Runes of Magic US / AU

The highest level drop is a V but not a lot of places were you will get them.

The most common drop, that people bother to keep, is III.

You need 5 IIIx to make a IV
You need 25 IIIs to make a V
You need 125 IIIs to make a VI
You need 625 IIIs to make a VII
You need 3125 IIIs to make a VIII
You need 15625 IIIs to make a IX
You need 78125 IIIs to make a X

The problem is never the number of runes, it is the number of charges.

You need 1 charge to make a IV (from IIIs)
You need 6 charges to make a V (from IIIs)
You need 31 charges to make a VI (from IIIs)
You need 156 charges to make a VII (from IIIs)
You need 781 charges to make a VIII (from IIIs)
You need 3906 charges to make a IX (from IIIs)
You need 19531 charges to make a X (from IIIs)

Yah, dropped runes from kills are a joke really. I can't believe they still sale on AH as well as they do. Well, I guess 50k for a IV rune isn't what 50k used to be, 50k is a joke now, but still amazed they sale at all... I guess the low levels and maybe alts are using them, even then who is paying to drill an item just to put that junk in it. Unless they are actually making higher tier runes from these III and IVs, but OMG the charges!

The basic runes are components to some nicer runes that haven't been in Item Shop much/ever: Dauntless, Madness, Enchantment, and until just recently Ferocity.

I've made a fair number of tier 5 or 6 runes like this from the basics. Somewhere around tier 7 and on up it all becomes Item Shop only though. Can't imagine more than 1 or 2 insane players making those from basics.

Depending on your class combo, the item shop runes for non-weapon stop looking so good around the 3rd or 4th slot. Or you're free-to-play and can't get Item Shop stuff anyway. So making from basics is still viable at times.

Chrysalis mobs drops IV runes. But really, why not just buy them for 12 diamonds? Thats 600k at 50k/per diamond. Not unaffordable, even for F2P. I just don't see why bother with tiering 3/4 runes, it'll end up costing more diamonds for AT charges anyway.

And X runes go for sale at 299 diamond. I don't think you need to make tem from tier 3.