Part 99: Rune Knight: The only time you don't take the Chicken Knife.

Rune Knight: The only time you don't take the Chicken Knife.





The first of the Atlantis classes, the Rune Knight's intended design is to trade out some of the raw power and buff/debuff support of a God Hand for elemental hits and dedicated tanking potential.

However, the devs saw fit to give a Rune Knight some of the strongest attacks in the game.

Stats



To go along with that, the Rune Knight loses a tiny bit of LF compared to the God Hand and identical SPD, but has the highest DEF and MDF of any class in the game. Their MN and MAT are both middling, but they have answers to both of those issues.

Tier 1 Skills

Ice Sword



Hits one enemy with melee MAT-based ice damage and a chance to inflict Freeze.

Ice Sword is cheap, the infliction rate on it is nuts for an initial skill, and the Freeze hits like a truck. The added SPD cut on Freeze also lets the Rune Knight get their moves off before a threatening enemy once it sticks.

Lightning Sword



Hits one enemy with melee MAT-based lightning damage and a chance to inflict Paralysis.

However, Ice Sword has to compete with this. More damage, a longer Paralysis duration, and a 60% chance to cancel someone's turn makes this a clear winner for a Rune Knight's starting damage option. Sure, it costs double the MN, but you also just got Fortuners, and they come with MN restoration by default!

Provoke



Increases the chances for the Rune Knight to be targeted by attacks.

In exchange for a slight reduction from Ambush Stance's target rate and not getting any counters, the Rune Knight can instead do whatever the hell they want without worrying about enemy aggro. Toss an item, smack an enemy, look pensively at the endless expanse of the ocean floor. It doesn't matter, as everything will still be hitting them.

Knight's Grace



User heals the party.

Sort of a counterpart to God Hand's Chiropractic, Knight's Grace trades in the free priority for the ability to heal the party.

Shame that a Heal Aloe II matches the base heal of this skill at max level.

Skip.

Aura Shield



Increases the party's MDF.

A boost to MDF is a bit more niche than God Hand's combined DEF/MDF buff, but it can be a lifesaver if you know an enemy is loaded on MAT.

Life Oath



Increases the Rune Knight's current and maximum LF. LF cannot exceed 500.

A handy way to make the already tanky Rune Knight even tankier. A few of their skills key off of max LF, so this is an effortless way to boost those up.

Substitute



This turn, the Rune Knight has increased DEF/MDF and all single target attacks have a chance to be redirected to the Rune Knight. Redirected attacks are still treated as having hit their intended target, causing counters to still go off if available.

Now, at a glance this skill looks like a sidegrade to Ambush Stance, having more defense instead of dealing counters. But take a close look at the word 'redirected.'

See, the catch to aggro boosters is that they only work if an enemy is specifically aiming at a random person. If they instead aim at, say, the party member with the highest LF, they will always go for that person, regardless of if someone else with less LF has +50% target rate or +50000000%.

Substitute sidesteps all that, as it instead takes the hit for whoever got targeted. And as counters tend to go off when targeted, any counters on the original target will go off like normal.

And as a bonus, each hit on a multi-hit attack counts as a single target attack, letting a Rune Knight tank every hit!

Vital Protection



At the start of combat, the Rune Knight has a chance to buff the party's MDF.

It eats your start of battle AUTO, and only gives a slight increase over Aura Shield. Skip.

Tier 2 Skills

Drain Sword



Hits one enemy with melee MAT-based damage and heals the Rune Knight's LF based on damage dealt.

Yep, the Rune Knight gets their own mini-Drill Crawler to help keep them standing. The damage takes a bit of a hit, but the LF leech is increased to compensate and has no usage restrictions compared to Drill Crawler.

Aspir Sword



Hits one enemy with melee MAT-based damage and restores the Rune Knight's MN based on damage dealt.

And if Drain Sword runs you dry, you can just follow up with this to fill back up!

Ice Enchant



Changes damage type of party's normal attacks to ice. Skill damage is unaffected, but is still treated as ice for Agent's TROY: Ice.

Do you have an Agent with your Rune Knight? This lets everyone set off TROY:Ice and add in a hefty chunk of damage. Otherwise this skill is useless.

Lightning Enchant



Changes damage type of party's normal attacks to lightning.

And this one doesn't even have Agent synergy, making it extra useless!

Vengeful Sword



Hits one enemy with melee MAT-based damage with a chance to inflict Bleed. Damage increases based on how low the Rune Knight's LF is.

Changes from 2020-II: Max damage increased from 15x to 18x. Now inflicts Bleed. Life thresholds changed from 100%-50.1%/50%-30.1%/30%-10.1%/10%-0% to 100%-90%/89.9%-70%/69.9%-40%/39.9%-0%.

I told you Rage Bomber got passed to someone else, didn't I?

Look at it! It hits harder! The HP tiers have been changed from 'suicidal' to 'trivial!' The Rune Knight is going to be taking hits anyways, so getting in range of this takes zero effort. The added Bleed is also a free 300~ damage every time it lands.

This still isn't the best skill they have.

Knight's Wrath



Hits one enemy with melee MAT-based damage. Damage increased based on number of dead allies.

This, on the other hand, is just plain bad. Oh look, 8x damage if you're on the verge of losing! Vengeful Sword hits 7.5x the moment something so much as breathes aggressively on the Rune Knight, so if everyone else is dead just revive them and let the enemy whale on the Rune Knight instead.

Knight's Gaze



Cures status ailments on the party.

Like the Rune Knight's party heal, this is also bad. It doesn't heal all ailments, and never gets priority.

Clench



Applies a buff that keeps the Rune Knight alive with 1 LF if they take a fatal blow. The buff will never wear off naturally. Has priority.

Changes from 2020-II: Can no longer revive with more than 1 LF.

You know, it's funny. On one hand, Destroyers never wanted to level Death's Door past 1 to stay at low LF for Rage Bomber, and Clench is designed to do exactly that. On the other hand, the much more generous LF tiers for Vengeful Sword means that a Rune Knight could have actually used those higher tiers. Grab it, use it when you have a free turn, and laugh as anything that tries to kill the Rune Knight just puts them into Vengeful Sword range.

Toughness React



Places a buff on the Rune Knight that gives them a 60% chance to gain an extra turn if they have less than a certain amount of LF at the end of the turn.

One of the more awkward Reacts to make use of, and also partially sabotaged by Vengeful Sword only needing sub-40% LF, making getting this low rather risky. Clench going off ensures you'll be in range to proc it, but even then you're gambling on a 60% chance.

Tier 3 Skills

Brave Sword



The Rune Knight burns a portion of their LF to deal melee MAT-based damage to one enemy. Base damage is multiplied by (LF Lost * 0.02). This skill cannot kill the Rune Knight.

This.

This right here is true power creep.

Sure, the EX skills are good, but you can only get one shot of them before you have to build EX again. Sure, Samurai has oodles of buffs, but they need several turns to set them up. Sure, Judgement hits everyone, but that needs several turns of setup and breaks if something looks at the Duelist funny. Sure, Sacrifice can end fights instantly, but you still have to deal with the first ~80% of a boss' LF on your own.

Brave Sword is an unconditional attack that the Rune Knight can use on Turn 1 and break someone in half, end of discussion.

If a fight lasts beyond that, you have two choices: You can either have someone heal up the Rune Knight for another Brave Sword, or notice how a max level Brave Sword leaves them in prime Vengeful Sword range and start slamming those out.

Berserk



Places a buff on the Rune Knight that increases their MAT and SPD, but forces them to attack one enemy with melee MAT-based ice damage every turn.

At a glance, Berserk seems bad. Effectively losing your tank for three full turns just to make a few attacks? Doesn't seem nearly good enough to ever use. It turns out that this is one of those skills that really need this kind of under the hood knowledge to make use of.

15x damage puts it only slightly below a maxed Vengeful Sword, but Berserk being backed by a free MAT buff means it can very easily end up outdamaging it!

Granted, it isn't Brave Sword, so it automatically drops down a few ranks in usefulness.

Knight's Pride



When killed by an enemy, the Rune Knight has a 60% chance to attack their killer with melee MAT-based damage. The damage is scaled based on how much LF the Rune Knight lost on that turn. The base damage is multiplied by (LF Lost * 0.05). Dying from Instant Death is treated as losing 0 LF, making the counterattack deal 0x damage.

And if Brave Sword leading into Vengeful Sword wasn't bad enough, now you can come out ahead even if they get sniped after using it! Plus, as the damage is calculated based on how much life is lost that turn, it also counts the self damage on Brave Sword if they die after using it!

The main issue is that it runs counter to Clench, as it going off means the Rune Knight never actually dies to sets Knight's Pride off unless they get killed twice in one turn.

EX Skill

Odin's Rage



Deals melee MAT-based ice damage with a chance to inflict Freeze to one enemy and heals the Rune Knight for a portion of the damage dealt.

Odin's Rage hits hard, sure, but you don't use Odin's Rage for the damage.

You use it for the self-heal to throw out another full damage Brave Sword next turn.

Team Skills

Charge Time: 1 turn

If Provoke wasn't enough. If Vengeful Sword wasn't enough. If Brave Sword wasn't enough. If Knight's Pride wasn't enough. Rune Knights are also the second class with a one turn charge.

Buddy

Deals 1.5x melee ATK-based damage and has a base 100% chance to give the target a 0.8x MDF multiplier for 2 turns.

Granted, it's worse than Agent's Buddy skill, but everything is worse than Agent's Buddy skill.

Support

Increases party's MDF by 1.2x for 1 turn.

Likewise, a one-off MDF buff is also a bit lacking.