Endeavoring To Awaken --A Guide To Rune Fencer

Didn't see any info on Embolden interactions with protect/shell enhancements. Super easy to test with protect:

naked 205 def
pro4 325
sheltered ring+pro4 333
embolden+ring+pro4 393

205+120*1.5+8=393
205+128*1.5=397

Ring is added after Embolden bonus. It seems likely that piety pantaloons +1, and potentially the bonus from additional Shellra V merits, are also added after Embolden. Need confirmation on this.

Tentative list of resulting MDT values, assuming the WHM is merited and geared appropriately for Shellra V:

	Shell V	Shellra V
Base	24.21875%	29.296875%
Sheltered Ring	26.171875%	31.25%
Embolden	36.328125%	41.40625%?
Embolden + Ring	38.28125%	43.359375%?

New gear:

Arasy Axe
DMG:259 Delay:504 STR+12 VIT+12 Attack+15 Great Axe skill +242 Parrying skill +242 Magic Accuracy skill +188 "Double Attack"+2% Critical hit damage +2%

Arasy Axe +1
DMG:260 Delay:489 STR+17 VIT+17 Attack+20 Great Axe skill +242 Parrying skill +242 Magic Accuracy skill +188 "Double Attack"+3% Critical hit damage +3%

Arasy Claymore
DMG:251 Delay:489 STR+12 DEX+12 Attack+15 Great Sword skill +242 Parrying skill +242 Magic Accuracy skill +188 Weapon skill damage +2% "Store TP"+3

Arasy Claymore +1
DMG:252 Delay:475 STR+17 DEX+17 Attack+20 Great Sword skill +242 Parrying skill +242 Magic Accuracy skill +188 Weapon skill damage +3% "Store TP"+5

Gracile Grip
Accuracy+10 Haste+4%

Gracile Grip +1
Accuracy+15 Haste+5%

Irenic Strap
Magic Evasion+10 Magic damage taken -4%

Irenic Strap +1
Magic Evasion+15 Magic damage taken -5%

Mensch Strap
Physical damage taken -4% "Regen"+2

Mensch Strap +1
Physical damage taken -5% "Regen"+3

Nepenthe Grip
Attack+10 "Store TP"+5

Nepenthe Grip +1
Attack+15 "Store TP"+7

Weapons are nothing to write home about (not surprising, they're meant to be entry level pieces), but those new grips are pretty nice.

Irenic Strap
Magic Evasion+10 Magic damage taken -4%

Irenic Strap +1
Magic Evasion+15 Magic damage taken -5%

These look interesting to me if we can cap PDT without Grip (I believe we can) Would the extra Magic Evasion and the MDT be as useful like was being discussing around ambu cape with Magic Evasion?

I don't think they're worth much.
Since they kinda force you out of using the new cape. (Lest you have EXTREMELY lucky augments on certain Reisenjima pieces.)
10 Meva is very... Meh. When you're swimming in well over 1000.

And MDT is possibly already capped too.
So I don't see much use to it for RUN.

Now the PDT Regen one?
Yeah. That's something to use over the UC DT grip.
Though I try to make 50% without the grip so I can use Balarama's, but it's a solid option. (Balarama's also boosts swipe/lunge in addition to parry skill and enmity.)

New 5% PDT grip opens up new options for other slots, especially if you're using Ogma's Cape instead of Evasionist's with 4-5% augment.

The Arasy Axe might be good for situational use seeing as our GA options are so few and far between. That's if you have the personal Inventory space to hold onto it of course. (My RUN's gear collection will rival my DRK's very soon at the rate I'm going...)

To be honest I agree. While a little Meva is nice... the 5% PDT one would let you drop Erilaz gloves back into the mix and still cap out in a more ideal tanking set.

You'd end up with something like this.

ItemSet 343658

Nepenthe +1 and Gracile +1 are our best capped acc and full acc grips, respectively. We don't really benefit from Gracile's haste, but 15 acc is still a substantial boost. Nepenthe is a small step up from Bloodrain. RUN needs all the attack it can get, so 15 attack is certainly welcome.

Irenic +1 mostly suffers for inability to swap it in without losing TP. I could see using it for high level fights where that doesn't matter if you really want to min-max, but otherwise it's generally not the best choice.

Mensch +1 on the other hand is probably the new go-to tanking grip, allowing us to make some small but welcome adjustments to defensive sets. Idling in PDT and full +cure received feels like a pretty solid option now even sans Vocane - you can get 30% +received and 48% PDT without sacrificing Ogma's Cape or even Erilaz Surcoat. Add -DT vorseals and you're capped. If you're willing to trade out the surcoat for Futhark, that opens up options elsewhere. The PDT/+resist set Kanryu just posted is potentially a >50% chance to nullify an add effect debuff on a physical TP move or melee hit if you account for both parrying/Inquartata and +status resist/Tenacity. You could cap PDT with it in Escha before, but now you can cap everywhere. The +regen doesn't hurt either.

Agreed. Gaxe is so niche and Arasy is easy to get, don't see much reason to even consider Beheader +1 now unless you already have it. The greatsword on the other hand isn't terribly interesting for RUN.

Now just have to wait to see how much the crafters will charge for the first couple on the market. XD

They are level 105 recipes, which means they're T1s I think? Around 10% HQ rate?
At least they don't require a lot of mats and the price for them isn't insane.
Think we're looking at under 1 mil cost in mats?

I've seen someone on Asura shout for 40mils, but honestly price should be lower and I'm pretty confident it's gonna be going down soon as things cool off.

Another stupid question. Finally started playing RUN a bit and am doing VD Leviathan right now. I can't hold hate to save my life, which luckily is not really a concern on this fight. Should I be able to with this much damage flying around?

Basically, how do you keep enmity up as a RUN? I'm subbed BLU but not sure what some good spells are for spamming. I'm worried that if I tried to go do Ambuscade or something the mob would be all over the place.

Holding hate on VD avatars is probably not going to happen. I did a few runs with our Burtgang PLD recently (Aegis, Souveran +1, the works) and the two of us that were on BLU would rip hate off him every time. The same is likely true for Ambuscade. You might establish some control at early percents while everyone's getting set up and can pop Valiance to help with party damage taken, but after that you should probably focus more on DDing. You may want to consider going /SAM instead for that reason.

Your go-to /BLU enmity spells are Blank Gaze, Sheep Song, Geist Wall, Jettatura, and maybe Healing Breeze/Wild Carrot if you want to try and build some enmity via cures.

One way to hold hate off DD in avatar BC is to out DD them.

Otherwise I don't see it possible with how enmity works there.

Ambuscade may be easier due to being newer content, but idk.

That's possible, but rather difficult to pull off against competent DDs. Even with Crusade up, I'd need Epeolatry or Lionheart and high/capped attack to stand a chance against any of the better DDs in my linkshell.

Then again I'm starting Lionheart soon (two NMs away from Sequence, all the hard ones are already done) and Epeolatry isn't too far off either so I might actually be able to do that in the near future.

I have some recent data(tiny, tiny sample) for VD Leviathan that may indicate the mob's actual level may be quite low.

Based on Aegis' blockrate, VD leviathan may only be about lvl 100. I 'm thinking they pump up the mobs stats as difficulty increases, rather than raise level.

Since damage enmity is based on monster level, the mob being only lvl 100 or so, would make a huge difference in enmity generation for DDs. Making it very difficult for Tanks to maintain enmity.

Again, I'd like to stress how tiny the sample was, so please don't take this as an absolute measure.(Still block rate was way too high for these to possibly be 120+) But it does give an idea of why maintaining enmity is difficult on these fights.

Don't avatars reset hate each time they use the astral flow special bp?

That doesn't help any either. lol.

But, if if DD enmity wasn't so High on these, the tank would just pull the mob back and hold it afterward. So far as I'm aware, everyone hit by AF gets reset. so you all start on even footing afterwards.

Thanks for the info, despite the sample size was small, that would explain why it's sooooo much harder to hold hate there than everywhere else, if SE didn't purposely leave this content out for enmity adjustment.

That also means the enmity adjustment may be universal afterall, just that the content ilv info doesn't match mob actual lv.

I've long suspected that content level didn't necessarily match mob level. Content level is a measure of the fight's difficulty. Fights with adds, or special mechanics might be harder/easier than the mobs level would indicate.

The neat part here is that block rate can give us a rough way to measure this. Since we can't just check them, and level correction isn't a reliable indicator of level in a lot of content now.

Sending a wide scan packet in high-tier battlefields shows that those mobs are actually level 99 regardless of difficulty.

That's fascinating and very useful info. What about UNMs, can you do the same to get their level?

This was probably their work-around for not removing level correction in these zones. I wouldn't be surprised if they totally forgot they did it this way when they applied their enmity fix.

iLvl Unity NMs are also 99. Also mobs that level up don't actually change level.

Hey, I was only 1 level off.

Also, does the widescan packet thing work on any mob?

What about Escha NMs?

Works on any mob that can be widescanned, which is almost everything except Incursion and I think Alluvion Yorcia.

Off the top of my head:
- All the Sinister Reign bosses are 130, I forget about Cirruses
- WoC, Kirin/Kouryu, and the Reisenjima super dudes are 150, 147 for their adds
- Escha Sky Warders are 125, 120 for their adds
- Regular Legion hall bosses are 115 with Minimus and Paramount Bosses are 120
- Phase Displacers reduce most mobs by 10 levels each (Uptala goes from 115 to 65 for example), but at least for Bismarck and Morta they lose 5 levels each (from 120 to 95)
- Regular Ambuscade VD is 129, haven't checked Intense VD

There's something strange about the Hate Reset on the AF BP, sometimes it doesn't apply to people who got hit for some reason (maybe it has to do with BP having to deal above 0 damage, I dunno).

Anyway I farmed Avatars a lot before they became common for RME mats farming. I farmed before the enmity rehaul patch (I used to go with Wopa's "no shell + BRD + SMN" strategy using 2-3 DDs, tipically THFs, DNCs or ddBRDs) and I farmed them right after the Enmity rehaul patch as well.
Right after the patch it was okaysh to tank them. If you were paying attention to the Enmity Reset (happens at pretty much fixed %s, takes a couple of seconds to activate, if you're smart and fast you have all means to handle it) you could totally tank them.

But now a lot of time has passed, the damage done by DDs (especially BLUs) increased a lot, and BLUs always had small enmity issues even after the rehaul because they didn't reduce the enmity generated by BLU spells iir.

tl;dr
Yes, it's not impossible to tank those like before the enmity rehaul patch, but at the same time not particularly efficient either.

About the enmity generation scaling with ilevel, what's the purpose of that?
Couldn't they make it fixed? What do we or they (SE) gain by making it scale according to the ilevel, making so it's easier to tank hardest mobs and harder (almost impossible) to tank easier stuff?

Finally done with the Reisenjima T4 as RUN main tank, except the fight of Zerde.

For tanking (not overall difficulty), I will rank the NMs as follows:
Schah > Vinipata > Albumen > Teles > Onychophora = Zerde > Erinys

Except Erinys, I go with SJ WAR. I go with SJ RDM for Erinys with SMNs lock. That fight is completely a joke with 80% Fast Cast.

I think they recognized the fact that we usually just use DDs to "tank" weaker things, and if they made damage enmity terrible on those too then mages would be pulling hate with cures (which already happens occasionally- it would just be much worse). Unfortunately, I think they neglected to account for how they scaled difficulty in zones that are still subject to level correction.