Runewords vs uniques and rares

[Mr.Freel]

Hey guys,
I've always felt that uniques/rares seemed to out match most rune words, whether they are high or low level. For starters, uniques and rares have tendencies to be miles ahead of the base damage (or defense) of the weapons or armor they are. Also, I find that to even get to the better rune words, you have to get some pretty high level runes, like vex, cham, sur, zod, etc. of which are difficult to craft and find. Another downside of rune words is that many are only available for ladder characters, and cannot be upgraded in a manner similar to the player's ability to upgrading rares and uniques. I would like to know if anyone else feels the same way, or can explain to me the appeal of rune words.
Thank you

 

[Zenigma]

While uniques are fine and dandy, rune words can be immensely powerful; some of the most desired and powerful things a player can get their hands on are only found on rune words: grief and enigma, for example have extremely high damage and oskill teleport, respectively. Rune words can be made in any quality of item, in terms of normal vs exceptional vs elite, so you never have to upgrade if you plan to make them in the base you want the rune word in. Sure, the best ones take lots of time and patience to acquire, see infinity and last wish, but the rarest uniques take an immense amount of time to find, as well. Really, what it boils down to is what best suits your build. Sometimes, that will be a unique item, sometimes a rune word. Don't write either off.
Also, there are forum-approved mods which can enable the use of ladder-only rune words. You can find them in the FAQ that's stickied.

 

[Espr]

Runewords are essentially uniques wherein you choose the base item, giving the player the freedom to choose a base item that works best for the character in question. They are 'upgraded' by re-making them in a better base.

While many of the most powerful runewords are generally ladder only (or RWM), and/or use high runes, there are still many useful runewords that don't fall under those categories. Particularly for self found players/characters, or tournament play, as it often easier/more-reliable to build a specific runeword than find a specific unique during a self found (and perhaps, single-pass) playthrough.

Even discounting ladder only runewords, which includes Spirit and Insight, two of the best/most-widely-used non-HR items in the game, there are many runewords that fill niches that uniques/rares do not, or in some cases fill them better than they can.

Rhyme, Lionheart, Treachery, and Crescent Moon come immediately to mind. Things like Ancient's Pledge (essentially given to you by a quest in act 5), Honor, Black, and Lore can often make a very big difference in the quality of life of a self-found character, and they are far more reliable to get than the few specific uniques that can compete without a fair bit of luck and/or farming.

As for the harder to get runewords whether ladder only or not, they are often game changers to such a degree that very few, if any, uniques/rares can match. Infinity, Enigma, Beast, Grief, Faith, Delirium, Call to Arms, Dream.

 

[pharphis]

Runewords can be "build-enabling items" like the above mentioned Enigma or any other thing with an oskill or aura on it. They add a huge range of flexibility to the game and I wouldn't still be playing D2 if they didn't exist. Actually, I probably wouldn't have played more than a year's worth after 1.13 was released, because high runes are (almost) otherwise useless

 

[Mr.Freel]

Yeah, the one thing I will say I prefer using rune words on is shields, with ancients pledge, you are pretty much an elemental powerhouse. I guess the thing regarding rune words taking more time and possibly being more worth it never really occurred to me in terms of higher levels, i actually usually just use low level rune words until i find a good unique (stealth is my preference)
I just find them to usually be extreme levels of work to get, and none of my higher level characters have yet to need them, but I guess if you're playing multiplayer I can see why you'd want them.

 

[Gripphon]

There are few points to discuss here. First is this what you say it usually takes extreme levels of work to get those godly runewords. Don't know what extreme level of work is for you, but if you have in mind casual playing of the game without some special goal in mind, then yes, those runewords will be hard to get. However if you run certain area with goal of farming runes to make runewords, they can be farmed quite "fast". "Fast" because it's still subjective term. For example fastest way to farm runes is to run LK superchests. It is easily possible to do sub 30 sec runs with a little practice. It takes "only" 1000 runs at average to find Sur there, that is ~8 hours of work with 29 sec running times. With that pace you would farm Grief, Hoto, CtA and Enigma within 32 hours of playing at average. Imagine you play the game 1 hour per day, it means you would farm all those runewords in a single month. Or faster if you are lucky, or slower if you are unlucky. Also its easily possible to do faster runs than 29 sec. Some players do sub 20.

Now is this fast or not is matter of personal perspective and matter of invested playing time.


Second point is a matter of "need". Characters don't need any particular item, really. I'm pretty sure you can finish the game with any character with empty armor slot for example. Do characters need any kind of armor to defeat the game? No they don't. Having armor just makes it easier to do. So it's no wonder you didn't feel the need for those godly runewords, because that is generally truth. I also didn't need CtA or anything when I leveled HC sorc for example.

But many players are building specialized characters at running certain area, to be as fast and as efficient as they can be. Can you beat high council at Travincal at players 3 with WW barb who uses Butcher Pupils, has no teleport, no merc of any kind and so on? Sure you can. Can you kill then inside 45 seconds with that equipment? No, you cannot. Let's take another example, berserker barb running Pit. Can you run Pit without Enigma and Grief? Easy, why not. Can you do 1 minute running of the Pit without Enigma? Not even close. Berserker without Enigma = cool runner. Berserker with Enigma and Grief = most efficient MF char in diablo world.

That's exactly the point of those godly runeword. You don't need them to kill certain area in the game, but you do need them if you care about optimizing your character to be as efficient runner as it can be. Enigma makes world of difference for many characters that way. Grief is unbeatable weapon choice for several characters as well. Infinity makes super-fast Baal runners out of lightning sorc and javazon. CtA makes the runs much safer so you can focus more on damage. With those goals in mind, runewords are greatest items in diablo world by far making biggest upgrades for characters. No unique or rare item can do that in that magnitude, not even close. However, if you don't care about optimizations and want to play the game casually with whatever gear you find, then you can as well play without armor slot as mentioned. Usefulness of runewords is a question of need depending on your goals. Optimization ---> runewords unbeatable. No optimization ---> no need for runewords, many items can work ok.

 

[Mr.Freel]

Well, I'm not really sure how you broke the math down on the time it takes to find the runes themselves, cause i've been playing straight since 2001 and I guess and haven't really found anything higher than hel runes. Also is it just me or are you guys underestimating the power of some of the higher level uniques, rares, and also godlies I'll occasionally do a Baal run and find generally decent stuff, for example i've found godly elite armors before which have a ton more defense than their normal counterparts. I can socket them using the simple socketing item recipes you can find online , using some low level runes and perfect gems, and can then place whatever the hell I want to place in there. The other thing iv'e found is that rares don't really seem to hit the level cap that uniques do, wherein they don't get any better, so I can reliably get pretty good rare items on a regular basis that just seem to get better and better.

 

[Gripphon]

We know exactly what drop probabilities of runes are in Lower Kurast thanks to this thread:

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/threads/1-13-lk-patterns.764531/page-24

We know there are total of 65536 Lk patterns, so it's possible to calculate how often can you expect high rune. Sur has 11 known patterns, so chances for you to get Sur is 11/65536 from a single chest. On 6 chests you get you can expect Sur rune once in 994 runs.

A lot of things have changed since 2001. Big change was 1.13 version where runes became much easier to find. Before it was a luxury to have Enigma, today it's just a question of dedication and pretty much everyone can afford that runeword. I myself traded close to 20 Vex+ runes, used probably 3 times more than that and still have decent collection of them in stashes. Runes are not so special nor hard to find anymore.

Also I'm not underestimating anything. Since I'm optimizing my characters, it is almost my "duty" to know what each item can do, including high level uniques. Like I said, many items can work this way or another. However if you somehow compare Grief Berserker Axe with Death Cleaver Berserker Axe, then I can tell approximately how many times is Grief stronger thanks to damage calculations. Things can be compared with damage calculations, with playing experience and on some other ways. I know that some uniques and rares can be really great, but when you compare those to elite runewords, then you can see they are simply not better.

And again, it seems you are talking about casual playing, clearing random areas etc. Yes, elite uniques and rare items can work great for that. But when you go optimize characters in damage output, survivability, magic find or some other ways, then runewords are strongest items in the game. This doesn't mean I'm not aware of how awesome other items are, I say that exactly because I'm aware of it. I'm also using elite uniques on characters, aka Shako for example. Even some exceptional items like War Travelers and Gore Riders are best boots choices. There are tons of examples of non-elite items being godly, they just don't make as big difference as runewords do.

 

[Mr.Freel]

I get what your'e saying if your'e talking about the point in the game where having an optimized character requires those extremely high level rune words, though I personally don't really see the reason in playing the game that way. I am up to date on the latest patch, but I guess I would need to do runs in where ever you guys are talking about to more easily get those runes.
I appreciate you explaining to me your reasons for using rune words in as much detail as you did, but I guess to actually use that high level of equipment, I would need to do the same runs over and over again, which I frankly never do.

 

[Gripphon]

Basically point of having optimized characters is to farm as fast as you can. Good to farm stuff faster to help your other characters. It also helps to finish the grail if you have efficient runner, some items are extremely rare. Some want optimized characters to get to level 99 faster. Those are some of the reasons why to play the game that way. Naturally some players prefer to do single pass p8 untwinked playing, others want to run areas for fun with random equipment etc.

 

[ioupainmax]

I actually think that you're more likely to get a decent runeword weapon while questing than a unique or rare of the same quality. Take Oath (Shael + Pul + Mal + Lum) in any 4 Socket Sword/Axe/Mace, all it takes is for a good Hellforge drop to get Mal and some luck either questing or at the Countess for the Pul. I'm tripping over Shaels since they drop commonly and Lum is something you could find or cube if necessary. As someone mentioned already, Crescent Moon and Voice of Reason are even easier and all end game weapons.

I haven't read everything in the above walls of text, but there is a distinction to point out if it hasn't already:
- Runeword weapons tend to be better for melee characters
- Unique/Set weapons tend to be better for casters and ranged characters

Do you mostly play casters?

 

[BlizzBallerSorc]

I think the main difference is this:

You can have a really random drop of uniques for a character. You may get some great uniques. Can you use them for that specific character? Most of the time, probably not! Can you even use them for any of your characters if you're playing twinked? Maybe.

With runes/runewords, you can accumulate a lot of runes and make them work to whatever end you'd like. There are so many options that it's as if you could collect tokens that would work towards creating different uniques--that's essentially how runes/runewords work.

And that's why Runewords are sometimes preferred--I've found only 1-3 really useful uniques, but I've made a load of runewords already, and I've only finished 1 Pat/Met.