I had no idea Healing made me so green!

Moving on to our next article in the series, Rune-keepers will be our featured companion. Originally I wasn’t going to include them into the support classes since most RKs tend to favor the DPS generating portion of their attunement bars. After considering how I play with my Rune-keeper I thought they might still be pertinent to the discussion. Let’s lay down the scenario, you’re in a group with a Rune-keeper and (s)he probably won’t think to ask if they can help out. It’s just hard-wired into the personality of a Rune-keeper. They’re a little crazy and they know it; so don’t get after me for writing it out :P.

/Ignored – Basically, no real strategy at all. Let everybody do their own thing. It’s sometimes the easiest and most agreeable way to get along with your fellowship. Although I doubt you’d bother reading the article if this was all the advice I was offering up.

Light Support & Heavy Heals – You may be able to get the Rune-keeper to cover your group with some light support. The Blade will Not Wound will prevent wounds from being inflicted and there are other skills to use based on what you’re fighting. This requires coordination and willingness on both sides of the screen, along with prior knowledge of the area/instance that you’ll be running around in. As far as Minstreling, just keep the heals coming and you’ll see that you are actually having to do less if the pre-fight buffs are any help at all.

Switch Teams – Maybe your Rune-keeper wants to run heals, maybe they think you’re incompetent, or maybe they’re the type of player who screams “NOOB” at everyone. Whichever way the fight has managed to go, you may find yourself in the situation where you’d be better suited to do DPS rather than Heal. Let me assure you, you can roll straight into angry hands and not worry about the Rune-keeper’s ability to heal. They can cover a group better than you would believe. Relax and enjoy the opportunity to pull aggro based on damage rather than the threat generation from healing.

Dual Heals – Conversely, you can both take on the role of healing. Based on the skills available you can cover your fellowship with some nice pre-battle buffs. The Rune-keeper can focus on the overall morale of the fellowship by pumping out some consistent and wonderful HoTs. Meanwhile you can buff up and make sure the Tanks can be healed as needed and practice some crowd control when mobs have the tendency to stray. I’d say this is best for areas with the hardest hitting enemies or those with AoE attacks.

Either way, you’ll be able to have some fun with your fellowship. If you’re not, you’re doing it wrong! After all, this is a game. Next time we’ll jump into my favorite combination of Captains and Minstrels.

If you have questions or simply want to get in touch with the author please send an email to Rubywing@MMOReporter.com. I can also be found at my regular blog or lamenting on twitter the loss of Tabula Rasa.