Task Bar Hero Runes are incremental upgrades that apply to your entire party, boosting your Gold and XP gains and the power of every hero. But every Rune upgrade costs an escalating amount of Gold and they get very expensive very quickly. In short, you've got to spend gold to make gold. The real difficulty is knowing where to spend your Gold early on to help in the short and long run, and it doesn't help that some of the best Runes are hidden until you've unlocked others. So, I've laid out some tips for unlocking Runes in Task Bar Hero and have explained which ones are best to get early.
Best Task Bar Hero Runes
Once you unlock the Rune menu in Task Bar Hero at level 3, you can finally start spending your gold on Rune upgrades. You must start by purchasing the Rune of War for 100 Gold, then you'll have access to two paths: Up to the Rune of Wealth and Down to the Rune of Growth. These two paths also roughly describe the sorts of upgrades you'll find further up those paths too.
The Wealth path is all about increasing your Gold income, the chances getting Task Bar Hero chests, and inventory space. The Growth path is all about increasing your XP gains and improving the party's combat effectiveness in various ways. Some Runes have multiple tiers and multiple versions, so you can buy and upgrade the same effect several times, but the costs of each upgrade or each subsequent version of a Rune is usually a lot more expensive.
You'll therefore want to spread yourself across both Rune paths to a degree for noticeable improvements, but I think it's best to focus on the upper Wealth path early on. Getting more gold will help you afford more Rune upgrades sooner, which will help you get through some of the lower Growth upgrades faster. That will then help you reach higher-difficulty stages for greater rewards, and so on. It's also a good idea to unlock the Watcher Task Bar Hero Pet as doing so increases the amount of Gold you get per kill by 15%.
Here are the best Task Bar Hero Rune upgrades to focus on getting as early as you can:
- Upper 'Wealth' path:
- Runes of Wealth: These Runes improve the amount of Gold you get for killing enemies. The first five of these upgrades going to the left are all worth having at the very least and will cause you to gain much more gold from killing anything.
- Rune of Repose: Unlocks offline play, meaning that you will still earn Gold and XP for up to 8 hours when the game isn't running. When you boot up the game, you'll be shown all the XP and Gold your characters have gained since you were away. Then get the Rune of Hoarding to increase the amount of Gold you earn while offline and the Rune of Training to increase the amount of XP you earn while offline.
- Rune of Exploration: There are multiple versions of this Rune, and they all increase the drop rate of Common Chests, helping you get more loot. Gear gained from these chests can massively improve your heroes, and its well worth increasing your odds of getting chests to help you get as much as possible. Even if you don't use the gear within, you can convert it into better gear or Gold via the Cube's Synthesis and Alchemy functions.
- Rune of Conquest: As with the Rune of Exploration, there are a couple of versions of this Rune, and they all increase the drop rate of superior Stage Boss Chests. Again, this will help you get more loot, Task Bar Hero Soulstones in particular
- Lower 'Growth' path:
- Runes of Growth: As with the Runes of Wealth, these runes increase your XP gains from defeating enemies of all kinds. The first five Runes going off to the left are good to get, but there are plenty more beyond to bolster your XP gains even further.
- Rune of Command: Unlocks your second Hero Slot, doubling your party size and massively improving your fighting capabilities. If you want some pointers on the best heroes to add here, check out our Task Bar Hero tier list.
- When you buy this upgrade, a forked path will reveal itself. Focus on going down the right part first and grabbing the Rune of Wealth, Rune of Growth, and the Rune of Awakening. Then go down the left part of the fork and beeline to the second Rune of Command to get the full three-hero party.
- Rune of Awakening: Unlocks a second Skill Slot for all heroes. Again, this massively expands the number of Task Bar Hero build combinations available to you and substantially increases the power of your heroes.
- Rune of the Shield: Provides all heroes with additional armor, making them more durable.
- Rune of War: Increases the attack damage of all heroes, making them more lethal.
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