Mastery

**Mastery** is a mechanic that is permanently unlocked once the player reaches zone 181 for the first time. It allows the player to spend Dark Essence, a currency gained by using the Scryer formation, on various new upgrades.

## Introduction

When the player reaches zone 181 for the first time, two new permanent things are unlocked: a Mastery tab in the Buildings/Jobs/etc. panel, and a Scryer formation, which will then always unlock after the player breaks the planet.

The Scryer formation allows the player to find Dark Essence, a new currency used in purchasing Masteries.The formation provides a 3% chance to drop Dark Essence per each cell in the world. The formation must be enabled for the entire duration of the fight for it to be active.

Dark Essence can only be found in zone 181 or higher. Below that, the Scryer formation can be used to double loot from enemies.

## Overview

    Masteries are a system similar to perks, but made up of things that typically wouldn't make for good perks. The base cost for the first one is 10 Dark Essence, and increases by 3x each time a Mastery is bought. After 25 Masteries have been bought, the scaling cost increases from 3x to 6x.

There are currently 60 Masteries in total. At the beginning, only the first row (6 Masteries) is unlocked. To unlock the second row, 2 Masteries must be purchased from the first row. The unlock process resembles a pyramid, with one fewer mastery being available in each row than in the row before, until the row is complete. So the unlock process pattern is 1, 2, 2-1, 3-1, 3-2, 3-2-1, 4-2-1, 4-3-2, 4-3-2-1, etc.

This ensures that the higher-tier Masteries are bought last, and that the earliest rows are eventually all completely purchased.

Some Masteries appear multiple times, in different tiers - for example, Headstart I, II and III. These Masteries will always be in the same column.

For the price of 20 Bones, all purchased Masteries can be reset and the spent Dark Essence retrieved by pressing the Respec button in top right.

By holding the CTRL key on the keyboard, the player can purchase all Masteries of a certain Tier (if the player has enough Dark Essence).

## List of Masteries

#### Tier 1

* Portal Generator - Unlock Portal immediately after clearing Z20. (Also grants the 45 He.)
* Bionic Magnet I - Automatically pick up each level of Bionic Wonderland (BW) as you pass a BW zone. Will not work if you have already missed any BWs this run, or if you reach a zone higher than any BW you have ever cleared before. In addition, give all current and future copies of Bionic Wonderland the 'Fast Attacks' special modifier.
* Turkimp Tamer I - Increases the chance of finding a Turkimp by 33%, the bonus time from each Turkimp by 5 minutes, and increases the time cap by 10 minutes.
* Home Detector - Unlock Mansion, Hotel, Nursery, Resort, Gateway, Wormhole, Collector, and all Uberhousing upgrades automatically when passing the zone they drop at.
* Bounty Hunter - Unlock Bounty after clearing Z15.
* Explorer Aura I - Automatically picks up SpeedExplorer books when you pass their zone.

#### Tier 2

* Void Power I - Your Trimps gain 15% attack and health inside Void Maps.
* Metallic Coat - Reduce the amount of enemy damage that can pierce block by 25%.
* Heirnuum I - You can spend an extra 10% of your Nu on your Heirlooms, bringing the total to 110%.
* Herbalist - Your Trimps learn to harvest special Herbs while collecting Food! Increases Trimp Attack by a number based on your total stored food. Grants +30% Attack at 10.0Sp Food, or +300% at 10Dog.
* Headstart I - Corruption  begins 5 levels earlier, at zone 176. **Note: Does not affect Dark Essence drops.**
* Scryhard I - When fighting Corrupted (or Healthy) cells in Scryer Formation, grants 50% more Dark Essence and doubles your attack.

#### Tier 3

* Void Power II - Your Trimps gain an additional 20% attack and health inside Void Maps.
* Map Reducer I - Reduces the starting point of the Low Map Level Loot Penalty by 1 level. This allows you to earn the same amount of loot by doing a map at your current world number, or at your current world number minus 1.
* King of Bones I - Double the chance for a Megaskeletimp to appear instead of a Skeletimp. (10% => 20%).
* Safe Mapping - Your Trimps gain +100% health in maps.
* Headstart II - Corruption begins an additional 10 levels earlier, at zone 166. **Note: Does not affect Dark Essence drops.**
* Legs for Days - Gain +50% attack when running a Daily Challenge.

#### Tier 4

* Hyperspeed I - Reduce the time in between fights and attacks by 100ms. See Combat for how this is calculated.
* Blacksmithery I - each cleared Zone through 50% of your highest zone reached will drop all available equipment prestiges from maps.
* Turkimp Tamer II - Learn to grow your own Turkimp, increasing the bonus from +50% to +100%, and making the Turkimp bonus available permanently.
* Randimp - Grants a 2% chance to find a Randimp in World and Maps. Randimps will grant the bonus of a random World or Map Exotic Import (based on current location) on death.
* Headstart III - Corruption begins an additional 15 levels earlier, at zone 151. **Note: Does not affect Dark Essence drops.**
* Map Battery - Doubles the Zone bonus for completing maps once you reach 10 stacks.

#### Tier 5

* Hyperspeed II - Reduce the time in between fights and attacks by an additional 100ms through 50% of your highest zone reached.
* Blacksmithery II - each cleared Zone through 75% of your highest zone reached will drop all available equipment prestiges from maps.
* King of Bones II - Reduce the minimum time between Skeletimp spawns by 10 minutes (45m => 35m).
* Expert Gen - Increase the amount of speed that the Dimensional Generator gains per Zone by 50%. In addition, completing a Void Map at or above Z230 grants +10 Magmite.
* Magma Flow - cause two extra Magma  cells to appear on any zone that already has Magma.
* Explorer Aura II - Start with an extra SpeedExplorer book after each Portal.

#### Tier 6

* Void Power III - Your Trimps gain an additional 30% attack and health inside Void Maps, and all current and future Void Maps gain the 'Fast Attacks' special modifier.
* Blacksmithery III - each cleared Zone through 90% of your highest zone reached will drop all available equipment prestiges from maps.
* Heirnuum II - You can spend another extra 10% of your Nu on your Heirlooms, bringing the total to 120%.
* Liquification I - Increase your Liquification  bonus by 5%, as if you had completed 1 extra Spire.
* Map at Zonier - Unlock a second preset to use with Map At Zone!
* Scryhard II - Complete an entire Void Map in Scryer Formation to earn an additional 50% Helium.

#### Tier 7

* Magmamancermancy - Magmamancers  will now increase Trimp Attack by the same amount that they increase Metal. In addition, start every post-magma zone with 5 minutes of credit already applied to your Magmamancers.
* Map Reducer II - Reduces the min and max number of cells by 5 when creating maps.
* Natural Diplomacy I - Increase your token trading ratio from 10:5 to 10:8.
* Kerfluffle - Fluffy grants you 10% more damage when active. Each time Fluffy evolves, gain 10% more damage(compounding).
* Still Rowing I - Increase the bonus for completing a full row in a Spire  by 50%, from 2% extra loot to 3%.
* Patience - Anticipation  can now reach 45 stacks.

#### Tier 8

* Void Specialization I - Receive 1 free Void Map after using your Portal for each 100 zones cleared last run. Helium from Void Maps is also increased by 0.25% for each zone cleared last run.
* Strength in Health I - Your Trimps gain 15% additive damage per Healthy cell in your current Zone.
* Natural Diplomacy II - Add 5 levels to the Upgrade and Stack Transfer of all 3 Empowerments of Nature, without increasing the costs. (Note that this also raises the cap of transfer to 85.)
* Liquification II - Increase your Liquification bonus by another 5%, as if you had completed 1 extra Spire.
* Still Rowing II - Your Trimps will now gain attack equal to 2x their looting bonus from each Spire row cleared.
* Amalgagreater - Causes the 50% damage bonus from each Amalgamator to be compounding rather than additive.

#### Tier 9

* Void Specialization II - Gain a second Void Map per 100 zones cleared last run, but the first one is earned at Z50 (then 150, 250 etc). In addition, if Fluffy's level 6 bonus is active, this allows Fluffy to stack 1 additional Void Map, adding another 50% Helium bonus to the stack.
* Bionic Magnet II - Adds Prestigious to Bionic Wonderland maps. This will add two Prestige upgrades to every Bionic Wonderland map, including your first run with the RoboTrimp upgrade. Furthermore, you gain 50% attack if you are in a map of a higher zone than your current.
* Flufffocus - Fluffy gains +25% more Exp per zone for each completed Evolution.
* Flufffinity - Gain one extra Fluffy ability. This works as if Fluffy Evolved, but doesn't increase Fluffy's damage bonus.
* Excessive - Allows you to Overkill yet another cell.
* Charged Crits - Adds +1 to your MegaCrit modifier, and adds 50% of your Shield Heirloom's Crit Chance to your Crit Chance again.

#### Tier 10

* Master of the Void - Grants 3 spectacular bonuses to your Void Maps! The Fluffy bonus for stacked Void Maps calculates with compounding gains, rather than additive. Each Void Map in the stack increases the Helium gain from the stack by x1.5 rather than +50%. Allows Void Maps to infinitely stack. Your Trimps gain 5x damage inside Void Maps.
* Strength in Health II - Adds 1 extra Healthy cell for every Spire completed this run. Healthy cells will also drop an additional 20% of the Zone's value in Helium, bringing the total up to 65%. Spire I will count for 1 Healthy cell once Healthy cells begin to appear in the World, but does not cause them to start spawning earlier.
* Still Magmamancing - Start every post-magma Zone with an additional 60 seconds of credit already applied to your Magmamancers per Spire row completed this run. In addition, every 2 Spires you complete this run increases the maximum time that Magmamancers can stack by 10 minutes!
* Liquification III - Increase your Liquification bonus by 10%, as if you had completed 2 extra Spires. In addition, Hyperspeed II's bonus will also now function up to 75% of your Highest Zone Reached rather than a measly 50%.
* Mesmer - Triples the Challenge² bonus for all Challenge²s that have normal reward scaling (Does not include Trapper, Coordinate, Trimp, Obliterated or Eradicated).
* Angelic - Your Trimps heal for 50% of their remaining health immediately before each attack. Due to the intense amount of evil present, Trimps cannot heal in never-before-cleared Spires.

## Dark Essence Loot

Dark Essence has a 3% chance to drop from every world cell beaten fully with the Scryer formation. When it drops, it gives a set amount which is the result of the following formula:

# drop

1.1683885

(
z
o
n
e
−
180
)

3

where z is current zone

{\displaystyle \text{drop}=\frac{1.1683885^{(zone-180)}}{3} \text{where z is current zone}}

The final result is rounded down. If the resulting number is 0, the game will drop 1 Dark Essence.

Once all current Masteries have been purchased its no longer possible to gain additional Dark Essence.

Here's a table depicting the results (only the base Dark Essence drop is given):

Dark Essence drops are permanently increased by clearing a Spire. This bonus is awarded once per unique Spire clear and applies for all future drops. The table below shows the bonus per unique Spire cleared:

 Spire II
 Spire III
 Spire IV
 Spire V
 Spire VI

Finally, clearing Corrupted or Healthy cells while in the Scryer Formation awards an extra 50% Dark Essence, if the player has the Scryhard I **Mastery**.

It is worth noting that due to the multiplicative increase in Dark Essence earned per cell for each new zone, if every Dark Essence cell in every possible zone is collected in a run before portalling, approximately half of all the Dark Essence gained for that run will be collected in the last 4-5 zones. This assumes that the last 4-5 zones you run have an average number of Dark Essence drops (3 cells per zone) and does not take account of bonuses (including whether the Dark Essence drops in Corrupted/Healthy cells).

For example the expected average total Dark Essence for a run finishing at the end of z300 and collecting 3x cells per zone is 298m, and the expected average total Dark Essence for a run finishing 5 zones higher at z305 is 649m - more than double the amount. Again these figures do not account for bonuses from the Scryhard mastery, Corrupted cells, Spire completion etc. This is true for any zone. Variance in the number of Dark Essence cells appearing can of course make this inaccurate, as it is not uncommon to see anywhere from 0-10 actual Dark Essence cells in a given zone, but averaged over several runs this calculation will be correct.

Due to the Obsidian Wall in Zones 701+, completing Spire VI at Zone 700 now grants enough Dark Essence to purchase all remaining Masteries.

## Mastery Costs

1. ↑ Formula: 1.2\*log(food)
2. ↑ Starting from this Mastery, the price scaling increases from 3x to 6x.

## Changes

* In patch 5.9.0, though the Heirmuum Masteries themselves were unchanged (each gives an additive 10% to the total Nu you can spend on an Heirloom), you can now spend 100% of the Nu you accumulate on Heirlooms initially. Thus, Heirmuum I allows you to spend 110% of your Nu on heirlooms, and Heirmuum II increases that to 120%. Also, Home Detector now drops the Uberhousing upgrades.
* In patch 5.7.0, Deca Build has been removed as a Mastery and added instead as a 305 BW reward. In its place is 'Kerfluffle'.
* In patch 5.3.2, Magimp was renamed to Randimp, to avoid confusion with Magnimp.
* In patch 5.3, the Mastery Table was changed in several ways, listed here:
	+ Replaced Double Build (T3) with Safe Mapping.
	+ Replaced Safe Mapping (T6) with Map at Zonier.
	+ Replaced Foremany (T2) with Herbalist.
	+ Replaced AutoStructure (T4) with Magimp.
	+ Replaced AutoJobs (T4) with Map Battery.
	+ Completing different tiers of Bionic Wonderland now gives: Foremany at 125, AutoJobs at 140, AutoStructure at 155, and Double Build at 185.
	+ Quick Gen renamed to Expert Gen and does more stuff.
* In patch 5.0, the Mastery Table was changed in several ways, listed here:
	+ Condensed Turkimp Tamer I and II into 1 Tier 1 Mastery.
	+ Replaced Turkimp Tamer II (T2) with "Heirnuum".
	+ Condensed Turkimp Tamer III and IV into 1 Tier 4 Mastery (Now called Turkimp Tamer II).
	+ Replaced Turkimp Tamer IV (T6) with "Heirnuum II".
	+ Condensed Natural Diplomacy I and II into 1 Tier 7 Mastery.
	+ Replaced Natural Diplomacy I (T6) with "Safe Mapping".
* In patch 4.11, a new Tier (Tier 10) of Masteries was added.
* In patch 4.9, the Mastery system was reworked entirely to have Masteries unlocked in a pyramid instead of having set breakpoints for the next tier to unlock, as this was resulting in players buying Home Detector as the last and most expensive Mastery. To accommodate this change, 3 free Mastery respecs were added for all players, and completing Spires now grants a permanent bonus to all Dark Essence drops. In addition, a new column and row (Tier) of Masteries (totalling 14) was added.
* In patch 4.5, 15 new masteries were added as three new tiers. Also, the price scaling for these masteries were increased from 3x to 6x.
* In patch 4.3, the Mastery Table was changed in several ways, listed here:
	+ The Home Detector 1 and 2 Masteries where combined in to a single T1 Mastery, which now also includes Nurseries.
	+ The Tier 2 Foremany Mastery and Tier 3 Double Build Mastery were moved two columns to the right.
	+ The Metallic Coat Mastery from was moved T4 to T2.
	+ **AutoStructure** was added as a Tier 4 mastery, requiring Double Build.
* In patch 4.0, the Dark Essence drop formula was changed to use 1.1683885 as the per zone increase, instead of 1.11613, rapidly increasing the number of drops. 6 new Masteries were added, and a couple of the old ones were rearranged. Foremany II was removed and merged into Foremany.
* In patch 3.71, Dark Essence drop rate was increased to 3% from 1%, but the result of the Dark Essence loot formula was slashed by 3x before rounding. This makes the most difference at the very start when Dark Essence drops give 1-2 each, as the reduction doesn't apply/is far less in this area.

## Trivia

* Mastery was introduced in patch 3.7.
* Portal Generator and Bounty Hunter grant the rewards from the Dimension of Anger and The Wall respectively. This means that neither maps retains their unique drop, and will show up red after obtaining the mastery.
* In the Radon Universe, Masteries will still work. The exception is the Liquification Masteries, as well as those involving anomalies like Corruption and Magma.