DPS Medic Rune Guide (Drop 5)

This is mainly just a cut and paste from the Drop 4 post. The only real change is the introduction of Exceptional runes, which count double towards an Eldan rune set. All this does is free up more slots for other sets. It is a welcome change, adding more customization.

Available Rune Sets

- Technophile(General) or Tech Fire Starter(Eldan): really the only mandatory one -- straight damage increase for all abilities. 20/20 Fire Starter procs a little damage field (the ticks can't crit, sadly).

- Haste(Renown): also should be mandatory; more movement speed = more survivability.

- Full Charge(Class): nice AP hike with our innate -- makes QCs more hurtie.

- Assassin(General): Negligible bonus damage increase (0.01% on X89! 12/12) for <30% mobs. Only worth it for the bonus AP. The Eldan rune version of this, Fusion Blast, give a 5% chance on Crit to proc a mediocre damage ability. The change in rune stats from Assassin (AIR slot is strikethrough!?) makes this even less interesting.

- Echo Burst(Class): Same problem as the Assassin set; the bonus damage doesn't scale, so basically not worth it (0.2% on X89! 6/15).

- Shield Specialist(General): Shield Specialist!? Isn't that a tanking set? Well, yeah, but more shield = more survivability and it's easily slotted in with Tech. Maybe not as big as a deal now that most gear has Grit, but it beats a base Tech rune.

- Specter(Auction House): Excellent, but expensive set that has a 10% chance when landing a Crit to increase Crit and Crit Sev. rating, with no internal cooldown. The lack of viable stats for this set makes it difficult to go past 4/12.

So the basic stat priority order is:

1.) Tech to cap (1680, or if you want to get fancy: soft-cap 1542 + food(67) and boost(71) buffs).

2.) AP (2900-3K to start GA), Soft Cap at around 3600 (assuming 100% uptime on In Flux amp).

2.5) Base stats if close to Tier (not likely now that most gear only has Tech and Grit base stats).

3.) Crit Rating at least 25% w/Crit Priority, shoot for 30%. After hitting AP soft cap, this will be your new stacking stat.

4.) Strikethrough Rating (shoot for at least 7% for GA; T4 Emp Probes will raise it another 3%).

5.) Crit Severity.


Rune Best in Slot

I'm going to skip the base runes, as they're basically the same as the set runes. I'm also skipping runes with non-Tech base stats (i.e. Earth-slotted Technophile Rune of Moxie).

AIR

- Full Charge of AP
- Assassin of AP
- Haste of Tech

EARTH

- Tech Fire Starter of Tech
- Shield Specialist of Tech (a good way to get an easy 860 shield, slot this instead of base Tech)

FIRE
- Echo Burst of Tech/Crit
- Full Charge of Tech
- Haste of Tech
- Tech Fire Starter of Crit/AP
- Assassin of AP
- Technophile of Crit

FUSION
- Tech Fire Starter of AP
- Base Stats (not much to pick from here)

LIFE
- Echo Burst of Crit
- Full Charge of Crit
- Assassin of Crit

LOGIC
- Tech Fire Starter of Crit
- Assassin of Crit
- Echo Burst of Crit
- Technophile of Tech

WATER
- Full Charge of Strikethrough

- Specter Of Strikethrough (If you have the moneys)
- Shield Specialist of Strikethrough (again, an easy way to get this set if a gear piece has two water slots)

Where to Begin?

Okay, so you're full of base slots and don't where to start. First off, you definitely want to max either Technophile or 12/20 Tech Fire Starter, so pick one and stick to it.

I recommend Tech Fire over Technophile (for main spec runing), as it'll be easier later on to grab the 20/20 bonus, or swap in Exceptional versions to free up slots.

One way to start is with the element with the fewest choices and work your way up. For instance, Water slots only have two useful runes, so rune all your water slots with Full Charge runes, then Shield Spec for any doubles. (I'd hold off on Specter runes for at least iLVL 65 gear)

Best bet with triple element gear (besides Fire and Air) is to Flux them.

Another way is to go by necessity; the Haste set runes, for instance, are only useful with Fire or Air slots. Make you have enough Air and Fire slots to max the Haste set before slotting in Technophile/Tech Fire runes. 

Once Haste is maxed and Technophile is done, experiment. Partial sets are better than no sets. So go 11/15 Full Charge for the AP bump. Try 4/12 Assassin for the bonus AP. Tell people you run 4/12 Shield Specialist so they can call you a noob.