Instacast Master Runes.

 1.3.6 Update - Master runes are losing their 2s cast times and actually becoming really insta-cast. No reason to stop using the keybind though as it still reduces mouseclicking. Should be able to have even higher uptime on your master runes now.

Just a quick tip of the day, as I don't see Runepriests taking advantage of their Master Runes very often:

Bind your Master Rune to the keyboard!

 

  I found these spells to be extremely irritating when I started my RP: having to recast every 30s; TARGET IS OUT OF RANGE; and the amount of mousemovement required. Now that it is bound to X I can double tap the button to cast it and I aim it with my second hand. This is a lot more time efficient than moving your cursor to the bar, clicking, moving it to where you want, and clicking again. When you get a dreaded out of range you will be glad you don't have to repeat that process again.

Combat Log Timestamp is Client Based

Aha! This explains those dodgy looking combat logs I've seen where I've been hit 6x by the same player and died. Maybe everyone isn't exploiting the GCD afterall:

 The bug is with our timestamps and how they are reporting to your client and not the abilities actually ignoring the GCD.  The issue at hand is that with client side lag (e.g. high graphic situations like in RvR, memory hitches, etc.) and the client talking to the server.  Because the timestamps are set on the client they can only report what they hear.  So sometimes, when you hit even a small amount of lag, the client does not update with the server right away and on the next update every packet is sent your way at once.  Simplest way to repro is to start fighting and pull the network cable out of the PC for a second and then pop it right back in.  If you have timestamps turned on you will see all the damage that was done during that period of time you were unplugged being reported at the exact same second.  The abilities are not ignoring the GCD, they are just being reported wrong in the combat log.

BryantC - WarhammerOnline Forums 06/04/09

Silly idea though, much better for the server to send timestamps in the packets... Would save the CSRs some work and people would be able to better analyse their effectiveness when parsing through the log.

1.3.5 Weapon DPS Changes will not be going live.

Bummer:

Thank you all for your feedback, comments, and for being a part of the development process.  We've been gathering your thoughts, as well as continuing our discussions internally.  As a result, we've decided that this change will not go Live in 1.3.5.  Before we move on this feature, we will need to examine the system further, and address the concerns which you have brought up.

________
Nate Levy
Production Lead
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=dev_discussions&view=by_date_ascending&message.id=7210#M7210

Curable Debuffs for the Runepriest

I've been working on a list of curable debuffs for Rune of Cleansing. The purpose of this is to customize my UI so it displays when someone has a heal debuff on them, it's also lead to the discovery of some quite nasty debuffs that I'm going to have to look out for in future!

You can find the list on WarhammerAlliance on the thread Destruction Curable Debuff List. This is to take advantage of the links to WarDB when listing abilities.

To show alerts for certain effects I have been using Aura which features an import/export feature to configure it. Below is my aura to show when your target has a healing debuff that you can cure. An important distinction is that they may have a debuff you cannot cure and then it will not display. You will need to adjust the layout of the icon and size for your UI, mine currently brings up a massive red skull beneath my Squared bars.

{{'activation-alerttext':"Heal Debuff",'texture-alpha':0.50999999046326,'general-version':20507,'texture-tintg':0,'general-enabled':t,'texture-id':22718,'timer-scale':1.5,'effect-exactmatch':t,'timer-enabled':t,'effect-name':"Rotten Arrer/No More Helpin/Tainted Claw/Gork\'s Barbs\'/Black Lotus Blade/Curse of Khaine",'timer-offsetx':-170,'effect-self':f,'texture-offsety':0,'activation-alerttexttype':14,'effect-friendly':t,'general-name':"HealDebuffs - Friendly Target",'texture-scale':2.5,'activation-animation':7,'texture-offsetx':-250,'effect-stackoperator':3,'texture-circledimage':t,'texture-tintb':0}}P1

War Mechanics and the Runepriest

 I struggled to find a good breakdown of the mechanics in Warhammer here is what I have found so far relating to the Runepriest.

Action Points:
Characters regenerate 25 AP per second in game when not in global cooldown from using an ability.  Items that give +AP regeneration increase this value. So +5 AP regen is a 20% boost to action point regeneration.

You do not regenerate AP when casting a spell even if you are outside of your GCD. The GCD as far as I can tell is 1.5s, possibly a little less.

To make the most of AP regen you have to pause casting, or instead of spam casting, wait a second between casts to allow for an AP tick.

Morale:
Builds in combat.
Lowers outside of combat.
Using any morale ability will eat your whole morale bar even if it is just the first tier morale ability and you have all abilities available.

Player Attributes:
The cap for players at level 40 is currently 1,050. Source.
After this it takes 2 points to effectively increase that stat by 1 point.

Willpower
Willpower / 5 = Increases Healing Per Second.
Willpower / [(Level * 7.5 + 50) * 13.5] = +% Disrupt spells

Healpower
Healpower / 5 = Increases Healing Per Second
This stacks over the soft willpower cap at 1050 for no penalty. You are also likely to get more healpower than willpower because it is a cheaper stat due to not contributing to +%Disrupt. 

Intelligence
Intelligence / 5 = Increases ability damage DPS
Reduces chance for spells to be disrupted. Unable to find a formula.
*Doesn't seem to increase chance to crit as described.*

Toughness
Toughness / 5 = Reduces damage by X DPS

Wounds
 Wounds * 10 = Extra Health over default increase per level.
Wounds renown talents cost twice as much as other points so avoid buying those. However wounds is one of the strongest survivability attributes for RvR and you may wish to stack lots of it, including talismans.

Initiative
[(Level * 7.5 + 50) / 10] / Initiative = base % to be critically hit.
Initiative / [(Level * 7.5 + 50) * 13.5] = +% to evade.

Weapon Skill
Weapon skill / [(Level * 7.5 + 50) * 13.5] = +% to parry.

Armor
75% * (Armor / (Level * 110))

The cap at Rank 40 is 4400 - the character sheet tooltip shows 100% physical damage reduced, meaning the maximum 75% physical damage mitigation from armor. Armor works after Toughness mitigation.

Magical Resistances
Resistance Value / (level * 42) = % Resistance
Soft cap at 40% or 672 (Lvl40). After this it looks like it drops in effectiveness by a third. Source.
Hard cap at 75% but if you go over this value resistance debuffs will affect you less or not at all. Not confirmed.

Parry
Chance to parry melee attacks

Dodge
 Chance to dodge ranged attacks

Disrupt
Chance to disrupt magical attacks

Crit
Healing Crits - Base healing crit is thought to be 10%. Crit heals land for 150% of the base.

Damage Crits
There is no base chance to crit, but there is a base chance to be crit. This is determined by your initiative (see above). Your +crit% items are then added to that players chance to be crit to work out the final value.

See this thread on WarhammerAlliance.com for details.

Absorb Shields
Shields like Rune of Shielding and Ancestor's Echo absorb their stated amount of damage. They work after toughness is deducted from the damage but before armour/resists are calculated.

Must have UI add-ons for your Runepriest

I was a bit disappointed by the  amount of add-ons available to Warhammer coming from World of Warcraft. And what really annoyed me was the inability to cast spells on mouseover targets, or to use the right, middle, fwd/backwards buttons on the mouse to cast.

Below is a quick list of all the indispensible addons I have found, roughly in order of priority:

• Squared - Shows all group and warband members in a customisable unit frame, allows for quick overview of health to allow you to prioritise your healing targets.
• SquaredClick - Allows you to click with your mouse on Squared to cast heals, can combine CTRL, ALT, SHIFT for more combinations.
• Detaunt Helper - Shows the target that is DPSing you the most and allows you to cast your detaunt (50% damage reduction in PvP) on that target. See previous blog for more information on configuring this add-on.
• NerfedButtons - Allows you to script buttons. Some people say it's too automatic and shouldn't be used. It is written inline with all the UI tools and Mythic have no issue with the add-on. I plan to post more detail about how I have configured this later.
• NBSquared - Allows you to combine NerfedButtons functionality with Squared.
• AutoDismount - AutoDismounts you when casting.
• MarkBuff - Allows you to buff your group easily.
• NoOverheal - Helps prevent casting of spells if target is on full health.
• Res - Sends text to your chat channel when you Res a target.

All available with through Curse.

At a later date I will expand more on my UI with screenshots.

There are many more you will want to try to adjust the layout of your interface, these are the ones that I have found that I think specifically apply to the Runepriest.

Aezelbeth

Karak-Azgal EU

Detaunt Helper - Configuring for your Runepriest

Detaunt Helper is an excellent add-on that enables you to use Rune of Preservation effectively in PVE or PVP. It can be configured using the command /dh menu.

It's default settings shows bars of the most DPS players/NPCs attacking you. These are clickable allowing you to target that enemy. For players you can assign a mouse click to cast Rune of Preservation or any other spell you desire. For NPCs this function is disabled to prevent botting but you can still cast manually after targetting.

I set the list to display only 2 bars, 5 seconds to delay expiration and unticked Reset on Detaunt.

I initially started using the bars but found that in the heat of RvR combat it was preventing me from doing other things so I looked at a way to keybind the functionality. To do this I had to install NerfedButtons and create a simple script:

/nb add 9 [Rune Of Preservation];dht:+

This adds the spell [Rune of Preservation] to hotbar key 9, and will only cast the spell if your target is equal to the Detaunt Helper Target (dht).

Now we need to use a macro to target the DHT if he/she isn't your current target. To create a macro we use the Escape menu and then select Macros:

We create a new macro, give it a title, an icon and add the following script:

/script DetauntHelper.TargetTop()

 We combine the macro to the NerfedButton with the command:

/nb macro 9 1

Where 9 is the hotbar key assigned earlier, and 1 is the macro you have created. The macros are numbered 1-x - the first macro you create will be assigned to 1, the second to 2 etc...

Finally to put the spell on a more usable key use the Escape menu to get to Key Mapping, select Hotbars and assign a key to that hotbar #. Personally I chose E which is next to my movement keys and easily accessible.

With two taps of the E key I will cast my Detaunt on the highest DPS enemy at the time. Win.

Aezelbeth
Karak-Azgal EU

Runepriest Changes - 1.3.5 Patch Notes

Balance Changes:

* Grungni's Gift: This ability's heal value has been increased, and its Action Point cost has been reduced.

* Master Rune of Adamant: The heal value of the ability has increased.

* Rune of Burning: This ability now deals slightly less damage per tick, but ticks at a faster rate, resulting in an overall increase in damage. Additionally, its Action Point cost has been increased.

* Rune of Fate: This ability will now heal for 150% of the damage dealt.

* Rune of Fire: The damage of this ability has been increased.

* Rune of Fortune: The ability will now heal for 150% of the damage dealt.

* Rune of Immolation: The damage of this ability has been increased. Also, fixed an issue in which the Damage-over-time would unintentionally deal damage on the initial application.

* Rune of Serenity: The heal value of the ability has increased.

http://www.warherald.com/patchnotes/index.php#patch:-1_section:21

We've identified several issues which were causing some specific Zealot and Runepriest abilities to be much less impactful than they should have been.  Essentially, these abilities were simply "under budget" and did not have enough performance for their costs.  We will be improving all of these abilities in order to bring them up to a level that we feel is more appropriate.

• Flash of Chaos & Grungni's Gift:  Both of these "snap heal" abilities were underperforming, and have been adjusted in two different ways.  We've reduced the action point costs of these abilities from 30 to 15, and increased their base healing value from roughly 200 to 270 (before modifiers such as Willpower, Healing Power, and Weapon DPS as mentioned in my prior post).
• Leaping Alteration & Rune of Serenity:  Similarly, both of these abilities were notably underperforming, with their base healing values being much lower than we intended.  As a result, we will be increasing their base overall healing from roughly 390 to 600.  We hope that these changes make these abilities much more appealing to you, and that you'll find room in your toolbox for them!

Nate Levy
Player Systems Team Lead
Mythic Entertainment, an EA studio

http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=dev_discussions&thread.id=6604

The Beginnings...

I've been playing MMOs since Dark Age of Camelot, back on Prydwen. Initially starting out as an infiltrator I moved on to a cleric.

When World of Warhammer arrived, I signed up to the US servers and levelled up the first 60 priest on the server. With the EU release I moved over creating a warrior, but then fell back to being a priest. I've had 3 different max level priests in WoW over the years as I stopped playing for one reason or another and started over. 

I've had server firsts in Naxxaramus and in the Burning Crusade sunwell, and have always enjoyed a healing role in PVE and PVP. I like to feel I play to the top of my game and have enjoyed all the theorycrafting websites available for WoW.

I recently moved to Warhammer Online to try something new, Runepriest seemed to be the most like my playstyle and I'm enjoying levelling up so far. Unfortunatly there just isn't the information out there to support play to the level I want. I've struggled to find the details I need to configure my UI and to prioritise my healing efficiently so I hope this blog will result in a guide/faq to other Runepriests out there.

Aezelbeth

Karak-Azgal EU