Blizzard has announced the return of runewords to Diablo 4 with the latest Campfire Chat and revealed the effects of all runes. The experts Rob and Raxxanterax have dived into the new information and identified the best runes.
What are runewords?
- In Diablo 4, you will find runes with the Vessel of Hatred, a new type of socket gem that you can combine into so-called runewords.
- Unlike in Diablo 2, a runeword in Diablo 4 consists of only two runes: a ritual rune that you can activate through specific actions to obtain the new resource “offerings”, as well as a calling rune which consumes the offerings for a powerful effect.
- You can carry a maximum of two runewords, and no rune can be used more than once. You can only use runewords if you possess the Vessel of Hatred.
These are the best runes: The two experts Rob and Raxxanterax, on whose evaluations many players rely and who are crucial for our tier list of the best builds in Diablo 4, have already analyzed the runes. Here are their results:
The best “trigger” runes:
- Yul – Every time you use a cooldown, you generate 50 offerings.
- Tam – When you use a non-channeling core skill, you generate 25 offerings.
- Xol – When you use a power of another class, you generate 150 offerings.
- Lith – Every 0.3 seconds that you stand still, you generate 25 offerings.
The best “effect” runes:
- Ohm – Casts the Improved Battle Cry of the Barbarian, costs 500 offerings.
- Jah – The next dodge becomes the wizard’s teleport, costs 500 offerings.
- Kry – Casts the Vortex of the Spiritborn, costs 500 offerings.
- Ner – Casts Countering Veil of the Hunter, costs 700 offerings.
- Mot – Casts the Disrupting Dark Veil of the Hunter, costs 150 offerings.
- Vex – Grants +3 to all skills for 5 seconds, costs 400 offerings.
- Qax – The next non-basic skill deals 100% more damage, costs 400 offerings.
Each of these runes can be “overloaded” to enhance the effect in a specific way when more offerings are used than necessary. This makes runes like Qax particularly strong.
If you want to get a feel for the runes yourself, you can test the feature on the PTR – even if you do not yet possess the Vessel of Hatred. You will find a complete listing of the runes in the Blizzard blog post.
Until the release of the Vessel of Hatred on October 8th, many things may change regarding the runes. Blizzard has implemented a lot of PTR feedback in the last seasons. Here you will find all information about the first expansion Vessel of Hatred.
How runewords make your class stronger
The two experts do not yet specify any concrete “best runewords”. However, Raxxanterax explains two situations in which runewords are useful: To enhance what a build is already strong in, or to compensate for a shortcoming.
One example would be the Yul rune with the Lightning Spear Sorcerer. Since the build constantly uses cooldowns, you could accumulate an enormous amount of offerings and then trigger a Barbarian shout for more damage using the Ohm rune.
With other runes, certain builds could forgo stats on their armors or trigger effects like overpower, which are otherwise hard to achieve through other means. The options available to you with builds will therefore broaden.
You can also use runes to craft mythics. You will need 10 runes of each rarity and only one spark, instead of three as before. This allows you to create three mythics per season, making your character “virtually complete,” according to Raxxanterax. Overall, the planned changes are well received: “Diablo 4 is basically a brand new game” – players rave because Blizzard is fundamentally changing the game.
