Gold Meta

As soon as you hit Day 3k you’ll be greeted by the last stat unlock, the Gold Stat. This new stat is gonna dictate how you spend your gold, how you Rewind, and how you get your main sources of damage. Despite this section of days being called the Gold Meta, this playstyle will remain for the rest of the game.

       The Gold stat increases the amount of gold you gain from all sources exponentially, based on the level of the stat. So, if you spend gold on upgrading the stat, you will then gain more gold from playing the game.

       The Gold stat is uncapped, just like the Damage and Crit Damage stats, meaning that you will lose a portion of it when you Rewind, according to the level of your Deja Vu skill (50% for unawakened, 25% for awakened).

       In order to get the stat started, as soon as you reach Day 3k, or whatever day you can reach it afterwards, do about 10 max day Rewinds, spending gold in the Gold stat when you Rewind and after reaching max day, before Rewinding again. This will rapidly increase your stat level and allow you to later reach an equilibrium. Once you do those 10 Rewinds, start following this pattern:

* Press Rewind, spend all your gold into the Gold stat,
* Enter Campaign and reach max day,
* Spend your gold either 50% on Damage stat, 50% on Crit Damage; or 25% on Damage, 75% on Crit Damage,
* Once you spent all your gold, Rewind again and start over.

       This is gonna make so that your additive Damage and Crit damage, which if you were following the guide were coming from your day 2k+ Bazooka, now come all from your gold. You may recall I mentioned you could spend all your crates into a Bazooka and it would still be fine, and this is the reason why. For this whole section, 3-4.5k, you can keep all crates again, since a new weapon will be overcome by your gold damage very quickly.

If you hadn’t stopped leveling your ES skill, in case you didn’t get a Bazooka and had to level it to 10M for instance, you should stop now. This skill will never catch up to the crit damage potential of gold, and is now completely dead, same as Hidden Strength always was.

You can keep this pattern of Rewinding until the end of this section, and you can test 50/50 or 25/75 based on how much you see the numbers increasing, it won’t

make that much of a difference.

One thing you might also notice in all three stats that were mentioned is that these have Milestones, same as awakened skills: Once they reach a level that is a power of 10, they will gain a x2 multiplier to their value.

This is also the moment where you can consider buying the Gold Walls, since all of them cost 450 rubies combined, and give a nice amount of extra gold (which is now damage!). Technically speaking, Elixir Walls are still more efficient than buying the Gold Walls, but the latter is a more instant and noticeable buff.

### The Rewind Sheets

       This section of the guide might feel a bit out of place, but it’s important to talk about it now. In the 0-3k Guide I briefly mentioned Rewind Spots, how they work, and how the player base has collected mob/boss data and Rewind Times. Well, this is where you get to use it. This is Fishy’s Rewind Sheet, in it, there are several tabs where you can check the data for every Rewind spot that has been collected. In order to use it, you need to make a copy of it, so you can edit in the information necessary.

       The first tab is the Rewind Times tab, where you can input a certain Day, and see what Rewind Times people have reported in every Rewind spot up to 500 days above that. Keep in mind that these times depend on you:

* One shotting every mob and boss,
* Using fast heroes, like Eleanor/Cain/KA/Dash/Greg, mostly just Eleanor,
* Being at minimum waves, or at least at a single yellow wave,
* Owning Express Pack and hitting every portal on the way,
* Your device being able to play at maximum speed (which doesn’t take much).

If all of these conditions apply, you should be able to replicate the times recorded. These times will show a maximum, a minimum, and an average, since not all Rewinds are equal.

In the second tab, you’ll have the Score Data, where instead of player-inputted experimental times, each mob and boss are given a score, and also taking in consideration how many portals you fight, and how long the last portal skip is, each Rewind Spot is given a Score. Scores are not 1:1 translatable to good times however, and so this is not as accurate, though it has data for pretty much every spot, while the Rewind Times tab might have some spots missing.

Another advantage in this tab is that you can see what boss you’re going to fight last, which can be very important in case you pushed really hard, maybe even used spells, and now can’t 1-shot during a Rewind. Dragon for instance can kill you if they don’t die quickly enough, or you don’t have CC to stop their firebreath attack. Alongside that, if the last portal skip is too short, you’ll run into the same issue, which can end up compounding with a bad boss situation, making your Rewinds absolutely horrible, at least until you farm enough damage.

The third tab is a bit more involved, as it will show you every mob type you’ll be facing in each day, and it has the advantage of working in case you don’t have Express Pack, you can just uncheck that option and look for good spots for you.

Quick note: In 99% of cases, days that end in xx00 and xx01 (or xx20 xx21, etc) Rewind to the same day, and are therefore considered the same spot, in terms of Score and Time. However, a situation can happen where in the xx00 spot the last portal skips exactly the maximum number of days, and the xx01 day would then need an extra portal. For instance, Day 8320 Rewinds down to Day 6040, since each portal will skip 160 days (8000-8499 with Express Pack), you need exactly 13 portals to get back to max day, with the last portal skipping the full 160 days. If you were to Rewind from 8321 however, this last portal would put you at 8320, and you would need to fight that day as well, getting a 1 day portal. This represents an extra 30 second to a minute in Rewind time. So, if you intend to use a spot that ends in 1, make sure it is the same as the 0 spot.

Another option for a sheet is Dodora’s Sheet. To use this sheet you don’t have to make a copy, as all the spots are listed at the same time, and you can either scroll down to find your range of days, or Ctrl+F the specific day you’re looking for. This one also has the mobs you fight on each day of the Rewind, and it calculates a Score that’s now called Cost, but it’s very similar to Fishy’s take on it, just look for a low Cost, shown in green and that should be a faster Rewind spot.

This sheet also has more than one tab, but now it represents how many Rewinds you’re gonna do before going back into Campaign. This is useful for post Day 10k strategies to get Tickets, but for now, stick to Singles.

### Galatine Stall

When we were in Section Expedition and Nightmare I mentioned to keep an eye out for a Galatine weapon, which would be helpful for us later. After you reach gold meta and get your Cdmg stat rolling, you can start to use this for Nightmare and Hell instead of the old recommended comp of one DPS hero, accompanied by %HP and CC. This comp relies on not using any DPS heroes, just %HP and CC, so that the Galatine weapon can kill enemies for you.

This weapon works similarly to Devastation, as its hits have another layer of crit that stacks with Dev itself, once its ability called Sunshine activates. You’ll see this happen when the weapon flashes yellow and its projectiles pierce and bounce, happening in Campaign only once during the middle of the day, but happening at every xx:30 minute in Expedition. During the ability, the extra layer of crit makes its projectiles deal much higher damage than any hero can achieve, allowing you to kill mobs that were previously unkillable.

To do this, you’ll need to be able to stall, or gain time before dying, using heroes that can Slow, Freeze and Knockback enemies.

As such, here are the ingredients for your Gala Stall Bone Bonanza Soup:

* A Galatine weapon, which can be thousands of days old without much issue, since the Damage stat can make up for it,
* %Hp heroes, in Dark Merlin and Esther,
* CC heroes, in the form of:

* Maximus and Dewitt, for freezing,
* Elaine, for knockback,
* Mikhail, for slow and overall QoL
* Gwen and Garp for extra safety, which can be used in place of Esther,

* Awakened Weighted Shots.

This last one is really what’s gonna make the difference between using a Galatine and using a regular DPS hero, once you awaken WS it stops having a cap and becomes a regular skill, though it only affects your weapon’s projectiles. It’s not completely necessary for the strategy to work, but it’s gonna add at least a minute or two of dead mobs in your runs. As such, I would recommend picking it up if you see no better option starting at Year 9 (Day 3285).

A Gala that’s more than 2000 days old should be compensated for if on your last Rewind before doing your runs, you spend 50% of your gold in the Damage stat as opposed to 100% on crit, but it’s fine to spend a few extra spins to find a new Gala if you feel yours is too old.

How effective this strategy is will also highly depend on how ascended your Stall heroes are, which is why all of those have been mentioned as good uses of Catalysts in Section Catalysts and Dungeon.

Be careful to not die early in your runs, specifically in Nightmare, so that you can survive until you reach that xx:30 minute and can kill things for the first time. If your heroes aren’t 10\*, with most of their trees completed, you might need to use spells such as Gale and Ice Shard to survive long enough, especially in the beginning.

Bear in mind, you will eventually reach the point where Gala also can’t kill things, and this is intended. DM and Esther will then get you some extra bones, but you will die either to regular mobs or to Banshees, these special mobs can’t be damaged by %max hp (Fire and Darkness, such as Merlin and DM respectively), and that become completely immune to Crowd Control once they’ve been alive for 2 minutes, becoming Enraged and 1-shotting you as soon as they reach your wall.

This strategy works both for Nightmare and Hell, however Hell works a bit differently, especially once you buy Quickstart.

### Quickstart

Quickstart is a one-time purchase of 600 rubies that allows you to start your expeditions (Easy/Normal/Hard/Hell) in the nearest 5-10 minutes of your maximum. For instance, if you’ve reached 21 minutes in Hell, after you buy Quickstart you can start your next runs at 15 minutes. This speeds up the time needed for each hell run, allowing you to get more bones per hour, even if that means less bones in a single run. Because you might have other priorities for your rubies, my recommendation is always to buy this near Day 4000. If you’ve spent money on rubies, you can also buy this earlier.

With Quickstart, your main strategy will stop being “survive as long as possible” in order to maximize bones/hr, making sure you die as soon as you can’t kill anymore mobs. There isn’t a consensus on what team is best in order to achieve this, but since each run is now only up to 10 minutes long, you can try and figure out what’s more optimal in your specific spot in the game. In general, it is recommended to take your Gala Stall team and try removing CC heroes in favor of more %hp heroes, such as Elden, Merlin, and Nero. The use of Galatine might also not be optimal anymore, but this is for the reader to test.

As an example, my Quickstart Hell team is now Nero, DM, Merlin, Esther, Elden and Job, since all of these have %hp damage and they don’t have CC, so I can die quickly and start a new run. I also no longer use Galatine, as using my main weapon gives enough damage to Nero to achieve similar amounts of damage.

### Hard Labour

With the addition of the Gold stat, the skill meta changes a bit. Before, you would want to level your skills in this particular ratio: 2 EM > 1.75 BD > 1 UP > 1 Inspire > 1 MS > 1 BS > 1 HL. Now however, your main source of damage is gold, and HL becomes your main damage skill, following: 2 EM > 2/1.75 HL > 2/1.75 BD > 1 UP > 1 Inspire. You can also now afford to worry a bit less about BS, since you can deal with bosses using only %hp if you don’t mind using spells. Don’t ignore it completely though, as that will make your Rewinds significantly slower. If you’re doing Gala Stall you might also have WS awakened, and you want to keep it one milestone below your other skills, at 0.1 ratio. Once it’s cheap enough to level it compared to other skills, do it.

These ratios are a huge simplification, and don’t have to be followed specifically, but can be a good idea of how you should be progressing. Eventually, you’ll be invested enough into the game to want to use external sources to plan how you will progress. Specifically here, Tom’s Sheet, explained in Section Planning.

### Unleashing

If you already have at least one rune at Tier 10 (X) you might have noticed a new tab unlocked in your runes page. This tab is called Unleash, and is a new mechanic you’ll be using in order to get a good amount of progress much more easily than leveling skills.

Unleashing allows you to add a multiplier to your damage runes (damage, crit damage, hero damage and spell damage) by spending elixir on them. You can first unleash a rune when it is at T11, by spending 1aa elixir (1aa = 1000T, 1ab = 1000aa). This is usually done at around day 3500 for the first time, and should take less than 50 Rewinds to do at that point. If you passed this day and still need more than 50 Rewinds to accumulate 1aa elixir, simply level your EM skill enough to do so.

This multiplier has a value of x100 for the crit damage rune, since this multiplier will be squared by the Devastation mechanic, and x10000 for other damage runes, meaning all runes give the same amount of extra damage in the end. This damage translates to 146.2 days of progress, aka, if you managed to push easily to Day 3500 and unleashed a rune there, you will be able to push to Day 3646 without issue.

Once you can unleash your runes, it is recommended to unleash crit damage first, followed by damage and then hero damage last. This has no effect in Campaign, since all three give the same amount of days, but because the hero damage rune doesn’t help your Gala get you more bones, and the crit damage rune actually gives more damage than the damage rune (remember that Gala = crit^3), which gives much more bones.

Each tier of rune allows for an extra unleash, starting at Tier 11. Therefore a T12 rune can have 2 unleashes, with the first one costing 1aa, and the second one costing 1ab, 1000x more. For a T13, three unleashes, 1aa, 1ab and 1ac, and so on for other tiers.

If you fuse your T11 unleashed rune with another T11 that’s not unleashed you will get a T12 rune that has the 1aa unleash already, and can still be unleashed for 1ab. Fusing two T11 unleashed runes will give no extra bones, being just a waste of elixir, so don’t do that.

If you fuse two T11 not unleashed runes you will get a T12 rune with no unleashes, which you can unleash for 1aa and then 1ab. As such, there is no penalty for skipping an unleash if you can’t afford it, however there isn’t any reason not to unleash if you can do it.

This topic seems a bit complicated to understand for new players, and there isn’t really a better way to explain it, so please, read and reread it if you have to, as unleashes will always be a good thing to do and aren’t actually that complicated once you understand how the mechanic works.

### T2 Runes

Following the topic of unlocking the Unleash mechanic, once you reach one rune to T11 you will also unlock a new purchase in the bone shop. Now, you can buy both Greater runes at tier 1 as well as runes already fused to tier 2, however, they come at a premium price, of 200 bones. Though this might sound like a bad deal, it’s actually absolutely worth it.

Even though they cost 4x as much as T1 runes, T2 runes that you buy in the shop will sell for 4x as much, having the same bone/dust ratio. This means that you can get much more dust with a simple purchase of runes, and while before you had to fuse 2 runes at the same time, selling everything else, you can now fuse 4 runes at the same time, selling the rest.

As such, from now on you should only buy T2 runes, keeping all three damage runes and HP, selling everything else (crit chance, spell damage, mana and blanks), and leveling these equally. Doing this is not only more bone efficient, it saves time and clicks from the tedious activity that is fusing, and the time you save fusing could be time spent doing Hell, netting you even more bones.

Once you fuse your first T12 rune you will unlock buying T3 runes, and at T13 you unlock T4s. T3s aren’t worth at all, as opposed to T2 over T1, because they produce way too much dust that you won’t use and will just sit in your inventory. T4s are even worse in this aspect, but they are the only ones with a lower bone/dust ratio if you sell all runes you buy, so if all you need is the dust, use T4s.

Keep buying T2 runes until you reach T13 in your three main damage runes.

### Cloning

       The reason why you should stop at T13 on your runes is Cloning. Once you first fuse a T12 rune you’ll unlock the Cloning tab, however you can only clone runes at T13+. This will immediately create a new rune, at the same tier and number of unleashes as the one you cloned, which you can then fuse together.

       The time saved alone makes Cloning the only way you should be getting runes from now on. Once you have fused a full set of T13 runes, first damage ones, then HP and crit chance as well, you won’t have to fuse runes up ever again.

       As a small bonus, you can know for sure if you have enough for another tier rune now, since the cost is fixed for each cloning, doubling at every tier.

### Awakening Past the Essentials

Depending on your sources, you might have heard of the main awakenings you should go for as the Essential 11. These are TJ, EM, RA, BD, UP, Inspire, HL, BS, MS, DV and BC. By Year 12, you should hope to have at least 10 of these, and hopefully have already WS as mentioned in the Gala Stall section.

That still leaves another 16 skills left to awaken (as you awaken all skills by Day 10220, Year 28), but which one are you supposed to choose? Well, it doesn’t matter that much. The main 11 or 12 skills are Essential exactly because they provide a great boost to your damage or your game overall, however the other skills quickly drop off in quality. Most of them either give a miniscule amount of damage, a very small buff to spell casting, or no bonus at all. As such, I don’t recommend spending rubies to reroll skills once you’re only missing one essential + WS, or just one essential, so either at years 10, 11 or 12.

I would then order your next priorities as:

* TC - gives 11 days worth of damage and nothing more;
* NR/ID - allow you to cast spells more often, either for stalling, overpushing or for Polymorph (This is a spoiler, you’ll see this later);
* SI/FM/AS - reduce the hp of each type of mob by half, 11 days of damage but only against that specific time, so 11 days only when all combined;
* Int - also a spell buff, but not as important as NR/ID;
* QH/KP/Vit/Rejuv - these actually give a small buff, but you don’t really use it or feel it;
* AG/I&D/AA/HS/ES - actually do nothing, there is zero value in these skills and you might as well never level them;

       Remember: even though some of these are much better than others, do not reroll ever again, especially once you have all Essential 11 skills. The waste of rubies is not worth the bonus on any of these.