After you complete the main campaign quest called Fundament of Faith in Diablo 4’s first expansion Vessel of Hatred, you unlock the ability to obtain Runes. These runes can be inserted into your gear and create Runewords.
Runewords are actually highly customizable Trigger and Effect enchantments in the game, and they will change accordingly based on Ritual and Invocation Runes you insert. In short, the more runes you get, the more Runewords you can combine, and your build will have uncommon abilities.
There are many ways to farm runes in Vessel of Hatred DLC, and in this guide we will introduce you to the most efficient farming methods, which will greatly reduce the time you spend on rune acquisition and create different effects enhancements for your build.
From Campaign Bosses
As you progress through Vessel of Hatred campaign, you will reach Kurast Bazaar and complete Fundament of Faith quest. After you complete this quest, you will unlock the unique Rune system of this expansion and receive your first Runes and Diablo 4 Gold rewards.
And each mandatory story boss in the campaign will drop at least one Rune after being defeated by you. But you need to be aware that you can only complete Vessel of Hatred campaign once per character, and you cannot challenge a boss repeatedly to get more Runes.
This method is the most stable way to farm Runes in the DLC. Although you can only get a small amount of Runes in it, you can trade Runes between your multiple characters, which are allowed.
Complete Kurast Undercity Activities
We just introduced a onetime way to farm runes, and now we will introduce Kurast Undercity Activities, which is a new way to farm repeatedly in Vessel of Hatred DLC. There is a timer in Kurast Undercity Activities. As long as you complete the activity before the countdown, you will get the rewards you want, including runes.
If you use Tributes before running, you can get some specific rewards after the run. For example, Tribute of Harmony can guarantee that you will get a lot of runes after Kurast Undercity Activities are completed, and some of them are high-tier Runes.
Defeat World Bosses
This farming method is available in both Vessel of Hatred expansion and the new Season of Hated Rising, as both versions of the game have World Bosses. The classic World Bosses still spawn weekly and reward you with Runes, Diablo 4 Gold, and other unique rewards after you fight them.
But in the latest base game and expansion, you can repeatedly fight a new World Boss called Realmwalker. Realmwalkers will appear in random areas of the Sanctuary a few minutes after you defeat the last classic World Boss.
It should be noted that you cannot hurt Realmwalkers in the early stages of the battle. You must first clear the surrounding defenses - waves of enemies and elites, before you can really fight it. It will also reward you with some runes, and sometimes high-tier Runes.
In addition, you will be rewarded with some runes after completing each Realmwalker Event. Some require you to defeat the boss in Seething Realm, while others only require you to defeat Hollows and Elites along the way. This has become the best way for many players to farm runes.
First Clear Of Strongholds
When you use a character to clear Strongholds in Diablo 4 Vessel Of Hatred for the first time, you will get very generous rewards, including a lot of XP boost and a lot of Diablo 4 Items that can enhance your build, and of course runes.
It should be noted here that if your character has already explored some Strongholds in previous seasons of the base game, it does not matter, and it will also be counted as the first exploration in the DLC. Similarly, each character can only claim the first clear reward once.
From Whisper Caches
When you look at the map of Sanctuary, you will see some icons representing Whispers, which are special events where you can get Grim Favors. Once you have enough Grim Favors in Whispers event, you can go to Tree of Whispers in Hawezar to exchange for Whisper Caches.
There will be a lot of Whisper Caches to choose from, but don’t worry, all of them will provide you with runes. However, it is important to note that obtaining Grim Favors is very dependent on luck and randomness, so you should not use it as your main method of farming runes. You can try to farm it while waiting for Helltides and other World Events to occur.
From All Elites
In addition to waiting for events to appear or defeating some tough bosses, there is another way to farm runes that covers everything in the game, which is to defeat Elites that appear in the game.
Although an Elite can drop very few runes, when there are events with numerous Elites, such as Nightmare Dungeons, The Pit, Dark Citadel, or Helltide events, your farming speed will be much faster than in the open world. So you can pay more attention when these events appear or run.
These are some of the most effective ways to farm important runes in Diablo 4 Vessel Of Hatred. Hopefully, you can get more runes with the help of this guide and create Runewords that best suit your build. Have fun exploring the new expansion!
