After having to make a tough decision between Dreamweaving and Hunting/Ecology for my Druid I remembered there was another skill choice. Does anyone actually learn Runes or has it been left for dead? It seems like with the coming of all the new skills Runes is rather useless and subpar. Anyways, what do you guys think?

EDIT: Just to make it clear, I don't actually need advice. I'm just curious if you think Runes is worth it. As far as I can tell the only reason to use Runes is if you have Illusions so you can sling and illusion after it. I don't know what Druids would do considering Runes seem rather easy to cure.

Dreamweaving if ya can put some credits in to get embedded motes.

Runes = Decent in and out of demesne (so long as you have supersling)

Dreamweaving = Good in demesne not so good out of demesne

Ecology/Psionics = Nothing to help demesne (such as embed) but good outside of demesne

dreamweaving is by far the most deadly combat-wise if you plan on being a demesne-only mage. If, however, you find yourself lacking the patience and resources to lay down a huge demesne and go fishing, psionics is what you need. Telepathy or telekinesis is a choice up to you. I'm a telepath and, aside from the crap ego draining of mindblast and psychicvampirism, it's an alright skill. Still have alot to be worked on though, as even Geb can tell you

I have runes.

But I only have runes because Magnagora needs at least one runist for statue purposes.. seeing as I don't fight much.. it seemed a useful place to put my lessons.

I would be really happy if Druids were able to learn Healing, but I'm probably in the minority.

I'd be happy if Celestians were able to learn Hexes, like .. the other three guardian guilds can.

Too bad I'm not likely to switch guilds for skills.

He said druid Psionics is out of the question

Psh, no, I'd love healing.

Dreamweaving is apparently very good in a mage demesne, and I've heard it is nearly as good in a Druid demesne. It's not so good at all outside.

I wish it had more utility use, and less aggressive combat use, but that's the way it is. I also am not sure why embedded dreamweaving is superior to embedded runes in a demesne (which it is), but I suppose Runists have more business opportunities.

Runes needs some work to be brought back into usefulness, and Dreamweaving needs a shifting of its applications (totally unbiased opinion there ).

Well, part of my problem is that I am not a PvPer (or even PvDer), so I barely use my third skill. Ecology/Dreamweaving/Runes just don't do that much for me, so with Healing atleast I would get something out of it, and it is much more in line with the character Peeka. But, it is what it is.

Hmm, when I first started playing, there was just Runes, so I took it up, got to Master, then Dreamweaving came out, so I switched to Dreamweaving, worked my way to Virt, then I went to the shadowdancers for a while, but came back when Psionics was released, and took up Telepathy. They've each been ok.

I picked Runes because I was told that no one does...and that it was needed for things like statues.

Actually, embedded runes in a demesne don't seem too bad. If you'd time that paralysis thing correctly so that it hits 5 seconds after swarm, you could keep them pretty much down while your demesne still hits them, you sap and use runes yourself....but I don't know, I like dreamweaving.



Darn.

*ponders about switching to runes now*

Having had runes and dreamweaving as a mage, dreamweaving is lots more fun outside of your main combats, if you like sneaking around spying on people and annoying them, or interfering in a big group combat. Jumping into a fight in the dreambody can be an interesting help to your side.

Runes I never really got that into, but I think it has a lot more utility in your standard knockdown-dragout demesne battle. More afflictions to embed, range ability, and supersling. Just that, when you're not in such a knockdown-dragout, runes is basically not doing anything for you apart from runing up a statue, which happens once every blue moon, or when you get a new village.

I've never had any psionic skill or ecology. Both seem more tuned to the "screw the demesne" type of mage/druid, but I'm talking out my ass there.

I've had every Druid third skill to Trans, and of them all, Runes was by FAR the least fun. Dreamweaving is the best outside of straight up combat, and Ecology is useful with charms and hunting.

Ecology is the best for combat. Runes has a wider range of afflictions, but most of it is useless crap, and supersling isn't fast enough or cost efficient enough to be too powerful. Fetish is fast regardless of race, so it's not as much of an issue, and you get handy poisons.

Not possible, as far as I know. I'm 90% sure that embedded runes run on a different timer than demesne effects (though it's been a while, I might be wrong)

Plus, you can't see when they hit.

You can't?

How useless...

And damn, no hitting every 10 seconds? That makes them a LOT worse than I thought..

They hit every 10 seconds, it's just a total bitch to time it because you can't see them hit, so if you mistime it by a second or something, it doesn't work, and you can't really tell.

Well, I don't time my motes too....it usually just stacks that much after a while that that doesn't matter anymore anyway. But I still think that paralysis would be sweet...I'd need a skilllist though so that I could judge a bit better. ( )