New To Rune Question

I'm currently in the 1/2 done with coalitions working towards Epo. Is it even possible to play rune in sortie/oddy content without either Epo or Lionheart? To a good level i guess.

For sortie 8bosses (or lower) magic setup, RUN is by far the most favoured tank and Epeolatry is not needed at all.
Arguably some could say you would get better results with augmented Aettir lol.

Physical damage is not really a danger for RUN in sortie 8 bosses mage setup.

Depends on the fight. Sometimes (ongo) you don't ever wear epeo.

For a lot of stuff though, it's pretty essential.

Low vengeance level stuff is probably fine too.

I don't think it's very important in sortie, especially for newer groups doing mage strat.

Same with 9 boss magic, RUN is favored there and obviously still doesn't need Epeo. The only place Epeo really helps there is doing D objective skillchains. Epeo's AM3 lets the RUN do it alone, but the RDM is usually with them anyway so they can also alternate with the RDM (Gust Slash & Resolution) or if the RDM has Diamond Aspis then they can just do it alone while the RUN tanks.

In 8 boss if the RUN doesn't have Epeo I think the usual approach is just have a SCH use Tabula to do the skillchains. Which also works fine.

The one place I'd argue it is fairly important is Odyssey seg farms. An Aettir RUN gets beat up pretty badly pulling the upper floors in there. It can totally be done, but they probably won't be pulling multiple camps and the healer needs to be on their toes for the agon pulls. There's probably some V25 fights that would be extremely difficult without it too, like Marmorkrebs or Kalunga, but that can probably be overcome as well with the right buffs/debuffs.

Why is there a RDM in 9 boss magic set up? People use this over 2 SCH more standard now? I joined JPs using it before a couple of times but it felt no faster or more reliable to me.

That's always been the 9 boss magic setup. My original Sortie static was doing this strat before hard mode or melee 9 boss even existed with RUN COR RDM SCH BLM GEO.

RDM does Haste2/Refresh3 on Aminon for more Deaths (the skillchains should be almost nonstop), extends skillchains, keeps Impact up, etc.

You'd be surprised how nice the Haste2 is alone, even for the regular bosses the BLM can fit a lot more high-tier nukes.

Extending skillchains is crucial for faster kill times too. Between the RUN+COR+RDM basically every single skillchain gets double extended. (RDM's main role there is using sword on B/F to extend Grav with CDC or Distortion with Requi.)

The SCH needs to conserve their stratagems for this, but it's not hard. Accession before porting up to boss, give folks weather, Dark Arts + Addendum, give only yourself Klimaform instead of the group, and you should have enough stratagems for 3 skillchains. Most bosses will die in 1 or 2. Picking good spots to reapply Regen is the only real annoying thing about having 1 SCH, and it's easily overcome.

I thought it can be done with 2 SCH too. Fairly sure I have done it but it would have been a long time ago so idr, there might have been a RDM.

I've always wondered if there'd be a way to do 8 bosses with SAM making skillchains with just Haste2. RDM would have to heal, I suppose, and you would need Distract III and lots of acc.

I also wonder if a RUN using Morgelai path A or B could be perfectly fine to do D, not needing Epeo.

Yeah I imagine it's possible. We would sometimes finish with enough time left over for Naakuals or something, so there's wiggle room. With 2 SCH, I think your Aminon would be a few minutes slower, and B/F might also be a little slower since you wouldn't be able to extend as well so you'd probably mostly just be doing 3-steps with the COR single-extending. Still that's probably only going to add what... 1-2 minutes to Aminon and maybe 20 seconds each to B/F? Yeah I bet it would work.

(Edit: If the RUN has Helheim they can also extend Gravitation so that would close the gap a bit.)

Shoot, I just remembered something else important that the RDM does which is Stymie Sleep2 Aminon after he uses Bane. We'd then use the time to get the RUN up, do our buffs, etc. before starting the fight proper. That's pretty important, you don't want Aminon banging on the party the whole time the RUN is recovering there because he'll get a lot of TP.

We never built up the super efficiency to do non-stop skillchains on aminon but RDM was definitely essential for it. With that said, it made the rest of the run a lot harder for us than the standard double sch setup, although since we had slow aminon kills we didn't have time for all the basement NMs anyway.

Yes, but realistically, don't try. I was bored one time and made some friends come along to v25 Kalunga/Arebati while I tried tanking with Aettir, and while it is possible I just wouldn't ever try v20+ without Epeo. You need to be babied more - more Knight's Minnes, actually make use of Foe Sirvente etc. It's a lot of effort and unless you're with competent players you may end up making someone else's job so much harder to the point they may make a mistake or two which cause wipes. Just avoid the highest Odyssey stuff without Epeo.

As others have mentioned Sortie is fine with Aettir.