Assassin's Creed Valhalla: How to equip runes? Assassin's Creed Valhalla guide, walkthrough

On this page of the guide to AC Valhalla we have included all the most important information about runes. Thanks to this you will learn how runes work, how to get them, put them on and what you can gain with them.

Last update: 04 January 2024

This page of the Assassin's Creed Valhalla guide explains how to place runes on items and what you can get by placing runes in the item's slot. In addition, we suggest the easiest way to get runes.

Runes are special objects that can improve Eivor's gear – weapons and pieces of armor.

Runes can be found mainly during the free exploration of the world – they can be found in chests with loot. Other ways of acquiring runes:

1. Complete quests and events – they can appear as rewards for some quests.
2. Searching the bodies of defeated elite/unique enemies.
3. Complete hunting challenges in the hunters' hut in the settlement.
4. Completing challenges from the fishing hut found in the settlement.
5. Buy runes from traders – it is best to set up a trading point in the settlement. Smaller runes cost about 100 silver per 1 piece. A medium-quality rune can cost about 150 silver.

Runes can only be placed in items that have at least one free slot. Fine Quality (lowest tier) items have no slots for runes. You need to find Superior Quality gear or higher. It is worth noting that the higher the quality, the more rune slots will be available. This will allow you to place several different runes into a single item, thus having several different bonuses.

You can increase the quality of your items at Gunnar the blacksmith. However, you have to provide him with the right types of ingot (the most "common" type is Carbon Ingot). We discussed this in more detail on the Ingot - how to obtain page.

In the initial phase of the campaign, you will only use lesser runes, which can be placed in any item that has empty slots. However, items of higher quality may need to be placed in the higher level rune slots. You will need to get rarer runes.

Runes are divided into those that can be placed in armor sockets and those that can only be placed in weapons. Even if you find a perfect weapon rune, you can't place it in any of the slots of your armor.

Each rune offers a stat bonus - read its description to find out what it does and what its value is (e.g. 3 to a given parameter). Values may vary between runes of the same type. Check from time to time to see if you have not found a slightly better rune than the one you currently have. You can also place runes of the same properties in two different sockets. The effects of their actions can add up.

When selecting runes, we recommend looking for those that:

1. Offer bonuses to damage inflicted to elite opponents.
2. Offer damage bonuses for back attacks – this is especially useful when sneaking and eliminating enemies with assassinations.
3. Offer bonuses to critical damage.
4. Offer bonuses to damage caused by abilities - especially useful if you have access to certain strong offensive abilities.
5. Increase the defense of the armor, i.e. they reduce the damage received.
6. Increase resistance to damage from fire or poison - you can use these types of runes in difficult fights if you know that you will meet enemies trying to set Eivor on fire or poison you.

The runes can be freely removed from the sockets. Runes aren't placed in the slots permanently. You can move it to another item or replace it with a more useful one.

You can also sell unnecessary runes. Visit any merchant (they are marked with the purse icon on the map) and go to Eivor's inventory tab.