With the upcoming release of the Solo Leveling: Arise game, which is based on the popular webtoon of the same name, people are scrambling to prepare for what’s to come. In this guide, we will be showing you everything you need to know about skills and runes so that you will be ready once the game is finally globally released on PC and mobile platforms!
Complete Skills & Runes Guide
Before we begin, this won’t really be a showcase of all the individual skills in the game as they each have varying runes that significantly change how they work. We’ll be here all week if we go through every single one.
Instead, we will be explaining the skill and rune system itself, as well as give you a few pointers as to which ones you should prioritize and how they work in general.
Sung Jinwoo (Player Character)
One thing to note first about the protagonist Sung Jinwoo is that he can undergo multiple job changes throughout the course of the game. This will involve a trial where you have to defeat a mirror version of yourself.
Successfully finishing this Job Change Quest will grant you new skills and a costume. Because of this, your equipped repertoire will absolutely be shifting as you progress further into the game.
Leveling These Skills
In order to increase the power of these skills, you will need to level them up using Skill Scrolls. The type of scrolls you need will change as a skill gets stronger.
For example, at the base level, an ability will only require Skill Scroll I, which is has a white color and is fairly easy to stock up on. Later on, you will be using more advanced materials, such as the red Skill Scroll II.
One tip is to prioritize upgrading QTE skills first. These are activated whenever certain conditions are met while in combat, and they will drastically improve your effectiveness in a fight.
For example, the Shadow Step ability will automatically trigger whenever you perform a successful Extreme Evasion. This will deal damage and decrease the target’s defense by quite a lot.
Sung Jinwoo’s Basic Abilities
Before we get to the topic of runes, let’s quickly cover the various things you will need to consider when picking the main character’s basic skills.
First of all, there are a handful of abilities that have the “Break” label on them. This means that the skill can deal break damage on an enemy.
Not every opponent that you encounter in the game will require you to have this type of damage, but a lot of tough enemies, including bosses, might need at least one or two of these skills.
As for your choice of ultimate, the best choice is going to be Truth: Mutilate. It deals way more damage than the other option, and it can be buffed with certain runes on skills such as Double Slash.
Runes and How to Get Them
Now, moving on to runes, they are basically skill modifiers that can drastically change how an ability functions and what damage type they deal.
For example, a rune might change an ability’s damage type to a certain element, such as fire or wind. But aside from that, it can also give it other effects, including knock down or airborne.
Because of this, you should carefully read up on what your different skills and runes do so you can figure out what synergies you can form with your loadout. This will help maximize your damage output.
Making Your Own Runes
In the hub area, if you talk to the Management NPC and pick the Fuse option, you can create your own random runes at the cost of both gold and rune fragments (can be acquired in many different ways).
Do note that this method has a very small chance of giving you an epic rune. You are going to need a ton of fragments if you plan on grinding for a set of those.
In addition to that, you can also fuse skill runes to create new ones. This method has a much higher chance of giving you epic rarity stuff, but still less than 50%. This is great if you have a lot of spare runes lying around.
The Hunters’ Skills
In addition to the main character, your hunters also have their own sets of skills. Unlike Sung Jinwoo, however, you cannot change what abilities they have equipped.
With that said, you can still level these up by using a different variant of skill scrolls that are specifically designed for hunters only. Make sure to use these on your best hunters to maximize their DPS.
As for how you can get these skill scrolls, there are many different ways to do so. One of the methods for the higher tier ones is by participating in limited events.
Those who get high rankings in these events are likely to get one or more of these materials. The Exchange Shop can also sometimes have both hunter and player skill scrolls, so check it out every now and then.
The Gates game mode also has a change of rewarding you with skill scrolls, though this might be a little unreliable as it seems to be best done for gold and EXP farming instead.
And that is pretty much everything there is to know about both the skills and runes systems of this upcoming game. In preparation for the global release, you may also want to read our guide on artifacts in Solo Leveling: Arise to get yourself a head start!
