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You may notice that people always mention the same main stats for the same slots. This is because only specific rune slots can have specific main stats. The following table shows what slots can have what main stats.
You cannot get the primary stat as a substat. For example, a slot 2 rune with ATK% cannot have ATK% as a substat.
Runes should be equipped in sets, which will provide additional stat boosts for normal runes, or a bonus effect for Ancient Runes, to your dragon.
You need to equip the exact number to make a set.
For example, if you equip 6 Damage runes to your dragon, it will get a 60% boost added to their Critical DMG. If you equip 3, however, you will only get a 20% Critical DMG boost, and it would be a waste of a slot that could go into equipping another full set.
Runes are often referred to in sets, or by their colour.
Note: Runes have names such as 'Quick', 'Swift', or 'Destructive'. This denotes what substats the rune is likely to have. As it is still completely luck-based what substats you get, however, this information is useless, and not elaborated upon in this article.
You can enhance runes in order to increase their main stat.
Every third enhancement, your rune will either boost existing substats, or gain more substats.
Runes of higher star number will have a higher main stat.
A high rarity rune, denoted by their background colour, does not necessarily mean that it has better stats. It only denotes what it adds or increases up to a certain enhancement point.
For example, a Legendary rune with ATK%, HP%, flat Defense+ stat, and Effect Accuracy% is not a very good rune. No new substats will be added no matter how much you enhance it, so you are stuck with an undesirable combination.
By contrast, a Normal rune that only has Critical Rate% as its initial substat will boost that stat at +3 enhancement, and still has the potential to gain more useful substats such as ATK% or Critical DMG%.
Whenever a %-based substat is enhanced, it has a chance to be increased by 1%, 2%, 3%, or 4%.
The highest a %-based substat can go is 10%.
Now let's take a look at this chart and talk about what it means.
The 'Rarity' referred to here denotes the background colour of a rune.
Below are examples of how enhancement and rune rarity work.
Normal Rarity:
Rare Rarity:
Heroic Rarity:
Legendary Rarity:
When you are first starting out and only have runes of 1-star to 4-star grades, you will not want to waste gold enhancing them a lot. In the beginning, there is no real need to enhance your runes.
Once you have reached the later part of Adventure on Hard mode, you can start farming Adventure stages for 4-star runes.
You can enhance 4-star runes to +9, or +12 at most for slots 2, 4, and 6.
When you can farm Nightmare Dungeon levels 7 and above, you will start getting 5-star and above runes, and these are the runes that you want to enhance to +12 or +15.
It is highly recommended to only enhance runes of slots 2, 4, and 6 to +15, as these runes have percentage-based stats. Enhancing a rune from +12 to +15 will only boost the main stat, so boosting runes with a percentage-based stat will provide your dragon with a much bigger boost than enhancing runes with flat main stats.
The exception to this is runes with a main stat pertinent to your dragon (e.g. HP for a dragon whose heal increases proportionately to its HP), and even then, only if it is an exceptionally good rune that you do not foresee ever needing to change out.
Additionally, once you move on to 5-star and 6-star runes, do your best to get 6-star runes for slots 2, 4, and 6, as the main stat provided by 6-star runes gives a significantly higher boost than 5-star runes.
It is in no way easy to get the runes you need. When you have reached the point where you can farm Adventure on Hard mode for runes, you can grind specific stages for specific rune slots and colours, but Hard only offers up to 4-star runes, which is not suitable for end-game. Looking for the right runes becomes much more difficult when searching for them in the Nightmare Dungeon, Rune Guardians, or Ancient Ruins.
My advice is to look only for the right colour and main stat when you are looking for 4-star runes in Adventure Hard.
Once you are using dungeons to get runes, do the same thing, and slowly replace them whenever you find runes with better substats.
Luck plays a big factor in this game, so do not worry if it feels like you only have sub-optimal runes! That is perfectly normal, and the search for good runes never stops, even for top players or players who have been playing for months. Just work on it when you can. Simply having the right sets and main stats can already bring you a long way!