Introduction

Runes all look more or less like the samples you see to the left; small gray objects with various symbols and squiggles on them. It's unknown if the markings mean anything in any language, or if they are just whatever the Blizzard artists made up. All 33 runes look different, so in theory you could memorize them and not need to hover on one to know what it was. Impress your friends! They also have a weird squishy sound when dropped or placed in Inventory, as though they were organic items, rather than the rocks they look like.

Runes have some very nice properties when socketed. A wide variety of properties, and all 33 of them do different things in different item types. We have every rune listed with their properties on the Runes Stats page, in the top left navigation table.

So glorified gems? Not hardly. The real power of Runes comes in the Rune Words. These are special combinations of Runes that create Unique-like items with enormous bonuses. Making a Rune Word is tricky though. You must have:

• The exact Runes
• The correct item type.
• With the correct number of sockets.
• And insert the Runes in the correct order

Rune Scarcity

Runes are not like gems, they are not dropped in equal amounts. They are more like items, there are common runes, and there are runes that you'll find once in your character's life, if that often. Runes drop pretty regularly, you'll often find several a game, but only the common ones. The less common runes are very hard to find, and the rarest of them all are virtually imaginary.

So how do Runes generate? A quick overview of how the game decides which items to drop when is needed.

• When you kill a monster, the game picks a treasure class based on the monster's level.
• A random roll takes place, and the game either drops an item from that treasure class, drops nothing, or goes down to a lower treasure class.
• Once in the next lower treasure class it can again drop an item from that treasure class, drop nothing, or move to the next lower treasure class.
• It will continue calculating what to drop until selected an item, or selecting to drop nothing at all.

For runes there are 17 treasure classes, with Zod being in the highest. There is always a very high chance when killing a monster of that level that nothing at all will drop, or that you'll get nothing from the highest treasure class. So if you kill a monster and it picks Runes treasure class 17, 99.99% of the time it will drop down to Runes 16, which has Cham and Jo in it, and 99.98% of those times it'll drop down to Runes 15, and it'll keep dropping down till it picks a rune to drop.

Full listing of comparative Rune scarcity from most common to least common. Thanks to Johan and Ensign. These are not exactly accurate, but they are close enough to give you an idea how seldom you'll see the higher level Runes.

This is a comparison, so you'll find 1 Zod for every 144,238 El's. Figures subject to further tweaking before the final game. Initial figures we heard from Blizzard North months ago were more like 1 Zod per 600,000 El's. So either they made Zod's more common or scaled all the rest less common.

Which Runes are Best?

This is a certainly open to debate. Runewords are very large and complicated animals, and you have to compare one of those to a magical socketed or Rare or Unique or Set item of the same type. But how about the individual Runes, which of them is best in a given item type?

Well, what would you say if asked which Gems were best? This is easier to determine since there are only seven of them and they have simple, similar effects, but it would still be largely an issue of what you wanted to boost. You have a helm with one socket, do you want to add Strength or Dexterity or Mana or mana regeneration? Or something else?

If the question is complicated for seven Gems, how about thirty-three Runes, all of which do very different things in different items? But there are 33 Runes, all do different things in different types of items, and they can possibly stack up to give very impressive totals in multi-socketed items.

This section doesn't cover RuneWords; those are better compared to top quality Rares or Uniques or Set Items. This is about the individual Runes, and which are best to socket in a good item (Rare, Magical, Set, Unique) to make it great, and which are best to put a bunch of into a plain multi-socketed item.

The best runes are generally the most powerful, and while everyone would like a Zod in their Ethereal item or just to save on any repair expenses ever, you'll hardly ever find one, and if you do you'll want to use it in some Uber RuneWord anyway. So consider the rune #'s as well. A quick reference is as follows:

• 1-8 are quite common, you'll soon get sick of seeing them and won't even bother to pick them up once you have a mule choking on them.
• 9-15 are seen, but not so often, you might have one person in a big game find one of these.
• 16-20 are very seldom seen, but not unheard of. You'll probably wonder which it is when you see it since you've not seen it before.
• 21-33 are going to be the find of the day any time one of them turns up, and as you get into the 30's, no more than a handful will be seen on Battle.net each month.

Over time these figures changed, as people built up stacks of the semi-rare runes, and the rarest are usually to be traded for. There will be shortages of some based on utility. Some are popular for Crafted Recipes, others prove to be the most popular weapon sockets (Shae, IAS, is very hot for that already), while others perhaps rarer won't be as in demand.

Damage Weapons

The best Runes to put into a weapon you are using for damage (as opposed to one held by a spell-caster). Note that all Runes in items are useful, these are just generally considered to be the best. Adding 10 vitality is always a good thing, but it's not really what you look to your weapon for.

Spell-Caster Weapons

There aren't a lot of real good options for Rune socketing into spell-caster weapons. No faster cast or mana regeneration or +skills or even +mana.

Armor and Helms for Combat Characters

There aren't any magically good socketing options in helm or armor for combat characters. Nothing that adds damage or leech or Attack Speed, but there are some pretty good bonuses to other things.

Armor and Helms for Spell-Casters

No awesome socketing for helms/armor for spell-casters, but there are generally better options than they get with weapons. No fast cast or bonus skills, but you can improve your regeneration rate, resistances, mana, and more.

Shields for Combat Characters

The options for shields for combat characters are ok, but most of the good runes are up the rare end of the scale, so are more likely to be used in crafting or in RuneWords.

Shields for Spell-Casters

No particularly great socketing for shields for spell-casters, but there are better options than they get with weapons. Again like the combat shields mthe good runes are too rare to really be feasible to use this way.

Runewords

This is where Runes really become awesome. A "RuneWord", also called a "Runic Item", is the term for an item that has been socketed with special Runes in the correct order, and has morphed into a massive item with stats Blizzard designers pre-designed.

A Runic Item is basically a unique item, since the bonuses are the same for the same Rune Word each time. They vary though by the base item they are placed in. Once you socket the runes, the item will gain a special name in golden letters, and will have substantial bonus stats modifying the item's normal stats. For this reason you want to get the best base item possible to socket, though finding one with the correct number of sockets can be quite difficult.

The [[1]]socketing an item quest can help there, but since that quest only puts the maximum number of sockets into an item, it's useless if your Rune Word requires and item with less than the maximum possible, which is often the case.

In addition to the Rune Word bonus, you still get the bonuses of the individual Runes in the item. It can be hard to keep track of the individual Rune bonuses since only the Rune Word displays, so you might have to look up the stats on a chart, or just remember them.

Use the links below to check out the different Runewords.

FAQ

What are the most common errors in making a RuneWord?

99% of the errors are:

• Tried to make it in a magical/unique/set item.

• Tried to make it in an item with more than the required sockets.

• Tried a weapon recipe in armor, helm recipe in shield, sword recipe in bow, etc. The recipes work only for the items that they are listed to work for.

Do RuneWords work in single player or over Open Battle.net?

Yes, all known RuneWords work on and off Realms. .

Do RuneWords work on Mercs?

No, this was a bug in v1.08 and was fixed in v1.09.

Does +Magic Find gear work to find more or better Runes?

No, +MF% doesn't make more Runes or higher quality Runes drop. It doesn't hurt your odds either though.

How do I make a RuneWord?

You must be sure you follow all of these steps exactly:

1. The item must be a low quality, normal, or superior normal item. The name should be in grey. You can not use Set, Unique, Rare, or Magical items, even if they have the correct number of sockets!
2. The item must be of the correct type. If the recipe says "swords only" it means it, maces, axes, etc won't work.
3. The item must have exactly the correct number of sockets. This means no more and no less than the number of Runes. You can't put a three-socket RuneWord into a 5 socket item, it won't work, you'll just get the bonuses from the individual Runes.
4. You must insert the Runes in the correct sequence.
5. You must be on one of the Realms (not single player or LAN). Only Ancient's Pledge works off of the realms in v1.08.

Can I personalize a Runic Item?

Yes, and it makes an odd color, with your added name in the Crafted Item orange, and the RuneWord in gold. See it here.

Can I make a RuneWord in Wirt's Leg?

No. Example here.

Can I make a RuneWord from an Ethereal Item?

Yes, and it will keep the Ethereal mod on it. Example here.

Does the arrangement of the sockets in an item matter?

No, the actual appearance of the Runes in the sockets is not important. You need just insert the Runes in the correct sequence, as described above, and it will work. How the Runes look in the item is irrelevant.

Do items with inherent bonuses keep them once they become RuneWords?

Yes, as long as the item is a normal item with bonus skills, and not a magical item. The items allowed are wands, staves, scepters, and all seven types of the class specific items (though Assassin claws don't get random bonus skills in v1.08).

These are the best types of items to use for RuneWords, since they keep their inherent bonuses, and stack them with the RuneWord bonus. You can get huge bonuses to individual skills this way, such as the wand Runeword White, which has these bonuses, amongst others:

• +3 to Bone and Poison Skills
• +4 to Skeleton Mastery
• +2 to Bone Spear
• +3 to Bone Armor

If you made this recipe with a 2-socket wand that already had +3 to Skeleton Mastery and +2 to Bone Spear, those would add to the bonuses from the RuneWord and you'd have a total of +7 Skeleton Mastery and +4 Bone Spear, along with all the rest. A couple of examples, such as this Ancient's Pledge made in a Paladin Shield for more resistance, and this Leaf with huge skill bonuses.

The bonuses don't need to stack, you could make a weapon one like Silence in an Amazon bow with 6 sockets, and you'd get all the huge Silence bonus as well as +1-3 to Bow Skills from the bow.

Do superior items keep their bonuses if they become Runic Items?

They should, but there are some reports of it not working correctly.

What's a "Runic Item"?==

A term for an item with a RuneWord combo in it. Once you get a three-socket shield and stick RalOrtTal into it, you have a Runic Item.

Are RuneWords better in Superior Items?

Yes, the bonus to durability or defense or damage from an item being Superior is preserved with the RuneWord bonuses once it becomes a Runic Item.

Can I make a RuneWord out of a magical or Unique, Set, Rare, Crafted, or Magical items?

No, items must be normal or superior socketed items, (grey colored-text names) to make a RuneWord from them. You can find or make the socketed items with the socket-adding quest in Act Five. Note that some Uniques and all the items in Griswold's Set have two or more sockets in them as inherent properties, which is why they are included here. Crafted Items and Rare items only ever have one socket, but you couldn't make a RuneWord from them even if they had more.

Is there any way to take a Rune or Runes out of a socket?

No, like all other socketing in the game, once a gem or Rune or Jewel is in the socket, it's there forever. Be careful moving things around in your Inventory or Stash.

Can I make two RuneWords in the same item?

No, RuneWords can only be made in an item with the exact number of sockets the recipe calls for. If you put 1 or 2 two-rune RuneWord into a 4 socket item, you'll get just the base Rune stats, not one or two RuneWords.

Can I socket a Runic Item and add another RuneWord to it?

No, you can't add any sockets to a Runic Item with the socketing quest. There aren't any known RuneWords that create Runic Items with sockets in them, but even if there were, they wouldn't be allowed, same as the Uniques and Set items with two or more sockets now.