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Runes, decoded — every cost, effect and Tomb drop rate

26.0.0 shipped two systems at once — the Tomb of Heroes dungeon and the Runes that its loot feeds. The tables landed in the APK, so we did what we do: decoded all eight of them and wired the results into the site, the bot and the Hero Builder. Here's what the data actually says.

115runes — 43 Hero, 72 normal in 9 families
8grades, Normal → Exotic, caps Lv 10–80
4Tomb loot bands (D1–5, 6–10, 11–15, 16–20)
2currencies: Rune Dust + BlueStone

What the tables say

Hero Runes are the only runes with a written effect. Each of the 43 is tied to one hero's unique skill — Katarina's Pirate's Secret adds a Critical Damage buff on cast, Drake's Enhanced Flurry trades its stun away — and scales a Bonus Skill Damage number as it levels. At Lv 40, Pirate's Secret sits at +14.75% skill damage, on top of the cast buff the effect text describes.

Normal runes don't have text because they don't need it. Their entire effect is one flat stat — SWORD DAMAGE, CROSSBOW DAMAGE, HP — that grows by a fixed amount per level. A normal rune's desc field literally stores the word "Normal" or "Exotic". Nine families (Sword, Dagger, Mace, Crossbow, Gun, Wand, Protection, Skill, Utility) exist once per grade, eight copies each — which is why "Sword Rune" names eight different items and our tools always qualify them by rarity.

Every 10th level grants a milestone. Odd milestones hand you a named bonus with a stored value (TOTAL POWER 100, MELEE DAMAGE 150, CROSSBOW DAMAGE 550); the alternating ones say "Grants 1 random attribute" — the game's own string, and the one place the data refuses to be specific: the attribute is rolled when it triggers, so no table can tell you what you'll get.

The economy is a ladder, not a cliff

Runes level with Rune Dust + BlueStone, and the Tomb feeds both. The numbers scale hard with grade, so we put the full ladder on every rune's card. Two worked examples, straight from the tables:

RuneCapTotal to maxDismantle at capRefund
Epic Sword RuneLv 40 2,604 dust + 260 BlueStone 2,143 dust + 208 BlueStone ≈82% of dust
Exotic Sword RuneLv 80 21,673 dust + 2,414 BlueStone 16,968 dust + 1,752 BlueStone ≈78% of dust

That last column is the strategy hinge: dismantling refunds most of your dust, which is exactly how you're meant to convert dupes into Rune Powder for the runes you keep. The site's Runes reference has the per-level cost for every rune at every level, plus the cost-to-max grid by grade and type.

Tomb of Heroes: the odds, difficulty by difficulty

The Tomb drops rune loot on four enemy types — Normal, Elite, Unique, Boss — and the game groups its 20 difficulties into four loot bands (D1–5, D6–10, D11–15, D16–20). One honest limitation: the tables tie drop rates to those bands, not specific rune grades, so nobody can read "which grade drops at D17" out of the data — only the odds. And the odds are blunt:

Loot locks in only when the run is finished — the game's own announcement says so, and the tables back it up. Full 80-row table: on the Runes page.

The bot learned three new tricks

The Discord bot reads the same runes_full.json the site builds from, so it gained:

XPHero Fans APP
Sword Rune (Exotic)
MELEE RUNE · grade 8 · max Lv 80
Effect at Lv 80SWORD DAMAGE +6.43%
Costs (Rune Dust / BlueStone)21,673 dust + 2,414 bluestone to Lv 80
Dismantle at Lv 80: 16,968 dust + 1,752 bluestone back
XPHero Fans · data extracted from v26.0.0

The Hero Builder equips runes now

The Hero Builder gained a rune slot. Pick any of the 115 runes and a level, and its TOTAL POWER and HP milestones fold straight into the power and HP stats — so "how much does an Exotic rune actually move my build?" has a number. The unique effect renders with its real value at your chosen level, named milestones like MELEE DAMAGE 550 are listed but deliberately not folded in (the game never publishes their unit semantics — same policy as abilities). And it's in the share link: v2 builds carry the rune and its level, old links keep working.

Try it

Start with the Runes reference — pick any rune, drag the level slider, watch the costs and milestones settle. Then ask the bot in Discord. If your guild keeps asking something the tables can answer, tell us: that's a slash command waiting to happen.

All numbers come from XP Hero v26.0.0's own tables, extracted from the APK. XP Hero is developed by Supercent — XPHero Fans is unofficial and not affiliated with or endorsed by them.