Information about Runes in Diablo Immortal, including what are Runes, what do you use Runes for and how do you find Runes?

What Are Runes Used For in Diablo Immortal?¶

Runes have been part of the Diablo universe for a good two decades now, but outside of Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction, where they attained the height of their popularity and usefulness, they’ve been largely relegated to secondary roles. Diablo Immortal is, unfortunately, no exception, as instead of combining various runes to create all-powerful runewords, here they’re ultimately used craft Legendary Gems. Runes can also be traded via the Fading Essence and Runes Merchant to obtain higher-tier Runes.

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Jewelers will craft Legendary Gems for you provided you bring them the correct runes.

Using Runes to Craft Legendary Gems¶

Crafting Legendary Gems is a service provided by Jewelers, and you have recipes for crafting specific 1-Star and 2-Star Legendary Gems directly, as well as three different recipes for crafting random Legendary Gems. This includes a recipe for randomly creating a 1-Star Legendary Gem, one that guarantees you a 2-Star Legendary Gem, and one that can produce a Legendary Gem of 1, 2, or 5-Star quality.

Using specific 1-Star and 2-Star Legendary Gem recipes invariably requires ATI runes, while the randomized Legendary Gem recipes require FA runes. More on those, below.

How to Find Runes in Diablo Immortal?¶

Aside from trading various magic and rare Runes for ATI runes, and trading Fading Essence for FA runes, the only way to earn Runes is by clearing Elder Rifts. Using a Legendary Crest or Rare Crest to empower the Elder Rift will guarantee several Rune drops, with more Runes dropping as more Crests are expended. The quality of the Runes vary, but you’ll typically only obtain component runes this way, while ATI runes and FA runes can be more readily obtained by trading at the Fading Essence and Runes Merchant.

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You can trade Fading Essences to acquire FA runes.

How to Obtain ATI Runes at the Fading Essence and Runes Merchant¶

While the two most used Runes in Diablo Immortal are the ATI rune and the FA rune, there are a host of other runes that largely only serve two purposes - as secondary requirements to craft specific 1-Star and 2-Star Legendary Gems, and as bulk resources you can trade for ATI runes. You can trade Runes by visiting the Fading Essence and Runes Merchant:

• If you pick the “Magic Runes Trade” option you can trade a dozen magic-grade runes (WEH, NIE, PYR, LUX, ORD, SYL, BOL, ENT, DRO, VOX, RAE, TYR, AUD, etc.) for one ATI rune. You can mix and match however many of these runes you wish in any configuration, as long as you fork over a dozen you’ll get your ATI rune.

• If you pick the “Rare Runes Trade” option you can trade three rare-grade runes (NOU, IMM, CIR, LAZ, ZUH, PHY, etc.) for one ATI rune. You can mix and match however many of these runes you wish in any configuration, as long as you fork over three you’ll get your ATI rune.

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ATI runes can be obtained by trading in other runes.

How to Obtain FA Runes at the Fading Essence and Runes Merchant¶

You’ll obtain Fading Essences by completing Elder Rifts, whether you empower them with a Legendary Crest, Rare Crest, or use no Crests at all. Fading Essences in turn can be traded for FA runes at the Fading Essence and Runes Merchant:

• You can expend 18x Fading Essences to obtain 1x FA rune (see above) by selecting the “Fading Embers Trade” option.

The sole purpose of Fading Essence is to trade to the Fading Essence and Runes Merchant for FA runes. 18x Fading Essences will earn you 1x FA rune, meaning it’ll take two Crest empowered Elder Rift runs to afford a FA rune, while it’ll take three Crestless Elder Rift runs to score enough Fading Essences to score a FA rune.

FA runes in turn can be used at the Jeweler to craft one of three random Legendary Gem recipes, including one that guarantees you a 1-Star Legendary Gem, one that guarantees you a 2-Star Legendary Gem, and one that can produce a Legendary Gem of 1, 2, or 5-Star quality. These take 7x FA runes, 28x FA runes or 22x FA runes, respectively, and are a reliable - albeit painfully slow - way to accumulate Legendary Gems without spending real money.

How slow? Let’s do some math. Every Crestless Elder Rift run earns you 8x Fading Essences, and you need 18x Fading Essences to trade in for a FA rune. To cleanup the math a bit, nine Elder Rift runs will get you 72x Fading Essences, which trade in for 4x FA runes. The “Random Legendary Gem” recipe requires 22x FA runes, so it’ll take roughly 40 Crestless Elder Rift runs to get one roll at a 1, 2 or 5-Star Legendary Gem. Assuming it takes you between two and three minutes per run, that’s an hour and a half to two hours of grinding per Legendary Gem.