This guide is a result of my testing and weeks of play. I’m going to go over not only the skill and stat distribution, but also the core of what it means to play Runeblade. My goal is to let other players know of all the options they have and that there is more than one or 2 ways to play this class.
Table of Contents
Runeblade Basics Attack Skills Passives/Buffs Skill/Stat Build and Playstyle
Runeblade Basics
Let me get this out of the way now. All three elements are viable in end-game content. That’s right, you can use more than electric if you want and still do good damage.
Runeblades are melee damage dealers with a few ranged abilities/mechanics, and a party buff that increases Critical Hit Damage. Their abilities work a little differently and deal different amounts of damage depending on which elemental sigil you use on your weapon. I’ll go over the detailed numbers later in the skills section.
Stats
The main stat for the Runeblade is Strength, but it works differently than other classes. 70% of your Strength stat is added to Intelligence. Some attacks are affected my magic attack, but it is not significant enough to focus on Int.
Crit is also a great stat for Runeblades because of Honing Rune skill that increases crit damage. This means that you can also choose to put the max number of points in Crit if you want.
My testing has shown them to be generally even, with Strength allowing you to deal a bit more damage depending on gear.
Attack Skills
I’m not going to list all of the Runeblade skills, but I am going to give in-depth explanations on the important ones you should be using. I’m also not going to list how the skills are without elements because you should never use them without one.
All skills do physical damage, even if it’s elemental damage, unless it specifically states that its based on magic damage. All values listed are assuming the skill is maxed, as well as Rune Focus and the appropriate elemental sigil.
Before I get into let me briefly explain sigils.
You have a Flame, Frost, and Electric skill. Each one requires 10 skill points to max and increases your elemental damage while that sigil is active by 20% when maxed. You can only apply 1 sigil at a time.
For example, if you max out Fire sigil, then use it, you will deal 20% more fire damage.
Flurry
This is your most basic skill and the one you use to recover SP. It hits up to five enemies and attacks three times.
Fire - 72% fire damage per hit plus 54% fire burst damage. Burst is based on magic attack. 270% total fire damage* Frost - 99% ice damage per hit. Has more range than the other 2 elements. 297% total ice damage. Electric - 116% electric damage per hit. 348% total electric damage.
*The damage will be slightly lower for fire since part of it is based on magic attack, which will be lower than your physical attack.
Echoing Blade
This is one choice for your main attacking/spirit draining skill. It launches a series of attacks that hit up to 8 enemies. This move is cancelled if you perform any other action.
Fire - 51% fire damage for 14 hits. 714% total fire damage. Frost - 94% ice damage for 7 hits. This has more range than the other 2 elements. 658% total ice damage. Electric - 71% electric damage for 7 hits, plus and additional hit for 31% electric damage.
Electric here is a little tricky. It is hard to tell how many hits it actually does. It doesn’t look to be as many hits as Fire, but it is appears to be more than 8, so the additional hit happens more than once per attack.
Regardless, the overall damage you see from this attack is pretty even across all 3 elements.
Impact
This is a slamming area attack that deals a lot of damage to up to 5 enemies within 2.25 meters and is on a cooldown.
Fire - 410% instant fire damage, then 359% fire pillar damage every second for 5 seconds if they stay in the area. Pillar damage is based on magic attack. 410% total physical fire damage + 1,795% magical fire damage over 5 seconds. 12 second cooldown. Frost - 1,123% instant physical ice damage to 8 enemies within 2,25 meters, and 408% instant ice magical damage to 8 enemies within 1. 5 meters. 12 second cooldown. Electric - 297% instant physical electric damage to 5 enemies within 2. 25 meters, additional 4 hit storm for 117% magical electric damage per hit, and a final thunderbolt for 693% magical electric damage. 1,161% magical electric damage + 297% physical electric damage. 7 second cooldown.
Whirling Blades
This is a long range physical attack that hits multiple enemies multiple times.
410% total physical fire damage + 1,795% magical fire damage over 5 seconds. 12 second cooldown.
12 second cooldown.
1,161% magical electric damage + 297% physical electric damage. 7 second cooldown.
Fire - 70% fire damage for 3 attacks, then 127% fire damage every second for 12 seconds. Hits 5 enemies. 210% total instant damage + 1,524% total damage over 12 seconds. Frost - 58% frost damage for 3 attacks, then an additional 181% frost damage attack. Hits 8 enemies. 355% total damage Electric - 203% electric damage for 3 attacks, then bounces to additional enemies up to 4 times with 203% electric damage per bounce. 609% total damage on initial target
Passives/Buffs
There are 4 passives/buffs that I’m going over in this section. The first 2 you should almost always have, and the last 2 are situational.
210% total instant damage + 1,524% total damage over 12 seconds.
355% total damage
609% total damage on initial target
Rune Focus - Increases fire, ice, or electric damage by 1% at base, then 0. 6% each level up to a total of 6. 4% at max level when using the appropriate sigil. Also gives another benefit depending on which sigil is active. Fire Sigil - Increases health by 4. 6%. Frost Sigil - Increases defense by 4. 6%. Storm Sigil - Increases evasion by 4 and movement speed by 10%. Honing Runes - Places runes on the ground that increase critical hit damage to everyone that steps on them by 2% at base level, up 16% at the current max of level 8, for 2 minutes. Cooldown is also 2 minutes. Passively increases the Rune Blader’s critical hit damage by an additional 1% per level, up to 8%. This gives a total of 24% additional crit damage at max level.
Fire Sigil - Increases health by 4. 6%. Frost Sigil - Increases defense by 4. 6%. Storm Sigil - Increases evasion by 4 and movement speed by 10%.
Passively increases the Rune Blader’s critical hit damage by an additional 1% per level, up to 8%. This gives a total of 24% additional crit damage at max level.
Elemental Potency - Buff that increases fire, ice, and electric damage by 2% for 10 seconds at base level and and additional 2% damage and extra second duration each level up to a max of 20% damage for 19 seconds. Cooldown is 60 seconds. Blade Mastery - Passive that increases weapon attack by 1%, then an additional 0. 6% each level up top a max of 6. 4%.
Elemental Potency is an amazing buff, but it’s only worth it if you can max it out and take advantage of attacking for the full duration of the buff since it has a minute cooldown. Since you must put 7 points in other skills that you generally don’t use, it is hard to justify getting this most of the time since we have limited skill points.
Cooldown is 60 seconds.
Cooldown is 60 seconds.
Blade Mastery is a straight passive damage increase. I usually don’t max it out because it isn’t worth more than the actual damage skills, but I put my extra points in it after I’ve maxed out all the important skills.
Skill/Stat Build and Play Style
Below is a screenshot of my current skill build. This is with all 68 points unlocked, which requires level 60 and all the skill point trophies.
This can me modified to the other builds easily. If you use the Whirling Blades build, simply take 7 points from Echoing Blade and put them in Whirling Blades instead. Also, just take the 10 points from one sigil in put them in one of your choosing.
I always put 1 point in Blade Chasm no matter the build. This is mostly just used for an extra dash. However, if you use Storm Sigil, Blade Chasm becomes a very strong ability that’s great for clearing adds. It also reaches high in the air, so you can hit enemies below you.
A great example of this is for the healing adds in the Chaos Devorak raid. If you position yourself underneath them, then use Blade Chasm with Storm Sigil active, you will kill them all in 1 hit.
Echoing Blade Build
For this one, you will be using Echoing Blade as your main attack. When you get low on spirit, use Flurry to recover, and use Impact on cooldown. That’s it.
However, Echoing Blade is a special skill. You have to stand still while doing it and you can’t use other skills during it or it will cancel. Luckily, you can spam Echoing Blade and it won’t cancel itself. Instead it will go right into another Echoing Blade.
This means that you should never macro Echoing Blade with another skill, only use it by itself.
You also don’t want to cancel it by using Flurry or Impact too early. When you get low on spirit, or when Impact is coming off cooldown, just stop using Echoing Blade. After that, wait 1 second, then use Flurry or Impact before continuing Echoing Blade.
It is a little more complicated to use than Whirling Blades, but it is much easier than it sounds. If you practice, it will become second nature in no time.
Whirling Blades Build
This is similar to Echoing Blade, except you will be using Whirling Blades as your main attack instead, but still use Flurry to recover spirit and Impact on cooldown.
One thing to keep in mind is that this build only works well with Storm Sigil. Fire Whirling Blades costs too much spirit and Frost Whirling Blades does significantly less damage than Electric.
Whirling blades will use more spirit than Echoing Blade, so you must use Flurry a lot more. At full spirit you can use Whirling Blades 3 times before running out. I generally use Flurry twice for every Whirling Blades I use.
Elemental Potency
Below is the build I use when picking Elemental Potency.
This causes you to lose 3% elemental damage passively, but you get 20% during the buff’s duration. Great for burst damage and works for either Echoing Blade or Whirling Blades. If you use Whirling Blades, you’ll have to take a few more points from either Flurry or Honing Runes.
I generally don’t use this build because it takes so much to get there and you have to make sure you take full advantage of every second of the buff. It’s less overall damage than the other build, but still does a decent amount and is great for any fight that has times when you need to do burst damage.
Stat Allocation
I found that you will get a bit more damage on the training dummy if you put all your points into Strength.
However, putting the max points possible into Crit and putting the leftovers into Strength gives damage that’s pretty close, between 500k - 1 million less over 2 minutes. This also depends on how often you crit.
This was also without any additional Crit Rate or Crit Damage on any of my gear. If you get that on some of your gear, it would pull ahead. Plus, if you have an Archer with Sharp eyes in the party, that will help as well.
In general, I use full Crit, even though I have no extra Crit Rate or Crit Damage on my gear currently.
Closing Remarks on Each Element
Fire Sigil
Fire will do the most overall single target damage, but only if the boss stays in Impact/Blade Chasm area for most of the duration. I refer to this is potential damage.
Echoing Blade does more hits and can potentially do the most damage, which is greater the higher your Crit Rate and Damage gets.
In a dungeon or raid Fire will usually do less, what I refer to as, realistic damage.
This is still good to use if you have a good handle on the mechanics of the class and boss and think you can get most of your dot damage during the fight.
Frost Sigil
This is my personal favorite and better than I think people think. The main idea of Frost is to slow enemies down, but it can also do a good amount of damage.
Over the course of a fight Frost Impact my deal less damage than Storm Impact since Storm can be used more, but Ice Impact can deal a lot of damage if you have high Crit Rate and Crit Damage.
If you have high accuracy and depending on the fight, you can get more damage out of Frost Impacts just because of how high it hits.
Frost Echoing Blade has the potential to deal more damage than storm since the individual hits deal more damage. If those also crit and you have high Crit Damage, that overtakes Storm.
Ice Flurry and Echoing Blade also have extra range than the other elements so there are times when you can stay back a bit or hit enemies you wouldn’t normally be able to hit.
Storm Sigil
This is the most versatile element and best all-around, I won’t deny that. The higher flurry and whirling blades damage plus the shorter cooldown on Impact can make it pull ahead of the other 2.
Mix in the amazing utility and add clearing of Blade Chasm and the passive evasion and movement speed, and you have an element that’s hard to beat.
Overall
It all comes down to what content you’re doing, and the play style or job you want. For hard dungeons, you can use any of the elements and clear in a decent time to get S ranks. For chaos raids, you will usually use Storm, and Frost in some situations.
The safest bet is to use Storm, or if you need to clear specific adds with Storm Blade Chasm.
Fire is for highest potential single target damage and if you want to be risky.
Frost is great with high Crit Rate and Crit Damage, or if you want that extra range and slows.
That’s all I have for my complete Runeblade guide for MapleStory 2. I hope I’ve cleared up how these elements and the class work so that you can make more informed decisions on how you want to play the class.
I love the versatility that Runeblade has and I plan on showing people just how good each element can be. Let me know if you have any questions, or found any other builds that worked well for you!
