Varkin's Review on the Runepriest Mastery Paths

Varking · 08-21-2008, 07:07 PM

Mastery Level 3 Tactics

Runic Blasting - Grugni : At first glance this looks like a pretty awesome tactic. Increases three different abilities critical hit chance. Sweet. Another bonus? You get all three of these abilities fairly early in the game. The problem is, all three of these abilities are lacking to begin with and raising their critical hit chance does not help out all that much when they still do sub-par damage and healing. If you got mastery points right at level 2 or something I would highly recommend this for low level leveling, but the fact of the matter is if you choose this tactic, I can not see you keeping this for very long. Out of the three starter tactics, this would be my second choice.

Extended Battle - Grimnir : This is the worst tactic of the three hands down. Now, I want to continue giving pros and cons for all the abilities in here and here is where this tactic would be useful. If you are in a group of Ranged DPS or other Rune Priest who also get this tactic and you just want to AoE grind some Public Quests or Mobs. This is a horrible tactic for soloing and worse for solo or even group RvR. If you are looking at these first three tactics as one you want to pick up as soon as possible, I would go with the next one.

Immolating Grasp - Valaya : Out of the three beginning tactics my personal opinion is that this is the best one. Why? For multiple reasons! First and foremost Valaya is the tree I choose to go deepenst into because of Rune of Fate and Rune of Burning and this puts points into this tree from the get go. Another reason is because at low levels this is an amazing utility tactic. It is useful in each area of the game. In PVE this tactic goes off early and often. What this does is not only allow you to snare the mobs that you are fighting but it is also giving you back action points, which allows you to continue to stay in the flow of battle and fire off morale abilities. In RvR this is great because by stealing action points from other players you start rendering some of their more Action Point abusive abilities useless. Snaring them also adds to strategic elements to RvR. Snaring them when they are low on health means it takes them longer to get back to their group or run away from yours. Snaring them when you are low on health allows you to create a gap between the two of you and get some healing in. This is the best of the first tactics.

Mastery Level 5 Master Runes

Master Rune Of Speed - Valaya : Let me start by stating that all of the master runes have their uses. Out of personal preference, I like this one the least but it is very easy to find situations when this one is awesome. When it becomes least useful is when your group or your Regiment or Warband are full of Tanks or Melee players who do not have tremendously high timers on their abilities. When it absolutely dominates though is when your group is set up with a bunch of casters or ranged players. Not only does this make it easier for you to heal, but this also makes those nasty Bright Wizards and such unload spells at a faster rate as well. Master Runes are stationary and for them to be most effective is when your group can stay within 65 feet of them. With a Ranged group this is easy to accomplish.

Master Rune of Adamant - Grimnir : This is the healing Master Rune and is personally my favorite, but it is not the most useful. The problem with this rune like I pointed out, is they are stationary. If your realm is making good during an RvR battle the front lines are the guys taking most damage and this also means the front line is always moving the enemy front line, which means they always move away from your Master Rune. This is the best Master Rune for PVE though. Your group is typically always within range of the Rune and the way most boss mobs are in dungeons and PQs, they have some sort of AoE and this Rune will make it so that you don't always have to waste heals on people who just got hit, this will keep them topped off for you.

Master Rune of Fury - Grungni : When you are not sure which rune to bring with you after a respec and are in doubt, you can always bring this one. Everyone can use AP regen. It is the universal system for abilities and no matter where you are people are spending AP to get things done. This is the most useful of the Master Runes and can be used well in just about every situation.

Master Level 7 Tactics

Concussive Runes - Grimnir : This one I dislike. The effect is really nice when it kicks in but how many spells do you have in the Path of Grimnir that you will use? There are only two actual attacks that come from this three. Rune of Might and Rune of Cleaving, both are your AoE damage spells. So the only time this effect can even come in is when you are doing AoE. This could be useful in an AoE Grind Party because that means the mobs against you are doing less and less damage, or there is a chance, but if you are having an AoE party the whole purpose is to burn them down as fast as possible in mass, not take a lot of damage anyways so this sort of defeats the purpose.

Ancestor's Blessing - Grungni : Right out of the gate this one is useless for soloing. This one is very useful though in all group situations because you are feeding AP to your allies and this is always nice.

Earth's Shielding - Valaya : This one is amazing. Why? Again this means you are climbing further up in my favorite path plus you use Rune of Shielding often. Now, when people hit whoever you just placed a shield on, they start randomly choosing a stat that gets decreased by 120. This is actually pretty huge. It doesn't just stop at the first attack, each and every attack throws a -120 stat debuff on the attacker. This stacks so one target could potentially lower just about every stat he has which is sure death for a tank or melee player when it hits your strength, toughness, or wounds.

Mastery Level 9 Abilities

Rune of Fortune - Grugni : This is a very useful spell in part because it is a direct damage spell, as well as a direct heal to whoever your defensive target it. The only negative with this ability is the two second cast when you could use that time for other things like I do. The great thing about this build though is that if you are going for this ability then you are clearly somebody who plays a different way than I do and can find more time for this ability. Another negative to me actually is that mastery tree spells and abilities don't increase in strength based off of your natural level like your core abilities do, you are going to have to place a lot of points into Grugni in order to make the damage and healing on this viable for end game encounters.

Rune of Burning - Valaya : I love this spell. It is the best damage spell that the Rune Priest has access to. The downside is that it can be set back and it is a channeled spell so you have to focus on the target. The upside is so tremendous though that I find it worth it. In PVE you can typically burn down equal level mobs to half or near half health by the time this spell is over. Tie that in with your damage over time spells and by the time it reaches you it is basically dead. I love this spell in RvR when my group is doing well and does not need to be healed. I also think in RvR this is the only spell I have access to that actually makes other players run away from me. The damage is good, the damage is real good! For solo players this spell is a must have and for those looking to do great damage with a spell, this is it.

Rune of Battle - Grimnir : This is a very fun spell but it does have some crazy downside. The first problem with this spell is that it is useless for the most part on anybody other than a Tank because the Melee DPS players spend time charging in and then backing out to get AP and then charging back in. This is best used on somebody who is going to sit in the front lines of RvR and when done this way, this is an awesome spell. In PVE During AoE parties this is good, in dungeons it is risky. You run the risk in a dungeon of pulling extra Mobs on accident and killing your entire group. It isn't a spell you will be looking to place on somebody every 60 seconds, you will likely be giving this one time off when in PVE.

Mastery Level 11 Tactics

Rune of Nullification - Grungni : This one seems amazing at first! Lowers healing to 0 for X amount of seconds. With the amount of mobs in the game that can actually heal and do it often enough to make a difference though this is basically useless in PVE altogether. In RvR though this is a great tactic because you can just place a dot on multiple targets and hope one of them has a tic that procs and those targets don't get heals for a while. If you are a PVE player I wouldn't look at this one much but as an RvR player you can find great use in this. I personally do not use this one because I have other tactics I favor over this one but to each his own.

Efficient Runecarving - Valaya : When I first started toying around with this tactic I was in love with it. It made my Rune of Immolation free of cost which is awesome and it, in turn, has a chance to make my next Rune of Mending and instant cast. This was very cool to me but at the same time the Rune of Immolation is just 30 AP, and the Rune of Mending is just a 1 second cast without it and when you factor in other tactics could be in place of this one it seems wise for myself to choose something else to take this tactics slot on my bar.

Ancestor's Echo - Grimnir :As with the previous tactic at first I loved it but at higher levels you realize that the shield may only cover one full attack or almost a full attack and you start to worry. If the enemy group is focusing their fire than forget about it anyway. This is a great tactic for PVE though and it is something I may have to do further research into. I didn't play around with this one too much when I didn't see results that I would have liked with it.

Mastery Level 13 Abilities

Rune of Binding - Grungni : There is no con to this ability. This is a must have for those who like to CC their targets and control the tides of a battle. The damage is little but you would be getting this ability for the stun. The utility is good because you can use it in both RvR and PVE. Great all around ability.

Rune of Fate - Valaya : I personally love this ability and use it just about every 30 seconds that it is up. It does a ton of damage, the most for any DoT we have and it is just a tad less damage than Rune of Burning. The nice thing about this is that it also gives your defensive target back the damage you do to their health. You can obviously get great utility out of this in both PVE and RvR as well since it is an instant cast dot and hot so you cast it and forget about it and focus on other abilities. If you are going Valaya like I did, this is a must have.

Grimnir's Fury - Grimnir : In an RvR game it is hard for me to take this ability seriously. While the effects from it are amazing, the three minute cooldown on it is not and for that it is unreliable. There are far better things you can spend your point on. If you create a build with an extra point left over I can see somebody throwing a point here. I don't like this but to each his own, you know?

Mastery Level 15 Morale Abilities

Rune of Ending - Grungni : This Morale is just absolutely nasty and personally my favorite one of the bunch. My issue is having to go up a tree I am not in favor of but this is why we are lucky to have extra paths! There is nothing you can say wrong about this ability other than in PVE you may and likely will pull aggro off of anyone that currently had aggro on mobs near you! Fun fun.

Valaya's Shield - Valaya : I use this one a lot in PVE because often times during lairs or dungeons I can horde my morale and build it up to the entire bar. It is a super hot along with addint a action point hot that makes it wonderful and this is something you can use in both RvR and PVE if you can manage to keep your morale long enough.

Rune of Skewering - Grimnir : I mean, if you are this high in the tree you might as well snag it but the other AoE rank 4 morale is far superior to this one. This one can only hit targets in front of you, you can use Rune of Ending to hit targets all around you as you charge in or run away. I would personally skip out on this one and stick with the rank 4 morale you get just from leveling but the choice is up to you.

Drav3n · 08-21-2008, 07:19 PM

I support this thread.

tenorhammer · 08-21-2008, 07:31 PM

thanks for the detailed analysis and review . I'm still not sure what I'll play. Runepriest looks interesting but I think in the preview weekend I'll try some of the other characters like the Shadow warrior engineer and sorceress.

ramaldrol · 08-21-2008, 07:35 PM

The aforementioned abilities are all ones purchased with Mastery Points. Check out the Career Builder on http://www.wardb.com for more details on that.

Thanks for the details, Varking - very enlightening, and I appreciate your open-mindedness about skills you weren't too thrilled with. Very balanced review.

EDIT: Apparently the first part of this post is no longer relevant, as the questions were edited out. Ignore part one, but the review praise still stands!

Drav3n · 08-21-2008, 07:41 PM

A note on Grimnir's Fury, it's a 3 minute cooldown and not a 3 hour. Still not good enough for a mastery point as you'll rarely have time to cast it when your whole group is dead.

Varking · 08-21-2008, 07:53 PM

Edited for 3hour/3minute clarity! Thanks for the heads up!

Vyker · 08-21-2008, 08:00 PM

IMO if any of the morale abilities should be dismissed out of hand it should be rune of ending, not rune of skewering. Rune of ending barely does more damage than 2x rampaging siphon. Rune of skewering doesn't have the healing component, but does twice as much damage to any target up to 65 feet in front of the caster instead of 30 feet around the caster. When you use ending, there may be ppl in your group who don't need heals and healing is wasted, if you are wasting any damage with skewering its because you killed someone, and at 2k damage (possibly more if that was a tooltip of someone who had no pts in the mastery) killing people with it will be quite common.

Varking · 08-21-2008, 08:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vyker

IMO if any of the morale abilities should be dismissed out of hand it should be rune of ending, not rune of skewering. Rune of ending barely does more damage than 2x rampaging siphon. Rune of skewering doesn't have the healing component, but does twice as much damage to any target up to 65 feet in front of the caster instead of 30 feet around the caster. When you use ending, there may be ppl in your group who don't need heals and healing is wasted, if you are wasting any damage with skewering its because you killed someone, and at 2k damage (possibly more if that was a tooltip of someone who had no pts in the mastery) killing people with it will be quite common.

This is where it all gets situational. They are both just fine but for the damage of 2k, compared to 1k damage plus healing, I only need a dozen or so people to make sure that each person in my group gets fully healed no matter where they are in terms of health. If I hit 10 people I do 10k healing to everyone in my group and I can run it real fast and people don't need to be lined up for me to hit, and chances are in RvR if I get to 100 morale, some, if not most of us have taken some damage and can use the free heal.

If people aren't getting in a line for me with Skewering than it hurts the effect of what I am trying to do. Most groups don't get in a line from my experience.

Quote:

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If people lined up like this, with the X's being enemies, then this tactic would be perfect but groups simply tend to spread out a lot more. You sacrifice 15 feet to shoot forward but the other morale makes up for it by hitting 30 feet out in every other direction. This will also unstealth any Witch Elfs around trying to sneak up behind you or the side of your group.

My group could potentially get surrounded and I could use that to get a free heal in for everyone and make the opposing players think twice about charging in. It is just my personal preference to use that morale since in my experience I get more use out of hitting enemies in all directions, instead of shooting out in a line.

Were you around for the night over two hundred people showed up for a battle over a keep?

Drav3n · 08-21-2008, 08:37 PM

Varking, are you sure that it's a direct line in front of you? Not only is the animation a cone shape, but I do remember hitting people that were off to the sides.

Skewering is direct damage with no heal, Ending would be pretty imbalanced if you could do the same amount and heal your group for whatever was dealt. Skewering also requires you to run up closer than what you would normally play at without giving you something to fall back on. If you're heading for the dps path then by all means go Skewering, I just don't see it as a truly useful Morale 4 on a support/healing class.

Varking · 08-21-2008, 08:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drav3n

Varking, are you sure that it's a direct line in front of you? Not only is the animation a cone shape, but I do remember hitting people that were off to the sides.

Skewering is direct damage with no heal, Ending would be pretty imbalanced if you could do the same amount and heal your group for whatever was dealt. Skewering also requires you to run up closer than what you would normally play at without giving you something to fall back on. If you're heading for the dps path then by all means go Skewering, I just don't see it as a truly useful Morale 4 on a support/healing class.

Nay, I am not sure. I used it for a bit but it was not seeming to do what I thought it would. I started using Ending and my results for damage and healing were better than expected so I have stuck with that for the past few months.

cmacker7 · 08-21-2008, 08:47 PM

How long is the duration on Rune of Nulification this one abilty determines wether or not i play a rune priest

vilden · 08-21-2008, 08:52 PM

When x points are spent in a certain tree how well do the abilities scale/improve? That will probably help a lot with choosing the right spec since most trees seem pretty average for the most part.