Give WAR a Chance

Rune Priest: A Comparison of Oath Runes

During preview weekend I typically kept the Oath Rune of Warding on myself.  I was surprised to see on these boards that many (maybe even most) favor self-buffing with the Oath Rune of Iron. To be sure I wasn't completely nuts, I decided to run some numbers and compare the benefits from each. I looked at each oath rune under ideal conditions - i.e., with the given mastery path maxed out. Your mileage will obviously vary based on what spec you choose.

    With 15 mastery points in Grimnir, Oath Rune of Warding gives an additional 14.95% mitigation to all damage types. That's some serious business, at least as long as it's not dispelled. That's compared with 80 willpower and initiative on the Oath Rune of Iron.

     At level 40, with Valaya maxed out, Oath Rune of Iron gives us:
1.71% chance to evade ranged attacks
1.71% chance to disrupt spell attacks
+18 healing per second

In other words, we get around half of what the tactic Discipline gives us, plus a little bit of evasion gravy. Oath Rune of Iron is worth a little more than half of a tactic.

    With Grimnir maxed out, Oath Rune of Warding gives us:
14.95% mitigation to corporeal damage
14.95% mitigation to spiritual damage
14.95% mitigation to elemental damage

In other words, Warding gives us the effect of the tactic Stubborness, plus the same effect applied to two other damage types. The rune is roughly equivalent in value to 3 tactics.

    Now I'm all for willpower stacking, and plan on speccing as heavily as possible into willpower with my renown points and on using Discipline, but it seems to me that that's a huge tradeoff in terms of value, and that I should not hesitate to trade the potential extra stats from Iron for the increased mitigation from Warding. And I fully acknowledge that avoidance is far better than mitigation, especially since some of the things that can be avoided are debuffs that mitigation won't help against at all. But when you're looking at a choice between a certain amount of avoidance and almost 10 times that much evasion, the evasion looks like it will have a much bigger impact.

    Even if you have no points in Grimnir, you get 9.4% mitigation to the three non-physical damage types; I'd still take that over the max-Valaya'ed Iron. But since I'm planning on speccing up Grimnir, it seems like a no-brainer: as best I can tell, when compared with similar tactics available to Rune Priests, the effect of the Oath Rune of Warding are objectively far superior to the effects of the Oath Rune of Iron.

Rune Priest: An Impact Class

Over at Warhammer Alliance, users are responding to a poll asking which single class can have the biggest impact on the outcome of a fight.  The Rune Priest is well ahead, drawing almost 20% of the votes, with Bright Wizard as the only other class in double digits.  Disciple of Khaine comes in third, leading the Destruction classes.  The counterpart to Rune Priest, the Zealot, received less than half the votes.  The Zealot community has articulated a number of shortcomings in their class and suggested that it is significantly subpar compared to the Rune Priest; these results could reflect the underlying validity of their complaints.

    It seems a little odd that Order classes get so many votes despite being outnumbered in closed beta and the preview weekend, but I think part of it might be bitter Destruction players who are thinking of the classes that smacked them down.  If that's the case, I can promise my fellow gamers over on the dark side that they ain't seen nothing yet.

Rune Priest Tactics: Why Spend Mastery Points When Our Core Tactics Are Ridiculously Good?

    After poking around some forums and looking through the various Rune Priest tactics, it occurred to me that choosing any of the mastery path tactics would likely be a poor investment.  Why?  There is an emerging consensus that three core tactic are necessities for any Rune Priest, and a fourth core tactic appears to be overpowered as all get out.

Discipline: No, I'm not talking about a good spanking from a naughty librarian.  At rank 40, this tactic gives you 160 willpower.  That's a whole lot of additional healing - if the coefficient numbers Vurin has been using at Warhammer Alliance are accurate, that's an extra 46 or so healing per tick on Rune of Regeneration, and an extra 93 healing to the Rune of Restoration.  I'm not sure what its effect would be on an AoE heal, especially the Master Rune of Adamant.  But with respect to the latter, any effect is big when you magnify it by 6 people over 60 seconds.  As healing is a Rune Priest's core function and this helps substantially with healing, the question for every other tactic is this: Will it provide more utility to me and my group than the additional healing provided by Discipline?

Regenerative Shielding: This gives every tick of Rune of Regeneration a 25% chance to provide a massive 10 second armor buff.  The buff not only adds a whole bunch of armor, but also prevents armor piercing effects (I hear the Marauder's claws can be brutal).  Since a Rune Priest will be casting Rune of Regeneration more than any other heal, you should see the buff frequently.  If my math is accurate and Garthilk's formula is correct (and I have more faith in his formula than my math), that's an additional 24% of physical damage mitigation.  This is a game-changing tactic for a group and can provide the margin of victory if Destro is relying heavily on melee.

Ancestral Inheritance: At 40, this tactic gives you 660 armor, good for 15% mitigation.  Six of the Destruction classes deal physical damage; the next most prevalent damage type you'll be taking in RvR is corporeal and that only comes from three Destro classes (Stubborness, our corporeal mitigation tactic, provides 252 resist at 40, but either my math or Garthilk's formula is off on that, I think, as it comes out to around 66% mitigation and that seems way too high).

Sundered Motion: I'm not the only one who thinks this tactic looks as if it's straddling the line between awesome and overpowered.  It takes a 60-second cooldown instant cast PbAoE knockback (Rune of Sundering) and makes it oh so much better: the cooldown drops to 20s and everyone knocked back is also hit with a 10 second 40% snare.  Popping this every 20 seconds makes a Rune Priest a whole lot less susceptible to the melee train, and there are all sorts of other juicy tactical uses for such a knockback, too. 

    I should note that the mastery tactics may be more viable at lower ranks, as the above tactics take a little bit of leveling to get.  Discipline's available at rank 19, Ancestral Inheritance at 23, Regenerative Shielding at 27, and Sundered Motion at 37.  Picking up Immolating Grasp at 17 (I believe that's when it's first available) might make sense, adding Discipline at 20 when the second career tactic becomes available and then respeccing mastery points at 23 to make room for Ancestral Inheritance.  From that point on, though, it seems like any mastery point in a mastery tactic would be better spent elsewhere.

The Path of Valaya

In Warhammer's pantheon, Valaya is the dwarf goddess who protects homeland and clan.  It's even said that she founded Karaz-a-Karak, the dwarven capital.  In Warhammer Online, the Rune Priest's Path of Valaya focuses on effects over time - basically, HoTs, DoTs, and shields.

    As with the Path of Grugni (and the Path of Grimnir, which I'll get to later), several abilities are available to all Rune Priests but are supplemented by points spent in the Path of Valaya.  These spells will cap out at level 25 for a rank 40 Rune Priest with no points invested in the Path of Valaya; each mastery point invested in the class increases that level by 1.  Here are the core abilities associated with the Path of Valaya:

Rune of Immolation: This little gem, available at rank 2, is the mainstay of Rune Priest DPS.  It's instant cast for a modest 30 action points and deals damage over 15 seconds.  In solo fighting, I always led off with this; in larger-scale combat, I'd throw this rune on an opponent whenever I had the time and action points to spare.  The utility of this spell is significantly increased by the Immolating Grasp tactic, the first tactic available on the Path of Valaya, which I'll discuss below.  It also benefits from the Efficient Runecarving tactic, found near the top of the Path of Valaya.

Rune of Shielding: Another key Rune Priest ability, regardless of mastery point distribution, is the Rune of Shielding, which absorbs damage over 10 seconds and then provides some additional healing to the beneficiary.  Instant cast and only 40 action points, this has the advantage of letting you proactively help a target that may be at max health when you cast.  And while I'm not 100% sure of this, I believe the big downside is that the shield can be dispelled.  The Earth's Shielding tactic, available with 7 points in the Path of Valaya, hits any opponent who has damage absorbed by a Rune of Shielding with a stat debuff.  The shield does not absorb all that much damage, but with a 2-second cooldown it's readily spammable and is an important element of the Rune Priest's repertoire.

Rune of Mending: This is a hybrid direct heal/heal over time spell saddled with a 1 second casting time (although that casting time can be occasionally reduced to instant for those who pick up the Efficient Runecarving tactic).  It becomes available at rank 10.  I was not particularly impressed by this spell; in RvR, the 1 second casting time combined with the relatively small amount healed and the 60 action point cost seemed to make this inferior to the Rune of Regeneration.  Unless it benefits tremendously from increases in Willpower (the stat that benefits healing), I don't see a whole lot of value here.

Oath Rune of Iron: This is the buff rune of the Valaya path, providing increases to Initiative and Willpower.  Initiative affects dodge chance against missile attacks and reduces the chances of receiving a critical hit, while Willpower affects both healing and chance to disrupt hostile spells.  Available at rank 12, this is the defensive equivalent to the offense-boosting Oath Rune of Power, and as such is a more appropriate buff for support classes such as the Rune Priest himself.  As an added bonus, the rune can be activated to inflict a decent DoT.

Spellbinding Rune: This high-end spell, available at rank 35, inflicts a 5-second stun and decent elemental damage after a 1-second casting time.  The 30-second cooldown is not so short that a Rune Priest can't cause a fair bit of disruption in larger scale RvR (assuming he's far enough from the action that the cast time is not an issue, but the 100-foot range of the spell should let him cast from a safe distance if he can afford to take a quick break from healing).

    Additional abilities are only available to a Rune Priest after he invests some points in the Path of Valaya.  These abilities primarily relate to heals and damage over time, enhancing existing abilities or providing new ones consistent with the theme of the mastery path.  Here are those abilities, each of which comes at the cost of a career mastery point:

Immolating Grasp: This tactic is unlocked with 3 points in the Path of Valaya, and provides a useful bonus to the already-useful Rune of Immolation.   Every tick of the 15-second HoT rune has a 25% chance to snare the target by 40% for 5 seconds and drain 30 of his action points.  The snare could mean the difference between life and death for a Rune Priest on the ropes.  This is the most useful of the 3-point tactics, and I expect a lot of Rune Priests who opt to complete one of the other mastery trees will invest the requisite amount into the Path of Valaya to acquire this tactic.

Master Rune of Speed:  This 60-second AoE effect is available with 5 points in the Path of Valaya, and reduces buildup times (casting times) of group members in range by .25 seconds.  This is marginally useful, but my impression is that Master Rune of Speed is the weakest of the three master runes.  I suppose if you have a group full of people with 1-second cast time spells that they frequently use, this could have a big impact, though.  I need to play around with this in open beta to get a better idea of how it will shake it.

Earth's Shielding: This tactic debuffs a random stat of an attacker who hits the caster's Rune of Shielding.  As Rune of Shielding is a staple spell that should be frequently used, those who invest a point in this ability will get a lot out of it.  The debuff only lasts 10 seconds, but that could be enough time to have a meaningfully negative impact on the recipient's DPS or defenses.  This rune is available to those Rune Priests who invest 7 points in the Path of Valaya.

Rune of Burning: I have almost no interest in this channeled DPS spell.  Every other class in the game (with the possible exception of the Zealot) is a more capable and efficient damage-dealer than the Rune Priest, and dropping a point in this spell - which already requires 9 points in the Path of Valaya - just gives you the opportunity to waste 6 seconds playing a cut-rate DPS caster class.  And that's assuming you're not being savagely beaten while trying to cast the spell.  The rune's solo utility is limited, too, by the long casting time.  If you're engaged with a mob, you will be taking damage frequently and will likely take some time to complete your casting.  I am open to evidence that my opinion is ill-founded, but for the time being I don't see this ability as worth cost of one mastery point.

Efficient Runecarving:  A second tactic that provides additional benefits to the Rune of Immolation, Efficient Runecarving gives Rune Priests an incentive to alternate between healing spells and damage spells.  This tactic requires an 11-point investment in the Path of Valaya.  It gives every Rune of Immolation a 20% chance to make the next Rune of Mending instant cast (which offsets the major drawback of that spell) and gives every Rune of Mending a 20% chance to make the next Rune of Immolation free.  Because Rune Priests in many situations will not come anywhere near a steady pattern of alternating DoT and healing, and because the cast timer on the Rune of Mending makes it suboptimal in many situations, however, the benefits of this tactic seem limited.  It could be useful in solo PvE, but the difference between a 1-second cast time and an instant cast is fairly negligible in those circumstances, and the total number of action points saved over the course of a fight would be quite low.  This appears to be another ability along the Path of Valaya that is not worth the mastery point.

Rune of Fate: This powerful life drain transfers a large amount of health from your offensive target to your defensive target over the course of 24 seconds.  Despite the slow rate of transfer and the 30-second cooldown, this is a useful spell for Rune Priests in many settings, including large scale RvR, solo play, and PvE.  The instant cast rune requires 13 points in the Path of Valaya.

Valaya's Shield: This ability lies at the summit of the Path of Valaya, and is the best of the Rune Priest Morale 4 options.   It provides a very large heal over 15 seconds to each group member.  Additionally, it provides each group member with 375 action points over that period.  The heal alone is enough to make this one of the most powerful Rune Priest spells; the action points are just gravy (albeit outstanding gravy).  Because it is a Morale 4 ability, it cannot be relied upon to keep a group up, but Valaya's Shield will certainly see plenty of use from those who follow the Path of Valaya to its end.

    And so ends my look at the Path of Valaya.  That path is associated with some of the Rune Priest's most-used spells.  In addition, while several of the purchased abilities are mediocre at best, others are useful in some contexts, and a few (particularly those found at the top and bottom of the path) are outstanding. 

    That said, I believe the optimal build for a Rune Priest focused on utility in a group and larger scale RvR lies in another path, the Path of Grimnir.  I will take a look at that third and final Rune Priest mastery path tomorrow.

The Path of Grungni

In Warhammer lore, Grungni is the patron god of the dwarves, who forged not just the first runes but also the first armor and weapons.  The Path of Grungni is the Rune Priest mastery path focuses on powerful effects on single targets, both offensively and defensively.

In Warhammer Online, some class abilities are core abilities that progress with every career rank a character achieves.  Any Rune Priest can purchase these abilities as he levels.  Other abilities are available to all Rune Priests but are associated with a mastery path; once you pass level 10, those abilities will only advance at half the rate of the character's advancement.  In other words, if you have such an ability, it will be at level 25 when you hit rank 40.  But for every point you put into the associated mastery path, you will gain an additional spell level.  So if you are rank 20, your Rune of Serenity will be at level 15, but if you put 5 points into the Path of Grimnir, that same spell will be at level 20.  Still more abilities are only available after a character invests a certain number of points in a mastery path; for example, the life-draining Rune of Fortune is only available to someone who has spent 9 mastery points in the Path of Grungni.

The following abilities associated with the Path of Grungni are available to all Rune Priests regardless of points in that path:

Grungni's Gift: The first healing spell a Rune Priest gets, already on his action bar when he first enters the world, Grungni's Gift is an instant cast heal that restores a relatively small amount of health to a target.  With its low cost of 25 action points, this is a readily spammable ability, but it seems pretty inefficient in terms of amount of healing done over time.  Unless your target's health is dropping precipitously, my impression is that the heal-over-time Rune of Regeneration or the shield-and-minor-heal Rune of Shielding would be the better instant cast option.

Rune of Striking: Also available upon character birth, this is a direct damage spell with a 2-second casting time.  It will be a Rune Priest's solo PvE staple damage spell, but the casting time makes it less useful in scenarios and RvR (2 seconds is a long time, and in most circumstances the Rune Priests should be using his time and action points to heal).

Oath of Rune Power: Available at rank 4, this is a Rune Priest's first buff.  It provides a bonus to Strength and Intelligence for an hour, and can be activated to deal a moderate amount of elemental damage to a target.  This is a DPS buff, as Strength affects melee DPS and Intelligence affects casting DPS (ranged DPS relies on Ballistic Skill).  Intelligence also increases offensive spell crit chance and decreases the chance that a spell will be disrupted.

Rune of Fire: Available at rank 5, Rune of Fire provides an instant cast direct damage spell.  The spell costs 40 action points, making it substantially less action-efficient than the 2-second cast Rune of Striking. 

Rune of Restoration: This spell, available at rank 8, is an easily-disrupted 3-second direct heal that restores a large amount of health.  I expect it to be the staple of Rune Priest PvE healing, and in RvR it's a handy way of dropping a huge heal on someone who needs it (assuming you're not being hit when you cast it - that cast time can stretch out to 5 or even 10 seconds if the caster is taking damage.  This spells *hates* squigs).

Protection of the Ancestors: This buff increases a group member's wounds by a substantial amount for 60 seconds and heals him for that amount, effectively giving that player over 1,000 hit points for a minute.  An instant cast spell, I expect this will be the premiere last-second lifesaver in RvR, and will be permanently up on the tank in large-scale PvE.  The downside is its 3-minute cooldown time, which means there will be many times when a Rune Priest desperately mashes this button with no effect.

    In addition, a Rune Priest can gain certain other abilities once he has invested some points into the Path of Grungni.  These abilities are not automatically granted when the Rune Priest reaches the appropriate level of investment in the path; the Rune Priest must spend an additional point to activate each ability.  To unlock every ability in the Path of Grungni would require spending 22 mastery points.  However, a player is free to only unlock certain abilities, or even none at all, while still investing in the path to increase the effectiveness of the abilities associated with the path.  Here, then, are the abilities that become available as a player ascends the Path of Grungni:

Runic Blasting: This tactic, available with 3 mastery points invested in the Path of Grungni, increases the crit chance of the Rune of Striking, the Rune of Fire, and Grungni's gift by 15%.  This increased crit chance works synergistically with another tactic further up the tree, the Rune of Nullification, which places a potent 100% healing debuff on the victim of a critical attack.  Anti-healing debuffs are apparently key to winning higher-level RvR engagements, but m instinct is that a Rune Priest should generally be more concerned with healing than with burning down a target; to the extent that a Rune Priest goes offensive, it should be for the benefit of his survivability, with knockbacks, stuns, and silences.  There are plenty of damage dealing classes with their own healing debuffs that can do the dirty work while the Rune Priests keeps them vertical.  That said, the crit bonuses here will be quite useful for solo Rune Priests.

Master Rune of Fury: Available with 5 points in the Path of Grungni, this provides a group mates within the area of effect with a powerful action point buff during the minute-long duration of the master rune.  Groupmates have a 20% chance of regaining 50 action points when they use an ability; i.e., each ability use has an expected action point regen of 10 points.  This master rune will make the casting Rune Priest decidedly popular in both RvR and PvE combat.  At 25 action points with a 2 second casting time, a Rune Priest should be able to keep this effect up through most of a given combat.  I have almost no experience with other classes, so I'm not sure how often they run out of action points, but my impression is that most people will drain their action point pools in the course of particularly frenzied RvR fighting.  The extra action points provided by the Master Rune of Fury could provide the Rune Priest's group with the edge needed to eliminate an opposing group when both groups hit the action point wall.

Ancestor's Blessing: Following the action point-restoring theme of the Master Rune of Fury, this talent gives each healing ability a 25% chance to increase the beneficiary's action point pool by 50.  Note that this will not affect the Rune Priest himself.  If a Rune Priest picks up this talent while also laying down a consistent Master Rune of Fury, it's hard to imagine his group running out of action points.  The two abilities together might even be overkill, although I suspect that the combination is probably the optimal way of keeping the group productive.  My take is that a Rune Priest on the Path of Grugni ought to expect his groups to do noticeably more damage than a group equipped with a differently-specced Rune Priest.  Groups with ambitions of stratospheric DPS may insist on a Grugni-specced Rune Priest.

Rune of Fortune: This 2-second cast time spell sucks a moderate amount of life out of your offensive target and transfers it to your defensive target.  A player can purchase this ability once he spends 9 points in the Path of Grungni.  This looks like a time-efficient way of fighting solo PvE battles, allowing the Rune Priest to keep himself up at the same time he blasts a target down.  Outside of that context, though, I don't see this spell as being all that useful (but I'm happy to entertain arguments to the contrary).

Rune of Nullification: As mentioned above, this tactic causes critical hits to place a 100% healing debuff on the target, meaning that for the duration of the debuff, the target cannot be healed.  As also mentioned above, this is a nifty ability that a diligent Rune Priest likely will not get much out of, at least in RvR combat.  To reliably inflict the debuff involves casting multiple offensive spells, and casting multiple offensive spells means not casting healing or shielding spells during that time.  For a Rune Priest looking toward solo PvP or maybe PvE who's invested the requisite 11 points in the Path of Grungni, this is not a bad ability, but for someone interested in his role in a group, it's probably better to let the DPS focus on the healing debuffs.

Rune of Binding: This instant-cast long range stun is one of the few Rune Priest CC abilities.  Requiring 13 points in the Path of Grungni, it lets the Rune Priest stun an opponent for 3 seconds while dealing a moderate amount of elemental damage.  The 20 second cooldown means it cannot be spammed, but a 3 second stun every 20 seconds can certainly throw an opposing group off its stride, assuming the Rune Priest has the time and action points to spare.  Diminishing returns mean that this spell will lose some of its utility in one-on-one situations.

Rune of Ending: This Morale 4 ability, available only after a Rune Priest spends a significant time in combat, is an area-of-effect life drain that sucks a large amount of health out of nearby enemies and transfers that health to group members.  The 30-foot range may limit the effectiveness of this spell, as in most situations the Rune Priest will not want to be standing in the midst of the action.  If a player has already invested 15 points in the Path of Grungni, though, it's probably worthwhile to buy this for the occasions when it will be useful.  Assuming a player can fire it off when there are a large number of enemies in range - around a flag in a scenario, for instance - it could provide an insurmountable advantage to the Rune Priest's group.

    So there you have it: the Path of Grungni.  Based on my limited experience, it looks like the must-haves in this path for a Rune Priest focused on increasing his group's effectiveness are the Master Rune of Fury and the Ancestor's Blessing tactic, both of which restore action points to allies (and, in the case of the Master Rune of Fury, to the Rune Priest himself).  Investing in the tree will also upgrade some useful base abilities, particularly the Rune of Restoration and the Protection of the Ancestors buff.  With 15 points in the Path of Grungni, the Rune of Restoration will heal 1125 health and Protection of the Ancestors will provide a minute buff of an extra 160 wounds, or 1600 hit points.  The DPS impact of the action point regeneration might be enough to sway me to the Path of Grungni, but right now I'm inclined to follow a different path to provide a different kind of utility to my groups.

Next up: the Path of Valaya.

My Experience with the Rune Priest: An Overview

The Rune Priest is the powerhouse pure-healer class for Order, and may be the best healing class in the game.  During preview weekend, I focused on Rune Priest and leveled two up to see how they handled.  Having seen the kind of healing they can do in a scenario (I usually led all healers on both sides), in PQs (I usually came in first or second for the contribution bonus), and in RvR (three runepriests kept an Order keep siege going pretty much indefinitely), I do not see how I could not play the Rune Priest come launch.

My experience during preview weekend was that I relied very heavily on my instant cast HoT, Rune of Regeneration, to provide the bulk of my healing, supplemented by Rune of Restoration for a channeled big heal on someone dropping fast and the bouncy Rune of Serenity to spread the healing around in the frenetic chaos of larger-scale RvR.  I also used my Rune of Shielding as often as possible, though there was some screwiness with the casting timer (the spell schizophrenically varied between instant cast and 2.0 seconds; apparently the latter was a bug).  Grungni's Gift, a small instant cast heal available at level 1, was handy too, especially when I was trying to run out of line-of-sight in a scenario while keeping myself from dying.  When I had a spare minute when my side was not taking significant damage (an uncommon occasion, to be sure), I would spread around Rune of Immolation, my insta-cast DoT, and provide some meager DPS.

    Prior to combat, I'd buff myself and my groupmates with Oath Rune of Warding, which provides added resistance to damage (there were two other buff runes available that improved various stats, but I went with the resistance until I better understand just how significant the benefits of the increased stats are).  Another ability, fortunately not used all that often as a result of the competence of my colleagues, was Rune of Life, a 3-second cast resurrection spell that brings a friendly corpse back with 20% of its life.  It can be cast in combat, which is nice (in fact, I do not recall a spell that couldn't be cast in combat), but someone popping up with 20% health in the middle of RvR is more likely than not going to die again in the relatively near future.  I used other spells every now and again, but the spells mentioned above are the ones I relied on (aside from some basic mediocre DPS spells during PvE).  Given my low level, there were a number of bread-and-butter spells I didn't get a chance to try - the Master Runes, for instance, which are among the flagship abilities of Rune Priests and which become available with 6 mastery points (i.e., at Rank 21).  I did not have access to any knockbacks, silences, or stuns either, and I'm sure that when those become available, I'll make ample use of them.

    After the weekend ended, I immediately began checking out different possible mastery specs for my Rune Priest in live.  A rank 40 player will have 25 mastery points; an additional 5 points come from high renown ranks, but that may take awhile so for the time being I'm just playing with the 25.  My goal is to find the distribution that will give me the most utility in world RvR and scenarios; I don't care about DPS and I don't care about optimizing PvE healing.  In forthcoming posts, I'll take a look at each mastery path and combine my limited experiences with a little bit of theorycrafting to see how I think I'll develop my Rune Priest.