The Forge Runes Explained: All Abilities and How to Use Them

When you dive into The Forge, one thing quickly becomes clear: upgrading your gear is key to surviving and thriving. But it’s not just about better weapons or armor. Runes are the secret sauce that can seriously level up your gameplay. They’re rare, powerful, and knowing what each one does can make all the difference.

Here’s a quick answer to what you need to know about runes:

• Runes are special items you get by defeating enemies.
• You can socket them into weapons, armor, and pickaxes to gain buffs.
• Each rune has unique effects, like freezing enemies or healing you.
• You need to upgrade your gear to at least +3 to unlock rune slots.
• Secondary passives add extra bonuses but are rare, randomly rolled, and stack with main effects.

What Are Runes and Why Should You Care?

Runes in The Forge are like magical artifacts that attach to your gear. They give you all sorts of bonuses, from boosting your damage to slowing down enemies. They’re not easy to find, so when you get one, it’s worth paying attention to what it does. Using the right rune on the right piece of equipment can make your fights easier and your mining faster.

The Full List of Runes and What They Do

Here’s a rundown of all 11 runes you can find, along with their main abilities and some important details:

What About Those Secondary Passives?

Sometimes, when you attach a rune, it comes with a bonus secondary passive. These are rare, randomly rolled, and can really boost your stats. They also stack with your rune’s main effect. Here’s what you might get:

Weapon Secondary Passives

• Attack Speed: Hit faster, increasing your attack speed by 5-20%.
• Lethality: More physical damage, increasing weapon damage by 5-15%.
• Critical Chance: Higher chance to land critical hits, increasing crit chance by 5-15%.
• Critical Damage: Stronger critical hits, increasing crit damage by 5-15%.
• Fracture: Extra stun damage to enemies, increasing stun damage by 10-20%.

Armor Secondary Passives

• Endurance: More stamina, increasing stamina by 4-10%.
• Surge: Shorter dash cooldown, reducing dash cooldown by 5-15%.
• Vitality: More max health, increasing max HP by 5-15%.
• Phase: Longer invincibility during dash, increasing dash invincibility duration by 5-15%.
• Stride: Increases dash distance by 5-15% (found on some armor runes).
• Swiftness: Increases movement speed by 5-15% (also on armor runes).

These passives stack with your rune’s main effect, making your gear even better.

Rune Tier Rankings

To help you decide which runes to prioritize, here’s a summary of their tier rankings based on effectiveness and situational use:

• S Tier: Drain Edge (excellent for healing and damage on weapons), Rot Stitch (top-tier armor rune for survivability and poison damage), Miner Shard variants (best for mining efficiency).
• A Tier: Blast Chip (great area damage, especially with high weapon damage), Briar Notch (useful thorn damage reflecting physical hits), Rage Mark (strong berserk mode for clutch situations).
• B Tier: Ward Patch (good defensive rune with damage reduction and dash boost), Flame Spark (fire damage over time for extra DPS).
• C Tier: Frost Speck, Chill Dust (currently unobtainable but useful crowd control), Venom Crumb (obtainable and useful poison damage over time).

Keep in mind that sub stats can significantly affect a rune’s value; for example, a rune with a high Attack Speed or Vitality secondary passive may outperform a higher-tier rune without good sub stats.

How to Get and Use Runes

Runes drop as rare loot from higher-level enemies like Deathaxe Skeletons, Bombers, Reapers, Elite Rogue Skeletons, and zombies. Here are some specific drop sources:

• Rage Mark: Drops from Elite Rogue Skeletons.
• Blast Chip: Drops from Bombers.
• Briar Notch: Drops from Deathaxe Skeletons and Elite Deathaxe Skeletons.
• Drain Edge: Drops from Reapers.
• Miner Shard: Drops from Delver Zombies and Bombers.
• Ward Patch: Drops from zombies, elite zombies, or brute zombies.
• Frost Speck, Venom Crumb, Rot Stitch: Obtainable from zombies.
• Chill Dust: Currently unobtainable in-game.

Runes do not drop from quests; the only reliable source is enemy drops. Recommended farming locations include the Volcanic Depths, where elite enemies drop high-quality runes, and Zombie Brutes for Miner Shard runes.

To use runes:

1. Upgrade your gear to at least +3 to unlock rune slots.
2. Visit the Runemaker NPC in major towns.
3. Attach runes to your weapons, armor, or pickaxes.
4. You can also remove runes here, but it costs coins.

Keep in mind, attaching runes to pickaxes is expensive, and detaching runes from pickaxes costs significantly more coins than from weapons or armor. It’s often better to farm for better runes than to pay for detaching.

Rune Effects on Specific Weapons or Builds

Certain runes synergize better with specific weapons or character builds:

• Frost Speck: Best paired with fast weapons to maximize crowd control via freezing.
• Drain Edge: Ideal for Shadow race or slow, heavy-hitting builds that benefit from life steal and increased physical damage.
• Blast Chip: Works well with high-damage weapons to maximize area damage.
• Miner Shard: Essential for pickaxe users focused on mining efficiency.

Choosing runes that complement your playstyle and weapon type can greatly improve your effectiveness in combat and resource gathering.

Which Runes Should You Focus On?

Some runes stand out depending on your playstyle:

• For mining: Miner Shard runes that boost luck, yield, or mining speed.
• For weapons: Drain Edge is great for healing and damage, Blast Chip for extra area damage.
• For armor: Look for runes with Vitality or Rot Stitch for survivability.

Also, pay attention to the secondary passives. A rune with a +15% attack speed bonus can be more valuable than one with a weaker main effect.

A Few Tips to Keep in Mind

• Don’t waste money attaching weak runes to your pickaxe.
• Save runes with great secondary stats for your best gear.
• Farming in the Volcanic Depths is one of the best ways to get high-quality runes.
• Some runes like Frost Speck and Chill Dust are more about crowd control than damage, but note Chill Dust is currently not obtainable.

Wrapping It Up

Runes are a huge part of what makes The Forge exciting and rewarding. They add layers of strategy to how you build your character and gear. Knowing what each rune does and how to use them can save you a lot of time and coins. Take your time farming the right runes, upgrade your gear, and slot them wisely. You’ll notice your progress speeding up and your battles getting a lot smoother.