Looping

Looping is the equivalent of endless mode in this game. After the first 25 levels are completed which marks the end of the run, you can decide to loop and keep progressing with your run while keeping all your items, units and gold. Every loop or 25 levels you beat, you gain an additional unit slot up to a maximum of 12 units. Every level keeps getting harder, but the format/structure of the levels mirror the original 25 levels. For example, level 37 will be the same as level 12 and level 52 will have the same number of waves as level 2, but these levels will be more difficult. This becomes an issue when you reach the levels that mirror level 20+ where you are expected to fight up to 14 waves of enemies.

You can loop at any NG, however those trying to reach the highest possible level should do so at NG since the enemies also scale according to NG. This also means that you don't unlock your 12th unit until you beat level 125.

### Problems With Looping

There are two main issues with looping. The first is that the enemies scale exponentially instead of polynomially. This means that earlier stages (level 25-100) are extremely easy but the later stages ramp up aggressively. This makes the early stages not as interesting while the tough stages come seemingly out of nowhere to end your run. The second is that enemies keep gaining speed, damage and health as the levels increase. Even though the speed of enemies cap at level 150, these enemies move so fast that they're impossible to dodge and the only strategy is either survive through brute force or one-shot the enemies.

### Strategies for High Levels

These are two strong strategies when trying to achieve a high round.

The first strategy is to use warriors and healers with all the defense-related items. Since you can't dodge the enemies and are guaranteed to lose units, you keep building defense until the enemies barely damage you anymore. After that point, nothing can kill you and you'll eventually reach the next round. The downfall of this strategy is that the snake is weak in the early part of each level as their defense is low. Once the enemies start doing too much damage, there's no way to survive this beginning phase.

The second strategy exploits a few bugs. By using Dividends, Flying Daggers, Ceremonial Dagger, Infesting Strike, Homing Barrage, putting Thief at the front of the snake and using a lot of Swarmers (along with other support), you can achieve high rounds. Dividends increase the damage of mercenaries by X%, where X is the amount of gold the player has. However, the damage from both Homing Barrage and critters depend on the damage of the first unit of the snake. In this case, any attack from Homing Barrage or any critter will one-shot since Thief, the first unit of the snake, is being buffed by Dividends (granted you have enough gold). Additionally, since Thief, the first unit of the snake, is a rogue, Ceremonial Dagger will act as a rogue projectile and chain due to Flying Daggers. Note that Ceremonial Dagger's damage is based on enemy health, but using an item like Vulnerability will cause Ceremonial Dagger to one-shot. This strategy results in a much higher max round being achievable than the Warrior strategy, but eventually enemies won't be one-shotted by anything except Ceremonial Dagger since the enemies will outscale Dividends and the gold you can accrue.

This second strategy if performed well can allow you to reach the low 200s.