Endeavoring To Awaken --A Guide To Rune Fencer

Since I still do not have a Dring (0/23 on Dring atm, 3/80 on Savory shank >.>) I'm reworking my tanking sets.
Atm I came up with a pretty nice setup that brings me to 49% PDT.
I wanted to know other people's opinion about something.
Would it be worth to put an 1% PDT ring (Colossus Earring or Hibernation Earring) in my ear2 slot in place of my current option, Ethereal Earring? (its main purpose is the damage>MP conversion, which is really nice when you're /BLU and spell-spamming)
Opinions?

I personally think 1 PDT is a waste of a slot. What are you using in the other ear slot? If you weren't diggin' Ethereal Earring, there's always Brutal, Zennaroi, or Hearty Earring.

In the set I was talking about I have zennaroi and ethereal

Liement to absorb light, she laughed in my face as I took about 1.9k right to the face. Not my most glorious moment. Thinking that shadows don't help much with Shield Bash either, because I swear to God her recast is about fifty seconds.

SOME PLD can dps. MOST pld in turtle set whimper around a bit till they can Atonement. :D


I wouldn't worry about one PDT, I currently use Sanare/Ethereal because I haven't managed to get the Vagary MDT earring with FC on it yet. When I do, I'll likely ditch Sanare in favor of it.

For DDing, I generally use Trux/Brutal if accuracy isn't something I need a bunch of.

I could use a different ammo slot piece than Vanir Battery or Ginsen, though. Oh, and NOBODY on Bahamut is selling Voso hides so I'm sitting on 44 hides and a NQ Refined. -.-

Hmmmm. I'd considered light the most likely option. Dark seems reasonable as well. But the rest seem sorta nonsensical for an attack like AI.

It's odd, cause while I was doing AAEV on PLD/RUN(and I did aloooot of VD AAEV), I seem to recall never taking life threatening dmg from AI while I had vallation up. Even when scherzo was down. So it felt like it was helping. But well, AI dmg seemed to vary a lot, so I never could get reliable vallation up/down numbers to compare.

But a failed Tenebrae Liement is definitive. It def can't be light based then. So I guess it was just placebo effect. But still, I'm opposed to assuming it's non-elemental till the rest have been tested.

Shield Strike was one of those things about AAEV that made me really glad to be PLD. <,<; Since it's classified as a WS, a shield block prevents the stun effect. And reprisal+Ochain is capped blockrate, so you never get stunned. Glorious.

iirc Shield strike can also take up to either 2 or 3 shadows. I forget which. So yeah, she's got a pretty good chance of stunning you anyway.

Foil also works against Shield Strike; I tank AAEV on RUN/NIN and keeping a fresh Foil up will help considerably with conserving shadows. Main reason for me to sub NIN is to avoid Dominion Slash and CDC. I always use Engulfer Cape +1 and tend to absorb a couple Arrogance Incarnates per fight.

EV is one of the ones that I consider to be easier for a paladin if doing the traditional tank+rng+support strategy, mainly because Ochain (and Priwen with Reprisal up) is brokededed!

Dear SE, can I have an Ochain Parry grip? Love, Seeks

However.

EV is ridiculously easy if you use a more melee oriented strategy, as her AI is divided among everything in range. Even one THF or NIN in range can cut the damage to easily manageable numbers even on high difficulties. Or have a SMN send Titan in. It doesn't matter what you use, another body in range mitigates it, and the more people, the more it's mitigated.

I stand firmly behind AI being not non-elemental damage, but breath damage. I've had several paladins inform me that straight DT (and BDT) mitigates it far more than PDT or MDT alone. I'd think that using:

Refined Grip +1 (3%)
Ugly Pink Futhark Body +1 (7%)
Defending Ring (10%)
Vocane Ring (7%)
Evasionist's Cape (Whatever the random aug gods will give you)
..and I seem to recall some BDT headpiece from somewhere but I can't remember where you get it nor its name.

Using all that, you may be able to reduce at least 27% and possibly more, which is enough for your healer to dump a cure on you.

Foil degrades over time, though (as far as I know anyway) and though with your full-time Inspiration and FC set, you can keep it up all the time, there will be times when the timing just sucks...again that's just my experience with it.

I did not know that Engulfer +1 would enable a possible absorb. I'll remember that next time I fight her. That also confuses the heck out of me, because that tends to argue toward it being magic damage.

I've duo'd it with a GEO or a BRD, the having a Luopan or keeping up Scherzo is usually just fine, but yeah I definitely prefer having a group of melees beat her *** down. Before the enmity update, there would be a certain point where my NIN friend would cap his hate and then we'd bounce hate back and forth, which was usually ok unless he got overwhelmed or cheapshotted (Banishga > Shield Strike > CDC). These days though, maintaining hate is a breeze, especially with a good +Enmity set.

The enmity changes are a blessing, I think.

Except that it made my relic gun not that great anymore /rant

I agree, though, that meleeing the wench is easier than pretty much any other strategy except possibly pet zerg, which I would know nothing about because I don't do pet jobs.

That cheapshot you mentioned has happened to me; the words I said were unrepeatable and were lyrical in their beauty.

My next task: convincing people that you can really take a RUN in place of the second paladin for Vagary..maybe when I finish Epeolatry they'll listen!

Yeah, most RUNs are aware that Foil degrades. Fortunately, with capped Haste and Fast Cast, the recast is amazingly low and it's easy to spam. This works great since the AA's are fond of multi-hit WSs which they'll spam when you have melees on them; you end up regularly dodging multiple hits of a WS, occasionally whole WSs. This is pretty gratifying when you dodge something like CDC (knowing shadows/Battuta are down).

Found out about AI absorb with Engulfer Cape by pure chance when my finger slipped and I toggled into my MDT set one time.

AI being breath dmg wasn't really in question. That's verified thoroughly. If PDT affected it, Burtgang PLD would have no issue. If MDT affected it, Aegis would laugh at it.

Oddly enough, Engulfer works on breath dmg. I went out and tested it on that breath spamming wyvern NM in abyssea-kon back when. That's also when I tested to see if vallation worked on breath dmg(it does, in case you didn't know.) Thus if we had an element for AI, the DMG could be greatly reduced even with it being breath dmg.

Neat fact. The MDT augment on dark rings counts towards BDT as well. so a 6/6 MDT/BDT dark ring is effectively 12% BDT. So in this case you'd want a well aug'd dark ring over vocane.

Hmmm. foil. I never did go in for round two of trying to quantify the evasion bonus... it's just such a pain when the value degrades like that. I wish it was just straight up eva+ and not vs ws only. Then It'd be far more useful, and we could just measure it using checkparam. <,<

Well that's proof right there, and definitely a good reason to use the thing.

Foil is a gigantic middle finger to most of the AAs (especially Galka), and several other things one might encounter as well. I have a few friends I've made that need older content clears, and I enjoy being able to help them murder stuff that has killed them when they tried to do it on their own. (Rani, I'm looking at you.)

The curious thing about Foil (and I may have thought this aloud before) is whether or not it applies to WSs that are magical, that is, affecting resist rates. This would be in the same vein of Yaegesumi allowing a SAM to avoid Astral Flow (though I have never witnessed this so I don't know if the message reads "No effect" or "takes 0 damage"). The primary reason I suspect this is because the descriptions for both Foil and Yaegesumi are worded very similarly in all 4 languages.

If they do work similarly, then you could simply test Yaegesumi on a WS or ability to see if Foil would have any effect as well.

And I just NPC'd my Dark Ring when I got Defending.... argh >.<

Foil isn't only against WS, it works on any TP move as far as I can tell. I've used it against Raja and Epic Dodged a few of his nastier attacks, and it's worked against a few of the WKR guys as well.

Non-elemental breath damage... could try mixing runes, but ugh. So many things in this game have a gimmick, I can imagine that this is yet another one.

Yaegasumi, last time I tried it, did absolutely nothing to save me from SKC20's Demon Astral Flow. I took full, and incidentally lethal, damage. Whether Foil helps there I couldn't say; I don't remember if I had Foil up last time I was Astral Flowed or not.

I have a vague recollection of seeing WS that i was certain were magical "miss" with foil up... It was a harpy ws... one of the nasty ones i think.

I would be inclined to support your line of thought, but my recollection is blurry, and hardly makes for good verification. I definitely think it's worth looking into though.

I had heard through the grapevine that Yaegesumi protects from Astral Flow, I guess it was wrong then? I'd still love to see a detailed list of what it does work against.

I have used Foil against WoE surge harpaeia, and it can block some of the icky stuff (Shrieking Gale was one that I remember, though it didn't block the "Imma reset every timer you have!" ability). I've also used it in the Shadow Lord v2 fight, against second form.


See, that's what I thought too or else I wouldn't have bothered. I definitely had it up, and I definitely ate dirt, so maybe I was just really unlucky.

Would you mind posting your RUN lua please?

I need an updated .lua as well.

Trying to update Macbain for DDing purposes, is it better to go for Store TP or Double Attack augment?

On what? More specifics. Edit: took set out I see now you said macbain specifically, full taeon triple attack crit rate.

from what I have seen, Double Attack has been more desirable for Macbain. having said that, I have not mathed it, so don't take my word for gospel.

Ya, unless run gets enough stp to 4 hit with a cor it wont be needed, so we will see but i doubt it. If we could Epeolotry would become a monster.

How does the Soulcleaver stack up to Macbain?

I didn't have much luck getting good augments on Macbain but I have been doing fabulous with the Soulcleaver.

Soulcleaver is a great weapon. I believe it is the best Lunge/Swipe weapon we currently have available. I just recently got it and haven't had an opportunity to mess with it yet in its Lunge and Swipe capacities.

The big problem with Soulcleaver is the +228 skill where MacBain has +242. This makes a big difference depending on the content you taking on with your RUN. I only recently got augments on it I'm content with: +36 Dmg/+16 accuracy and attack/+5 Double Attack. MacBain is a beast of a Great Sword. In the hands of my RUN its very impressive. On my DRK its a monster.

I would suggest keep working at that MacBain til you get something that you can be happy with.

The complete guide to RUN Great Swords, June 2015 edition:

Epeolatry/Aettir: Use for any serious tanking.

Macbain (with high DMG+ augment): Use when you care about damage. This includes tanking stuff where you're not as concerned about maximizing defense (due to either lower content difficulty or good level of support, or a combination), or where you're solo/lowman and relying on the RUN producing some offense. If you're tanking anything of real consequence with a party, your damage even with an aweseome Macbain won't be terribly impressive anyway (you're generally gonna be in DT- sets and spending a good bit of time using spells/abilities and not swinging), so go for a tanking weapon instead. Thanks to the 2015 enmity system changes, damage isn't nearly as important to hold hate and your non-damage enmity tools will serve you just fine even with an Aettir.

Soulcleaver: Best for Lunge/Swipe for whatever gimmick use that has, but pretty niche. It's not a bad placeholder for a damage GS and probably best option until you can get a solid Dusk augment for Macbain, but Macbain with solid DMG+ will beat it easily.

Kaquljaan (OAT augment): For skillups and messing around on pre-ilevel content.

Eminent Sword: For the newly 99 RUN, solely as a placeholder to one of the above options.

Everything else: No, don't use.

Also notable, GS is the only weapon type with no Escha weapon (Blurred or Nibiru) from Rhapsodies chapter 1... :P EDIT: not true (see next page), thanks for the correction Jeanpaul! Still doesn't seem that the May 2015 Escha GS change the above general hierarchy.

For damage the OAT GS works fine for lots of the things including T1 delves imo you just need good Taeon Augs for the acc and att. Macbain loses its luster in that content when you are capping acc and att easily.

What's wrong with Mes'yohi and the Unity one, out of curiosity? Is it the skill levels?