The RW rework aims to make the process of creating a runeword more exciting and less about the monotonous rerolling of bases, jewels, and affix rolls. We want to make the runes themselves be the center of attention, so their drops can be relevant and thrilling once again.
Step 1: Reducing rune count
There are too many of them. Runes between Sha and On really add nothing to the table, and truth be told, they look nowhere as good as the vanilla ones. This rework begins by reducing the "basic" rune amount to the classic 33 runes, with Zod being the highest.
Don't worry, the stats obtained from the runes have been re-organized, You can still get all of the practically useful stats for socket fillers.
Step 2: Making runes less quest-centric
Whether it's Teganze, Fauztinville or Toraja, the current most powerful runes are all locked away in specific rifts. We want the core rune kit to be available in all zones, so you're "always" farming for them - and they are an essential part of the game.
- Xis rune is removed
- Enhanced runes are now world drops (each higher rune being rarer)
- Enhanced runes become an extension of the "basic" runes
- 2 Zod runes can be upgraded into Ol Rune (previously El-Xis Rune)
- Two equal enhanced runes can be upgraded into the next higher rune
- Toraja runes are removed, and Toraja is now a Dungeon rather than Rift.
In other words, you now have the 33 basic runes and the same runes (with improved stats) as a continuation. So, enough El (r01) runes can technically make you a Xod (r66) rune, but... please don't try it.
Step 3: Reducing repetitive cube tasks (rerolling)
There shouldn't be a guide to making runewords, should there? We believe that once you've assembled the runes you need, there shouldn't be a ton of extra fiddly steps required to make your desired item.
- Base Items:
- Limit of 1 Oil of Renewal per item
- Superior items can no longer be luckied
- Superior Weapons now have an innate "lucky" bonus:
- Spawns with 35-60% enhanced damage or,
- Spawns with 35-50% enhanced damage and 50-100% attack rating
- Superior Armor now have an innate "lucky" bonus:
- Spawns with 35-60% enhanced defense or,
- Spawns with 35-50% enhanced defense and 1% physical resist
- Jewels:
- Can still be used as fillers prior to inserting the runes
- Since runewords will use multiple runes, this naturally means less time crafting jewels
- Runewords:
- Runewords can no longer be unsocketed (other qualities still can)
- Reduced stat variance to lower the impact of randomness
It is worth noting that the power level of the new runewords is greater than before, and accounts for the loss of jewel space and re-rolling (which was already disabled for the old enhanced runes).
Step 4: Fixing the actual runewords
We felt like runes weren't in a great place prior to starting this long-awaited rework, so we took a step back and improved everything we didn't like about them before introducing changes to the runewords themselves.
The first step was to look into our realm stats and see which runewords were not used at all.
- If the item was conceptually good but simply undertuned, we brought those numbers up and added new stats
- If the item brought nothing to the table, was not fun to use or heavily outdated, we removed it
- For each runeword with an enhanced pair, we only kept one of them (no more mirrored stats)
Finally, and as you can tell from the image, there are many new exciting runewords awaiting you in 2.0!
The release date will be revealed soon