This is a guide that will help any Ghostbusters World player that has reached level 20 in the game. This means your account is level 20, not your ghosts.
Using runes to customize your ghosts is complex. We’ll do our best to demystify it for you with this guide.
When you reach level 20 you might be tempted to start putting runes on your ghosts immediately. We recommend taking the time to get to know how they work before diving in. Adding a rune to a ghost doesn’t cost anything, but removing one can cost a small fortune. Not just that, but you can also use coins to enhance your runes. T
What are Runes?
Runes are items that you can use to enhance your ghost’s stats. You can apply up to six runes to a single ghost. You have storage for about 100 runes, but some have reported having over 800 runes in their inventory without a problem.
You’ll also notice that sets of runes can lead to an extra bonus on your ghost’s stats.
How do I get Runes?
You can find runes in a variety of ways.
- Story Mode – A lot of people tend to play level 1-9 on Hard to try to get good Attack runes. There are mixed reports of how well it works. Let us know how you do in the comments.
- Ghost Arena – If you finish a season in the top three, you’ll get up to six runes.
- Boss Battles – The quality of the rune you can collect tends to increase with the difficulty of the boss that you defeat. There are also some runes that you may only be able to collect from boss battles.
- If we missed anything, please let us know.
Types of Runes, Rune Sets, and Set Bonuses
Here are the known types or runes. To get the bonus set effects, you need to apply the number of required runes to the same ghost. For example, if you want to get a potential +4-24% attack, you would need to apply four attack runes to the ghost.
| Type of Rune | Rune Set Requirements | Set Effects |
| Attack | 4 Runes | +4-24% attack |
| Bonus Damage | 4 Runes | +4-24% bonus damage |
| Critical Rate | 2 Runes | +2-12% critical rate |
| Defense | 2 Runes | +2-12% defense |
| Healing | 2 Runes | +2-12% healing |
| Health (Life) | 2 Runes | +2-12% health |
| Resistance | ? | ? |
| Speed | 4 Runes | +4-24% attack speed |
As I understand it, you can get up to three sets of Runes on a single ghost. If you used, for example, six Critical Rate runes, you would have three Critical Rate
You could also do something like four attack runes and two life runes, and have two sets. They’ve made it impossible to double, or triple, Attack, Bonus Damage and Speed runes.
There are also runes that get special labels.
| Rapid | Flat Speed Furious | Speed % |
| Powerful | Flat Attack Marvelous | Attack % |
| Sturdy | Flat Defense Steel | Defense % |
| Healthy | Flat HP Rejuvenating | HP % |
| Deadly | Crit Rate % Merciless | Crit Damage % |
| Resistive | Effect Resistance |
What are Rune Slots?
Main Stat Guide
Obviously the main stat for slot one is always ATK, slot three is always DEF, and slot five is always HP. For the other slots, two, four, and six, there are slight differences to each other. All three of the even numbered slots are similar in the sense that the main stat can be ATK, ATK%, DEF, DEF%, HP, or HP%. ALTHOUGH rune slot two is the only slot with Speed as a possible main stat. Rune slot four is the only slot with CRIT RATE% or CRIT DMG as possible main stats. Lastly, rune slot six is the only slot with Effect Resistance as a main stat. (By Pipkin)
While each ghost as room for six runes, you’ll notice that there are six different slots for runes, and those are numbered.
| Slot | Bonus Effect |
| 1 | Attack |
| 2 | Speed, ATK, ATK%, DEF, DEF%, HP, or HP% |
| 3 | Defense |
| 4 | CRIT RATE%, CRIT DMG, ATK, ATK%, DEF, DEF%, HP, or HP% |
| 5 | HP (Health) |
| 6 | Effect Resistance, ATK, ATK%, DEF, DEF%, HP, or HP% |
As you can see, each slot has some kind of bonus effect. I have compared these bonuses between multiple ghosts that are the same
The runes are also numbered, and you can pretty quickly tell where the rune will fit in by looking at the direction it is pointing, but the numbers definitely help.
If you have a bunch of runes that are labeled as “slot 1,” then you can only use those runes in “slot 1.” The same goes for runes labeled with slot 2-6. And the rune cannot be changed to work in a different
Rune Stats
Runes also come with extra stat boosters. If you take a look at a rune in your inventory, you can see what I’m talking about. In looking through several Attack Runes, I have seen a few that show an attack increase, while others showed a defense increase. It appears in a box next to the picture of the rune. Under the
According to player “BigSonia”: “Runes have up to 4 sub categories under the main. The 4th one appears at level 12. Leveling up from 12 seems a waste of money, as very little difference between 12 and 15. This is the same for all star ruins.”
Once you have applied rune to a ghost, you have the option of enhancing it. This is something you can’t do while it is in your inventory.
Enhancing a rune will improve the stats that it effects, and extra bonus stats may also appear. The number of bonus stats appears to be disconnected from the rank of the rune.
As you enhance a Rune, not only will it improve the various stats within it, but there are thresholds at which an extra sub stat will be added, which differs depending on the rarity of the Rune.
Rune Star Rank
Like the ghosts and most of the equipment you use to catch them, Runes have a starred ranking system. Pretty
Runes with more stars also cost more to enhance. The costs are also higher to remove the rune from a ghost.
Rare Runes
| Color | # of Extra Stat Buffs |
| Grey | 0 |
| Green | 1 |
| Blue | 2 |
| Purple | 3 |
| Red | 4 |
| Orange | 4 (Max level 15) |
If you look carefully at your runes you’ll see little jewels at the top. The colors are a signal of the rarity of the rune and indicate just how many extra stat buffs your rune will have from its’ base level.
Enhancing a run will eventually increase the rarity level of the run, and it will gain another extra stat buff.
Only ultra rare name runes have a fifth stat. At level 15 you get an extra boost to the main stat.
Enhancing Runes
Enhancing your Runes can help make your ghosts much stronger, but be aware that you’ll spend a lot of Coins to do so. The amounts don’t feel like much at first, but they grow as your runes get better.
Enhancing runes also comes with a certain amount of risk. There is a chance that the enhancement will fail. The game will tell you that it has failed, and you’ll need to try again. Since it is a random chance each time, you attempt to enhance a rune, you could run into a string of good luck and get many successful enhancements in a row.
Do watch your spending with enhancements, though.
The level of the rune is shown on the image of the rune with +1, +2, etc.
Any questions about Runes?
If you have questions, comments, changes, corrections, additions, etc., to help make this guide better, please feel free to comment below or email us with the contact form. Runes can be a bit overwhelming at first, and there are a lot of different possibilities. The costs of rune removal
Keep an eye on this page for updates.
Additional content and corrections from Pipkin, Dumpus, Dr4xl, ||GrimmStone||, MrBrock, and BigSonia.
You can enhance runes in your inventory, but only from the character/runes screen, not the inventory/runes screen.
Note that it doesn’t cost anything to switch a rune out, but the rune switched out is destroyed. Question: how does the Healing rune work?
I can tell you why it’s called a rapid speed rune. The speed stat (the bonus one, or “innate stat” which never increases) is why it’s rapid. Any rune with speed as it’s innate stat will be a rapid rune. Just like any rune with crit rate as it’s innate stat will always be called a “Deadly” rune. Each innate stat will have a designated name, regardless of which type of rune it’s on.
Here is the list. The names of the runes followed by the innate stat that corresponds to that name.
Rapid – Flat Speed Furious – Speed %
Powerful – Flat Attack Marvelous – Attack %
Sturdy – Flat Defense Steel – Defense %
Healthy – Flat HP Rejuvenating – HP %
Deadly – Crit Rate % Merciless – Crit Damage %
Resistive – Effect Resistance