In regards to low level Runes/Sigils (Minor and Major, to be precise), it’s fair that they use items that aren’t easily accessible.
Why?
Because players aren’t, in the confines of the game, supposed to have easy access to them. They’re supposed to be bonus goods to put on your items. The only problem with this, having said it, is that they ARE easy to access out of the realm of crafting.
Upon playing the game, you are immediately thrust into level 14 Masterwork items (not including karma items). These level 14 Masterwork items all contain Sigils/Runes allowing you to boost your stats tremendously. From this point on, using and maintaining Sigils/Runes becomes trivial and, in some cases, even meaningless.
However, pre-level 14 is the only time in the game where Runes and Sigils will make an overwhelming difference in your gameplay experience (yes, it makes Runes and Sigils at level 80 look like wearing a Hero’s Band instead of not wearing a ring at all). Why is this? Because at lower levels, let’s say level 1, you’re supposed to have access to very little amount of stats.
In fact, assuming you’re playing this game with no previous experience, you have just your base stats and that’s enough to kill mobs. Now, let’s take a step forward. There’s level 0 gear (which is, ironically, stronger than level 1 gear) that you can wear. This gear will give you a total of 12 Power.
You start with 24 in all stats, so 12 is already 50% of what you have. (And starting gear gives you 0 stats.)
Now let’s add in Runes/Sigils. Each rune can give you 10 in any stat you desire (11 in Condition Damage if you want to be fancy, but that won’t add anything before upscaling at this point). That’s another 41% in your stats. Note: You can use 4 runes at level 1.
This means that at level 1, the game expects you to have 24 in all stats, but it’s possible to have an additional 52 in all stats before going into Runes and Trinkets (yes, you can use trinkets at level 1).
So, there’s a Polla and a Hero’s Band. The Hero’s Band will give you 2 to all stats (and 2% critical damage, which is infinitely more than is physically possible to attain at level 1). Polla will only give you 1 to Power, Precision, Vitality and Toughness (but those are the stats we are looking at in this dissection).
So you now have an additional 3 stats, which you can improve with an Adorned Jewel which will add an additional 4 to any stat you choose (and you can use 2 of these).
We now have a total of 63 bonus stat points.
So, we move onto a Sigil. With Sigils, your best bet here is to go with a stacking sigil or an on-critical sigil because the others will only give you a 1% boost (3% on specific mob-killing which is somewhat useful, but I digress). A Sigil of Bloodlust, however, will only give you 25 bonus Power at level 1 (which is still better than nothing, a LOT better), so we’ll go with that.
Now we have an additional 88 stat points. BUT WAIT! The weapons will give 5 or 10 Power (5 for 1 handed, 10 for 2 handed), which means you can have an additional 10 (let’s say you’re using a 2h because there aren’t many good sigils you can use at this point, anyways).
So we’re now at 98 bonus stat points.
You have a base of 24 and then you have an additional 98 (before food).
So… 122 stat points when you’re only supposed to have 24. That’s 500% of what you’re supposed to have. You can then add an additional 20 Power (since that’s what we’re using because the armor gives power) from a Grilled Steak. (I don’t include Nourishment since it will add 1% of your Toughness/Vitality which will only give you 1 at most, if you’ve been stacking Toughness/Vitality instead of Power.)
142 Power. Nearly 600% of what you’re supposed to have.
At level 80, however, you pick your Runes for the secondary effects (in certain cases) instead of the stat points. You will never reach 600% of your current stat spread via runes/sigil/food after level 1.
