MapleStory 2 – Rune Temple Guide

How to prepare for and complete the Rune Temple.

Other MapleStory 2 Guides:

• Beginner’s Full Guide (Mesos Farming, Classes & More).
• Guide to Easy Leveling and Currency.
• Guide to the Stars (Exploration Guide).
• Hidden Golden Treasure Chests Locations.
• Classes Pros and Cons + Builds.

Introduction

All credit goes to Senoinya Aumeriyal\'e!

Welcome to my guide on how to complete the Rune Temple! Having just recently gone through it blind with a few others myself and learning this all the hard way prior to making this, I figured I’d create a guide that will hopefully help a few others come into this for their first time armed with a bit more knowledge than I was. It’s my hope that by providing players with this guide, that we may see a few more Rune Temple runs pop up than we do at the moment, as the dungeon is actually quite fun once you know what you’re supposed to do.

For those who don’t know, Rune Temple is a dungeon that requires a bit of communication and teamwork, and with this guide, you’ll know exactly how to handle both!

Now then, with that out of the way, let’s get to the actual guide, shall we? First things first…

Equipment & Team Preparation

For those who are completely new to hard dungeons, it’s best that you wait before doing this dungeon. Take the time to get your class’s epic weapon and some epic-tier armor from Fire Dragon (FD) first. This should NOT be the first hard dungeon you do. Fire Dragon is one of the easiest hard dungeons, and will help you familiarize yourself with the difference in difficulty between them and normal dungeons before you jump into one like this.

While the gear score requirement to enter the dungeon is only 2,100, I highly recommend having a gear score of 3,000, or 4,000 if you aren’t particularly confident in yourself. A few runs of FD should be more than enough to get you there. Just be sure to dismantle the gear you aren’t using so you can get Chaos Onyx Crystals!

Additionally, stock up on white potions, and if you can, adventurer’s potions. You’re going to want to have a few to use here as you can’t always be near your healer.

Also, if you have Red Stars (which you should from doing Fire Dragon before this), stop by the Red Star Merchant! If you don’t know where to find one, there’s one in Queenstown. One of the limited-use skills offered there provides team healing. This also counts for you! Ideally you will run up to an ally and use this to help them out even when you aren’t a healer yourself, but it can also pull you out of a pinch when your other healing items are on cooldown. I don’t see a lot of people using this, despite finding it incredibly helpful myself, so I feel like most people just overlook it or don’t know it’s there.

For your team preparation, ideally you will have three classes with some sort of ranged attack (Assassin, Heavy Gunner, Archer, Runeblade, Wizard), and a priest. If you’re a Thief, a Knight, or a Berserker, you’ll still be able to contribute, but just bear in mind that these three classes will not be as helpful as the others I mentioned.

Before you hop on in, be sure to visit your house and use the Scion of Light for its buff. You’ll probably be glad to have this buff while you’re doing this dungeon.

Also, for those who are completely unaware of how hard dungeons work, don’t bother with the automatic party finder. You will just sit there for hours waiting for it to find a group that probably doesn’t exist. Use the party finder (seen on the challenge map), and if you don’t find anyone hosting Rune Temple in the list, just open up a recruitment listing yourself and within 30 minutes or less you should have a party. Rune Temple isn’t as popular as Lubelisk or Fire Dragon, so it’s not going to fill up as quickly.

Once you have your party all nice and set up, you will want to have a designated team leader, which ideally should be the one who started the party. This player will be in charge of making sure everyone knows who is doing what so that no accidents happen. If you want to be the leader, don’t worry, because there’s a section of this guide just for that!

Now, with preparation out of the way, we can move onto the part that you’re probably here for – how to actually do the dungeon!

The Dungeon – Part 1

Welcome to the Rune Temple! Upon entering, you will find three paths set before you. Each path is essentially three segments. To proceed to the next set of segments, the current segment must be completed on all three paths. You need to split up, not to save time, but to complete the dungeon at all and not get stuck. Once you proceed to the next segment, you cannot turn back, so if there’s one path with no one on it, you’re not going to be able to complete the dungeon.

For this first part, I’ll walk you through the two different types of paths, and what you can expect to deal with from them, first up, the most important of them:

The Middle Path

You’re going to want two of your party members to rush down this way. Your team’s Priest should go down this path, joined by, ideally, a Runeblade or Assassin. However, if you have one Berserker, Knight, or Thief, send them with the Priest so that you can at least have a ranged party member on both the left and right paths at the end.

Like all three of the paths, middle will have several enemies for you to deal with, but the most crucial of them will be the Boztar, a giant purple genie-like enemy with horns, who waits at the very end of the middle path and will fire a very deadly beam at you. Don’t try to tank it. If you’re exposed to it for even a second, it WILL kill you.

If you and your teammate aren’t experienced enough to reliably dodge the Boztar’s lasers, then just be mindful of his laser attack that will more often than not strike straight down the center the first time, and then get up close and kill him. Boztars are much less dangerous up close than they are from a distance, as they will resort to a punching attack that isn’t anywhere close to as damaging.

Whether you rush the Boztar or not, your additional objectives will include killing all of the enemies on your current segment so that everyone can proceed, and destroying the lasers along the way that affect the players on the left and right so that they can safely proceed and deal with the enemies on their respective sides without taking too much time or worse, getting killed.

*Runeblade tip! Use Blade Chasm along the middle between the sets of lasers. If your attack is high enough and Blade Chasm is maxed out with Storm Sigil and maxed Elemental Potency, you should just one-shot the lasers without slowing down at all!

The Side Paths

Only one party member should go down either of these. Both have the same enemies and the same lasers, so it doesn’t matter which one you take, just make sure only one of you goes down each. Your priest should be on the middle path, so if you’re taking one of the sides, be absolutely sure that you have enough potions to heal yourself!

As with middle, you will need to kill all the enemies on your current segment so that everyone can proceed onwards. However, while doing this, you will have to work around the stationary lasers constantly firing on your path. If your party members in the middle haven’t dealt with them yet, don’t worry too much, as they will eventually turn off for a few moments on their own, giving you the opportunity to move ahead and do what you need to do.

There’s really not much else to the sides – just kill things and remember to heal!

The Final Segment

No, don’t let that excite you, you’ve only just started the dungeon. However, as you approach the final segment, three Boztars are going to spawn. To make this easier on your team, you should attempt to synchronize your approach so that you’re all present when the Boztars appear. If you’re on one of the sides, kill the Boztar in front of you and then focus on ranged attacks for the one in the middle. If you’re in the middle, kill the one in front of you, then deliver ranged attacks to the one with the most health on the left or right.

After you’ve killed all three Boztars, you’ll have access to two ladders. This is where you will need to split up. Have your priest go right, who they go with doesn’t matter unless you have a Berserker, Knight, or Thief, in which case they should NOT go with the priest. Both sides should have a ranged DPS. Cooperatively kill the enemies, then proceed through the portals.

Boztars

These are going to be a problem for you all throughout the dungeon if you don’t know how to deal with them, so I’m making this segment to help you know how to best deal with them.

As noted, Boztars are much less lethal up close, however, you can’t always get close enough to them, as you will discover at the end of the third segment where they will use their lasers no matter what.

Boztar lasers take a few moments to charge up, and once they start charging, they will NOT change direction. Try to stay to one side of the path and bait their laser toward it, then move to the other side when they begin charging. Keeping the limitations of their lasers in mind and having situational awareness of where the Boztars are and what ones are currently aiming for you will be key to not losing lives before you reach the boss!

The Dungeon – Part 2

Congratulations, you’ve passed the first part of the Rune Temple! Now you’re onto an area with two sides, each with two paths – northern and southern. The two sides are identical to each other, however, the two paths are different.

Just like before, the two paths are broken into segments. If two of you go on the same one, it’s the same deal as with the paths before them – you’re stuck. Make sure there is only ONE party member on each path.

The Northern Path

This is the path your Berserker or Knight who went left should be taking if you have one. If you only have ranged DPS going left, then don’t worry too much about who takes this side. The enemies on this path are stronger, and you’ll need to deal with lasers that fire on the Southern Path just like the lasers you remember from before. However, you will also have to deal with a Boztar. Be sure to go up and kill him ASAP, as he CAN take aim for the player on the other path and potentially kill them if they don’t see it coming!

There’s little wooden parts along the sides of the path. If you’ve already dealt with your enemies but your teammate hasn’t, don’t forget to hop up on these and help out with ranged attacks!

The Southern Path

This is the path your priest that went right should be taking, and if you have a Thief that went left, he or she should also take this path. The enemies aren’t as strong, all you need to do is worry about avoiding the lasers until your teammate can break them on the other side. Very straight-forward and simple.

The Final Segment… Again

Just like before, you get to the final segment and there’s Boztars, except this time you only have to deal with two of them instead of three, you’re all apart from each other so there’s no way to accidentally make a beam target an ally, and you have more space to work with, so overall, this one is a lot easier. Just be sure to keep track of which Boztar is aiming for you and reposition yourself accordingly while dishing out ranged attacks. Once the enemies are dead, you can proceed through another portal. That will take you up to a higher part of the room.

The Upper Area

This area is fairly simple. Just kill the enemies, support your teammate if he or she needs it with the wooden platforms, pass through to the next segment, and meet up. Don’t rush to the portal, though! Wait for your teammates on the other side to finish up, then head through at around the same time as each other. This will help you in the next area.

The Dungeon – Part 3

You’re now in a room split into two halves. Both sides have the exact same enemies – including a Paztar, which is essentially the same as a Boztar, which is why I recommended you enter at the same time. If you don’t, you’ll just have a Paztar on the other side that you can’t get to who is firing lasers toward you, potentially from off-screen!

In addition to this, there is a Boztar that floats between the two sides who will fire lasers no matter how close to him you are. Kill him ASAP!

Once you kill all the enemies, you’ll be done with this short little area of the dungeon. Simply proceed onwards to the next portal as soon as you can!

The Dungeon – Part 4

You’re onto the final part of the dungeon before the boss! This area isn’t particularly complicated at all, but both sides do have their own role. Assuming you’ve followed the directions for where each class should go, your priest and one of your ranged DPS should be on the northern section, while your other two DPS or your Berserker/Knight/Thief should be on the southern section.

The Northern Section

Here you’re going to be facing off against two bunches of enemies, including a Laztar. Laztars are deadlier up close than their other similarly-named, similar-looking bretheren. Thankfully they’re still not too imposing, and your priest should be there to heal the DPS fighting the Laztar, so no casualties should occur here!

The Southern Section

Things aren’t much more complicated here. You’ll be met with a small number of very weak enemies to kill. Once you eliminate all of them, you can pick up the pots and hurl them at the Laztar on the other side to stun him and help out your teammates!

The (Not Really Grand) Finale

After both Laztars have been killed, and all the other enemies are gone, simply use the portals to reach the upper section where you will need to activate a device to spawn a bridge that leads to the boss portal. Make sure EVERYONE enters at the same time! Not only so that you can all be there to fight the boss from the beginning, but also because the boss will cut off access to the arena only a few moments into the fight, leaving your allies with death as their only means of joining you!

The Boss

Welp, you’re finally here, and hopefully without anyone dying! The only thing between you and your rewards is the boss of the Rune Temple – Nutaman. Nutaman is a fairly simple boss once you understand what he does, but he can completely annihilate your party if you aren’t prepared at all!

Phase One

For Nutaman’s first phase, he’s mostly going to be swinging his sword at you and calling down elemental attacks, firing projectiles, casting curses, and forming tornadoes in the center of the arena. I’ll walk you through each one of his attacks so you know what to worry about and how best to survive!

• Sword strike – His slashes can be VERY deadly, as they both inflict pretty high amounts of damage and cause a status proc based on the element he is currently using, but these are also easily avoided. Simply stick to the right side of the arena or right-middle, and his sword will never hit you once.
• Projectiles – These are nearly impossible to avoid, and can be very annoying. They don’t deal a lot of damage, but they WILL proc the elemental status he currently has active. If it’s fire, make sure your priest is ready to heal you when you start taking fire damage!
• Elemental attacks – Nutaman will often times call down elemental AoEs. Fire causes fire bursts to come up from below that are very easy to dodge but can be very damaging if you don’t avoid them, as well as fire tiles that are displayed before activating, which can deal VERY heavy damage very quickly. Ice causes icicles to fall from above that are slightly easier to dodge but much more painful than fire, and create AoEs across the ground that inflicts a debuff. Electricity will summon lightning bolts that don’t do much damage per hit but are the hardest to dodge and can result in a stun that lasts long enough to get you killed more often than you’ll survive it. Note: Although his hand slams down on the arena each time he casts his elemental attacks, the hand does NOT affect you in any way whatsoever, so don’t be worried about being hit by it!
• Curses – The boss’s curses are a line-based AoE that appears as purple smoke. This doesn’t do any damage, but it instead reduces the effectiveness of all healing items. Note: ONLY items are affected. This puts emphasis on the Priest’s need to be a good healer!
• Tornadoes – Nutaman’s tornadoes are not particularly dangerous. Simply run away from the tornado and it won’t do anything to you. It will, however, continuously, albeit slowly pull on you no matter how far you are away from it, making dodging his other attacks slightly more difficult.

Phase Two

At a little less than 1/3rd of his health, Nutaman is going to switch to his second phase, and he’s going to open up with an attack he will only use ONCE in the entire fight. It’s somewhat similar to his tornado attack, except this time there’s really no escape. Your only hope is to dash out of it right as it ends. If you fail to do this, he’s going to grab you. As far as I know, there is no escaping this attack. He’ll crush you in his hand and unconditionally one-shot you. After this, his second phase will begin, and you should all stick to the left side of the arena.

Nutaman is going to become very predictable. He’ll stab his sword into the center of the arena and unleash a slightly more intense version of his former elemental attacks. Their damage doesn’t change at all, so simply deal with them as you normally would by continuously moving around. From my experience, fire is when he’s the easiest to attack, and shock is the hardest.

Once the element vanishes from his sword and he goes to pick it up, rush to the cage-like flooring close to his sword. The part near the blade will break as he pulls it out, and you’ll want to drop in there to avoid two arena-wide slashes he’ll perform that deal a very hefty amount of damage. Immediately after he finishes the second slash, hop out and move away to avoid the sword being stabbed into the center of the arena again.

Occasionally he’ll summon enemies to assist him. Simply kill the ones on the left side (which you should be sticking to anyway at this point), then shift your focus back to Nutaman. Repeat until he dies.