Runeblades,

Caladbolg

Out of curiosity and seemingly useful information for everyone.

Runeblades What exactly do they do since the the ab's never give off all the info.

Pithakhan - Increases the ability of a weapon to break limbs, I haven't personally noticed a difference on my rapiers.

Nairat - Chill obviously. (Kinda curious if it's a level 2 chill or just a normal sense I see people concentrating alot when I break limbs.

Eihwaz - Hides the venom obviously.

Hugalaz - Damage (Anyone know the damage calulation on Hugalaz?)

Aerek

You've got most of it there. I don't know the exact percentages or formulas, but can offer some extra trivia and opinions:

Pithakhan is a chance to deal another 'hit' from that weapon against the limb when it fires. No actual damage dealt, just limb damage, the same amount that the weapon would normally do. The fact that it's just a chance is why it doesn't get used. If they're at 11 and break on 14, you don't want an unlucky Pithakhan proc to break that limb when you only meant to prep it.

Nairat is 2 levels of cold, so takes you to shivering if you have caloric, or will freeze you solid if you don't. Some people try to bypass parry with this, I find that idea way too unreliable to spend time on. Don't know the proc rate, but I'm pretty sure this one has a higher chance than any other.

Eihwaz masks the venom like Loki. I don't know what the proc rate is, but it's not enough to justify general use, in my opinion. That said, I still recommend it to Knights who don't use rapiers, (on the right-hand weapon, only) because it's often the only way they have to really "stick" venoms.

Hugalaz, as far as I can tell, deals the weapon's full damage again, but in cold damage, which ignores armor, which is why it hurts so much. Objectively speaking, I think it's the best option. Pithakhan can hurt your prepwork, Nairat and Eihwaz can be nice but won't always hit when you want/need them, but extra damage from Hugalaz is never a bad thing. The proc chance was 3% last I knew, but don't quote me on that one.

Caladbolg

Aerek said:

You've got most of it there. I don't know the exact percentages or formulas, but can offer some extra trivia and opinions:

Pithakhan is a chance to deal another 'hit' from that weapon against the limb when it fires. No actual damage dealt, just limb damage, the same amount that the weapon would normally do. The fact that it's just a chance is why it doesn't get used. If they're at 11 and break on 14, you don't want an unlucky Pithakhan proc to break that limb when you only meant to prep it.

Nairat is 2 levels of cold, so takes you to shivering if you have caloric, or will freeze you solid if you don't. Some people try to bypass parry with this, I find that idea way too unreliable to spend time on. Don't know the proc rate, but I'm pretty sure this one has a higher chance than any other.

Eihwaz masks the venom like Loki. I don't know what the proc rate is, but it's not enough to justify general use, in my opinion. That said, I still recommend it to Knights who don't use rapiers, (on the right-hand weapon, only) because it's often the only way they have to really "stick" venoms.

Hugalaz, as far as I can tell, deals the weapon's full damage again, but in cold damage, which ignores armor, which is why it hurts so much. Objectively speaking, I think it's the best option. Pithakhan can hurt your prepwork, Nairat and Eihwaz can be nice but won't always hit when you want/need them, but extra damage from Hugalaz is never a bad thing. The proc chance was 3% last I knew, but don't quote me on that one.

Personally I find Eihwaz Procing alot along with Nairat. Pithakhan makes more sense I was thinking it was a random chance to shrivel a random limb.. in it's current state.. Pretty useless

Ernam

I have a good classlead saved up for Pithakhan.  

Exelethril

Would be nice if Pithakhan just raised overall limb damage(AKA no proc rate) without affecting the weapon damage. Maybe by 10-20% to make it viable.

Cooper

Runewardens should be using nairat right now unless they are going for flat dsl damage on low health opponents.

Nairat + epteth/epseth spam is basically a free fight against anyone that requires both their arms to attack, is a major hinderance to most other classes and has massive parry bypass.

Aerek

You get to bypass parry if they cure crippled limbs before frozen, but the only people I see doing that are using default Svo prios. I guess that is a fair chunk of the population, but I think there are more efficient ways to bypass parry on those people. The folks who have been smart enough to avoid my other parry bypasses also cure frozen over crippled limbs, which is why I've never found it reliable. I'll try it again for a while and see what happens.

Caladbolg

Aerek said:

You get to bypass parry if they cure crippled limbs before frozen, but the only people I see doing that are using default Svo prios. I guess that is a fair chunk of the population, but I think there are more efficient ways to bypass parry on those people. The folks who have been smart enough to avoid my other parry bypasses also cure frozen over crippled limbs, which is why I've never found it reliable. I'll try it again for a while and see what happens.

Wouldn't that make it alot easier to vivisect someone if they cured frozen over shrivel?

Cooper

It sure would!

Good luck freezing someone as an Infernal, though :P

Caladbolg

Cooper said:

It sure would!

Good luck freezing someone as an Infernal, though :P

Well I was thinking the gauntlets that give deep freeze on use + talisman might make it feasible especially if you break head first with shrivel/arms then freeze then break legs. assuming that a level 2 will require two applies. which is two seconds of slave balance + the head break would end up into a 6 second off slave balance thing, which if your dsl is 1.6..

0.0 Break head + shrivel arms
1.6 Freeze
3.2 Break arm + shrivel legs (restore)
4.0 Head is healed.
4.8 Break arm shrivel legs
5.0 Frozen is healed
6.4 Vivisect.
6.0 Frozen is healed

At least in theory. and assuming the equib on deepfreeze is 2.0 although you techinally have enough room for it to be 2.2...

Actually
0.0 Break head + shrivel arms
1.6 Break arm + Shrivel legs (restore)
3.2 Break arm + Shrivel legs
4.0 Head is healed.
4.8 Vivisect

So freeze isn't even really needed... why am I not an infernal?

Aerek

Yeah, freeze is definitely unnecessary for Vivisect. Everyone who can be one should be one. I always assume Runewardens in Mhaldor were pressured into it for hunting runes and totem work.

Kaden

Yeaaaaaaah, the equilibrium on deepfreeze is definitely not 2. It's either 4 or 5 seconds unmodified (don't remember which right now).

Antonius

@Caladbolg in that second scenario you have .8 seconds to apply mending to legs to avoid vivisect, so not really as easy as you want to make it sound.

Plus applying to arms before head, and shielding before they recover balance from the doubleslash, throwing out a web if they don't have buckawns, some other form of hinder depending on class.

If you're planning on letting them stay standing for your vivisect attempt you're doing it very very wrong. 

Kaden

Okay, deepfreeze is 4 seconds unmodified.

Jovolo

You also only stripped caloric in that hypothesis assuming <freeze tar>

Freeze very unimportant. Infernals/Apostates get it innately via Chill anyway, but that's more for disrupt than salve attacking.

Cooper

People cure Infernals differently.

In pretty much every 1v1 scenario possible you should apply mending before restoration against an Infernal. Vivisect is easy to avoid as long as you know the theory behind it.

Jovolo

That's not totally true, you're right in the instance of being off equilibrium, which is a staple of curing against vivisect. Initially though, and before the restore (and when you recover equilibrium from restoring) you definitely want to apply restoration first. 

a) this makes it very difficult to rift-lock obviously, as they can't hide broken arms underneath epseth/epseth dsl's by the time they set you up to restore. 

b) if an infernal is fast enough, they can almost definitely four-limb partially damage you for an "unstoppable" vivisect if you apply mending before restoration. 

That's pretty much the be-all end-all of preventing vivisect, not including obvious truly unstoppable ones if you dsl x3 inside restoration balance which needs to be looked at in the next season of classleads or it might be resolved with Knight changes, so.

People will cure differently depending on the situation and there is no 100% way to cure best (like if they mix it up and throw in a shatter, or try to disembowel you off of it, or rift-lock or pipe-lock or whatever then your defensive strategy will need to change to cover that), but that's the idea of preventing a standard vivisect optimally as well as mitigating any potential alternative tactics during it, something vivisect is very good at opening up. Also a reason why it's so awesome!

Aelios

Aerek said:

You've got most of it there. I don't know the exact percentages or formulas, but can offer some extra trivia and opinions:

Pithakhan is a chance to deal another 'hit' from that weapon against the limb when it fires. No actual damage dealt, just limb damage, the same amount that the weapon would normally do. The fact that it's just a chance is why it doesn't get used. If they're at 11 and break on 14, you don't want an unlucky Pithakhan proc to break that limb when you only meant to prep it.

This of ALL reasons is the biggest reason to NOT use this Rune. Its effect is 100% backwards to everything you could ever need from Runewarden offense. A limbprep class can not use unreliable bonus hits that might break your ever-so-valuable prep.

Nairat is 2 levels of cold, so takes you to shivering if you have caloric, or will freeze you solid if you don't. Some people try to bypass parry with this, I find that idea way too unreliable to spend time on. Don't know the proc rate, but I'm pretty sure this one has a higher chance than any other.

The best of the bunch! 

Nairat's bonus isn't that it's cold (although that's pretty sweet) -- It's that it is a salve balance. That means that if you proc on a break of any sort, they're going to have to choose to either Freeze and cure a limb, or apply caloric and have a broken limb. This, like @Cooper said, becomes absolutely gross when you use it with any sub-2 second DSL rapier set and Epteth/Epseth. Eventually one of two things is going to happen. 

Either A : They'll become frozen solid and no longer able to parry.

Or B : They'll cure the freeze and get way behind on mending cures, leaving arms and legs broken and no longer able to parry.

It's entirely momentum based, so once you get ahead of it, prep the parried limb!

Eihwaz masks the venom like Loki. I don't know what the proc rate is, but it's not enough to justify general use, in my opinion. That said, I still recommend it to Knights who don't use rapiers, (on the right-hand weapon, only) because it's often the only way they have to really "stick" venoms.

Server side ignores this. Eihwaz no longer works, wasn't mentioned in the last class lead as I didn't get a chance to submit it, (work and all) and is still broken.

Hugalaz, as far as I can tell, deals the weapon's full damage again, but in cold damage, which ignores armor, which is why it hurts so much. Objectively speaking, I think it's the best option. Pithakhan can hurt your prepwork, Nairat and Eihwaz can be nice but won't always hit when you want/need them, but extra damage from Hugalaz is never a bad thing. The proc chance was 3% last I knew, but don't quote me on that one.

Hugalaz (from my tests) has a Proc rate that has something to do with attacks per minute. If I understand correctly, the faster the DSL, the less change of a Proc. This is why a few people used to roll with the slowest, and highest damage battleaxes they could find. Unless you're going for LOLWarden (Thurisaz x4, Hugalaz, Curare/Prefarar DSL's on loop + Hugalaz weapon runes) - don't use it. Versus the alternative, its fairly weak. That's not to say it's not effective, but that it simply won't be a game changer unless you intend on damaging someone out. 

It's far more effective with Soul Piercers, as your damage with Mastery, Fury, Hugalaz weapon runes, and empowered Soul Piercers becomes disgusting.

Edit and Comments in Bold. Enjoy!

Antonius

@Aelios: "Server side ignores this. Eihwaz no longer works, wasn't mentioned in the last class lead as I didn't get a chance to submit it, (work and all) and is still broken."

That's not a classlead change, that's a bug with server side curing. File a BUG for it.

Aelios

It's been submit before, and has just been again.

Caladbolg

Antonius said:

@Caladbolg in that second scenario you have .8 seconds to apply mending to legs to avoid vivisect, so not really as easy as you want to make it sound.

Plus applying to arms before head, and shielding before they recover balance from the doubleslash, throwing out a web if they don't have buckawns, some other form of hinder depending on class.

If you're planning on letting them stay standing for your vivisect attempt you're doing it very very wrong. 

Gravehands helps alot, assuming they don't earring/evade in that suitation your going off gravehands only stopping them once, and once they restore there is no running but yeah I was off on my example, but can work it out, that was just an off the top of my head thing.

Carbine

I'm a bit confused at this post. It seems like some of you are mixing up Infernals and Runewardens. Is there gauntlets that give freeze? Farkin sweet if there is. I wanna get some.

As far as Pithakhen goes, when I first went Runehound, I was told not to ever use it because it didn't work. Ofcourse, I tried it eventually, and I didn't notice a difference in breaks and there is nothing visual to tell you if it worked in the first place. Like a few runes, I assume it's bugged.

Eihwaz disguises a venom now and then.

Hugalaz calls on a hailstorm from time to time and adds some more damage (Ill leave that to you tell how much)

Nairat you're all correct on. Affects your balance.

Ultimately, the effects of the runes are not linear. They are a percentage based algorithm that if you'd like to spend half an hour calculating then happy days. A better question would be, why don't some runes work? Like the weirdness of kena, or mannaz on a totem, or pithakhen as mentioned above.   

Caladbolg

Carbine said:

I'm a bit confused at this post. It seems like some of you are mixing up Infernals and Runewardens. Is there gauntlets that give freeze? Farkin sweet if there is. I wanna get some.

As far as Pithakhen goes, when I first went Runehound, I was told not to ever use it because it didn't work. Ofcourse, I tried it eventually, and I didn't notice a difference in breaks and there is nothing visual to tell you if it worked in the first place. Like a few runes, I assume it's bugged.

Eihwaz disguises a venom now and then.

Hugalaz calls on a hailstorm from time to time and adds some more damage (Ill leave that to you tell how much)

Nairat you're all correct on. Affects your balance.

Ultimately, the effects of the runes are not linear. They are a percentage based algorithm that if you'd like to spend half an hour calculating then happy days. A better question would be, why don't some runes work? Like the weirdness of kena, or mannaz on a totem, or pithakhen as mentioned above.   

I think the artifact is called bracers of frost, allows you to cast deepfreeze.

Other wise I think Achaea has to many skills (even though it's one of our big things we talk about) that are generally useless in almost every situation, (Immunity, Stand firm ext ext)

Eld

Aerek said:

Hugalaz, as far as I can tell, deals the weapon's full damage again, but in cold damage, which ignores armor, which is why it hurts so much. Objectively speaking, I think it's the best option. Pithakhan can hurt your prepwork, Nairat and Eihwaz can be nice but won't always hit when you want/need them, but extra damage from Hugalaz is never a bad thing. The proc chance was 3% last I knew, but don't quote me on that one.

Are you sure it's cold damage? I'd thought it was blunt, same as the ground rune. Not sure about the proc rate, but definitely low - 3% sounds like the right ballpark.

Sena

Hugalaz (both the ground rune and runeblade) was originally blunt, then was changed to cold, then at some point after that the ground rune was doing blunt again while the runeblade was still cold, and I think there was another change/bug with one of them after that. Just going by announce posts though, cold is the intended damage type.

Eld

Sena said:

Hugalaz (both the ground rune and runeblade) was originally blunt, then was changed to cold, then at some point after that the ground rune was doing blunt again while the runeblade was still cold, and I think there was another change/bug with one of them after that. Just going by announce posts though, cold is the intended damage type.

Good to know. Actually, now that I think of it, the reason I knew the proc rate on the runeblade was so low was from testing whether it was affected by the blunt damage icon tuning, and I think the result was that it wasn't (though we might have just gotten bored and given up before getting it to proc a second time).

Achilles

Caladbolg said:

Carbine said:

I'm a bit confused at this post. It seems like some of you are mixing up Infernals and Runewardens. Is there gauntlets that give freeze? Farkin sweet if there is. I wanna get some.

As far as Pithakhen goes, when I first went Runehound, I was told not to ever use it because it didn't work. Ofcourse, I tried it eventually, and I didn't notice a difference in breaks and there is nothing visual to tell you if it worked in the first place. Like a few runes, I assume it's bugged.

Eihwaz disguises a venom now and then.

Hugalaz calls on a hailstorm from time to time and adds some more damage (Ill leave that to you tell how much)

Nairat you're all correct on. Affects your balance.

Ultimately, the effects of the runes are not linear. They are a percentage based algorithm that if you'd like to spend half an hour calculating then happy days. A better question would be, why don't some runes work? Like the weirdness of kena, or mannaz on a totem, or pithakhen as mentioned above.   

I think the artifact is called bracers of frost, allows you to cast deepfreeze.

Other wise I think Achaea has to many skills (even though it's one of our big things we talk about) that are generally useless in almost every situation, (Immunity, Stand firm ext ext)

Stand firm actually isn't that useless, you can stand firm and implant (or maybe its uproot) a totem.  Essentially a ghetto shackles for one specific purpose.

Alaskar

Is stand firm anything like grounding? Cause grounding and blocking is awesome. 

Caladbolg

Achilles said:

Caladbolg said:

Carbine said:

I'm a bit confused at this post. It seems like some of you are mixing up Infernals and Runewardens. Is there gauntlets that give freeze? Farkin sweet if there is. I wanna get some.

As far as Pithakhen goes, when I first went Runehound, I was told not to ever use it because it didn't work. Ofcourse, I tried it eventually, and I didn't notice a difference in breaks and there is nothing visual to tell you if it worked in the first place. Like a few runes, I assume it's bugged.

Eihwaz disguises a venom now and then.

Hugalaz calls on a hailstorm from time to time and adds some more damage (Ill leave that to you tell how much)

Nairat you're all correct on. Affects your balance.

Ultimately, the effects of the runes are not linear. They are a percentage based algorithm that if you'd like to spend half an hour calculating then happy days. A better question would be, why don't some runes work? Like the weirdness of kena, or mannaz on a totem, or pithakhen as mentioned above.   

I think the artifact is called bracers of frost, allows you to cast deepfreeze.

Other wise I think Achaea has to many skills (even though it's one of our big things we talk about) that are generally useless in almost every situation, (Immunity, Stand firm ext ext)

Stand firm actually isn't that useless, you can stand firm and implant (or maybe its uproot) a totem.  Essentially a ghetto shackles for one specific purpose.

Must've been changed, last time I tried it broke on basically anything.. actually I think I was infernal last time I tried it..

Darklyre

Question - how do runeblades work? Do weapon runes (Laguz, Lagua, proc runes like Nairat/Eihwaz/Hugalaz) only work if the weapon is empowered? Can you empower both weapons, or just one? Also, does empowering a weapon extend the amount of time the rune stays active (the way body runes work longer for runies than other classes)?

Kenway

Darklyre said:

Question - how do runeblades work? Do weapon runes (Laguz, Lagua, proc runes like Nairat/Eihwaz/Hugalaz) only work if the weapon is empowered? Can you empower both weapons, or just one? Also, does empowering a weapon extend the amount of time the rune stays active (the way body runes work longer for runies than other classes)?

Lagua Laguz and Lagul only take effect when the weapon is empowered. The empowerment lasts 30 days. Nairat Hugalaz etc can only be sketched on empowered weapons and never fade till they're smudged or the weapon loses the empowerment. You can empower both weapons and sketch a different rune on each.