Lots of people have wondered if there should be a way to cube down runes, instead of just cubing them up. How about you have to use a Standard of Heroes to do so? Obviously, you would have to limit the amount of runes you get back (either 1 less than required to cube up, or just 1, and no gems returned). Plus, this would finally give the Standard of Heroes a purpose. Thoughts?
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Yeah, this sounds like a decent idea. Getting 1 lower rune back would make sense.
Not sure if standard of heroes should be the item to do it with though. Probably a few perfect skulls or something people can obtain in a play-through, if they were lucky enough to land a HR which wasnt the one they needed.
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I think it’d be nice to have a 1:1 rune downgrade option.
As far as rune upgrading, I think simplifying the upgrade process without the gem requirement across the board is needed. It’s always been a PITA to hunt the specific gems for upgrading, and keeping them on hand only contributes to the limited stash space problem.
A gem requirement makes more sense as far as downgrading runes, so rune + a gem requirement + any hammer type weapon to downgrade the rune by one rank.
I see no problem in downgrading a rune to get another lower one
there will be implications …
CHAM and ZOD will be == JAH/BER
all runewords requiring those will be way more expensive
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Botd and plague would be basically removed because people would tend to downgrade to Jah or Ber. They would have the same value and then there would be the same pricing as of now for sur to vex.
I actually find it ridiculous that Zod/Cham have been less valuable than Jah/Ber despite being rarer. Just like Grandfather/Windforce - much rarer than they are valuable.
One time, I found a second zod rune in AT in single player and I was actually disappointed or at least not as pleased as I should have been. At that time, I was desperately looking for a Jah rune to make my first enigma and finding two Zod runes before a Jah left me thinking why my luck couldn’t have been used for Jah instead of Zod. I had to wait 2 more weeks to finally get 2 Ber runes so I could cube them up to Jah.
I think cubing down is still a good idea. I would also welcome strengthening some of the rarest unique items like windforce/tyreal’s might/grandfather. At least give them some niche usage like Death Web/Griffons/Death Fathom
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Yeah, so with 1-1 downgrades. It might look like.
Sur = 0.51 Ber ( as is today)
Ber -
Jah = 1.5 Ber ( as is on NL)
Cham = 1.6 Ber
Zod = 1.7 Ber
Would make finding Zod as rewarding as it is rare.
It’s going on 10 months, and I got my first Jah drop yesterday farming AS for H keys and a Cham dropped a week ago. Still no Ber drop though, but I’ve finally broken through the Gul glass ceiling (had Vex drop over a week ago and a Lo on Ladder). I think it would be nice to be able to break runes, and they should be the same as upgrade in reverse (1 Cham yielding 2 Jah, oh the horror 
).
I would agree with this idea if it was very expensive.
2 runes + 1 Different gem = 1 previous rune.
If it’s cheap it will will cause devaluation.
It’s meant for an “Emergency” as in you keep getting higher than what you need and you can’t acquire the one you need specifically.
Doing it this way will also raise the value of the “left out” runes.
I would also like to see more awesome runewords using cham, zod, gul, sur etc.
it will be nice to get lower runes:
1 JAH + any gem = 1 BER
…
2 ORT + any gem = 1 THUL