Rune

Prof.	Minor	Major	Superior

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. There are only three runes applicable to bags: Rune of Belt Holding, Rune of Holding, and Superior 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 armor 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. Two Superior Communing runes would reduce the player's health by 150, whilst only providing +3 Communing. On the other hand, two Runes of Vitae would stack for a net bonus of +20.

Name	Rarity	Stats
Profession-specific runes
<Profession> Rune of Minor <Attribute>	Minor / Blue	<Attribute> +1 (Non-stacking)
<Profession> Rune of Major <Attribute>	Major / Purple	<Attribute> +2 (Non-stacking) Health -35
<Profession> Rune of Superior <Attribute>	Superior / Gold	<Attribute> +3 (Non-stacking) Health -75
Warrior Rune of Minor Absorption	Minor / Blue	Reduces physical damage by 1 (Non-stacking)
Warrior Rune of Major Absorption	Major / Purple	Reduces physical damage by 2 (Non-stacking)
Warrior Rune of Superior Absorption	Superior / Gold	Reduces physical damage by 3 (Non-stacking)
Profession-independent runes
Rune of Minor Vigor	Minor / Blue	Health +30 (Non-stacking)
Rune of Major Vigor	Major / Purple	Health +41 (Non-stacking)
Rune of Superior Vigor	Superior / Gold	Health +50 (Non-stacking)
Rune of Attunement	Minor / Blue	Energy +2
Rune of Vitae	Minor / Blue	Health +10
Rune of Clarity	Major / Purple	Reduces Blind duration on you by 20% (Non-stacking) Reduces Weakness duration on you by 20% (Non-stacking)
Rune of Purity	Major / Purple	Reduces Disease duration on you by 20% (Non-stacking) Reduces Poison duration on you by 20% (Non-stacking)
Rune of Recovery	Major / Purple	Reduces Dazed duration on you by 20% (Non-stacking) Reduces Deep Wound duration on you by 20% (Non-stacking)
Rune of Restoration	Major / Purple	Reduces Bleeding duration on you by 20% (Non-stacking) Reduces Crippled duration on you by 20% (Non-stacking)

Container runes

A Rune of Holding and Superior Rune of Holding upgrades the carrying capacity of a bag by +5 slots and +10 slots, respectively. Unlike armor runes, a Holding Rune does not add a suffix to the name of the item it upgrades. Also, unlike armor runes, it can only be purchased from merchants, acquired from collectors, or from Jessie Llam in Great Temple of Balthazar or Embark Beach. Runes of Holding will only work on bags, not Charr Bags, nor Zehtuka's Pack. (Superior) Runes of Holding will not work on belt pouches, nor Equipment Packs.

Rune of Belt Holding upgrades the carrying capacity of a Belt Pouch by +5 slots.

Notes

• Runes can overwrite each other.
• The effect of Runes of Vitae and Attunement stacks.
• Attribute-enhancing runes stack with bonuses from headpieces but not with each other.
• Runes are not included when a skill template is pinged, so the attributes are shown at their base level. However, runes are considered part of equipments and so are shown when a PvP equipment template is pinged.
• There are some farming builds that require low health, like the 55 builds. Superior attribute runes are used to decrease the character's health to use such builds effectively.

Condition runes

• All condition-reducing runes stack with other condition-reducing effects (such as insignia and certain skills). The reductions are each applied separately and each rounded separately.
  • For example, if a character has two 20% reduction modifiers against blindness and an 8-second long blindness is inflicted, each modifier reduces the duration by 2 seconds (1.6 rounded up to 2), thus reducing the total duration to 4 seconds. If the blind was only 7 seconds long, each modifier would reduce it by 1 second (1.4 seconds rounded down to 1) for a total reduction of 2 seconds (resulting in a 5-second blindness).

Original time [s]	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25
Effect of 20% reduction [s]	0	0	0	1	1	1	1	1	2	2	2	2	2	3	3	3	3	3	4	4	4	4	4	5	5	5
Resulting time [s]	0	1	2	2	3	4	5	6	6	7	8	9	10	10	11	12	13	14	14	15	16	17	18	18	19	20

Rune prices

• The minimum price of any rune and insignia sold to a trader is 25, but like all other weapon and armor upgrades, they can be identified to increase their value. Although the identified values vary a lot, minor runes usually increase prices up to 26-50, major up to 52-100 and superior up to 104-200.
• Trade prices for runes vary considerably and can run to several platinum.

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