Oh dear. In before locked.

Chade:

I'll let Celina provide her own answers there, since I'm not going to speak for her. But I'm more than willing to take on this bet of yours, go create the character and leave it there afk parry/stancing and curing. I think the issues you have with Knights may stem from being an ineffectual one yourself? I understand the frustration, but most of my frustration comes from hitting chest on a hackdown. I'm still sure I'll be able to kill your AFK splendor wearing Trans Combat Demi using either Pureblade or Blademaster and no terts.

I killed fine against most of Lusternia as a warrior. Just pissed me off that people with decent curing (Esano, Shuyin, Fillin, Ix, etc) could just ignore it. Yeah, warriors have no problem facerolling people who know nothing about what they're facing or can't cure (assuming lack of RNG screwage, which really is far too common), but up against a serious opponent, you're drawing short straws.

And as I said before, my apologies to Celina. I tend not to pay that close of attention to the gender of people I don't associate with.

To be honest, BC has received some recent buffs that really make a difference. Ushaara, for example, has been doing pretty well as a bonecrusher. I don't necessarily agree that it's that far behind the other specs. There's obviously tweaks to make, but I feel like I've only ever met one bonecrusher (who shall remain nameless) who was really on the right track with how BC should be played.

That said, I guess the best answer to this question lies in another question. How do you define "effective in combat"? If you mean being decent in groups, no you don't need runes and you probably don't need much more than your guild skills, tumble and to a lesser extent the little efficiency/tankiness boosters like discipline/resilience/magic. In 1v1, you don't need runes against someone with around 50/50 robes or lower. Once you start dealing with higher splendour range, and/or artishields or god forbid tattoo armour, you need runes. Infact, the hard and honest truth is that once you're up against decent armour and shield combinations and good curing, you probably won't get anywhere without some boosters. This is a problem with the warrior class. To be able to take on that titan mage with a runed shield and splendours, you'll need to shell out credits for artis. You might also need demigod for the extra str/dexterity.

Unless you've got ahold of nightkiss/drawdown, forging runes and a decent str/dex combo, you probably should ignore the people who say you can 'be effective' if being effective to you means being able to kill decent mid-tier people with knighthood alone.

Disclaimer: you still need to learn how to build wounds. This means learning how people automatically push their stance and parry and use that pattern to get them to do what you want. It also means looking at how they prioritize their wound applications and abusing that and a lot of other things. Buying runes won't magically make you a good warrior, as Zillias said.

The problem is, warriors are expected to be an attrition class, and frankly, that concept is retarded since most other classes attack in bursts. To be able to deal with those classes, you have to either outburst them or survive them long enough to attrition them. The problem with THAT is, some classes like monk and mage require you to really throw down some good hindering to avoid being killed by them hilariously fast. Warriors can do this of course, but depending on your spec, it comes down to "MOAR WOUNDING". People cry and whine about one-hit tendons or one-hit pinlegs (which believe it or not are no where near the end of a battle on good curing), but a warrior doesn't really get anywhere on you hitting arteries and poisons, now does he?

Remember, these are also the people who don't go down easy to any class. On the Ixion front, Knight vs Knight has been a joke for forever, but that's again being addressed by the special envoy report with diminishing returns on wounding protection over 70/70 stats. On the Fillin front, if he was a Knight, same deal. If he was a Geo then fighting in a meld isn't really going to get you anywhere since yes, as a Knight its damn near impossible to kill a Geo inside his meld due to too many ways of slowing you down. Same deal with Esano. But you should be having a damn hard time inside any meld.

I'm not saying that Knights don't need tweaks, but those are coming. Diminishing returns plus a more reliable RNG as long as the envoy report is approved, which I don't see a reason for it not to be. You do need to make good use of terts as a Knight, of course, and yes some Knight classes have it easier than others, my own especially. I still think the statement that weapon runes are a requirement to kill anyone in splendors is totally overblown.

New assess helps quite a bit too!

Rivius. Nail. Head. He says it a lot better than me, and isn't an asshole who tends to make everything sound inflammatory mostly unintentionally. <.<

Hmm, I think I might have to reassess things after the hack down change goes through. For now though, call me an unconvinced extreme skeptic.

Edit: Esano didn't use his 'mesne and Fillin was a Nihi at the time. Those examples are just the ones I knew people would recognize. You can pretty much extend it to most of the 'top teir' category. Serious fighters require serious weapon runes, middie fighters require a sharp stick, or so painful experience taught me.

I think people say BC sucks because it's not as OP as it used to be, but it's still pretty good.

What are the benefits to being a BC compared to BM and the strategies they use to hinder?

Blademaster is well-rounded, don't get me wrong, and pinleg is still excellent in groups. It's just my least favourite spec, of the ones I've played.

Bonecrusher has crushwindpipe on a jab, fractureskull/dulak, knockdown/wind or knockdown/anything, stuns on head and chest, and calcise mangles going for it. The crushaorta bleeding upgrade was pretty nifty as well. It's fun to play, and I enjoyed the aesthetic of smashing heads in with giant hammers.

Honestly BM is garbage 1v1 now.

Here's a graph for viewing pleasure. Here's a link if the pic breaks (http://crappygraphs.com/user_graphs/?id=7246)

Xyas:

What are the benefits to being a BC compared to BM and the strategies they use to hinder?

You're Paradigmatics right? With Badluck and BC I'd imagine you could get quite a severe balance steal/stun thing going, or go for super stupidity synergy with badluck/dulak/fractureskull + chaosaura/whispers/eyesnare etc. for added insanity.

For hindering, BC can get a decent sprawl, but it requires ticking two affs and if you miss one of them due to stance/parry/RNG/natural miss, it's fairly weak. Other hindering comes from stun-train, so chest + other combos. If you can get a decent stun train going, you're well on your way to a kill. Stunning bards so much their song drops is always fun. The lack of a reliable heavy tendon/pinleg is what makes the hindering slightly weaker, but as Loth has said, can still do quite a lot.

Ixion, that graph is fantastic. :D

BM was super awesome so long as pinleg/impale was bugged. Now that it's been fixed, BM is where it always should have been. :P

Graph does not account for the days of AL double-tap!

Shenanigans!

So...I may have missed some important piece of information here but it sounds like the consensus is that runes are not necessary. The only thing that is necessary is not sucking at your class....regardless of what class it is.

I think we should all reflect on the information that has been given and draw in for a nice big hug. -nod-

Ushaara:

You're Paradigmatics right? With Badluck and BC I'd imagine you could get quite a severe balance steal/stun thing going, or go for super stupidity synergy with badluck/dulak/fractureskull + chaosaura/whispers/eyesnare etc. for added insanity.

For hindering, BC can get a decent sprawl, but it requires ticking two affs and if you miss one of them due to stance/parry/RNG/natural miss, it's fairly weak. Other hindering comes from stun-train, so chest + other combos. If you can get a decent stun train going, you're well on your way to a kill. Stunning bards so much their song drops is always fun. The lack of a reliable heavy tendon/pinleg is what makes the hindering slightly weaker, but as Loth has said, can still do quite a lot.

Ixion, that graph is fantastic. :D

BC works really nicely with Paradigmatics, FractureSkull stacking with Stupidity/Badluck/Greywhispers and insanity is lovely plus you can build some nice insanity by hitting stuns to the chest to slow down healing. For me, BM edges it fractionally due the larger number of low level affs on jabs plus bleeding which can really help to drain the mana of your target quite quickly and isn't as reliant on the RNG that BC is due to having better low level affs on swings. My main insanity building system as a BM is pretty much automated now, it uses an RNG which favours arms/chest/gut over head and legs, tracks parry/stance and removes the last parry and stance locations from the RNG then resets it once it hits a new parry/stance location. Throw in an autocontemplate before each attack and if the target is at moderate to majorly insane it switches from an attack to stealing truename then begins to build again. Only works with 280+ weapons and Faeling or Aslaran though, no other race is viable for pulling off an illuminate kill. We also get some degree of burst by using VisionFlux at the correct time, massive mana reduction but helps you to get over the hump of going from majorly to massive insanity if timed well.

The nice thing is it also builds wounds quickly and outputs a very decent number of affs, I've been able to give people 18-20+ affs because of severed arteries and other low level stuff. Once you start hitting hemiplegy on both arms you know you're getting close to a kill. What I really need to work on now is keeping my target static. If I was working manually though, I'm guessing with the correct setup that BC could possibly build insanity quicker due to landing stuns via jabs on chest slowing down insanity curing.

It seems to be that a warrior can enter combat and be competant without runes, but should not expect to be able to compete at a high level without them, and that the major problem with siad runes is that they are exorbidantly more expensive than the comparable defensive artifacts (absorbtion and shield runes).

I understand that Estarra's hands are tied on the artifact pricing, so what do you think potential solutions are for the disparity in credit requirement?

foolofsound:

It seems to be that a warrior can enter combat and be competant without runes, but should not expect to be able to compete at a high level without them, and that the major problem with siad runes is that they are exorbidantly more expensive than the comparable defensive artifacts (absorbtion and shield runes).

I understand that Estarra's hands are tied on the artifact pricing, so what do you think potential solutions are for the disparity in credit requirement?

The warrior special report that is going through at the moment will help a lot with that, as stated already. Beyond that, at the moment I think the Templar's are a pretty excellent example of what warriors can be given the correct tertiary. They have two combat options, insanity attrition including the ability to burst with VisionFlux for an Illuminate kill and falling back on a standard primary spec weapon kill otherwise. The insanity attrition kill doesn't really require weapon runes at all, although a +10 or +15 increase in speed would be helpful.

I should add, it's in no way easy to build up enough insanity on someone to kill them this way, in fact I'd say it's pretty perfectly balanced. Takes perfect timing with use of skills like VisionFlux and remembering to stack Greywhispers/Badluck at the correct time to make sure they don't fade. It's the 1v1 tactic I'll usually go for because its more likely to work for me. Trackers also have it pretty good, with correct use of traps, the right spec and with the changes to warrior regarding RNG on swings and diminishing returns they'll be quite nicely balanced I think, although they could do with a bit of DMP love. Ebonguard are pretty well off at the moment as well (Night here, Crow is a different story), they're the tankiest of the Knights with Drink and Nightkiss, plus they have choke to fall back on. Fighting as a Knight in choke isn't easy and is liable to backfire, especially 1v1 so it needs perfect timing and a lot of practice. Whenever I used it, it more often than not backfired on me (but then I'm not top tier), but sometimes I got it pretty much perfect and managed to choke then immediately hit a Wiccan/Guardian with hadrudin and stick disfigure on them which is pretty much game over.

I don't know enough about the Sentinels skills to really comment on them, but ur'Guard have an instakill which they can pull off with perfect timing 1v1 (when I say perfect, I do mean perfect), it's definitely harder to do 1v1 than the Templar instakill but it's slightly easier to pull off than the Templar kill in groups. The envoy report on the changes to deathweapon should help them a little bit with pulling off their insta 1v1 as well, hopefully without unbalancing it too much in groups. Paladin's have it quite rough although they do have an insta. If I'm honest, the Knight class I feel most sorry for is Serenguard, they really get the short end of the stick in terms of offensive PK abilities in their terts.

I'd argue that if you want to allow top tier Knight combat without the need for weapon runes then a few tweaks to tert's that give viable but difficult to pull off instakills or skills like choke which in the hands of someone very skilled can be extremely useful at the right time, then you're onto a winner. Templar's are pretty much perfect as is in terms of Paradigmatics, Ebonguard are ok as well, ur'Guard should be ok after DeathWeapon change, Paladin might need a couple of tweaks to be viable without arties, no idea on Sentinels and Serenguard I just feel a bit sorry for even after the changes.

"ur'Guard have an instakill which they can pull off with perfect timing 1v1 (when I say perfect, I do mean perfect)"

If it happens it's because they massively can't cure/have no system/can't writhe/big lagbeast, not because you did it 'perfectly.' The DW report won't really have any effect on 1v1 sacs. It's an entirely different priority and setup than wound based kills.

Then give the ur'Guard a couple of tweaks to make sac slightly easier for them, I have no issues with that, make it a viable 1v1 insta that doesn't require the god of lag. DeathWeapon change will give a nice boost to prec, can't hurt with pulling off a sac. I could never pull off a sac as an Aslaran BC ur'Guard but I've seen other BC's pull it off in the past with cleverly put together wind chains and perfect timing. Been ages since I was an ur'Guard though and a lot of changes since then, so perhaps less possible. I'd argue, make it possible, should only take a minor tweak.

Suppose my basic argument is this: Templar's are already a very viable class for fighting without weapon runes, bring all the other classes up to having a difficult to pull off but viable instakill (or something like choke) and you make weapon runes a very nice thing to have, but not essential for top tier fighting.

Yeah it's on my ever growing to-do list to make it workable again since it's impossible now. Prec can help get KDs for bal loss even though it's not too hard already, so fair enough there. :)