Endgame Strategy

This page is just one part of an entire guide series. Visit Strategy Guide for an overview of other parts of this guide.

Last updated: v5.0.0

Ok, here you are. The endgame. You’ve been through an Ultra Ascension (UA), and you’ve mostly gotten back to where you were before. There’s still a ton of content ahead of you, including playstyle-changing upgrades. In fact, in total hours played, you’re not even close to halfway there if you want to take advantage of all that Idle Slayer has to offer! But, the upgrades are pricey and grindy, and the strategy for most of this will stay the same: click lots, play lots, and become an Idle Slayer hero.

You’re going to have a few playstyle upgrades along the way, like Rage Mode, the Village, new equipment, and even new Stones of Time. But, throughout the endgame, the basic way to measure how far you’ve gone is through Achievements. So look through the rest of this guide for some insight (master the Bonus Stages! Don’t be afraid to Ascend. But, be aware - there is absolutely no substitute for sheer hours put into gameplay.

Consider using the following suggestions for when to Ultra Ascend, and the types of Equipment, Upgrades, and/or Major Ascension Tree upgrades you can plan on getting at each level, refer to the Ascension Tree Tier List if you get stuck in a UA.

**Make your 1st Ultra Ascension** *once you've earned 6 overall Ultra Slayer Points (USP).*

After your first UA, plan to get the new Equipment, Cape. Work towards unlocking the important craftable, the Book of Death Pact, granting you access to (Dark Divinities). Rage Mode is also essential for getting more SP (making use of the Rage mode strategy) which will help you get to Astral Slayer (the main objective of this UA, the big boy at 500 Million SP!). After Astral Slayer, you'll buy the Village Key for a meager 2 million SP (you should also grab Astral Sword (10m SP) and Astral Blessing (60m SP) as well!) and UA immediately afterwards. **Make your 2nd UA** *at around 27 overall USP* shortly after you've gotten the Village Key. Be sure to check out Village to see what preparation you would benefit from doing beforehand. Try to start making use of the Ultra Prestige Strategy to get more DP as long as you have over 470 total DP.

After your second UA, plan to get the new equipment, Claw. Completion of the Village is the first priority in this UA, collect as many upgrades as you need that will help you collect materials for the Village and begin immediately after. Also get these Astrals in the following order: Leadership master, Command & Conquer, Master of Multipliers, Daily Silver Bonus, Multiverse, Slash The Life, Eternal Rage and the Stone of Hope (see below). **Make your 3rd UA** *at around 45 overall USP*, once you have the Stone of Hope. You should also have gotten the Armory by this point, check out the Armory Guide for further guidance on how to navigate the Armory.

After your third UA, plan to get Silk Master, Triple Silvers, and Provisions. This will be a longer grind! Within this UA you will be able to progress through more of the Village content, including the Boss Fight which will unlock some useful Ascension Upgrades. After the Boss Fight, you will also be able to unlock a new Ability, Wind Dash, and more Ascension Upgrades. Continue to grab any Astrals you can get your hands on, including Flawless, Gem Seller, Gem Buyer, Dark Side of Nature, and Ancient Treasures. Gem Seller and Gem Buyer make quests significantly easier after UA, Ancient Treasures unlocks powerful crafting items which will help you in your next UA. Dark Side of Nature unlocks Dark Divinities that will make Wind Dash more useful after UA. **Make your 4th UA** *at around 63 overall USP*, once you have Dark Side of Nature and Ancient Treasures.

After your fourth UA, you’re headed towards Chest in a Chest! Get the other Ascension Tree Upgrades at your own preference or according to the Tier List. Work your way up to Collateral so you can unlock Funky Space and Galaxy Quests (contain very powerful upgrades that will help for the grind up to Chest in a Chest). After obtaining Funky Space you can get Cyclops and then Wander’s Path. Ignore Time Skip for now as it is Astral Locked, and begin your longer grind to Chest in a Chest. Use Rage mode often as it’s a x170 multiplier by this point and trumps Bow for souls. After getting Chest in a Chest you will need to get 12 T more SP for Time Skip and Sacred Tome of Death Pact (allows you to unlock Boss Fights), which gives you the time to get a Shield drop before your UA. **Make your 5th UA** *at around 82 overall USP*, after picking up the Sacred Tome of Death Pact and the rest of the Astrals you may have skipped over.

After your fifth UA, the priority is unlocking the rest of the expensive Astral Locked upgrades, including Total Sale, Stone of Rage and Rights of a Villager, but with great focus on building up your Armory, check out the Armory page for tips. Advanced Divinities is an Astral Upgrade which can also be unlocked within this UA which will unlock several new Divinities including one to obtain new items in the Armory; since Advanced Divinities is not Astral Locked, you may opt for getting it in the UA afterwards. It is recommended to purchase at least all of Total Sale, Stone of Rage and Rights of a Villager within this UA as they will make the next UA easier. Purchase these upgrades together by accumulating enough Unspent SP (relying on using Inner Power) and UA thereafter. Purchasing these 3 will lead to your **6th UA** *at around 97 overall USP*.

After your sixth UA, you're on your own! Purchased Advanced Divinities at some point and work towards the big boy at 500 Qa, Edge Master. Golden Wind, Soul Cyclone, and the Book of Optimization aren’t very beneficial but they will be comparatively cheap once you’re close to buying Edge Master. Ancient Awakening is nice, but is Astral Locked all the same. You may want to spend time hunting the rest of the achievements utilizing the Ninja minion.

### **Village**

The Village is a unique element in Idle Slayer and features an extended set of quests and a ton of lore. It's exciting and fun. But, importantly, it includes incredible upgrades to soul gains. Getting it as early as possible, and finishing the quests, will help your pursuit of the Stone of Hope immensely. Enjoy the process, and check out other pages on this wiki, but don't ignore the Village.

### **Stone of Hope**

The Stone of Hope is a very expensive, but very important addition. At 1.20e10 / 12 Billion SP, it is achievable after about 27 USP, but it’ll still be a long grind. Use the "If Chasing Astral Upgrades" ascension strategy below.
One of the most common questions during a Stone of Hope grind is whether you should purchase the Ultra Ascension upgrades, Soul Surge I, Soul Surge II and Reincarnation. We recommend getting Soul Surge 1, but not Soul Surge 2 and Reincarnation. Soul Surge 1 is useful to have for getting all the Astrals cheaper than Stone of Hope (besides Magical Temporary Item and Flawless).

Once you do unlock the new stone, you can check the Stones of Time spreadsheet to see if you'll want to reallocate more USP into Stone of Hope than you have available. There are two options: first, you could simply Ultra Ascend and put any new USP towards Hope, according to the helpful distribution sheet.

Alternatively, if you notice that you'd be too far away from the optimal distribution, you can toggle the *Dark Reset* Dark Divinity and reset your divinities for 100 DP (while also resetting your Stones of Time). This will allow you to reallocate your USP into the Stone of Hope. Just remember that after resetting, you don’t technically have any Stones of Time - so hurry to the Ascension Menu and reallocate your USP (and then the rest of your Divinities)!

### **Achievement Goals**

Ultimately, the best way to track your progress through the endgame is through your total achievements collected. There are some massive Ascension Tree nodes and expensive Astral and Ultra nodes that you can chase, but the true mastery of the endgame grind is measured in achievements, mostly max item levels. Some will take a while, and others will simply take a lot of luck. These should be tied to your goals (see below).

### **Endgame Strategy Quick Notes**

#### **Set Goals**

You need to set goals as your endgame strategy progresses. These goals will inform ascensions (or Ultra Ascensions) and give form to your gameplay. Goals should either be playstyle upgrades (Rage Mode, Stone of Hope, etc), Astral upgrades, or Achievements. Ultra upgrades should be viewed as steps to those goals (See Ascension Strategy below).

If chasing Equipment level achievements, it’s helpful to view them in total sets of 50 levels (this will make more sense with the CpS Ascension below).

#### **Stack City**

In endgame strategy, your main goal is to stack as many Random Box buffs on top of each other for maximum gains. These stacks are multiplicative, and can dramatically increase your earnings. There are ways to increase the likelihood of earning good stacks (like the Less Coins More Fun Divinity, and Bonus Stages), but your life is now determined by RNG (Random Number Generation - or the idea that it's a dice roll). Yes, there’s ‘luck’ involved. But it’s also, technically, just time. If you invest the time, you will get a massive stack in a bonus stage. But it does take time.

#### **Max Your Equipment (no, seriously, don't forget how important this is)**

The Equipment Bonus is one of the better CpS buffs you can get. If you can stack a major Equipment buff with an 18x CpS bonus or more, you'll make a ton of coins. Don’t leave it up to chance; max level every equipment item you can. The higher their levels, the more bonus you’ll get. Of course, the Chain Mail of Greed also increases the value of every equipment level. After the Village, you'll get Joey's Amulet, which also increases your soul bonus for every single level of equipment.

#### **Master of the Bonus Stages**

The bonus stage is an essential element of endgame strategy. It's important for gains, but also essential for materials. As you’re aware, bonus timers pause during the Bonus Stage, and then your coin and soul gains can be massive. With Bonus Rewards+ from the Ascension Tree, you also have 4 random boxes each time you finish the Bonus stage. Flawless will give you two more. If you enable the Silver Death Dark Divinity, those are silver boxes, too! Hard Mode (Dark Divinity), Specialist (Divinity), Death Trinket (Divinity), and Bonus Stage 2 and 3 all improve your gains even further.

And the best part of the Bonus Stage is that it’s pure skill. Chest Hunt can be very lucrative, but it’s entirely luck. In the Bonus Stage, on the other hand, the only factor that can lead to failure is you.

If you’re going to play into the endgame, you’ve gotta master the Bonus Stages. Put in the work and get good.

#### **Huge SP Gains**

Whether you’re chasing Astral upgrades or just pure achievements, you need more SP. Have a lot already? You need more. The more SP you have, the more SP you’ll get. The more SP you have, the more massive your Ascension CpS bonus.

#### **Which Dimension?**

Endgame strategy can vary a little in various dimensions. If in doubt for what's best for your exact game, check the Official Idle Slayer Calculator here With all enemy upgrades, soul gains are roughly similar in Mystic Valley, Factory, and Hot Desert. There are far more coins to be had in Hot Desert, and the giant is the best in the business. Rage mode giant criticals and extended bonuses all lead to the best gains in Hot Desert. Armory Items may sway this a bit, such as element bonuses causing another dimension to be the best. Modern City and Jungle are also important for farming materials for rage pills in. Once you unlock Funky Space it will immediately become the best Dimension for Souls, with additional upgrades further cementing its spot at the top.

Daily Quests might send you to different dimensions each day, but pick one to be your 'home base' and farm there.

#### **Portal at Night for Materials**

Once you’ve unlocked Rage Mode, the dimensional staffs, and the CpS and Soul Compass, you’ll want to stay stocked up on materials for those temporary craftables. But who wants to go somewhere with slime or bat wings, much less the jungle for roots? Luckily, you can get lots of good materials in Modern City, and the bonus stage, with goblin cloth and soul boosts, will spawn in any dimension. For Rage Pills, consider heading to the jungle at night before bed, and gather your roots offline. You can head back to your preferred dimension when you wake up and send your minions back out on missions.

#### **Mine DP and Ultra Prestige Your Minions**

There’s no way you have enough Divinity Points yet. Do everything in your power to check your minions frequently, prestige them often, and gather DP.

Whenever you’re preparing for an Ultra Ascension, take some time to get your minions close to max level. It’s unlikely that you want to permanently spend 450 DP on Ultra Prestige. If you don’t, enable it right before your UA, and then reset your Divinity Points after unlocking Blessing of Cronus. As long as you have more than 20 minion levels that get auto-prestiged, you’ll gain more DP than you spent.

Making use of Ultra Prestige can still make sense even if you'd need to reset your Divinities before and after your UA. But for that you will of course need at least 41 minion levels (which is easily possible). It’s easy math to figure out, and definitely worth doing! There's a lot more on Ultra Prestige on the Minions and Divinities page.

#### **Rage Mode Strategy**

On average, Rage Mode will give you about 6x the normal SP gain of killing with a bow. It’s not amazing, but it’s something (and can generate a ton of souls if used right). The best strategy seems to be to not Rage until you have a soul bonus. Then, wait until about the last 14 seconds. The hope is that you’ll also get a horde.

Pause bow firing as soon as you see a box on the screen - if it is a mega horde, you want to kill the enemies with Rage Mode, not your bow.

If you don’t get mega horde, just fire the Rage Mode with about 10-14 seconds remaining and hope for the best.

If you do have a soul bonus, feel free to chew through those Rage Pills. In general, in the endgame, rage will last enough to kill 2-3 giants *if you fire Rage when the first giant is in front of you*. With a soul bonus, wait to have a giant in front of you, fire rage, use a rage pill, and wait to have another giant in front of you before using rage mode again.

Once you have all the upgrades that boost Rage Souls (leaving the Rage multiplier at x170) you should feel confident to use rage mode throughout a Souls Bonus (as long as there are at least 14 seconds left on your Souls Bonus) as it will give you a lot more Souls than merely using Bow. You can consider using a Soul Compass to multiply the Souls multiplier by 1.75x.

####  **Cyclops Strategy**

Once you get Cyclops you can initially get 495 B SP every 26.9 hours. This is assuming that you use the daily 3 hour mission reduction, Work Benefits, Improved Work Conditions and Minion Elixir. Close to when Cyclops is first unlocked, it will be a large percentage of your total SP (having 4-5 T total SP when unlocked), so active play may seem very pointless in comparison, but that is far from being true. Cyclops is great for supplementing both idle and active playstyles, but there is no doubt that using the strategy for Wander's Path will still help you get more SP per day along with Cyclops. Even though you aren't guaranteed to make 500 B per day with active play, the next milestone, Chest in a Chest, is too far away to get to with just Cyclops. Assuming you can claim it perfectly on time, 40 T SP would take 43 days to get with solely Cyclops (and Inner Power), without even accounting for the period of time it takes to get Cyclops to its max level. Even getting just 300 B SP per day along with Cyclops would reduce this time down to 32 days.

### **Ascension Strategy**

Your strategy in Ascension is still basically the same. Review the extended discussion of Ascension Strategy for a reminder. But remember these concise strategies:

#### **If Chasing Achievements**

If you’re chasing an achievement goal, use the *CpS Ascension Strategy*. This essentially asks, “If I ascend, will I increase my CpS gain by a higher % than I’ll reset by ascending?” You can estimate your CpS ascension by looking at gained SP/lifetime SP. For instance, if by ascending, you’d gain 100M SP, and have a lifetime earned 1B SP, you’ll be gaining a 10% boost in CpS by ascending. If you’re not yet 10% of the way to your goal, ascending makes sense - even though it'll reset your progress!

For achievement goals, it’s helpful to use sets of 50 for the goals. So as an example, let’s say you’re chasing the Gloves 400 achievement. That costs 90Qd (9e49) - that’s a lot of coins! Your total SP is 25B, and you’ve been grinding for a while. You have 7 Qd saved up - more than you’ve ever had - and if you ascend, you’ll gain 2.5B SP. The math says you’re a little less than 8% of your way to your goal (7/90), but your CpS would increase by 10% if you ascend (2.5/25). Even though you’ve never had close to 7Qd before, you should ascend; you’ll gain more than you’ll lose!

This might sound complicated, but try and apply it. It’s fairly simple in application, and very helpful in answering the question, “Should I ascend?” Chasing endgame achievements is often about a grandslam in the bonus stage, gaining you a ton of coins quickly and pushing you past that ascension barrier. It's a lot of grinding, but you love the game! Play away.

##### **Ninja**

There are some achievements that are simply too difficult to achieve through Ascension CpS alone, these being level 500 Cape, 350 Claw+, 250 Spear+. For these very difficult achievements, you’re better off using Ninja to push coins further, by not Ascending and not spending coins, you would be going further with coins than where Ascending would otherwise get you. The journey is not quick though, getting the final achievement of level 500 Spear would take several months of diligent Ninja claiming, so be prepared for the longest Ascension of your life.

#### **If Grinding SP**

If you’re just grinding SP, you should be using the *SP Ascension Strategy*. Simply ascend whenever you get close to 10-20% of your current total SP. Any higher and you’re noticeably hampering your gains. Ascending at this level is not costly - you'll be back where you were quickly, if it seems to take too long, add on a condition to ascend when you have a x20 CpS and/or equipment CpS bonus gong. As always - ascend often!

#### **If Chasing Astral Upgrades**

Finally, if you’re chasing an Astral Upgrade, be aware that there are expensive Ultra Upgrades along the way that might be worth purchasing. For example, if you’re chasing an upgrade costing 25B, and you have a chance to buy an upgrade for 3B that gives 20% soul bonus, you might initially balk at ascending and spending 3B SP on something. But 3B is 12% of 25B, and it increases your gains by 20%. Spending 12% to gain 20%? Sounds good! Soul Surge I, Soul Surge II and Reincarnation match this criteria.

### **Join the Discord!**

Also, if you’re an endgame player, you’ve joined the Discord server, right? It’s a great place to talk grindy, nitty gritty details of the game. 28,000+ members can't be wrong, can they? Join away!