The new Runeword system in Diablo 4‘s Vessel of Hatred expansion is a lot of fun. These special stones slot into your armour and let you pinch skills from other classes, provided you generate enough of the Offering currency to fuel them. It seems a little complex at first, but the principle is actually very simple.
Runewords are made up of two runes, one which produces the Offering resource when you do a thing, while the second spends that resource to provide its effect. There are other certain intricacies, but that’s about it. Here I’ll run through how they work in a bit more depth below, the best ways to farm them, and at the bottom I’ll include a full list of runes you can get.
How do Runewords work?
Runes are a little like gems in that you can slot them onto your gear to provide secondary effects. There are two types of rune:
- Ritual Runes produce a certain amount of “Offering” based on something you do
- Invocation Runes spend the Offering you produce to provide the additional effect or ability
Some of these effects are class skills, while others are simply passives, but you need to slot both a Ritual Rune and an Invocation Rune together on a two-slotted piece of gear—such as legs, helmet, chest, or two-handed weapon—in order for them to work. If you provide more Offering than is needed to an Invocation Rune, it’ll also gain an additional Overflow effect.
There are some other important details to remember about runes as well:
- You can trade runes
- You can equip a maximum of two Runewords, i.e two sets of two runes
- You can’t stack rune abilities
You can also use three runes of the same type to craft a new different rune, with a chance to create a rune of a higher rarity. Lastly, you can also craft Mythics—the new name for uber uniques—at the jeweller using runes.
How to farm runes
Once you unlock Runewords in the Vessel of Hatred campaign, when you visit the council in the city of Kurast, you’ll be able to get them through a variety of sources such as defeating bosses, whisper caches, strongholds, or as random drops from elites. The best way to get runes, however, is via the new Undercity activity. You can unlock this through the Kurast Undercity quest you can get from Ormus in the council chamber after you arrive there in the campaign.
You can also find Tributes in the Undercity and through other activities, which increase the rune rewards you get for completing the activity. Long story short; the Undercity is where you want to be if you need runes.
Diablo 4 Runeword list
| Rune | Rarity | Gain | Cast |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yul | Legendary | 50 Offering | Cast a skill with a cooldown. |
| Ahu | Legendary | 10 Offering | Lucky hit: Up to a 100% chance against injured enemies. |
| Tam | Legendary | 25 Offering | Cast a non-channeled core skill. |
| Xol | Legendary | 150 Offering | Evoke power from another class. |
| Bac | Legendary | 50 Offering | Travel five meters. |
| Lith | Legendary | 25 Offering | Stand still for 0.3 seconds. |
| Neo | Rare | 200 Offering | Deal damage after not taking any within two seconds (Resets if invulnerable). |
| Feo | Rare | 1,000 Offering | Become injured of crown controlled (cooldown: 20 seconds). |
| Noc | Rare | 10 Offering | Inflict a crowd control that isn’t slow or chill. |
| Poc | Rare | 5 Offering | Spend 5% of your max resource. |
| Kaa | Rare | 2 Offering | Lose 1% of your max life. |
| Cir | Magic | 50 Offering | Cast the same non-channeled skill three times in a row. |
| Zan | Magic | 150 Offering | Cast an ultimate skill. |
| Cem | Magic | 75 Offering | Cast evade. |
| Ur | Magic | 10 Offering | Your minion or companion kills an enemy or dies. |
| Yax | Magic | 200 Offering | Drink a healing potion. |
| Moni | Magic | 25 Offering | Cast a skill after moving (Cooldown: 0.25 seconds). |
| Rune | Rarity | Cost | Cooldown | Skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ohm | Legendary | 500 Offering (Overflow: Increased duration) | 2 seconds | Evoke the Barbarian’s Enhanced War Cry, increasing your movement speed and damage dealt. |
| Vex | Legendary | 400 Offering (Overflow: Increased duration) | 1 second | Gain +3 to all skills for 7 seconds. |
| Xan | Legendary | 800 Offering | 1 second | Your next skill cast will be a guaranteed critical strike and overpower. |
| Yom | Legendary | 500 Offering | 2 seconds | Evoke the Druid’s Earthen Bulwark, granting yourself a barrier. |
| Eom | Legendary | 100 Offering (Overflow: Further reduced cooldowns) | 1 second | Reduce your active cooldowns by 0.25 seconds. |
| Jah | Legendary | 500 Offering | 2 seconds | Replace your next evade with the Sorcerer’s Teleport, blinking further, dealing damage, and becoming unstoppable. |
| Lac | Rare | 800 Offering (Overflow: Increased duration) | 1 second | Evoke the Barbarian’s Challenging Shout, reducing your damage taken. |
| Que | Rare | 800 Offering (Overflow: Increased duration) | 1 second | Evoke the Druid’s Earthen Bulwark, granting yourself a barrier. |
| Qua | Rare | 400 Offering (Overflow: Increased duration) | 1 second | Restore an evade charge and gain 7% movement speed for 5 seconds, up to 30%. |
| Xal | Rare | 200 Offering (Overflow: Increased duration) | 1 second | Gain 20% maximum life for 6 seconds. |
| Wat | Rare | 100 Offering | 1 second | Evoke the Necromancer’s Horrid Decrepify, slowing enemies, reducing their damage, and letting you execute them. |
| Qax | Rare | 400 Offering (Overflow: Further increased damage) | 1 second | Your next non-basic skill cast spends all of your primary resource to deal up to 100% increased damage. |
| Zec | Rare | 200 Offering (Overflow: Further reduced cooldown) | 2 seconds | Reduce your active ultimate cooldown by 4 seconds. |
| Ner | Rare | 700 Offering (Overflow: Increased duration) | 6 seconds | Evoke the Rogue’s Countering Concealment, gaining dodge chance, movement speed, unstoppable, and stealth. |
| Mot | Rare | 150 Offering (Overflow: Gain multiple shadows) | 1 second | Gain a shadow from the Rogue’s Dark Shroud, reducing damage taken per shadow. |
| Thul | Rare | 400 Offering (Overflow: Increased size) | 1 second | Evoke the Sorcerer’s Mystical Frost Nova, inflicting freeze and vulnerable onto enemies. |
| Tzic | Rare | 250 Offering | 1 second | Evoke the Spiritborn’s Concussive Stomp, dealing damage and knocking down enemies. |
| Kry | Rare | 500 Offering | 3 seconds | Evoke the Spiritborn’s Vortex, dealing damage and pulling on enemies. |
| Gar | Magic | 25 Offering (Overflow: Gain multiple stacks) | 1 second | Gain 2.5% critical strike chance for 5 seconds, up to 25%. |
| Lum | Magic | 5 Offering (Overflow: Increased resource restored) | 1 second | Restore one primary resource. |
| Teb | Magic | 100 Offering | 1 second | Evoke the Necromancer’s Abhorrent Iron Maiden, counterattacking damage from enemies and healing you when they die. |
| Ono | Magic | 25 Offering (Overflow: Increased bolts spawned) | 1 second | Evoke the Druid’s Dancing Bolts, seeking and dealing damage to enemies. |
| Tec | Magic | 100 Offering (Overflow: Increased size) | 1 second | Evoke the Barbarian’s Earthquake, dealing damage to enemies within. |
| Met | Magic | 100 Offering (Overflow: Increased duration) | 1 second | You leave the Necromancer’s Desecrated Ground behind you for three seconds, dealing damage to enemies within. |
| Tun | Magic | 100 Offering (Overflow: Increased grenades spawned) | 1 second | Evoke the Rogue’s Stun Grenades, stunning and dealing damage to enemies. |
| Ton | Magic | 20 Offering (Overflow: Increased meteorites spawned) | 1 second | Evoke the Sorcerer’s Meteorites, dealing damage to enemies. |
| Tal | Magic | 100 Offering (Overflow: increased swarms spawned) | 1 second | Evoke the Spiritborn’s Pestilent Swarm, dealing damage to enemies. |
| Ceh | Magic | 100 Offering (Overflow: Summon multiple wolves) | 1 second | Summon a Spirit Wolf to attack enemies for eight seconds. |