Season 6 - Consider Melee Runewords

General Discussion
1

For Season 6, there’s a good chance the devs may introduce a few more runewords to spice things up, especially since Season 5 was barren. I’d like to add a disclaimer that I hope they instead consider improving lackluster uniques, but that may not happen for some time. So in the meantime, if they plan on adding a few more runewords, below are two ideas that I would like to share with the team.

Knight’s Vigil

Helm
Nef El Tir
Required Level: 27
Level 5 Blessed Aim Aura When Equipped
+10-15% Increased Attack Speed
+20% Faster Run/Walk
+15 Defense (El)
+30 Defense Vs. Missile (Nef)
+2 To Mana After Each Kill (Tir)
+1 To Light Radius (El)
Level 5 Charge (35 Charges)

The runeword name “Knight’s Vigil” comes from the unfinished runewords list and offers blessed aim aura on helm to help melee characters with lack of AR for late normal to early nightmare. In addition, to build upon the theme, this helm also offers IAS and FRW and charges of Charge for added mobility.

Winter

Clubs, Maces
Cham Mal Thul
Required Level: 67
15% CtC Level 35 Blizzard On Striking
+250-300% Enhanced Damage
+30-40% Increased Attack Speed
+20% Chance Of Crushing Blow
Adds 500-750 Cold Damage (Thul)
-50% To Enemy Cold Resist
Prevent Monster Heal (Mal)
Freezes Target +3 (Cham)
Cannot Be Frozen

The runeword name “Winter” comes from the unfinished runewords list and exclusive for clubs and maces. The theme is centered around cold damage, proccing Blizzard, with minus enemy cold resist to boot. Blunt weapons could use more options and this would offer a solid runeword for Tyrant Club.

Prowess in Battle

Two-Handed Axes, Hammers
Sur Hel Ber Um Fal Eth
Required Level: 63
20% CtC Level 25 Corpse Explosion When You Kill An Enemy
+65% Increased Attack Speed
+300-350% Enhanced Damage
+25% Chance of Open Wounds (Um)
+20% Chance of Crushing Blow (Ber)
-10-15% To Enemy Physical Resist
-25% Target Defense (Eth)
+10 To Strength (Fal)
+10-15 Life After Each Kill
Damage Reduced by 15%
Hit Blinds Target (Sur)
Requirements -20% (Hel)

The runeword name “Prowess in Battle” comes from unfinished runewords list and is exclusive for 2H-axes and hammers (already got Unbending Will for swords). The theme is centered around corpse explosion and drips with flavor as you utterly destroy monsters with their bones becoming shrapnel. This runeword helps bridge the AOE gap for melee and offers boss-killer stats such as CB and OW. Finally, it has minus req. for reducing the high STR requirement.

3 Likes
2

It would be awesome to get some new melee dedicated rune words.

1 Like
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Honestly, at least one new runeword in S6 would be nice just so the S4 runewords can finally cycle downward (since the policy is apparently we won’t get new ladder runewords on NL until a new season with new runewords is introduced).

I’m not really quite sure what would fit in though. Having just found a Sur rune in TZ 92 Nihilathak’s halls the other night it’d be nice to actually see that rune get some love (it has barely any options, and all but the very underwhelming Wind require it to sit till you come across other hyper rare high runes, often two or more of them). Then again, I’d have to wait till S7, S8? to use it that way seeing I only play NL these days (maybe I’ll try HCL sometime since the one-life nature of HC characters fits well with seasonal play - I did Hardcore Seasonal quite a bit in a few seasons of D3 actually for that very reason - but SCL feels meh when you already are well established NL. Maybe if I was more of an actual competitive oriented player, but I play PvE games to mash monsters and have fun, not to compete LOL).

Some weapon types can probably use a larger selection of runewords, especially physical blunt instruments (good melee runewords seem to really heavily focus around swords and axes, or merc-oriented polearm RWs … maybe this is a balancing decision though because blunt weapons tend to have little or no Dex requirements and really high base damage? E.g., if you want a good 1H runeword, focusing the RWs on swords means you’re more likely to be stuck having to use a Phase Blade with its super awkward stat requirements and low max damage), though.

1 Like
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Completely agree, blunt weapons could definitely use more runeword options. The proposed “Winter Club” could be fun.