3 easy ways to fix Rune Caster

[rivayir]

Rune Caster has always been in an odd spot in the Wizard tree, as it’s one of the classes that received the least attention when it came to actual useful buffs while being one of the most unique classes out there.

Here are my 3 easy ways to fix Rune Caster and make it more attractive:

1. Give the Rune Caster: Skilled Casting attribute a +20%/+50% dmg effect
2. Turn the Rune of Giants into something useful
3. Rework Rune of Ice

1. The reduced casting time for Rune Caster skills this attribute has is fine, but it needs something more, so I would suggest that 1 stack also increases the damage of all Rune Caster skills by 20% while 2 stacks increases the damage of all Rune Caster skills by 50%.

2. All skills that can be used during Rune of Giants should have their cooldown reduced by 1 second per enemy killed by them in the Rune of Giants status. Additionally, all Wizard class attack skills that have a cooldown of 25 seconds or less should be usable during Rune of Giants and have the same cooldown reduction mechanic. Make away with the Rune of Giants > Earthquake synergy. It’s completely useless for endgame.

3. We really don’t need another mediocre, re-skinned Energy Bolt. Turn Rune of Ice into an Avalanche type ice magic spell that continuously damages enemies for a certain amount of time in a large area. It would be great, if it applied Slow as well and had some synergy with Cryomancer, Pyschokino and Sage skills as well.

[Fenatte]

Rune caster has some nice skills and an interesting concept in paying high casting times (or good skill management for cast speed reduction) to get high power skills.
The problem is that none of the runecaster skills are even remotely good.
Rune of destruction deals absolutely no damage, and the defense break effect of the skill is limited in all relevant content, they should just make it the AoE skill it used to be.
Rune of Ice is just plain up boring. Its a really boring filler skill used to upkeep skilled casting.
Rune of justice is nice, but you can just compare to rubric which is basically the same thing, but a channeled skill with much higher hitcount and lower cooldown. (Another comparison within the same tree could be electrocute, which casts a lot faster and deals extra hits vs multiple targets.)
Rune of Rock is a pretty cool skill, but not very strong when you compare it to something like meteor, which has a really powerful synergy with pyromancers skills and a very powerful arts attribute to further enhance it.
Both rune of protection and rune of giants are low impact skills, rune of giants being a gimmick skill and rune of protection just being plain up unnoticable in practice.
Rune caster only has 6 skills, and over half of them are either low tier, or just plain up useless.
I think runecaster needs both a rework of currently existing skills, and also need some new skills added to further cement its identity. Its cast time gimmick for high power does not show at all in their kit with how mediocre their skills are.

On another note. Runecaster just plain up doesnt have synergy with anything else in the wizard tree, except if you count chronomancers quickcast, but thats dumping your damage even harder.
In a class tree ridded with class synergies, not having any is very detrimental to its powerlevel. Terramancer had the same issue, but got some elementalist synergy, and also got a vaivora weapon to save it from terribleness.

[Tankhime]

As someone who still uses RC, I like your ideas.

I’m reasonably satisfied with Protection, Rock, and Justice personally, but Giants and Ice are both pretty bad and only really serve as QoL skills at best (Giants usage is obvious, but I use Lv1 Ice solely for quick-freezing some bosses) and both should really be better designed, and more useful.

The Skilled-Casting attribute idea is good.
RC is a mixed bag, but it leans toward capitalizing off of cast time skills in somewhat random ways. Changing it to RC skill damage makes more sense with their rotation (Protection/Filler RC skill/Ice -> Destruction -> Rock or Justice) imo.

With the release of the Gabija goddess set, I thought Ice Rune could be reworked to deal more damage with a shorter/0 cast time, and have a unique delayed freeze debuff (…that actually works on EVERY boss…) which freezes the enemy after a couple seconds, instead of immediately.
Since Gabija set rewards not being interrupted during casting, a delayed freeze could prove more useful in a caster’s kit.

I don’t have complaints about Protection Rune as a buff, it’s actually part of the reason I picked the class (knockback is putrid and disgusting, and Gazings really just don’t cut it for me) but Giants just… actually has no use outside of being fun to mess with, and to use for travel.
I really don’t see the reason why we shouldn’t be able to use all skills while buffed with it. And honestly… that feels like a baseline expectation for a skill to have, and even if you could, it still doesn’t feel like enough.

[lumo.aq]

personally i would like to delete RoI, bcz there’s no place for RC in an ice wiz build.

[Ginkegawa]

Ice seriously need rework, the use is really just for filler to keep skilled casting, or to keep some bosses in check (I use it as follow up after hail). The pre requisite for freeze can be hassle unless you’re in party play. And let’s admit it: the reason we all put point in it is because lv 1 protection and lv 4 giant is enough as the other is already maxed