Runes on the MT in a raid?

Do your enchanters chain cast runes on the MT's?

I was told it isn't worth doing by our enchanters and wondered how others felt, as I have seen posts implying they are done and considered expected in some raid guilds.

If anyone can explain the math one way or the other so I have a better picture that would be awesome.

It depends on the event.

You have a hitter like Kanteer/Galenth then I would expect chanters to be throwing down runes on the main tank.
Otherwise i don't care if they do or not.

The thing to understand is if a MT has aggro and things are humming along, then the DPS of the raid is worth substancially more than what a chanter is going to do. The risk of the MT dropping means that potentially 6 or more DPS are going to die if the next MT is not onto it...and even if he is onto it he could potentially be 1 rounded b4 he can get dics off. Hence it's vitally important to keep them up on those sorts of events. Chanters can help play that role.
A 44k Xylok is worth around 80k additional HP's to a tank under Last Stand.

Xylok is a spell rune (V. Direct Damage)

Are you talking about Umbral Auspice? The threshold rune?

We get no runes from enchanters. I am not an enchanter and know nothing of their spells. I just keep seeing threads talking about runes being cast.

Like I said we get none.

Xolok will block damage, spell + melee (unless something has changed recently that I'm not aware of).

Umbral Auspice is good also and stacks with Xolok, however recast time is 24secs. It would get knocked off just as fast as Xolok.

The rune mitigation is applied AFTER last stand mitigation takes effort, so the Rk 3 is worth about 80k HP's.

Mental Contortion AA is also a must have.

They might not think it is necessary. If your tanks are surviving through Defensive , then your healers are on ball and it's not needed.
If your tanks are dropping while under defensive or you have tanks that aren't as well geared or you are doing difficult hard hitting content, then I think it's something they should consider.

Your right I was thinking about the 20% spell DD rune LEGION OF XOLOK. My mistake.

So yeh sorry about that

Your enchanters can and should rune the tanks. Just ask. at the sacrifice of thier DPS, you live

I have asked, and was told it's not worth it. So I was hoping for some strong facts to help sway them.

Depends on the situation.
Some would argue shining bastion isn't worth it. Or resplendant glory isn't worth it. Or steadfast defense isn't worth it. Or bothering to have your tanks go out and get some decent augs isnt' worth it.
Answer: Everything that helps keep a tank alive is worth it.

The question really should be: Is what they are currently doing instead of using runes on the tank more worth it than tossing runes on the tank, which is a very valid question.

This. In my experience chain casting rune on the MT doesn't do any noticeable effect for the tank. Of course that is not to say that it can't be useful, but the majority of the time it is useless. To me, tanking a mob can be categorized into three general types, steady, wiping, and turn point.
Steady is classified by me as; the tank(s) is up and can be kept up by the healers
Wiping is classified by me as; the tank(s) is down and the target(s) are beating though the rest of the raid
Turn point is classified by me as; the point in the raid in which things start to turn from Steady to Wiping

In steady, there is no point in casting runes on the tank(s). The tank(s) are alive and getting healed.
In Wiping, the enchanters could cast runes but its going to do very little. In this case its potentially better for the enchanter to jump in front of the mob and try to survive for as long as they can allowing for more time to recover, or attempt to recover.
In turn point, the enchanters should be castings runes on the tank(s). The problem becomes identifying this point.

To generalize, if the rangers are healing the enchanters should be casting runes.

Of course the enchanters should also be keeping deep sleep malaise, Confounding constriction, and demolished consciousness on the target(s). Mental contortion should be rotated in and out by the enchanters on the raid so that maximum coverage for it is kept on. please note that it is highly unlikely that 100% mental contortion will be kept on as that would require 5 enchanters in good sync.

On npc like west karana 2 and dead hills 2 , it is extremely useful to cast runes on the mt while they are defensive because the spike damage can exceed most fully buffed, fully defensive, warrior hit point pools.

Casting runes on those two raids can make the difference between having an alive and well tank line or a dead tank line and starting to fail mechanics of the raid like a solid single rampage tank.

If any npc hits close to the 100 k range runes would be a 3rd line of support for the tank line to lean on when they are taking rounds that can kill them in one round of spike damage.
1st line = healing and defensive discs
2nd line = divine intervention and short term buffs like wild growth / bear
3rd line = Runes and spell mitigation.


Raids are in two stages =
Learning - Where you learn how to deal with each mechanic

Execution - Where you know how and your either failing to execute or successfully executing

The above mentioned raids have been raids where chanters would chain rune tanks for the above mentioned reasons - massive spikes that can mean the difference between several tanks and dps dropping or keeping a tank up steady. There comes a point though runes don't make a difference because the healers and tanks get good enough to tank and heal without runes.

A timely placed rune can in fact save the day

So if I "use the force" and can foresee when that damage spike is coming and time my rune exactly right .... Hero.

On average, my rune will simply land at a time of non-spike damage and immediately be consumed practically before even landing.

Back of the crystal ball calculations indicate:

Mob hitting 10 times per second (fictional troll on steroids)
Rune of Xolok landing every 4 seconds.

Yields about a 2.5 percent chance of being a hero.

My crystal ball is complaining that's a gross simplification, but the idea is, .... very low probability of enchanter runes saving main tank from the "troll on steroids" damage spike.

A lot of timely placed things can save the day. Runes are one of those things.
Like I said above it really comes down to: Are other things the chanter could be doing more important?

If they are more important, great. If they are not, then well, runes save tanks which saves dps.
There is no real hard fast rule.

So they are not worth it? Or does everyone have their own opinion? 2.5% chance sure doesn't sound like a difference.

What else are you going to have them do? I know they *can* do other things, but play on the class strengths. Keeping your tank up is priority #1, because when he goes down, you're going to lose a dps or two at best. Maybe they aren't a complete necessity, but neither are healing circle rotations, 3rd rotations, rampant growth, imperator's command, DI and so forth. Everyone does their role - why shouldn't your enchanters? It sounds like an excuse to me. I realize casting the same spell 700+ times in a night can be boring, but we're here to raid and win.

If you aren't single-tanking every current CoTF boss on a consistent basis, something is going wrong in your raid. Tell them to man up and help out. Rk III runes at worst help reduce pressure on the heal team. At best, its saving lives constantly.

Gross over simplification is correct. You can make the same statement about heals. Heals that happen to land when the tank is near full health are a waste and do absolutely nothing. Is the solution to stop casting heals? Runes are better than heals in that regard, as it will ALWAYS deflect 43,834 ( Rank 3 Rune of Xolok ) points of damage no matter if the tank is at 1% or 100%. The worse part is there is no way to crit a rune.

The other thing, you will never be a hero with runes. There is no mechanism in EQ to parse runes. Other than looking at the spells cast by each person, there is no way to tell someone cast a rune. At best, you may get a guild that is willing to buy you a stack of peridots once in a while. But don't expect thanks or even acknowledgement in most cases.

That said, in most cases runes are not necessary. Nights when healer numbers are low for an average raid force is when I usually pull them out. Otherwise, my meager dps ( comparatively ) is useful in getting the mob dead while we still have MC running. It currently takes us under 9 minutes ( 3 enchanters ) to kill DH2 and under 6 minutes ( 2 enchanters ) to kill Commander in WK2. As long as you can keep MC on those bosses, you should be golden with a standard heal crew.

My best "runes are cool" story is from when CotF was still slightly new. We had Bixie down, never wiped, but it was always ugly and we lost warriors on the minis pretty much like clockwork. Then one night, facing a extreme healer shortage ( details are fuzzy, but we ran a fairly lean heal crew back then as it was and I think we were down 2 clerics and a druid and shaman each from our normal numbers ). There was a bunch of complaints that we didn't have the heal power, but it was the last thing left not on lock out, so we went ahead. I asked the enchanters ( we usually have 2-3, almost never more than 3 ) to go heavy runes for the event. End result, we lost 0 warriors that night, which was a first for us at the time. And, everyone gave the heal team a big round of congratulations.

tldr; If you are having trouble keeping a tank alive - enchanters should cast runes; otherwise, focus on debuffs and damage. MC is gold.

Also, I could go into a long diatribe about the threshold rune, Umbral Auspice. It was a very good idea that currently lacks in implementation and hasn't scaled with the massive increase in damage output on certain events. I currently rate it as "never mem" since it is functionally worse than Xolok in most cases ( yes, there are events that aren't as insane as WK2 and DH2 in terms of damage output, but you aren't going to be casting runes on those anyway ). Originally, it was a rune that didn't get eaten in one punch and helped smooth out damage. Now, it is just another rune that gets eaten in one punch.

Morning chanter lovers .... hi Filatal

Ok, so the original conversation was asking if we chanters should spam runes on the main tank during a raid. Most agreed that if it will make a difference do it, and most agreed that if the heal team has it covered, invest chanter time on other things. Then the conversation considered the effectiveness of chanter runes during 1 round spike damage situations.

I did a calculation attempting to answer the question, how often will an enchanter rune save the MT from being one rounded? The calculation indicates something on the order of less than a five percent success rate.

On raids, I faithfully implement the strategy agreed to ahead of time. If that strategy involves enchanters spamming runes on the MT's that's what happens. If the strategy does not call for spamming runes I invest my time elsewhere.

On a personal note, i am always casting something, i'm always busy, it's always a tradeoff as to where I invest my time. And yes, it's a question of where I can be most effective. Most of the time that question is answered ahead of time based on raid strategy, and composition of the raid.