Rune

A rune is a type of upgrade component for armor and bags. Unless otherwise specified, all instances of the word "rune" in this article refer specifically to armor runes. The only rune applicable to bags is a Rune of Holding. Runes drop in all campaigns and must be extracted from salvage items. Runes can also be purchased from Rune Traders.

Armor runes
Runes (with one exception) are suffix upgrade components which can be used to upgrade armor, to provide a passive benefit to the character wearing the armor. Some of the more powerful runes also possess a downside - they reduce a character's maximum health.

Runes come in two broad varieties:
 * Profession-specific
 * Profession-independent

Profession-specific runes
Profession-specific runes, when inserted into an armor piece, enhance the attribute level of a character wearing that piece of armor. Warriors get an additional type of rune, a Rune of Absorption, that does not enhance an attribute; it instead provides damage reduction. See the table on the right for images of profession-specific runes.

Another property of such runes is that they can only be applied to armor pieces of that profession. In other words, a character can only use runes of their primary profession, since they can only wear the armor of their primary profession. Runes for one profession cannot be applied on another profession's armor piece.

Profession-independent runes
There are also runes that can be used by any profession. Originally, this was limited to Runes of Vigor, but the release of Guild Wars Nightfall introduced six more profession-independent runes. The table below provides a summary.

List of runes
The positive effects of such runes do not stack with the effects of runes of the same attribute - the larger effect takes precedence. The negative effects of equipping several runes of the same attribute do stack. This reduction to player health from wearing redundant runes in this way is the basis of the 55 monk series of builds. An example of runes that do not stack is having two Superior Vigor runes on two different pieces of armor: the bonus to Health is still +50, not +100. On the other hand, two Runes of Vitae would stack for a net bonus of +20.

Runes of Holding
A Rune of Holding upgrades the carrying capacity of a bag from 5 slots to 10 slots. Unlike armor runes, a Rune of Holding does not add a suffix to the name of the item it upgrades. Also, unlike armor runes, it can only be purchased from merchants or acquired from collectors. Runes of Holding will only work on bags, not belt pouches, Charr Bags, Zehtuka's Pack, or Equipment Packs.