Rune (game resource)
- For other uses, see rune.
Runes are the primary resource system used by death knights.
All death knights have six runes. Different abilities consume different amounts of runes, placing them on cooldown. Runes have a base cooldown of 10 seconds, which is reduced by haste (for example, 25% haste would give runes an 8 second cooldown). Spending runes will in turn generate Runic Power as a secondary resource to power certain other abilities.
Some abilities are able to refresh runes without waiting for the cooldown: 
[Empower Rune Weapon] will refresh all of them simultaneously, 
[Blood Tap] will refresh a single rune, and 
[Runic Empowerment] and 
[Runic Corruption] give a chance to refresh a rune when spending Runic Power.
Rune abilities by cost
Single rune abilities
[Army of the Dead]
[Blood Boil]
[Death's Caress]
[Heart Strike]
[Howling Blast]
[Rune Tap]
[Scourge Strike]
[Soul Reaper]
Multi-rune abilities
History
Developers stated when the announced the class at BlizzCon 2007 that they didn't want to use the traditional resource systems because they wanted the death knight to have a different style of play. Their intention was for the death knight to use a mixture of spells and melee in close combat. Because of this, a system that didn't specifically rely on either mana or rage was more appropriate.
Death knights were presented as having three types of Runes: Blood (
), Frost (
), and Unholy (
).
During the 2008 Worldwide Invitational, it was noted that the original rune icons proved too complex to show them refreshing inside the character's portrait bar and were replaced with new ones:
(Blood)
(Frost)
(Unholy)
When the class became available for alpha testing, a new type of "wild" rune was added (
). Originally named "Chromatic", it was later renamed to "Death".
In early design, the Death Knight was intended to be able to customize how many runes of each type they wished to have in their 6 rune slots. Due to concerns regarding balance and complexity, by the time Wrath of the Lich King was launched all death knights had two each of Blood, Frost, and Unholy runes. Rune-spending abilities required specific types of runes; for example, 
[Blood Strike] cost 1 Blood Rune, 
[Obliterate] cost 1 Frost and 1 Unholy Rune, and [Army of the Dead] cost 1 rune of each type. Additionally, certain talents could cause runes to transform into Death Runes, which could be used in place of any rune type.
In Legion, the different types of runes were removed. All death knights now have six runes, and different abilities consume different quantities. Though the runes are now identical to each other, their appearance in the UI changes to match the death knight's specialization.
Gallery
Blood spec (10.1.0)
Unholy spec (10.1.0)
Blood spec (7.0.3)
Unholy spec (7.0.3)
Runes recharging, frost spec (7.0.3)
- Pre-patch 7.0.3
Old rune system with 2 of each Unholy, Blood and Frost rune
Blood rune
Frost rune
Unholy rune
Death rune (acted as any of the rune types)
- Beta
The three rune types' original icons, BlizzCon 2007
The death knight character portrait with the beta runes as seen in the Wrath of the Lich King beta
Patch changes
Patch 10.1.0 (2023-05-02): UI updated. 
Patch 7.0.3 (2016-07-19): Unholy, Blood, Frost, Unholy, and Death Runes have been consolidated into a single Runes resource. 
Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): The way in which runes regenerate has been changed. Rather than each rune type (Blood, Frost, Unholy) regenerating simultaneously, they now fill sequentially. For example, if you use two Blood runes, then the first rune will fill up before the second one starts to fill up. You essentially have three sets of runes filling every 10 seconds instead of six individual runes filling every 10 seconds. This allows the death knight rotation to be more forgiving so that the player can take advantage of things like ability procs or respond to movement. This system makes it a little easier to get back on track without six separate runes now "out of sync" from the standard rotation. 
Patch 3.0.2 (2008-10-14): Added.
See also
- TCG cards
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