Endeavoring To Awaken --A Guide To Rune Fencer

Likely /war. I'm thinking it can get...sword, polearm, staff, club, great sword, and...dagger? I'm actually having a hard time finding a dagger RUN can use, but there's got to be at least one out there, you'd think. You'll get locked out of katana/great katana, but subbing /nin or /sam will cut off too many of the others.

Edit: No. Apparently there isn't a single RUN-equipable dagger, at least not on the AH. I'm sort of surprised at that. Unsure if there's some sort of r/ex all jobs event dagger out there though.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item/19101/trainee-knife

http://www.ffxiah.com/item/19110/trainees-needle

Those are the only two all jobs daggers i can find atm with a quick search.

With /war, either should actually be satisfactory for proc'ing. A bit of a task to get, but still doable.

Should also be able to get scythe if you have the Ark Scythe.

Not that bad actually ;p

What's the verdict on Macbain GS?

I'm not really sure. I'm more curious on the augments you can put onto the greatsword before I get it myself. But if anybody finds augments please do share them!^^

Right now I have 13 MAB 13 Macc and DA +2 on it. Figured it be fun with lunges. But it doesn't match Aettirs 8% boost.

like most things with Run it varies. I'm thinking I'm might try for Acc/Attack and see if I can boost up the DA or try for STP higher than 5 etc.

Those stats are pretty nice. Plus with using Macbain your missing the PDT -5%. I'll have to see which NM drops the sword and see what augments I get

RUN/WAR can't do Cyclone or Energy Drain. Both WS require main or sub to be THF DNC RDM RNG BRD NIN.

Just out of curiosity, is Vallation/Pflug still the desired category one merits? I can't decide between Pflug and Rune Enchantment.

Vallation/Rune Enhancement Potency is what I went with and I'm happy with the results.

the Macbain is much more of an attacker based greatsword, rather than a tanking one, because Aettir pushes your pdt cap to 55%, while any PDT on Macbain will not.

I would lean towards the Macbain for 5-6 hit builds, depending on subjob.

As for what drops the Macbain, that would be the Corse NM in Rala Waterways Eudaemon Alluvion Skirmish.

I went with rune Enhancement/Vallation 5/5 (on both), but after getting 10 Job Points in Rune enhancement (10JPs is the same as 5merits) I swapped those 5/5 RuneEnh merits into 5/5 Pflug.

Now I have the same +resistance as before, but a stronger Pflug.
The Merit Category and JP Category DO STACK btw, it's not that I swapped because they don't.
Maybe I'll change my mind in the future, dunno, not like capping 5/5 Rune Merits will take me long lol.


Pflug is awesome but highly situational because of how it relies on the currently active runes to work. And sadly many times you're using different runes to shield yourself against the target's element, and the debuff you want to defend from is another different element... There are a lot of such situations and it's annoying.
Yes you can swap runes after using vallations just before Pflug, but that too is annoying.

Wish Pflug, in addition to a strong defense toward the current element, could grant a small general resistance against everything =/

Isn't it they stack defensively but not offensively?

The writing for one is potency in general (Merits) and the other is specific to defense?(JP)

I think so... But it's been awhile since they were new... And I honestly don't fully remember if the added dmg was greater with more merits... But I think it did increase.
That said, the JP category is JUST the Meva they give.

Do they even do anything offensively? I thought they were defense only, at least merits at release were defense only.
Dunno if something got patched meanwhile and they added potency (offense) but I doubt it.

No clue about JPs, I just assumed they were the same as merits.

The JPs are definitely resistance only, I recall someone testing them a few pages back. As for the merits, the wording is certainly a little more open to interpretation, and I think the easiest way to be sure would be to test Lunge/Pulse with two people with the same stats, unless someone wants to blow a few merits to find out.

Wording on Merits was open to interpretation, and that's why someone tested it (at release) and showed they affected only resistance.
If stuff got patched after that I don't know of course.

Hmm well, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I personally love the Pflug merits. After tanking a lot of higher level fights, I noticed what usually gave me the most trouble was getting hit with certain bad statuses, more so than the damage I was taking. This pushed me to make the AF+1 legs instead of Qaaxo despite 2% less PDT. Also, I'm cheap.

I'm not questioning the usefulness of 5/5 Pflug.
But it's undeniable that 5/5 Rune is something that's gonna be active 100% of the time, whereas the Pflug thing is gonna be active max ~60% of the time.

Also, as I mentioned before, Pflug is a very situational JA because it only works against debuffs related to the current runes elements you have active the second you activate pflug, and unless you swap them right before using it (which is doable, with the 5 seconds recast, but very annoying to do) Pflug is not always going to be useful.
Think about shielding yourself against water damage on an enemy that uses Water element but also spams Paralyze for instance (ice element).
Unless you swap runes to Ice ones, Pflug would do absolutely nothing for that.


(or am I having a derp moment and I completely misunderstood how Pflug works?)

No, you've got it right. It's just that it is always worth it (even though it's annoying) to swap over runes and Pflug to resist the more irritating ailments (Paralyze, Petrify, Charm, Amnesia, etc.). I too use the AF+1 legs in my full tanking set to help avoid enfeebles, since you can still cap without Qaaxo's extra 2%. What I found helps is anticipating and knowing the order in which you're going to be fighting NMs or particular monster families, and starting up your 3x resist runes on the way to each fight. This obviously isn't always easy with more random events like alluvion skirmishes where you get random NMs, but if your linkshell always does event NMs in certain orders you should prepare your runes accordingly to reduce your annoyance time and rune swapping mid fight.

An example would be in Kamhir's delve zone; I know exactly when we're going to be fighting the Coeurl NM in our order. I put up 3x fire runes, barpara/bliz and use pflug on the way to the fight, then I can swap over to 3x tellus valiance to reduce charged whiskers damage while also avoiding any stray blaster paralyzes.

Honestly, I feel like what was proposed earlier should be a thing. Pflug should give a base amount of resistance to all ailments, and then the rune related bonus should be applied afterwards. Paladin's Fealty is pretty amazing in this respect, though their recast is quite a bit more steep. I'm probably being a bit selfish here since Rune Fencer already does resist enfeebling spells quite often, but I just feel like it would fit more with the design of the "tank for magic".

I think part of it depends on how you go about changing runes. Using Windower, I set aliases to bind whichever rune I need to my all-purpose rune macro. For example, typing //tene will bind Tenebrae to the macro, and then I can easily type //lux to switch to Lux. Makes it easy to use Tenebrae pulses when I'm hurting for MP, particularly in Delve between NMs.

As for Pflug changes, I'd just prefer it be available full-time. What really bothers me is Liement being so short and mutually exclusive with Vallation/Valiance, so there are few chances to use it. My guess is they'd argue that you could use 3 different runes and be ready for 3 elements at once (which, for a fight like Celestial Nexus would be sorta plausible, especially if you have Epeolatry). Anyway, it really oughta be like, 30 seconds.

Sorta off-topic, fought ADL the other day on RUN and was able to resist his terror. I was using Flabra (figuring the terror was unresistable, but he still has Breakga), so it's possible that his terror is earth-based. Either that or the 6% on the pants kicked in, or One For All secretly offers status resistance.

I did the same with Sechs, I swapped out the merit Rune Enhancement with Pflug. I noticed a huge effect the resistance with runes harbored.

Wait what? Way to go Sechs, one of your derp moments.
Liement is mutually exclusive with Vallation/Valiance?
Oh gosh... I swear I was bloody sure they both stacked together.
Tells a lot about how much I used Liement.

Last time I think it was on Megamaw Mickey soon after SoA release lol


Anyway yeah Jeanpaul you're right about swapping. Maybe it's just me who's got something wrong in his head but I really hate having to constantly swap runes back and forth back and forth back and forth. Maybe it's just me.
Wish Pflug was something giving a small base resistance to all ailments, plus an additional bonus dependant on harboured runes.
Would be perfect that way imho.

Terror is apparently, at its core, an earth based debuff. Monsters use the petrify formula to stick it to players. It is basically a glorified petrification. I believe there was some testing on BG to conclude this, but I don't quite feel like digging through some threads right now. I haven't really been able to resist it the few times I tried, so I stopped bothering to try.

Some of those tests were based on false assumptions- the number one being that the terror that players can cast is identical to the monster version. The monster version appears to be either non-elemental or dark based (probably the former, but I don't remember doing enough personal testing to disprove the latter). It's also possible that the monster versions receive a massive magic accuracy boost, but more than likely it's a combination of the two (accuracy boost+ no element).

I would certainly say some versions of Terror have a large accuracy boost (Dreadstorm from Khimairas, for example), while others I resist so much that I can't even tell what WS's cause them (Dvergrs, Ironclads).

Yeah, slight necro, but I am curious about a few things that I haven't managed to get definitive answers to.

Battuta + Spikes spells = ??? I've used them both, and I'd guess that when Battuta doesn't proc, your spikes will... but so many effects in this game override one another and wasting MP on a spikes spell seems rather bad. Considering that RUN gets both of these effects, I can only hope (ha, ha) that SE didn't screw the possibly synergy between the two.

Delve 2 bosses. Can a decently (no Defending Ring and definitely no ergon GS) geared rune fencer actually hold them? I'm inclined to say probably, at least in the case of Cailimh and Uktux. The tree might be a bit harder. :P I practice in WKR, but that is a whole different situation with a hell of a lot more people involved.

Are the best PDT feet Iuitl +1 with good augs or a rank 15 Qaxxo? Relic/AF don't have any sort of PDT, but their other effects tend to be useful.

Thanks for your time. :D