X of Swords Guide

"X of Swords", or "Swords" for short, is a system similar to Cards but somehow more confusing. Some basics:

• Materials to upgrade Swords are primarily farmed from Otherworld Battle. While it helps, you do not have to do particularly well in this mode to farm these materials.
• Similar to Cards, Swords provide buffs to your entire account, making them very important (though not as crucial as Cards).
• These are worth at least looking at for any account - even bad Swords are free stat buffs.

The earlier sections focus on the game mechanics behind upgrading and equipping. If you just want to know what to do with your Swords, you can skip to the "Sword Strategies" section at the bottom and fill in any gaps in your knowledge with the earlier sections.

• Sword Upgrade Mechanics

  Sword Upgrade Mechanics

  Acquiring Swords

  The two basic materials for Sword upgrades are Swords of the Unknown and Runes of the Unknown. Both of these are dropped in high quantities from Otherworld Battle, by clearing the 5 daily entries, completing Daily/Weekly/Seasonal quests, and progressing the Battle Pass.

  Sword of the Unknown

  Sword of the Unknown

  Every Sword starts its journey as a Sword of the Unknown. From here, it is enhanced with six coloured runes, which determine which colour it turns into when Awakened.

  Rune of the Unknown

  Rune of the Unknown

  Basic enhancement material, used to roll a colour on a Sword. When using a Rune of the Unknown there is an equivalent chance of each colour Rune being applied to the Sword.

  Enhancing Swords

  Each Sword needs to be enhanced 6 times, meaning each Sword rolls 6 coloured runes, usually of various colours. The costs in both Gold and Runes to enhance increases as you go.

  Rune #	Rune Cost	Gold Cost
  1	7	10,000
  2	8	20,000
  3	9	30,000
  4	11	40,000
  5	13	50,000
  6	15	60,000
  TOTAL	63	210,000

  Dismantling Swords

  If you don't like the way a Sword is going, you can dismantle it at any point. This costs some extra gold, but refunds you with a small percentage of the Runes spent. Note that these are not cumulative, you are simply refunded the amount stated in the table below.

  Generally this is done if you roll a bunch of different colours in the first few runes. As the goal is to have as many of the same colour as possible, you can cut your losses early and dismantle to try again from scratch.

  Rune #	Runes Refunded	Dismantle Gold Cost
  1	2	2,500
  2	4	3,125
  3	6	7,500
  4	9	8,750
  5	12	10,000
  6	16	11,250

  Awakening Swords

  Note: The terms "Element" and "Colour" are used interchangeably. Each Sword Element has a corresponding Colour (e.g. Psionic is Purple).

  Once a Sword of the Unknown has been enhanced to +6, the option to Awaken it becomes available. Once Awakened, it becomes a coloured Sword according to which colour rune it has the most of. (If there is a tiebreaker, e.g. there are two colours of 3 runes each, it will randomly roll between them.)

  The coloured Sword then has a +[x] value where x is the number of runes of its colour. The higher the number the better, though obviously the higher numbers are much harder to come by as they require you rolling a 1/6 chance of getting the same colour rune, 6 times in a row.

  These swords all have names like "Scarab" or "Soul Sword" but this does not matter. All that matters is that each colour sword boosts a given stat, and you generally want one of each sword, as explained in the next section.

• Sword Equips and Stat Buffs

  Sword Equips and Stat Buffs

  Slotting Swords

  At this stage you are ready to equip a sword. Each account has 6 Sword slots, which might make you think one of each colour. That is the right idea, but unlike with Cards, there is no system preventing you from equipping two of the same Sword.

  Equipping Swords is very similar to Cards, where you can equip, unequip, or overwrite. There is no real reason to unequip a Sword, so always Overwrite and equip over when doing replacements.

  Once a Sword is equipped, it will provide some Element Levels according to its colour and level. For example, a +4 Psionic Sword will provide 4 points to Psionic. Note that coloured runes that are not the Sword's colour do not contribute, so a +4 Psionic with 4 purple and 2 green runes only provides the buff to Psionic/Purple.

  Element Levels

  Note that Element Levels cannot exceed 6, so if you have a +3 and a +4 equipped of the same colour, their colour's level will still only be 6. This also means you can max every Element Level if you have a perfect +6 of each colour Sword.

  Element (Colour)	Stat	Lv.1 - Lv.6
  Strength (Orange)	Physical Attack	3% / 5% / 6% / 9% / 12% / 15%
  Intelligence (Yellow)	Decrease Energy Damage Taken	2% / 3% / 4% / 5% / 7% / 9%
  Judgement (Red)	Decrease Pierce Damage Taken	3% / 4% / 5% / 7% / 9% / 12%
  Psionic (Purple)	Energy Attack	3% / 5% / 6% / 9% / 12% / 15%
  Stamina (Green)	Decrease Physical Damage Taken	2% / 3% / 4% / 5% / 7% / 9%
  Dexterity (Blue)	Instinct Attack	+300 / +500 / +1000 / +1600 / +2000 / +2400

  Element Mastery

  Element Levels also combine to make a total Element Mastery score, which provides an account-wide All Basic Attacks buff. This is another reason it is optimal to diversify the colours of Swords.

  • All Swords at +3 (Mastery 18) is easy and provides 19.5% All Attack.
  • All Swords at +4 (Mastery 24) is also achievable fairly early on, and provides 28.5% All Attack.
  • All Swords at +5 (Mastery 30) may take a while but provides a huge 37.5% All Attack.
  • All Swords at +6 (Mastery 36) is the maximum, and will likely take years to achieve the full 50% All Attack.

  The full list of levels is below.

  Mastery Level	All Basic Attacks Increase
  1	1
  2	2
  3	3
  4	4
  5	5
  6	6
  7	7
  8	8
  9	9
  10	10
  11	11
  12	12
  13	13
  14	14
  15	15
  16	16.5
  17	18
  18	19.5
  19	21
  20	22.5
  21	24
  22	25.5
  23	27
  24	28.5
  25	30
  26	31.5
  27	33
  28	34.5
  29	36
  30	37.5
  31	39.5
  32	41.5
  33	43.5
  34	45.5
  35	47.5
  36	50

• Rarer Runes

  Rarer Runes

  In addition to the basic Runes of the Unknown, there are additional Rune types that you can use to increase the chances of rolling a high-level Sword. These are rare and should only be used when you are shooting for +5s or +6s.

  Elemental Runes

  Each of the six Elements have two types of Runes: regular and Radiant. You can choose to use these while upgrading a Sword of the Unknown to have a greater chance (though still not guaranteed) of the next Rune rolling that specific element.

  Only the Psionic ones are shown below, but they exist for all 6 colours. They are mostly acquired from Otherworld Battle as well: weekly and seasonal quests, weekly and seasonal end rewards, and through the Battle Pass.

  Rune of [Element]

  Rune of [Element]

  25% chance of rolling the specific element on the next rune. All other runes decrease to a 15% chance.

  Radiant Rune of [Psionic]

  Radiant Rune of [Psionic]

  35% chance of rolling the specific element on the next rune. All other runes decrease to a 13% chance.

  Rune of Return

  This is a very rare item that lets you undo the last rune applied to a Sword of the Unknown. This can be done to gain another attempt at rolling the desired colour, but can only be done a maximum of 3 times for a given Sword.

  It can be acquired from Otherworld Battle's Battle Pass as the final reward (only if you pay for it), and from 14-day token events each update.

  Due to its rarity, it is recommended to only be used on the final rune for a Sword whose first 5 runes are the same colour. Best used in conjunction with Radiant Runes to get the highest chance of completing the +6 Sword.

  • There is an 82.1% chance of getting the desired colour when using Radiant Runes and up to 3 rerolls - [1 - (0.65 ^ 4)].
  • 68.4% if you use Regular Runes and up to 3 rerolls [1 - (0.75 ^ 4)].

• Sword Strategies

  Sword Strategies

  Priorities

  For most accounts, the most important elements are Psionic (Energy Attack), followed by Strength (Physical Attack). The other four are not that crucial - you may prefer Dexterity (Instinct Attack) slightly over the final three, which are all PvP stats.

  While these are the ones to focus on, that doesn't mean you should ignore the other elements, since all the individual element scores are added up for your "Element Mastery", which gives a huge All Basic Attacks buff. This means it's still better to distribute your Swords across all colours.

  Progression

  • 1. Shaping

    Try to get a +3 or higher of as many different colours as possible. If you do not have one of a given colour, you can double up on Psionic (Purple, Energy Attack) or Strength (Orange, Physical Attack) to reach PSI/STR 5 or 6 early on. When enhancing, you can dismantle after rolling 3 runes if you don't get 2 of the same colour (as it would be unlikely for this Sword to roll a +3 from this point).

  • 2. Sharpening

    Focus on Psionic and Strength to try to get a +4. Once this happens, if you were doubling up previously on PSI/STR, replace one of the double-ups with the missing colours, until you have a +3 or higher of each colour.

  • 3. Refining

    Still with a focus on Psionic and Strength, try to increase all colours past +4. At this point it's best to use the Auto-Dismantle feature extensively to get Swords with the first 4 runes of the same colour. From here, try to optimise with Elemental Runes and Runes of Return (if you have any).
    
    Recommended strategy for this stage onwards:
    a. Use Auto Dismantle to get candidate swords with the first 4 runes being the same colour, using Runes of the Unknown.
    b. Use regular Runes of [Element] to try to roll the same colour on the 5th rune. If you are unsuccessful, dismantle or continue to try to get a +5 if one is needed.
    c. With a +5 of the same colour, use Radiant Runes and Runes of Return to try to get the 6th matching rune.

  • 4. Honing

    Gradually fill out the Sword collection with a +6 of each colour, either through dedicated rerolling or by using "Secret Shop" +6 Sword Selectors. Make sure you reroll any high-ranking Swords you get for additional damage boosts.

  Stat Rolls

  With the whole stat and colour system it can be easy to forget about each Sword also having 6 stats. These can be rerolled independently of the rune colours, and only costs 1 Awakened Sword per reroll (similar to how non-crafted Card rerolls cost a Mythic Card).

  Especially if you have a +5 or +6 Sword that will stay equipped for a while (if not forever), it is worth optimising the stats to get the most out of it. Additionally, early-game it can be nice to roll for Cooldown Duration to supplement Cards.

  There are some weird mechanics with different coloured Swords rolling stats on different slots, but the below should be available on all Swords:

  • Increase Basic Damage Dealt to Aliens (for ABX/L, GBR, some WBL)
  • Increase Basic Damage Dealt to Destruction Instinct (for most PvE)
  • Flame/Cold/Lightning Damage
  • Cooldown Duration

  Random Tips

  1. Awakened Swords provide a nice boost to Agent Level - either equivalent or close to Mythic Cards. As you can Enchant and Awaken in bulk, this is a good way to burn Agent Tokens and level up fast. (Though obviously at the expense of efficiently building up actual Swords to equip.)
  2. There is a setting under Graphics > Sword Colors that allows you to change the colours to colourblind-friendly ones.
  3. The 6th reward for "Secret Shop" / "Bingo" events during Anniversary and Black Friday is a +6 Sword Selector of a given colour. This is expected to cost about 30,000 Crystals, but comes with all the other rewards in Secret Shop too. Worth it for high spenders, or late-game players with not much else to spend on.
  4. Once you start getting a few +6 Swords, it becomes much harder to roll them as you not only need to get a +6, but it needs to be a colour you don't already have at +6. For this reason it might be good to try to manually roll about 3-4 high ranking Swords, then defer to the Bingo Selectors to fill out the rest.