[Trexmaster]

A few suggestions to try and alleviate the current issues with Rune Magician.

1. Chronos rune detonates when it gains a Count while at 4 like it was originally intended to.

Reasoning:

There was no good reason for the change to Chronos rune. Having it detonate earlier now means it's borderline impossible to stop a fully stacked Chronos rune as you only have one turn where it is vulnerable without the use of Air Pressure to remove Smoking rune's effect, if Swift Rune Casting is used to create it.

2. Focus Tuning gets a 3 (or 2 round if suggestion 1 is implemented) round cooldown.

Reasoning:

This is mostly due to Chronos rune's interaction, as now with Focus Tuning being 1m there is little reason not to cast it twice per Chronos rune to have them detonate within 3 rounds. Another alternative is to have this cooldown only if a Chronos rune if affected by it, given it is the prime offender.

3. Haste Rune gets a 3 round cooldown.

Reasoning:

Haste rune lacking a cooldown means Rune Magician doesn't even need to invest in Skill or Hit whatsoever to deal its damage efficiently. Resulting in the optimal build being to dump all your points into defensive stats + WIL for damage.

4. Herons can no longer cast runes while silenced.

Reasoning:

Stacking runes is on par in power if not greater than invocations can be, possessing the same ability for extreme damage if given the momentum equivalent of a Charge Mind boosted invocation, while being much, much harder to stop compared to an invocation. There are multiple methods to cancel an invocation, whereas if you are facing a rune covered in smoke your only option is Air Pressure and against a Heron you can no longer stop them from casting runes without killing them outright.



While there may be other contentious points to Rune Magician as it stands these are the major problems with the class at the moment.

I don't expect that all my solutions are perfect but I hope it at least illustrates what's currently wrong with Rune Magician in how overbearing it is.

I will give a special mention to the fact that currently Rune Magician is, once you learn how to use it, extremely boring. There is no diversity in how they're built as they can buy literally all their SP's worth of skills without destiny, the only thing that changes is what flavor of explosion you make (which is usually going to be Sound or Acid due to how difficult those elements are to resist given the lack of 30% resist items for them, bar running Luminary to abuse one of the applicable elements for max damage instead, resists be damned). Though this would be more inline with overhauling the class entirely to address, right now I am only trying to fix what we currently have to be less oppressive.

[Poruku]

I haven't seen a rune mage in a long time. To me the main problem with the class has always been how uni-dimensional it is. Because of how it's designed, it's almost always the optimal play to just make a single massive rune with every effect possible and making it blow up on someone with evade ignore, phat damage, and a million statuses. There isn't really any kind of variety when it comes to building a custom rune because the only way to deal damage with the class is to do elemental rune with destruction and then you just slap extra stuff on there. Alternatively, you engrave runes into someone which is just some random effects that don't have any synergy with each other.

I think the class honestly needs an overhaul. And my biggest gripe remains that it looks really ugly. The runes are extremely pixelated when they're big and it just doesn't look good.

Instead perhaps people could make premade runes kinda like how you build custom tomes. Pre-determined effects with perhaps more focus on the "ground trap" aspect rather than "I'm gonna spool up my frisbee then launch it"

[renowner]

I find it pretty boring. Can't even steal the runes as a spellthief!
The new runic catalyst doesn't do too much to it either really. The issue of trying to use razor rune and such just as a bit of extra dps, to abuse the 2m runes is that you also go into mage, which suffers a lot if its not a normal casting tool anyway.

Class is strong, but I do find it boring.

[Snake]

Well, maybe the order where you stack your runes together could be what rules the class so you have at minimum 12x12 options to use Rune Magician.

But.

Do we really want Dev to spend half a year coding 144 interactions on Rune Magician without rolling his eyes on the fifth?

[FaeLenx]

I didn't think we'd see a rebalance thread on runemage of all things after the class got gutted. It wasn't even especially strong BEFORE it got gutted way back when.

[Autumn]

Mostly I think this thread addresses some of the more fundamental issues of rune mage, such as the counterplay vs it and the ease of access to evade ignoring shenanigans. A class doesn't have to have the most efficient DPS to still be a primary threat in any given scenario, that's what I think anyway.

I think Rune Mage is pretty strong, more notably, I think Haste Rune is really really strong.

[Senna]

I didn't think we'd see a rebalance thread on runemage of all things after the class got gutted. It wasn't even especially strong BEFORE it got gutted way back when.

Never plan on posting since Trex covered most of Rune's problem but let me enlighten you real quick.

Don’t confuse lack of play for weakness. It is very powerful from the start; a free win button even. It getting nerfed only gave it actual counter play. I’m sure you weren’t there before Beyblade got nerfed, where people would have just left battles as soon as they saw Swift Rune. Someone that understands how Rune works can easily work around said nerfs. For example?

• They don’t need to invest in skill stats if Haste exists; avoiding them is impossible. ‘Element, Destructive, A random rune for the moment if they're a tank, HASTE if they're evade, push.’ (200~300 damage per)
  

• They can choose a weapon with some type of hard to resist element. They’ll always do an unreasonable amount of damage. Example? Sound & Acid.
  

• Chronos rune, if you don’t rush the mage on the first turn with some options to remove smoke, you will die during or at the start of round three.
  

• Ignoring a Rune Mage in a fight? One Push with a Focus tuning of a stacked up Chronos which is easy and faster to stack due to the recent changes will delete you and your entire team.
  

Saying it got gutted and ‘is weak’ lets me know how you use Rune mage; someone that just makes a beyblade and pushes.

I shouldn’t be allowed to make something like this and get away with it. (PS: I can list every item used here, I choose not to as people can already guess)

That isn't even optimal. That's missing a lot of stats from youkais, the enchantment from mage as well as there being many other ways this could have been built correctly/effectively. This is even effective in PVE. The only thing this doesn't cover is clear speed.

Outside of that, yes, Trex and Amber are on to something. Runes need to be tuned down a bit. It is bland, yes, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t powerful.

[renowner]

Tuning rune mage down even further isn't exactly the way to go without giving them something in return. Its been losing more and more, and for half the time Korvara existed, straight up not working properly at all in the first place, and the class is already fairly lackluster to play.

Runes getting a complete overhaul would be ideal but that's probably so far off its not worth considering.

More damaging runes that maybe don't link with other runes, so they're like traps could be interesting.
Or rune buffs, that actually apply something to weapons, to make the new runic catalyst mean something a little more.
Something would be nice.

[firehawk11]

Maybe the Entire Class needs a redesign? However anything that takes multiple turns to set up is pretty low-fun to play on SL2. Setting sun max being 3 turns same with Hyattr firebreath. Rune magician following the same problem where optimal playstyle is slow for the ultimate beyblade of elements.

[FaeLenx]

Snip

A bunch of hypotheticals and yet you'll find any runemage who tries to employ these strategies will get opened up and spread out over a field by round 2. Also ignoring the fact that you can play stat pad with any class.

1: Ranger. A massive ranged combatant with a 90% chance of having invested in smasher that can outrange the runes and deal damage to face while you set them up.

2: Pretty much any curate promotion. Big, sudden damage does nothing when you're extremely limited on range and cooldowns yourself. They'll out heal your damage and either snipe you from a distance or just whittle you down if you don't have any self heal.

3: Monk. Body of isesip and step onto the rune that you just lovingly crafted.

4: Funny rock. Budget body of isesip.

5: Void assassin. You're dead well before round 3 if your plan is to wait until round 3 to do meaningful damage.

The list does go on.

The problem with the idea that a lack of play means a lack of power is that it's almost always untrue. The real statement is a 'lack of play usually means that people will only take the character or build out when it's safe to do so, such as when they know their enemies or can make a team composition to build around their strengths. Otherwise, builds that don't see a lot of general use are usually highly circumstantial and easily countered.'

And so many of Runemages counters got buffed and are more common while runemage itself got nerfed. It wasn't scary before its nerf, but it was a win condition if the enemy didn't have those counters. Now it's neither scary nor a win condition.