Understanding Runes

A rune is an item that can be added to your armor to grant you an attribute boost, sometimes at the cost of maximum health. These can be salvaged from salvage items with purple or gold text usually. You must use an Expert Salvage Kit in order to have a change of getting the rune, although it is still not a 100% chance.

In Guild Wars, there is an option to create PvP only characters. These characters can only participate in PvP combat, and cannot go to any towns or missions. When playing on an RP character, any time you stumble across a nice item (runes, weapon upgrades, new skills) it will be 'unlocked' and will be available to your PvP only characters.

I hope that all makes sense. If not, please ask, I'm always happy to help re-habilitate former SWG players.

(My condolences for the valuable years of your life you have lost to that game. Welcome back to the rest of the world. )

Runes give bonuses to different things. There are Vigor runes, and profession-specific runes. Vigor runes can be used by anyone, profession-specific can only be used by someone with the right PRIMARY profession.

When the game tells you you have unlocked a rune, what that means is that from then on, that rune will be available for PvP characters you make. This is usually accomplished by identifying an item that has a rune. Identify kits can be bought from merchants.

To acquire the actual rune for your character, you will need an Expert Salvage Kit. The first place these are available is Yak's Bend, however there are many people (myself included) who will go get one for you. Be aware that they cost 400 gold. I usually charge someone 450, unless they seem genuinely nice then I just charge them what I paid. Also, even with an Expert Salvage Kit there is no guarantee that you will actually get the rune. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. I have been pretty lucky myself.

You can Expert Salvage a lot of things, but my rule of thumb is, if you are hunting runes, only Expert Salvage items with descriptive names. For example, a Shortbow of Defense most likely has a rune associated with it, while a Shortbow does not. I have gotten runes from the blue, purple, AND the yellow items.

"My condolences for the valuable years of your life you have lost to that game. Welcome back to the rest of the world."

----- oh you don't have any idea as to how much time I have lost due to that horrible game. lol

thank you very much for the feedback.

im asumming the item will need to say "salvage item" in its decription, inorder to get the RUNE.

i think i 'unlocked' a weapon last night (the screen said it was unlocked). i could have sworn i used the "ID Kit" on it and the end result was a Sword of )(blah blah).

when i get ingame and check it out...mind if I send you a PM with any questions I have regarding this ( I promise to only send one)? thank you ever so much..very nice of you.

sincerly,

n00blet ( I love being a n00b) lol

Actually, the majority of the runes I have found came from actual items, not salvage items. I have gotten plenty from salvage items, but more have come from weapons/shields/etc. I've gotten as drops.

So if an elementalist discovers a warrior rune do they unlock it for pvp? Or do they have to equip it to unlock it, meaning you would have to be the right primary to unlock it?

Or do you only discover runes of your primary?

Yes, if it says it is unlocked, it is unlocked. To unlock the rune has nothing to do with your profession, only to equip the rune. You can unlock runes without ever actually getting your hands on the rune itself. When you do salvage an actual rune that isn't your profession, what I do is either throw it in the vault if I think it would go with one of my other toons, or I try to trade it for a rune of my profession.

Ah right, my aim to is to level all 6 classes using my 3 rp slots, leaving me with all options/combos for the pvp slot. Just wanted to make sure I wouldn't be missing out on unlocking items/runes.

Thanks Lasher

No problem. I have just been playing 1 character so far, with the exception of one I made just to go try and charm a bear pre-sear LOL. Gave up on that after a couple hours.

Did you try to do it with a monk/mes or a monk/hamm warr in tow?

Perhaps with a friend like that they could take on initial aggro and just focus on keeping themselves alive while you try to charm.

Yep, tried that. It didn't matter - the bear could be focused solely on destroying my buddy and he will still instantly break charm. We've tried timing it out with bane signet/knockdown and get close but no cigar. It's too frustrating, I'll just get a bear in the mountains post-sear lol.

Ya know, those bears are supposedly not charmable.

Everyone I know with a bear got their's outside the mines.

I saw some screenshots of a person in pre-sear with a bear, and no it wasn't a beta build. Ever since then I really wanted to build a Mountain Man build - W/R with Axe, Strength, and split between tactics & beast mastery.

Speaking of which - I WANT FACIAL HAIR!!!!

LOL

Kinda hard to do Grizzly Adams clean-shaven.

As far as i can tell, only creatures with a green name (non-aggro) can be charmed. Tell me if I'm wrong but that's what i've noticed so far, anyway.

Aside from that, we are getting off topic here. Thanks.

Back on topic...

Did I just waste a superior rune of absorbtion.

I bought the high end armor lastnight, and added my sup absorb to the chest piece. little while later I snagged a major absorbtion and added it to the leggings. Did I just negate the effects of the superior by adding that major??

also, is there a way to check what your overall armor rating is ?

No you didn't negate it, or you shouldn't have anyways, you may have one rune per piece of armor so your leggings won't affect your chest piece(unless your leggings say -XXX health instead of +)

And to check your armor rating count it up :P

No, you didn't negate the Superior - however, you did waste the Major. 2 runes of the same type do not stack; the better of the two is the one that takes precedence.
Edit: If you really want the Major rune back (to sell or give to another of your characters) you could Expert Salvage and you MIGHT get the rune back, however you will lose whatever piece of armor the rune is on so will have to have that piece remade.

There is no way to check overall armor rating - this game doesn't calculate armor that way. As far as I know, each section of body has it's own armor, and every hit is modified by the armor on the section of body the hit occured.

Crap. oh well, live and learn. thank you for clearing that up for me.

One more question about runes and where you can get them from. I have found several items that when I have identified them, actually indicate that a rune could be salvaged from them. These items had blue descriptions. Are you saying that any blue, purple or gold item could contain a rune even if when identified, it doesn't indicate that? I have a item with a purple description but does not indicated that it is unidentifed nor does it show any special attributes. Is it possible to get a rune from that?

If it doesn't say there's a rune in it, there's no rune.

For some reason I have never seen a purple armor contain any rune at all, and I must have gotten maybe 5-7 purple armors. However, every blue armor I have gotten always contained a rune, so I wonder if purple armor's bugged?

I've stumbled across 2 runes, and both were from purple armor drops (around the Shiverpeaks). I suppose it's one of those YMMV scenarios.