i think what would encourage different runes, weapons and playstyles would be to introduce enemy weaknesses, blunt dmg, poise dmg, elemental weakness etc, or if already at place (honestly i can’t really tell) to buff them a little and give us a status effect bar for enemies.
that way we can see how for example plague dmg is built and might just go for one more risky attack to proc the status effect. or after fighting through map A with enemies mostly weak to fire reaching area B where you would need Ice. So you have to be on your toes and use your whole arsenal.
it would also encourage combination of a status effect rune with a melee combo rune.
there is a thread about the elemental things here: So, what are the different properties of elemental attacks? - #14 by Chemile0n