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Runes

WHAT ARE RUNES?
There are FOUR kinds of persistent Runes, each one with a different Essence assigned to it: Attack, Defense, Damage, and Health. You can find your Rune info on your Keep page, right below the banking information.

Runes can be forged onto equipment and when rune-forged equipment is used or equipped and the rune bonuses will apply to the individual. Trading essences directly augments player runes for greater bonuses. Runes are persistent and cannot be lost.

To improve a guild’s storage for a particular essence, we have to spend wood, iron and energy to increase capacity. An Essence Storage at rank 0 cannot hold any essence and cannot be traded to! It costs 5x Wood, 5x Iron and 25 Energy each time you make an improvement to storage and you can select the Storage you want to improve by using the drop down menu. Please note that after the first upgrade, you have the option of increasing the upgrade cost (and the resulting upgrade) by up to 10x the amount of resources being spent. Also, you cannot increase the storage level beyond the guild conquest level.

WHERE DO I GET ESSENCE?
Defense and Health Essence are only available through Questing and Attack and Damage Essence are only available through fighting specific monsters.
With respect to the Quests, you have 120 hours (5 days) to complete as much or as little as you wish. Quests cost 50 energy and will give you 65 xp + gold for each action. You do NOT have to complete Level 4 in order to collect - you can collect after each Level if you choose, but doing so will reset the quest and you will be given a new timer when you start again. Also, please note that Underworld and Mist II give slightly better rewards. If you have all four of these lands open, you should focus on doing only the two that give better rewards as there is no benefit to doing all 4 lands. The Excavations quests DO NOT give SP, only experience and gold.

DEFENSE ESSENCE – Only available by completing the Rune Excavation Quests located in the following areas:

Land of Mist (3rd Land) – DEFENSE
Level 1 = 300 energy = 200 Defense Essence
Level 2 = 700 energy = 500 Defense Essence
Level 3 = 1200 energy = 900 Defense Essence
Level 4 = 1800 energy = 1400 Defense Essence
Underworld (7th Land) – DEFENSE
Level 1 = 300 energy = 205 Defense Essence
Level 2 = 700 energy = 515 Defense Essence
Level 3 = 1200 energy = 930 Defense Essence
Level 4 = 1800 energy = 1450 Defense Essence

HEALTH ESSENCE – Only available by completing the Rune Excavation Quests located in the following areas:

Land of Water (4th Land) – HEALTH
Level 1 = 300 energy = 200 Health Essence
Level 2 = 700 energy = 500 Health Essence
Level 3 = 1200 energy = 900 Health Essence
Level 4 = 1800 energy = 1400 Health Essence
Mist II (12th Land) – HEALTH
Level 1 = 300 energy = 205 Health Essence
Level 2 = 700 energy = 515 Health Essence
Level 3 = 1200 energy = 930 Health Essence
Level 4 = 1800 energy = 1450 Health Essence

ATTACK ESSENCE: Attack Essence is ONLY available by attacking the following Boss or World Monsters (while the amount of the Essence drop stays the same, the frequency of drops is based on the amount of Stam used in each hit with higher stam hits getting more frequent drops)


BOSS MONSTER:
Alpha Mephistopheles (102x Attack Essence)
Corvintheus (100x Attack Essence)
Malekus (105x Attack Essence)

WORLD MONSTER:
Alpha Bahamut (102x Attack Essence)
Gehenna, the Fire Elemental (100x Attack Essence)
Glacius, the Frost Giant (102x Attack Essence)
Typhonus, the Chimera (105x Attack Essence)
Vermilion, the Tyrant (105x Attack Essence)
Kessaran, the Undying (108x Attack Essence)

DAMAGE ESSENCE: Damage Essence is ONLY available by attacking the following Boss or World Monsters (while the amount of the Essence drop stays the same, the frequency of drops is based on the amount of Stam used in each hit with higher stam hits getting more frequent drops)


BOSS MONSTER:
Azriel, the Angel of Wrath (102x Damage Essence)
Lion's Rebellion (100x Damage Essence)
Jahanna, Priestess of Aurora (100x Damage Essence)
Aurora (100x Damage Essence)
Ambrosia (102x Damage Essence)
Azeron (105x Damage Essence)
Fenix, Risen From Ashes (105x Damage Essence)
Urmek, Protector of Gaia (108x Damage Essence)
Vorak, Devourer of Skies (108x Damage Essence)

WORLD MONSTER:
Valhalla, the Air Elemental (100x Damage Essence)
Magmos, the Lava Giant (102x Damage Essence)
Kraken (100x Damage Essence)
Alpha Kraken (105x Damage Essence)
Abomination, Ancient Slime (108x Damage Essence)

I HAVE ESSENCE, WHAT NOW? GO TO THE TRADE MARKET ...
Essence must be traded to increase the Rune Experience level of a particular Rune and There are two ways to trade your Essence:

(1) go to your Keep, scroll down and click on the “View Market” button. This will take you to a list of various guilds, some of which will give you bonuses for trading with them. Look for the highest experience bonus (currently 33%) you can find for the Essence that you want to trade.

(2) go to the Guild tab and click on the “Enter” button for your guild’s Trade Market. NOTE: The Bonus feature for trades has been indefinitely disabled. We will update as soon as it is enabled again. GMs and officers can actually set a bonus (currently 33%) for trading a particular essence. Simply click on the blue option box at the end of the guild name while in your Trade Market and select from one of the options available

The GM or officer simply needs to select the appropriate button and save in order to change the bonus level, which again is either 0% or 33% bonus for trades.

From a guild perspective, you want to increase your storage capacity as quickly as possible and fill it with Essence so that you can activate guild-level bonuses that apply to all of your members.When you get to the Trade Market, you will see not only your totals for each of the Essence, but also the 4 Essence trading options:

You cannot trade if the storage bin is full and the red bar will indicate how much additional Essence that the storage can accept. When trading Essence, you can use the Arrow buttons to select the quantity that you want to trade: 200 (costs 25 energy), 400 (costs 50 energy), 600 (costs 75 energy) or 800 (costs 100 energy).

Keep in mind that by trading with other guilds, you are not really helping them that much, you are simply using their storage to gain extra experience. It will be helping YOU to level up your Runes faster, which helps your guild more in the long run.

As you can see from the chart below, the stat boost you get depends entirely on the Experience level of your Rune and the type of Rune. For example, an Attack (or Defense) Rune at Level 2 will give you +5 to your Attack (or Defense) while a Health (or Damage) Rune at level 2 will give you +4 Health (or Damage). Attack and Defense primarily affect monster battling while Damage and Health primarily affect Guild Battles.
The formula for determining the ability increase for each level is as follows: Attack and Defense = (Level * 5) - 5 Damage and Health = (Level * 4) – 4

The formula for determining the XP needed for each level is as follows:XP [LVL 3 - 8] = 500.000 * (LVL - 1) * (LVL - 2)XP [LVL 9 and above] = 275.625 * (LVL) ^ 2

I HAVE LEVELED UP MY RUNES, WHAT NEXT?

Once you have leveled up a Rune, you need to forge it onto a piece of equipment in order to gain the Rune benefits. The Forge is located in the drop-down menu of the Keep tab.

Attack Rune can ONLY be forged onto Weapons


Damage Runes can ONLY be forged onto Weapons and Gloves


Defense Runes can ONLY be forged onto Armors and Helmets


Health Runes can ONLY be forged onto Armors and Helmets

If you Salvage (unforge) an item that has a Rune on it, you will NOT lose the Rune or the Rune Experience. If the item being Salvaged has a Gem or Ore forged to it, you will lose the Gem or Ore but not the Rune.

To Forge a Rune, go to your Keep tab and select Forge from the drop-down menu. Select the item that you want to forge your rune onto (items are listed from strongest to weakest available and, no, not every piece of equipment you have is available to forge). Select your BEST weapon, and then click on the Attack rune. Then click COMBINE. This will add the attack rune to your weapon. You will be able to keep building your rune stronger and stronger simply by adding experience (by trading Essence) without having to do anything else in the forging section. Then go to your armor (Defense Rune), your helm (Health Rune), and your glove (Damage Rune) and repeat the same process.

The Soldiers Bone Helmet is the only Helm that can be forged right now. You can obtain that item by leveling up to Rank 3 in Conquest Duels (which uses Conquest tokens instead of Stam). Leveling up in Conquest Duels is not that difficult, you just have to be patient in finding good targets and for tokens to regenerate (rate is one token regenerated per hour.)

The only Glove that can be forged right now is the Knights Bone Gauntlet, which you can obtain by leveling up to Rank 6 in Conquest Duels (uses Conquest tokens instead of Stam).

EQUIPPING YOUR FORGED ITEM
In order to receive the benefit of the Rune forged items, you need to actually equip them. You can either go to Battle tab and select Equipment from the drop down menu or go to the Guild tab/Manage tab/Classes tab/Equip tab to make the necessary changes.

You will need to go through and select your forged items (weapon, armor, helmet, glove) as well as the best items for each of the other equipment or magic sections. The list of available items is supposed to be based on strength of item, but If you’re not sure, look up at the equipment next to your equipped general and it will show you what you currently have equipped. Just hover your cursor over the item to get its stats. Once done selecting your items, click SAVE. Do this for EVERY CLASS.

GUILD LEVEL BONUSES
These went into effect on 10-7-12 and are tied into the storage level that your guild has filled for a particular Essence. Right now, the levels appear to give bonuses as follows:
Completed Guild Level Bonus
Level 1 - 0.00%
Level 2 - 0.25%
Level 3 - 0.50%
Level 4 - 0.75%
Level 5 - 1.00%
Level 6 - 1.25%
Level 7 and up - 1.50%

We are still gathering data as to how the bonus damage is calculated because it appears to vary somewhat randomly.

HELPFUL HINTS:
Once you have the Bone Gauntlet, you should apply your Damage Rune to it. If you don’t have your Bone Gauntlet yet, you might want go ahead and forge the Damage rune to your best weapon (if you’re best weapon has already been forged, consider selecting your 2nd best weapon as you will be salvaging the rune when you get your glove and don’t want to waste the ores/gems that you already used to forge your best weapon).

When you forge a piece of equipment with a Rune, please do not forget to equip the item for each of your various classes. NOTE: When doing PvP or fighting monsters, the system will automatically select your best item for offense or defense regardless of whether it has been forged with a Gem or Rune. In GBs and FGBs, the system will automatically select your best item for offense or defense regardless of whether it has been forged UNLESS you equip something different (like a class-specific piece of equipment). And please don’t forget to click the SAVE button when you equip special items.

A list of items that can be forged can be found here: http://castleage.wikia.com/wiki/Forge#Associated_Equipments
You can forge your runes with equipment even when they are at Level 1 (0 experience). Experience and bonuses will automatically upgrade the Rune and the equipment.

Using Orc King, Barbarus or Maalvus can help you to ‘farm’ Essence drops. For example, on most monsters with a 200 stam button, using 200 stam with Orc King (1000 total stam), will give you 10 subsequent 10 stam hits (50 stam total) with Essence drops.

Essence drops are calculated by stamina usage rather than damage

Critical hits DO NOT affect the calculations for essence drops

Stamina usage is "recorded", and grants an essence drop anywhere within 100-150stamina used, upon which it "resets" for the next round.

There might be a chance-based system involved, with 100 stamina hits having the lowest chance and 150 stamina hits confirmed for a drop.

There is a backlog in place for bigger stamina hits, and it correctly drops essence for the cumulative stamina, rather than just calculating on the single big stamina hit.

Generally 130stamina/essence drop is a safe figure to adhere to.

In plainer English, if the damage required is x to receive an essence and you hit for 3.5x of damage, the game will remember that you are owed 2.5 more essence. Each subsequent 10 stam hit will net you 1 essence drop until you either run out of the required damage or hit that magic number again. And the magic number varies depending on the monster that you are attacking ...
Part 2:

-Gather rune-essences from various (specific) monsters and (specific) quests. Attack Essence, Defense Essence, Damage Essence, Health Essence.

-Trade essences to guilds in the Trade Market. Trading essences (IE trade Attack Essence) will improve the XP and level of your Attack Rune.

-Attack/Defense/Health/Damage Runes now exist in your keep. Everyone starts the game with them, for free. They are simply there now, for everyone. Runes start at 0 XP and confer 0 bonuses. Runes can be leveled through the Trade Market by trading rune-essences. At level 1, you will see potential bonuses (IE Attack rune will confer +10 attack at X level).

-How do I use my runes? Go to the forge. At the forge, select a piece of equipment that can be forged. Here you may now slot a particular rune that can be forged to the item, AS WELL AS any gems/ingots you have collected. Runes may be leveled while forged or not forged. It matters not where they are, they will always level up. Only one rune may be slotted to a piece of equipment at a time. Only one rune of a given type can be forged at a time (until salvaged, and forged onto another item).
Here is a point of confusion. People are slotting runes without reading the text. You literally cannot avoid the text (it's a forced hover over when selecting a rune) but it's being skipped anyway. So here is the details on what runes can go where:

Attack Rune: Weapons only.

Defense Rune: Armors and Helmets only.

Damage Rune: Weapons and Gloves only.

Health Rune: Armors and Helmets only.

Devs are currently discussing adjustments in this area to make it more intuitive.

-Damage runes only work on guild formats. We are pushing a bug fix right now to stop them from hurting YOU instead of the enemy =p

-The other three runes should work in all facets of the game.

-Some people are JUST getting into the "forged" business, as well as the class/equipment. This feature has been out for a LONG time, but I'll explain it again. You pick a class. Each class has a guild power and equipment loadout. Slot weapons you want, that have been forged through the forge page, to receive the bonuses from gems/ignots and now runes. When you enter a monster, you pick a class. The class you picked will look at that class's saved equipment loadout and use those items. Slots you leave EMPTY in the equipment/class page will use BiS (Best in Slot). We are now working on LOADOUTS to assist with quick equipment-set changes, so you can for example set a DEFENSIVE loadout, an attacker loadout, a guild battler loadout, ect. ect.

FOR NOW- to use the runes, you must utilize the class/equipment page and save the forged item to the class. Make sure you have the right class selected when pvping/monster hunting and guild battling.
If you wish to remain SIMPLE; make sure to forge your runes/gems/ignots to your BEST items and leave the equipment slots BLANK on the class page. OR just totally ignore all the features and play the game as normal.

-Salvaging runes! There is no penalty to salvaging runes off of your equipment at this time. YOU WILL LOSE gems and ignots AS NORMAL. Runes are persistent, you only EVER have ONE of each, they cannot be lost. Gems/Ignots you can amass any amount, and can be lost upon salvaging.

-Why are we storing rune essences for the guild? This will tie into other features down the road which will be out next. There will be a REASON to amassing large storage tanks for your guild. For NOW, all you are doing is storing essences for some unknown reason.

Trade Market specifics:-Changing a banner at this time is purely fluff.

-Officers can set one rune-essence type to a discount. So people who trade X essence at X discount, will receive more XP for the rune of that type after trading. The other three runes trade at normal rates.

-Your guild stall always appears in the top left in the blue hued-market stall.

-You cannot trade essences to storage tanks that are full.

-Guilds can improve storage room by levels, using wood/lumber/energy. The max level is the guilds current conquest level.

-There will probably be bonuses down the road based on Trader Rank.

-You can access your guilds market stall from the guild homepage, additionally.