In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about runes.
I will break down what runes you can get, how to get them, which runes to use on your monsters and at the end of this guide I will show you how to get the best runes possible through efficient rune farming.
Runes are items that you can power up and equip on your monsters to make them stronger.
There are currently 6 rune slots available for each monster. When you equip a certain set of runes, you will get bonus stat effects.
For example, if you equip 4 fatal runes, you will get the set bonus of attack +35%. Some set effects require 2 to get a bonus while others require 4.
Below is a quick table to show you the effects and where to get them.
Rune Table
| Name | Pic | Set Effect | Set Pieces | Drop Location | When to Use |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Energy |  | HP +15% | 2 | Garen Forest/Giant’s Keep | For tank units with high base HP. |
| Fatal |  | Atk Power +35% | 4 | Mt. Siz/Giant’s Keep | For early game attack units, or early or late game Bomb units |
| Blade |  | Critical Rate +12% | 2 | Kabir Ruins/Giant’s Keep | For non-bomber attack units. |
| Swift |  | Attack Speed +25% | 4 | Mt. White Ragon/Giant’s Keep | For support units that buff or heal your team, or units that do damage based on speed. |
| Focus |  | Accuracy +20% | 2 | Telain Forest/Giant’s Keep | For units that need to land important debuffs. |
| Despair |  | Stun Rate +25% | 4 | Giant’s Keep Only | For Certian PvP monsters and ToA/HoH monsters. |
| Guard |  | Defense +15% | 2 | Hydeni Ruins/Dragon’s Lair | For units that have high base defense or do damage based on defense. |
| Endure |  | Resistance +20% | 2 | Tamor Desert/Dragon’s Lair | For non-attacker units in Raid Level 5. |
| Revenge |  | Counterattack +15% | 2 | Faimon Volcano/Dragon’s Lair | For Certian PvP monsters or NB10 dungeon farming teams. |
| Rage |  | Critical Damage +40% | 4 | Necropolis Only | For attack monsters late game and HP Scaling Nukers. |
| Violent |  | Get Extra Turn +22% | 4 | Dragon’s Lair Only | For PvP monsters or NB10 Dungeon farming monsters. |
| Will |  | Harmful Effect Immunity (+1 turn) | 2 | Aiden Forest/Necropolis | For PvP monsters. |
| Nemesis |  | ATK Gauge +4% (for every 7% HP lost) | 2 | Ferun Castle/Necropolis | For PvP monsters (mostly arena defense) |
| Shield |  | Ally Shield 2 turns (15% of HP) | 2 | Vrofagus Ruins/Dragon’s Lair | For Certian PvP Teams or NB10 dungeon farming teams. |
| Vampire |  | Life Drain +35% | 4 | Mt. Runar/Necropolis | Mostly used for farming monsters, some PvP monsters use this rune set as well. |
| Destroy |  | Enemy Max Hp-4% (30% Damage Dealt) | 2 | Chiruka Remains/Necropolis | For PvP monsters that can draw-out fights. |
Powering up your runes
At the cost of mana stones, Runes can be powered up, increasing the stats on the rune or adding a new stat to the rune.
How much of an increase depends on the rarity of the rune, with higher rarities generally offering more of an increase.
Runes can be powered up a maximum of fifteen times. When powering up Runes, the chance of a successful power-up will depend on the Rune level.
Powering up a rune from +1 to +3 has a 100% success rate which will go down successively with each level.
Rune rarity level
Runes can drop in 5 different rarity types:
- Common – White (0) => Contains just 1 stat (occasionally an innate stat)
- Magic – Green (3) => Contains 2 stats
- Rare – Blue (6) => Contains 3 stats
- Hero – Purple (9) => Contains 4 stats
- Legendary – Orange (12) => Contains 5 stats
When you power up your runes, it gains bonus sub stats at levels 3/6/9/12, up to a max of 15. At level 15, the main stat increases by 20%.
Keep in mind that level 0 runes can be dropped as a Magic/Rare/Hero/Legendary. That means it will already have bonus sub stats at level 0.
Below is a chart showing you how many sub stats your rune will have depending on rarity and powerup level.
| Rarity Drop | +0 | +1 | +3 | +6 | +9 | +12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Common | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
| Magic | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
| Rare | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
| Hero | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
| Legendary | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
Keep in mind runes with higher starting rarity will always have higher stats because they start with 4 substats.
You just have to hope you get the right stats you’re looking for on a high rarity rune.
Rune main stat choices
Every rune has a main stat and for the main stat you are pretty much always looking for a % based main stat on slots 2,3,6 unless you are going for speed in slot 2.
Flat stats in these slots are almost always sold because they are so much weaker than % based runes.
| Rune Slot | Options Available |
|---|---|
| 1 | ATK |
| 2 | ATK/ATK (%)/DEF/DEF (%)/HP/HP (%)/Spd |
| 3 | DEF |
| 4 | ATK/ATK (%)/DEF/DEF (%)/HP/HP (%)/Crit Rate (%)/Crit Dmg (%) |
| 5 | HP |
| 6 | ATK/ATK (%)/DEF/DEF (%)/HP/HP (%)/Resistance (%)/Accuracy (%) |
Rune Stat Effects:
- ATK – Offers flat attack damage
- ATK(%) – Offers percentage damage
- DEF – Offers flat defense
- DEF(%) – Offers percentage defense
- Spd – Offers flat attack speed increase
- HP – Offers flat health points
- HP(%) – Offers percentage health point increase
- CRI Rate(%) – Offers percentage critical rate increase
- CRI Dmg(%) – Offers percentage critical rate damage increase
- Resistance(%) – Offers percentage resistance to harmful effects
- Accuracy(%) – Offers percentage accuracy to inflicting status effects
Built-in rune stats
Runes can have an in-built stat located right under the main stat. This stat is random, will never power up, and stops the rune from rolling into this stat as a substat.
Min-Max Stat Values For Runes
Below is a table that will show you how much of each stat you can potentially gain from powering up your runes.
How To Farm Runes Efficiently
Now that you know how runes work, it’s time for you to start farming high-quality runes for your monsters.
The best runes in the game are farmed from the three dungeons, below you’ll find links to my guides for each one:
