Late last night, Tubine’s Zom­bie Colum­bus posted a big update on trait and skill changes for the Rune-keeper that are cur­rently being tested for Book 7. He notes that changes to lega­cies, the ranged slot item and con­sum­ables are not included in this list. Test­ing will likely reduce the final list of changes, but for now this is what is being worked with:

Over­all, I’m try­ing to make some unused skills more inter­est­ing, add some new com­bi­na­tions of traits/skills and much needed dam­age out­put increase. As much as pos­si­ble, the increases in net power are in traits or trait sets.

As in the past, con­sider this list a pre­view only, com­ments (not per­sonal attacks) are welcome.

Gen­eral bugs:
The Chill of Win­ter Debuff dura­tion Legacy now works on Chill­ing Rhetoric.
Sound FX for Scribes Spark, Essence of Storm and Cease­less Argu­ment have been toned down
The Affin­ity of a rune-stone is now more clearly writ­ten
Dam­age and Heal­ing amounts are increased at level 1 – 19
Rune of endurance can now be renamed
Tooltips of many skills have been updated
All Writs have induc­tion time reduced to .75s

Attune­ment change:
Effects of attune­ment on var­i­ous scalar effects on skills have been less­ened. The reduced ben­e­fits at full attune­ment have been put into the base ver­sion of the skills:
Scribes Spark and Fiery Ridicule now pro­vide only 2% dam­age per attune­ment.
Chill­ing Rhetoric no longer increases dam­age by attune­ment.
Pre­lude to Hope pro­vides only 2% heal­ing per attune­ment.
Scathing Mock­ery does not hit addi­tional tar­gets.
Writ of Fire does not have it’s Power cost reduced.
Mend­ing Verse does not have it’s Power cost reduced.
Words of Exal­ta­tion does not increase it’s dura­tion (now 3s base).
EX) Scribes Spark dealt 4% dam­age per attune­ment (max of 36%.) It now deals 18% more base dam­age then it did in the past, and maxes out at +18% attune­ment dam­age, leav­ing it’s opti­mal DPS the same.

Sol­idary Thun­der: Over­all, not intended to be much of a boost in power, but some more vari­ety in the game­play is being intro­duced (Essence of Storm is less spammy, but stronger). Also, Some of the impor­tance of crit­i­cal hits is being mit­i­gated, while an empha­sis on self buffs over tar­get buffs should help group play (ie: the buff from Thun­der­ous Words effects the RK now, so it will last between mob kills.) Ran­dom chance is still an impor­tant theme in this line.

Cease­less Argu­ment: Increased chance to pen­e­trate tac­ti­cal resis­tance, a slight dam­age decrease and it’s attune­ment require­ment set to No Heal (like Essence of Storm is now). Will not be a start­ing skill.
Essence of Storm: Base dam­age increased, it’s crit­i­cal mul­ti­plier increased to 100%, it’s attune­men­tit require­ment to 6B, Recov­ery increased to 10 sec­onds. Will not be gained at level 6.
Shock­ing Words has it’s attune­ment require­ment set to 3 Bat­tle. Will not be at level 10.
Epic Con­clu­sion: Removed the Crit­i­cal hit dam­age bonus. Now bypasses even more Tac­ti­cal Resis­tance. Base dam­age increased. Power cost reduced.

Con­found­ing Prin­ci­ples: Grants some Tac­ti­cal Resis­tance pen­e­tra­tion. Only dazes for 10 – 15 sec­onds.
Thun­der­ous Words and Harsh Debate: The debuff is now a self buff of +Light­ning Dam­age or +Tac­ti­cal Pen­e­tra­tion, and is applied a flat 25%, not based on crit­i­cal hits.
Clos­ing Remarks: Epic Con­clu­sion now com­bos off of the buffs on your­self. No longer increases crit­i­cal hit chance. Reduced Recov­ery by 45s.
Winter-storm: Remade to now give Fury of Storm skills a 5% chance to stun for 5s on foes with Writ of Cold active.

2 Set bonus: Also decreases the recov­ery of Chill­ing Rhetoric by 10s.
3 Set Bonus: Now only 25% increased dam­age on crit­i­cal hits. Also reduces Shock­ing Words Recov­ery by 5s.
4 Set Bonus: Increased to 4% per Attune­ment step.
Leg­endary Trait: Daze time now 10-15s. No longer increases dam­age. Puts a buff on the RK that increases Crit­i­cal Hit chance of light­ning skills by 25% for 15s.

Wrath of Fire: Dam­age of many Wrath of Fire skills is increas­ing by around 10%. Fiery Ridicule is get­ting an inter­est­ing new trait for Fire speced RK’s. Calm­ing Verse is receiv­ing some updates to make it more desirable.

Fiery Ridicule: Power Cost reduc­tion.
Smoul­der­ing Wrath: Slight Dam­age decrease.

Con­fla­gra­tion of Runes: No longer reduces induc­tion of Fiery Ridicule, or it’s Power Cost. Now deals 10% bonus dam­age for each other Wrath of Fire skill the RK has burn­ing on the tar­get.
Writ of Blaz­ing Fire: Reduces recov­ery of Writ of Fire by 2s.
Mas­ter of Con­no­ta­tion: Slight increase.
Scathing Retort: Dam­age increase.
Frost-burn: Reduces recov­ery of Writ of Cold by 2s.
Linnod of Sub­tlety: Also increases Tac­ti­cal resis­tance penetration.

2 Set Bonus: Also decreases induc­tion of Fiery Ridicule by .5s
3 Set Bonus: Bonus removed. Now Reduces Essence of Flame Recov­ery by 5s. Adds 2 pulses to Essence of Flame.
Leg­endary Trait: Dis­tract­ing Flame now reduces Tac­ti­cal Resis­tance while on target.

Heal­ing: A few tweaks, mainly to give a touch more AOE healing.

Mend­ing Verse: +2% Heal­ing per Attune­ment.
Word of Exal­ta­tion: Reduced to 40% dam­age reduc­tion. Dura­tion is now 3s base, +2 per Writ tier.
Rous­ing Words: Now heals straight morale every sec­ond instead of ICMR. Still gen­er­ates no threat. Gen­er­ates addi­tional Heal­ing attune­ment. Dura­tion reduced to 6s. Recov­ery reduced to 20s.
Our Fates Entwined: Recov­ery reduced to 30s.
All Fates Entwined: Recov­ery reduced to 10s.

Mas­ter of Allu­sion: Also adds 5% reduced heal­ing costs.
Author of Exal­ta­tion: Only increases dam­age reduc­tion by 10% now. Increases dura­tion of buff by 3s.
Terse Nar­ra­tive: –15% Power Cost.
Linnod of Peace: Increased heal­ing while active.
Rune of Endurance: More bonus health. Rune heals addi­tional if heal­ing a tar­get under the effects of Rous­ing Words.
Writ of Well-being: Reduces recov­ery of Writ of Health by 2s.

2 Set Bonus: Also increased heal­ing on Rune of Restora­tion.
3 Set bonus: Now only 10% cost reduc­tion. Also Mend­ing Verse has 2 more pulses.
Leg­endary Trait: Puts a +5% heal­ing done buff on the RK for as long as the incom­ing heal­ing buff is active.

Other Skills:
Essence of Win­ter: Small dam­age boost.
Writ of Cold: Reduced debuff to 5% per tier.
Do Not Fall This Day: Dura­tion increased to 45s.
Armour of X: Flame and Frost have increase proc chances. Storm is left alone.
Calm­ing Verse: Shifts 2 attunement.

Leg­endary Traits:
Mar­tial Train­ing: No longer increases attack speed. Increases crit­i­cal hit dam­age. Increases Parry rat­ing. Increases Evade rat­ing. More Melee dam­age bonus.
Fall to Our Wrath: Recov­ery reduced to 30s. Power Cost greatly reduced. Now reduces Tac­ti­cal Resis­tance like the other “Fall to X” skills.
Steady Hands: Induc­tion time now 1.5s.

I’m glad to see some low­er­ing of induc­tion times and a raise in DPS for sev­eral skills. It also sounds like some skills will improve in power at a bet­ter rate than they do cur­rently as you go up in level. That’s never bad.

They’ll also be ton­ing down the light­ning sound effects from the Rune-keeper. Longer recov­ery skills will still be loud, but quicker attacks will be more sub­tle. Yay!

I’m still hop­ing they fix the com­bat run­ning ani­ma­tion, but all of this is cer­tainly more impor­tant.

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