Advice for new players, things I wish I had known.

[wulfster42]

Hi everyone.

I'm really enjoying this game, but I made some mistakes when playing it, and ended up having to restart.

When I did, I got some good advice on here, and I have also learned a few things in the process.

So a few tips, please feel free to add to this if you have more experience than me, I'm still new, but....I figured some info is better than none!!

First off your weapons. There is a great thread that breaks down how best to upgrade them etc, but.....in general.

Don't spread your bonuses out, choose a weapon and add the damage buffs to that weapon specifically.From most accounts on here, the weapon you start with is just about perfect to use.
The first time I played I went for all heavy weapons and added the buffs to them, figuring they had the highest max damage and therefore it would be the most effective.

This was actually the absolute WORST thing I could have done lolz. It probably is responsible for me getting stuck all by itself.

This time I took the starter weapon and just broke down the other weapons (unless they have a good non-damage mod I can use in a different slot, you just need 1 point to get the benefit of +3 energy per kill or +x chance to gain 2 mana per kill etc).

Anyway for my primary weapon I boosted it's quality to 6 right away in the first world (I'm working on getting it to 7 but need a bunch of steel which is hard to get).

I currently have 5 mods on it.

One gives +quality damage and -quality cost (I really need another of those!!)
2 of them are +weapon level % damage (so I get 2x my weapons level in damage bonus)
1 is 80% of upgrade cost (not sure how that works in combo with the reduced cost from above)
1 is 20% more weapon damage and +5 total damage to weapon.

This ended up making my starter weapon have a base damage of 16 and base cost of 19.
I tried leveling a non-upgraded weapon next to it, and it's well below 10% of the damage for the same cost (in other words not worth it at all).

Maaaaaybe if you eventually get a ton of mods it would be worth having 2 weapons that are for damage, but I would guess that would take a very long time.

I would consider going with seperate weapons for magic and energy bonuses though...since you rarely need both alot of energy AND magic (but maybe you do later???)

Next up, farming wax. I think it's the same for everyone, but for me, after finishing the first shard, if you don't move forward right away, you net yourself 1.6k wax a run.That is enough to buy a weapon 3-4 times (you can just use the potions to zoom forward to whereyou can reset again and have another weapon to buy). It's also alot of wax per run to add to your flame, which I believe is a multiplier to how many candles/wax you get in future shards.

Just running through 30 is worth 1k, but the nice thing is once you defeat the boss, you probably are set to fire and forget the runs through 40, for 1.6k and tons of weapons. I'm doing it till I get the steel to upgrade my main weapons quality to 7.

I know you can go back to previous shards and farm them, but I'm betting you have to restart back at 1 all over again, and it's a process to get back to making 1.6k a pop. Makes sense to just do a buncha runs before moving forward. I will probably do that for every shard from now on in fact.

Accessories. So far both times I have played, I got a quality 3 ring that boosts crit damage (last time I got 2...but not in the first world). And voodo dolls. Both times I broke down all the voodoo dolls in order to upgrade just one of them (to quality 3).

Vodoo dolls are random each time you reset your shard as to what it gives. That is really nice since you can just wait till you get a result you want for a boss run (like +damage or +crit). Eventually I'll hopefully get my vodoo doll waay up in quality hehe....but it's quite useful.

Also I used march to beat the bosses the first time I played. This worked, but was slow compared to using rage of darkness (which zooms you through the areas mega fast!!).
This time, probably due to my MUCH better weapon, I was able to just use rage (along with fingers and the auto crit mask + fireflies for energy regen). The fireflies work fine for keeping your energy up on bosses as well btw. Anyway you might need to do an extra run or two to make it work with rage...but...the runs are about half the time with rage vs march....so you end up getting....more wax/candles that way (hehe)...which is both good for your current shard run...and over all for your flame!!

Ok that is it for now, but I will try and add more later. Most important is to not mess up your weapons like I did. My 1 weapon is probably 5x the damage of the 5 weapons I had last time (when not doing a crit run...for those I had 3 weapons + 2 crit rings). By the end of the run my weapon is around level 220....so with x2 level damage bonus that is 440% bonus...on top of the much better cost to damage ratio etc.....like I said it's probably 10x the damage of any one weapon I had in my last run through (and it'll just get better as I get more buffs to add to it!!).

[wulfster42]

Ok, one tidbit I just discovered that is really useful.

The cost to buy things with wax in the shop (weapons etc) increases each time you buy something. It's not by how many times you reset (what I thought before) but by how many items you have bought (I think per shard). This is another reason to kick it in a shard for awhile before moving forward).

Now, if you buy the re-usable potions (only need level 5 I think so you can get to 4 right away) this lets you almost instantly reset a shard. You can then do this until you get a heavy blade in the shop (or a key of course hehe).

Honestly I have not gotten anything great from the keys though...but I think it's possible to get a buff that way (I'll test it more later). If you can't get a buff, and only a random weapon + wax + rubies etc....then it may be better to ALWAYS buy heavy weapons from the store.

Heavy weapons give 2 steel as well, and that is what slows you down with upgrading to a higher quality (think I need...like 20? for quality 7 on my main weapon and i'm at 12 or something).

If I had gone with only heavy weapons (I did not know this yet) I coulda upgraded already but I bought a bunch of other weapons. Also they do sell them with different qualities, and a higher quality weapon will give more iron etc.

[redzy]

Nice guide bro. My advice for new players - don't waste shards. Use them in Shards Shop for +1SP on lvl up.

[wulfster42]

Oh yeah, thanks Redzy!! I was doing that with my first run, I had over 200 shards and was on my way to 300...and couldn't wait for the +1 skill point. I'm at 80 something now (in 1 day), but I think it will slow down again. It's super tempting to buy certain buffs for your weapon in the shop, but I have resisted (really want another one of the +quality/-quality buffs).

I "think" you get the same rewards for every run, since I got 2 crit rings in both runs so far and a few other things are the same.

I have gotten 2 +3 energy per kill buffs so far (by the end of world 2). Last run I got a blade with that as it's buff already on it. I'm waiting/hoping to get a low cost weapon with that buff, to add the other two on (so it's +9 energy per kill). Toss that in a slot and it will solve my energy needs when farming (not killing bosses) pretty much.

Going to do the same for a weapon I already have (It's +% chance to gain 2 mana per kill). It already has the mod on it, and it's low cost, so I'll add any mana buffs to that weapon in the future, and just toss it on if I need mana:)

Also I was wrong about the cost of wax in the shop. It does go up per use...but....it's universal (carries over from shard to shard). I don't know if it carries over between galaxies though. So beware about increasing the cost too fast. I still (currently) think just waiting for heavy weapons (and possibly keys) is the best bet. Still have not gotten anything great from a key, but I'll post if I do, until then, the heavy weapons eventually got me the 16 (I think it was) steel I needed to upgrade to quality 7. Higher quality is huge for my weapon, especially if I get another of those quality +/- buffs eventually (I think the next one will basically almost double my damage all by itself especially if I raise the weapon quality to even just 10.

[wulfster42]

Woot I'm glad!! It's such a fun game, but you can get totally stuck if you don't do the weapons right it seems.

Having alot more fun the second time around and it's going way faster as well. I may finish the 3rd shard in 4 runs lol. First run (with no wax used) I made it to level 8 before resetting because my weapon rocks.

I boosted exp form monsters %exp gain and % damage gained (both exp and damage to 2x and exp from monsters to 6 I think it was). This gave me enough to get the first hit crit mask lol, level 5 fireflies and fingers (along with 2 in strength and a buncha points in rage).

Ran right through the first boss with that, but surprised myself and killed the second boss as well on my second run. I stopped about level 26, and killed the third boss on my third run, and I'm now on my 4th (and fairly likely to take out the last boss this run).

I'll farm of course before moving forward, but I'm pretty sure the 3rd shard took over a day last time for me to finish. The weapon makes all the diff. I got 3 +3 energy per kill stones on one weapon as well, so just 1 point into that (leveling it up) and bam, auto get 9 energy per kill, which is super nice.

I also got a strength ring (also quality 3) so now I have 2 dexterity and 1 strength ring along with my prime weapon on my bar. That is 300% to crit damage and 60% damage multipliers between them lol. It's awesome.

[Brainy]

Next up, farming wax. I think it's the same for everyone, but for me, after finishing the first shard, if you don't move forward right away, you net yourself 1.6k wax a run.That is enough to buy a weapon 3-4 times (you can just use the potions to zoom forward to whereyou can reset again and have another weapon to buy). It's also alot of wax per run to add to your flame, which I believe is a multiplier to how many candles/wax you get in future shards.

could you explain what you mean with "buy a weapon 3-4 times" ? i dont have any weaps to buy with wax, i dont get this sentence.

[Thanatos]

Originally posted by Brainy:

Next up, farming wax. I think it's the same for everyone, but for me, after finishing the first shard, if you don't move forward right away, you net yourself 1.6k wax a run.That is enough to buy a weapon 3-4 times (you can just use the potions to zoom forward to whereyou can reset again and have another weapon to buy). It's also alot of wax per run to add to your flame, which I believe is a multiplier to how many candles/wax you get in future shards.

could you explain what you mean with "buy a weapon 3-4 times" ? i dont have any weaps to buy with wax, i dont get this sentence.

In the Wax Shop, the middle tab lets you buy equipment with shards, and one option (top left) to buy with wax. It resets every rebirth, so you can buy a new weapon with wax every time you rebirth, if you have the available wax.

So, what they mean is that before closing out a shard (ending it) you can do multiple runs to build up total wax (which increases total flame) and use that wax to buy a weapon from the shop each run.

[wulfster42]

Yep!! Exactly thanks Thanatos:)

And aim for the heavy weapons they give steel as well, and you need steel for high level upgrades. The other weapons jsut give iron which you'll get tons of from random crap anyway.

Some weapons with enchants on em give alot of steel as well.The ones with the +5 damage and 20% for instance give like 20 steel a pop....I got 3 of em, so I dismembered 2 (which let me upgrade my main weapon again) and used an extractor on the last (to add to my weapon.)

[Azihar]

Your starting noname dagger is the best weapon to use when starting a new shard. But you really need a heavy weapon to finish the shard. So you need to used the noname dagger until you earn enough to upgrades your heavy weapon. So after a few rituals, the Usupation Potion is your heavy weapon's best friend after you purchase a few black wax levels in Usurpation Return make the potion free to use for those levels only. Just remember the cost for usurpation return is for the next level, so you need to use the potion 1 level lower to be free.

[Thanatos]

Originally posted by Azihar:

Your starting noname dagger is the best weapon to use when starting a new shard. But you really need a heavy weapon to finish the shard. So you need to used the noname dagger until you earn enough to upgrades your heavy weapon.

Do you have any screenshots that you can share of your heavy weapon/upgrades that show how you made it better than the noname dagger?

[wulfster42]

I wonder if you can reduce the cost significantly on a heavy weapon with the 80% cost reduction stones? Like is it 20% a pop and 5 of them make a heavy weapons upgrade cost 1?

That could possibly make it better, since you'd have a MUCH higher base damage, but still a low cost to level it (even if you could only drop it to 20% cost with 4 (the last one not working) that could still make for a better ratio).

Then toss in the 20% more damage upgrade ones and the %damage per level ones to really maximize the heavy weapons damage (look for one with the absulute highest base damage).

It's all about the 80% cost ones and how they work in combo though.......it doesn't seem to reduce the BASE cost, but it might reduce the actual cost to level the weapon? I only have one on my weapon so I'm not sure how they stack.

If you can stack 4 of em, making a weapon only cost 20% that would be pretty great, obviously a weapon can't drop to 0% though, but what if the last one drops it to 1%?

Then a base cost of 60 million would still cost 600k....but the base damage would be WAY the freak higher....and max damage (since you seem to eventually max out around 260 or so), would be many magnitudes higher.

Other than that, I'm not sure how to make it compare at least by the 50th stage, maybe if your heading to higher stages though......the higher max damage will outshine the better ratio.

Also, you won't need the +qaulity/-quality damage ones (Again, I think the 80% ones would replace them), and I'm not sure how worth it the 20% +5 damage ones would be (maybe 2 of em just for the optimum 40% (diminishing returns for the multiplier.....20% is a 1.2 multipler, 40% doubles that to 1.4....but 60% is only half as much of a multiplier as the first two (increase of 50%).

Same goes with the %level damage upgrades (which unless the 80% cost reduction works stacked, would not normally be as useful for a heavy weapon)...first two are 100% bonuses, 3rd is a 50% etc.

[Thanatos]

Originally posted by wulfster42:

I wonder if you can reduce the cost significantly on a heavy weapon with the 80% cost reduction stones? Like is it 20% a pop and 5 of them make a heavy weapons upgrade cost 1?

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. I haven't done the math on it yet, but I think it only takes 20% of whatever current total it is and ignores if you have the other stones.

So (if I am right)
2 stones doesn't equal 40% off (ie. 100 base - 40% = 60)
It is more like (100 - 20% = 80) and then (80 - 20% = 64)
I could be wrong, but I do know that I had tried stacking 3 of those on a weapon and it was nowhere near the 60% so I scrapped that idea quickly.

[Dav_X_Little]

There is no contest in how powerful a heavy sword is compared to the noname dagger. By level 10 or 20 (from memory) a 9800 base dmg heavy swordbwith no stone will out damage a quality 6 noname dagger with 3 dominance + claw ... No contest at all. The only advantage to go on quality of no name dagger is the cost of upgrading and not having to change equipped sword.

[wulfster42]

Yeah, in fact, the heavier the sword...the better.

Did some testing last night (just got up) because I got a quality 2 heavy sword as a boss chest reward (along with a max mana ring, going ot be really usefull I think for this blood shard).

Anyway testing with a bunch of different heavy swords (hey, I needed alot of them to reach the 200 iron for my last slot), the higher the base damage, the higher the total damage eventually.

Meanwhile 1....just 1....of the 80% off stones seems to be semi-decent, as long as you already have the more important ones.

the 20% more damage seems to be better then the 20% off cost (the first 2 of them).
The % damage per level is waaay better than anything else I have put on them.

So 2 20% more damage stones and as many excellence % damage per level stones as you can get on the heavy sword seems legit.

I'd probably wait till my 6th or 7th slot to put a 20% off stone in it..and it is more expensive to upgrade the heavy weapons.

Also, my main no-name weapon still doesn't have a 1 cost, but.....I honestly don't think it will make a huge difference at this point. The largest difference would be increasing the base damage as much as possible in comparison to a heavy weapon I mean.

That is especially true when using bonefire buffs (since cost becomes semi-pointless)....but even on normal runs It seems like the cost multiplier seems to make the top end level of weapons get closer and closer.

So while a cost 10 weapon might hit level 270 or so, a cost 40k weapon still seems to hit level 200.

But the cost 10 weapon only has a base damage of 60...and the cost 40k weapon has a base damage of 5k or so.

Two things...seem to then factor into over all damage.

200x5k = 1 million damage. Then you have the % level increase (2 of em = 200%) so net 3 million damage (no need to do the math on the 40% damage increase etc yet)

300x60 (saying 300 cause it's easier)=18,000 damage....then 5x that from level% is 90,000

I think that is how it works. You also have to figure that the heavy weapon has all those slots for other buffs that you would use for dominance on the no-name weapon (probably at least 3).

So ...in theory you could have 2x as many excellence stones for instance.

Or a heavy weapon could have:

4x excellence
4x 20% damage increase
1x 80% cost reduction


While the no-name has

3x dominance
3x 20% damage increase
2x excellence
1x 80% cost reduction

That is if the 80% cost reduction is worth having on either of them of course (it's really hard to tell since it seems to not reduce base cost, but actual cost when you upgrade).

[wulfster42]

I killed the blood shard lol. Man that would have been hard if I hadn't farmed strength alot!!!

Didn't even need to build up the souls masks much (about 30 minutes for each), there is one more shard before the end of this universe...but...I don't htink it's special in any way....so without regen, I think it's gonna go down (hehehe)

[Thanatos]

Something to add for those using dex builds:
Putting a point into wind mask later will give you more points to play with in long run. If you do it right away, the two level you get (9 + 10) will only save you 19 points. If you wait, for example, until you have unlocked ambush (level 11) you can put a point into wind mask then for levels 12 +13. That is a six point savings (not a whole lot later on, but nice to have during early/mid).