Rune Explanation
Added in Patch 2.0 for the Vessel of Hatred, two runes can be combined to form a Runeword. Runewords offer a unique way to elevate your character’s abilities by crafting custom powers. All across Sanctuary, you'll come across two kinds of Runes: Ritual and Invocation. When slotted in an item together they form a Runeword.
- Ritual Runes specify an action you must take to generate Offering.
- Invocation Runes grant a powerful effect when enough Offering has been generated.
How Runeswords Work
When a Ritual and an Invocation Rune are slotted into the same item, it creates a Runeword. For example:
- If a Bac Ritual Rune and a Jah Invocation Rune are slotted icnto the same item, the Runeword is BacJah.
- Bac generates Offering of 50 every time you move 5 meters.
- Jah requires 500 Offering to activate so when the Bac Rune has generated 500 Offering, the Jah effect will finally activate and teleport you when you evade and make you unstoppable.
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What is Offering
Runes operate on a resource system called Offering, which is generated by Ritual Runes when their specific requirements are met such as "moving 5 meters" or "drinking a health potion". Invocation Runes then consume this Offering to trigger their powerful effects. The more challenging the Ritual Rune’s requirement, the more Offering it generates. Conversely, the Offering needed to activate an Invocation Rune scales with the strength of its effect.
Sometimes, you'll generate more Offering than what's needed to activate your Invocation Rune. This is where the Overflow mechanic comes into play. Many Invocation Runes gain additional bonuses when you exceed the required Offering, briefly enhancing their effects such as 'Increased Duration' or 'Increased Damage'.
When you have Runewords equipped the buff icon will sit above your skill bar. The gauge will fill up as you perform the action of the Ritual Rune and when full, the Invocation Rune will execute automatically.
Limitations
The only control you have over when that can occur is by not performing the Ritual Rune action that completes the fill of the Offering gauge until you want the Invocation to execute which in many cases is impossible (walk 5 meters) or at least inconvenient (cast a skill with cooldown).
How are Runewords Created?
To create a Runeword, you need to socket both a Ritual Rune and an Invocation Rune into an item with two Sockets:
- Helm (2 sockets now available)
- Body
- Legs
- Two-Handed Weapons
Any Ritual Rune can pair with any Invocation Rune, offering flexibility. Runes are available in three rarities: Magic, Rare, and Legendary, with higher rarities delivering more potent effects.
However, you can only have a maximum of 2 Runewords equipped at the same time and the same Rune can not be equipped twice.
Visit a Jeweler to unsocket your runes for free.
Where to Get Runes
Runes will begin to drop throughout Sanctuary from monsters once you have completed the quest 'Fundament of Faith' (Map) in Vessel of Hatred. You'll get them in cache rewards too. They are also tradeable with other players.
Crafting Runes
You will have an excess of Runes and these need not go to waste. The Jeweler can craft your old runes into other random runes.
- 3 Runes with the same name to craft a new random rune.
- The random rune has 85% chance to be of the same quality and a 15% chance to roll as a higher quality.
- When crafting 3 Legendary Runes the random reroll will always be another Legendary rune.
- Each craft also costs 4,000 gold.
Crafting Mythic Unique with Runes
As well as creating Runewords, Runes can be used to craft Mythic Unique items. The following Mythic Uniques can be crafted as follows.
Every recipe requires 2 x Resplendent Sparks, plus other runes as detailed below.
| Mythic | Ingredients |
|---|---|
| Ring of the Starless Skies | Ohm x 6, Tzic x 6, Cem x 6 |
| Heir of Perdition | Jah x 6, Que x 6, Gar x 6 |
| Harlequin Crest | Eom x 6, Lac x 6, Ton x 6 |
| Andariel's Visage | Tam x 6, Qax x 6, Zan x 6 |
| Tyrael's Might | Lith x 6, Feo x 6, Tec x 6 |
| Shroud of False Death | Bac x 6, Kry x 6, Moni x 6 |
| Melted Heart of Selig | Vex x 6, Thul x 6, Tun x 6 |
| The Grandfather | Xol x 6, Mot x 6, Yax x 6 |
| Ahavarion Spear of Lycander | Yom x 6, Poc x 6, Cir x 6 |
| Shattered Vow | Xan x 6, Ner x 6, Teb x 6 |
| Doombringer | Ahu x 6, Neo x 6, Lum x 6 |
| Nesekem the Herald | Yul x 6, Wat x 6, Tal x 6 |
Important Notes on Runes
- Runes can be traded.
- Runes are stackable in the socketable inventory tab.
- A maximum of 2 Runewords can be equipped
- The same Rune cannot be equipped twice.
- Runes can be used in crafting.
Ritual Runes List
Below is a list of all the Runes of each type (Ritual/Invocation), their quality (Magic, Rare, Legendary), gains/requirements, and effects.
| Rune | Quality | Offering Gain | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ahu | Legendary | 10 | Lucky Hit: Up to a 100% chance against Injured enemies. |
| Bac | Legendary | 50 | Travel 5 meters. |
| Cem | Magic | 75 | Cast Evade |
| Cir | Magic | 50 | Cast the same non-Channeled Skill 3 times in a row. |
| Feo | Rare | 1000 | Become Injured or Crowd Controlled (Cooldown: 10 seconds). |
| Lith | Legendary | 25 | Stand still while fighting for 0.3 seconds. |
| Moni | Magic | 35 | Cast a Skill after moving. (Cooldown: 0.25 seconds) |
| Neo | Rare | 200 | Deal damage after not taking any within 2 seconds. (Resets if Invulnerable.) |
| Noc | Rare | 10 | Inflict a Crowd Control that isn’t Slow or Chill. |
| Poc | Rare | 5 | Spend 5% of your Maximum Resource. |
| Tam | Legendary | 25 | Cast a non-Channeled Core Skill. |
| Xol | Legendary | 150 | Evoke power from another Class. |
| Yax | Magic | 200 | Drink a Healing Potion |
| Yul | Legendary | 50 | Cast a Skill with a Cooldown. |
| Zan | Magic | 150 | Cast an Ultimate Skill. |
Invocation Runes List
| Rune | Quality | Offering Req. | Effect | Skill Details | Overflow | CD Sec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ceh | Magic | 100 | Summon a Spirit Wolf to attack enemies for 8 seconds. | Summon Multiple Wolves | 1 | |
| Eom | Leg | 100 | Reduce your active Cooldowns by 0.1 seconds. | Further Reduced Cooldowns | 1 | |
| Gar | Magic | 25 | 2.5% Critical Strike Chance for 5 seconds, up to 25%. | Gain Multiple Stacks | 1 | |
| Jah | Leg | 400 | Replace your next Evade with the Sorcerer’s Teleport, blinking further, dealing damage, and becoming Unstoppable. | Transform into lightning, becoming Unstoppable and surging to the target location, dealing Lightning Damage around you upon arrival. | 2 | |
| Kry | Rare | 300 | Evoke the Spiritborn’s Vortex, dealing damage and Pulling In enemies. | Creates a cyclone that Pulls (CC) enemies inward followed by a crushing downdraft that deals Lighting Damage to them. | 3 | |
| Lac | Rare | 400 | Invoke the Barbarian's Challenging Shout, taunting enemies and reducing your damage taken for 3 seconds. | Increased Duration | 1 | |
| Lum | Magic | 5 | Restore 2.5 Primary Resource. | Increased Resource Restored | 1 | |
| Mot | Rare | 150 | Gain a shadow from the Rogue’s Dark Shroud, reducing damage taken per shadow. | Surround yourself with protective shadows. Gain Damage Reduction. Each time you take direct damage, that damage is reduced and a shadow is consumed. | Gain Multiple Shadows | 1 |
| Ner | Rare | 600 | Evoke the Rogue’s Countering Concealment, gaining Dodge Chance, Movement Speed, Unstoppable, and Stealth. | Grants Dodge Chance and increases the Movement Speed. | Increased Duration | 6 |
| Ohm | Leg | 600 | Invoke the Barbarian's War Cry, increasing your damage dealt by 15% for 6 seconds. | Bellow a mighty war cry, increasing your damage dealt. | Increased Duration | 2 |
| Qax | Rare | 400 | Your next non-Basic Skill cast spends all of your Primary Resource to deal up to 100% increased damage. | Further Increased Damage | 1 | |
| Qua | Rare | 50 | Gain 7% Movement Speed for 5 seconds, up to 35% | Increased Duration | 1 | |
| Que | Rare | 300 | Evoke the Druid’s Earthen Bulwark, granting yourself a Barrier. | Rocks surround you granting a Barrier that absorbs some of your Maximum Life in damage. | Increased Duration | 1 |
| Tal | Magic | 100 | Evoke the Spiritborn’s Pestilent Swarm, dealing damage to enemies. | Spawns a swarm at the target inflicting Poison Damage. | Increased Swarms Spawned | 1 |
| Teb | Magic | 100 | Evoke the Necromancer’s Abhorrent Iron Maiden, counterattacking damage from enemies and Healing you when they die. | Heal for a % of your Maximum Life when an enemy dies while afflicted with Iron Maiden. | 1 | |
| Tec | Magic | 100 | Evoke the Barbarian’s Earthquake, dealing damage to enemies within. | Stomp the ground causing a localized earthquake that inflicts Physical Damage. | Up to 100% Increased radius. | 1 |
| Thul | Rare | 300 | Invoke the Sorcerer's Mystical Frost Nova, inflicting Freeze (CC) and Vulnerable onto enemies. | Frost Nova makes enemies Vulnerable. | Up to 100% Increased radius. | 1 |
| Ton | Magic | 20 | Invoke the Sorcerer's Meteorites, dealing damage to enemies. | Summon a meteor that strikes the target location, dealing damage and Burning (DoT) the ground. | Increased Meteorites Spawned | 1 |
| Tun | Magic | 100 | Invoke the Rogue’s Stun Grenades, Stunning (CC) and dealing damage to enemies. | Grenades dropped at your location stunning (CC) and applying Physical Damage. | Increased Grenades Spawned | 1 |
| Tzic | Rare | 250 | Invoke the Spiritborn's Concussive Stomp, dealing damage and Knocking Down (CC) enemies. | Stomp in front of you, releasing a shockwave that deals Physical Damage and Knocks Down (CC) enemies. | 1 | |
| Vex | Leg | 1000 | Gain +3 to all Skills for 8 seconds. | Increased Duration | 1 | |
| Wat | Rare | 100 | Invoke the Necromancer's Horrid Decrepify, Slowing (CC) enemies, reducing their damage, and letting you Execute them. | When you or your Minions hit an enemy afflicted with Decrepify below 10% Life, they are instantly killed. Does not work on Bosses. | 1 | |
| Xan | Leg | 800 | Your next Skill cast will be a guaranteed Critical Strike and Overpower. | 1 | ||
| Xal | Rare | 200 | Gain 20% Maximum Life for 6 seconds. | Increased Duration | 1 | |
| Yom | Leg | 500 | Invoke the Druid's Petrify, Stunning (CC) enemies and restoring Primary Resource | Encase all Nearby enemies in stone, Stunning (CC) them. | 5 | |
| Zec | Rare | 200 | Reduce your active Ultimate Cooldown by 2 seconds. | Further Reduced Cooldown | 2 |
Runes Archive
When Diablo 4 was first announced Runewords were in, then they were out, then they were rumored to be coming back sometime in the distant future, and then unexpectedly, they arrived. Below is the information released during that time.
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Runes do not appear in Diablo 4. This page details the runes that were teased early in development. Although they are not in the game now they haven't been ruled out. Full details on all that's been uncovered can be found in the Runewords page. Yeah, totally. How would I say this? We like rune words. They're very cool. We don't have anything to announce as far as if they're going to be in the game in the immediate future. We do think they're still a really cool idea, and that's all I'm going to say right now.
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Changes to Runes and Runewords
Patch 2.0, October 8, 2024
- Added in Vessel of Hatred