Considering mass stock of offensive runes way later on in some blades(going to do skills first and I can't buy so many credits so often, plus I'm not sure if I feel like a total geek buying more than 100 - no offense, my issue not yours), want to hear as much as I can on the subject.


For those who have elemental runes, which did you get and why? Have any dual-weapon fighters put different elemental runes into each weapon? Like fire/lightning, etc? What are the results, aside from racial convenience?

For those who don't, if you are going to/would/could get elemental damage runes, which would you get and why?

Also, any specifics on rune effects via math would be nice.

Runes are, to be honest, amazing.

The rune type depends on the class/race you're going to fight. If you're Magnagoran then I suggest fire/lightning as Merians (the Celest specialising race) will take HUGE damage.

Make sure you get excellent weapons first before you rune them. Talk to your guild about trying to obtain kick-ass weapons: which will be easier to get if you offer credits.

Thanks for the note on merians, but I'm moreso looking for overall benefit as far as elemental damage runes are concerned. Which is just better than the others in your experience? So forth. Not to disclude the value of capitalizing on racial weaknesses, but I'd like to know how the different elemental runes work. Like does it -add- damage? Or just change damage? By how much? (I read the help files, it says 1/3rd or whatnot, but I'm asking for some actual tested results...like if Murphy over there does 1,000 damage with some odd hit normally, how much of that is electrical, and what are the multiplications of it being electrical on a merian?)

Hypothetical: Weak to lightning lvl 2 on merians means what for me? If I hit them with lightning and do 500 damage in that swing, 1/3rd of that damage is lightning, so 166 of it is lightning damage. Since they have a level two weakness to lightning I'll assume...the damage is multipled upon by two? May seem too analytical, but I just wanna be fully versed on this stuff before I make any jumps (and spend money).


So far I've heard lightning is the best choice, has anyone else used any of the other runes or noticed anything?

Lightning. Almost no one has lightning resistance and merians (Celest's specialization race) and mugwumps (one of the most common mage/druid/wiccan races) have massive weaknesses to it.

EDIT: No, it's not doubled. I think that each level represents 10%. So if someone has a level 2 weakness, they'll take 20% more damage. This might not sound like a ton, but it really is significant. So if you'd hit someone with absolutely no defenses and no resistances/weaknesses (which, in practice, will never happen; why would anyone fight undeffed?) and you do 500 damage, you'd still be doing 500 damage; elemental runes don't actually add any raw damage. What they do is convert a portion of the damage into elemental damage. This is good because there are less resistances to elemental damage and those resistances are less common than the resistances to physical, particularly because elemental damage ignores armor.

It's only 20% of the 33% of the weapon that gets changed, so that's even less significant.

HOWEVER, it's actually a lot worse than that because lightning/whatevery damage bypasses armour.

for the record i no longer have elemental runes, nor damage weapons, i artifact traded them so buy better wounding runes for my hammers
-inno-

howwver, when i did have them, they used to convert 50% of the total damage, so basically i would do 50% blunt and 50% lightning. Changing the element might not sound like much, especially against races which have no penalty but think about this.

50% of your damage is no longer blockable by armour, shields, natural resistance, resilence, drawdown, putrefaction NOTHING. Its quite a large damage boost. Now it's something like 33% which is still a pretty damn good amount to boost it by.

As for one of each, i totally reccomend it to get a better spread of damage so you are more vrsatile. I defeinitley reccomend electiricty, but to guarantee you don't get shafted i'd be going fire and lightning, or cold and lightning as there aren't many racial combo's that are weak to both.

If yo uwant to go damage warrior, base stats i'd reccomend would be 180-123-160 for maximum speed and damage over time.

I didn't think about that before. I'm definetly going to go for some elemental runes after the info you and Shamarah cleared up for me. Thanks alot.

well that all depends, do you want to be able to kill newbies and midbie's effectivley Or do you want to be able to nail anyone, regardless of level all the way to demigod in a short amount of time?

If the answer is the former then elementals are for you

If the answer is the latter, then Aslaran, high precisious weapons + wounding runes are your best bet. Takes a lot more skill.

If you're wondering, Damage knights work best as a bonecrusher, given your stun will stop them from sipping and healing as often allowing you to really open up with the burst damage.

EDIT: put it this way, all the top tier fighters almost NEVER drop to damage alone, however ALL the top tier fighters drop to wounding in the hands of a master.

I was planning on getting both elemental and wounding runes. You can't do both?

on what weapon? what stats were you planning on and are you thinking of BC or BM

Lightning runes are best. Only Taurians have any serious racial resistance, there are no skills (correct me if I'm wrong) to add to electric resist, and several races (notably Merians and Mugwumps) die reeeeeally easily to them.

And I disagree with Murphy, top fighters die to damage one on one. You need alot of damage, and to keep them from running/shielding (which is the problem, if you are big and slow).

how can you say that folkien?

I haven't died to a damage knight in forever, i have however died to woudning. Daevos doesn't die to damage, Lyco doesn't, Terenas doesn't, Amaru doesn't, Geb doesn't, Ixion doesn't, Narsrim doesn't, Kaervas doesn't, ummm yeh pretty much every top tier fighter doesn't go down to damage, and if they do its very very rarely. All the aforementioned people regularly go down to wounding, be it behead, bashbrains or a bleed out (which is all wounding)

I'm talking 1v1 pvp here, reason being is all the aforementioned fighters know how to handle big damage hits, and know how to stop their offence and turn the fight around straight up.

Unless you are ixion, with his prenerf broadsword damage monsters, you won't kill any decent knight with damage. You pretty much won't kill anyone on damage who knows what they are doing.

Reason is, most top fighters apart from Geb, Myself and Amaru are at least level 80 (haven't chedcked on amaru's level recently) and most are around lvl 90. Damage has less of an effect, however wounding affects everyone the same regarless of level. Wounding is also a lot harder to get right healing wise, and it's a lot harder to manage with your parry curing stances and maintaining your own offence.

There is a reason there has been a shift in all the good warriors, Me, Daevos Diamante and all the other old school damage warriors (think 8months to a year ago) have gone wounding recently, thats because wounding is much more lethal than damage against anyone who knows how to fight and cure.

I was thinking a pair of scimitars with 230 precision in the least, Blademaster.

Hmm, well it's interesting how wounds work out. I originally was a retardedly high damage warrior, with incredibly low wounding. But as my general skill in fighting and experience improved, I learned that damage knights are nearly null at the top tier. With a lot of the best fighters around nearing or at titan, (aside from murphy, you little kiddo) it's just rediculously hard to outclass someone with damage. However, this rule of thumb applies majorly to warriors, as most mages and guardians (aside from 3 or 4) are far more weak to heavy burst damage than wounds, since they can usually run when their head gets too low, but it's hard to handle when someone is doing 2k+ per combo at times to you if your maintaining around 3-4k health. Another thing to consider, and this seems to help the most, is while I have nerfed my broadswords quite a lot in the damage department, in favour of wounds, the high damage output also forces them to sip health more often than straight wounding, which prevents them from applying health all the time. In more recent months, i've found it favourable to have a pair of high damage and good wounding broads, and a pair of real high speed/precision rapiers to stick in the wounding. But if you go elemental runes, lightning and fire make a decent combonation, or just lightning, and pretty much, just DO NOT GET MAGIC RUNES, since the magic resist available is just meh

And Diamante pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter of damage knights.

for the record I believe bonecrusher is a better damage knight than blademaster, simply because of the stunning.

And i have around 5k-5.5k while surged, and even with a sip penalty it leaves me with more than enough health to apply potions reather than sip them when required.

Like i said damage knights will beat most midbie fighters, but you wont kill any of the top tier fighters even the top tier mages with damage alone if the mage knows how t play their class, which is a given being in the top tier.

Wounding runes will be a priority then.

Very true, though I should clarify you are talking about one on one combat only. Indeed as everyone gains levels, damage warriors become increasingly obsolete.

However, group combat is much more common, and damage kills are more efficient in it.

yeh group combat damage tends to rule, unless you're fighting against me or lyco and daevos or ravlok, in which case you'll likely be beheaded if you are a main threat

I'm wondering, if elemental runes will be any good on scimitar with around 100 damage?

33% of bugger is, is a third of bugger all.

If you have to, get a scimitar and a broadsword that have the same speeds, wounding rune on scimitar and a elemetal rune on the broadsword with bg damage.