Runes of Aldur League Guide

Introduction

Path of Exile 2’s 0.5 patch features the game’s third League: “Runes of Aldur”. The league adds Ezomyte Remnants to each zone, spawning monsters and granting rewards based on specific Runes you select.

Those who master this mechanic will find themselves drowning in a dizzying number of new types of Rewards – Over 100 new socketable Runes, multiple new crafting mechanics, Runic Ward defenses, and brand-new Kalguuran Skills and supports… pushing characters and builds to new heights!

This is a Pre-Launch Guide, as the Runes of Aldur League is not yet live. This guide is based on publicly available information about Runes of Aldur through reveals, teasers, Q&A, developer comments, etc, and will continue to be updated up through – and after – league launch. As such, information in this guide may be inaccurate, or simply changed by GGG prior to launch.

Finding Remnants

In each zone during the campaign, you will encounter an Ezomyte Remnant. These Remnants spawn only a single pack of monsters with the modifiers you’ve selected.

Clicking it will allow you to choose your monster modifier and reward, and spawn a group of monsters with that modifier for you to kill to get your reward.

At endgame, Remnants are included in the Expedition mechanic. Remnants spawn as a part of Expedition encounters, and grant their monster modifiers not only to the monsters they unearth, but to all monsters for the remainder of the explosion chain.

It’s currently unclear if Remnants will appear in Waystones outside of the Expedition mechanic at endgame, and if so, whether one or the other will be more likely to have encounters with more Rune slots.

Ezomyte Remnants

Each Remnant you encounter will have a number of slots for Runes, with some of the slots pre-filled with Runes. Once you fill the empty slots with runes, it will spawn a group of monsters, and give you your selected reward after you kill them.

Selecting Runes

Upon clicking a Remnant, a UI will pop up, showing you every eligible rune combination based on the current Remnant’s slots and pre-filled Runes. You don’t enter each Rune manually – you simply select an eligible reward, and it will fill in the Runes for that reward automatically.

Rune Effects

The rewards, monster modifiers, and number of waves of monsters are based on the number and specific combination of Runes you select.

For Remnants with many Remnant Slots, the early waves will only have a few of the monster modifiers active, with each wave adding more and more of the selected Rune’s modifiers to the mix.

Unlocking Runes

Not all Runes and combinations are accessible to you at the start of the League. As you progress through the league, you’ll find Runestones, which will unlock additional Runes and combinations to use in future Remnants.

Verisium

Verisium is a currency obtained by killing monsters spawned by Remnant encounters, as well as from the Remnant reward itself. Verisium is used to Runeforge items, and appears to come in several varieties – with some crafts requiring more than just the basic Verisium.

Runeforging

After completing a quest in Ogham (Act 1), you unlock Runeforging. Runeforging allows you to spend Verisium from Remnant encounters to reforge armour items.

Runeforged armour has its base defenses decreased… but adds a new defense stat you can only get this way – Runic Ward.

The amount of Runic Ward added and the amount an item’s base defenses are decreased is determined by the item base – some bases only grant a small amount of Runic Ward, while others grant large amounts at the cost of even more defense stats.

Unique Armours can be runeforged, and some uniques have more transformative effects when runeforged – such as losing ALL of their defenses in favor of Runic Ward.

Unique Weapon Runeforging

After completing a quest in Act 3, you upgrade Runeforging to be able to Runeforge some Unique weapons.

Many low-level uniques can be runeforged, and doing so upgrades them to higher-level versions – making them viable for endgame use for the first time.

In addition to low-level uniques, all Kalguuran-themed uniques can be runeforged. In some cases this is a straight upgrade to their stats like with the low-level uniques… but other uniques are transformed with new modifiers!

Runic Ward

Runic Ward is a new defense stat that can be obtained by equipping Runeforged items. Runic Ward inherently serves as a secondary life pool, but can also be spent as a resource to use Kalguuran Skills and Supports.

Runic Ward appears on the Life Globe, and works like a reverse Energy Shield. While Energy Shield is consumed BEFORE you lose Life from damage, Runic Ward is consumed AFTER your Life is depleted – granting you a bit of extra protection when you would otherwise be dead.

Kalguuran Skills

Kalguuran skills are new skill gems that can be obtained exclusively from Remnant encounters. Unlike regular skills, these skills have no color and do not have any weapon or attribute requirements – and instead of costing Mana, they cost Runic Ward.

These Skills seem to largely modify your other skills in a variety of ways – such as changing their attack pattern, or modifying the ailments you inflict.

Kalguuran Supports

In addition to Kalguuran skill gems, there are new Kalguuran Support gems as well. Despite not being active skills themselves, these Supports also consume Runic Ward to function – either with a Triggered skill that costs Runic Ward, or by modifying the cost of the supported skill to add a Runic Ward cost.

Augments and Runes

The most common reward you can pick from Remnant encounters will be one of a staggering 100 new socketable Runes.

Unlike most Augments, these Runes can mostly only be socketed in a single, specific type of equipment – granting a specific and often niche effect.

Crafting Augments

Some of these Augments are a new type of Augment – Crafting Augments. Rather than grant the item a specific modifier, these Augments modify further crafting on that item – such as adding new modifiers to the pool of possible modifiers.

Socket-bound Augments

This mechanic introduces a new type of Augment – “Socket-bound” Augments. These augments are permanent modifications of an item, and cannot be removed or replaced once socketed into an item.

Integration with Expedition

At Endgame, Remnants are included as a part of the Expedition mechanic – modifying Expeditions to spawn with Remnants inside them.

These Remnants have their usual rewards available, and monsters spawned by them can drop Verisium.

Expedition Rune Modifiers

Expedition Remnants have their runes selected prior to starting the Expedition encounter, and unlike isolated Remnants, their monster modifiers are applied not just to the monsters they unearth, but to every monster for the rest of the Expedition chain.

Because monster modifiers scale up loot drops, this can make Expeditions significantly more difficulty and rewarding, based on how many Remnants and Runes are in the explosion chain.