Rune Mage Build Help

[courage]

Sup boys, so I picked up the game last week and have been playing nonstop since. For my Rune Mage build so far I have invested into two classes, Shaman and Sage but I don’t know what to do for my last one, I thought about Philosopher for the mana regen but my health and stamina sucks right now and I get decked (Wendigo’s speed), can any experienced players give me advice?

[Kinoringan]

For the last one go with Mercenary and pick up swift foot + marathoner, as runic mage you'll be sprinting and kiting enemies to your rune trap and also it helps as in this game you'll be running a lot in the world.

Don't worry about mana regen. You can cook and craft pots + food that will give you mana regen buff. So don't simply sell away mats without checking for their usage.

Your equipment will be mana cost reduction items (gold lich set+light mender lexicon+jade weapon+ mage tent+faction reward) . If you get all those, you will have nearly 100% mana cost reduction. You can cast your spells without worry about mana.

[courage]

That’s sound like a great idea, thank you! What about mana ratio in that build though, how many points should i put into mana? 100? 200?

[Kinoringan]

Just 2 points to get 40 mana. Which mean you will have a total of 80 mana (basic 40 + another 40 from well of mana via Rune Sage teacher). But you can differ from that if you want.

The reason I chose only 80 mana is because of the mana reduction cost items I'm wearing. I don't need high amount of mana. But don't worry about that, you can always go back to Conflux Mountain to increase your mana

You can get the basic mana reduction cost armor set in Cierzo/Berg, look for blue clansage robe + wide blue hat+scholar boot. That will give you basic 50% mana reduction.

From there, you can start farming the rest of your items.
Gold lich set - 60% mana cost reduction (spire of light in hallowed marsh)
Jade weapon - 10% (dark ziggurat in hallowed marsh)
Light Mender backpack - 10% (after clearing spire of light in hallowed marsh and raising the bridge in ziggurat passage)
Light Mender Lexicon - 5% (Voltaic Hatchery in Chersonese, near to the stranded ship)
Mage tent - 15% (Levant in Abrassar)
Holy Faction reward - 10% (The faction in Hallowed Marsh)

[agentkido]

Originally posted by Kinoringan:

Just 2 points to get 40 mana. Which mean you will have a total of 80 mana (basic 40 + another 40 from well of mana via Rune Sage teacher). But you can differ from that if you want.

The reason I chose only 80 mana is because of the mana reduction cost items I'm wearing. I don't need high amount of mana. But don't worry about that, you can always go back to Conflux Mountain to increase your mana

You can get the basic mana reduction cost armor set in Cierzo/Berg, look for blue clansage robe + wide blue hat+scholar boot. That will give you basic 50% mana reduction.

From there, you can start farming the rest of your items.
Gold lich set - 60% mana cost reduction (spire of light in hallowed marsh)
Jade weapon - 10% (dark ziggurat in hallowed marsh)
Light Mender backpack - 10% (after clearing spire of light in hallowed marsh and raising the bridge in ziggurat passage)
Light Mender Lexicon - 5% (Voltaic Hatchery in Chersonese, near to the stranded ship)
Mage tent - 15% (Levant in Abrassar)
Holy Faction reward - 10% (The faction in Hallowed Marsh)

Why would you use the light mender backpack when the trader pack gives you 110 weight. Plus your at 100% if you sleep in the mage tent anyways

[Kinoringan]

Originally posted by agentkido:

Originally posted by Kinoringan:

Just 2 points to get 40 mana. Which mean you will have a total of 80 mana (basic 40 + another 40 from well of mana via Rune Sage teacher). But you can differ from that if you want.

The reason I chose only 80 mana is because of the mana reduction cost items I'm wearing. I don't need high amount of mana. But don't worry about that, you can always go back to Conflux Mountain to increase your mana

You can get the basic mana reduction cost armor set in Cierzo/Berg, look for blue clansage robe + wide blue hat+scholar boot. That will give you basic 50% mana reduction.

From there, you can start farming the rest of your items.
Gold lich set - 60% mana cost reduction (spire of light in hallowed marsh)
Jade weapon - 10% (dark ziggurat in hallowed marsh)
Light Mender backpack - 10% (after clearing spire of light in hallowed marsh and raising the bridge in ziggurat passage)
Light Mender Lexicon - 5% (Voltaic Hatchery in Chersonese, near to the stranded ship)
Mage tent - 15% (Levant in Abrassar)
Holy Faction reward - 10% (The faction in Hallowed Marsh)

Why would you use the light mender backpack when the trader pack gives you 110 weight. Plus your at 100% if you sleep in the mage tent anyways

Options, just in case you want to mix and match the other equipment for more dps/utility

[Sid Icarus]

Does the light mender's backpack even give cost reduction anymore? I checked yesterday and mine doesn't have it listed. Just the slight bonus to lightning damage.

I know they nerfed some of the gold lich themed items a while back.

[courage]

Originally posted by Sid Icarus:

Does the light mender's backpack even give cost reduction anymore? I checked yesterday and mine doesn't have it listed. Just the slight bonus to lightning damage.

I know they nerfed some of the gold lich themed items a while back.

I don’t think so tbh, I don’t see any backpack that gives mana reduction on the wiki anymore

[Rock]

Originally posted by cooler than a peppermint patty:

Originally posted by Sid Icarus:

Does the light mender's backpack even give cost reduction anymore? I checked yesterday and mine doesn't have it listed. Just the slight bonus to lightning damage.

I know they nerfed some of the gold lich themed items a while back.

I don’t think so tbh, I don’t see any backpack that gives mana reduction on the wiki anymore

It's been changed. So light mender backpack isn't a ''mage'' backpack anymore. So going with the super capacity backpack is probably the best choice unless you want +2 protection or something.

[Kinoringan]

Yeah I just double check, the 10% mana reduction from light mender's backpack is gone.

[Augoeides]

Rune Mage kind of "Rune-ined" the game for me. It's fun sure, but the sheer amount of damage you deal out between your Traps and Lantern Bolt is pretty insane. I wish they would have put some more restrictions on it's offensive magic. Seeing as how Runes appear to be support oriented, I don't see why they could be used more easily than the statically placed ritualistic spells.

[Lenant]

u can go mercenary for the passives, rogue for the passive (i prefer rogue than mercenary) or philosopher so u can have a free mana regen and the fire passive (fire defense and dmg bonus)

[Asmosis]

The Philosopher for mana regen is probably the biggest convenience thing for mages, i highly recommend it. 0.34 regen is much more useful than it first sounds.

I took Rune sage, Philosopher and warrior monk, and am running around with 97% physical reduction slinging spells at stuff. I'm sure there's better armor out there that'll push me to immunity.

[courage]

I ended up going for Shaman, Sage, and Mercenary. From playing with those characters so far, honestly it's okay, not the best but okay cause Sage is a for sure go, mercenary is pretty good for swinging my weapons and shamans a meh..I took those 3 classes and killed the lich to get his armor so right now i'm looking at 100 health, 75 stamina, and 140 mana. It's an okay build but not as fun as it could be. Stam was also good considering I casted the great runic sword to defeat the lich

[Nokturnal]

I went full mage on one of my chars, Shaman, Philo, Runsage. The tactics feel really cheesy, abusing the fact the AI might constantly block but it doesn't check for traps lol. The Sigil spells felt useless as it was way easier to just bait enemies into the Ethereal Traps while firing off lightning balls constantly. I tried out Chakrams as well and they were a lot more fun but are so short range you might as well just go with a melee build instead.

Tried Rogue/Archer/Merc build on one as well, while the extra speed was nice, lining up backstabs is a ♥♥♥♥♥ with how quickly enemies lock back onto you, facing you immediately. Only during their longer combos can you actually get behind them and even then the hitbox for backstabs is tiny. Archery abilities are pretty nice but the long cooldowns make you bored out of your mind when you're waiting for them to come off cooldown and the entirely too small hotbar doesn't allow you to mix and match Bow + Bowskills + Melee Weapons + Melee abilities. So you can switch quickly. Archery also feels like it's lacking as there's no way to add elemental attacks to arrows. Only one type of arrow and all bows are physical. Guns on the other hand hit like a truck with any element you want almost but take forever to reload. Making you have to waste 2 hotbar slots on equipping the gun, firing the gun and then forgetting about them until combat is over.

The 2h Warrior build I tried last was definitely the most OP though, gone are cheesy tactics and having to aim at all. Just bashing the living ♥♥♥♥ out of enemies with a 2h Greataxe, even the stronger Immaculate enemies stumble and fall to the Secondary combo attack, let alone all the OP melee abilities. Definitely recommend Greataxe though, the 2h Sword is too slow and it's secondary attack lacks reach, Halbred is just a worse Greataxe and Greatmace is super slow. It's one of the only builds where having only 8 abilities/items to put on your hotbar is fine as you can just activate Rage/Discipline from the Skill menu way before starting combat. Since it focuses on melee as well, you can use whatever element you want with all the ways to infuse melee weapons there are in the game.

[courage]

so what 2h build did you make?