Stuck at Shard 5

[Yiasmat]

Alright, first time actually diving into the game a bit more. So i just made a big mistake and spent my crystals on +1 SP per level (as i had them since i wanted to support the dev), meaning that i now didn't have the learning experience on how this would actually be beatable:

So, my problem was the zone 30 boss on shard 5 (first galaxy). I simply didn't have enough damage to beat him. 1 full run (clearing zone 1 - 29) didn't give enough wax for any single black wax store upgrade. My build was going for march + magic amplification with the perma crit module (and thusly wind mask). And there simply wasn't enough damage.

What have i been doing wrong? To my knowledge, this build has been outperforming single target dps of everything else i know you can do by zone 30.

Any advice?

[Alketal]

Well, it depends on a lot of variables, including how much SP you had and some other things, but I'll try to give some "safe" tips, which should work in most cases:

• Weapon selection
  Well, it should be mentioned the last, because it requires some time and efforts, so it won't be available immediately - but the earlier you get this info, the better. Weapons with base cost of 1 are the most overpowered at the current game state. The only way to get such weapon - craft it. Not like from the scratch, but by upgrading the proper weapon and inserting proper stones into it. Luckly, your starting weapon (NoName Dagger, also known as NND) is the best candidate: it not only is available from the very beginning, but also has hidden -25% discount on Iron.
  
  First milestone is NND of Quality 6 with 4x Stones of Dominance (to lower base cost to 1). The best way to get these stones is rerolling the Boss's Chest: save manually before you open it - and reload, if you don't like the content. The first chest has predetermined conent, but the rest are rerollable. DON'T equip any other weapons, when you use NND: weapons have damage bonus, that scales multiplicatively with each 10 weapon levels, so low cost-low damage weapon actually becomes more and more powerful, the less base cost it has. And leveling a weapon with high base cost actually harms your overall damage. Your gameplay will be more comfortable with each Stone of Dominance in your NND, until base cost finally reaches 1.
  
  Second milestone is NND of Quality 15 (just because of in-game achievement) with equal amount of stones of Dominance/Excellence/Claw. On the way to Quality 15 try to maintain an equal number of Stones of Dominance/Excellence/Claw by inserting the one that is the least at the moment. If there are equal number of some stones, use the following priorities:
  Excellence >> Dominance >> Claw. But no matter what, THE BASE COST MUST BE 1, even if it means some stone disbalance.
  
  
• Flame power
  You flame power (Candles to Black Was conversion ratio) grows ONLY from Black Wax, obtained from Candles during a Ritual. When you reach the Town, you usually have the most Candles among all attempts to beat this Shard, but don't accept reward - perform a Ritual instead. Another run won't be long, because all bosses are dead, but you'll notiice the difference in flame power values. Just 1-2 town Rituals will be enough to snowball into a nice flame power value over the Galaxy. No reason to overfarm, because flame power will be reset upon leaving your current Galaxy.
  
  
• Black Wax Store
  Actually, the most important upgrades there are both exp upgrades. Get 1-2 levels of "Usurpation Return" upgrade (hotkey for "safe use" is "Num0"), then buy both exp upgrades as much as you can, and only them turn your eye on damage or rubies cost. Exp gives you SP, and SP gives you much more damage, than damage upgrades from the Store.
  
  
• SP distribution
  First of all, invest the equal amount of SP in all your damage multipliers. Level 10 "Nimble Fingers" + level 2 "Magic Amplification" actually gives you 40% less damage, than investing 6 SP in both skills.
  
  Next is controlling SP costs. "Ambush"-based module is nice, but it just ensures, that you always get x10 damage bonus on each melee attack. And it requires too much SP to have 100% uptime. There is a cheaper, but riskier alternative: abandon "Ambush" completely, increase DEX to 11, then take "Wind King Mask" and you'll unlock "Right on Target". On the one hand, without "Ambush", your damage will be less consistent. But on the other, you crits will be devastating, and with DEX 13 you'll have 29% passive crit, which is pretty nice. And you can lower "Cunning" level down to 5, because without "Ambush" it will be enough for most cases.
  
  
• Soul actions
  Good old trick, that helped a lot of players. Take "Wing King Mask", set your soul actions to "Improve Crit" and leave the game running overnight. Later you can combine it with "Improve danage" soul action for better results.

[Biometrix]

So i just made a big mistake and spent my crystals on +1 SP per level

You made the best decision.

[Yiasmat]

Originally posted by Biometrix:

So i just made a big mistake and spent my crystals on +1 SP per level

You made the best decision.

True, but not for learning purposes. What i learned is that i was missing the "autoclick" multiplier via nimble fingers with which i would have beaten it. But yeah, in terms of shard purchses i think its by far the best one.