(Another) New player question

[Cap'n Crazy]

Okay, I lied, I actually have a couple. I skimmed the wiki's FAQ and generally followed its advice, but now I have a few more questions that apparently are less frequent.

-I have just hit boss 59 and unlocked challenges. It appears that it's to my immediate benefit to forget about my number and at least knock out the first run of the basic challenge. Are there any real downsides to going right at it?

-I made some dumb early XP spending decisions. Is there any way to refund XP? Should I even worry about the XP i wasted on adventure stats early on?

-I've been using This spreadsheet [docs.google.com] for XP spending advice, but it appears to only suggest energy/magic speed upgrades. At what point should I worry about buying other upgrades?

-Similarly, at what point do I need to start worrying about magic? I've just been putting everything into the blood number boost for now.

-Also similarly, so far I've not touched advanced training at all. At what point should I worry about getting into that?

-Broadly speaking, my strategy is to dump all my energy into getting my Basic training caps down, level the time machine a little, and then put everything into safety/danger scissors. Is there anything I should be doing differently?

[Cynthia]

-Dive into challenges when you have probably a few hours of semi-active time available to kickstart them, only really do the Basic and 24 Hour once each until much later.

-Don't worry about it

-The rules of thumb are 1:37.5k:1 Power:Cap:Bar and 10:1 Energy to Magic for a while. Other upgrade should be purchased when they cost about 10% of your total EXP earned (found in stats and stuff)

-Don't worry about magic, definitely start using the pill at least every 12 hours.

-Advanced training is used for pushing into the next zones and it will become clear when you need to use it most likely.

-Try out milk and others if you are going to be inactive on that run.

You might want to check out the NGU Idle Discord, they have a very supportive channel system where you can read more FAQ's and ask questions like these and get fairly quick responses.

[KeySer]

The rule of tumb ratio 1:37.5k:1 is wrong. It based on math that is wrong that only cosinder the cost of power and cap. (37.5k cap cost as much as 1 power).
But bars should be consider into the cost of cap.
So If you going with 1 bar and 37.5 cap you should get about 1.53 power.

[Fel]

Getting more power compared to the rest cost-wise is technically min-maxing, even if in this game a lot of features do benefit from this there are exceptions, yggdrasil, beards, wandoos, to some extent advanced training all suffer from this.
There is no magical ratio that is better for everything, the 1:37.5k:1 at least has the benefit of being what the game recommends you through its costs, so you are sure to be average in everything until you unlock more features and understand the game well enough to make your own decisions about min-maxing.

[The Nothing Man]

odd question but

the game says my number will be reset, but is that perm? or just during the challenge?
says best time took to beat this boss was well over 2 years.
and I dont want to lose items nor do I quite understand if my number before the challenges will come back to me, or if it and all my items and boosts are gone after I start this.

let me know ty!

[Fel]

When starting a challenge your number (the attack/defense multiplier that you see in the rebirth screen), it will be left to whatever you reach after clearing (or quitting) the challenge.

You lose absolutely nothing other than what is directly related to boss reached, just like with a nomal rebirth, but it does mean losing access to adventure zones for a while and your equipment might be partially weaker until you defeat a certain boss (the exact boss depends on each equipment, the maximum is boss 100, the stats/bonuses you get from your equipment is the portion of your current boss divided by the boss needed).

[The Nothing Man]

so the number goes back to its previous tally from before the challenge?

or wait, it stays at the new number FROM the challenge? Im sorry a bit lame here so I dont know if I understand.

atm im trying to lvl my super insane forest pend which is taking forever without the merge loot
but I just dont want to lose my huge number forever,
I can see during the challenge, then when its over poof you go back to where you were before that challenge


let me know and ty
also how long does the 1st challenge usually take, and when should i be thinking of doing it, at what rebirth/stats etc

[Fel]

It stays at the new number.

Just keep in mind that number is not all that important, it is just a mean to defeat more bosses but you should fairly rapidly get it high enough to re-unlock whatever adventure zones you need anyway.
Of course having it higher means getting a bit more experience each rebirth since you defeat more bosses (but usually you get more experience by rebirthing a bit more often at a lower number anyway, at least as far as exp from bosses is concerned).

As for how long a challenge takes, it depends on your stats and how you do it.
If you have high enough stats you can rebirth every 3, 5 or 7 minutes (times where the "time factor" jumps), pushing as much as you can during that time with time machine, augments, blood magic and wandoos.
With really high stats you could even clear it in your first rebirth in less than 5 minutes, but it probably doesn't apply to you right now.

If we assume you are trying to go for it as early as possible, you will probably need a few hours to reach boss 58 in the basic challenge.

[The Nothing Man]

ok I think I got this but let me know

so the only number that resets, is the boss factor?
not all the other stuff?
and the boss number being the highest, I mean like items and stats stay
so this is something id want to do when i have higher gear and stats I presume
my magic is still only 10k and energy is 150k
which isnt all that much

lemme know and ty
ps, do we really have to get 99x forest pendant each time to lvl the forest super pend? wow if so
thats alot of pendants

[Fel]

NUMBER in all cap is only the rebirth multiplier, yes, and that multiplier is only ever applied on attack and defense (the stats you use to fight bosses, not power and toughness from inventory/adventure mode).

EDIT: Don't worry about forest pendants, you will get more of them as you continue in further zones, at higher levels and even already ascended ones.

[The Nothing Man]

roger I see,
so Ill get a little more beefy first.

I do notice some challenges disable stuff augs etc
but the first one just says resets the boss and attack def
ty again