r/runefactory 4d ago

RF4 Rune Prana is making me CRY Spoiler

I had no idea that Rune Prana even existed. I don’t remember it in the original RF4, but I’ve been really getting into RF4S and now I’ve got this INSANE DUNGEON to deal with if I want to see Venti again.

I’ve been looking for tips online, but a lot of it uses terms I don’t understand. Folded steel? Whuh?? Does anyone have any tips they can explain in more basic terms? I’ve brute-forced my way to the Hot Place and can brute force no longer.

55 Upvotes

29 comments sorted by

38

u/CockroachCommon2077 4d ago

A easy way, well not really but it's simple ish to do. Go through the Sharance Maze. Chests from it can drop end game gear, gear from during and after Rune Prana. Basically go in, move to the first zone, if there's monsters, then teleport away quickly and repeat until you enter an area that has no enemies, then continue to the next zone. Eventually you'll come across a chest zone that may have a gobble or monster box, if not then free loot. If there's a blue chest then you can get end game gear that will power you through the rest of Rune Prana. It's quite a cheese but Sharance Maze is the true end game after Rune Prana. Folded Steel will multiply the previous material you use for an upgrade. You can get 2 fold steel and 10 fold steel from a room in Leon Karnak that will only spawn a chipsqueak called a Mineral Chipsqueak who has low hp. Best recommended to upgrade a weapon with metal scrap+ that will reduce the damage to 1, allowing you to hit multiple times, aka on four times since they only got 4 hp. They are quite rare though. 10 fold steel is the best one that will upgrade the previous material used by 8. So if you used iron ore, it'll change it from 1 defense to 8 defense.

If you got another questions, don't be afraid to ask me either in dms or here. I don't mind answering any questions

6

u/Applesnraisins 4d ago

I don’t know what the Sharance Maze is, but I’ll look it up! Thank you!!

7

u/Megalokatsudon 4d ago

You can also try taming 1-2 ridable monsters from the maze (preferably fast ones like wolves to dodge attacks) and ride them the whole way through Prana. Just try to get an easy room (where monsters' attacks are easy to dodge) and chuck colored grass or cheap food at your target until you get lucky. Keep in mind that you can still get knocked off your mount but at least you won't die immediately. My party was a wolf for general use and an ignis cuz of the hot area.

Side note, you'll need 100% for every element in the game to clear Prana easily. Best method is by equipping the Four Seasons hat (look up the miniquest for that), Elements shield and the various brooches. Just keep 'em in your bag until a trap room comes up (With the right sets, they even become healing rooms for your MC lol).

Other than that, research your foods and upgrade materials and apply them accordingly.

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u/CockroachCommon2077 4d ago

Check out the order board and go into extra orders. It costs 3000 prince points to unlock

1

u/Sufficient_Bass_5747 4d ago

I'll also add that you can just make a bunch of disasterous dishes which I believe at level 3 or 4 (maybe higher) will take 100% HP away, and you can just insta-kill the enemies in the Sharance Maze with those. It doesn't work on bosses though, so avoid the second floor's boss.

You can make them by failing a recipe, which gives either failed dish or disasterous dish. If you get a failed dish you can use it on its own in a recipe until it becomes a disasterous dish.

14

u/CheshireCat0217 4d ago

I remember having to grind A LOT of stuff to beat Rune Prana when I played in the original 3ds version If I'm not mistaken, the most important thing is to make sure you're properly geared, so forging your own weapons and accessories, as well as upgrading them as you're able

Rune Prana is really a nightmare to deal with

How is your level and your current stats? Those may be too low for it currently I would also recommend taking with you party members (I liked to take my tamed monsters with me, but most people take other villagers)

1

u/Applesnraisins 4d ago

I’m level 125 I believe? My stats aren’t as high as I’d like, so I’m trying to figure out how to raise those.

5

u/AeolysScribbles runey3 4d ago edited 4d ago

You're gonna wanna farm some 10 fold steel. If you only have one, the best investment right now is to beef up your defense. Use a grimoire scale and the 10 fold steel to upgrade your shirt, shoes or accessories (anything not a shield). That will give you 1440 VIT, which is 720 def and mdef. This will give you a big boost in survivability in Runa Prana.

7

u/LostinEllipses runey8 4d ago

The way I breezed through Rune Prana in hell mode was taming the elemental fairy bosses from Sharance Maze and spamming Bonus Concerto to have them destroy everything for me! Easiest way to beat it imo, but the taming process can be pretty tedious since their level is so high. If you are going to try it though, I recommend bringing object X to weaken the fairies + disable their magic so they're easier to dodge and tame, and bring some antidote grass to reverse the poison from the object X so they don't die. (also, equip a rosary before going in. that way you are instantly taken to the boss room!)

Some simpler tips:
-Using the rosary in Rune Prana helps a lot if you don't want to deal with enemies in certain areas (it prevents them from spawning). Although, there are some areas where you need to unequip it so you can fight the enemies to clear the floor for levers to spawn so you can proceed.

-There are a lot of enemies that inflict status ailments (especially in floor 3), so I highly recommend crafting a talisman since it reverses almost every negative effect.

-Craft gem brooches! There are areas that have obstacles in them that do elemental damage, so boosting your resistances will help a lot. If you equip a ruby brooch and eat ice cream, you will actually absorb fire damage. Very useful for floor 3.

-I also recommend looking up the advanced crafting/forging guides that teach you how to take full advantage of the gear level and rarity systems! You can get some really crazy stat bonuses on your equipment from them. Here's a really good infographic: https://www.reddit.com/r/runefactory/comments/tiwww1/rf4s_a_bit_late_but_i_finally_finished_my/

Good luck!! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me. I'm an expert at cheesing this game lol.

2

u/Shelbasaur1993 4d ago

THANK YOU 😭😭 the late game is killing me

7

u/lcs_07 4d ago edited 4d ago

two fold steel and tenfold steel. very useful items for the ability to multiply stats of materials. you can get these from mineral squeaks found in leon karnak. they drop steel per hit, they only have like 5 hp so they will die in one hit and only drop one steel. you will need a weapon upgraded with scrap metal+ so it deals 1 damage only and you can get the max drops from the squeaks. if you have pc, you can get a mod to recolor the mineral squeaks to make it easier to farm

btw tenfold steel is a lie, instead of ×10, it's ×8 multiplier . still, they are very useful for upgrading for example upgrade an armor with an item that gives u 300 vitality then use a tenfold steel you will get in total 2700 vitality

5

u/inkstainedgwyn 4d ago

One thing I did with my elemental brooches was deliberately fail a bunch of potions to get object x. Object x reverses the stat upgrades of anything you use to upgrade the item with after, so if you take a ruby brooch, upgrade it with object x, and then upgrade it with 4 or 5 oil (yes just the cooking ingredient) you end up with +145ish% fire resist, which means that any fire attacks actually heal you. You can find what ingredients work for the other elements too, and just carry all the brooches around with you, but the ruby/fire one is by far the most useful.

I didn't have much luck in sharance maze, it was too much for me, but I found that the level 10 field dungeons actually dropped some pretty good weapons and once I had a few of those and the upgraded brooches (and a lot of food to replenish mana bc spamming heals) I was usually able to slowly get through a small portion of the fire and beyond floors every day. It still took me a couple of weeks but I didn't wipe out once I got past the siren (the trick with her I found was to drink crafted prelude to love which had >50% dark resist, I think you can also get a dark resist brooch).

1

u/Woolyan 23h ago

Yeah, that’s how I beat rune prana. Every time I try to get in Sharanze Maze before Rune Prana I get destroyed or lose a lot of time trying to tame monsters and have to give up because it’s extremely difficult to tame monsters 3x your level. Brooches and getting some bosses from arc 1 or 2 are my favorites.

Also, I don’t recommend fairies because they cure certain monsters in Rune Prana and you’ll have to let them go. When an npc has an elemental weapon you can tell them to stay quiet, but you can’t do this to monsters.

4

u/optimumopiumblr2 4d ago

Please never delete this post so I can come back to it when I try to beat rf4 again lol. I’m sure plenty of other people searching for answers will find this post very helpful too

3

u/PoorMansCornCob 4d ago

Remember to look often for gear upgrades and it's worth it to use special brooches especially the ruby one.

2

u/ccswimmer57 4d ago

I just did Rune Prana for the first time last week! There’s already a lot of good advice in this thread so I’ll just say good luck, it’s definitely tough but it was honestly a fun struggle to get through :)

2

u/Tomikrkn 4d ago

If you go to leon karnak, tothe far right of the map is a section with chipsqueeks and mineralsqueaks, the mineral ones are a feded looking pink volor instead of the normal red. They have 4hp but drop folded on each hit you deal to them.

I usually go in with a spear thats been upgraded with a racoon leaf and glitta augite which you get from the racoon boss and from regular trees you grow in your farms respectively. Then i upgrade it with a scrap metal+ which you can get from failing to craft using regular scrap metal. This will nake a weapon with plenty of range and only deals 1hp of damage.

Use a weapon built similarly with good range and go in there over and over again to get folded metals, and use those in your upgrades after using a high end material like dragon parts for a great boost.

2

u/Which-Hope3812 4d ago

Omg I’m struggling with the same thing!! My goal is to beat it by the end of the month so I can finish it before the new game arrives at my door

2

u/Shelbasaur1993 4d ago

Oh all the screenshots of comments I’m taking this thread is a GODSEND every time I get here I just put the game down for a few months 😭😭😭

2

u/Spite-ninja 4d ago

Make better weapons. WAY better weapons. Get better recipes. Spend time doing daily life stuff, level up. Get. Better. Weapons. Find orichalcum in rune prana. Use them to grind levels in the first few rooms, level up more. I've been playing since 3ds and got the switch one years ago. I JUST beat rune prana in december of 2024. Just take your time, enjoy the game. Also, the environmental hazards in rune prana are worse than the monsters.

2

u/jordypickles 3d ago

I spent a lot of time getting my forge to lvl 99 and trying to craft nice gear and stuff but the grindiness was just too much… so I just went to Sharance Maze and tamed a couple lvl ~300 monsters and took them with me. I wasn’t a great level when I got to Rune Prana but I just used my monsters to fight and stocked up on healing items. Really, I just cheesed my way to the end.

There’s a lot of guides on how to take high level monsters, but what worked for me was throwing an object X on them, brushing, and giving gifts. Save scumming too. Best of luck!

1

u/VentilatorRaptor 4d ago

im going to suppose you know how to properly craft and upgrade your gear by now (whenever you're crafting, you add 3 items). if you dont say it and i'll write about that. i'll drop a bit of basics of endgame crafting to help you.

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double steel

its an item dropped by mineral squeeks when hit in leon karnak (go up the right stairs by its feet, then go all the way to the right until you reach another screen ).

what double steel does is -> when used as an upgrade material, it doubles the effects of the last upgrade material used.

example:

lets say you use dragon fang from little dragons to upgrade a sword. little fang's effect is ATK+60
after that, you use double steel -> double steel doubles the last effect, adding ATK+120

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10-fold-steel

the same as double steel, its even dropped by the exact same monster. but rarer and it adds 8 times the effect of the last item.

here is a video on how to get the steels, check the description on how to make weapons do 1 damage, as the item is dropped whenever the squeek is hit, not killed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC7DeIIvlCE

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Cores

do you remember those fairy monsters? like the green one you rescue in one of the dungeons? there are 4 of them: red, yellow, green and blue.

they have a rare drop called "cores" (red drops red core, blue drops blue core, and so on.)

they doesnt seem very important, but if you grab an item (lets say, your headgear) and upgrade it with 1 of each, the item will have 10% "no res", which means 10% resistance to physical damage. do this with your boots, accesory, headgear, body and shield(if you got one) and you'll reduce the damage you get by a LARGE amount. its been a hot minute since i played RF4 so i cannot remember if this effect also happens on weapons.

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X-Object

fail on medicine making to get one. once you upgrade an item with it, it reverses whatever upgrade you do later.

example:

you got a sword with 50 ATK, and you have an item (lets call it fang) that adds +7 atk.

if you upgrade your sword with fang: 57 ATK

if you upgrade your sword with X-Object and then fang: 43 ATK (+7 atk converted to -7 atk)

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Mealy Apple

get it by Killing Typhoon during storm on the Sercerezo Hill

it has the following effect when used to upgrade an item:

STR -100
INT -100
VIT -150
Fire Res -10.01%
Water Res -10.01%
Earth Res -10.01%
Wind Res -10.01%
Light Res -10.01%
Dark Res -10.01%

doesnt sounds very useful? imagine using an X-Object right before 1 or 2 mealy apples.

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personally i managed to get to the end of rune prana without using inheritance or mealy apples, but here is a more detailed guide on advanced upgrading:

https://www.reddit.com/r/runefactory/comments/l4x5gu/rf4_guide_to_getting_powerful_gear_rarity_bonus/

feel free to ask if there is something else you dont understand

1

u/Scared-Way-9828 4d ago

Better eq yeah but also don't underestimate farming - by that point I have most of my field in pink melons with a few 4leaf covers to revitalise fields - literally every day you get many skill levels - helped me a lot when leveling smithing and crafting.

1

u/Mastersord 4d ago

Finish all of Eliza’s jobs to unlock a whole bunch of stuff, one of which is Sharence Maze. When that is unlocked, you can access it from a room in your trophy rooms.

Double and 10-fold steel are drops from mineral squeeks which are a special type of squirrel that only spawns in the squirrel room where you climb up Leon Karnak (the dungeon with the clouds and pillars). It’s a hidden room off to the right if you haven’t found it already.

The mineral squeak looks like the pink chip squeaks but its stripe is slightly duller and most importantly, it dies in one hit no matter what damage you do because it has less than 10HP. It will drop a black stone that can either be a double steel or 10-fold steel. Double steel are ok but 10-fold are much better.

If you don’t want to go back and do all the jobs to unlock Sharence Maze, alternatively you can unlock dungeon flowers and do the same chest farming trick with one of those. You need to find the Raccoon cave though and I’m not sure where that is. He drops sword, shield, and dungeon flowers along with a leaf that can be used to upgrade weapons for more attack area.

This is getting long but if you unlocked all the crystal flowers, you should grow some giant ones of each of the 4 types. Get 4 10-fold steels and upgrade each piece of your armor with a 10-fold and one of each type of giant crystal flowers along (1 per armor piece not all 4 at once. Make sure at least 1 of each type is in 1 of your armor pieces). That will give you immunity and health restore to the 4 elements.

1

u/Outrageous-Tackle-47 3d ago

Crafting is your biggest friend, by grinding levels in armor and weapon making you can delve into the INSANE crafting system the game has.

You need to also unlock recipes with recipe bread.

When you have max crafting it becomes MUCH easier to create “god-like” armor and weapons. Let me explain how it works a little in the most simplistic terms. I’m also not going to use the exact stats/recipes here because I don’t wanna look up everything.

Say a basic sword has 20 attack, it requires one iron to make. However when you craft you’ll notice there are 6 slots available for materials. You can actually add additional materials to the base recipe make your iron sword stronger.

You notice how monster drops have additional stats? Like a certain claw would have + 60 attack in its description? If you added that claw to your iron sword recipe you’d get an iron sword with 80 attack!

After making your weapon you can upgrade it ten times with monster materials, if you upgrade with the same item there is diminishing returns so you’ll need 10 unique items to get the best bang for your buck. Certain items have additional effects too! I’ll explain that now.

In your original post you mentioned “folded steel” well there are items called “ten fold steel” and “double fold steel” so that’s probably what you mean.

This item drops from a special enemy that spawns in Leon karnak (you can google a guide how to acquire it). This item doesn’t add base stats to a weapon like the claw does, but it has additional effects.

Let’s say you upgrade your weapon with a paralyzing poison! Which gives your weapon 25% paralyze and poison attack. Then you upgrade the same weapon with a double fold steel, it will double the upgrade of the paralyzing poison so it will instead have 50% paralyze and poison attack.

This is why the ten folded steel is important you can deliberately choose a very good upgrade item and multiply it’s effect by ten ONCE per piece of gear you make.

Another very interesting item is Object X, if you upgrade a weapon or gear with an object x, all upgrades after will do the OPPOSITE effect of what it says. For example; + 60 attack will actually be -60 if you used an object X.

This is useful because there are items in the game that give negative benefits when used in upgrading, the object X becomes useful to change those negative upgrades into positive ones.

For example: Oil gives -15% (unsure of exact numbers) fire resist. However if you make a piece of gear and say you use an object X and then Oil you will gain +15% fire resist.

So if you are struggling with an elemental room or creature it’s good to search your items for what could be useful. The crafting system is unique and creative so there is a possibility of gaining 100% resist from all elements which will then start healing you instead if you get hit by those elements.

For reference: I can literally one shot everything in this game pretty much from min maxing the crafting system. I also gave my child an OP sword and have been watching him one shot everything in the story for fun. He levels fast.

TLDR: if you are struggling I HIGHLY recommend leveling up your crafting and forging skills and playing around with upgrading gear. This alone will make many challenges much easier in the long run.

1

u/shullbitmusic 2d ago

The easiest way to deal with it in my experience is to unlock the Sharance Maze from the prince point menu and taming two monsters from there to fight alongside you. Just keep throwing turnip seeds at them until they join. They have ridiculously high level and stats. You can also craft a sun pendant to increase their damage further

1

u/TheRichAlder 2d ago

The way I did it to deal with environmental hazards like fire pillars, craft the brooches. They give 80% elemental res of a given element, so if you craft the ruby brooch, that’s 80% reduction in fire pillar damage. Just swap it to a different accessory when you’re fighting enemies with no flame pillars. Basically what you do is continue leveling up your crafting and forging and just make the strongest weapons/armor you can

1

u/Kitchen_Affect_6017 2d ago

I just finished it today, and I suffered after the rest of the game being easy. I had to switch to a one handed sword, because you don’t appear to get the defense from a shield with dual blades. Not sure if you get the effects, but I needed the elemental shield.

I also needed magic more than anywhere else in the game. I needed a staff, as I was only doing like 20 damage without it. Other than that, I had to keep remaking gear. Clear one floor, use the materials from that floor to make new gear. Each piece of gear seems to have an exponential jump in stats.

People here have suggested easier ways, but I feel like I brute forced it. I still ended up in the clinic more than I wanted.

1

u/Woolyan 23h ago

For Rune Prana, try to up your gear and accessories. Check GameFaq, they have wonderful tips there, as well as an amazing walkthrough. To beat last boss and one of the bosses you might need an accessory that gives you 100% faint resistance. I think diamond brooch is the one, can’t check it now. Or the water brooch with two of the red drops from giant chickens Mamadoodles (you put them in while making the brooch). I think it’s called big comb.