Sigma Grindset

The first topic of this section is just a heads-up: This is the part of the game where you’re really gonna start to feel the grind. Before 6k, the biggest hurdles you had were farming 2304 Rewinds at Day 530, and then grinding 10M skills to reach Day 3k. The 6k grind is not much worse than the 2-3k grind, but you have just come off of a hopping stride ever since hitting 3k, with the power of gold meta and unleashes behind you. At 6k however, you won’t have enough elixir to unleash for another 500 or so days, so your only option is to grind it out with skills. It will feel slow and painful, but it’ll be over soon.

### Spell Meta?

       Depending how long you’ve been around the game and it’s community, or which sources you’ve consulted, you might have heard of something called Spell Meta, that would start at around Day 6k.

       Back before the introduction of Cain and Nero, you could focus on using spells to push, with the help of awakened Arcane Arts (and other spell skills) and an unleashed spell damage rune, and this could give you about 300 days worth of progress over your heroes’ damage, and your heroes would usually still be able to Rewind for you.

This isn’t really a thing anymore. Cain and Nero can reach very similar levels of damage to spells, without having to waste an awaken into AA, a lot of elixir to level it up, and more importantly the bones and elixir to make a fully unleashed spell damage rune (and probably a mana rune too). Bear in mind, this can still be done, however it takes a lot of effort, you have to push while fully active, since you have to cast spells, you need the resources (bones) to do it, and you’ll only get about 30 days over what Cain and Nero could reach.

If you think this playstyle suits you, don't do it yet. Once you reach day 10220 you’ll have a chance to think about this again, but this isn’t worth doing at Day 6k anymore.

### Using Spells (not Spell Meta BTW)

While Spell Meta involves using spell damage and crit spells to push days, and isn’t really done anymore, using spells to push is still a thing, but your heroes are gonna be the ones killing the mobs.

For this, we use wind and ice spells to add more CC to your fight, while using the lightning (more commonly referenced to as purple) spells to whittle down the enemies’ hp so that your heroes can just finish everyone off.

Light or slow spells aren’t really used for any purpose, and fire spells are rarely used, as %max hp can be more easily found in heroes compared to %current hp.

I’ll be talking a bit about which are the best, using T1-T4 as the tab where you find them (I-IV), and assuming all but T4 are maxed out.

So, a few spell recommendations to think about:

* Ice Shard - The T1 ice spell, definitely the best of each type, as your cooldown on it is shorter than the freeze duration, assuming you have awakened ID. The mana cost is also very low, and doesn’t have a %cost attached to it, which we’ll see sometimes. Its area seems small, but actually covers pretty much everything but the top and bottom corners of your screen. Especially useful versus the Witch/Reaper boss, as once you kill her first Reaper, you can keep her permanently frozen and not allow her to cast another Reaper. The same can be done against Zombies, as you can always use it to freeze the non-targetable ones.
* Zap - The T1 purple spell, very good against bosses, as it can be used very frequently for very little mana. Very strong against the Zombie bosses, as you can keep spamming each one of them as they become targetable.
* Gale - The T2 wind spell, very good for its low cost and low cooldown, helps to keep the regular mobs (the small guys) away from your wall and bunched up. Strongest against Warmongers (the green orcs that jump to your wall once they reach the middle of the screen), as you can pretty much let them never reach you by using this whenever they walk too close. Keep in mind this is the same attack Elaine uses, so if you can use her, she’ll be your spell bot pretty much.
* Thunderbolt and Thunderstorm - T2 and T3 purple spells, I’ll mention these together as they do pretty much the same function, deal a large amount of %hp damage to enemies, with the T2 version being targetable in a large area, and the T3 version covering the entire screen instead. There’s a bit of debate of which one is more effective for your mana usage, but just try these out, I usually end up using both anyway.
* Flamelance - T2 fire spell, can be very good to finish mobs off if you’re not using a %max hp hero in your team, like DM or Nero. Short cooldown, low mana cost, and can hit mobs up to 4 times if well placed.
* Tornado - T3 wind spell, extremely useful in a variety of scenarios, especially to bunch mobs together in order to use another spell with a small AoE (area of effect), like T1 ice and T1 and T2 lightning. Use this if having trouble with Banshees (the little ghost guys that one shot you once they’ve been alive after 2 minutes).

       Once you reached Day 4k, you unlocked another tab on your spells, the T4 tab. By Day 6k you should already have 3 of these, even if you didn’t manage to afford buying the last one yet.

* Updraft is basically like Gale, but it also knocks-up enemies, much like Garp does with his attack. This makes it about the same effectiveness against regular mobs, but it can knock-up siege mobs, which are unaffected by Gale. This spell is very good and very useful, and if siege mobs are giving you trouble, this is the spell to use.
* Cryoblast isn’t really worth mentioning. Just use Ice Shard instead.
* Polymorph is a very interesting spell, and as such will gain a whole section following this one.
* Ragnarok is by far the best spell in the game, and the best purple spell, though in its first few stars it won’t be stronger than a maxed out T2 or T3. At 4 or 5\* it can deal an amazing amount of damage, as each lightning bolt can hit an enemy multiple times. Dubbed Big Purp, this is a staple of pushing actively with spells and Nero execute pushing
* Incinerate is just a more expensive version of Flamelance, I don’t think I’ve ever used it or would have the mana leftover for it, since it costs the exact same as Ragnarok, and I’d just rather use that instead. Spoiler section: it seems this spell has usage in the mechanic unlocked at Day 18250.

       Take these recommendations, try them out, and find what you like most for your spell slots. Do keep in mind that you can’t go forever by just using spells, your heroes still need to have the damage to finish them off, and if you try to push too hard, make sure you land on a Rewind spot with a good last boss/big last portal skip, as you don’t want to have to use spells to Rewind as well.

### Polymorph

       Polymorph is a very interesting spell, and how it could ever be useful can be confusing for someone who just unlocked it.

The way it works is by killing 60-100% of mobs in its radius (depending on stars), and replacing them with a Fallen Angel, a new siege mob with some dangerous properties.

The Fallen Angel will have the combined HP of all mobs that got killed in it’s summoning, it can’t be slowed or hindered in any way, and though they walk relatively slowly, they deal a very high amount of damage, and will definitely one-shot you in their third hit, much like Banshees when enraged. As such, if you spawn it and can’t kill it, it will kill you.

Why would you ever use such a spell though?

In Nightmare mode, you always reach a point where the enemies seem to not take damage, and the timer for the Banshee bomb to explode starts. At that point, where you’re not gaining any bones, as the enemies don’t die, and you’re just waiting do die from the Banshee enrage, you can group all the mobs together with Tornado, then push them back with Gale/Updraft/Elaine, and cast Polymorph on the group. This is gonna kill 60-100% of those mobs, and that adds the chance that those mobs that were previously unkillable now drop bones for you, and you don’t lose anything from dying to the Angel instead of something else. This alone can give you 10-15% more bones on each NM run, though it takes a bit extra effort to do.

You can also do this earlier, close to when your Gala procs (at xx:30 every minute), and then you’ll still be able to kill the angel, getting the bones from them as well. Just make sure you don’t spawn them before 10 or 15 seconds, and don’t spawn them too close to your wall. You can only do this 2-4 times, as eventually the HP of the angel is too big to kill them even with the Gala proc, so do some testing, and if you screw up by accident, just Forfeit the run, as that won’t consume your Nightmare Fuel and you can just try again.

For when to use the Poly at the end of the run, watch for when the Banshees start to not get pushed back as hard by Elaine, as they start to become CC resistant up until the point they enrage. Once you see this happen, note down what the time is, so that you can Tornado a bit before that in your following runs. Once you Tornado and push the mobs back, cast Poly as many times as you can (as long as there are mobs to be converted).

Thank you Faou#0001 from Overpushers for this video showcasing the mechanic (shows pretty well but didn’t quite do it right at the end, keep in mind you should cast 10-20 seconds earlier at the end).

### Bazooka Meta 2

After you reach Day 7000 our good old friend Bazooka makes a swift comeback. Because you just went through 6k with your unleashes, your HL skill is probably a milestone behind what you’ll need to push further in 7k. As such, your cdmg stat is at a low, and this coincides with Bazooka’s cdmg scaling hitting a high point.

I would then recommend rolling up to 5 or 6 Golden Spins, depending on how many crates you managed to save so far.  You won’t be rolling as many as you did at 2k, since the boost here is much smaller, but it’s usually worth trying anyway.

If you get one at early 7k, you can try getting another one 400+ days later, up until just before Day 8k, the scaling between each one is very decent, and you can get at least 100 days from each one you get.

Once your HL skill reaches its next milestone (probably 100B), this effect will be minimized and the Bazooka scaling will start losing quickly.

### Hunt T6+

       Once you get to T6 or T7 Hunt, your strategy will change again slightly. Now the values are starting to increase rapidly, and it’s usually worth it to farm for at least legendary pieces with 2 subs, or epics with 2 or 3 subs, depending on what you get and what seems more efficient in the Gear Calc.

       Exception to this is rings, since the main stat is not a damage one, and you only need rares to get 2 subs.

       You can maintain this same strategy until after T9 (before T10), still without rolling for substats with Scrolls or rubies.