Leinarth's Rune Knight Class Guide

Hi everyone, Leinarth here. I'm going to teach you what I learned during my stay on NovaRO about Rune Knights. Here I will teach you about the most interesting builds I have the knowledge of. If there's an acronym you don't understand, you should check out the list I made at the bottom. If you have any questions, you may find me on Novacord under the name Leinarth. Feel free to PM me too,

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STR

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AGI

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VIT

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INT

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DEX

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LUK

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Pick this and that for the following reason

Skill
Notes
Type
Sword Master Lv 1

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Passive
Provoke Lv 5

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Builds
Critical Auto-Attack

Remember these wise words from your sensei:

"The best defense is a good offense, and the best offense is currently (in my opinion) Critical RK"
Leinarth

Attention Even though the Critical AA build that I'll teach you may seem appealing, please do not forget that's it's not easy to exp with it, especially if you follow the stats, which are given for level 175 (You'll get nowhere with 1 point in DEX if you don't have a great critical rate). You should first take a look at the Wind Cutter build as it's easier to do and it'll give you a spike in damage when leveling after switching to Rune Knight.

Here are the stats I use for my Crit RK

Status
STR
120 + 66
32
AGI
100 + 6
16
VIT
90 + 7
10
INT
40 + 10
5
DEX
1 + 9
2
LUK
120 + 5
32

If you're not stuffed good enough yet or want to play solo without foods, AB buffs or a Minstrel, you might want to switch STR and AGI so you can get 190~ ASPD. This build has the goal of making the highest melee damage possible, and it's much better to get as much attack speed as possible before trying to upgrade your damage, since it outshines the little atk boost you get from the 20 last points you could put in STR.

Mouse over the icons to see the name of the skill!

How to Crit RK 101

I'm not even kidding here, these are the only 3rd class skills you need to perform correctly as a Critical Rune Knight. Critical build is all about buffing before simply auto-attacking the enemy, no other skills required. Of course, there are several 2nd class skills that you mustn't forget !

2nd Class
10
1
10
5
5
3rd Class
10
5

The strategy on a Critical build is pretty simple; buff yourself as much as possible before going Berserk and killing everything. The skills and buffs you need to cast before Berserk are better used in this order, because of their duration:

Auto Berserk > Berserk Potion > Enchant Blade > Two-Hand Quicken > Aura Blade > Turisus Runestone > Asir Runestone > Rhydo Runestone > Concentration > Parrying > Magnum Break > Berserk

This might seem like it's kind of useless but if the fight drags on, you're still under Berserk and your buffs start disappearing (like the runes for example), you will lose a big part of your DPS and end up waiting for Berserk to stop so you can buff again, making you possibly lose a lot of precious time.

If you're simply killing lots of trash mobs, you could also forget Berserk as it could lead to your doom since you could get mobbed and get crushed because your FLEE is halved and you got 0 DEF/MDEF. This is something I try to avoid in Sky Fortress for example, as the Ragged Zombies there hurt quite a lot. Instead, switch to this combo:

Auto Berserk > Berserk Potion > Enchant Blade > Two-Hand Quicken > Aura Blade > Turisus Runestone > Asir Runestone > Rhydo Runestone > Concentration > Parrying

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Any slot where you can't get the recommended card or you're not satisfied with it, you can put in one of these essences. Usually you'll end up putting EoE LUK 3 because you need a high critical rate.
Item Type Notes
Essence of Evil STR 3 Card Pretty good if your critical rate is high (around 100-110 is enough to hit most of the time), it's sometimes better or cheaper than some other options (like Gold Scaraba).
Essence of Evil LUK 3 Card You'll need this if you're aiming for 100% critical chance (without considering the critical defense of the enemies of course). If you're pretty close to 100 in Critical, you can forget about putting points in DEX as you'll be most of the time doing critical hits, which have perfect hit and aren't affected by your HIT rate (and this also means that the decrease in DEX of the EoE does nothing to you, so it's basically a win-win situation for you).

I keep together the set pieces that are only worth running together here.
Item Type Notes
Peuz's Set Set You're just starting out but wanna play critical AA, and just hearing about the cost of Lux Anima runes makes you sweat ? Fear not ! The Peuz set allows you to autocast Storm Blast without using Lux runes! It can be enchanted with critical chance enchants if you manage somehow to get your armor and garment to +9. The full set also gives you +100% damage to Sonic Wave so it's a nice bonus when hunting mobs and teleporting.
YSF01 Seyren's set Set Update The YSF01 instance got revamped: it has now scripted drops, which means everybody in the party has his own chances of dropping parts of the set. The drop rate also increased from 5% to 10%. The YSF01 set is pretty good if you get every piece +9, for content with sky-high DEF thanks to its DEF pierce ability. It provides also a good amount of ATK% and %Critical damage if you get the stat requirements (125 STR and 125 LUK respectively).

Item Type Notes
Fox Ear Ribbons [1] Top This hat gives 10% ASPD bonus, and when you physically attack, you have a chance of transforming into Moonlight Flower: it gives you a %ranged damage bonus, and +100% critical chance. I've seen this hat being used sometimes on Crit RK builds so I thought I would add it here, but this isn't that worth it as there are many ways to achieve +100% critical chance. But it could still be viable since you'd free a lot of other equipment/card slots; you wouldn't need to get any critical bonus anymore, and you could theoretically invest strongly on pure power (like ATK). I consider them training wheels that will allow you to get a 100% critical rate until you get the items required to have it.
Snake Head Hat [1] Top This cute little buddy is your best early friend as it gives you the thief skill Double Attack at level 5. Since a patch from several years ago, you can both proc critical attacks and double attacks on the same hit. This is in my opinion core to the build as you get a big DPS spike thanks to your high ASPD and your already sky-high damage. Do not forget that also the Turisus rune sometimes doubles the damage of one of your hits, and it stacks with Double Attack. Yes, the quadruple attack spike is not a dream, and it's theoretically possible to use it on the dreadful Crush Strike rune.
Clack Sidecap [1] Top From a recent hat update bringing lots of combos regarding the OS weapons from episode 17.1, this hat is pretty interesting amongst its pairs, especially for us, because of not only its combo with the Beam Claymore-OS but also for the perks it gives by itself; it gives 20 ATK every 2 refines, and 2 great boosts at refines +9 and +11: at +9 we get the extremely rare melee modifier with a whooping +15% (Melee modifier works the same as ranged%, it acts as a final modifier so it's very interesting to have) and at +11 we get a +15% size modifier to Small and Medium.
Illusion Hot-blooded Headband [1] Top An unexpected contender to the critical AA scene, this hat is there to balance out the mountain of critical damage% you've got. If you aren't lacking in critical hit, this hat provides a ton of bonuses based on the refine of the hat : +10% damage against against wind, water, earth and neutral monsters at +7, +15% damage against small and large monsters at +9. It can also be enchanted, the most recommended enchant for us is the Rune of Strength which, depending on the level of the rune, gives a bonus of STR at a specific refine and an all races% bonus at a higher refine. A not too ridiculous choice is to go for at least one rune level 2 and one rune level 1 (of course if possible get twice a level 2 or even a level 3 rune). Thanks to all these bonuses, this option can get pretty close and on specific targets (thanks to the elemental bonuses) it can even overcome the ORC's damage if you already have a lot of crit damage. Beware as it doesn't bring any critical rate, so to switch from ORC to this hat, you might need to rebuild a bit your overall stuff !
Old Rune Circlet [1] Top Currently one of the strongest hats for its refine bonuses and enchants, but also the hardest to get. Every 2 refines, you have 20% bonus damage on Ignition Break, and 15% on Hundred Spears. On the Critical build, you'll want the Acute enchantment, which gives Crit+3 and Critical Damage +15% every level after the first one.
New Racing Cap (Rune Knight) [1] Top New This hat gives 10% ASPD bonus, and when you physically attack, you have a chance of transforming into Moonlight Flower: it gives you a %ranged damage bonus, and +100% critical chance. I've seen this hat being used sometimes on Crit RK builds so I thought I would add it here, but this isn't that worth it as there are many ways to achieve +100% critical chance. But it could still be viable since you'd free a lot of other equipment/card slots; you wouldn't need to get any critical bonus anymore, and you could theoretically invest strongly on pure power (like ATK). I consider them training wheels that will allow you to get a 100% critical rate until you get the items required to have it.
Item Type Notes
Sigrun's Wings Middle As shown in the general equipment part, this will give you a flat ASPD point. It might be useful in case you want to reduce the AGI you have and invest the points somewhere else, or simply if you're stuck at 191 or 192 and need a little help.
Wing of Diablo [1] Middle If you're fine on both critical and ASPD, you can then opt for ATK items. Get these ears alongside an EoE STR 3. You may also go for the Angel Wing Ears if you prefer.
Fafnir Skin Middle This hat gives +3% Critical chance. It comboes with the Fafnir Mask, they give together +5% Critical chance as well as +5% Critical damage (as a combo). The natural HP regeneration loss is no problem for us as we can always pull Berserk in case of low HP..
Magical Booster [1] Middle This new hat allows us to get good bonuses such as critical rate, raw ATK and ATK%, while having an available card slot. As a Critical RK, you'll want to get critical rate (or raw ATK if you already got too much critical rate) and ATK%.
Item Type Notes
CD in Mouth Lower This will help in case you need to proc temporal boots enchants like Lucky Day or Runaway Magic; it autocasts bolts randomly when physically attacking, and it synergises well with Enchant Blade.
Samurai Mask Lower Samurai Mask is a good budget option as it directly increases your physical damage by 1%.
Fafnir Mask Lower It gives +2% Critical chance and combos with the Fafnir Skin shown before.
Poison Breath Lower A pretty nice middle budget hat that only works when used in pair with a Giant Snake Skin. Going for that hat as well as a GSS full of STR will give you a good increase in damage, resilience and attack speed. It's a nice alternative especially when you already have too much critical damage, as this combo will give you a great amount of ATK.
Rosary in Mouth Lower This is pretty interesting as a lower hat for its all stats and ATK bonuses, if you're not using a FWM (in which case a VMA would be the best) nor the Fafnir Skin, it is a very strong lower hat you can get.
Magical Rosary in Mouth Lower The awakened version of the Rosary In Mouth, one could argue the +2 all stats is better than the +1 version with 5 ATK, considering Storm Blast scales directly with STR. As it directly depends on the rest of your gears and the difference is really small, it's something you have to test by yourself.
Vicious Mind Aura Lower The most expensive and rare lower hat, it is also for now the BiS hat for us, when in combo with the Fallen Warrior Manteau. It brings effects similar to the Heroic Backpack, bringing us ATK, ASPD and critical damage based on our stat investment.
Item Type Notes
Phylla Card Card Before the Bio5 update I used this to get past the 100 critical cap as it procs often enough with high ASPD (Vanberk is not worth it as the chance is too low, here it's ok to get a smaller bonus since we already have critical from everywhere else). Stacking 2 Phylla cards will make it proc quite often.
Furious Hero Card Card This new card seems like a valid choice in case you already got a sky high ATK, otherwise you should go for an EoE STR 3. The endure effect won't be of any use to us as we already got it under Berserk.
Angra Mantis Card Card It only gives 3% critical damage since we're not a Thief class, but you'll want to put this in case you get the Chaotic Killer Mantis Card for a bonus 5% critical damage.
Purple Ferus Card Card A very good ATK hat card slot option, it gives raw ATK% as well as an amount based on the refine of your hat. The only downside is the HP/SP penalty, which can be solved with the combo with the Gold Acidus but considering our build is not concerned by HP, you shouldn't bother and just put an offensive card on the shoes.
Deep Sea King Dramoh Card Card This card is able to overcome the Purple Ferus Card thanks to its combo with Deep Sea Merman Card (check out the shoes section to learn more about it). The card by itself though brings just a bit of ATK% based on the refine of your hat, so if you don't plan on using the combo set, it is recommended to stay on the Purple Ferus Card as it's better in that case. Also in case you were worried about your health pool, there's another combo with the normal King Dramoh Card that brings +15% HP, effectively canceling the con of that card and bringing at the same time 10% more HP.

Item Notes
Flattery Robe [1] Flattery Robe appears here simply because it's a possible option for a Crit RK as Enchant Blade uses your MATK for normal attacks. There's no need to refine the armor, the +150 MATK bonus is available at +0. Update A quick reminder for some IG clowns that I met, that it's a possible budget option oriented for people who used to play magic classes and want to switch to crit RK.
Abusive Robe [1] This is the more common robe for physical builds since you get a %defense bypass on Demi-Humans, Undeads and Demons per refine, as well as the skill Attention Concentrate at level 1 (Very nice as we love everything that revolves around AGI&ASPD). The reason why it's commonly used and refined to +7 is also because of the enchants you can apply on it. If you manage to get one overrefined to +11 or more, you'll get much bigger benefits from the enchants, as well as a very good %DEF pierce.
Excellion Suit This used to be a very good armor you could get for offensive purposes, as you can get big ATK bonuses with a combination of enchants on it (STR, ATK, ATK). Check out the Verus Equipment Exchange page of the wiki. This armor is great if you have a weapon with low ATK. Update It is now outmatched by the Lava Leather Suit, but if you're trying to get a budget build, the excellion might be interesting for you.
Lava Leather Suit [1] A new challenger for our old armors ! This armor increases your ATK by a lot, and if you manage to get it +9, you'll even benefit from its neat critical damage bonus. It provides more ATK when it's +7 than a +7 Excellion Suit with STR ATK ATK blueprints.
Illusion Armor A-type [1] This new armor beats hands down the LLSuit and the YSF01 Plate thanks to its high ATK bonus that scales with refines, and it can be enchanted up to 3 times, with enchants similar to Excellion. As an RK, you need to get 2 Power enchants at least, and if you wanna use that armor on other classes like SS Ranger, you'll want to put a Delay after skill module for 15% ACD reduction. You have the possibility of combining it with other Illusion gears to combo and get interesting bonuses (shown later).
Luk Soutane [1] The Luk Soutane is an interesting choice in case you're going for IB autocast or critical on MH2, as you need a gigantic amount of critical rate, and this armor gives us a ton of it : we get critical rate, damage and LUK per refine. At +12 the armor gives +18 Crit rate, +20 LUK which gives also +6 Crit rate, and 24% Critical damage. The special Luk enchant gives us +10 LUK, +15% Crit damage, +10 Crit rate and +12% DMG against all sizes. So in total you get : +37 Critical rate, 39% Critical damage and +12% against all sizes. The only downside of this armor is the lack of ATK bonuses, so it's really a compromise you need to decide on.
Str Soutane [1] One of the new possibilities from the level 200 patch, this armor offers us a lot of STR and ATK% per refine, as well as some neat HP/SP% and ASPD% by default. It also increases damage against angels and demons, which makes it very competitive for this kind of hunting (pretty interesting for grinding at the actual place you get the armor from, Odin's Temple). If you get it +9, you can enchant it with a special enchant tied to the version of the soutane, which in this case gives us STR, ATK%, DEF, MDEF and damage against all races. In total at +12 with the special enchant you get +33% ATK, +30 STR and +12% DMG against all races.
Automatic Armor A-type [1] The new contender from 17.2 ! This armor can be enchanted with a variety of different enchants, the interesting ones for us are Automatic Module (Critical Force) to help us reaching a good spot on our critical rate if using a garment without any critical rate bonus (like Temporal STR/AGI manteau), and Automatic Module (Attacker Force) for the rare melee modifier it provides. You may also go for the Automatic Module (Power) if you are looking for a cheap module.
Item Type Notes
Porcellio Card Card This card gives +25 ATK and -5 DEF. It emphasizes again on the all-out strategy where you don't care about your defense; if you play with a two-handed sword and use Parrying, this will not be a problem.
Ancient Mimic Card Card Pretty good if you're really craving for more AGI, as it gives 2 more points than a EoE Agi 3, without any downside.
Bathory Card Card If like me, you play in a lot of content with Shadow property attacks, you'll take a liking to the Bathory card. Don't forget that under Berserk, you have 0 MDEF, so magic attacks will hurt like a truck. If you can get yourself resilient to them, then your life will be much easier.
Restless Dead Card Card It gives only +20 ATK but it makes both your weapon and your armor indestructible, and it's pretty cheap ! Very useful for these weapons that get broken by the Rhydo runestone.
Contaminated Raydric Card Card I wouldn't usually put this kind of card in the armor, but if you have enough critical rate and damage and you're mostly trying to be more tanky, I'd go for that card in combo with the Raydric Card for that amazing total 30% neutral resistance, as well as that neat 10% ATK.
Hardworking Pitman Card Card A card very similar to the previous one, you may go for this one if you already got it and do not own the C. Raydric one.
Furious Ninetail Card Card A very affordable option to grind on critical chance ! It gives +5% Critical chance, +10% Critical damage and another +10% Critical chance if your armor is +10 or more.

Item Notes
Crimson Mace [2] The reason why you would want to go for this weapon is either because you have one with a good elemental advantage (Fire and Holy are great) and refined +7 or more (otherwise you'd probably better off with a Robot's Mech Arm +7~), either it's simply refined past +10 and you wish to make use of it (even if it has a useless element like Poison) because you want to play more defensively with a racial/elemental carded shield that will keep you alive.
Vicious Mind Mace [1] The update to the Vicious Mind weapons actually make them pretty strong now, especially if you can get the weapon to +15 and get specific enchants like +% Boss damage, +% Critical damage; getting perfect enchants could make it rival the Lindy Hop in terms of damage, but the problem is that you have to get Critical hit by other means unlike the Lindy Hop and its Sharp enchants.
Robot's Mechanical Arm [2] I already talked about this one previously but I got to where I am currently thanks to this weapon so that's partly the reason why it appears here. Basically it's more or less the same fight as JDR vs Crimson Katar; the crimson weapons give a neat ATK bonus but they're only level 3 weapons (Check the Refinement System for more information on weapon levels). The Mech' Arm is a weapon to surpass Metal Gear a level 4 weapon with quite the correct ATK for a one-handed weapon, has 2 slots and most importantly gives a gigantic +20 Critical Chance bonus. This means you can invest less in LUK and Critical bonus items and cards, and get something else more interesting to further increase your DPS.
Poison Forged Spear [3] This is a new weapon from the 16.2 episode Terra Gloria, I think it has potential because it frees up space on the upper headgear slot if you were using Snake Head Hat, and it has 3 slots even though it's a level 4 weapon ! Thanks to the changes to Turisus and Double Attack, this weapon somehow rose above Lindy Hop in both survivability and DPS on Medium enemies; however Rhydo is still a risky bet since it can still break your weapon, and the Lindy Hop still wins on Large monsters. Beware as it's still weaker than Claw Sword, the weapon is overhyped probably for business reasons.
Atlas Weapon [1] A decent budget choice for Crit RK, as it provides +10% Critical Hit and it's quite heavy so it works well with Crush Strike. Its only weakness is that it's not indestructible, so you might want to put a Golem Card (usually cheap so it should go well with a budget build).
Gigantic Blade [1] This two-handed sword has a very good weapon ATK and weight, making it quite effective for Spiral Pierce, and it increases % critical damage based on its refine. Its downsides are that big -15% ASPD penalty and the fact that it only has one slot. Update It has gotten better though, since the arrival of the instance King's Heels and the possibility of enchanting the Charleston weapons with enchants similar to VM weapons.
Vicious Mind Two-handed Sword [1] Same as the VM Mace: if you can get the weapon to +15 and get specific enchants like +% Boss damage, +% Critical damage, it can rival the Lindy Hop in terms of damage, but the problem is that you have to get Critical hit by other means unlike the Lindy Hop and its Sharp enchants. The Ominous Assaulter & Heater combo might be pretty neat here.
Royal Knight's Broadsword [2] This new addition to the two-handed swords roster is a pretty good rival to Lindy Hop, and will surpass Vicious Mind in terms of ATK. Unlike this last one who needs a special enchant in order to be unbreakable by itself, this one just needs to be refined to +9 for that. The Broadsword will get enchants later, which might make it worthwhile. Despite its strong bonuses, it has the same problem as the other weapons that the Lindy Hop doesn't suffer from, it's the lack of ASPD, which means you have to compensate in stats or other equipments for that.
Illusion Death Guidance [2] A new version of the good old Death Guidance has popped out, in a form of a critical weapon boosting up Storm Blast ! It is highly recommended to use it at least refined to +11 for the critical bonuses it provides. While it won't be able to outperform the Claw Sword, it might be a good budget contender against the other weapons if enchanted.
Lindy Hop [2] Prior to the arrival of the Claw Sword, it was the wet dream of each Rune Knight. This weapon used to be the most endgame two-handed sword we could get, and had the right to stay at the n°1 spot as a weapon for RKs thanks to all the pros it has. It has the most ATK out of all 2HS, has 2 slots, gives ATK% and ASPD% bonuses based on the refine, is indestructible (goodbye Golem Card), and is enchantable twice ( Malangdo Enchant. Getting a Lindy past +10 used to be every main Crit RK's goal (You can settle for a +8 if you find it too hard or too expensive to go further in the refine hell).
Guardian Knight Claymore [2] A weapon that came out with the late update of Challenge Glast Heim, this weapon is like its update, kind of outdated. It still is decent if properly refined though, and is kind of a more racial hunting oriented version of the Lindy, for Undead and Angel monsters. If you have many Temporal Fragments taking the dust and you're looking for a potential budget option, this may be interesting for you.
Beam Claymore-OS [2] The new two-handed sword contender from 17.1 seems able to overpower the Lindy Hop on specific cases, due to its +11 refine bonus which gives +20% damage against Small and Medium sizes. It has a low crit rate bonus but since we have access to Acute and the new Illusion critical enchants, it's not a big problem. It can also be enchanted pretty good with ATK% and %critical damage. While I heard it can beat higher refine Lindies, I believe that the fact it only has a %size damage increase against Small and Medium but not Large (which are a big part of the MvPs), makes me think it's not that interesting. Update This weapon got a nice boost thanks to its new combo with the Clark Sidecap, allowing it to compensate its weakness on Large monsters by bringing a huge 4% large size modifier every 2 refines of the weapon. Whether it is worth replacing a Snake Hat or an ORC, is something I am currently unable to say; we still lack data on the sword as too few people tried refining it, and I'll need someone to lend me one to be able to test. If you were to use this weapon, I'd recommend after checking out the overall bonuses the weapon and the hat give, to discard size modifier cards on your weapon (WK/CW) and go for something such as critical damage or ATK.
Claw Sword [2] The new contender that surpasses Lindy, ladies and gentlemen, here is the ultra expensive Claw Sword ! Comes with +15% ATK and +5 crit by default, has a beautiful 300 weapon ATK (40 lower than Lindy Hop but who cares) and gets huge damage increase on refine stages ! Including an non-exhaustive list of : +25% critical dmg, chance to proc +20% DMG to all sizes for a duration, and +7 crit ! You can also enchant it and go for ATK% or crit dmg% or physical damage against a specific type of monster, or even DEF ignore% !
Item Type Notes
Abysmal Knight Card A very cheap weapon card choice for MvP hunting, that does not lose to the other cards thanks to its powerful 25% modifier against boss protocol monsters.
The Paper Card It does the same effect as Aunoe Card but it drains 1 SP whenever you do normal attacks. This doesn't really change much if you plan on Berserking 100% of the time since we have no need for SP once we're buffed, so it might be a good budget alternative to Aunoe.
Aunoe Card You might want to use this one if you can find it cheaper than WK card. It's not as good but it's made for critical attacks.
Warrior Lola Card If you find yourself lacking crits and you don't mind losing a %damage card, you could switch one for a Warrior Lola to get solid crits. Beware though, it only works for maces and it's better the more you refine your weapon (usually goes well with a Crimson Mace).
Ominous Assaulter Card This is a new option that opened up with Illusion of Abyss, but only for a two-handed sword build. It increases a bit your critical rate, and a lot your critical damage and your ATK depending on your weapon's refine. It comboes with Ominous Heater for even more critical (both chance and damage). It's pretty good if you lack critical damage somehow (if you use Brown Rat instead of Petal Card for example).
Old Glast Heim Card White Knight is one of the most interesting cards for endgame currently as it increases your damage against medium and large enemies (most of the monsters from the game). If you play mace+shield, you'll want to get at least one WK card to combo with the KK card as it transforms your WK increase from 20% to 35%
Contaminated Wanderer Card This is a better version of the WK card, that came out with the Abyss Glast Heim dungeon. It gives 30% against Medium & Large by itself, so it's better when using a two-handed sword since we can't equip KK cards.
Garden Watcher Card One of the two cards that came out with 17.2 for two-handed sword RKs, this card blesses us with the mighty Melee modifier, and gives us the indestructible property to our weapon. Considering we now got a very strong melee boost with the new Thanatos Tower cards, I wouldn't recommend it alongside the thanatos combo, except if you do Crush Strikes in which case your weapon could break and this card would prevent it.
Greater Ruba Papilla Card The other card that came out with 17.2 for two-handed sword RKs, it boosts heavily critical damage based on the refine of the weapon. Due to the large quantity of critical damage everywhere else on the slots and the other better options available (size, melee), it is highly recommended to forget this card and go for the other choices listed before (it is still listed as a possibility per nature of my guide, built to show the many paths available to you as the reader).
New Rekenber Guard Card New A card that appeared with the last update on Bioresearch Laboratory; this card is a stronger version of the Greater Special Alnoldi, and it works on a bigger variety of weapons (all swords and daggers). The only weakness within this card that I can see is the lack of the indestructible property that the GSA gives; this is an issue if you plan on using Crush Strike and you are missing this effect.

Item Notes
Mad Bunny [1] This shield is pretty neat as it's more focused on offensive than usual shields, because it gives 5% ATK and MATK; you'll get more bonuses if you manage to refine it to +7 and later but it's quite hard and expensive. In PvM there are 2 other effects otherwise not available, which are a 10% reflect damage and a 10% chance to be able to reflect magic attacks for a few seconds.
Ultralight Magic Shield [1] A new shield that appeared with Episode 16.2; this shield is really awesome because it's kind of a jack of all trades. You get ASPD depending on the refine (5% at +0, can go as far as 10% at +9), and a Neutral reduction which works the same way as the ASPD bonus. I consider it as good as the Mad Bunny, but for other purposes; it all depends on your needs (ASPD or more ATK). This shield is outshined by Cursed Knight's Shield on low DEF monsters, but it's a great way to increase your DPS on all high DEF monsters and players because of it's 10% DEF pierce bonus. That bonus doesn't work on bosses !
Cursed Knight's Shield [1] The CK's shield is often the BiS, for most builds. It gives a nice 10% ASPD bonus, increases a bit less than Mad Bunny at +0 your ATK and MATK (3% instead of 5%) and you get 7% damage reduction from all properties. If you end up getting a +9, you'll get 1 flat ASPD. Update We finally got the Purified Knight's Shield update, and all Knight's Shield can be enchanted. If you got lots of Endeavor Coins, you may as well try to transform your shield Knight's Shield into a Purified Knight's Shield and enchant it, all the info you need is compiled here.
Royal Guard Shield [1] This shield is quite rare because nobody bothers trying to get one. It gives you the ability to use Shield Spell Lv 1, which can be used to increase your ATK based on the shield base defense. With this shield it's not extremely good, but why would you refuse a possibly free ATK bonus ? You can always switch after using the ATK buff for another shield (but don't bother with this shield if you aren't looking for any kind of min-maxing, the ATK bonus is not really incredible).
Item Type Notes
Khalitzburg Knight card Card Khalitzburg Knight is really pretty good if you play it together with White Knight for the combo. It will increase both the offensive and defensive effects of the 2 cards.
Alice Card Card The reason this card is here again, is because as a Critical Rune Knight, you'll probably do a lot of MvPs, and this card will be great for your survival. It's especially good against MvPs with weak monsters or no monsters at all, like in Monster Hunter.

Item Notes
Giant Snake Skin [1] The Giant Snake Skins can be found in bulk because of the random refine & stat enchants. It can be found for a cheap price in case it's full of random or not really good bonuses, or the price can skyrocket if it's a perfect one stat only GSS (DEX and INT GSSs are the most expensive ones). You'll want to get GSS with full STR enchants; if combined with a Poison Breath hat for the combo and you already have too much critical damage, this set could potentially be better than going for the usual critical garments like a FAW.
Heroic Backpack [1] This garment is the most used one, tied with the Giant Snake Skin. It used to be the best one for DPS characters as it gives a nice increase in damage on the offensive stats (STR, DEX, LUK) as long as you have 90 in the stat associated with the bonus you want, and as long as the bag is refined to +7 or +9.
Illusion Engine Wing A-type [1] That new garment from the 17.1 episode Illusion can be enchanted thrice and you'll want to get 2 Critical modules as well as one Fast module. These enchants' strength depends on the refine of your garment so if you go for this one, you'll need to refine it to at least +7, and +9 if possible. It can be as good as a +9 FAW with 3 Fatal3 enchants, but only if you equip a pair of Illusion Leg A to get the +10% Critical damage bonus from the combo, which allows it to reach the same critical damage potential as the FAW. In that case, you'll have a better ASPD as well as a better critical rate than with the Fallen Angel Wings.
Fallen Angel Wing [1] This is a good mid-game garment, a bit similar to HBP as it gives you a bonus different for each stat you've increased, every 20 base points. The reason why it surpasses HBP, is because you can enchant it 3 times (as long as you got it refine to +9, otherwise it's 2 times at +7 and only once under) with strong enchants like Fatal, and it can go up to Fatal 4 on one enchant. The only problem it has, is that we lose a flat ASPD point and a few %ASPD points too.
Fallen Warrior Manteau [1] A very good garment that surpasses the previous choices only when refined past +10 and comboed with a Vicious Mind Aura. Its effects are also similar to the others, it gives us ATK, ASPD%, Crit damage% and some other bonuses. It's an extremely versatile combo !
Temporal Str Manteau [1] Part of one of our recent updates alongside its other stat brothers, the STR manteau is currently BiS for all non-crit physical builds. That garment bombs you with raw ATK, refined ATK% and spicy %size modifiers ! The reason why we got it here on a crit build, is in case you have plans to use that manteau on several characters at the same time as your RK. The difference in damage with a Temporal Agi Manteau is not that big so you may want to go for that one if you play multiple classes. If you plan on just going for a cheaper investment, you will want critical damage% as enchant on the temporal manteau (they usually are cheaper than AGI ones).
Temporal Agi Manteau [1] Here comes our strongest contender of the current times, the Temporal Agi Manteau ! Similar to its brother Str Manteau, it gives critical damage instead of the ATK%, alongside the ATK and the %size. You will want to enchant it with critical damage for MOAR POWAH BABE !
Automatic Engine Wing A-Type [1] The 2.0 version of the old Illusion Engine Wing, it is the same as the old one but with slightly higher stats. We still have access to interesting modules like Automatic Module (Critical) but the new addition that may make you think twice about getting this garment or another is the new Automatic Module (Powerful) that brings a very welcome %Melee boost.
Item Type Notes
Brown Rat Card Card If you already have a LOT of Critical Damage bonuses, you could theorically go for more ATK as it's better to keep a balance between Critical Damage and ATK, it will also help a lot for ASPD.
Petal Card Card It's one of the great stat cards; you will get a 24% critical damage bonus since you have 120 LUK and it gives 2% per 10 base LUK. Definitely a great and cheap asset.
New Happiness Giver Card Card New Part of the new Thanatos Tower update, this card is sickeningly powerful as it gives at 120 STR a whooping 55% Melee damage increase ! Definitely an asset, but be careful because you need a Mistress of Shelter card equipped in your armor to benefit of the biggest part of the card.

Item Notes
Temporal Boots of Luck [1] This used to be, and still is a very good pair of boots for critical builds as it gives a whooping 30% critical damage bonus. The enchants are going to define the price of your boots (if you want to buy them instead of crafting them); what you want at least is to get ASPD 4 to have an easier time catching the 193 cap. After that, pretty much any special enchant works for a RK (except Muscular Endurance and Speed of Light).
  • Bear's Might will give you the biggest damage increase out of all the enchants (+200 STR) but you have to get hit.
  • Lucky Day is easier to proc and doesn't have any con; you'll get +200 LUK so you'll have a bit more of ATK, MATK, P.Dodge.
  • Speed of Light is an exotic but interesting choice since the arrival of MH, and even more since we got the new Fall of Glast Heim instance with the insignia enchants. SoL allows you to dodge half the hits thanks to the P.Dodge proc (Perfect Dodge is halved in MH2), giving you an easier time tanking there, as well as lowering a bit the stress and burden on your healer.
  • Hawkeye can be quite useful if you're looking for another way to get max ASPD as it gives you +200 DEX so you'll get quite a few ASPD points and a bit of damage. It doesn't have the downside of draining your HPs like Speed of Light.
  • Runaway Magic gives you +200 INT so you're gonna have a lot of MATK, it will work with Enchant Blade. Don't forget that the bonus ATK from Enchant Blade changes dynamically so you can't cheese the enchant and then switch your boots to something else. To proc Runaway Magic you'll need to cast spells, the most common way to do it is with auto-spells stuffs like CD in Mouth.
Illusion Leg A-type [1] That pair of boots sports special enchants similar to temporal boots but they proc much more often and for a longer time than our old ones. It comboes with other Illusion pieces: you'll get a +5% ATK when paired with the Illusion Armor A-type, and when paired with the Illusion Engine Wing A-type you'll get +10% critical damage. The item by itself doesn't have any %critical damage bonus, but it's not a big loss since we already have a ton of that, and it brings an especially strong enchant that you can slot on it, named Overpower. It gives +50 STR (which synergizes well with our high weapon ATK swords) and +15% ATK, when physically attacking and for a whooping duration of 10 seconds. Once you proc it and as long as you keep attacking, you can be sure it'll never run out as it procs very often.
Automatic Leg A-type [1] The new version of the Illusion Leg, this one comes with a stronger combo with the Engine Wing, as well as a big increase on the Automatic Module (Overpower) module, which got on its 17.2 version a +10% Melee modifier when Overpower procs.
Item Type Notes
Matyr Card Card A cheap choice that combines survivability (+10% HP) and a tiny +1 AGI bonus, better than nothing.
Outrageous Cookie Card Card This is one of the few offensive cards on the boots card slot, it's only worth it if you refine your boots a lot (something like +9 up to +12).
Rigid Nightmare Terror Card Card A pretty good budget card, you can combine it with the Nightmare Terror Card that goes into the Armor slot for a sweet 10% ATK.
Ifodes Card Card This card gives ASPD+5% and ATK+3%; if you already got a lot of critical damage increase equipments, you can get this one instead to increase your ATK (remember, you gotta keep the equilibrium between critical damage and ATK, it works kind of the same as the weapon % cards).
Geffen Bully Card Card This used to be a very good min-maxing card if you want to increase your critical damage; it gives 5% Critical damage and 3% ASPD.
Geffen Gangster Card Card Similar to Geffen Bully but the numbers are reversed.
Deep Sea Merman Card Card That card gives us flat ATK based on STR, and it's the new BiS card for the critical build thanks to its amazing combo with the Deep Sea King Dramoh Card that gives you +15% critical damage.

Item Notes
Luk Glove [1] You will have to take either one or two of these if you're trying to get more than 90 critical chances and you don't have enough money for expensive items. Since you're going to keep 120 LUK for the boots, this accessory will give you +12 Critical; combine it with an Essence of Evil Luk 3, and you'll get at least +16 Critical (1 more point if you get past a Crit cap on your LUK stat) per glove.
Pendant of Maelstrom [1] This used to be one of the most offensive-oriented accessories you could get. We're one of the few classes that will benefit from both the effects of the accessory (even though the MATK bonus won't be really noticeable on your damage). Get this one if you're playing on a budget build (the price decreased since the GMT update) and you have a lot of ATK already as the bonus will only get better.
Bakonawa Agimat Tattoo Since the ASPD update it has become much more interesting; even though it has no slot, the effects are quite strong: you get a 7% ATK bonus (1% more than PoM) and a big 10% ASPD bonus (this is the most interesting part as %ASPD got much better since the update).
Physical Enhancer Ring [1] Used to be one of the strongest accessories you could get, depending on the 2 enchants you have on it. Could go from 40M with bad enchants, to... 1B with godly enchants (2x 8% critical damage enchants). It gives by default ATK+5%, and it should be pretty simple to get "correct" enchantments on it, making it a better choice than Pendant of Maelstrom.
Illusion Booster L [1]
Illusion Booster R [1]
 The new addition of modular accessories from the episode Illusion (17.1), it has the same base stats as a PER but unlike that one, you choose the enchants you put on it. The enchants that will be useful for us Crit RKs, are the Attack Speed and the Fatal modules. It is possible to enchant up to 3 times each accessory, so you can put one ASPD and one Fatal enchant on each of them, providing you a lot of ASPD and critical rate (very useful if you play for example the Royal Knight's Broadsword). The third slot is not as important, you may choose what you want to put on it, it's up to your preferences; I personally like using the drain modules which give you HP & SP leech.
Strong Insignia [1] Released after 17.1, this instance's most interesting piece of gear is an accessory that can be only used on one slot, which is the insignia. The most interesting one for physical classes is the Strong Insignia which gives 10% ATK (this is pretty huge by itself, compared to that the critical insignia is crap with its small 7% critical damage) and can be enchanted for a combo with Temporal Boots special enchants. The most interesting enchantments for Crit RK are Strong and Flash:
  • Strong When equipped with Bear's Might, increases physical damage against all size enemies by 25%. This is by far the strongest one for us as it increases the size modifier.
  • Flash When equipped with Speed of Light, increases critical damage by 30%. While not as good as the Strong one (because size modifier is super interesting and critical damage is something we already have a plethora of), it is a great budget choice and Speed of Light boots work very well for tanking contents such as MH2.
Automatic Booster L [1]
Automatic Booster R [1]
 The new version of the Illusion Boosters, these come with better versions of the previous modules: the Automatic Module (Fatal) gives us now a nice +10 critical rate instead of the old +4, pretty useful to beat the high critical shield of some enemies; the Automatic Module (Attack Speed) adds 20 ATK now, and there is a pretty rare and expensive module that boosts all kinds of damage by 5% : the Automatic Module (All Force).
New Sinful Ruby Ring [1]
New Sinful Ruby Necklace [1]
 New I will only put here the Ruby version of those accessories, but you can also go for the Zircon or Aquamarine versions
New Brilliant Light Ruby Ring [1]
New Brilliant Light Ruby Necklace [1]
 New New accessories coming out of the Thanatos Tower revamp update, they bring out a huge amount of ATK% both by themselves and through their enchants; it is possible to get up to 10% ATK on each, and you can also get a very big racial bonus towards Angels and Demons. You can increase further the racial damage with the pair set bonus.
Item Type Notes
Gold Scaraba Card Card A card that used to be kinda expensive years ago, it is now a budget choice to fill your accessory slots with a cool 20 ATK.
Revolver Buffalo Bandit Card and Shotgun Buffalo Bandit Card Card These cards are here again because when you get to an endgame level, you'll have found other ways to get critical hits besides using EoE Luk 3 on your accessories, so you can get these to finish your possible lack of ASPD and increase further your ATK.
Owl Baron Card Card Nice for hard-hitting builds like Critical RK, depending on RNGod you might get a good increase in DPS but you might as well feel like it doesn't proc enough.
Ominous Heater Card Card A very interesting choice if you choose to skip the Old Rune Circlet and its Acute enchant, it will help a lot for your critical rate. Please note that the set with Ominous Assaulter doesn't work twice, even with 2x the cards.
Chaotic Killer Mantis Card Card A cheap critical damage thanks to its combo with Angra Mantis, It gives a nice amount of critical damage, but beware you get no critical chance bonus on this one !
Gigantes Card Card A big flat 40 ATK that is only available on left slot, another way of boosting your damage if you have too much %critical damage mod.
New Void Mimic Card Card New A huge critical damage card giving far more than all its peers with a big 15%. The combo would be nice but it means giving up one of the strong garment cards, not recommended.