Soulstone Survivors Beginners Advice on Runes and Runic Power

Just wanted to share things I’ve learned as I have invested more time into this game for folks just starting their adventure in Soulstone Survivors!

Soulstone Survivors Beginners Advice on Runes and Runic Power

Hello! I wanted to share some advice for newer players as I have progressed on my own journey through this game. These are just my personal opinions on basic runes that I find helpful no matter which class you are playing as. If you want to unlock more options and complete all achievements, you will need to unlock and level all classes to 70 as well as create each weapon tier for them in addition. I myself only have 3 classes at 70 and the rest at 20+ currently. That said, I hope you enjoy this guide!

Unlocking Runic Power and Runes

To first unlock runic power, you need to progress through unlocking all the maps and completely fill out the “basic” skill tree, which is the tree in the center of the map. Once this is done, you will then be able to start unlocking the runic power node at the top of this basic skill tree.

The symbol I used as the profile picture for this guide is the basic runic power unlock, which I will share again below:

A good tip is while you are leveling up the basic tree, make sure to unlock each map and clear or on normal difficulty. Additionally, try to complete clearing wave three of both overload (the red map portal when the map is complete) and infinity (the purple portal) modes. It is easier to clear these on wave 3 without any curses, especially as a new player when you won’t have a lot of options with skills or classes.

Unlocking New Runes Via Each Class

While naturally leveling and progressing the game, as you unlock achievements those achievements will also unlock more rune options and/or runic power. In addition to these achievements, as you level each class’s prestige past level 20, you will get skill points to spend in that class’s skill tree. You want to first aim for the middle of the tree, where some rune options can be found (the green background icons directly in the middle path).

The very first skill you unlock in the prestige tree will also unlock a special class feature for each class. This can change the way each class plays, and can provide significant buffs such as the strength of the Necromancer’s abominations.

In addition to the green runes in the middle of each class’s skill tree, you also want to focus on unlocking nodes that have a blue border. These nodes unlock bonuses that apply to ALL characters on your account, which can add up to a significant power increase once you unlock every option like this. Example of nodes below:

Versatility Runes

At the top of the rune screen we have a section called versatility:

These are all 0 cost runes that offer important advantages that impact your gameplay. Let’s look at some of the ones I find the most useful:

Weapon expert allows you to start with the 2 active skills of your currently equipped weapon. This is extremely useful because if you don’t select this, you will start each match with only the first active skill of your weapon, and will thus kill enemies much slower at the beginning. Therefore, take the extra skill to kill early enemies faster- you can always replace those active skills later if you want.

Next, we have one that unlocks when you level up in the prestige arcane weaver tree:

This rune is great for farming resources with which to forge all the weapons.

The other important 0 cost runes are skill inclination, skill affinity, and skill mastery. I’m going to create a separate guide section for each of these, as they have several images and descriptions to fully explain them and I want this guide to be able to be easily clicked through to the relevant section.

Skill Inclination

Skill inclination is a 0 cost versatility rune with the following power:

You can use this to focus on a certain category of skills to create a build faster in the early game. Here are the categories available:

As you can see in this image, you need level 60+ in each class to unlock each category, so there will be a significant time investment to be able to fully utilize this rune. Still, it is worth working on, and if you intend to complete all achievements for this game, you will unlock the full potential of this rune naturally.

Skill Affinity

Skill affinity is another 0 cost versatility rune, with the following power:

Take note that this only applies to the first time you are choosing an active power in a match- while it will only work once, you can use it to try to get an important power for your build if you have a build in mind that you are focusing on.

Here are the categories you can choose from:

You will need to reach level 30+ on each class to unlock the full potential of this rune. If you are pursuing 100% completion on achievements, you will unlock this along the way.

Skill Mastery

Last in the 0 cost versatility runes that I wanted to discuss here today is skill mastery, which has the following power:

This is perhaps the most useful of the 0 cost “skill” runes- you’re mostly looking for buffs such as arcane power or important powers such as exorcism if you’re on a class that normally wouldn’t be able to use these (i.e. necro, etc). An example of what this looks like is below:

Feel free to click through each category once you unlock it, and look at all the available options. More skills will unlock as you both level up and unlock classes as well as forge their weapons, as well as complete secret achievements. For the secret achievements, please refer to the permanent holiday event guides other users have created.

Tenacity Runes

Tenacity runes are the second part of the rune screen, located below the versatility runes. Out of these runes, most are unlocked as you progress through maps, curse levels, and classes. There are four runes here that I want to highlight that I personally have found the most useful:

Dash mastery really helps you get around maps to both dodge large attacks as well as pick up resources. For some boss attacks, the extra distance really helps.

Ready for battle helps you get your build set up faster in the early minutes of a match, which can be crucial especially when on harder curse difficulties.

Surefooted is one I leave on all of my characters- the damage reduction is a must-have as well as the knockback resistance.

Lastly, lord’s bane is really useful for when you are doing higher curse difficulties or overload mode, in which you will always have 3 or more lords active at a time in each wave.

While I’m sure some of the other runes are great, these are just my personal recommendations based on general usability for all classes. As always, I am open to feedback and appreciate any constructive comments you may have! If there is enough interest, I may be interested in creating an in-depth description guide covering each rune once I have them all unlocked in the near future. I hope you enjoyed this guide!