Enchanter runes order of operations discussion revisit

It's been a long time since I played around with melee runes. Something always seemed off about when some runes would fade before others would. I got motivated to look at it. We can stack lots of runes as an enchanter but I only wanted to focus on the ones that had a melee partial or full absorption. So no pure nuke runes and no pure dot runes. I did not bother with epic rune. I made the combat dummy level max 200 because I guess he hits hardest the higher he is and I needed it to hit high enough to break past the thresholds of shield of and auspice rune lines.
Possible combinations of runes to choose from with the ones I used in green:
veil of mindshadow
eldritch / single target other / single target self / group rune
polystun line
phantasmic reflex / rune of banishment
auspice line / rune aura
brimstone line / horrendous line
dimensional shield
epic rune
shield of order
reactive rune (melee)

Numbers given to the lines of spells I chose to simplify the next list:
1 phantasmic reflex
2 polystun line
3 eldrich
4 horrendous line
5 auspice line
6 shield of order line
7 dimensional shield
8 veil of mindshadow
9 reactive rune (melee)

Of three trials of mixed level 5 and 6 spell lines (all others at highest level) and mixed placement in the spell list, they faded in this order:
2, 4, 3
3, 2, 2
4, 3, 4
1, 1, 1 - phantasmic reflex was always the last pure melee rune to fade
8, 8, 8 - Veil of mindshadow was always the first mitigation to fade
7, 7, 5
5, 5, 7
9, 9, 6
6, 6, 9

Order I prefer they fade in:
1 because it's pure melee with shortest duration
4 because it's pure melee that doesn't last long and no chanter uses either line of this anyway
9 because it's pure melee that I can't cast again for 20 min
3 because it's pure melee that i can't cast again for 5.5 min
2 because it's pure melee that I can cast as needed and it procs stun when it fades
5 because it's mitigation that lasts the shortest
7 because it's mitigation that lasts not so long and i can't recast it for 20 min
8 because it's mitigation that I can't recast for 5 min
6 because it's mitigation that i can recast as needed

Side note, DIMENSIONAL INSTABILITY never Dimensional jolt iii (36945) / dimensional shift i (11102)'d me when I took a hit from a combat dummy but only worked occasionally when a real monster strikes me. Which no complaints by me for not working at all but is still not working as intended.
What do you think? What's your preferred order for them to fade?

So are you saying you want shield of order to fade last? I have mixed thoughts on that. With limited spell slots, I don't have shield of order up, however if I were to try tanking (which I stopped after RoS), it would be the spell I would spam so would want it higher on the list. However, since normally I don't have the spell line up, last sounds fine to me. Runes that don't require spell slots are more easily refreshed than those that do.

I would prefer eldritch to be used before reactive rune because of the shorter refresh timer. Eldritch is nice, though, as it can block the the largest hit (200k) of any of the runes.

My priority desire is that phantasmic reflex gets used before anything else. The rest is just topic fluff.

Interesting post. I have always understood that, for the most part, damage will be applied to each rune in the order of its particular buff slot. For example, if only buffed with melee runes that absorb 100% of melee dmg per hit up to its corresponding total amount, such as eldritch, poly, or horrendous, the runes will always fade in a predictable fashion relating to their buff slot number (i.e. poly will always fade before eldritch if poly is in buff slot 1 and vice versa and so on).

The complexity comes into play with runes that have a percentage based absorption factor that essentially causes damage to be "dispersed" among multiple runes in the buff slot order instead of applying fully to 1 rune at a time. When trying to account for these types of runes it can get pretty messy in predicting fade order because there is an incredible amount of variables that have to be taken into consideration, such as # of mob hits per second, varying amounts of dmg per hit, % of dmg applied to each particular rune based off remaining amount of dmg to be dispersed, etc etc.

Out of curiosity, how do you define "pure melee rune" in the context that you are using? Personally, I would not consider Phantasmic Reflex or Reactive Rune as pure runes myself, when taken in relation to Eldritch, Poly, etc., in the sense that they have a % based factor that comes into play (100% absorption up to 26k dmg per hit and 80k absorption only if you take a melee hit exceeding 35k, respectively), which sets them apart from the direct absorptive aspect of Eldritch and Poly that allows them them to absorb up to a total amount without any additional conditional requirements tied to them.

I do agree that Phantasmic Reflex should fade before most other runes, and when testing it against several ToV mobs in EW that had consistently avg melee hits of ~30-40k, I noticed that it never faded 1st (like you had also mentioned), even when used only with Eldritch (which absorbs 205k total dmg) and with Phantasmic Reflex assigned to buff slot #1. Conceptually, you would think that if Phantasmic Reflex absorbed up to 26k from each hit (meaning a max of up to ~14k or so would be applied towards Eldritch from each hit) that Phantasmic reflex would absorb its total cap of 130k dmg before Eldritch had absorbed its 205k...however, that was not the case with my testing It's actually pretty annoying tbh.

By pure melee rune I was still referring to all 9 of those runes I just got lazy instead of saying "pure melee with mitigation" at the bottom simply referring to it as "mitigation"
I still consider phantasm reflex non mitigation because 100% is the same as eldrich, poly, horrifying, reactive even if it has to meet a threshold. The rest are < 100% so auspice, sheild of, vom, dimensional are in their mitigation pure melee category 75%, 75%, 60%, 50% respectively And I agree that the buff slot order plays a big part on which 100% rune falls first, as it should! As I watched the slowly painful damage I took as each buff dropped, the "dispersion" that I would expect did not come into play at all until eldrich, poly, horrendous, phantasmic faded, THEN the damage started dispersing between vom, dimesional, auspice, shield of, and reactive .

Another thing that would be nice is if we could SEE the damage that would have been taken. All our lives it's been:

[Wed Dec 11 16:49:40 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow!
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:42 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow!
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:42 2019] Soandso hits YOU for 679 points of damage.
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:42 2019] Soandso hits YOU for 20028 points of damage.

It would be nice if it were as such (pretend this chanter only has poly 110 on so they're protected for 105461 points of damage) :

[Wed Dec 11 16:49:40 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 40000 points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow!
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:42 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 30000 points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow!
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:42 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 35461 points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow!
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:42 2019] Soandso hits YOU for 9539 points of damage.
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:43 2019] Soandso hits YOU for 40000 points of damage.

I understand your perspective, but I also like to consider that Phantasmic Reflex is only 100% for melee hits that deal 26k dmg or less. When mobs are putting out greater than 26k dmg per hit on average, Phantasmic Reflex effectively mitigates <100% more often than full absorption. For example, if you take a hit for 50k melee dmg, it will only absorb 52% of the hit, which is strikingly similar to dimensional or veil of mindshadow. If ur taking melee hits even great than that, Phantasmic Reflex absorbs a correspondingly less percentage of the hit. This is why I view it more as a % mitigation rune as opposed to a 100% full absorption rune like Eldritch, Poly, etc. In older content with dinky mobs, it would be a different story haha

Agreed.

I see what you're saying. It would be nice if let's pretend this enchanter has phantasmic reflex in a slot above eldrich and is taking a nice simple 86000 damage each swing.

[Wed Dec 11 16:49:40 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 26000 points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow! (phantasmic reflex xiii)
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:40 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 60000 points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow! (eldrich rune xxxii)

[Wed Dec 11 16:49:42 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 26000 points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow! (phantasmic reflex xiii)
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:42 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 60000 points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow! (eldrich rune xxxii)

[Wed Dec 11 16:49:43 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 26000 points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow! (phantasmic reflex xiii)
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:43 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 60000 points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow! (eldrich rune xxxii)

[Wed Dec 11 16:49:44 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 26000 points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow! (phantasmic reflex xiii)
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:44 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 60000 points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow! (eldrich rune xxxii)

[Wed Dec 11 16:49:46 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 26000 points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow! (phantasmic reflex xiii now expended)
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:46 2019] Soandso tries to hit YOU for 40000 remaining points of damage, but YOUR magical skin absorbs the blow! (eldrich rune xxxii now expended)
[Wed Dec 11 16:49:46 2019] Soandso hits you for 20000 points of damage! (remaining melee damage after both runes expended)

Other than putting our epic 1st for the aggro reduction on break, I've never given this much thought. Since TBL AEs eat through my runes so fast, I have found I usually just don't bother keeping runes up at all anymore. I rely now mostly on doppleganger, good tanks, eldrich rune and our defensive mez proc.

So, if you want to talk Runes, first we need to get our terminology straight.

1) SPA 55 - "Stoneskin"

Absorbs 100% of melee or spell (DD) damage up to a set number.

Example:

If the rune has a value of 10,000 and you are hit by a melee or DD spell attack for 100,000, it will absorb 10k and fade and you will be hit for 90k.

Note:

This is generally what most people think of when they think of "runes" as it is by far the most used.

2) SPA 78 - "Spell Shield"

Absorbs 100% of spell (DD) damage up to a set number.

Example:

See SPA 55.

Note:

This is the spell-only version of SPA 55, but it is very rarely used. It only works on Direct Damage spells, NOT DoTs.

3) SPA 161 - "Spell Guard"

Absorbs X% of spell (DD) damage.
Option of per-hit limit.
Option of total amount limit.

Example:

A) Mitigation of the Mighty I

Absorbs 40%, with NO per-hit limit and NO total amount limit. Flat 40% of all spells forever.

B) Big Boneded (NPC spell)

Absorbs 80%, with a per-hit limit of 1.5m and NO total amount limit.

It will absorb 80% all spells up to 1.5m with no limit. A spell for 2m will hit for 300k + 500k = 800k. (It absorbs 80% (1.2m) of 1.5m, leaving 300k, plus the remaining 500k, for a total of 800k).

C) Ancestral Magic Guard XXXII

Absorbs 50%, with NO per-hit limit up to a total of 100k.

If will absorb 50% of all spells until 100k has been absorbed. A spell for 100k will hit for 50k. A spell for 200k will hit for 100k and use up the rune.

D) Chiselguard (NPC spell)

Absorbs 20%, with a 2,000 per-hit limit AND a total of 1,000,000.

It will absorb 20% of a spell, up to 2k, until 1m has been absorbed. A spell for 1k will land for 800. A spell for 2k will land for 1600. A spell for 100k will land for 98k.

Note:

Originally this only allowed for Total option. The per-hit limit was added later. Most player spells only make use of the Total option, though some newer ones also use the per-hit limit.

4) SPA 162 - "Melee Guard"

Absorbs X% of melee damage.
Option of per-hit limit.
Option of total amount limit.

Examples:

See SPA 161.

Notes:

This is the melee equivalent of SPA 161.

5) SPA 163 - "Absorb Hit"

Absorbs X number of melee or spell (DD) hits.
Option of per-hit limit.

Examples:

A) Sanctum III

Absorbs 6 melee/spell (DD) hits, with NO limit on the size.

B) Chaotic Rune (NPC spell)

Absorbs 1m hits up to 100k.

If hit with a melee/spell (DD) for 100k will absorb the hit with no damage.
If hit with a melee/spell (DD) for 150k will absorb 100k and land for 50k damage.

Note:

Originally this SPA did not have a per-hit limit. Given that it is used primarily for pets, and that it allowed for pet-tanking of raid npcs, it was deemed too powerful and nerfed by the addition of the hit limit.

6) SPA 450 - "DoT Guard"

Absorbs X% of DoT damage.
Option of per-hit limit.
Option of total amount limit.

Examples:

See SPA 161

Note:

This is the DoT equivalent of SPA 161. Since it was added MUCH later in EQ history, it was decided to make this an "Enchanter only" SPA, so they are the only ones to really make use of it (though there are a few other things that do).

7) SPA 451 - "Melee Threshold Guard"

Absorbs X% of melee damage over Y amount (the "threshold").
Option of total amount limit.

Examples:

A) Dichotomic Shielding 1

Absorbs 40% over 11k with a total of 500k.

If hit with a melee attack for 11k, it will land for 11k, with 0 absorbed.
If hit with a melee attack for 100k, it will land for 100k-11k = 89k * .6 = 53,400 + 11,000 = 64,400, with 35,600 absorbed.

B) Glyph of Dragon Scales V

Absorbs 35% over 7.5k, with NO total limit.

If hit with a melee attack for 7.5k, it will land for 7.5k, with 0 absorbed.
If hit with a melee attack for 100k, it will land for (100k-7.5k = 92.5k * . 65 = 60,125 + 7,500 = 67,625, with 32,375 absorbed.

Note:

Lower thresholds are preferable to higher ones as it results in more damage being mitigated. As in the above examples Glyph of Dragon Scales V almost absorbs as much as Dichotomic Shielding 1 despite absorbing 5% less. This is because the threshold is much lower. Glyph of Dragon Scales I has a threshold of 500, meaning it would actually absorb more than Glyph of Dragon Scales V.

8) SPA 452 - "Spell Threshold Guard"

Absorbs X% of spell (DD) damage over Y amount (the "threshold").
Option of total amount limit.

Examples:

See SPA 451.

Note:

This is the Spell (DD) Equivalent of SPA 451.

Now that we have our terminology straight, lets go to how it works when you have multiples:

1) SPA Order

SPAs are checked first in numerical order.


SPA 55 is checked before SPA 78, which is checked before 161, 162, etc.

2) Absorption Amount Order.

If two of the same SPA are present, they are checked based on the amount they will absorb.

Example:

You have two SPA 162 runes:

Rune 1 absorbs 50%, with a per-hit limit of 1k, up to 100k.
Rune 2 absorbs 30%, with a per-hit limit of 10k, up to 500k.

If you are hit for 1k EQ will calculate that:

Rune 1 will absorb 500 damage, and you are hit for 500.
Rune 2 will absorb 300 damage, and you are hit for 700.

EQ will use Rune 1. Rune 2 will not be used for that hit.


If you are hit for 10k, EQ will calculate that:

Rune 1 will absorb 1k damage, and you are hit for 9k.
Rune 2 will absorb 3k damage, and you are hit for 7k.

EQ will use Rune 2. Rune 1 will not be used for that hit.

Note:

EQ used to check based on percent absorbed. This would mean Rune 1 would always be used over Rune 2 until Rune 1 faded. This was changed in August 2016.

3) Buff Slot Order

If two of the same SPA are present AND they will both absorb the same amount, EQ will use the rune in the lower buff slot.

Example:

You have two SPA 162 runes:

Rune 1 absorbs 50%, with a per-hit limit of 1k, up to 100k.
Rune 2 absorbs 30%, with a per-hit limit of 10k, up to 500k.

If you are hit for 3333, EQ will calculate that:

Rune 1 will absorb 1k damage, and you are hit for 9k.
Rune 2 will absorb 1k damage, and you are hit for 9k.

Since the amounts absorbed are equal, whichever rune is in the lower buff slot (0-42) will be used first and the second will not be used for that hit.

As a final thought:

It would be far more preferable if EQ checked runes in Reverse SPA order.

Example (current way it works):

You have 3 runes:

Rune 1: SPA 55, absorbs 50k Total.
Rune 2: SPA 161, absorbs 30%, 40k Total.
Rune 3: SPA 452, absorbs 60% over 30k, 200k Total.

You are nuked for 200k.

Rune 1 will absorb 50k, and fade instantly. (200 - 50 = 150)
Rune 2 will absorb 40k, and fade instantly. (150 - 40 = 110)
Rune 3 will absorb 48k and you are hit for 62k. (110 - 30 = 80 * .6)




Now let's see what happens if we reversed the order and checked higher SPA runes first:

Rune 3 will absorb 102k. (200 - 30 = 170 *.6 = 102)
Rune 2 will absorb 29.4k. (98 * .3 = 29.4)
Rune 1 will absorb 50k, (and fade), and you are hit for 18.6k (68.6 - 50 = 18.6)


Clearly the second option is preferable to the first as it results in a greater amount of damage absorbed.

This has been another episode of "Beimeith Masterclass", thank you and have a good night.

What he said! I am just a simpleton.

Omg this makes SO much more sense now, my brain definitely just made more connections between the rune groups/fade order now. Using Beimeith's order of operations, I think the following generalizations can be made regarding our enc melee runes that we were discussing previously (correct me if I seem to have misunderstood lol).

Eldritch and Poly are in the SPA 55 group and get checked/fade first. I am guessing that Reactive Rune (melee), although in its final form is a "Stoneskin (SPA 55)," seems to always fade after most of the others because it starts out as a "pre" rune that is not SPA 55 (rather it is SPA 453 at that point), and doesn't get activated into the SPA 55 form until after taking a hit for its corresponding minimum amount of melee dmg. Phantasmic Reflex falls into the SPA 162 group along with Veil of Mindshadow and Dimensional Shield, so those get checked (and correspondingly fade) following Eldritch/Poly. Shield of Order and Tenebrous Auspice are SPA 451, getting checked last in this particular scenario of runes.

I can say that Beimeith's explanation definitely helped me to understand why Phantasmic Reflex (which absorbs 100% of melee dmg up to 20k per hit) always faded after Eldritch/Poly, regardless of buff slot order, when I tested it. This particular headache has been lessened. Thanks Beimeith <3

I made a mistake here I didn't catch until I just reread it now.

It should be:

It will absorb 80% all spells up to 1.5m with no limit. A spell for 2m will hit for 500k. 80% of 2m is 1.6m, but the per-hit limit is 1.5m so it will absorb 1.5m instead of 1.6m that it would absorb without the per-hit limit cap.

Thanks Beim…. I was like Kimb and thinking pre 2016 and that it was by buff slot order still. They all fade so fast anymore it's hard to keep track..... thank gawd for gina

Wow revisiting an issue. That never happens on the forums!

Although im not happy that this change was put into effect.... a staple of a good chanter was if he knew what order to put the runes in... this was a nerf imo... Beimeth shined on his post, and i dont want this post to be forgotten

I followed a link over to the thread from Rexa's Discord server, Enchanter's Enclave where it was part of an ongoing discussion. The mechanics of SPA were particularly interesting. Maybe something has changed over the years since some of this was posted, but Phantasmic Reflex is a passive AA ability that has a chance to proc off your stun and mesmerization spells it'd be very difficult to put it into any order.

I am primarily a raid enchanter and vastly prefer groups over soloing which I find boring for the most part which undoubtedly influences my view on what runes (melee damage) and spell guards (spell based damage) I would use and when. Generally I have the Deviser's Unity rune memorized up and/or the group rune, and the Legion of Kildrukaun for most of the missions and raids. I also have a fast swap set for Shield of Destiny, and use Orator's Unity, Geomantra and Aegis of Abstraction.

What really surprised me about this thread is that the Aegis of Abstraction (epic rune) was crossed out as not being useful and not mentioned again. I mez and/or charm mobs in Guardians of the Tomb and Lesser Shards in the Arbiter Amalgam and depend to some extent on a selection of runes and spell guards. I make sure I have that one up with a trigger to let me know when it drops because while the damage absorbed isn't much compared to the others, the decrease hate by 900 is useful since charming, mezing, tashing and other things we do are still high aggro activities. If they weren't we wouldn't be so concerned about making the most of the runes we have. That reduction in hate can allow someone else to pull the mob away. For the same reason I will switch to the Tome of Obulus as a secondary (set up on my bandolier) more for the hate reduction because having a charmed pet on a mob and doing any spell damage to it increases the aggro. On an aside, it also procs a stun bane if you're hit if the mob is subject to it.

The mechanics explained definitely helps.