Item Talk:Rune-keeper -- Attunement

Runestone damage types and spell damage types

This came up in chat and I've been playing an RK when the high level grind gets to me, and I realized I don't know either. In the Attunement document it states: "I also feel I must mention that there are also some rare abilities which align themselves to the elemental affinity of whatever Rune-stone is handy. Learn to take advantage of these and always keep around a few extra Rune-stones of differing types if you ever come upon such power." But it does not specify exactly what the effect is of using a fire spell while using a Lightning Damage runestone. Do they all step down a level if there is a mismatch? Is there a crit chance decrease? Finesse decrease? Any effect at all?

There is a disucssion on the forums here: https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?514257-Do-Runestone-Damage-Types-Really-Matter but I'm not sure that's can-non (wow that's a spam filtered word?!), current or even correct. For instance, someone says using a title doesn't "matter" but it does depending on what types the mobs are sensitive to. Actually it brings up a good point, damage types in general matter and the RNK has access to more types than a tank class or any PM based class. I think only LM has similar damage type access, and it isn't modified by their weapon's damage type. Now that I think of it, how come RNK and LM don't have a ranged auto-attack? I'm not sure it would be an imbalance, just an aid to play since you could use it to pull to a safe area like you can with a better armored tank +bow. But now I'm getting far afield. Just knowing the effects of mismatched damage types would be a help. Acatlover2 (talk) 19:10, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't know if the document here is correct today. The Rune Keeper changed radically some time ago (Riders of Rohan time period) and I don't know if Turbine ever got around to updating the document. (I haven't played my RK for quite some time now.)

The Riders of Rohan RuneKeeper update Dev Diary is no longer on-line. However, the Helm's Deep version is: https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/developer-diary-rune-keeper-class-changes-helm’s-deep Developer Diary : Rune-keeper Class Changes in Helm’s Deep

The last section deals with Attunement. The date of that Diary is October 2013.

As I recall, Jinjaah, the Dev working on these changes was one of the Devs terminated in the December 2013 layoffs.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 17:32, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Yikes that makes 2/3 devs focused on classes I prefer to play, gone. The three I play most are guardian, captain and runekeeper, with honorable mention going to minstrel. I'm not sure I ever understood RK fully though, so it's all still new. She is my second RK though, the first was long ago, before trait trees, etc. I started a new one partly to see the difference. Ditto for captain, which I still have issues playing because of the incredible changes to the class. I've noticed that red trait works well for both RK and Captain, but red didn't help early on with Captain. Red trait started being effective for RK around level 40, but my Captain would've spent a lot more time in the circle of shame if he'd tried that. Part of my curiosity on this is the focus on fire damage in red trait for RK. It made me wonder if the "Crackling-fury" line of teal runestones in the early game were counterproductive if you chose to "go red." I also see some mentions sometimes in the forum about RK's having "several" runestones at max level, which made me wonder since I'm not there yet. Thanks for the update on developer notes and what's happening. Much appreciated! Acatlover2 (talk) 03:47, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Playstyle

Just wanted to add something re: attunement swing/cashout as mentioned in the developer notes above. I'm only speaking as a level 45 RK though, not sure how it will change as I level up more. I do find myself maxing out the damage attunement quickly, and by then I've taken some damage, so I use the skill to swap max damage attunement to max healing attunement - steady hands - (it has a low cooldown so it's handy when I need it), then use Word of Exaltation on myself (soloing), then begin building more damage again. I also notice that the "hand" symbol (prelude to hope?) doesn't really give 1 healing attunement, except for about .5 seconds, it's not long enough even to use any attunement gated skills. The attunement gate still exists, you must be "healing attuned" to at least 1 to use some healing skills, ditto damage skills. So I just use the "prelude" heal on myself whenever I want, it hardly slows the development of damage. I do remember long ago having to fight fairly high level creatures to even have the chance to use any skills beyond those that were neutral or low-attunement required. So I think that change was a good one. I do still wonder if lightning runestone in Solitary Thunder gives any benefit, but I suspect not. It is worthwhile to consider your enemy when mounted though. Damage types and sensitivity to damage types still matter, at least I can tell when I do light damage on an orc, they are hit harder (sometimes much), but the same light damage attack on corsairs is meh, so I'm confident that damage types do matter mounted when the trait trees are turned "off". It might be because of the mounted mechanics that the damage types are no longer synergistic, but I'm just guessing. It seems to me that RK's in high level areas rarely use mounted skills though, so I hope it wasn't the mounted combat that caused this change (if it's true in the first place that there is no more synergy). Acatlover2 (talk) 04:05, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

As I play the rune keeper more, I can see that there is still a kind of synergy, but it doesn't come from using fire skills with a fire damage weapon. It comes from a system more similar to the LM. Both classes get a +n% fire damage legacy. So the "synergy" is now a legacy. Possibly the buff is further boosted by the trait tree chosen. I've settled into an all purpose rune stone that has both +n% fire damage and +n% healing. It seems to work great and the Blue trait seems to be the reflection of the Red trait, except with healing. Both traits have a channeled skill (meaning you must stun me or kick me to interrupt it, can't use normal interrupts or setbacks to stop it) that either does massive damage (single target) or does a massive fellowship heal. Both traits have a rune you can place on the ground that acts sometimes like a dummy does for hunters (mobs target it instead of you). In blue you get a skill similar to the IHW for captains (the class I play most is captain), but it's a rune stone that takes damage instead of the fellowship, and instead of it being for a limited time, it simply disappears whenever it has taken "n" damage. The fellowship bubble plus the damage absorbing runestone can probably be used similarly to how captains use IHW with SoD or LS. Except it may be shorter in total duration because it has both a limit on damage and a limit on duration. These are just my thoughts from running some Moria instances now that I can. I'm sure there are others with better ideas, but so far, it has been fairly simple to figure out.

As my rk grows I will seek stun protection, "punt/kick" protection (resist?) and duration or magnitude buffs for the fellowship bubble and the final set bonus in blue trait line (the rune stone that takes fellowship damage). That's how it looks from level 60. It may change, many classes do. Acatlover2 (talk) 02:58, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

The view from level 100 with 74 trait points is this: there are both benefits coming from class traits (using the fire skills confer bonuses in Cleansing Fire trait) and legacies (conferring bonuses to fire skills directly). However, you must be careful if you want to maximize one elemental damage type.

• Going for a generalist runestone and satchel can significantly reduce your damage, but also allows you to reduce the total number of Empowerment Scrolls you need for unlocking legacy levels on an imbued weapon. If you don't have plans for group play, this is the most economic direction to take.
• In the long run, it will take a longer time to maximize both damage and healing trait lines because the choice of runestone and satchel legacies must be tailored to each trait line. At first, it may be effective to use a general runestone + satchel, but eventually, ones tailored for healing and ones tailored for either lightning or fire damage will serve you better.
• There are 3 imbued legacy replacement scrolls available in Eastern Gondor, they will come in handy for me. But this class doesn't tempt me to unlock the 3rd trait line for this reason. At least not yet, not until my first 4 LI's are complete.
• Tailoring the LI and trait bonuses for one elemental damage type may be the new method of elemental "attunement" although now, if we're talking attunement, we're generally only talking about dps versus healing.
• I noticed that Tentonhammer has a "new" guide to the Runekeeper dated March 2016. However, many of the pages it links to are still out of date and reference Traits from back when we still used Bards to "retrait." https://www.tentonhammer.com/guides/ten-ton-hammer-s-all-new-rune-keeper-class-guide-for-lotro-overview Perhaps someone is planning to update it.
• There is a recent forum discussion on traiting for healing here: https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?605685-Healing-Trait-Planning Although it also focuses more on methods of damage dealing while in healing trait, not so much on maximizing healing. One point often missed is that the bonuses in healing trait are tied to the cold/frost element.
• Although I have been ignoring the titles ending in "of Elder Days" and such because they change the damage type of weapons, I saw someone with ED III title on a Fire runestone, and it was still Fire damage type. I haven't tested this yet, but it looks like RK may be the exception for titles with damage type changes.
• I haven't yet seen any bonuses regarding mounted skills and certain elemental damage types. The effect/bonus icons sometimes look like the icons used with lightning, but it could be coincidental.

Acatlover2 (talk) 04:15, 9 April 2016 (UTC)