Changes

See Devising and implementing the effects of the Runestones was a tremendous amount of work for Diablo III's developers and artists; there are nearly 120 skills in the game, each with a basic function which is modified in at least four or five totally different ways by each runestone. ===Basics (Old Version)=== Runestones come in five types, and a particular kind of bonus or alteration is typical of each. For instance, the main [[Crimson Rune]] generally adds damage or a fire effect. However the effects that runestoneshave vary greatly with the skills themselves - a skill that doesn't deal damage may not gain a damaging effect from a Crimson Rune, but rather be altered in some other way. In addition to the five types, Runestones also occur in seven levels of quality, with increasingly potent effects. A Runestone of one level always has a more dramatic effect than a Runestone of a lower level, usually in the sense that it affects a given skill in the same way, but to a greater extent. It is not generally known whether or not it will be possible to combine Runestones of one quality level to generate higher-level Runestones, however all seven quality levels are dropped by [[monsters]]<ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/runestone-info-galore/ Bashiok forum post] - Blue Tracker, January 2011</ref>. The Runestone naming scheme has changed several times during development. The current iteration was devised in early 2010 and made public in May of that year when [[Bashiok]] <ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/new-skill-rune-names-revealed/ Bashiok forum post] - Blue Tracker, May 2010</ref> revealed the names to be [[Crimson]], [[Indigo]], [[Obsidian]], [[Golden]] and [[Alabaster]]. This change coincided with considerable changes to their effects. The current effects to all skills can be viewed with the Blizzard [http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/ build calculator] page , released along with the Beta. ===Rune Tool Tips=== [[File:Indigo-rank1-2.jpg|thumb|Nondescript description.]]The tool tip that displays when a rune is hovered over is not informative. It simply says, "socket in skills for a special bonus." To obtain information about what a rune actually does, players need to click on the rune to pick it up , then hover it over their available skills. The tool tip will then briefly describe what effect the rune will grant that skill. Since just the word descriptions aren't that informative, most players will want seek out additional information from a wiki or video of the skill in action. Or simply plan on testing out a lot of rune functions before deciding on what they want to use long term.  ===Proposed Changes to Rune Functionality=== [[Image:Rune_tutorials.jpg|thumb|300px|left|Likely to be unused attunement tutorials.]]The following portion is still theory for the development team, revealed on August 1st, 2011, after a press event.Jay Wilson described a slightly changed rune system from what fans are accustomed to. Note that this system is still theoretical, it has not been implemented or tested and it is unknown whether it will be released in any form. The proposed change does not fundamentally alter the function of runes. The core function of socketing a rune into a skill to change how the skill works is still present.However, the "color" system of the runes would be dropped in favor of runes that are "Unattuned". The player would "attune" the rune by socketing it into a skill. Whatever effect the rune would have on the skill would not be known beforehand, making runes sort of similar to date [[Jewel]]s in Diablo II.In addition to this, each rune, once attuned (or identified to follow Diablo parlance) would also have another passive benefit on it, such as an increase to [[Attack]] or another [[stat]]. This is perhaps an attempt by the development team to add in more customisation after the loss of [[Charms]] and the [[Talisman]]. Once the rune is socketed and attuned, it would then be permanently fixed, unless they chose to add in a crafting recipe to "wipe" the rune back to a blank slate.     ===Early Functions=== Prior to Blizzcon 2010, the Runestones (which had different names at the time) were generally accepted to do the following: * [[Alabaster rune]]: Wild card functions.* [[Crimson rune]]: Generally provides +damage and/or fire damage.* [[Golden rune]]: Generally reduces the resource cost. * [[Indigo rune]]: Generally provides multishot in some form.* [[Obsidian rune]]: Wild card functions. At Blizzcon it was revealed that this simple, predictable approach, had largely been discarded.  ===Higher-Level Runestone Functions=== A Runestone's function tends to vary in a quantitative way with its level of quality, rather than in a qualitative way. For example, an Indigo Rune adds multishot to Magic Missile; higher level Indigo Runes don't change that function, but rather increase the number of projectiles generated. However Runestones of some quality levels also have qualitative advantages over lower-level Runestones of the same type. <blue><font color="#FFFFFF">Will the increase in rank continue the change that the first rank made to the skill? For example, with the WD blow dart skill, the alabaster runes turn the dart into a snake. What does a higher ranking alabaster rune do?</font><br><b>Bashiok:</b> Yes, the mechanic stays the same for the rune type in all ranks (more or less). It simply increases in power. For the Alabaster-in-Poison Dart example I’m actually not sure the increase in effect, but it likely plays off of the stun effect (higher ranks stun the target for longer). Runes that reduce cost reduce even more cost as the rank increases. A rune that would cause multiple projectiles would fire even more projectiles as the rank increases, etc.  It’s not necessarily a hard and fast rule though that the increase must only be one thing. Maybe it means more projectiles AND ups the damage a little to make sure it remains competitive with other runes or skills. It has to be a somewhat fluid system.</blue>  ===Runestone Scarcity===[[Image:IconRunestones.png|right]]There are seven Runestone quality levels, roughly distributed so that levels one and two are found as a character progresses through Normal, three and four are found in Nightmare, five and six in Hell, and the final seventh rank is found exclusively in [[Inferno]] (each Runestone's quality can be determined by the number of points around its edge). It's not known how common or rare Runestones will be, or whether or not all five types will be equally difficult to find. The most recent information about the subject came from a forum post by Bashiok in January 2011.<ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/runestone-info-galore/ Bashiok forum post] - Blue Tracker, January 12, 2011</ref> <blue><font color="#FFFFFF">Are all five runesequally as rare or is one or more types rarer than others?</font><br><b>Bashiok:</b> That’s a good question, I can see how that could be justified. I don’t know what the plan is there, I’ll have to ask. My gut is that it would be too much to keep some type of rune ‘power rating’ in mind when altering drop rates, especially post-release where patches could jumble them around a fair bit. “This rune sucks now but it’s still the rarest!”  Also, ideally, each rune type will be equally viable to different people and builds. Saying one is more powerful than another would mean we’re probably balancing them to be, and that’s not the case.</blue>  ===Rune Crafting/Upgrading=== The D3 Team has confirmed that the [[Mystic]] will have some [[crafting]] [[recipes]] to create new Runestones, though there are no details yet, other than that they will use old Runestones in the process. It will also be possible to [[salvage]] unneeded Runestones for magical materials, and even make new ones from scratch. It's not known if the Mystic can upgrade the quality of runestones though, as the [[jeweler]] can by combining three [[gems]] of the same type/level to create one of the next higher level. This page archives older  ===Easy Socketing=== [[Image:Runestone_ui.jpg|frame|The [[interface]] for runestone infosocketing.]]Socketed runestones will be freely swappable. Players will be able to replace runestones at any time, at no cost and traces without risk of losing the evolution runestone. The [[D3 Team]] has committed to easy runestone swapping in the final game, but they have said there will be some sort of limitation, purely to prevent macro-switching exploits. They want swapping to be easy and forgiving, but not something that can be done automatically by a third party program, which could lead to constant, effortless switching, which they think of as contrary to their intended style of play.  The team has not yet revealed what form this game system limitation will take, but it could be something as simple as requiring players to return to town, or to use one of the [[Artisans]] to switch out runes.  ===Confirmed Runestone Examples=== While one or two rune properties are known (or can be easily guessed) for most skills, Blizzard has only revealed all five runestone effects for a few skills. There may yet be additional changes to these effects, as development continues up to and even after release. With the release of the Beta, Blizzard revealed the [http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/ build calculator], which has detailed information on all of the current rune enhancements. See below for some examples (historical and current).  ===Plague of Toads=== [[File:Runes-plague-of-toads-all.jpg|thumb|400px|Plague of Toads rune options.]]The rune functions for [[Plague of Toads]], a [[Witch Doctor skill]] were revealed during a panel discussion at Blizzcon 2010. The basic skill has the Witch Doctor throwing out several toads, which hop forwards in erratic, [[Charged Bolt]]-esque fashion. * [[Alabaster rune]]: The toads also blind enemies.* [[Crimson rune]]: Flaming toads add fire damage to their attack.* [[Golden rune]]: Reduced cost per cast.* [[Indigo rune]]: Changes the skill to a rain of toads, which fall down on the targeted location. * [[Obsidian rune]]: Summons a single, huge, stationary frog that uses a sticky tongue to capture and consume monsters in one gulp. It spits out the treasure and items. The mega-toad can eat [[Champions]] (possibly only at higher/highest rune level?), but not [[bosses]] or (presumably) bigger enemies.  ===Poison Dart=== The rune functions for [[Poison Dart]], a [[Witch Doctor skill]], were revealed during a panel discussion at [[BlizzCon 2010]]. The basic skill is a fairly slow-working spell that fires a single poison dart that deals poison damage and some [[DoT]].* [[Alabaster rune]]: Blows out a face-biting snake that stuns the target* [[Crimson rune]]: Adds fire damage to the poison dart.* [[Golden rune]]: Steals [[mana]] with each dart hit.* [[Indigo rune]]: Fires multiple darts.** Level One: Two darts.** Level Two: Four darts.* [[Obsidian rune]]: Slows the poisoned target.  ===Hydra=== [[File:Runes-hydra-all.jpg|thumb|400px|Hydra skill rune effects.]]The rune functions for [[Hydra]], a [[Wizard skill]] were revealed during a panel discussion at Blizzcon 2010. The basic skill summons a fiery dragon that breaks through the earth and spits firebolts at nearby enemies. * [[Alabaster rune]]: Turns the Hydra purple and the damage type to Arcane.* [[Crimson rune]]: Turns the Hydra blue and the damage type to a short-range chilling frost spray.* [[Golden rune]]: Creates a giant hydra that deals higher damage via AoE Firewalls.* [[Indigo rune]]: Turns the hydra blue and the projectiles to lightning balls that never miss.* [[Obsidian rune]]: Turns the hydra green and the damage to a splashing poison acid. This Hydra information was revealed at Blizzcon in October 2010. It shows changes even since August, when one of Hydra's rune effects was a faster/multishot, instead of the Acid element.  These bonuses also show how unpredictable the effects are. By previous knowledge and logic, Crimson should be the +damage/firewalls effect, since it was first generally adds damage and/or fire effects. Possibly the developers are shuffling rune bonuses around randomly, in order to make the runes equivalently useful. Rather than, for instance, allowing Crimson to be the most useful and Golden the least, on the whole.  ===Throw Weapon=== The rune functions for [[Throw Weapon]], a [[Barbarian skill]], were revealed during a panel discussion at Blizzcon 2010. The basic skill is a ranged attack in 2008which the Barbarian is able to hurl his weapon with distance and accuracy. The weapon magically reappears in his hands after each toss. * [[Alabaster rune]]: Enemies struck by the weapon grow confused.* [[Crimson rune]]: Adds damage to the thrown weapon.* [[Golden rune]]: Throws a monster corpse rather than the weapon. Less range, but bigger damage.* [[Indigo rune]]: Adds ricochet, allowing the weapon to strike multiple targets.* [[Obsidian rune]]: Throws a stunning hammer, rather than the equipped weapon.  '''The below was added to this archive on 26 July 2011.'''