Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone – How to Use Runewords and Glyphwords

So you’ve acquired the runewright in The Witcher 3’s Hearts of Stone expansion. You now have the ability to enchant your hunting tools in order to give yourself a serious edge in battle. But this can be a little confusing to first timers.

Unlike the simple task of just crafting a piece of armor, Enchanting can be a bit more demanding. It’s more than just having the right materials, you have to carefully choose what enchantment you want, be aware of any sacrifices that need to be made, and make sure your item is ready to receive the enchantment. So let’s get started.

Firstly, you can only enchant weapons and armor that have three sockets. This is pretty rare, and normally only the highest quality equipment will meet the requirement. But, the runewright in Hearts of Stone has the ability to add sockets to any of your equipment for a pretty hefty fee. If you’re only one slot away, go for it so that you can get the enchantment you want. It’s probably not worth the headache for a weaker item with no slots though, especially since each slot is sold separately, increasing the cost.

After that you need your materials. Runewords need specific combinations of runestones, and Glyphwords need specific combination of glyphs. These can be purchased from merchants or found in the spoils of defeated monsters and enemies. They can now also be crafted thanks to the fact that the runewright sells the diagrams in Hearts of Stone. While most were relatively useless in the base game of  The Witcher 3, you’ll want to make sure to keep every single one this time around.

Finally, you’ll want to pick your enchantment. They are powerful, but some of the most useful ones come with a cost such as removing the burning effect from your Igni sign (which is a pretty high price to pay). Do not choose blindly. Make sure to weigh out the pros and cons and decide if you truly need this enchantment.

Keep in mind that you are able to enchant something that already has a runestone or glyph in place but those items will be destroyed upon enchanting. An enchantment takes over a weapon and will not allow any more fiddling around with it. This new Hearts of Stone mechanic will definitely help Geralt out in the long run, but hard choices must be made.

Now that you have the know-how, get out there and increase your power so that nobody can stop you on your journey.