The new Rune System is coming on the 5th of December. This update will significantly change our build based on all the extra stats and ability bonuses we can gain from these new runes. They will be obtained through dimensional trials, which will be another level up from the two-star dungeons featuring higher difficulty levels. There will be new boss mechanics to look out for and overall much higher difficulty, but a lot to be gained in increasing your character's effectiveness.
Each of these runes can be slotted into both your weapons and all of your accessories. There are different types of runes: offense, defense, and utility, each providing a selection of different stats. You will level up these runes, but the most important thing is getting the correct combination of runes to achieve a set effect. This will differ based on whether it's for weapons or different accessory pieces, and this is going to be the main factor causing you to change your build.
Weapons could give you three more ability points, including a utility bonus, which helps significantly to reach new milestones on attributes. This means you may very well want to switch different gear pieces. Personally, I will be looking at the necklace, which can also give two attributes plus another benefit like 600 Max Health. Your bracelet, which is more defense-oriented, can provide some attack speed, shield block penetration chance, extra HP, attack speed, and so on. Your two rings will give more attributes, such as cooldown, Max Health, and block chance. Finally, your belt will offer more defensive-oriented benefits like movement speed, Max Health, and damage reduction. These are pretty significant, and it doesn't matter if your Rune is level one or level 60; you still gain that benefit if you have the correct combination.
I will get into more details about the Rune system and how to set it up for yourself when it's fully available on our global servers in its full form. For now, we can already theorycraft what kind of builds we want to create to take the most advantage of it. Personally, I will be going with something like this: I'm getting 70 Dexterity, 50 Wisdom, and 45 Perception. I am changing up my crossbow and dagger build quite a bit as I'm focusing more on PvE to max out my damage within that content. I prefer PvE content over PvP content right now, so that will be my main focus moving forward, which means my build has adjusted a bit.
Doing these two-star dungeons, I've managed to get some of the best gear here, and this is pretty much the build I'm going to be going with, except for this particular ring. I will eventually be switching it over to the Band of the Chosen One because it gives Perception instead of Strength. We're focusing on hitting certain milestones with Dexterity to get that all maxed out, Wisdom to give the cooldown speed, and Perception to give the buff duration, which is more important than you think. With this setup, you're getting upwards of 50% buff duration, which is very important because you increase the duration of your buffs.
My damage tests are now significantly improved; you can see this here. We can hit 135,000, which was only after a few tries on a dummy test. I can probably get higher with more luck on heavy attacks and offhand attacks on Thundercloud bombings. I will cover my updated rotation and overall build with you guys, but you can ultimately see how it's looking here and what runes I will most likely be going with. I'm trying to get Dexterity and attack speed, heavy attack skill damage resistance, and Max Health on weapons. You must use one attack, utility, and defense rune to get the correct combination. There is always the option to go full attack, which I might do with the belt. I am getting all this boss-heavy attack chance because the options for the belt in terms of the runes you can slot in are not otherwise offense-oriented for PvE. You don't need the hit chance, and that's about it, other than the boss's critical hit chance. You're just going to be better off with the boss-heavy attack chance.
The exact combinations for the belt are very much defense-oriented with no attributes, so you'd only be going for it if you want the Max Health, movement speed, or damage reduction. If you're going for a pure damage boost, you could be better off having three attack runes and no bonus here. You may see purple runes available if you're looking at this section of the quest log in the Korean server edition. That's because they recently got that as their update, but we likely won't because it is quite the grind, and they'll probably want us to get through the blue ones first to avoid burnout.
Upgrading these runes to 60 will be an insane grind, doing these dungeons repeatedly. We already have to do them a lot with just the two-star dungeons, but we are capped twice daily. This is great news for PvE enjoyers, as you will have a repeatable dungeon experience with new mechanics and challenges ahead. It's recommended to have a stacked pre-made group for these. Otherwise, you may have a rough time.
We can quickly look at the other runes I'm going with. Both weapons would have this set: heavy attack skill damage resistance, Max Health. My necklace goes for the set to get the two Dexterity and maximum hit points. I would go with a boss melee heavy attack. There doesn't seem to be anything great here, Max Health and amateur heal. You could have received healing, which would cause healers to heal you more, but you shouldn't be taking much damage as a damage dealer. You're generally alone when you are, so the amateur heal could help more.
I don't think I would go with any of these sets for the bracelet since the only benefits are a 3% attack speed or six bonus damages. I am still on the fence about that because the option would be to gain 90 heavy attacks, which would help significantly with Thundercloud bombings. Comparing 3% attack speed versus 90 heavy attack, attack speed is slightly better on top of getting a set effect. I could go with attack speed, extra hit points, skill damage resistance, more Max Health, and a little heavy attack. In most cases, this is still better.
With the rings, you get amateur heal, Max Health, and critical hit chance. The same goes for your other ring, giving the bonus to Perception and cooldown speed, which is very nice. As shown before, the belt bonuses are not great unless you need Max Health or movement speed. You can get a bunch of extra heavy attacks here, but this will most likely be the build I'm going forward with the big Rune update. It changes some things from what I was using before, focusing more on attack speed through Dexterity and bonuses like Elrich Whisperers, Field General gauntlets, this ring, and focusing on buff duration. Getting those traits is important: 6% here, another six on your necklace, and two rings. I miss all that buff duration on my current build, so I'm only at 24%. That's why some of you may say I'm only dealing 300,000 damage in my burst rotation with that 135,000 detonation mark. You can get higher, but you need that buff duration and extended duration of selfless diffusion. You can get that upwards of nearly 10 seconds, allowing for more Thundercloud bombings versus only three in a 99-second rotation. My damage can go higher, and with more luck on offhand and heavy attacks, we could get this upwards of 150,000 on detonation mark, meaning our rotation deals nearly 400,000 within a 10-second dummy test.
Suppose I manage to get my buff duration to nearly 50%. In that case, I'll have a longer duration on selfless diffusion, meaning more Thundercloud bombings and a rotation that can get a detonation mark upwards of 200,000, killing a full dummy within about 40 seconds, meaning a million damage.
