Endeavoring To Awaken --A Guide To Rune Fencer

Most PLDs would probably argue that you're handicapping yourself by not having Aegis and Ochain, but for a RUN, you can tank anything without Epeolatry. For RUN, all you need is a good understanding of your tools and your enemies and how to proceed strategically. I really don't think there's an enemy in the game that you can't handle with /NIN, /SAM, or /BLU. That said, I'm fairly sure the front page is out of date.

HEAD: 109 is enough, 119 if you're just looking for a PDT-4% idle piece and trying to maximize your Phalanx. I wouldn't TP in it though, unless you were desperate for max PDT.
BODY: Hard to pass up DT-7%. If you intend to use this piece for anything beyond macroing in for Liement or Sforzo, you really oughta have it at 119 for the stats.
HANDS: Store them away at 109 and never look back. Swordplay bonus is negligible, and nobody merits Sleight of Sword. Everything else offered here is crap compared to alternatives.
LEGS: 109 is enough, but extra enhancing duration is pretty great, and I've heard that your total ilevel can affect spell interruption rate (no source on that though).
FEET: An easy to acquire acc piece and really nice for when Battuta is going. Not necessary, especially as there are better pieces for both defenses and accuracy, but worth holding onto just for Battuta and Rayke.

Could some veteran RUNs provide some recent gearsets?

I'd agree on the ease of gearing into run with the current blu dnc meta. Aside from the few enmity pieces you get quite a lot of what you would need from af, relic, empy gear. Pld on the otherhand whilst would share with drk war and sam, which are all currently out of favour, has a more odd sets you tend to have to go greater lengths for. Not to mention the gating you have with shields and the great gil/timesink involved. Would 100% agree that getting into tanking all the way to almost all the end game right now that run is going to be the pick for least time invested chasing gear sets. Though learning all your tools, that'll take a tad more time in practice.

Maybe it's the lack of confidence on my end, I don't see myself solo tanking WoC with minimal support in lowman setup like some pld does, not that I've tried though. Would be great if there's other none-ergon RUN to share their solo tank experience.

For WoC and what RUN provides for that fight it unfortunately goes to waste, gambit and rayke have little to no effect when it comes to death MB'ing. Major issue sans epoletary is that to allow the blms to aspir the wynavs you need to do aoe hate so pld/blu becomes more favourable. Without the extra mitigation of shadows from /nin as a non-epoletary RUN I don't foresee the physical portion of the damage being reduced enough with simply cocoon, buffs and food.

You could pop Battuta when the Wynavs show up. I'd imagine if you had TP saved up, you could also Shockwave or Circle Blade and follow up with self-hate tools like Pflug, Swordplay, etc. You'd likely want to either Sforzo or at least OFA too just to render the breaths less dangerous.

How come Rayke and Gambit aren't as critical? Is Death so potent that neither are necessary to consistently hit 99999? I could imagine them helping if your BLMs weren't decked out all the way.

To position all the wynavs in such a way on top of WoC so that you can take advantage of parry unfortunately in practice doesn't quite work ideally, even shield blocking becomes more moot with the wynavs position most times. The issue would be the amount of physical dmg taken from WoC whilst not being able to mitigate it better with shadows post wynav spawn which in turn would need more dedicated support and adding more hp to WoC overall. Rayke and Gambit might only see some use if yes your blms were not geared but if that is the case then you would likely run into issue with a benediction since the gear check for ideal death sets is the main thing that brings consistency to wins for this fight. Speed is the biggest factor when doing this fight. You'd eventually get your win RUN tanking I would think but without epoletary on RUN it seems highly non-ideal.

Makes sense, though I'd probably still try the "wall to my right" trick to position them (not that it effects me as heavily as I have Epeolatry). I've yet to attempt it due to laziness, but I'm interested in trying alternative ways to fight him instead of relying on Death.

I've thought about it, just not 100% sure if adds can get on hatelist if my AoE WS miss.

Thanks for the input guys. I also took up cor not long ago thanks to JP. It's been nice but having only been focusing on support jobs lately. Still many tend to not pick me up. I have BLU equipment so hopefully I can use some of that for my transition to RUNE. Thanks again guys for the feedback!

They would, yes.

If your goal is to get a pt invite as a tank job, my personal experience is that most shout pt would accept a pld a lot more often than RUN, even on stuff that RUN can tank just fine.....so yeah, prepare to have a battle to get a pt spot on this job as well :p

But if you have the gears you can still gear it in case you need it.

Most(?) of the player base straight up doesn't even consider RUN to be an existing job. Even for dumb ***like CP parties that literally any job not made of paper could tank, people specify that they want a PLD or NIN tank. That said, you might still be able to get into things if you /tell the leader or make somewhat of a name for yourself.

I understand that but that is why I also main support jobs. I just wanted to see if RUN is easier to gear in case there are shouts not needing support :(.

Although I'm pretty argumentative on forums, I tend to avoid it at all cost in game nowadays. So instead of sending 100 tells about what RUNs are capable of, most of the time I just accept the fact that I don't get pt invite, have to sit in town and touch myself ;/

To be honest that might be entirely server dependent. Seen a fair bit of shouts on Asura where run was in the shout as a possible tank for pug

i have never had a problem getting invites on bismarck, in fact, i see more cp shouts for pld and rune, then pld and nin. maybe thats just this server

Yeah that's how it is on Asura as well from what I've noticed

If your going to CP on RUN make sure you have an Axe and Sword setup in case they need an SC element other then Fragmentation from you.

Any 2 melee's can be the SC team with a semi competent healer, accuracy is much easier to get now and you always have crawler or raptor camp if it's still too low. The hardest part is that people don't know their own SC options and thus can't make a decent SC setup to save their life.

I found it pretty easy to just self skillchain with Dimidation to Dimidation on RUN. The groups I go with kill everything in one SC, so as soon as the second Dim goes off you can reapply stoneskin+blink and pull the next mob. The stp requirements for a five hit aren't bad with the average greatsword(40 something) so you can pretty much pull it off with /sam, a greatsword with stp built in and a couple of accessories. If you have a group that can cap your MA haste you're probably fine.

Won't happen for 95~98% of the player population. Because that requires additional support and support is already virtually impossible to get.

Most universal SC setup that works with practically anyone

Melee x 2 (WAR / DRK / DRG / SAM / MNK / NIN / COR / RUN / PLD / THF / RDM / BLU / PUP / BRD could probably work too) Have at least 1040~1050 acc before food for crawlers / raptors, 1070~1100 acc before food for crabs / pugils / bats.

Healer x 1 (WHM / SCH / RDM)

Nuker x 3 (BLM / GEO / SCH / RDM / SMN)

You actually only need one pure nuker if the second is a GEO, but there are three slots to account for the fact that most players trying to get CP aren't going to be pro level. Using this basic formula I've consistently turned out 7~8 mil CP/hr parties even with PUG people.

Now there is also a very specific reason why self SCing is shitty for anyone not a SAM or a bad *** BLU, and that's timing. The absolutely most important thing to making SC's is having the exact same time between the first and second WS's. In order for your mages to double MB they need to start casting their first nuke before the closing WS, and if that closing WS is happening too fast or too late the nukers won't get a double MB off and you end up needing another SC to kill it. That wastes everyone's time. Melee's are a dime a dozen, everyone has melee jobs and they are largely ignored by most out of extreme ignorance. Getting two melee's for making SC is the easiest part, same with the healer since nobody likes to give them any love. The hardest part is the nukers, mostly because all the dedicated SCH / RDM / BLM / GEO's have hit 2100 already and so your left with those leveling them on mules or those who had other jobs as a higher priority.

For that I have a second PT setup that works. Apex Bats are extremely vulnerable to fire and light damage, which makes them a prime candidate for multi-step light SC's. RUN could serve as a Fusion or Frag linker the same was PLD does.

Distortion -> Fusion -> Fragmentation -> Light
Gravitation -> Fragmentation -> Fusion -> Light

As long as the final two WS's are powerful the bat should be dead or nearly dead. This can be accomplished with two to three DD's depending on their WS selection. I did it as BLU with a PLD doing

BLU Expacion / CDC (Distortion) -> PLD Atonement (Fusion) -> BLU 2K+ TP Savage Blade (Fragmentation) -> BLU CDC (Light)

Bat was usually at single digit and we just finished it off with a quick light. No reason other people couldn't do this. You can also kill Apex bats using any two melee with powerful WS's that link to make light and they just alternate constantly. Not quite as fast but very potent.

Anyhow the important part is to learn your SC attributes and have multiple weapons available. If your not doing this then your gimping yourself.

I was both the tank and the self-SCer when I did large portions of my RUN CP. It's a lot easier to fit in that extra haste buff when you're also the only melee.


I usually just used a trust. I actually kind of like leaving a slot or two open for trusts because it allows me to actually stack several buffs from several types of trust by periodically recalling them.

I've got 2100JP on BLU, WAR, BLM, DRK and RDM using that above setup, virtually all in PUG. Am now working on RUN and RDM, maybe later SAM. In all cases two DD doing a SC was infinitely easier then hoping one dude could self SC every 20s. In fact the few times I let others attemp that it was a disaster. About 60-75% were successful, the rest not and even when it was done the timing was so random that double MB was extremely unpredictable. With two melee you can get a SC every time and once they get a rythem it gets easy to time the double MB.

Highest ever was slightly over 9 mil CP/hr on crawlers where we emptied the came several times. Setup was

WAR x2 using cloudsplitter for darkness
COR doing just rolls
GEO with maliase and acumen and MB
RDM mule doing cures, later was real WHM
BLM doing MB

People get really stupid about setups without realizing how easy this can be.

And yes any Run who doesn't have an axe and sword setup is gimping themselves. GS only has a single strong SC category while you get the other three from Axe and Sword.

Now about capped haste. That's not happening without another GEO or BRD. Trusts are unreliable for March as Ulmia can be sporadic about applying both marches and since she is a gimp BRD you need both and haste 2.

Or just bring a second DD in her spot and everything is fixed.

To be fair, RUN has pretty ***options when it comes to Axe. Tramontane and Blurred are about your only options. I imagine most people don't want to dump that many millions into an axe for RUN. I already have one since I play BST, but if not I doubt I'd bother. Especially not if the only thing I wanted it for was CPing.

You only need one axe, off hand will be a sword with accuracy. You need this because there is no other strong option for Distortion and that is a critical category to have access to as it opens darkness with a COR's leaden salute which happens to be one of the more powerful WS's in the game.

RUN has access to the Delve Axe Emxgha which has a path B for accuracy. Again off hand can be an Uson path B, which you need anyway for Gravitation via Swift Blade.

Axe gives you two critical WS categories, both with a multi-hit WS that won't whiff. First is Distortion via Ruinator, the other is Fusion via Decimation. Technically you can use Upheaval for Fusion but there are only two 119 GAXEs that RUN can equip and both are more annoying then the Delve V2 axe that you've probably thrown away dozens of times. Hell you don't even need to enter delve to get it, just solo or low man Podarge until it drops.

And just to reiterate the SC categories and what access's them, and how stupid anyone is for not taking advantage of this.

Fragmentation:
GS: Resolution, Dimidiation
Sword: Savage Blade

Fusion:
GA: Upheaval
Axe: Decimation

Gravitation:
Sword: Swift Blade, Requiescat

Distortion:
Axe: Ruinator
GS: Ground Strike (unreliable as only one hit aka Fudo Syndrome)

Many jobs / players suffer from not having access to one or more T2 SC categories because they get locked into a single weapon type. RUN is fortunate to have a wide variety of weapons and thus can leverage this flexibility for maximum effect. There is a reason SE gave RUN the weapon skills it did, it wasn't accident or some dude tossing a dart at a board.

At 99 Base skill is
Great Sword: 424
Sword: 417 : 6~7 acc lower
Great Axe: 398 : 23 ~ 24 acc lower
Axe: 388 : 32 ~ 34 acc lower

And seeing as COR's are also using 388 skill on sword, there is zero reason for RUN to be worried about accuracy with it.

So I'll say it again, any RUN who doesn't have a Sword and Axe setup is deliberately gimping themselves. They are both piss easy to get functional, and because your just using them for SC properties, your actual damage doesn't matter. If after reading that someone feels defensive, then it most definitely means they need to get off their *** and go get the piss easy Delve V2 weapons because while they are definitely more "optimal" choices, those two are more then sufficient for the intended purpose.

It's also worth noting that Ruinator to Leaden Salute is a very good skillchain to use in CP parties. Ground Strike is just far too inconsistent to rely on, especially against Apex mobs.

Another good one is Decimation -> Cloudsplitter for a powerful light or Swift -> BLU CDC for a powerful darkness. Could even multi-step it like I was doing with Recon, BLU CDC -> RUN Decimation -> BLU Savage Blade -> BLU CDC.

Just so many potential possibilities.

Hello again.

Prothescar has granted me edit permissions for the guide, so I'm going to take some time and get it up to date.

I'll update various sections and add/update item sets over the next few days. TP/WS sets may take a little more time - is there an updated version of Motenten's RUN spreadsheet floating around? That would help expedite matters, even if it's not completely up to date.

Shoutouts to whichever admin removed/significantly raised the limit on item sets per account, whenever that happened. I can actually make and maintain sets for a second job, whodathunkit?

Woot Woot :P

True, RUN doesn't have many good options for single-handed Axes but the one I use is from a fairly easy BC: Garuda Prime.

Tramontane Axe