Path of Exile 2: Runes of Aldur - Runecrafting
Summary
- Runecrafting Expansion: The “Return of the Ancients” update introduces the Runes of Aldur league, significantly expanding the rune system in Path of Exile 2.
- Remnant Encounters: Players can interact with remnants featuring two to seven slots to select from a variety of crafting runes to enhance gear.
- Diverse Rune Categories: Runes include options for defense (runic ward), weapon-specific powers, leveling assistance, and high-level crafting modifiers.
- Unique Mechanics: Special runes offer permanent, powerful effects, such as adding suffixes, creating dual sockets, or converting elemental damage types.
- Aldur’s Legacy: A new system allows players to destroy specific unique items to create powerful runes that inherit properties from the original item.
- System Improvements: Existing, underutilized runes are receiving significant buffs alongside the introduction of new content.
Remnant Encounters and Crafting
Runes are ancient inscriptions that can be socketed into items to provide power. During the Runes of Aldur league, players will encounter remnants with two to seven slots.
- Locate a remnant.
- Choose between the available crafting runes offered by the remnant.
- Socket the chosen runes into items to grant enhancements.
Higher-slot remnants offer more powerful encounters and a broader selection of choices. Early in the game, these provide access to damage and resistance runes that may otherwise be unavailable at lower levels.
Rune Categories
The update introduces several distinct types of runes:
- Runic Ward Runes (22): Modify or add to “runic ward,” a resource providing protection from death. These can enhance defensive layers or be utilized as offensive weapons via Kalguran runic skills.
- Weapon-Specific Runes (13): Add effects tailored to specific weapon types, such as triggering a second explosion for grenades or granting the “druidic prowess” buff when stunning enemies.
- Leveling Runes (22): Provide significant boosts to elemental resistances or spirit. While powerful at low levels, their value decreases as character levels increase, making them ideal for power-leveling secondary characters.
- High-Level Crafting Runes (6): Expand the pool of modifiers available for high-level crafting. For example, socketing “Katler’s gloom” into gloves enables the crafting of new “decay” modifiers for damage-over-time builds, which can then be refined using standard currency like exalts or chaos orbs.
Permanent and Specialized Effects
Certain runes provide powerful, one-off effects but are bound permanently to the socketed item:
- Adding an extra suffix to an item.
- Creating a dual socket.
- Converting elemental modifiers from one element to another.
- Upgrading other runes beyond their standard limits.
Aldur’s Legacy
This system allows for the creation of over 100 additional unique runes.
- Obtain an “Aldur’s legacy” rune.
- Socket it into any Kalguran or Ezomyte unique item to destroy the item.
- Create a “Legacy of [Unique Name]” rune.
- Socket this new rune into gear to inherit specific properties of the destroyed unique.
- Example: Destroying a “Tramplotoe” creates a “Legacy of Tramplotoe” rune, which, when socketed into boots, allows the player to deal 10% of overkill damage to enemies in a 2-meter radius.
Updates to Existing Systems
In addition to new content, a significant number of existing, underutilized runes have received buffs to improve the overall crafting experience. All changes arrive with the “Return of the Ancients” update on May 29th.