Rune-keeper

Class Difficulty: Moderate

Role: Healer/Damage

Available to races: Dwarf, Elf, High Elf, Man, River Hobbit, Stout-axe

Gameplay: Rune-keepers must choose during each battle to focus on damaging skills or healing skills. Either choice shifts their Attunement, unlocking more potent skills, but the choice also restricts access to other skills. In addition, they have support skills that may always be used. In Fellowships, a Rune-keeper keeps allies healed, or deals significant damage to foes.

Lore: Rune-keepers are gifted linguists and masters of true names. With this knowledge, a Rune-keeper crafts powerful rune-words that help the Free Peoples. Through unparalleled mastery of Angerthas and Tengwar runes, a Rune-keeper evokes much more than a normal scribe. Dagor runes deal with battle, Nestad with healing, and Thalas with support.

The class is inspired by the master Elf-smith Celebrimbor, whose skill with runes of power was unparalleled.

A male Dwarf Rune-keeper

Class Navigation Classes Skills Traits Traceries Effects Deeds Guides

Gameplay

Rune-keepers use Attunement in their gameplay, with healing and damage gaining increased potency at higher Attunement. They have several powerful skills that consume all attunement. They use the elemental powers of Fire, Frost, and Lightning to inflict their will. They can summon rune-stones to boost their attunement and provide passive bonuses.

• Blue-line (Healer): Rune-keepers specialized in the Benediction of Peace trait tree use the element of frost to protect their allies through damage negative, using skills like  Rune-sign of Winter and  Essay of Exaltation. They are masters at healing over time through  Writ of Health, and have powerful fellowship-wide cooldowns like  Our Fates Entwined.
• Red-line (Fire-type Damage): Rune-keepers specialized in the Cleansing Flame trait tree use the element of fire to deal damage over time to their enemies. While lacking mobility and having induction skills, they have incredible potential for damage, with their gameplay revolving around attunement-consuming skills like  Smouldering Wrath and  Combustion. Red-line Rune-keepers also dabble with Lightning to gain damage-boosting buffs.
• Yellow-line (Lightning-type Damage): Rune-keepers specialized in the Solitary Thunder trait tree use the element of lightning to deal burst damage to their enemies. They build up attunement using  Ceaseless Argument, and cash-out with  Epic Conclusion, dealing a huge amount of damage. Yellow-line Rune-keepers are extremely mobile and survivable, making up for their lesser damage output compared to Red-line.

This class is recommended for newer players wanting to play a magic class. The attunement system is straight-forward to learn, and each specialization offers a unique style of play. Red-line can be challenging to master, but it's rewarding in both its performance in dungeons and gameplay.

Attunement

Attunement is used by Rune-keepers in a way that improves their ability to either do damage or heal at the expense of the other. The more battle-attuned the Rune-keeper is, the more damage their attacks will do, but the less healing they will be able to do. The more healing-attuned the Rune-keeper is, the more healing they will output, but the less damage they will be able to do.

Attunement Panel of the Rune-keeper (neutral)

Attunement is measured on a scale of 0-20, 0 being fully battle-attuned and 20 fully healing-attuned. An attunement of 10 is neutral (neither battle- nor healing-attuned). When Rune-keepers use skills, their attunement dynamically adjusts from neutral to a maximum of nine battle-attunement (which appears as red marks on the left of the attunement panel), or to a maximum of nine healing-attunement (which appears as green marks on the right of the attunement panel).

Some skills will battle-attune the Rune-keeper, moving attunement towards the left on the panel, while others will healing-attune the Rune-keeper, moving attunement towards the right on the panel. Other skills will neutral-attune by moving attunement towards the center of the panel. Finally some skills will return to neutral attunement, automatically moving attunement all the way to the middle regardless of current attunement.

It's important for Rune-keeper's to carefully monitor their attunement. Some encounters will warrant a Rune-keeper to go either fully battle-attuned or healing-attuned, but other fights may warrant the Rune-keeper to stay closer to neutral in order to either do damage or heal on short notice.

Symbols

• 
  Battle
• 
  Steady
• 
  Heal

For more information, see Attunement.

Elemental Skills

Rune-keepers have access to three different types of tactical damage: Frost, Fire, and Lightning. Frost skills are sometimes referred to as Chill of Winter skills; fire skills are sometimes referred to as Wrath of Flame skills; lightning skills are sometimes referred to as Fury of Storm skills. Each set of elemental skills benefit from certain traits and traceries.

• Lightning Skills are most commonly used by Yellow-line Rune-keepers. These skills deal mainly burst single-target damage. These skills have lower range than other elemental skills, but can be used on the move. Some skills grant certain benefits, such as inflicting Dazed or Stunned to enemies. These skills are also commonly used by Red-line Rune-keepers to deal damage in-between fire skills.

• Fire Skills are most commonly used by Red-line Rune-keepers. These skills deal mainly damage over time to multiple targets. These skills have a longer range than other elemental skills, but most have an induction component, requiring the Rune-keeper to stand still.  Essay of Fire helps solve this issue; the next fire skill used has no induction.

• Frost Skills are used across all Rune-keeper specializations. These skills inflict different debuffs to their targets, of which some are more niche than others. For instance,  Flurry of Words inflicts a powerful debuff, but Lore-masters can apply the same debuff. Other frost skills are commonly used in PvMP, due to their debuffs.