Runes and sockets

Runes are items that fit into the sockets of your gear and add effects to the piece: elemental damage, attack speed, resistances, life and much more.

• Socketing is free: drag the rune onto a free socket in the Inventory. Each rune grade needs a minimum level.
• Removing is done at the Artificer's Bench, Runes tab, for a gold cost, and the rune comes back whole.
• Each rune has 5 grades (from Chipped to Ancestral). The Ancestral grade only drops in high-tier Maps.
• Multiplicative runes are the strongest: only one fits per item.
• Most items drop without sockets. The Artificer's Chisel opens a socket up to the piece's limit, and the Abyss Seal can add a socket beyond that limit.
• Fire, cold and lightning runes make the weapon glow in the element's color in your hero's hands.
• Abyssal runes (Abyssal Shadow, Abyssal Hunger, Abyssal Echo) never drop and are never sold: Dravo and Dorin forge them from Abyssal Ingots and gold, from the Abyssal Rifts. Only one abyssal rune fits per item.