Blue Rune-keeper

Blue Rune-keeper ‘Mender’ Build

By Araphorn – Updated for Yondershire, U33

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Blue Rune-keeper 91

Table of Contents

Introduction

Welcome, here you will find a good build for Healing Rune-keepers, tuned for high morale and critical rating. This is a very niche spec, and only required/nice to have for certain encounters and trials.

However, Rune-keeper healers are also capable enough to handle most of the other content as well, as they bring in solid healing utility, and none can match their healing per second (HPS). Their only downplay is that they don’t bring in DPS utility for the group.

Rune-keeper healers function differently than other traditional healers (such as Minstrel), as they don’t have much of burst/fellowship wide heals. They work mostly with HoTs (heal over time skills), which they can place on all members, and with their great group-wide bubbles. This makes the experience unique and fun.

Stat Goals

The best stat to have as a healer in general is Critical Rating, along with Outgoing Healing. Vitality is pretty important as well as a healer, so you don’t waste valuable time healing yourself instead your group members.

These goals are kept with Essence & Gear planning in mind, as to which Essences are to be prioritized over others. These goals can also be used when picking Virtues.

Critical Rating > Outgoing Healing > Vitality

After Critical Rating and Outgoing Healing are capped or near capped, save some room for Trigger essences, and then you can use Vitality essences to fill in the remaining slots. At the beginning of expansion, Essence slots are really limited, this gets easier as better items become available later down the line.

* Before planning Essences, slot the right Virtues (more on that down below). This way you can plan your setup better, and utilize Essences perfectly, and you can dump the remaining Essence slots in Vitality, Finesse, or other Stat of your choice after meeting Stat goals mentioned above.

Gear

With new Raid released, new gear for Blue Rune-keeper is published in the tables down below. They will use 4-pieces of the new Blue Line set, paired with 3-pieces of the new Red Line set for reduced Inductions.

There are 2 published Builds, one for Endgame and one for Starters.

End-game Build

Armour Pieces

Gear Slot Set Piece Location
Helm Hiddenhoard Raid
Chest Hiddenhoard Raid
Shoulders Hiddenhoard Raid
Gloves Hiddenhoard Raid
Legs Hiddenhoard Raid
Boots Hiddenhoard Raid
Cloak Hiddenhoard Raid
Off-hand N/A – Uses a 2-hander Stone N/A
Class Item Crafted, Metalsmith

Jewelry Pieces

Gear Slot Set Piece Location
Earring 1 Hiddenhoard Raid
Earring 2 Hiddenhoard Raid
Necklace Hiddenhoard Raid
Pocket Hiddenhoard Raid
Bracelet 1 Hiddenhoard Raid
Bracelet 2 Hiddenhoard Raid
Ring 1 Hiddenhoard Raid
Ring 2 Hiddenhoard Raid

Starter Build

The 140 Level Gear from this Build can be acquired by playing the 3 and 6 man instances, higher difficulty will award better loot. Having this gear will allow to progress level capped Raids. As for Essences, you can use the ones you get from Questing or Crafting (whichever Tier is fine), and try to follow the Stat Goals above and Slot the ones which are needed by your Class.

Armour Pieces

Gear Slot Set Piece Location
Helm Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Chest Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Shoulders Gundabad 3-Man Instance
Gloves Gundabad 3-Man Instance
Legs Gundabad 3-Man Instance
Boots Gundabad 3-Man Instance
Cloak Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Off-hand N/A – Uses a 2-hander Stone N/A
Class Item Crafted, Metalsmith

Jewelry Pieces

Gear Slot Set Piece Location
Earring 1 Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Earring 2 Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Necklace Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Pocket Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Bracelet 1 Storvagun Winter Festival
Bracelet 2 Storvagun Winter Festival
Ring 1 Gundabad 6-Man Instance
Ring 2 Gundabad 6-Man Instance

Essences

Essence Name Essence Note
Critical Rating Use these to reach
near Critical Rating cap.
Outgoing Healing Use these to reach
near Outgoing Healing cap.

Check tooltip under
Tactical Mastery.
Crit Trigger Use 1 of these.
Heal Trigger 1 Use 1 of these.
Heal Trigger 2 Use 1 of these.
Vitality Use these to fill
slots after above
Essences are met.

Trait Trees

There’s generally just one good way of traiting a Blue Rune-keeper, in which you get everything you need just from one tree.

Here is the build for Blue tree:

blue healing 1

Blue tree for healing.

You get everything important here, such as instant Self Motivation from Red Line, 5% Critical chance and some Fate from Yellow Line, and everything you need from Blue Line.

35 Trait Points Build for Legendary Servers:

rk blue 35

35 Points Build

60 Trait Points Build for Beginners:

rk blue 60

60 Points Build

Virtues

These are the virtues I use to reach the Stat Goals. I use mostly Mastery/Outgoing Healing, Critical Rating and Finesse options, but if need be, some of them can be switched to more Defensive options as well, depending on the type of fight. More explained down below.

virtues heals 2

Virtues for Blue RK.

Here are the Virtues which go along with the Stat Goals:

  1. Honesty (Great for Outgoing Healing and Critical Rating)
  2. Confidence (Great for Critical Rating and Finesse)
  3. Wit (Great for Finesse, Mastery and Critical Rating)
  4. Fidelity (Great for Vitality + Tactical Mit)
  5. Loyalty (Great for Vitality and survival)

If you don’t have these virtues, here are some alternatives:

  • Wisdom (Good for extra Mastery and Finesse)
  • Tolerance (Gives great amount of Tactical Mit, decent Physical Mit and Resistance)
  • Innocence (Gives great amount of Physical Mit, decent Tactical Mit Mit and Resistance)

Legendary Items

With new LI revamp, Blue RK legacies remain pretty much the same, except an old legacy has made a comeback, which is great as RKs don’t have to swap Stones anymore to apply Flurry of Words, because new LI has the tracery for Chill of Winter Duration. This will allow a Blue RK to keep +5% Incoming Critical Chance (AoE in a radius) permanently with no downtime.

Rune-stone (Weapon)

Type Sockets
Heraldic Tracery Heraldry of the Owl
Word of Power Healing Over Time
Word of Power Healing Over Time Criticals
Word of Mastery Chill of Winter Duration
& Critical Vulnerability
Word of Mastery Chilling Rhetoric Cooldoon
Word of Mastery Do Not Fall this Day Cooldown
Word of Mastery Self Motivation Coolown
& Power Restore
Word of Mastery Target Chill of Winter Resist Chance
Word of Mastery Words of Exaltation Cooldown
& Bubble Potency
Word of Craft Heroic Precision
Word of Craft Heroic Precision

Rune-keeper’s Rune-satchel (Class Item)

Type Sockets
Heraldic Tracery Heraldry of the Owl
Word of Power Single Target Healing
Word of Power Single Target Healing Criticals
Word of Power Skill Induction Speed
Word of Mastery Bombastic Inspiration Heal
Word of Mastery Epic of the Ages Healing
Word of Mastery Mending Verse Healing
Word of Mastery Prelude to Hope Power Restore
Word of Mastery Rune-stone Healing & Damage
Word of Mastery Writ of Health Healing
Word of Craft Perfect Healing
Word of Craft Perfect Healing

Rotation

Here is what I do on Healing Rune-keeper, but before I proceed I will give a little bit of important information which is required to know in order to be a good and effective healer.

Following a strict rotation will not make you an effective healer, but what will is your capacity and timing to react, to heal the person which needs the heal. For that, you need to be on the constant lookout (knowing mechanics helps you predict who will take the next big hit also), you need to be able to select that person which needs attention fast enough. So, to conclude, being able to react fast enough to who’s taking damage and following a good rotation to counter that damage, makes an effective healer.

Rotation:

  1. The first important thing on healing RK is to keep Writs of Health on all of your Fellowship. This can be easily managed if you keep Rousing Words on cooldown.
  2. Also if you are in raid, and if you have time and everything is calm, use Writs of Health individually on the other group’s big damage takers also, those are the DPS guys such as Champs and Wardens.
  3. Now, to focus heal particular people, target them and do Mending – Rune-Sign of Winter – Writ of Health – Bombastic – Prelude. That is the single-target heal rotation.
  4. You can also use the above rotation on multiple people who are taking damage, when Rousing Words is on cooldown.
  5. If someone is on the verge of dying, give them a Single-target bubble (Word of Exaltation) – Mending – Epic for the Ages – Writ – Bombastic – Prelude.
  6. If all group is in danger, then use group-wide bubble (Essay of Exaltation) and try to recover with Rousing Words. If still in danger, use Our Fates Entwined rock.
  7. Use Fates Rock right away if there is heavy Raid-wide damage incoming.
  8. Try to keep Flurry of Words on cooldown on target’s assist mob location. You can do this when Rousing Words is on cooldown.
  9. Try to also keep Do Not Falls on your assigned targets on cooldown also.
  10. Use Self Motivations for self heals, and if you need more, do a Self bubble – Mending – Prelude.

Consumables

There are the consumables to use on Rune-keeper:

food regen
Blue Rune-keeper 92

food will
Blue Rune-keeper 93

Updated as of U33.

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