What happened to Aniimo's rune system?

Runes sat one layer above carried items in the beta's stat stack. An Aniimo's offense and defense came from several systems piled on top of each other: its per-stat Potential, the single Carried Item it held, and the Runes socketed into that item. Legendary Runes were the top of that chain and the rarest thing in it, and a good one meant a large jump in damage output. Taking the system out removes that whole layer, not just the Legendary tier.

The change reaches further than the runes themselves. Carried items used to roll random rune slots, and those are gone too, so the item you pull is the item you get with no socket lottery attached. The beta's Holo-Battle Sim fed this loop directly, with weekly rewards of runes across its difficulty levels that you spent upgrading carried items. That supply line had a purpose only as long as sockets existed.

What carries the stat load now

Carried items still do everything they did, minus the socketing. Each Aniimo equips one, and it grants passive bonuses: extra HP, stat increases, buffs, damage amplification. Some grant a stat bonus as early as tier one. You raise them by enhancing, which consumes lower-grade materials, and you manage them from the training menu alongside rank ups, skill customization and potential awakening.

That still matters more than it sounds. Carried item bonuses stack on top of the baseline your Potential gives you, pushing an Aniimo's effective stats past what the 20-point per-stat potential ceiling allows on its own. It is also why an Aniimo recommended for the early game can stay viable into the endgame. Give it a strong carry item and it keeps up.

Not settled: What the Holo-Battle Sim hands out weekly in place of runes is not settled.