Alright, so, today's gonna be a short one, because I'm tired, and- and that's it, I'm- I'm just tired.

And it's 90 degrees outside, and someone needs to grab Summer by the balls and shoot it into the sun so I don't ever have to deal with it again.

Today, we're ranking great runes.
Yep, there's, uh, there's seven of them.

That officially makes this video post the shortest ranking I've ever done.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2978784714

And probably the easiest, too, because I feel like most people have completely forgotten these exist, and what they even do, because the game's been out for so long, people have just stopped caring about them.

That means I could potentially say whatever the hell I want about them, and you'd probably believe me.

---

---

This shouldn't be a puge surprise to anyone, honestly.


Almost exclusively a multiplayer effect if you aren't counting Spirit Summons, and even then, it's barely worth looking at.

So, here's how it works. In your world, any Spirit Ashes you summon gain something called Blessing of Blood. Imagine what it would be like to have your Spirit Summon wear the Lord of Blood Exaltation Talisman. That's pretty much what it is.

Additionally, whenever a Spirit Summon under this Blessing kills an enemy, you regenerate 10% of your maximum health, which does stack with other heal-on-kill effects. And that effect is pretty badass, I'll give the rune that much, but this isn't even guaranteed to happen all the time. Simply saying that their attack will increase within the vicinity of blood loss is already shoddy and vague enough, but I found nothing in the regulation bin regarding the possible radius of this effect, so I have no idea.

Players move around a ♥♥♥♥ ton, especially in large, open arenas like Astelle or Malenia, so it's not exactly uncommon for blood loss to be triggered on an enemy, only to realize your Spirit Ash was 50 feet behind you because they tripped on a rock on the way in or some ♥♥♥♥, and they just end up not getting the buff.

This is ultimately just another reason for people to constantly run blood builds in PvP, because even if your summon isn't taking care of enemies in the background and constantly healing you in the process, the Blessing would still proc on them if you were close enough, so it would just kill enemies faster and heal you even more.

It would be nice if the effect also procs on you, but I guess Lord of Blood Exaltation already exists, so if you're after a similar effect, just summon Mimic Tear and give him that Talisman. And if I, the person who notoriously gives no ♥♥♥♥♥ about Spirit Summoning, am recommending Mimic Tear over anything in the game, then you know we're in bad shape.

It's... it's Bloodborne Rally. That's all it is.



Don't get me wrong, there are some huge benefits to explore if you have a quicker weapon like a Katana or a Dagger, and Power Stancing them is doubly ideal, but anything slower than a regular old sword and you might as well just take it off, because this rune handicaps your Crimson Flask down to 70% its usual efficiency.

That... that's a problem. That's a pretty big problem.

Sure, just slap on Crimson Seed Talisman and act like it's not even there.

Why are you complaining so much? Yeah, you know, I could do that.
You know what I could also do? Not dedicate a whole Talisman slot to a penalty that isn't even fully nullified by it.

Anything could go there. I could be using that slot for, like, a Godfrey icon or something. I just feel like I'm missing out on so much when I have this rune equipped. The amount restored per hit is ultimately dependent on the type of weapon and the type of attack you're committing to. You're always going to restore more health at a time from a Greatsword than you will a Dagger, which means the benefits you'll get from the Great Rune will depend almost solely on the type of build that you have.

It obviously works well if you're using it in tandem with damage mitigation tools like Endure or Dragoncrest Talismans, because that's less damage you'll have to compensate for by staying aggressive in battle, and AoE weapon skills and spells like Bloodboon Ritual or Devourer of Worlds can proc the effect among a cluster of enemies, so if you're worried about tanking damage in the process of a big spell, this Great Rune is usually an okay choice to have equipped.

But outside of that, all I find myself thinking about is how different this game really is from Bloodborne. In Bloodborne, your character was faster than ♥♥♥♥ no matter what build you had, with a couple obvious exceptions, so it was much easier for the Rally system to actually pull a good bit of weight.

An Elden Ring trying to slap fight an enemy to death is almost always a bad idea. It- it's just, it doesn't translate over well. It's not good.

Renala's Rune is... it's- it's weird.


I almost didn't even want to count it, because the way it's used feels in a completely different ballpark from the other six.

The Unborn Rune unlocks the ability to respec your character, which is... cool?
Or whatever, but it's not great.

These aren't cool or whatever runes. It's a useful perk, being able to just throw yourself at different bosses just to see how well they take certain builds, and I imagine it would serve extremely well in New Game+, because whatever boss you wanted to fight next, you could just find out whatever they're weak to and then tailor a specific build that counteracts the ♥♥♥♥ out of them, provided you've been saving larval tears.

I- I don't know, man. Look, that's all I have for this one.
You think I'm lying?

Show the script. Show the script right now.

This is all I have typed out, including this sentence and this one after it.



This rune is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boring.
I don't even know what else to say.

This thing is a health-siphon machine, probably one of the best in the game.


7% plus 80 HP per enemy killed, and that's on top of whatever heal-on-kill effects you have stacked up on yourself.

So if you want to slap on Taker's Cameo and the Blasphemous Blade's weapon skill, you can be healing some massive amounts of HP, especially during the endgame, because those percentages only climb higher.

This is obviously very insane for dungeons and otherwise casual exploring, which I think is a good thing to have, because it's really easy to get caught up in how tools, abilities, and anything else in the game perform versus bosses, because that's just where you're going to see the most spectacle, and then you just judge whether or not it's a good thing to use based on how well it performs in that environment. Not everything needs to be a boss killer.

It makes low-level dungeon running really fun, ritual sword and shield talisman builds become actually viable, and against duo bosses or ones with extra mobs like O'Neil, you can just grab an enemy and use him as a pseudo health flask. The benefits are nowhere near as ever-present as a great rune like Godrick's, and it's not a rune I would consider having as a mainstay, but I think it's the rune I appreciate the most, because health regen in any capacity is never not useful to have.

Even in later NewGame+ iterations, you can just steamroll entire castles of enemies and only ever have to use two or three flasks, which gives it huge flexibility on so many different caster builds, because you can then allocate those extra flasks over to Cerulean.

It's a great, uh, rune. It's a- it's a great rune. I'm gonna leave that in, too.

Alright, now, let's all just sit back and have a nice, civil discussion, a nice little chat, about the remaining three runes on this list.

I understand that I am entering highly contested territory, but I think this game is finally old enough for me to start making the point that vigor is not the most important stat in the world, okay? It's just not.

The vigor check memes were fun while they lasted, but most of us have played the game for a while, and we're just- we're- we're better than that now.

Okay, so, Morgoth's Great Rune increases HP by 25%, which is ♥♥♥♥♥♥' bananas.

This increase is applied after all other health modifiers you currently have on. That means if you have 1000 base HP, and the Crimson Ember Medallion bumps it up to 1060, the Great Rune will take 25% of 1060, and not the base HP.

That's- that's pretty cracked.
Like, being able to take a whole extra hit from endgame bosses kind of cracked.

If you can imagine Ember from Dark Souls 3 with a bit more benefits, that's essentially what this Great Rune gives you. And it doesn't give you a damn thing more. And it's still ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome.

During the endgame, when the fragility of life is emphasized beyond what you could even imagine, and anything with a pulse and or anger issues can potentially end the ♥♥♥♥ out of you, 25% maximum HP usually totals out to around 600-800 extra HP, depending on your level.

And possibly even more than that, depending on what talismans you have stacked. I can't ignore what a massive benefit that is, I just think you can do better. You're- you're a better person, is all.

I think we all knew it was gonna come down between these two.
Oh, how I agonized over the choice between these two runes.

The rune of the weakest demigod versus the strongest.

This decision actually took me around an hour, like, no joke. I spent much longer than what I'm proud of weighing the arguments for and against both runes, thinking about the benefits of each, where those benefits could give you the most utility, and at which parts of the game, so on and so forth.

But at the end of the day, no matter how conclusive a statement I can possibly make on either rune, it is still decided by things about the game I think are the most important to me, and not anyone else. Alright, let's- let's stop beating around the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bush. Bush beating time is over.

It- it's- it's Godrick.


Godric's Great Rune is second place, and here's why.

Five levels on every single attribute is extremely powerful. It's basically the effect of Oath of Vengeance, but with no time constraint. This not only increases your health, FP, and stamina considerably more so in the early game than Radahn's rune, but also provides small buffs to secondary factors like equip, load, and status defense.

And as most people have already concluded, this effect is considerably more significant in the early-to-mid game than any other rune. Problem is, the effect actually ends up being too good, in a way.

Five levels per attribute will inevitably be used for meeting weapon and spell requirements, because if you're like me, the habit of using great runes is so deeply entrenched in your brain that the first thing you do after you die is pop a rune arc. So much so that you've forgotten what playing without a great rune is even like. This can run into a lot of dependency issues, where the build you're running will be supported by those extra 40 levels.

And once you've run out of rune arcs, game progress is suddenly going to feel very uncomfortable, because you no longer have access to that build without just grinding out a few levels by yourself.

Obviously, softcaps exist, so there's nothing I can really say about what the three main bar stat differences are between the two that hasn't already been said or isn't common sense.

Godric's will give you more early-to-mid game, Radahn's will give you more pretty much anywhere else.

Which, in a way, makes perfect sense, because the rune you get from the weakest of the demigods seems to better fit weaker areas of the game, while the rune of the strongest only gets amplified as you grow in strength.

The extra equip load and various defenses of Godrick's rune is a nice little benefit, but it's offset by the fact that Radahn's rune offers a better stamina increase from the get-go, even in the early game, making both of these runes pretty evenly matched across just about all fronts.

I can see the appeal of late-game Godrick's rune increasing various resistances and whatnot, but again, once you hit the soft caps, those returns will only get more and more diminishing as you continue.

And on average, you're going to find yourself in many more situations that involve direct, straightforward combat. Not every single fight you're gonna take will be in the vicinity of Rot Lakes or Madness Towers.

In fact, there's a very small minority of them.

Not to say those various resistance increases don't matter, but are they really going to be as universally beneficial as just having more gas in the tank, so to speak?

Alright, well, I'm sure I pissed someone off right there, but we treat all runes equally here on the channel, so just remember that. I don't have anything else for an outro, so just enjoy this cinematic frame of me about to get smashed by an avatar:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3155117973

---

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3213283813 https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3216135239
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3275057381 https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3283203994
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3292574189 https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3301039954

---

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3006733096
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3045134910