Good Pairing for Rune?

[Kritarion]

I am thinking either Storm (to synergize with the general elemental Bonuses of Rune) or Defense (to just tank everything and be a walking fortress).

Any thoughts?

[Rumo]

So, the pure Runemaster is ♥♥♥♥? What about a combination of rune and earth, for example?

[LotusBlade]

I was thinking about rune+earth, but its better to just play earth alone. Put mana regen items on you and level up fire shields first to the max to damage enemies like crazy, then just dowload Xmax mode and run trough enemies for fast leveling. The trick is, rune master requires to HIT enemies in melee in order to activate similar fire shields, while earth mage can just walk around burning enemies to ashes.

[Grim]

I'm playing as StoneSpeaker (Rune+Earth) currently lvl 30. Its going well as melee fighter with dual wield + Explode.

Rune is a jack of all not a master in any.
It supports most of the masteries (except Rogue, Spirit and Nature) i believe.

Good to pull out elemental damages from Earth, Storm and Dream

Good for Warfare with additional % to pull dual wield damages with Reckless attack (21% chance to do +100% dmg) and Explode
(for melee the Rune:Burn wont work well but, just a small fire dmg 0.5 aoe is added)

Good for Hunter also - if you Dual Wield WHaat!!! Yes you can dual wield throw weapons like small dagger and chakrams
- Attacks from this seems faster but has issues with range and targeting (Range Half of bow and pointing target wont make your character to go in that range and attack, instead the character attacks as if from stand ground with bow range and in air)
- Yet to create a character and check if Volley, Scatter shot and Puncture works along with these throw weapons
- You dont get Throw weapons until Act 3 as enemy drops (didnt check with vendors correctly)

Need to confirm whether crit works with Transmutation.

Too early for me to say if all the above will work good in higher difficulties and with legendary items.

[Janthis]

Good for Hunter also - if you Dual Wield WHaat!!! Yes you can dual wield throw weapons like small dagger and chakrams

That's my current build, it has great damage output but not much in the way of defense, also your range is much shorter than when using a bow. I need something to either slow/stun enemies or give myself more defense. I've been experimenting with the various mines, runes etc.

[Lord Falco]

Originally posted by Grim:

- You dont get Throw weapons until Act 3 as enemy drops (didnt check with vendors correctly)

about this point,
1. in first village u can already buy throwing weapons
2. sicne the newest patch throwing weapons drop in act1, i evne got 2 blue throwing weapons (the torch) in act1 normal on a lvl 13 character (hunt+rune)
funny the same blue dropped in the same tomb, one from bone pile and 1 from a chest
3. as far as i know till act5 enemy themself dont drop it?(atleast act1 doenst have nemies using it, but bonepiles etc do drop)

markman and the first passive (the piericng one) do work with throwing weapons, sadly the speed of markmanship was fixe din ae and doenst increase range anymore (for bow) so also no way to increase range for throwing. the description of volley says it works with it, the bleed passive i dont know if it does or does not work, but its bleed who cares:P

not sure here if i should go with dual wield or shield, both sounds nice for dragonhunter, sicne tis a squishy char:(
ps. it eats energy alot sadly.

[Grim]

Originally posted by ionutz1280:

That's my current build, it has great damage output but not much in the way of defense, also your range is much shorter than when using a bow. I need something to either slow/stun enemies or give myself more defense. I've been experimenting with the various mines, runes etc.

In Rune Tree - Get Rune:Explode that'll stun for 0.5 seconds and has 20% chance to trigger
Place mines and attack for tougher enemies. That freeze upgrade is good for mines (1 point would suffice)

[Grim]

Originally posted by Lord Falco:

about this point,
1. in first village u can already buy throwing weapons
2. sicne the newest patch throwing weapons drop in act1, i evne got 2 blue throwing weapons (the torch) in act1 normal on a lvl 13 character (hunt+rune)
funny the same blue dropped in the same tomb, one from bone pile and 1 from a chest
3. as far as i know till act5 enemy themself dont drop it?(atleast act1 doenst have nemies using it, but bonepiles etc do drop)

markman and the first passive (the piericng one) do work with throwing weapons, sadly the speed of markmanship was fixe din ae and doenst increase range anymore (for bow) so also no way to increase range for throwing. the description of volley says it works with it, the bleed passive i dont know if it does or does not work, but its bleed who cares:P

not sure here if i should go with dual wield or shield, both sounds nice for dragonhunter, sicne tis a squishy char:(
ps. it eats energy alot sadly.

I got throwing weapons from bone piles only but only from Act 3 before that not even one!
Y0u need to chug Energy potions if using throwing weapons and Health potions if doing dual wield melee.

For throwing weapons pierce through enemies + Volley + fragmentation would have been awesome.. Could you please share any of these are happening while using Throwing weapons for both 1h+shield and Dual wield.

[Lord Falco]

well my char is still act1 normal, the pierce i did witness, (rune masery is only lvl1 atm so no dw checks yet)
agreed that it eats way to much energy:P esp if you use study prey aswell on those turtles.
piercing trough throwing weapons also deliver still poison and burn etc.(burn from the torch, the blue act1 throwing weapon).
i make tonight a screenshot of the blue throwing knife if you want:)
i do know from a test lvl40 char that the dw skill can proc aswell, (looks like you throw 3 knifes) maybe making one of those again to do some testing can be done later aswell. damn i love that new option to test stuff:)


as said sicne the patch that we got like what 2 days ago it drops in act1, before that patch it was pure buying the weapons, so that is new:)

[fauxpas]

Hmm, I wonder how Dream+Rune would work since they are both 'universal' masteries.

[Grim]

It will work good as you have Eletric burn.. Elemental dmg include - Fire, Cold & Lightning

[Lord Falco]

i tested some skills with 1 trhowing weapon and shield. volley works, ahrd to see cause of short range but soemtimes he throws 3 axes. the rune explosion passive works, scatter shot didnt see yet(way to small visual and didnt faced groups during testing quick, so this one is an open question)
the bleed of hunt does not work as faras i have seen. or very bad luck it didnt porc. skill was maxxed

didnt do tests with dual wield cause lvl40 char has only somany skillpoints.

[Grim]

Forgot to mention one more thing. If you are using Throwing Weapons make sure you keep dagger on the left weapon slot (i.e. right hand of the character) and chakaram on the other side (if you are using Chakrams)
Cause Chakram has more issues than dagger (range wise, targeting wise and using Thunder Strike Skill)

[Vio]

Rune is a jack of all not a master in any.
It supports most of the masteries (except Rogue, Spirit and Nature) i believe.

Just from the top of my head:

Nature - Energy armor on pets, Rune of Life on pets, Guardian Stones, and a multi-attack (Thunderstrike) that other pet-friendly classes ususally lack

Spirit - Lots of energy regeneration for your skills, Deathchill to survive as int melee glass cannon, Death Ward for playing risky with Rage, and Unearthly Power to boost elemental damage.

Rogue - Possibly the trickiest, but: Thunderstrike to spread poison, passive melee skills & dual wielding, walls to block enemies while DoT / Traps kill them, Confusion to help int melee / to keep enemies on your Seal of Fate, Bleeding damage on Aftershock, shields for traps, Elemental bonuses (magical charge) on throwing knives

[Grim]

Confirmed that crit damage reduces as the Transmutation skill goes up. Crit is only for the Physical damage.

[Tutuca]

Im actually playing a shaman ( Rune + spirit) I choose it to be a meele fighter with deathchill aura. And its going preety well on epic. Havent step on Legendary still.
By now I only found one weak spot Hp, its quite low indeed and you need to lowered it under 40/100 to become a beast. If you survive that little impass its a mass destrucción machine. Basically the idea is hitting very fast, thanx to berseker mode, very hard thnx to Rune weapon elemental conversión and with very high resistancies fue to the deathchill + Rune word combination. This way you deplete enemies energy pool while lifeliching them. Some my say constructs and undead may be a problem, because you can not drain them. Well here is when thunderstrike exels, you wipe constructs in a single blow with 180 angle, and spirit mastery specialicies in dealing with the undead
I have maxed out dual wield, rune weapon, Rune word, sacred rage, reckless offense and thunderstrike in the Rune mastery tree.
Deathchill aura with all its upgrades by now in the spirit tree. In the future im thinking about undead shielding a little more and probably Lich king for Legendary but I still dont know.
About atributes im not quite sure because im still building the carácter, but you need good physicl defense, so I believe that str high enough to wear some heavy stuff Dex high enough for dual wielding a couple of fast swords and all the rest to int.