Are Runes of Protection broken

[Antoine]

in the sense of being too strong, particularly against endgame bosses?

A.

[Derakon]

They're basically the only remotely effective protection against melee that doesn't involve not standing in melee range. In that sense, I suppose they're broken. In practice, I've found that even if you're a priest they're too expensive to cast regularly; you'd generally rather save your mana for healing. And you can't rely on them 100% to protect you from melee since the rune breaks before the monster attacks, not afterwards.

So generally speaking, I'd say they're quite useful, but not broken. Especially now that Sea of Runes isn't a valid tactic for denying summoning spells.

[Fendell Orcbane]

Originally Posted by Derakon

They're basically the only remotely effective protection against melee that doesn't involve not standing in melee range. In that sense, I suppose they're broken. In practice, I've found that even if you're a priest they're too expensive to cast regularly; you'd generally rather save your mana for healing. And you can't rely on them 100% to protect you from melee since the rune breaks before the monster attacks, not afterwards.

So generally speaking, I'd say they're quite useful, but not broken. Especially now that Sea of Runes isn't a valid tactic for denying summoning spells.

WHy isn't a sea of runes a valid tactic anymore?

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by Fendell Orcbane

WHy isn't a sea of runes a valid tactic anymore?

Monster summons used to be centered around the player and not around the summoner. If you wanted to deny any summons you just needed to surround yourself with 8 runes.

Since they're now from the summoner there is always at least one available space to summon in (directly behind)

[Fendell Orcbane]

Thanks! Honestly I try not to leave myself open to attacks from every direction anyway, so I'd doubt that I'd use that tactic. I'm all about the ASC.

[bron]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Sea of Runes

I think the the "right" tactic is not Sea of Runes, but rather an ASC of runes, e.g.:

##########.##
##;#;#;#.#.##
#;#;#;#.#..##
##########.##

This takes many fewer runes, and when one is broken, you simply backup to the next one. Even better, if things aren't going well, you can back up *two* spaces and heal (or Teleport Self, or whatever). Even this is not perfect of course ("teleport to" totally botches it for example), but it is very, very powerful.

For the record, I consider this to be cheating/abuse. But it is hard to know exactly where to draw the line regarding [ab]use of Runes.

[Derakon]

Sea of Runes was specifically an anti-Morgoth tactic. Find a nice open area, lay down your runes, and wait for Morgoth to show up. Shoot at him until he gets close to the runes, then teleport him away and retrieve your ammo. The only things he could do were move or cast attack spells; nothing else would work. Laying down runes in an ASC ahead of time is comparatively tame.

[Matthias]

If runes are supposed to be melee helpers only, a lot of problems could be solved by allowing only a maximum number of runes (possibly only one) to exist at the same time. Cast a second rune and the first gets destroyed.

[Derakon]

I seem to recall that Eddie or Pete had another solution to make Rune of Protection more specific. I think it basically amounted to "cast it, and until a monster breaks it or you move, you can't be hit in melee."

[nullfame]

My limited experience with runes are that they are of almost no use until Morgoth. In a fight where you're using a lot of them, sure, but the only fight where that is true is when you are ready to burn a stack of ?rune or !mana and that is only against Morgoth. Still, it is one of the scrolls I hoard (Angband is the game of hoarding) but if I run out of home space I carry them and even eventually drop them. My warrior won without finding one.

In the final fight if I have scroll or spell of course I cast them and melee. When summons get out of hand I phase away and if I later phase back near that same rune I get on it.

ASC of runes, I don't know. I never thought of that. It seems like it would be a drain on SP or a waste of !mana, but maybe with a stack of _magi not a big deal.

I guess my point is that I don't see them as necessities to win (I would stash 1 ?massBanish over 5 ?rune) so nerfing them is no big deal. For me rune is an immediate melee prevention mechanism so having only 1 active at any time, even only until you leave it, sounds fine to me especially if the concern is abuse. OTOH my general feeling about "abuse" is that if exploiting the game is what you call fun do it.