Not getting hit also happens to be the best defense in the game, and Enigma is a huge help in that department. If your build doesn’t provide good mobility, Enigma is going to feel incredible.
Steel, mentioned above, makes for one of the best early-game weapons on most melee builds. These particular combinations are powerful options on many build types, though some will be best-in-slot in certain cases. To help you figure out which Runes to be on the lookout for, we’ve compiled some of the best Runewords in Diablo 2.
Runewords create huge power spikes for your character and can help carry you through the game when your other gear is lacking.
Steel in particular is a great early game Runeword, as the bleed effect from Open Wounds provides a lot of free damage that will scale with your character’s level.
This version of Steel you’ve created will keep the base stats (damage, attack speed, attribute requirements) of the scimitar, and gain:Īs you can see, this is a massive power upgrade over a basic Scimitar. Runewords can ONLY be created from normal (white name) quality items with EXACTLY the required number of sockets to create the word.įor example: take a normal scimitar with two sockets and insert the Runes Tir and El to create the Steel Runeword. These potent items carry over some of their base stats and take on the properties of the Runeword embedded within. However, combining certain Runes in the correct order on normal rarity gear will transform the item into a powerful Runeword. On their own, Runes provide stat bonuses to gear. Runes in Diablo 2 each have names, like Nef, Tal, or Shael. Runes, however, have some additional properties that make them uniquely powerful. Each of these socketable items provides different stat bonuses depending on the type of gear they are socketed into.
You can fill those sockets with Gems, Jewels, and Runes. A related subplot is that Bhunivelze is unable to feel emotion before merging with Hope, and though this subplot is not removed in the localization, it is heavily downplayed.In Diablo 2, many gear pieces will drop with one or more sockets. In the English localization Bhunivelze has a different voice actor from Hope. It is implied that Hope's emotions have bled into Bhunivelze, causing the latter to develop a twisted, borderline romantic obsession with Lightning. When Lightning confronts Bhunivelze, he can speak because he has absorbed Hope and uses him as a conduit for his voice, since gods cannot usually speak. In the English release, he instead wants to remold humanity into soulless puppets that he would rule over using Hope's body as his physical vessel to walk among them, and their cleansing via the Soulsong would prepare them to be remade into such a state.īhunivelze feeling emotion for the first time.Īnother change between releases is the relationship between Hope and Bhunivelze, the two sharing a voice actor in the Japanese release. However, he still sees their Chaos-their hearts-as unclean, and seeks to "cleanse" them by destroying the souls of the dead so the living would not remember them and live in his new world free of pain or sadness. In the Japanese release, Bhunivelze uses Hope Estheim as his vessel to better understand humans to be a merciful god for them in the new world. Bhunivelze has different motivations in the Japanese and English releases of Lighting Returns.