Steel / Boundary Runes

[KFCrispy]

i haven't used the Boundary Rune at all, but i feel that the Steel Rune may be bugged and might actually be reducing magic damage as well as physical. example: i am farming that "tough" Fire Dragon that has high HP (replaces the "easy" Fire Dragon when you start the Sable/bandit storyline and drops Water Sealing Piece & Fire Dragon Armor) have it on Faylen who has a B in fire affinity and she only took 34 dmg from the Fire Dragon's fire spell, but Roy who has no runes equipped and has a B in fire affinity (both use Fire Dragon Armor, boosting their natural C's to B's) ate like 120+ damage from the fire spell.

i definitely want to try the Steel and Boundary Runes out on different enemies, different attacks.... so far it seems the Steel Rune could be yet another game-breaking tactic that turns anyone into a super-tank! that would certainly make my armor choices more flexible--i could sacrifice a rune slot to provide more interesting equipment that doesn't reduce SPD or boosts other stats instead of worrying about PDF... plus i'm playing a game where i limit my use of those super-broken Fury/Boost/Double-Edge/Crazed/Power Runes.

[Rooks]

Wow, that would be crazy. I and I would have to rewrite the damn walkthrough ahaha. I never used them, simply because of the in-game description.

I'm going to start as new game here soon, and I'll try for myself.

[KFCrispy]

i can confirm the Boundary Rune works as advertised, but it is likely that a lot of enemy attacks that may look like magic are not magic. the big laser show/attacks from the final area Guardians and final boss are physical..

i am still not certain about the Steel Rune giving 0 MDF. first of all, Prince had it equipped with the best skills and he resisted the magic damage every time a spell came out--I would have thought a 0 MDF would give him a 0% chance to resist, (but of course from what happened, it's probably not true). but i can't get a find a simple enemy to test so i can figure out normal damage vs when the same character has Steel. getting to the final boss was a real chore from my old save and i didn't think about making a save after beating the bosses..

but if Steel Rune really gives 0 MDF then i need to assume the Fire Dragon's fiery spell looking thing is physical damage.

[Rooks]

Yeah, that is not a physical attack. The Nariqua or whatever enemies in the Big Hole have a fire magic attack that they use often. Plus they are often paired with Blade Bunnies. Again, there are Bone Soldiers there that use fire magic and physical attacks. This might be a good place to head to test the effects of the Runes.

Yeah Magic Resistance percentage is based more on Elemental/Rune Affinities than Base MDEF.

There is almost no way that the Salamader's fire spell is physical. I mean, it looks just like LV 3 Fire Rune magic, so that is what I assumed it was. Hellsteed at the bottom of Eresh's dungeon might be a good place to test, it uses powerful physical attacks and Final Flame spell.

[KFCrispy]

if you have an S defensive affinity rating for an element, do you fully nullify an element? if so, the final boss can easily be solo'd by anyone with 1 rune slot and a natural Sun affinity of B or higher using a Steel Rune and the Lordlake equipment that ups Sun/Fire defense- Pointy Hat, Poncho...

[KFCrispy]

results from Target Lady's fire + target status attack: 15 dmg. Prince w/Steel and fire affinity=B (no equipment boosts)

it seems the only attack that was doing serious damage was from the final boss, although Prince "Resisted" every shot, taking about 140-150.