Runes

Four runes exist to augment equipment: Attack Rune, Defense Rune, Damage Rune and Health Rune. All characters have all four runes. They all start at level 1, which confers no bonuses. The higher the level of the rune, the greater the bonus. Attack and defense runes work in all facets of the game. Damage and Health runes are restricted to guild formats at this time.

Leveling a Rune
To level a rune, you must obtain rune essence via questing and monster hunting. Once you obtain a minimum of 200 rune essence of a specific type, you can level that type of rune by trading your accumulated rune essences to guilds in the Trade Market. Each trade grants your rune 1000 xp (unless you have a bonus available).

Using a Rune
Runes only confer bonuses when both of the following are done: Runes will continue to upgrade and increase in level (via trading essences) once they are forged onto a piece of equipment; it's not necessary to re-forge them each time they increase in level.
 * The rune is forged onto equipment.
 * Runes are restricted to which item type they can be applied to, as described earlier in this article.
 * You may only have one rune forged onto a specific item at a time.
 * That equipment is equipped (through a load-out or the class page).

Salvaging equipment with a rune already forged (for example, to forge it onto another piece of equipment) does not destroy the rune (unlike forged gems and ingots). Runes are persistent, and can never be destroyed or lost, nor lose levels.

Rune Bonuses
As a rune increases in level, so does the bonus that is received from having it equipped. The following table shows those bonuses:

The formulas for bonuses are:
 * Attack = (Level-1)*5
 * Defense = (Level-1)*5
 * Damage = (Level-1)*4
 * Health = (Level-1)*4

Note: There is no level cap that's been reached quite yet, though the developers have stated that there is one. Players have leveled up runes as far as level 277 so far. It appears the above formulas for Attack, Defense, Damage, and Health continue indefinitely.