I’m always blown away when I bring out the Rune-keeper, or any DPS for that matter really, with how easy it is to drop a mob. It’s astonishing to me how quickly things can die when you play a class that’s actually meant to do damage! Before I met my wife, I purely played DPS and utility classes; never a tank. When she met me though, I had discovered how much I loved tanking so she’s never really seen me in that role before, except for a brief time in WoW. And granted, I’m very much out-of-practice, but thankfully thanks to my weekly group I’m getting the hang of being more proactive than a reactive player; making DPS all the more familiar. But even if I didn’t have my group to help me along, nothing will encourage you to blow up mobs like playing a Rune-keeper.
Levels 30 – 40 give you some nice utility skills with Abrupt Words and Weapon of Storm. Using either one of them has its own drawback, but on the whole they round out a Rune-keepers abilities quite well. It’s not hard to see why the Rune-keeper class gives the Hunter class a run for its money when it comes to popularity. Nice healing abilities, great DPS capabilities, some nice utility skills and some amazing skill graphics make for a good player experience. And even though the new patch was a bit unsettling for some players, most have found that despite having to switch chisels or re-arrange their skill rotation they’re still doing really well.
Personally I’m not comfortable dolling out any real advice. In the character select screen the Rune-keeper is listed as one of the advanced classes, and I tend to agree. Or rather, maybe “easy to play, difficult to master” is a better description for the class? There is a definite design for the class and using certain skills in certain orders will produce a higher amount of DPS than just pushing buttons, which has been my primary form of play on this character until recently. Also, with the previously mentioned changes, I can’t say with total accuracy what skills I was using will still work as they once did. My advice would be to look over on the Turbine or Codemasters forums and see what the more experienced people are saying.
Rune-keeper skills Levels 30 – 38
| Skill | Skill Effect | Opinion | Level Obtained |
Abrupt Words |
An immediate skill that interrupts inductions.
Attunes: 1 |
Any interrupt is a good interrupt, but unfortunately for me I usually forget to use this skill. I know that I have it, I just forget where it is and then to activate it. | 30 |
Sustaining Bolt |
High damage & cost skill with a 30 second cooldown (which can be reduced with the Fury of Storm 4 Trait Set Bonus) that also decreases your power usage by 10% for 15 seconds. It’s power usage can be reduced to zero with a Chisel of Lightning.
Attunes: 1 |
This is a new skill that came with the November Update, so I wasn’t able to test it out, but it looks interesting. I’m not sure I’d be hot about switching my chisels if necessary, but it depends on how potent a skill I find it to be in my playstyle. | 30 |
Frozen Epilogue |
An AoE attack that can place several de-buffs on a Maximum of 5 targets within 15 meters in front of the Rune-keeper. It can increase skill inductions and attack duration for 20 seconds; and decrease its incoming healing modifier and increase their power cost for 30 seconds. Attunes: 1 |
I really love this skill’s animation and it’s a lot of fun to cast, however I can’t say that when I run solo that I’m usually in a position to use it very often. However, when it hits it does a really good job and the debuffs are nice if they hit. In a solo situation though, there’s not much cause to use it most of the time other than for fun. | 32 |
Weapon of Storm/Winter/Flame |
A toggled Fellowship buff that allows a player to debuff a target’s resistance to Lightning, Cold, or Fire. What debuff is applied depends on the rune-stone equipped by the Rune-keeper.
Attunes: 1 |
This skill fairly decent, but mostly because every debuff to resistances is a good one. The down side is that the toggle seems to be designed so that it falls off when you sneeze. If you’re stunned, mezzed, too far away, or even mount your horse the skill turns off and will have to be toggled on once again. | 34 |
Essence of Flame |
Deals initial Fire damage and then additional fire damage every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. It does an additional 20% damage for every tier of Writ of Fire on the target.
Attunes: 1 |
Stacking Writ of Fires became a very obvious strategy with this skill. However, getting attuned to 6 Battle isn’t always convenient when you’re in a solo situation. However, when you can stack 3 Writs of Fire and then drop this on a mob it’s amazing how quickly it will drop. It’s a ton of fun to use, but it’s more of a group/multiple mob/chain pull skill because of the attunement requirements. | 36 |
Flurry of Words |
An AoE attack that deals Cold damage and reduces their chance to Evade.
Attunes: 1 |
This isn’t my favorite skill because its base is around yourself and I’d rather not be in the thick of things with this character. Although it does reduce reduce a mob’s chance to Evade and therefore is useful, I never thought it was all that great. | 38 |
December 15, 2010 at 2:24 pm
I looooooove my RK. It’s such a fun class, and if things get to be too much for me and my tissue paper armour to handle, it’s not that hard to swap over to healing and save myself from a sticky situation. Abrupt words will become even more useful when you get into Moria because at level 52 (I think) it gets an upgrade that also lets you remove 3 corruptions with it.
December 15, 2010 at 4:13 pm
I like the sound of that quite a bit!
December 15, 2010 at 2:27 pm
nice pic btw.
December 15, 2010 at 2:52 pm
My most recent altoholism has been an RK. They are a great class. I was wondering what some more advanced RKs would say about a few items. Some of the skills, have really long inductions and don’t seem very helpful when soloing.
Also, since the class is a true glass cannon, and can do amazing dps, but not really take too many hits. I have been building my virtues to max, armor and melee defense rating. I think I am running Empathy, Honesty, Loyalty, Innocence and Zeal. Just curious about thoughts on that build. Hoping to improve my will and fate with gear and food (since I am cook)
December 15, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Weapon of Storm/etc comes in handy when in group situations (as do many of the debuff/etc skills) because you can put it on an ally (hopefully a champ, but maybe a captain if necessary) and have THEM apply the debuff while you stand back and fire from afar.
Oh and frozen epilogue is pretty handy later on (I started using it fairly often at least in Moria and since), esp against when you get multiple pulls or adds, to help slow down incoming hits, enabling you to actually fire off some of your more potent skills or just reduce damage (the best thing about the skill is that it instantly brings the writ of frost debuff up to T3, without any induction!)
December 16, 2010 at 9:33 am
Would love to see a Rune-Keeper Round-table from CSTM.