Thread: Changes to the RKs

Originally Posted by Sapience

Rune-keeper

• Writs – All Writs (Frost, Flame, and Health) now have no attunement requirements. They can be used at all times!
• Master of Writs - This skill has been removed from the game.
• Affinity – Affinity has been removed from all rune-stones. Affinity skills are now modified by the elements of the previously used skill. Affinity will persist outside combat. EX: Armour of Storm will change to Armour of Flame when Fiery Ridicule is used. It will become Armour of Frost if you use Chilling Rhetoric.
• Calming Verse - This skill has been reworked. The two Linnod traits no longer enhance it. It now reduces perceived threat by 25% (which will drop some agro momentarily) and reduces power costs of all skills by 10%. These bonuses will last for 10 seconds. Each of the four traitlines now has a 4-set bonus that will further enhance the trait.
• Frost Skills - Global power cost reduction on all Frost skills.
• Weapon of Storm/Frost/Flame - These skills have been substantially changed; they are now healing skills and have been re-named to "Rune-sign of X". 1 second induction, 30 second cooldown, requires 6 healing attunement, applies a small heal over time to an ally and a buff depending on what your current Affinity is. Improved Rune-sign applies an enhanced buff (listed after the / below)

Lightning - Increases critical rating / flat critical bonus
Fire - Finesse / reduced miss chance
Ice - Physical and Tactical Mastery / % bonus damage

Lightning

Old Set Bonuses

• 2 Equipped:
• Chilling Rhetoric useable at all Attunements and -10s Cooldown
• 3 Equipped:
• +25% Fury of Storm Critical Multiplier
• -5 Shocking Words Cooldown
• 4 Equipped:
• Occasionally become Charged, granting increased critical damage making Sustaining Bolt free.
• +40% Sustaining Bolt damage
• +2% lightning damage for each Solitary Thunder trait equipped

New set Bonuses

• 2 Equipped:
• Chilling Rhetoric useable at all Attunements and applies a -30% movespeed debuff after its target takes damage
• 3 Equipped:
• +25% Fury of Storm Critical Multiplier
• Increased critical hit chance
• 4 Equipped:
• Occasionally become Charged, making Sustaining Bolt free and Essence of Storm criticals deal 50% bonus damage.
• +3% lightning and frost damage for each Solitary Thunder trait equipped
• Calming Verse increases movement speed by 20%.

Skills

• Sustaining Bolt - Increased damage.
• Shocking Words - Reduced cooldown from 25 to 20 seconds.
• Ceaseless Argument - Reduced power cost.
• Epic Conclusion - Small damage increase, removed the 50% power penalty, increased power cost.

Traits

• Icy Discourse – Changed to “When you use Chilling Rhetoric, you gain the Charged buff. When in the Charged state Sustaining Bolt is free and Essence of Storm critical hits deal +50% additional damage.”
• Winter Storm – Each use of a Frost skill stacks a tier winter-Storm buff on you. When at 5, your next lightning skill is an automatic crit. Passively provides -2s Writ of Cold cooldown.
• Confounding Principals – Now also increases Chilling Rhetoric up front slow increased by 20% and reduces Distracting Winds cooldown.
• Master of Tragedy – Removed passive bonus, they are now the 3-set bonus of traitline. Lightning skills put a stack of “Master of Tragedy” on you. When at 5 stacks, your next Writ is instant cast and has no cooldown.
• Tale of the Storm – Duration reduced to 10s.
• Perfect Imagery – Now also passively increases lightning damage by 5%.

Fire:

Old Set Bonuses

• 2 Equipped:
• Fiery Ridicule useable at all Attunements and its induction is not knocked back by damage
• 3 Equipped:
• +30% Essence of Flame Damage
• -10% Wrath of Flame Power Cost
• 4 Equipped:
• -4.5s Essay of Fire Induction
• +Finesse Rating
• +2% fire damage for each Cleansing Fires trait equipped

New Set Bonuses

• 2 Equipped:
• Fiery Ridicule useable at all Attunements and its induction is not knocked back by damage
• 3 Equipped:
• +Finesse Rating, values increased
• Self-motivation is now an instant cast, usable while moving.
• 4 Equipped:
• -4.5s Essay of Fire Induction
• +3% fire and frost damage for each Cleansing Fires trait equipped
• Calming Verse makes all your inductions not able to be knocked back.

Skills:

• Essence of Flame - Increased damage.
• Improved Essay of Fire - Now only removes the induction from your next fire skill.
• Distracting Flame - Cooldown now 30 seconds. Duration reduced to 15 seconds. Damage pulses sped up and increased. Initial damage removed.
• Smouldering Wrath - Duration reduced to 6 seconds. Damage increased. Pulses can now crit.

Traits:

• Scathing Retort – Reworked. Smouldering Wrath provides additional effects based on fire effects active on the target. Cooldown is also reduced by 15 seconds.
• Writ of Fire: Increase damage by 5% per tier.
• Fiery Ridicule: Return Power to the RK.
• Mystifying Flame: Reduce Tactical Mitigation.
• Mystifying Flame – 15 second cooldown is now an instant cast that can be used while moving. Also passively increases fire damage by 5%.
• Master of Connotation – Removed passive bonus, they are now the 3-set bonus of traitline. Fire skills put a stack of “Master of Connotation” on you. When at 5 stacks, your next Writ heals you 3% of max morale and is instant cast.
• Overflowing Confidence – Now also heals you, duration of power savings reduced to 20s.
• Linnod of Subtlety – Essence of Flame becomes a three target AOE. Scathing Mockery induction reduced by 1 second.

Healing:

Old Set Bonus

• 2 Equipped:
• Rune of Restoration useable at all Attunements and heals 20% more
• 3 Equipped:
• -10% Healing Attuned Skill Power Cost
• +2 Mending Verse Pulse Count
• 4 Equipped:
• -5% Threat Generation
• +2% healing for each Benedictions of Peace trait equipped

New Set Bonuses

• 2 Equipped:
• Rune of Restoration useable at all Attunements and heals 20% more
• 3 Equipped:
• +2 Mending Verse Pulse Count
• -10% Threat generation
• 4 Equipped:
• +3% healing and frost damage for each Benedictions of Peace trait equipped
• Calming Verse allows Mending Verse usable while moving with no induction.
• Their Weapons Will Not Harm Us now protects against all 4 debuff types.

Skills:

• NEW SKILL - Scribe a New Ending - Removes defeat dread from your party. 10 minute cooldown.
• Improved Prelude to Hope – Now grants power to you and your target if the target as Writ active. The power bonus has been reduced.
• Epic for the Ages - Cooldown now 15 seconds, increase healing, reduce induction to 2.5 seconds and increase Power cost.
• Word of Exaltation - Increase bubble amount, mitigation buff removed.
• All Fates Entwined – No longer redirects damage to the Rune-keeper, instead reduces the incoming damage of the whole fellowship. Now costs health over time in addition to Power. Greatly reduced initial power cost.
• Rousing Words – Can now crit.
• Essay of Exaltation – Removed 50% power penalty, increased power cost.
• Glorious Foreshadowing – Reworked. Is now an immediate skill. Now provides a +25% incoming healing bonus to a single target for 8s. Lower power cost. 3 minute cooldown.
• That Which Does Not Kill Us – Reworked. Now increases the damage of your fellowship by 20% for 20 seconds. If an ally so buffed is struck by an attack, the attack is negated and the damage bonus is replaced with a morale over time effect.

Traits

• Memorable Prose - No longer provides bonus morale, now provides Physical and Tactical Mastery.
• Author of Exaltation - No longer adds to mitigation, now adds critical hit immunity for duration of the bubble.
• Terse Narrative – Renamed to “Public Narrative” - Changed to: Epic for the Ages heals your fellowship in addition to the main target for a lesser amount. This amount is increased based on the tier of Writ of Health on the target.
• The Prophetic Word – Also increases the Morale/Power granted when an ally is recovered with Do Not Fall This Day.
• Master of Allusion – Removed passive bonus, they are now the 3-set bonus of traitline. Healing skills put a stack of “Master of Connotation” on you. When at 5 stacks, your next Writ costs no Power and is instant cast.
• Linnod of Peace – Reworked. Now increase incoming healing by 5%, evade by 5% and in-Combat morale regen by 10%.
• Wondrous Foreshadowing – Reduces cooldown to 1m, increases healing bonus 50% and also reduces incoming damage by 30%. Still single target. Passively increases Rune-keepers healing by 5%.

Other Skills:

• Essence of Winter - Power cost debuff has been reduced to -50%. Damage increased.
• Chilling Rhetoric - Initial slow magnitude reduced from 70% to 50%.
• The Blade Shall Not Wound AND The Fang Shall Not Poison - Combined into a single skill: “Their Weapons Will Not Harm Us”. 30 second cooldown, 30 second duration.
• Self-motivation - Changed to restore 7% of max power.
• Fall to Storm/Flame/Frost - Damage increased. Duration reduced to 30 seconds.
• Distracting Winds - Increased detaunt amount.

Legendary Traits:

• Martial training - Melee damage and critical hit bonuses removed. Max Power bonus changed to a flat bonus from % modification. Morale bonus increased. Added bonus armour and critical defense.
• Fall to Our Wrath - No longer provides a new skill. Now increases the damage Fall to Storm/flame/Frost to provide an additional debuff on your foe, based on Affinity:
• Storm - Increased incoming critical hit chance
• Flame - Increased incoming damage
• Frost - reduced Block, Parry, Evade and Resistance ratings
• Steady Hands - Instead of setting your attunement to 0, now puts you at 9 in the opposite direction you were in. Increase induction to 2. Removed silence protection. Power savings remain. Damage will now knock back the induction.

Legacy changes:

• Ceaseless Argument Power cost - Changed to Damage increase.
• Self-motivation Power Restore - Chanced to cooldown reduction.
• Glorious foreshadowing Duration - Reduced to 9 seconds.

There's the whole patch notes on just the RK that Sapience provided. Looks like ZC has listened to our crys for more utility while healing and more survivability. We may finally be able to compete with mini for utility in a raid. What with our fall to skills getting an upgraded effect to debuff the mob to increase DPS on it will make it actually worth using on the bosses. And with our heals getting some buffs added to the person healed to improved their DPS this is great for our utility.

Also seems affinity has been changed and the new way proposed seems rather clunky and, for the healing RK, detrimental. For affinity for the healing RK can we possible get a different mechanic since we are already taking a hit to attunement from the neutral skill we would be using that requires a specific affinity and now we also have to deal with taking a hit to attunement by using a damage skill to change our affinity not to mention if we have to do it right off the bat we could draw unwanted aggro. We really should get some affinity changing skills that are designed ot be used while healing speced. Like while healing speced our WoC, WoF, and scribes spark become damageless buffs/debuffs that don't effect attunement. And we really need a way to change affinity outside of battle. For DPS RKs the change to affinity is fine since it doesn't effect their attunement negatively and they can easily use a skill without problem. The problems with affinity are truly only for the Healing RK.

I don´t see any surviveability increase while DPSing

Ok there´s the 20% sprint, but seriously, I don´t want to run away, I want to be able to fight longer


The rest is good though

Originally Posted by Chris91

I don´t see any surviveability increase while DPSing

Ok there´s the 20% sprint, but seriously, I don´t want to run away, I want to be able to fight longer


The rest is good though

Martial training legendary was changed to give us better survivability. Also for fire speced RKs it seems that the writs other than health can now give health back and the writ of health would heal for more.

Master of Connotation – Removed passive bonus, they are now the 3-set bonus of traitline. Fire skills put a stack of “Master of Connotation” on you. When at 5 stacks, your next Writ heals you 3% of max morale and is instant cast.

And we have our slows still for kiting and with us being able to increase our own run speed it should improve our kiting which improves our survivability.

I would have loved something like critical hits wih Essence of Storm allow one instant cast Mending Verse regardless or attunement

Though you´re right with Martial Training, i forgot about that

Originally Posted by Gohankuten

For DPS RKs the change to affinity is fine since it doesn't effect their attunement negatively and they can easily use a skill without problem. The problems with affinity are truly only for the Healing RK.

Wrong, this change is a problem for DPS RKs in the moors.

Originally Posted by Chris91

I would have loved something like critical hits wih Essence of Storm allow one instant cast Mending Verse regardless or attunement

Though you´re right with Martial Training, i forgot about that

CV makes MV insta-cast according to the 4 trait healing bonus. Of course this isn't something that we can use while DPSing. On the other hand, while DPSing we can use master of X to get heals (% based heal up heal for fire, and insta-cast WoH for lightning).


- The lightning and healing buffs look great.

- Fire will all depend on the what the values have become and whether or not they they will compensate the nerf to IEoF. Hopefully it just means it will take longer to reach maximum DPS without decreasing potential maximum DPS.

- The affinity changes could potentially cause lag if you're constantly using skills from all three elemental types. As long as your rotation isn't too crazy it should be fine.

I don't see how it could cause issues with healing attunement if you use it correctly. The way I see it, the only problem with us dropping affinity is OFE. Our emergency skills would be unavailable even now if we use a neutral attunement (and 1 extra skill to re-open emergency skills shouldn't be too game changing). Now back to OFE, DNFTX costs 2 attunement and it costs 1 attunement to switch your affinity. At 9 attunement you drop to attunement 6 which means OFE will still be running.

If your tank can't keep aggro when a healer uses 1 DPS skill then that's the tank's fault, not yours.

Although the affinity change may not be great, it does mean that we won't have to worry about carrying multiple rocks around. It's definitely manageable as long as you plan out your rotation carefully.

That Which Does Not Kill Us does not seem to be working properly. I had it cast on me but got only the HoT for 400something morale, no damage buff (it did show up on the rk skill :/).

So, looking at the not so bright side, DPS RKs are not improving.
We r loosing the 10% more damage from CV and i cant see that damage anywhere else.

Originally Posted by RenUnclean

So, looking at the not so bright side, DPS RKs are not improving.
We r loosing the 10% more damage from CV and i cant see that damage anywhere else.

4 set trait bonus being increased from 2% per trait to 3%
Capstone legendary traits also granting 5% passive.

Originally Posted by Ghosttaker

Wrong, this change is a problem for DPS RKs in the moors.

also look at this

Fall to Our Wrath - No longer provides a new skill. Now increases the damage Fall to Storm/flame/Frost to provide an additional debuff on your foe, based on Affinity:
Storm - Increased incoming critical hit chance

Yes you have to burn a legendary but you put that with martial training,+perfect imagery thats the moors legendary slots. The problem is martial training lost its 20% damage, you also lost the +10% damage skill you got when traiting linnod and using calming verse.


I havent read everything completely and considered it but at first blush the lightening line is getting buffed for the crit which is the bread and butter in the moors. Not sure about the affinity though everyone is using lightening anyway as long as your moving toward red attunement does it matter?

bubble! my bubble! lol

Originally Posted by Ghosttaker

Wrong, this change is a problem for DPS RKs in the moors.

Affinity change is bad for DPS RKs in the moors? you'd rather switch stones than fire off a damage skill to change affinity? hmmm... switch stone... or do damage... switch stone... or do damage... oh i get it... in the moors you carry around a fire stone with lightning legacies, for fire defense, and you never ever ever use any fire skills, ever. Moor DoTs? (okay i admit, my whole response was a setup for "Moor DoTs")

Originally Posted by Chris91

Ok there´s the 20% sprint, but seriously, I don´t want to run away, I want to be able to fight longer

so use the run speed buff to chase down enemies who try escaping your wrath!

The changes are awesome, I love them. Not surprised some individuals are still crying rivers of whines, demanding ridiculous things.
All those imbeciles who yelled out to Zombie that he MUST listen to them, MUST do something, or rather that he ignores rks and is worse than xyz should publicly apologize, because right here we have a proof that babbling #### on forums instead of doing the hard work is pointless.

Can't wait for U6 to go live!

the reduction of chilling rhetoric from 70% to 50% should be telling in the moors....
as should the wound/poison, nice to have em together but now i gotta stop and cast every 30 seconds instead of every 60 seconds
but everything else made me cackle in glee!

fellow rk's WE FINALLY HAVE A GUARANTEED CRITICAL!!!!!!
AND our bubble has GUARANTEED CRITICAL PROTECTION!!!!
AND OMFG did you see that crazy shz wit steady hands!!!!!!
steady hands is boss as hell!!!!!
picture if you would.... spotting a creep, casting prelude with an enamel while running in the opposite direction and IMMEDIATELY stopping and casting steady hands........ full battle attunement! yeah creep, whatcha gonna do NOW?!
OR you're fighting something and getting low on morale, suddenly you drop a stun followed by steady hands! BANG! big shield with crit immunity not to mention essay, throw up AFE and use new EPIC with the shorter induction! BAM!!!! you're full!

and we look to be more dpsish

I wonder what the cast time is for CV hopefully i'll be able to cast it while running.

i'm somewhat impressed zombie, seems you took what we had to say on board too
and seeing all the possible rotations we could do now..... rk will be an advanced class once again!

As i see the changes ....

Lightning: very good changes, some small boost on DPS and several interesting tweaks for getting more critical. Looks like a shinning change and Pvpers should be happy.

Survability. Not much to add here, just the extra morale and crit protection from martial training, which is really nice (will it be enough? We will see).

Fire: i have to check numbers yet but looks like a nerf on both steady and burst damage. Numbers on using SW and 4 FRs over 6,5 seconds are around the same, so it´s just the iEoF serious nerf versus the improved MF which is kinda marginal on DPS increase. If Lightning looks that promising, we will go back on times where we all RKs use Lightning fr DPSing and Fire was marginal. Not that i care much, just could we please get reimbursement on all the ToO Fire pieces to be able to swith them for Lightning ones, and Fire legacies on my 1st ager into Lightning ones please?

Healing: superior HPS, improved group healing, better single target healing ... how can´t we RK healers be happy? Well, we still can (abit ). i´m just very concerned about power consumption due the nerf (bug?) of improved Prelude to Hope. Doesn´t make sense to change a 200 power gain into a 20 power one. I really hope it´s a bug and will get fixed, and even if the target gets obviously less power, it gives the same power to RKs so the skill doesnt be a total waste to cast (right now it would be casting for 170 power to give a very tiny heal, 20 power and 20 power back, making the skill totally unuseful except maybe on tank healing for extra hot, every heal counts there). Also, check that healing RKs have lost the 10% power cost in the trait set bonuses and there is a nerf on the power restored by Overflowing Confidence, so i see healing RKs can have SERIOUS issues after Update 6, something weird as RKs were known for not having them.

Utility: apart from the dread wipe (good that other class got it, i´d be happy capts to get it though) i have seen not much utility added. In anyways the new healing skills should be enough to compensate with the extra utility the other healing class will bring to raids.

So far, great changes for two of the three traits trees of the class. If some minor tweaks are solved (power problems while healing, maybe add another FR rotation skill with low CD but good DPS to compensate the loss of the burst ) it will be a great update.

Originally Posted by Bradegor

Utility: apart from the dread wipe (good that other class got it, i´d be happy capts to get it though) i have seen not much utility added.

Lolwut .

Wondrous Foreshadowing – Reduces cooldown to 1m, increases healing bonus 50% and also reduces incoming damage by 30%. Still single target. Passively increases Rune-keepers healing by 5%.

Author of Exaltation - No longer adds to mitigation, now adds critical hit immunity for duration of the bubble.

Memorable Prose - No longer provides bonus morale, now provides Physical and Tactical Mastery.

That Which Does Not Kill Us – Reworked. Now increases the damage of your fellowship by 20% for 20 seconds. If an ally so buffed is struck by an attack, the attack is negated and the damage bonus is replaced with a morale over time effect.

All Fates Entwined – No longer redirects damage to the Rune-keeper, instead reduces the incoming damage of the whole fellowship. Now costs health over time in addition to Power. Greatly reduced initial power cost.

Improved Prelude to Hope – Now grants power to you and your target if the target as Writ active. The power bonus has been reduced.

Their Weapons Will Not Harm Us now protects against all 4 debuff types.

NEW SKILL - Scribe a New Ending - Removes defeat dread from your party. 10 minute cooldown.

Not sure wich notes you were reading .

Originally Posted by Louvre

Not sure wich notes you were reading .

Don't forget Rune-sign. It's prolly the biggest boost.

Is rune sign a duration effect now or a sort of combat permanent buff?

Another question hoping you are around, is it stack able with other rune-keepers rune sign buffs or as with the current weapon of x, one buff overrides the other.

Steady Hands also has utility and will be absolutely amazing for PvE. I can't count how many times I've seen a ministrel go down, and in the time it takes me to tier down dps (which isn't that long) and tier up heals, most likely at least one other person has died. With this rendition of steady hands I'd actually start traiting it again.

So, with the changes in the patch notes and that we have lots more utility.

Also, I hate to really bring this up, but Steady Hands is gonna cause a lot -- a LOT -- of creep rage. I realize PvP is not the basis for most freep-side changes because it seems to be built around how to be most effective in PvE instances. But imagine this, I blow stuff up in lightening line, zap zap zap, EC for 6K to some poor creep. I'm getting low, pop steady hands. Gee, Now I'm at t9 Heals. Bubble. EftA. Pretty much any other heal skill. Full healed. Yeah, it's got a 5 min CD, but 5 minutes is nothing in the moors.

There is sooo much goodness and utility in these changes, you just need to know how and when to use them.

Im experiencing some kind of bug in the beta with steady hands. Sometimes I use it and simply nothing happens. Im at 9 battle attunement I use it and stay battle attuned.

Originally Posted by Ryssadis

Also, I hate to really bring this up, but Steady Hands is gonna cause a lot -- a LOT -- of creep rage. I realize PvP is not the basis for most freep-side changes because it seems to be built around how to be most effective in PvE instances. But imagine this, I blow stuff up in lightening line, zap zap zap, EC for 6K to some poor creep. I'm getting low, pop steady hands. Gee, Now I'm at t9 Heals. Bubble. EftA. Pretty much any other heal skill. Full healed. Yeah, it's got a 5 min CD, but 5 minutes is nothing in the moors.

In paper yes ... In reality , I don't think so .

There are a couple of factors that I think won't let that happen ( or very hard to ) :

- Steady hands can be interrupted and suffers damage setback .
- It now has a 2 s induction .
- EftA ? 2.5 induction .

Unless you're saying it was a 1 vs 1 and no other creep was around , any other case , I don't see that scenario happening at any time .

Pop an enamel for Steady Hands. No setback. Worried about being silenced out of it? Pop a Moors fear pot, pop an enamel, steady hands. EftA *might* be harder to get off after that, but the RK will have two insta bubbles at their disposal so a creep will need to either outlast the bubble and prevent further heals, or go through another 4K 'morale' from said bubble. With creep dps as it is, RK's using this method will be a tougher nut.

And just for the sake of argument, currently, I *have* used an RK heal parchment (unlocks EftA in DPS attunement) and gotten off a 4.5s EftA induction on more than one occasion in a small fraid/small craid fight before.

Originally Posted by Louvre

Lolwut .Not sure wich notes you were reading .

I´m sorry but most of those are not utility skills. They are mostly healing buffs. Utility skills for me are other things (like IC rez, buffs/debuffs, special effects, etc). I already said healing was greatly improved. Oh! And one of the few utility skills (improved prelude to hope) it´s actually a nerf instead of a boon, nowadays it gives 200 power to the RK and it´s the main source of RK power management. With update 6, it will give 20 power to the RK and 20 to the other targetted player. Costing around 170 power and healing for a tiny amount, looks like it´s not a buff at all .

Originally Posted by Ryssadis

Also, I hate to really bring this up, but Steady Hands is gonna cause a lot -- a LOT -- of creep rage. I realize PvP is not the basis for most freep-side changes because it seems to be built around how to be most effective in PvE instances. But imagine this, I blow stuff up in lightening line, zap zap zap, EC for 6K to some poor creep. I'm getting low, pop steady hands. Gee, Now I'm at t9 Heals. Bubble. EftA. Pretty much any other heal skill. Full healed. Yeah, it's got a 5 min CD, but 5 minutes is nothing in the moors.

You kind of went in the wrong direction I think with the inductions. Bubble just prevents crits in the upcoming update. I could see RK's dropping perfect imagery with that which does not kill us for added survivability. Pop a steady hands, essay of exaltation, that which does not kill us, and back to dps while getting some nice HoTs. Seems like a lot of work to get some hots, unlike some other classes...

Originally Posted by Bradegor

I´m sorry but most of those are not utility skills. They are mostly healing buffs. Utility skills for me are other things (like IC rez, buffs/debuffs, special effects, etc). I already said healing was greatly improved. Oh! And one of the few utility skills (improved prelude to hope) it´s actually a nerf instead of a boon, nowadays it gives 200 power to the RK and it´s the main source of RK power management. With update 6, it will give 20 power to the RK and 20 to the other targetted player. Costing around 170 power and healing for a tiny amount, looks like it´s not a buff at all .

We have an in-combat rez. It actually works splendidly now. RK's should not have the exact same skills as a ministrel. Similar skills, but different way of functioning? I'm down with that.

The Good:

1. Healing is improved and some additional Buffs to the fellowship will be nice to have.
2. Lightning has improvements to both PvE and PvMP.

The Bad:

1. IPtH if WAI is a Nerf, you will be lucky to get 20% of what it provided before.
2. Steady Hands must be bugged on BR because I can DPS to attunement 9, hit Steady Hands and get off one or two heals before the attunement ticks back to neutral. Healing skills after Steady Hands is used do not keep you healing attuned. I bugged this on BR just in case.
3. DPS traited RKs lose their utility. “Their Weapons Will Not Harm Us” & "Rune-sign of X" require Healing Attunement.

The Worst:

While Fire may be equal or better DPS over an extended battle, but for situations that require a mob to die fast we are hurting. I could live with 3 skills spamable but giving us just one is really lame. We will be lucky to get 70% of past damage output over an 8 ~ 10 second burst period.

I guess that is what happens when people who most likely were not Fire traited before ROI go Fire and think there are only 2 buttons to mash. Such a shame, Fire was in a pretty good place as is.

The Unkown:

How we will set stone affinity at the onset of a fight - or what the default afininty starts at is a mystery. Maybe if we ever get [Scene 5/5] we may have a better idea. I suspect the plot will be from The Sting

Originally Posted by Bradegor

I´m sorry but most of those are not utility skills. They are mostly healing buffs. Utility skills for me are other things (like IC rez, buffs/debuffs, special effects, etc). I already said healing was greatly improved. Oh! And one of the few utility skills (improved prelude to hope) it´s actually a nerf instead of a boon, nowadays it gives 200 power to the RK and it´s the main source of RK power management. With update 6, it will give 20 power to the RK and 20 to the other targetted player. Costing around 170 power and healing for a tiny amount, looks like it´s not a buff at all .

There was also the change to fall to x with the legendary trait equipped now putting a debuff on the mob that increase incoming DPS on it in different ways. Fall to lighting increaes incoming crit chance, fire increase incoming damage, and frost decreases BPE and something else. This gives added utility to both DPS and Heal rks.

I have the same worries regarding Improved prelude of hope. Returning 20-30 power when using a 170 power cost skill seems rather pointless. It feels more like a power reduction to that skill rather than a power return.
On live I feel its a bit over-powered but the current power return on bullroarer is too low.

I love the idea of not having to swap stones for affinities, but the method on BR feels clumsy. Changing from anything to lightning is easy as scribes spark is insta-cast. Trying to get to fire or frost is a bit trickier. When a boss is going to perform a big fire/frost skill you would like to have master of allusion at 5 and ready for insta/free writ of fire/frost to change quickly but writ of health is usually a skill that RKs spam and having to avoid using it to change quickly can be difficult.
As far as changing affinity before a fight: spar a fellow. Again, clumsy but its possible. I suppose most fight you only need 1 affinity and its easy enough to change once for do not fall to X. However, for armaments of X and shield of X, swapping mid fight easily is much handier.

Also I do not like armaments of X being a healing only skill. Remove the attunement requirement and reduce/remove the heal if necessary, but keep the buff/utility skill useable for dps as well as healing. If the issue is it can be OP for self buffs, then make it fellow only.

I would also like to see the 4-set bonus modifier to calming verse for the red trait line be similar to the blue: allow FR to be insta cast for the duration. Induction setback is usually not an issue for fire rks in an instance/raid scenario where they should not have aggro.

Am I the only old codger who wishes they'd leave the classes alone? I've had my raiding mini for years, and barely got used to the silly tail-off stuff and then they dramatically changed it all again. Now my RK (my main) is the subject of ongoing tweaking. Leave the classes be, and put the dev dollars into new stuff!

Originally Posted by Zombie_Columbus

Don't forget Rune-sign. It's prolly the biggest boost.

Are those changes enough to make up for the 10% healing/damage loss from calming verse though? I know some skills got a minor boost to damage, but how does the post update 6 Rune-Keeper compare to a pre-update 6 Rune-Keeper damage-wise and healing-wise? Is it the same? Better? Worse?

If writs have no attunment restrictions will I be able to tier up writ of health before a battle?

Originally Posted by Ryssadis

We have an in-combat rez. It actually works splendidly now. RK's should not have the exact same skills as a ministrel. Similar skills, but different way of functioning? I'm down with that.

We already had it. I said that we got more utility , but not THAT much. It works "fine" but it´s still very inferior to minstrel and captain´s ones. I wasn´t even complaining about that!

I never said that RKs should have the same skills as a minstrel, where did you read that?

Originally Posted by Lambs

If writs have no attunment restrictions will I be able to tier up writ of health before a battle?

Writh of Health works only in combat despite the attunement so i doubt so it will do that now. Remember that using Master of Writs you could have access to Writ of Health nowadays, but still it won´t work due this restriction.

Don't know if I got this right but, did lightning skills just lose 10% damage from the nerf to traited Calming Verse?

As far as I'm concerned, traiting fire is still lame due to the inevitable inductions.

And tying in buffs/debuffs (affinity) to the choice of the last damage skill I used (which can be a choice made out of dps optimisation or just cd considerations) makes life overly complicated IMO. I abandoned my warden after 22 levels because of such binding prerequisite constraints.

Do the capstone traits now add +3% damage/healing as they should?
Does the ICMR buff now increase with healing rating as it should? Does the bubble?
...

Ca legacy is still reduced power not increased damage.....willmake a difference in parsing...more to follow.

Originally Posted by Alad.

Don't know if I got this right but, did lightning skills just lose 10% damage from the nerf to traited Calming Verse?

As far as I'm concerned, traiting fire is still lame due to the inevitable inductions.

And tying in buffs/debuffs (affinity) to the choice of the last damage skill I used (which can be a choice made out of dps optimisation or just cd considerations) makes life overly complicated IMO. I abandoned my warden after 22 levels because of such binding prerequisite constraints.

Do the capstone traits now add +3% damage/healing as they should?
Does the ICMR buff now increase with healing rating as it should? Does the bubble?
...

Capstone adds 5%, not 3%. The individual class traits have been bumped up from 2% to 3%.
This means that you'll have the equivalent DPS as before if you trait 5 deep, and you'll gain even more if you go further. (Up to a bonus 2% damage from live, if I'm thinking correctly).

Let's face it, the old PtH was kinda useless because we had enough HoTs already and the pulses were kinda weak. The actual one is just a spam fest for infinite power.

So, ZC and fellow Runekeepers, what if Prelude to Hope get transformed in a non-stackable Power over time? Say, 100 power cost but with 10 pulses of +20 power over 30 sec or something like that? (just an example)

I fail to see how this mechanic couldn't be at least interesting, helping to mantain both RK's and a small number of fellow mates power, and if the initial cost gets high enough it would prevent us to just spam it everytime in everyone and force to watchout it's duration and targets.

And it's kinda lore-wise too! What do you people think?

i am pleased they did improvements for us rks nice to see they thought about us this time around.

Originally Posted by Yulan

Let's face it, the old PtH was kinda useless because we had enough HoTs already and the pulses were kinda weak. The actual one is just a spam fest for infinite power.

So, ZC and fellow Runekeepers, what if Prelude to Hope get transformed in a non-stackable Power over time? Say, 100 power cost but with 10 pulses of +20 power over 30 sec or something like that? (just an example)

I fail to see how this mechanic couldn't be at least interesting, helping to mantain both RK's and a small number of fellow mates power, and if the initial cost gets high enough it would prevent us to just spam it everytime in everyone and force to watchout it's duration and targets.

It´s not a bad idea. Healing, specially if you use OFE, needs power management and our power recovering skill (which is getting nerfed) isnt enough. PtH was the main power recovery skill. Without it, and the -10% power to all healing skills gone from the 3 set bonus, i foresee big power problems to healing RKs.

I just prefer iPtH not to be changed, honestly. I would like to give some power to the healed people, but not at this cost.

Also, i would prefer to keep the old Mending Verse trait bonus. +250 mastery means few, specially considering your main target will always be tanks.

EftA trait to heal fellowship is nice... but the heal amount is too small considering nowadays morale pools. Could it be increased, even by a bit? Either that, or trait for reducing induction to 1.5 seconds to be a real emergency skill, for 2,5 seconds i find it quite ... well, slow. I´d rather will use CV and MVs coupled with bubble. 15 seconds CD makes it not possible as a maintenance skill.

There are very nice healing changes but i also see some big problems. I really hope they are fixed before update 6 gets life. If i have time, gotta load the BR server to send my suggestions.