No Rest For The Wicked: 6 Best Runes, Ranked

No Rest For The Wicked is a system-rich action-RPG with Soulslike elements. The abundance of systems and challenging combat make No Rest For The Wicked a game that can feel somewhat inaccessible. However, acquiring the best runes can help players to gain a huge advantage on their adventure.

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There are a variety of weapon runes/spells available to players in No Rest For The Wicked, but this list will focus on those that are consistently available through Eleanor’s shop. This NPC is a valuable member of the game’s market, where players can infuse, enchant, and edit the runes of their weapons.

6 Damage Surge

An Early-Game Damage Increase

No Rest For The Wicked - Damage Surge Rune

No Rest For The Wicked provides players with very few ways to improve their damage early on. This is due to the fact that, as with many things in the game, upgrading merchant stands and the weapons themselves takes time and resources.

However, the Damage Surge rune is available to players fairly early on, and it can be a great source of bonus damage in the early game. This rune is particularly helpful for bringing down early bosses, such as Falstead Darak.

5 Heal Aura

A Consistent Method Of Healing

No Rest For The Wicked features challenging combat that can be difficult for beginners, as many enemies in the game hit relatively hard. Investing skill points in maximum health can help with this, along with cooking plenty of meals to restore health.

Thankfully, Eleanor sells a rune that can help players to heal when they’re out of meals. The Heal Aura rune is a channeling effect that allows players to heal their health in and out of combat, and it can be used to supplement healing between meals. Having this rune equipped also reduces the amount of grinding players will have to do, as they won’t need to acquire as many cooking ingredients.

4 Scream

An Efficient Method Of Crowd Control

This unique rune grants the player an additional defensive option for when there are simply too many enemies to dodge and/or parry consistently. The Scream rune has a short animation and a low focus cost, allowing players to use it fairly easily.

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Scream is a useful rune because it knocks enemies back in large AOE. This makes fighting crowds of enemies much easier, as well as dealing with groups of weaker enemies that may be hard to take out in a single hit, such as leeches. Although Scream isn’t of much use during boss fights, it’s a mighty handy rune to have slotted into an offhand weapon while exploring.

3 Cold Enchantment

Powerful Status Effect

No Rest For The Wicked - Cold Enchantment Rune

There are several status effects in No Rest For The Wicked, but it could be argued that cold is among the strongest of them. This is due to the fact that the cold status effect freezes enemies, making them vulnerable to the player’s attacks.

The Cold Enchantment allows players to enchant their weapon with cold damage, inflicting their enemies with this powerful status effect. While it only lasts for a short duration, freezing enemies allows players to safely attack their opponent without the fear of being caught by one of their attacks.

2 Stamina Wellspring

Sustainable Stamina Regeneration

No Rest For The Wicked - Stamina Wellspring Rune

One of the leaves that No Rest For The Wicked takes out of Dark Souls‘ book is its stamina system. This resource must be managed carefully throughout combat, as it’s required not only to attack, but to dodge as well.

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Having no stamina leaves players vulnerable to enemy attacks, so ensuring they have stamina left after attacking an enemy is important, particularly against hard-hitting bosses. As a result, having the Stamina Wellspring rune can help players dramatically, especially newcomers to the game.

1 Focus Halo

Passive Focus Gain

No Rest For The Wicked - Focus Halo Rune

While stamina is an important resource to manage in No Rest For The Wicked, the game also tasks players with managing a secondary resource: Focus. This precious resource allows players to take advantage of their runes, making any method of restoring the player’s Focus a powerful item.

One of the primary ways players can restore their Focus faster is by using Focus potions. These potions are effective, but not sustainable, as players could easily run out of them during battle. The Focus Halo rune, however, increases the player’s maximum Focus for a relatively long duration. This allows the player to restore even more Focus and make use of their runes more often.