Endeavoring To Awaken --A Guide To Rune Fencer

If you're going to main rune fencer, Vocane is a nice option, since the DT that it offers over non-Dring stuff is valuable on breath attacks, and then there's a little cure potency received too. Other ring options aren't real thrilling, IMO, for the job. I went with Thurandaut myself, because the pet bonuses are amazing for that slot.


It seems to be extremely rare. My wife has put a couple hundred crystals on hers and seen a max of 4%.

speaking of, idk if I've ever seen a dt-5 aug. is it real or a big troll? lol

It's real.


Dark rings are potentialy superior to Vocane for BDT.

Let me expand on this for anyone who finds this nonsensical.

The MDT augment on dark rings also works on breath damage. Weird as hell, but it's tested fact. Reference

So, a 6/6 BDT/MDT dark ring amounts to -12% BDT.

Regarding -5% DT Evasionist's capes, I have one if you want screen shots or anything.

I got a 5% DT cape also, back on page 73 ;)

I mostly use embolden in conjunction with getting perpetuance protect v. The guide mentions lowering the mdt requirement by embolden shell v with a Sheltered Ring. Does anyone do anything else interesting with it?

Nowadays, I use it with either Phalanx before a massive pull, or Temper. With enough Phalanx potency, you can get a pretty massive amount of damage reduction, I think mid-90's being the highest possible. Usually I just go with Temper, especially during my TP phase to get to 3000% for AM3 at the start of an event. You could also maybe try Crusade for +15-21 enmity, I guess, for like Omega or some other hate reset spammy fight. Stoneskin could be useful too I suppose.

I got a 5% DT cape as well, took me a while.
Problem is that such cape has no other valuable stats.
The cape I use atm has 4% DT, 4% DA, Enmity +7 and Embolden +15 (or whatever the embolden cap is)

DA offers a negligible increase, but I really like having enmity+7 on an item I fulltime.
Embolden could totally be on a second cape that I use only for Embolden of course.

I'm still trying to get a decent second cape with 5% and other useful stats but haven't tried a lot lately because I still hit 55% PDT even with just 4%

i sit at -54% just cause i have hope for the cape lol

Could sit at 55% with a Loricate Collar +1 instead of Twilight Neck (supposing you're using Twilight)

very true, just a pain to get, i have my personal ideal set though. just wish i could get all the pieces.

ItemSet 320460

That set is 54% PDT, unless I miscalculated.
Personally I still prefer my small variation of the set Ruaumoko initially created

ItemSet 336577

This set is quite easy to obtain, doesn't require Vocane (if you took another ring) and doesn't require 5% DT on the cape to reach 55% PDT (4% is enough). Also, this set has 4/5 AF3 pieces for additional chances to get the AF3 set proc.
Can Swap Dark ring with Patricious (at the cost of missing BDT/MDT from dark ring)
With Vocane and perfect Cape, you could remove the grip and use Balarama.


Some small differences, my set vs yours.
Accuracy: ~111 vs ~98
Defense: 574 vs 561
MDB: 23 vs 21
Meva: 384 vs 404
Enmity: 27 vs 43
Attack: ~74 vs ~53
Special stuff: Ailments resistance+6%, 3% damage>mp convert, 2% more AF3 set proc vs Counter+6, Parrying+7, STP+4


Some personal comments:
Enmity in idle is nice to have, but I'm afraid it doesn't make a lot of difference. The biggest utility +enmity has is when you use abilities or spells that generate enmity. As a non ergon RUN you're not gonna hit/melee for a lot of damage, and a lot of your time will be spent casting spells or using JAs.
This doesn't mean enmity in idle is useless, but it reduces somehow its impact.
The additional magic eva on your set is from Kurys gloves, which is nice, but I'm not sure I'd want to trade that for Erilaz+1 gloves.

Accuracy is imho very important, but on some content you just won't be able to hit reliably, up to the point it becomes kinda pointless to even try to... at that point you might as well equip other items and just accept your 20% floored accuracy.
In the end it's not a conditio sine qua non for tanking on RUN.
Being able to hit and do damage is quite a nice addition, but you don't need to achieve that to be able to tank reliably.
As I mentioned before, on some content you're not gonna be able to do it regardless.

Also the MDT aug from WKR gear you can do count for BDT as well.

If that's the case, I wonder if Iuitl and other Skirmish armors count too?

IDK I happened to have augmented WKR gloves on me like 6 months ago when I retested rings because someone was saying they no longer counted in the PLD forum iirc? Any case they did and the gloves I had with me did too.

Buremte Gloves with PDT 2% MDT %2 PDT %2 were the gloves.

If no one beats me too it I will go test in a bit on skirmish gear.

Ok went and tested Cizin Gloves +1 with a MDT 2% aug and it counted Balaur's breath attack went from 840 to 823 wearing them. This is the same mob that was used for the original ring test.

the main idea of my set is to boost parry and counter as much as possible. about the hands, thats the one piece I'm really not so sure about, i use the empty ones now and they are great. the feet i was thinking relic and then relic body to cap off the pdt but still not sure.

Counter has an accuracy check, which is going to be generally uncapped (and probably rather poor) in situations that warrant staying in a PDT set. It also checks after parries and shadows, which will further decrease its effectiveness.

If you're talking RUN focus ONLY and you've got nothing else that can benefit from one of the other rings, maybe it's somewhat acceptable... But to me, giving up the FAR more useful rewards for other jobs (hugely beneficial to all mages, ranged jobs, BST, dedicated crafters, etc.) means Vocane is a pretty awful choice.

RUN can do everything Vocane can do with other gear anyway.
- MDT- is trivial to cap without that slot
- PDT- is a little harder but not terribly difficult these days to cap without needing Vocane
- BDT- is... well, besides the more detailed discussion in recent posts showing that Dark Rings may be better anyway, it's BREATH DAMAGE TAKEN. Sit down and ask yourself if using a scenario reward ring on the strength of BDT- is a really a good decision.

The only case I find Vocane OK is as a temporary placeholder if you're lacking a D.Ring. But if you're at the point of wanting to focus on a tank job enough to choose this reward, you're dedicated enough to the job that you should just do what it takes to go get a D.Ring. Which is quite a bit easier these days with Shanks permanently on login point rewards.

Now, had it been DT II -3% as was initially shown the day the reward rings were announced, whole different story... but it's not, so use the other options that are already easily capable of capping your relevant DT- stats.

On a different note, adding my cape to the parade:


Keep trying! For a long time I had a DT-4% cape that I used for tanking and a different DA+4% when I was fighting weaker stuff and wanted offense, eventually got both augs on one piece! Have a second one that I ought to try to cap embolden/enmity on some time...

so jealous....

Don't mean to shift away from tanking, but I was curious as to the current hierarchy for GS in terms of damage capabilities. Last I knew, sans Ergon, Macbain took the cake, but I really don't want to go through the lottery of random augments.

Also, what are our current best Reso/Dimi sets? If anybody wouldn't mind giving some advice about improvements to mine, I'd really appreciate it.

ItemSet 339203
Adhemar B, Lustratio D

ItemSet 339202
Adhemar B, Despair D, Rawhide D

i never made a set on here for them, but i tend to not get rid of a lot of tanking gear for my WS's. i try to WS in at least 30 pdt just to make sure i don't die mid WS.

R15 Bidenhander is a pretty good option.
Humility with maximum augments is another.
It might be worth waiting to see what the stats on the two new Great Swords in the update are though: Zulfiqar and Zhanmadao. One of those is going to be the Lv119 Algol from Unity Concord and who knows what the stats on that could be.

Figured I cross post this from PLD forum into here too. I went and tested Founder Corona with 3% MDT augment at it dropped Balaur's breaths from 840 to 816. I know this isn't for RUN but it another piece of augment MDT that s working as BDT too. So figured was worthy of posting in here too.

I was actually going to ask if SR and Escha augmented MDT also would apply. Seems to be consistent with MDT augments.

Which aug for Bidenhander? A or B?
Biden is cool, does it win over perf Humility, math wise?

ilevel Algol might be seriously good for DD, unless they gimp it with 228 skill.
But if iLevel Cerb is as annoying to kill as Sovereign Behemoth... ungh... not gonna be easy to farm one.

didn't double check all the numbers but i noticed you missed the parry in combatants torque. the idea for this piece is the parry, GS skill, and evasion skill that you would get from this.

New weapons from the update.

First, the iLv119 Algol.
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Montante
DMG:298 Delay:489 HP+60 Attack+33 Great Sword skill +242 Parrying skill +242 Magic Accuracy skill +188
"Store TP"+10
Additional effect: Fire damage
Unity Ranking: "Triple Attack"+3~5%

Second, the new Geas Fete weapon.
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Zulfiqar
DMG:297 Delay:504 Accuracy+15 Attack+15 Great Sword skill +242 Parrying skill +242 Magic Accuracy skill +188
"Double Attack"+2% Weapon skill damage +2%

Aeonic
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Lionheart
DMG:336 Delay:480 Magic Damage+186 Great Sword skill +269 Parrying skill +269 Magic Accuracy skill +242
"Store TP"+10 "TP Bonus"+500
"Resolution"
Aftermath: Increases skillchain potency, Increases magic burst potency, Ultimate Skillchain

New sword from the Khimara UNM
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Flyssa
DMG:146 Delay:240 Accuracy+20 Magic Accuracy+20 Sword skill +242 Parrying skill +242 Divine magic skill +15 Magic Accuracy skill +188
Physical damage taken -8%
Additional effect: Light damage
Unity Ranking: Accuracy+10~15

Montante looks like a very good DD option considering the Triple Attack equipment we already have and the +33 Attack is very welcome on a job that is usually starved of it. I'd say it beats the Macbain. Zulfiqar is up in the air at the moment as we're not sure what it's augment paths are. Lionheart is actually one of the better Aeonic weapons as Resolution scales very nicely with TP and we get +750 TP Bonus with Lionheart and Moonshade Earring. The new Sword is actually very interesting and looks potentially amazing to Dual Wield the NQ/HQ. That's a lot of accuracy and PdT, freeing up quite a bit of other slots in a tanking/hybrid set.

I honestly never noticed that RUN was on Hauteclaire, so this is a pretty nice surprise.

Montante+1 looks nice, wonder if the Additional effect Fire damage is gonna mess with runes though. Couldn't that stat slot be used for something like +acc? >.>

Zufilqar could be nice if it turns out it can be augmented with the new stones.

Aeonic is nice and everything like you said (even ruling out a potential WS damage increase to Resolution) but I'm not really sure it's gonna beat Epeolatry with AM3 up, despite the big difference in base damage. (Epeolatry will likely get its base damage bumped up too anyway)


DWing Hauteclaires opens up a lot of options for tanking, at the cost of 5% PDTII. Is RUN's sword skill B-? Certainly you gain more acc than the one you lose from using Sword instead of GSword?
Especially because all that PDT frees up other slot for you to use stuff with +Acc instead of PDT.
Allows you to use Sanguine Blade if you wanna WS without breaking SCs, or stuff like Requiescat/Savage Blade otherwise.
Looks nice on paper. If the acc difference is big enough it might be worth the loss of 5% PDTII.

Do 1h weapons have a lower parry rate compared to 2H ones?
Still... dunno, feels strange to use anything that's not a Gsword on RUN.