There is a button at the Rune Altar marked Auto Craft. It makes your runes instantly. Do not press it.
Attuning is a two-step process, Attunement then Infusion, and it is slower in the only way that does not matter. In exchange it gives full XP and a 1:10 essence-to-rune ratio. Auto Craft gives 25% of the XP and 1:5, which is to say half the runes for a quarter of the progress. The wiki's own advice is not to auto craft at all, "at the very least not until level 99," and the maths backs that up hard enough that it is the only thing most players need to know about this skill.
The efficiency upgrades do eventually close the ratio gap, lifting Auto Craft to 1:10. They do nothing about the XP.
Why you care about any of this
Because every spell in Dragonwilds burns runes and there is no shop. Superheat at 20 Artisan costs 5 Air and 15 Fire a cast. Infernal Rod at 30 Fishing costs 50 Fire. Divine Rock at 80 Mining wants 100 Earth and 100 Nature every time you place it.
Unlocking a spell and being able to afford it are two different achievements, and Runecrafting is the one that decides the second.
It opens through Rune Mysteries, the fourth quest in the main line, so there is no stage of the game where you were not allowed to be levelling it.
Every rune and when you get it
| Rune | Recipe level | XP per rune | Efficiency upgrade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Air | 1 | 5 | 22 |
| Astral | 3 | 8 | 30 |
| Water | 11 | 10 | 58 |
| Earth | 15 | 13 | 68 |
| Fire | 25 | 18 | 75 |
| Nature | 38 | 25 | 87 |
| Law | 50 | 50 | 94 |
Two things fall out of that table.
Astral is not the bottleneck people assume. It turns up in Surge, Snare, Uproot, Confuse, Vengeance and the Runecrafting conversion spell, so it gets described as the rare one. It unlocks at level 3. The constraint is volume, not access, and the fix is to spend time on Astral early rather than to hunt for a source.
Law is the real gate. Level 50, and the only low-level spell that wants it is Surge. If you have been ignoring Runecrafting and suddenly want Surge for a boss fight, that is a problem you cannot solve in an evening.
Astral's XP is also worth a note: it was raised from 2.5 to 8 per rune when attuning, a bit more than triple, which makes early Astral grinding both the thing you need and a reasonable way to level the skill.
Anima Vents, which the altar cannot compete with
Scattered across Ashenfall are Anima Vents, and they are the part of this skill nobody mentions.
You siphon runes out of them using rune essence, at any level. A normal vent turns 10 essence into 100 runes plus 40 XP, or 70 XP with 45% XP boosts running.
Compare that to the altar. Attuning gives you 1:10 as well, but the altar is a place you walk to and stand at. Vents are out in the world where you already are, they ignore the recipe level entirely, and each vent produces runes specific to its own type, so an Astral vent is an Astral farm.
Two upgrades improve it further:
- Lesser Anima Siphoning at level 46 takes it to 1:12
- Greater Anima Siphoning at level 71 takes it to 1:15
At 71 Runecrafting a vent returns half again what the best altar method does. If you only remember one thing past "do not auto craft", make it "find the vents."
Where essence comes from
Three sources, and they are not equal.
Mine rune essence rocks near rune essence geysers. Worth knowing: mining essence no longer gives Runecrafting XP, so this is a gathering step, not a levelling one. The XP is all in what you do with it.
Collect it from packs, which is passive and small.
Recycle runes with Runes To Rune Essence at level 61, with an upgrade at 81 that returns more. This is the answer to the pile of Fire runes you will inevitably accumulate while every utility spell you actually cast wants Astral.
A levelling order that is not just "grind Air"
Air is level 1 and gives 5 XP. Law is level 50 and gives 50. The temptation is to grind whatever is cheapest, but the XP scaling means the right move is almost always craft the highest-level rune you have unlocked, using Attune, and sell your time to the vents when you are out in the world anyway.
A practical shape:
- Levels 1 to 3: Air, briefly, because you have nothing else.
- 3 to 11: Astral. 8 XP a rune at level 3 is generous, and you need the volume anyway for Surge, Snare and Uproot.
- 11 to 25: Water then Earth as they unlock.
- 25 to 38: Fire. This is also where you bank the 50 Fire runes for Infernal Rod, which is the best quality-of-life unlock in the game.
- 38 to 50: Nature at 25 XP a rune.
- 50 and up: Law at 50 XP, and grab Lesser Anima Siphoning at 46 on the way past.
- 61: Runes To Rune Essence, so the wrong-type stockpile stops being dead weight.
- 71: Greater Anima Siphoning, and the vents become the best rune source in the game.
The one-line version
Attune, never auto craft. Craft the highest rune you have unlocked. Siphon every vent you walk past. Everything else is detail.
For what to spend the runes on, the spell board on the tier list ranks the unlocks by what they are worth against how far you have to go, and the skills guide covers the levelling order across all twelve.
