Runes

Runes are the gear of your Heroes. They improve the base stats of each hero. Increasing the base stats makes Heroes even more powerful because the base stats are empowered by Hero Stars and Epics.

Rune Types

Each rune is assigned to one of the 5 Elements. Like the Heroes of that Element the runes have specific characteristics. For example Fire, Dark, and Nature runes are more offensive because their primary stats are are Attack (ATK) and Damage Penetration. In contrast to these Light runes and Water runes are more defensive because on these runes Attack and Damage Penetration occure only as secondary stats.

Different Types and Ultra Runes

There are different kind of Runes that provide different stats boosts, the kind of runes depend on the Element. There are Precision Runes, Bulkwark Runes, Focus Runes, Battle and Power Runes, etc. See Crafting/Runes more details.

Ultra Runes are special Greater or Superior Runes with a given 4th stat (Passive or Buff) for a fixed price. They are created with maximal stats, 5 stars, Legendary. They require a Corrupted Heart and Totems to be created. Known Ultra Runes are:

• Greater/Superior Incineration Rune (Fire) - Passive:  Burning Touch for basic attacks
• Greater/Superior Survivor Rune (Water) - Buff Cleansing Regeneration, lasts 2 rounds
• Greater/Superior Guardian Rune (Light) - Buff DEF+ (40%-85% boost, depends on Skill), lasts 3 rounds
• Greater/Superior Corruption Rune (Dark) - Passive: Disease Touch for basic attacks

Rune Slots

Press "Gear" to see the equipped runes of your hero

Each Hero has a specific set of 5 Rune slots depending on their Element. Usually there are 2 slots for the hero's element, and one slot for each of the other elements except the element that has elemental advantage over the hero. Following this rule of thumb a Fire Hero like  Rogar Stonecrusher has 2 red rune slots (Fire), 1 green (Nature), 1 purple (Dark), and 1 yellow (Light) rune slot. There is no blue (Water) rune slot because Water dominates Fire.

Removing runes cost gold

You can equip anytime a rune in a slot. But it costs gold to unequip the rune. The higher the Rune Tier (Heroic, Legendary), the higher costs (up to 200,000 gold). Alternatively you can salvage the rune that you want to remove from your hero. But be careful not to salvage your best runes! For safety there is a confirmation required when you hit the button "Salvage Rune".

Boost offer in Aether Shop

Occasionally there are "Free Rune Unquip" boosts during events available. When such a boost is active then you can move around runes without any gold costs for a limited time. The Aether Shop offers such "Free Rune Unquip" boosts, too.

Heroes with Special Rune Slots

There is no rule without exceptions: A few Heroes don't follow this rule and have special set of rune slots.  Koros for example has 3 red slots, and 2 green slots for Nature runes, but lacks in purple and yellow slots.  Ferno has a red rune slot instead a blue one. And darkest hero  Shade has 5 purple rune slots for Dark runes only. Heroes with special rune slots are:

Hero	Element	Rune slots
Ferno	Nature		(Nature, Nature, Fire, Light, Dark)
Hopper	Dark		(Dark, Dark, Water, Water, Nature)
Koros	Fire		(Fire, Fire, Fire, Nature, Nature)
Shade	Dark		(Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark)
Sybil	Nature		(Nature, Fire, Water, Dark, Light)

Rune Power and their Parts

At first glance Runes seems to be complex and might be confusing because there are many parts that affect the power of the rune and there are all kind of runes and variations.

But it's simple. For your "A team" heroes you want to have the highest Title runes that your Player Level offers, with 5 stars, Legendary tier, and fully leveled up. The different kinds of runes (Battle Rune, Defense Rune, etc) boost different stats. That's it!

The Rune Title is like a "class", it depends on the Player Level. At the beginning of the game you have access to Lesser Runes only. These are starter runes, they are low-cost to craft and to level up. Around Level 30 you will get access to Improved Runes. They only require gold to level up. Then later, around Level 50, you can earn your first Greater Runes from Events, and with Level 60 you have full access to the required Crafting Materials to craft your own Greater Runes. These Runes require Evo Essence to level up! In the level range 60 to 70 players will get Superior Runes in their hands. For the most powerful and expensive Elite Runes you have to reach level 70.

If you craft a rune you want to have it 5 stars, Legendary. See Rune Crafting below for details.

Rune Titles

While you make progress in Dungeon Boss and level up, you will gain access to different titles of runes:

• Lesser Runes (Normal Mode Dungeons)
• Improved Runes (Challenge Mode Dungeons)
• Greater Runes (Boss Mode Dungeons, Honor Shop)
• Superior Runes (Boss Mode Dungeons, Honor Shop)
• Elite Runes (Events, Boss 100, require Player Level 70)

Lesser Runes can be found in the early game, in the normal Campaign Dungeons. The Challenge Mode gives access to Improved Runes. In Boss Mode you will find Greater and Superior Runes. Elite Runes,are only craftable with Magic Tomes which are obtainable from events and the Boss 100 in PVP upon reaching level 70

Greater Runes (and higher Titles) that are Heroic or Legendary require Evo Essence to level up!

Rune Tiers

There are 5 Rune Tiers (from left to right):

• Common Runes
• Uncommon Runes
• Rare Runes
• Heroic Runes
• Legendary Runes

The Tier of a rune is reflected by its border/decoration, Common Runes have a plain and simple design, in contrast Heroic and Legendary Runes look fancy and magnificent. The higher the Tier of the rune is the more power it offers. Common, Uncommon, and Rare Runes can be found in Dungeons. If you're lucky you can find rarely a higher Tier. Heroic and Legendary Rune need to be crafted if you want them in larger quantities.

Rune Stats and Passives (4th Stat)

Runes can have up to 4 stats depending on their Tier. The stats are called Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Passive (also known as the 4th Stat).

Example Rune: Greter Vampiric Rune (Fire, 5 Stars, Legendary)

Greter Vampiric Fire Rune

• Attack +511
• Health +559
• Skill +201
• Heals 9% of damage dealt

Note: The Rune must be fully leveled up to have unlock all stats unlocked!

Only runes of the Tiers Heroic and Legendary can have a 4th stat. While Common, Uncommon, and Rare Runes can have 1, 2 or 3 stats, respectively. (Rare exceptions are handcrafted runes that were made during the Event "Build your own Rune").

The first 3 stats boosts the stats of your Hero. For example: A rune with Attack, Health, and Skill increases these base stats of the Hero. The boosted base stats are empowered by Hero Stars, Hero Rarity, and Epics. You can check them in the Hero Card when you tap and hold a Stat. A green stat indicates that that stat is boosted.

The 4th Stat can be a Passive like Damage Penetration or Reduction, Burning Skin, Haste, etc. (see below).

The rune stat values depend on the Title, Tier, and Stars of the Rune. The better the Rune, the higher the rune stats. Secondary and Tertiary stats are roughly 50% of the value the Primary stat has or can have. All Stat values can vary about +6%/-6% for each rune when crafted. Event runes have often maximal stats.

Passives

• First, remember: Only Heroic or Legendary Runes have a chance for a 4th stat.
• Important to know: Once the rune got a Passive during the crafting process it won't change anymore. Tune the Rune during the crafting process (see next chapter) will not increase the chance values of the Passive. For Example: A Rune with 5% Damage Penetration in PvP will never improve to a rune with a 10% Damage Penetration in PvP Passive once the Passive is applied.

When a Rune is crafted there are 35 possible Passives, all with equal chances to appear on it (with the exception of runes that have preset passives like Incineration Runes). The possible Passives are:

• Skin and Touch runes that cause Burned, Shocked, Poisoned, Diseased, Chilled debuffs. (2x 5 = 10 possible passives)
• Damage Penetration and Reduction for all five Elements ( Water, Nature, Fire, Dark, and Light) (2x 5 = 10 possible passives)
• Damage Penetration and Damage Reduction for all five Classes (Caster, Warrior, Healer, Tank, and Rogue) (2x 5 = 10 possible passives)
• Damage Penetration and Damage Reduction in PvP and PvE (2x 2 = 4 possible passives)
• Vampiric. This rune has a 100% chance to lifesteal a set percentage of the damage you deal. (1 possible passives)

Preset Passives

Ultra Runes (see Crafting below) come with a preset Passive depending on the Element of the Rune:

• Fire: (Greater, Superior) Incineration Rune (Attack, Attack, Crit & Burning Touch)
• Nature: Not craftable (has not been released yet)
• Water: (Greater, Superior) Survivor Rune (Defense, Health, Defense, Cleansing Regeneration)
• Light: (Greater, Superior) Guardian Rune (Defense, Defense, Damage Reduction, DEF+)
• Dark: (Greater, Superior) Corruption Rune (Attack, Attack, Defense, Disease Touch for basic attacks)

Chaos Runes (see Age of Chaos) are available in 2 forms:

• (Superior, Elite) Tainted Rune (various stats, Chaos Damage: Deals [10/15]% of damage dealt as additional Chaos Damage)
• (Superior, Elite) Sanctified Rune (various stats, Chaos Reduction: Takes [10/15]% less Chaos Damage from attacks)

Passives Of Special Runes

See the → Main article: Rune Type List for the detailed list of known Event Rune and Special Runes and their Passives.

Rune Stars

Each rune can have up to 5 stars. The more stars the better stats of the rune:

Each star of the rune inceases every stat of the rune. A five star rune is slighty better than a four star rune (of the same Rune Title) and much better than a 1 star rune (of the same Rune Title). Runes that are found in Campaign Dungeons have a max of 3 stars. Exceptional runes with 4 or 5 stars can be found sometimes in Event Dungeons.

Rune Level

Like heroes and hero abilities runes have a level. You need to level up a rune to unleash the true power of the rune. A number on the rune displays the current level. It turns green if the maximum level is reached. Higher Titles of runes and higher Tiers require Evo Essences to level up. You need to squash (destroy) rare Celestial Evos to create the essence.

5 Star Runes	Lesser Rune	Improved Rune	Greater Rune	Superior Rune	Elite Rune
Rare	??? Rune Power Level 20 No Evo Essence	67 Rune Power Level 20 No Evo Essence	??? Rune Power Level 20 No Evo Essence	??? Rune Power Level 20 No Evo Essence	??? Rune Power Level 20 No Evo Essence
Heroic	??? Rune Power Level ? No Evo Essence	99 Rune Power Level 30 No Evo Essence	199 Rune Power Level 30 4 Evo Essences	??? Rune Power 4 Evo Essences	248 Rune Power Level 30 ~3.5 million gold 8 Evo Essences (2 at Level 9, 14, 19, 24)
Legendary	??? Rune Power Level ? No Evo Essence	125 Rune Power Level 30 No Evo Essence	249 Rune Power Level 30 4 Evo Essences	280 Rune Power Level 30 4 Evo Essences	??? Rune Power 8 Evo Essences Level 30

Runes with less than 5 stars have less Rune Power and cost less gold but still require Evo Essences to unlock the higher stats.

How to get Runes

You can get runes from various sources in the game.

Rune chests

Lesser quality runes (Common, Uncommon, Rare runes with max 3 stars) you can find in any Dungeons at the end in a rune chest. These chests contain no hero token but a rune. You can level up and use this rune. As soon as you saved some gems to craft runes you will salvage looted runes to retrieve needed Shards and Binders to craft better quality runes. The different Campaign modes offer different Rune Titles:

• Normal Mode - Lesser Runes
• Challenge Mode - Improved Runes
• Boss Mode - Greater and Superior Runes

Every once in a while you will find a stone rune chest in the middle of a dungeon. These chests have the chance to drop a rune of a higher title. For example: Normal mode dungeons offer Lesser Runes. Rune chests here can drop an Improved Rune. Challenge Mode dungeons drop Improved Runes and rune chests in the middle of the dungeon can contain Greater Runes.

Honor Shop

→ Main article: Honor Shop

Better quality runes (Heroic and Legendary, 5 stars) need to be crafted, earned as rewards or bought from the Shop. The Honor Shop offers excellect crafted runes, and Materials to craft runes. The Rune Titles (Greater and Superior) of the runes offered here depend on the Player Level. At Player Level

• 20 you can buy Improved Rune Shards and Binders to craft Improved Runes.
• 50 you can buy Greater Rune Shards and Binders to craft Greater Runes
• 55 you can buy Greater Runes, 5 stars, Legendary quality, with a special 4th stat
• 60 you can buy Superior Rune Shards and Binders to craft Superior Runes
• 65 you can buy Superior and Greater Runes, 5 stars, Legendary quality, with a special 4th stat

Elite Runes strictly require Player Level 70.

Event and Special Runes

→ Main article: Rune Type List

While you can craft runes with specific stats there are are special runes that have an unique stat mix that cannot be crafted. An example is the Assassine Rune which is a Light Rune with DEF / ATK / ATK / Chance to apply Off-Balance debuff. Light Runes can have DEF as primary stat but not double ATK as secondary and tertiary stat. This and the bonus stat (4th stat/passive) makes the rune unique.

Event runes are rewarded for the completion of event quests or reaching threshold values. Guild and Community events are a good opportunity to get a great 5 stars, Legendary Rune. The Title of the Rune (Lesser, Improved, Greater, Superior, Elite) depends on the Player Level.

Now and then the Shop offers unique runes to buy for gems.

Last but not least, Champion and Hero runes are rewarded at the end of the weekly PvP Tourney (season) depending on the League you finished. These runes are also offered in the Honor Shop to buy with Honor (Player Level 55 required).

TIP: Check the Leaderboards, the Shop, and the Quests during an event!

Rune Crafting

• Let's craft a rune!
• The rune is created. We can immediately max it for gems or tune it (chance to improve)
• Bad luck after 12 tuning tries :(

1/3

Crafting a Rune requires some gems, gold, and Materials. Once you have all required Materials and gems you can craft the rune. This step creates the rune by merging all the Materials. The Tier, number of Stars and Stats of the crafted rune are completely random. Heroic and Legendary Runes can have a 4th Stat but it is not a must just a chance. If you don't like the result you can Tune the rune for gems. This can add more Stats, Stars and increase the Tier of the rune.

Accept Button

Press this button if you like the rune. The crafting and tuning process is finished and you can craft another rune if you like.

Tune Button

During the crafting process you can tune the rune. That is, you try to increase the number of stars and the Tier of the rune for gems. The chance that there will be any improvement increases with each attempt that can fail. A progress bar is showing the chance. A full bar does not mean you have a 100% chance, it means you have a maximal increased chance. The tune attempt still can fail. Each attempt costs some more gems. You can make 12 attempts to tune the rune and to make it 5 stars and Legendary. A rune can become 5 stars and Legendary at first or second attempt or not at all after 12 attemps. That's the bad news. The good news: Your resources are not lost because there is a 13 tune step. This finally makes your rune 5 stars and Legendary, but not with a guaranteed 4th stat, for the sum of all 12 tune attemps in gems. Yes, you have to pay twice to get the maximum. If you don't like this, there is another option.

Max Button

If you don't like odds and chances, you can simply hit the 'Max' button to craft a 5 stars and Legendary with a random 4th Stat for 80% of the total gem cost (including the 13th tune step).

Crafting Costs for Tuning

The following table shows the maximal tuining costs, costs for "Max Button" (~80%), and the costs for each tuning step, in gems. So called Ultra Runes have a fixed price. They are created with maximal stats, 5*, Legendary.

	Lesser Runes	Improved Runes	Greater Runes	Greater Ultra Runes	Superior Runes	Super Ultra Runes	Elite Runes
Max Tuning	120	600	1560	1500	2280	2200	4800
Max Button	100	500	1200	(fixed cost)	1800	(fixed cost)	3500
1. Tuning	5	5	10	-	15	-	50
2. Tuning	5	10	25	-	35	-	100
3. Tuning	5	25	45	-	65	-	125
4. Tuning	5	25	65	-	95	-	175
5. Tuning	5	25	65	-	95	-	175
6. Tuning	5	25	75	-	110	-	225
7. Tuning	5	25	75	-	110	-	225
8. Tuning	5	30	80	-	120	-	250
9. Tuning	5	30	80	-	120	-	250
10. Tuning	5	30	85	-	125	-	275
11. Tuning	5	35	85	-	125	-	275
12. Tuning	5	35	90	-	125	-	275
13. (=sum)	60	300	780	-	1140	-	2400

Overview of Craftable Stats

The following table shows which runes can be crafted with a desired primary stat. For example, if you want to craft a rune with a lot of attack then a Battle Rune and Power Rune are a good choice. They are available for Fire, Nature, Dark rune slots. Or have a look at the so called Ultra Runes. There are the Dark Corruption Rune and the Fire Incinearation Rune. The primary stat of all these runes is attack (ATK) and they can have another attack stat for the secondary or tertiary stat. On the other hand, it's not possible to craft Water and Light Runes with a primary attack stat.

Primary Stat	Possible Secondary, Tertiary and Bonus Stats	Fire	Nature	Water	Light	Dark
ATK (Attack)	ATK, CRIT, HP	Battle	Battle	-	-	Battle
	ATK, CRIT, DP	Power	Power	-	-	Power
	CRIT, HP, XP in PVE	Insight	Insight	-	-	Insight
	HP, SKL, Lifesteal	Vampiric	Vampiric	-	-	Vampiric
	CRIT, ATK,  Burning Touch	Incineration	-	-	-	-
	ATK, DEF,  Diseased Touch	-	-	-	-	Corruption
	SKL, DP, Chaos Damage	Tainted	-	-	-	-
	SKL, HP, Chaos Damage	-	Tainted	-	-	Tainted
	SKL, DP, Chaos DR	Sanctified	-	-	-	-
	HP, DEF, Chaos DR	-	-	-	-	Sanctified
DEF (Defense)	DEF, DR, HP	-	-	Bulwark	Bulwark	Bulwark
	DEF, DODGE, XP in PVE	-	-	Thought	-	-
	HP, DOGDE, XP in PVE	-	-	-	Thought	-
	HP, DEF, Cleansing Regeneration	-	-	Survivor	-	-
	HP, SKL, Chaos DR	-	-	Sanctified	-	-
	DR, DEF, DEF+	-	-	-	Guardian	-
SKL (Skill)	SKL, CRIT, HP	Focus	-	Focus	Focus	-
	HP, DEF, Chaos Damage	-	-	Tainted	-	-
	ATK, DEF, Chaos Damage	-	-	-	Tainted	-
	ATK, DEF, Chaos DR	-	-	-	Tainted	-
HP (Health / Hit Points)	HP, DEF, DR	-	Life	Life	-	Life
CRIT (Crit Chance)	CRIT, DODGE, ATK	-	-	Precision	Precision	Precision
	ATK, SKL, DR in PVP	Tactics	Tactics	-	-	Tactics
DP (Damage Penetration)	DP, CRIT, ATK	Destruction	Destruction	-	-	Destruction
	SKL, HP, Chaos DR	-	Sanctified	-	-	-
DR (Damage Reduction)	DR, HP, DEF	-	Aegis	Aegis	Aegis	-
	DEF, HP, DR in PvP	-	-	Planning	Planning	-
DODGE	DODGE, HP, DEF	Elusive	-	Elusive	Elusive	-
	HP, CRIT, Lifesteal	-	-	Soul Stealer	Soul Stealer	-

Overview of Max Stat Values

Rune	ATK	DEF	SKL	HP	CRIT	DP	DR	DODGE
Lesser
Improved	367 - 397
Greater	477 - 526	429 - 478	418 - 448	1076 - 1140	8.37% - 9.42%	8.94% - 9.59%	8.64% - 9.86%	4.57%
Superior	- 607	552 - 625	463 - 517	1217 - 1316			- 11.38%	5.27%
Ultra / Tainted (Superior)	? / 749	567	-
Elite	722 - 729	649 - 736	608 - 620

• Elite Reptilien Rune: 736 DEF
• Elite Plant Rune: 722 DEF
• Superior Assassin Rune: 625 DEF
• Superior Tainted Rune 749 ATK (Event Rune)

Rune Auto-Salvaging / Removal

Given feedback regarding inflating rune inventories and game memory issues that can arise from them, Boss Fight implemented a limited rune auto-salvaging procedure with a patch on March 1, 2019.

It's a relatively simple system, and it makes sure you always keep your best runes, and doesn't salvage every rune you have above the limit, so even if you've got a ton of runes right now, you don't need to worry about sifting through all of them before this takes effect.

How the Limited Rune Auto-Salvaging/Removal Works When Above Inventory Limit

• Runes will not be auto-salvaged/removed unless your rune inventory is above 220 runes (which is actually 20 above the normal limit where you stop receiving runes from dungeons).
• Runes equipped to heroes are not counted as in your inventory.
• Elite runes will NEVER be auto-salvaged. If you somehow have 2,000 elite runes, good for you. You might still want to salvage some of them, but we won't make you do it.
• Superior runes will not be auto-salvaged unless you have 220 runes + 5 runes times the number of heroes that can be obtained in the game at that time. This is to ensure that you can have a full inventory and unrune all of your heroes and still not have to worry about Superior runes being auto-salvaged.
• If you have 221-231 runes in your inventory, the next time you open the game, runes will be auto-salvaged until you have 220 runes. The number of runes salvaged will take you to 220, but not below that number.
• If you have 232+ runes in your inventory, the next time you open the game, 10 runes will be auto-salvaged, and then up to 10 runes will be removed from your inventory, but will not provide salvaging rewards. This procedure will be run every time you open the game, meaning that if you have 400 runes in your inventory, you will be brought down to 380 the first time you log into the game, 360 the next time, etc. until you get to 220 or no longer have runes that are allowed to be salvaged.
• When runes are auto-salvaged/removed, your Lesser runes will be the first ones salvaged/removed, starting with the oldest Lesser rune in your inventory.
  • If you have no Lesser runes in your inventory and are still over the limit, your Improved runes will be salvaged/removed, starting with the oldest.
  • If you have no Lesser or Improved runes in your inventory are are still over the limit, your Greater runes will be salvaged/removed, starting with the oldest.
  • If you have no Lesser, Improved, or Greater runes in your inventory AND have more than 220+(5x number of obtainable heroes), Superior runes will be removed/salvaged.
• When any given tier (Lesser/Improved/Greater/Superior) of runes is being removed/salvaged, the first to go will be that of the lowest rarity (Common/Uncommon/Rare/Heroic/Legendary).
  • When there are only runes of the same tier and rarity, the runes of the lowest level are the first to go.
  • When there are only runes of the same tier, rarity, and level, those with the lowest stars are the first to go.
  • When there are only runes of the same tier, rarity, level, and stars, runes without passives (4th stats) are the first to go.
  • If all of those factors are the same, the oldest rune will be the first to go. All passives are weighted equally.

Read More

• Rune Type List - A list of released Event and Special runes
• Crafting - How to become a Rune Master. The main page leads the following sub pages
  • Crafting/Runes - how to craft and tune a rune.
  • Crafting/Materials - describes crafting Materials in details.
  • Combining Evos
• Materials - all about the materials that you can find in Dungeons
• Rune Mania - an event where you can craft your own rune with a chosen bonus stat