Doom Eternal: Ancient Gods - How To Unlock New Support Runes & Which To Pick First

The Ancient Gods Part 1 DLC has arrived, providing hungry Doom Eternal players with three fully-featured new levels. In the first level you won’t find too many new enemies or weapons, but you will find something that’s incredibly useful that’s also easy to miss — the new Support Rune slot.

In addition to your regular 3 Rune slots, you can unlock a bonus Support Rune slot. There’s only 1 slot, and you can only unlock 3 Support Runes total, but these can give you insanely useful new abilities to improve your playstyle. Below, I’ll list all the Support Rune effects, and which runes I think are best.

More Ancient Gods DLC guides:

UAC Atlantica Facility Collectibles Guide | The Blood Swamps Collectibles Guide | The Holt Collectibles Guide

How To Unlock Support Runes

Support Runes are special runes that can only be equipped to the 4th (Purple) Rune Slot. Support Runes are exclusive to the Ancient Gods Part 1 DLC.

To unlock any of the 3 Support Runes, you need to complete the Slayer Gate challenges.
- After completing a Slayer Gate, you’ll get to choose 1 of 3 Support Runes.

The Support Runes can be unlocked in any order, but you can only ever equip one to your character at a time. This is essentially a 4th rune slot — giving you one of three very useful powers.

See the poles behind the map collectible? Use those to reach the vent.

How To Get The First Support Rune + Slot: The slot can be unlocked in the first level of the DLC. The Slayer Gate is down the hallway from the tentacle passage — go to the door, and you’ll find the Slayer Gate to your right.

The Slayer Key is further ahead. Enter the next room down (past a Tyrant encounter) to the Map room. Jump over the wall behind the map and use the poles to swing to a vent on the exterior ledge.

Support Runes | What They Are, And Which To Pick

There are 3 support runes you can choose from. You can pick any of the runes in any order, but you can only have 1 equipped.

Desperate Punch: Blood Punch deals double damage when your health is 75 or less.
Take Back: When a demon causes an Extra Life to activate, it can be killed within a short time to gain Extra Life back.
Break Blast: Destroying a Weak Point generates a concussive blast.

All three Support Runes are useful for different reasons. Take Back finally allows you to regain lost Extra Lives — and you’ll be losing your Extra Lives in standard enemy encounters in this DLC. It’s very, very tough.

Desperate Punch is one of the more useful ones. You’ll be low on HP often, so a nice desperate punch can get you out of tricky situations. My problem is — I don’t keep close track of when my Blood Punch has been restored. That makes this power double-situational, but if you’re a big Blood Punch user, you might want to get this first.

Break Blast is my clear pick for favorite first choice. Every time you break an enemy weak point, a blast is generated that damages and stuns all nearby enemies. That’s including the enemy with the weak point. That’s insanely useful for the rest of the DLC. You fight large hordes of enemies, so even the regular low-level goons can be a problem when 10+ of them are crowding you. And doing extra damage to anyone or anything is always important.

Break Blast is my first choice for Support Rune. But you can unlock all three by completing a Slayer Gate in all three levels. It’s worth it. For the right player, they’re all insanely useful.

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