Runemaster without a minion skill is a big fail.

[Aetrion]

So, the description for the Runemaster has always read as follows:

"A savant who tamed the power of raw arcane, weaving its chaos with the art of runes. The Runemaster infuses magic into offensive and protective wards that devastate those who trespass them, ensnaring his foes, raising walls and golems at his whim."

That sounded like an absolutely awesome class to me.

Now we finally get the class and it's something completely different.

Most notably it can't summon a golem or anything else. This seems like an absolutely bafflingly stupid decision, since until now it always seemed completely obvious that every class has one subclass that can make a minion build. That's why the fighter has a subclass that crafts animated suits of armor. That's why the mage finds gear that has minion damage bonuses on it. That's why the missing classes for Mage and Rogue mentioned summoning golems and working with a fearsome bird of prey.

And then they just make a class that can't summon anything. Instead they give it yet another mobility skill and like your fifth option for shooting bolts of something. What?!

This is honestly a rare fail for this game. Something I was really excited for ever since reading through the classes before I even bought into early access delivered in an absolutely mutilated and disappointing state.

The invocation mechanic seems pretty cool, but what's the point when you've turned the class that was meant to do pets and crowd control and area denial into just another flavor of elemental blaster?

[Ravenkid9266]

judd on the reddit spoke about his close working relationship with Chris Wilson of PoE. PoE2 seems to be aiming for a slower more thoughtful approach to the zoomy meta.

If you ask me, I would say that RM was reworked to avoid that PoE2 style of play especially given how EHG has historically tried, and failed, to tap down the zoomy meta in LE.

Things like CC and area denial would just feel out of place in LE. Why CC or area control when crit meteor go burr? Why support other players when Smite hammers go whirl? Why summon a golem when the necro can turn LE into a walking simulator? tongue in cheek, but you get my point.

Edit Clarity: I think RM was originally going to be for pushing harder content slower rather then speed clearing but that notion is dated and EHG seems to have given up on that fight.

[Aetrion]

I honestly can't say that I care. All I see is that they took the class I was most excited about, gutted it, and turned it into just another flavor of what they already had.

If they want to make the class faster, fine, but at least stay true to the spirit of it somehow instead of just replacing it with something completely different.

[Ravenkid9266]

Originally posted by Aetrion:

I honestly can't say that I care.

First time? .meme

I am not excusing it, nor am I justifying it, I am simply giving my take on what I think is the reason behind the decision. I have found in general, but especially with EHG when presented with a decision that you find questionable, if you shift the goals eventually it makes sense. How much value that has is up to you though.

Personally I thought RM/Falconer/Warlock were going to be more party focused via buffs/debuffs/CC area control as it is an underused design space but it is what it is.

[Aetrion]

You're just making the whole game sound bad when you're basically saying "They gave up intelligent classes so they just dumbed everything down."

[Ravenkid9266]

Originally posted by Aetrion:

You're just making the whole game sound bad when you're basically saying "They gave up intelligent classes so they just dumbed everything down."

That is a value assessment that is up to you. What I said was they in my opinion decided to lean into the zoomy meta vs the slower calculated one.

A fast game vs a slow game has nothing to do with intelligent design they are simply two different things.

There could be a lot of reasons why support/debuff was chosen not to be used, just because they have so far decided not to is not an attack or an insult, just an observation. It is a relatively common design space so its fair to expect it to be used here especially given the timing of the class release being after MP.

Edit: having said all of that, I hope you enjoy your time with Runemaster.

[Aetrion]

I mean, not leaning heavily into ground based support abilities is a perfectly reasonable option.

They could have still made the skills something like:

- Rune mines that blow up when an enemy walks through them. Make it a spammy skill that can blow up by just dropping it underneath an enemy and it's plenty fast.
- Elemental walls that CC and damage enemies that move through them. We have that, so those aren't the problem.
- Summon Elementals that give you that minion integration. Plenty of other minions in the game, so no reason this wasn't a possibility.

There was just a lot of potential for making the class what they advertised without making it super slow.

[Hobo Elf]

Unfortunate for me as I was looking forward to the Runemaster. I really like Golems and think it's a neat flavor/aesthetic (really liked the Cabalist in an old MMO called Dark Age of Camelot). As I'm not so big on the Necromancer aesthetic, but do love pet classes, I was looking forward to this. At least there's the Primalist, I guess. It still remains the only class I enjoy.

[Aetrion]

Yea, I feel the same way. I don't like that every damn game forces you to be a necromancer if you want minions, and I was really looking forward to having other options.

I feel very let down by this game right now.

[Spilskinanke]

minions are terrible why in hell do you want MORE classes to be minionshit? necro is only bearable through sacrifice+zombie shenanigans. utterly baffling that this is your complaint of all things when really the issue is 1/3rd of all masteries having some minion garbage in them that I will never use because I want to actually play the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game

[Spilskinanke]

no idea what runemaster is going to actually be but best case its grim dawn inquis rune stacking shenanigans times ten, at worst its sorc but the skill effects are on the floor. both are better than just summoning a pet and walking around the map

[Aetrion]

They could have done plenty with pets to make them interesting, and hey, just because you don't like a type of class doesn't mean nobody else gets to.

It's stupid that they didn't give every class one subclass that can do a summon build, especially after for years it was obvious that that was the original plan.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by Aetrion:

You're just making the whole game sound bad when you're basically saying "They gave up intelligent classes so they just dumbed everything down."

I think perhaps the point is this wouldn't be the first time they said X and delivered Y ... Just wait till they tell you that you really wanted Y all along and all their best friends said Y was a great idea, unless of course the backlash gets to loud then they will say X is still their plan and Y is just the current implementation.

Like I'm being facetious but they've done a version of what I just said with at least 3 major game features / issues I can think of so far, so the fact they did it shouldn't be surprising.

See thats the thing people get very annoyed people like me pointing this out all the time, then it eventually happens to them about a thing or feature they cared about and it feels bad right.

EDIT: Also outside of the name and its general theme the class was literally not even at concept stage a few months ago, they polled players on their discord if memory serves to help design them (the 3 new sub classes)

[Aetrion]

Well they shouldn't have had up that class description for all those years then.

I think it's extremely disappointing that they took away people's chance to make a minion mage at the last second, for a game that is already very sparse on customization when it comes to your character's aesthetics.

[Spilskinanke]

Originally posted by Aetrion:

They could have done plenty with pets to make them interesting, and hey, just because you don't like a type of class doesn't mean nobody else gets to.

It's stupid that they didn't give every class one subclass that can do a summon build, especially after for years it was obvious that that was the original plan.

it was a dumb plan, who cares. theres far more egregious class issues in the game at the moment like lack of damage type or item spread (only void knight doing void damage, only rogue using bows, etc) why the ♥♥♥♥ does minions need to be on every character, because some roadmap said so 3yrs ago? dont give a ♥♥♥♥ just want the game to be good

[RodHull]

Originally posted by Aetrion:

Well they shouldn't have had up that class description for all those years then.

I think it's extremely disappointing that they took away people's chance to make a minion mage at the last second, for a game that is already very sparse on customization when it comes to your character's aesthetics.

Agreed, like they shouldn't have said map permanence was fixed 4 years ago, or that trade would be an integral part of the game etc etc...

That's my point this is par for the course with them, telling people they want to do X then running into the reality brick wall and doing Y, Or sometimes not even that just whimsically changing their mind and deciding a new direction cause the original decision was based on nothing more than 'hey that sounds cool'