form of elemental damage. Decrease in Survivability should be across the board.

Things should be balanced.