Yea first I know no one bothers anymore about rune caster skills aside from ice but reading some dev insights about them buffing skills from a class they’re even supposed to keep mum about made me think that this is a topic still worth discussing about. Even in a meta where only three builds of the wizard class exist, I still have faith that there is still an audience willing to discuss changes about a skill used more in towns than anywhere else. But enough rambling and let’s get to the point.
As with the recent balance talks lately, rune of giants will allow wizard skills, along with the previously enabled runecaster skills, to be used while under the buff. The problem, however, is that these buffs are not enough to push rune of giants into viability. This is because:
- Rune of giants is a defensive buff - Its description says it all. HP and def bonus. Movement speed bonus. It all screams “buff for tanks”, yet the changes to rune of giants encourages rune casters to be on the offensive. Which brings me to the next point:
- Rune caster is a red class - And red class means an offensive class, going by the trend that IMC goes with class icons. As of now, all meta rune casters are built to dish out the most dps as possible, which usually means casting every skill as soon as it finishes its cooldown. Right now, both rune caster and wizard offensive skills have fallen way off the dps chart, so if rune of giants were to be patched today, will using only wiz and rc skills for at most 150 seconds be enough for the rune caster to not fall off the dps rankings, for a defensive buff which he does never need?
This is why rune of giants fall into a weird spot. It is a tank buff in a what is supposed to be an offensive class. Because of this, I’d like to discuss some suggestions which can help push the viability of this weird skill.
- Remove skill restrictions from rune of giants altogether. That’s it, the easiest fix. Rune of giants provides no dps at all, just an defense buff. Better than ein sof? Well it has an 8 second casting with a 500 silver barrier, so it should be. But if it’s too op for other classes, then just remove skill restrictions of all ranks of the wizard tree. This is from the assumption I got that the “wizard skills” IMC talked about only referred to the wizard circle skills (qc, mm, etc), so if I got it wrong, then scrap this suggestion. But kindly consider the next ones:
- Probably the most far reaching one. Revamp the whole rune of giants skill a la Druid c3 werewolf transformation. Instead of restricting skills, have them use a new set of skills that can still dps at the same time. Give them a giant punch, a giant kick, or a boss grapple skill. Go crazy with the skills, IMC. Of course this would mean that the giants buff shouldn’t have a 100% uptime, so some tweaks on the duration/cd should be done too.
- An easier fix than #2, and may be the most flavorful imo. Buff rune caster and wizard skills by a significant multiplier (200-500%) while under giants buff . If those are not enough, give an overall matk buff along with the defense buffs. Again, this shouldn’t have a 100% uptime. This skill can be similar to the ice-iw-pp combo, giving a quick, yet unreliable, dps burst option through rune caster skills.
IMO, even the rune caster buffs from the ktos patch a month ago isn’t enough to make all the non-cryo kino builds viable dps. IMC should focus on increasing overall board damage of rc skills instead of cd reduction. Nevertheless, I appreciate the approaches that IMC takes with regards to balance, though I hope it could be quicker.
