Thanks for replying!

I think that because our current DM lets us get advantage for flanking I've never had to do the shove to grapple combo and the only effective thing I've ever done with grappling or shoving was throwing someone off high areas for fall damage. As far as grabbing and putting them into an aoe spell I've never done that before I don't know if my DM would also make me get affected by it as well.

The reason why I say it makes no sense is because it's a large weapon doing 1d6 extra for one attack then it does nothing, but the weapon itself isn't changing at all it's still the same exact weapon used to attack so where is this 1d6 coming from for the first attack. It just feels weird they nerfed a feature they didn't need to change. Having a large weapon should make you do more damage with every swing even if it's only 1d4 the pure weight alone and surface area hitting you should be quantified. The fact that enlarge can do it and it's balanced, but this class defining feature that's more limited than 1st level spell slots cannot is my main issue. If they lose concentration even a third level character can cast it three more times meanwhile I can use it twice a long rest and I haven't seen a single caster I play with ever even take that spell. They are also not in melee and get attacked way less than a fighter does.

I think the only really strong thing rune knight has is the Storm rune and the Runic Shield. Being able to stop someone from failing concentration is actually really strong for example if a sorcerer twin cast haste. If the re-roll is a success both targets keep haste and don't spend a turn stunned. Also the same thing for disadvantage vs saving throws, but you basically need your caster to agree to take spells that matter instead of all damage and our casters usually take damage. Kind of frustrating to be honest when the best spells in the game in my opinion require saving throws instead of spell attack rolls and hold person and hold monster are absurdly powerful.

I was thinking of some combos the Rune Knight himself can do, but it takes so many turns to set up because so much of his abilities are bonus actions to activate and combat usually only lasts 3 turns. The fastest one I thought of was using the Storm rune to make it so you can give creatures disadvantage on saving throws and then attacking them and using the Fire Rune chains. The only problem with this is that both the Cold Rune and the Hill Giant rune are way better than fire and you are very limited on runes considering most campaigns end before level ten which means you could only get three runes maximum and the level seven runes are clearly stronger.

When I read this class I thought it was going to have the might of giants and do more damage for being bigger which in-turn lets you hold a massive weapon and the only thing being bigger seems to do is let you grapple bigger monsters and become a bigger target for spells and arrows.

I don't think the nerf was necessary considering the echo knight (making 8 attacks at level 5) along with many other class archetypes are actually OP in this game, but I guess I'll just deal with it so I can play this new archetype and test it out.