Occultist Rune balance

[Segan]

The Occultist Rune (tier 1, magic-based rune) needs Eyeballs to be crafted. As far as I can tell, those only drop from the Strange Cave (medium to very hard difficulty, slayer area requiring the mirror shield equipment).

This does not seem balanced to me. A tier-1 rune seems like it should be available to early-game players. But the difficulty of killing those enemies seems well beyond the abilities of an early-game player, especially one with a mage-centric build. You can't equip a staff with that shield, and need to either have a high level in runecrafting and magic to equip a wand, or you need a non-mage (and most likely melee-centric) build to farm those eyes.

Right now, I can't even farm the marks for that rune (beyond the initial mark) because I'm not capable of crafting a single rune yet.

@the devs, please consider changing the formula for the Occultist Runes.

[Myll]

Originally posted by Segan:

The Occultist Rune (tier 1, magic-based rune) needs Eyeballs to be crafted. As far as I can tell, those only drop from the Strange Cave (medium to very hard difficulty, slayer area requiring the mirror shield equipment).

This does not seem balanced to me. A tier-1 rune seems like it should be available to early-game players. But the difficulty of killing those enemies seems well beyond the abilities of an early-game player, especially one with a mage-centric build. You can't equip a staff with that shield, and need to either have a high level in runecrafting and magic to equip a wand, or you need a non-mage (and most likely melee-centric) build to farm those eyes.

Right now, I can't even farm the marks for that rune (beyond the initial mark) because I'm not capable of crafting a single rune yet.

@the devs, please consider changing the formula for the Occultist Runes.

I agree, and noticed this right away as well, that the cost to craft the Familiar doesn't equate to the likely player Combat Level at the time it is discovered and available to craft. In fact, I could see a particular Rune as a component or bones or something/anything in the magical progression track, but a drop from a monster? That in itself seems like a logic flaw, unless it's a common one like bones. I don't mind the "grind this to then grind that" - but it should have a logical peer/peer level requirement factored in.

[Oktober12th]

I agree with the majority of the points made regarding the eye restriction, but I wanted to just put in one extra piece of information. I ran into the same problem a while ago while making potions that used eyes. At the time I had absolutely no combat experience and the Strange Cave seemed like a LOOONG way off.

After a little testing I found the difficulty of, at least the early creatures, far under what I expected. I was able to scrape together enough to fight them and bypass that potion much easier than I thought.

Outside of that, I agree there should be either another source of eyes or alternate recipes for the Occultist. Since the Occultist should use some form of body part for their Tablet (they are Occultists after all) maybe there should be a bone/leather recipe or maybe adding a generic blood drop to things like bandits and farmers.

[BlackLuck]

One thing about leveling combat, even before you focus on Slayer, is to try to get the "auto-use food" buff from the store asap if you are going combat. cause if you have enough food and that perk, then you can judge your damage of some mobs, and go on Auto-pilot for an hour or more, without micro managing.

[Oktober12th]

Originally posted by BlackLuck:

One thing about leveling combat, even before you focus on Slayer, is to try to get the "auto-use food" buff from the store asap if you are going combat. cause if you have enough food and that perk, then you can judge your damage of some mobs, and go on Auto-pilot for an hour or more, without micro managing.

Could not agree with this more unless it came with a free car.