Questions from a somewhat new Runie

Adrak

So, I recently moved over from another IRE game, retiring my character in the process. I've been just casually playing lately, but I'm now ready to dive a bit more into the game since I have the ability to invest more time. I currently love just the idea of Runewarden from a thematic perspective, and I really want to remain as this class. My questions are, how viable is it in the mid-top range tier of pvp? I understand that most classes can do well based on their user, but I certainly doubt that I'll ever be the greatest master of Achaean combat. I'd simply like to reach a respectable level. 

My next question is what specialization would everyone recommend? I'm currently SnB for bashing, but I'm looking to possibly change to another in the near future when I hit the 85-90 level range. I don't really have a style preference for any of them, and I'm simply looking for what would probably be the most effective.

Lastly, I'm still sitting on most of the credits from my retirement, and I'm unsure of how to spend them. I have around 3900 to deal with. So far, I set aside 1600 for artefact weapons, (Either a single level 3 or 2x Level 2). I still need to trans Riding, Survival, and Chivalry. That'll be another 600 credits or so after I get the lessons packages. That'll leave me with around 1700 credits free at the moment. My current stats after class boosts are 17 str, 12 dex, 14 con, 10 intelligence.

Armali

I think vision up to alertness, tattoos up until you get the second slot, tri-trans class skills, and then trans Avoidance and Weaponry are good. Ring of flight, Shield of Absorption if you can use it. I personally like 3 pipes too, but your call.

Runewarden is solid mechanically and has no major weaknesses. You should be able to win against any class. Certain specs are stronger than others -- I personally think dwc might be the weakest of the four specs, however.

Xaden

Armali said:

Certain specs are stronger than others -- I personally think dwc might be the weakest of the four specs, however.

Now they tell me!

Seriously though, DWC is great fun to play. @Anedhel swears by DWC runie if I'm not mistaken (though he plays a mix of DWC / 2H Pally mostly).

Anedhel

DWC's super hardcore if you can afford level 1's at least (pretty beastly with higher level weapons and decent strength). It's one of the more expensive specs, though. 

Antonius

Not sure what Armali is on about, to be honest. DWC Runewarden is crazy powerful when played right.

I'd choose it over both two handed and sword and shield.

Armali

It could be just my perspective, coming from pure momentum - the DWC's I've fought, whether Paladin, Infernal, or Runie, have all been far less threatening than their 2h or SnB or DwB counterparts. 2H and Dwb would flat out out damage me, and SnB prep feels a lot quicker, because they can break off one limb / torso instead of needing two legs / torso.

Xaden

Armali said:

It could be just my perspective, coming from pure momentum - the DWC's I've fought, whether Paladin, Infernal, or Runie, have all been far less threatening than their 2h or SnB or DwB counterparts. 2H and Dwb would flat out out damage me, and SnB prep feels a lot quicker, because they can break off one limb / torso instead of needing two legs / torso.

Ah yeah, but SnB requires six billion and two hits to break at any respectable health level.

Antonius

Armali said:

It could be just my perspective, coming from pure momentum - the DWC's I've fought, whether Paladin, Infernal, or Runie, have all been far less threatening than their 2h or SnB or DwB counterparts. 2H and Dwb would flat out out damage me, and SnB prep feels a lot quicker, because they can break off one limb / torso instead of needing two legs / torso.

Sword and shield prep is really slow. They might only need the two bodyparts, but DWC can normally prep the three that it needs in the same time, if not quicker, and actually truly benefits from weapon runes (dual cutting Pithakhan can be rough) to work towards an alternative method of killing you. Sword and shield has some cheesy ways to work around parrying if it can't sustain enough momentum to stick nausea, though, which dual cutting lacks, so depending on how much you can stifle their offense it may seem like they prep faster. Dual cutting Runewarden can just forego targetting and mana drain into a focus lock, though.

Two-handed and dual blunt ability to just straight outdamage opponents starts to fade when they're fighting people who are higher level, have more artefacts or are certain classes. I generally rate a specialisation based on its ability to kill everybody, not just those with ~4k health. Dual blunt gets rated highly because Pulp is a great method of killing regardless of the opponent's health, and I imagine combining flails with Hugalaz would be hilarious on people who aren't quite so tanky.

Armali

It really is. Like half my health hilarious.

Adrak

@Antonius So how would you rank the specializations in terms of viability at the higher health limits? I'll probably end out trying multiple ways before I buy an artie weapon. It's a shame that you can't exchange weapons when you change to a different specialization.

In terms of other artefacts, I did some digging and went with a lvl 1 belt and bracelet for now to help with hunting.

Antonius

As it currently stands, I'd personally rank them:
1. Dual blunt
2. Dual cutting
3. Sword and shield
4. Two handed

Two handed doesn't really have much going for it that's not straight damage, and that becomes less effective the tankier your opponent is, especially if they're good at keeping an eye on torso damage to avoid really dangerous disembowels.

Sword and shield might be higher if the prep wasn't so damn long, and that just gets worse the higher health your opponent has. It's a solid spec, but it sort of suffers from the problem dual cutting did pre-Weaponmastery (when it was the only style of knight): your opponent gets so many opportunities to kill you before you're in a position to kill them.

Dual cutting is, and always has been, solid, especially since the Runelore changes. Pithakhan allows for interesting options in how you approach kills that aren't focused around disembowel, and having a lot of health matters less if you're unable to sip or eat irid moss/potash.

Dual blunt is particularly powerful right now because most people have little, or no, experience fighting them, meaning easy pulps if you can get the prep and momentum requirements sorted out. There's not a lot of moving parts involved so it's also pretty easy to pick up and become reasonably competent with. Major downside is the total lack of hinder from your offense (barring arm breaks, which aren't always available exactly when you need them), which means it can suffer against classes that are hinder heavy themselves. If you can't get pulp on somebody, though, it may not have the damage to kill them, which I'd say would push it below dual cutting.

Puxi

@Antonius Would you still rank specs in this order today?

Antonius

Not a lot has changed since, so probably. Most people still have no clue how to fight dual blunt or the health to try things defensively that require you to spend more time prone. Dual cutting is still solid, especially with the recent Nairat change. Sword and shield still has crazy long prep (in comparison to dual blunt and dual cutting), though it's more powerful than dual cutting once you have that prep, and has better/faster options if you ignore limb prep entirely.

I'll admit that I'm slightly biased against two-handed because I just don't enjoy the spec (it's too slow for me, personally, though I'm sure a lot of people enjoy it for that reason), but I also feel like it can and does struggle when you're fighting more artied opponents if they can lay a lot of hinder on you from their own offense. I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with my rankings, though.

Nazihk

Antonius said:

'll admit that I'm slightly biased against two-handed because I just don't enjoy the spec (it's too slow for me, personally, though I'm sure a lot of people enjoy it for that reason)

Two-handed is attractive to a lot of people because it has decent kill power while being fairly slow paced and easy to track without a system. The lack of affliction tracking and stacking and such means that it has a very light coding burden while still being competitive in most scenarios. So that's a big point in favor of it.

The other major point in its favor is that it has the best artifact efficiency by far. A pair of L1 scimitars is almost as much as an L2 bastard. A pair of L2 scims is the price of an L3 2h. And DWB is even worse on this front because it actually uses both of its style weapons so you'd want two sets. This latter point is why I changed from DWB to 2h, myself; I wasn't sure how many retirement credits I was bringing here and 2h is way easier to budget for.

Puxi

Don't you only use Morningstars for PvP as DWB?

Antonius

No. It really depends who you're fighting and what you're going for.

If you're going for pulp, you'll use morningstars because you need the speed to make the execution work. However, depending on how they cure, you might switch to flails to punish them delaying curing legs by (attempting to) mangle right leg and damage them out while they're kept prone.

If you know they're squishy (and when you're talking about dual blunt, most people fall under the umbrella of "squishy"), you might just ignore morningstars entirely and try to damage them out with flails.

Puxi

Still attempting to decide what spec I want to go. Spent the past few days as 2h and I like it. Probably my will try DWB next.