Spire Assault

*"As you approach the infinitely tall Spire, a Trimp rushes out and embraces Scruffy. Scruffy introduces you to Huffy, who seems to have also realized that Druopitee is kind of a prick. Huffy lets you know that he managed to destroy the Corruption device at the top, but that it was now crawling with horrible shadowy enemies. Huffy lets you know that he is shielded from the Portal inside the Spire, but that even when you Portal and forget him, he can use your subconscious to help direct him in cleansing the Spire and finding artifacts to make your Trimps stronger."
You've finally made it to Huffy and the first Spire in this Universe. Huffy needs your help removing all of the Enemies! Check out the new tab titled 'SA' to get started.
**A tip for once you're in**: Huffy has figured out how to put on Pants and a Sword but is struggling beyond that. Click two other items to equip them ASAP!* -Message upon unlocking Spire Assault

**Spire Assault** (abbreviated as SA) is a new minigame which is unlocked by reaching zone 75 in the Radon Universe. Our hero, Huffy, battles against an infinite number of enemies, defeating them to gather dust. Dust may be spent for various upgrades, some of which affect only the Spire Assault minigame, and others which affect progress in the main game.

Huffy begins with 4 limbs, and 7 total pieces of equipment. Huffy can equip 1 piece of equipment per limb. Additional limbs, and more equipment, may be purchased with dust. Equipment pieces may also be leveled up by spending dust.

Spire Assault consists of many different "levels" of enemies. Each level's enemies have increased stats, and an increased dust reward, compared to the previous level. In addition, enemies on each level have a procedurally generated set of "affixes" (powers and defenses). Huffy will need to rearrange equipment based on the enemy affixes.

## Rules

Each level of **Spire Assault** has a specific number of enemies that must be defeated before Huffy can advance to the next level. At first, this number is 10 times the level number, but the formula changes after level 20.

Huffy fights one enemy at a time, and combat continues until either Huffy's health or the enemy's health reaches 0. Huffy begins with 50 health, which may be increased by equipment and bonuses.

Huffy and the enemy each have an attack bar which fills over time (at the start of SA, both attack bars take approximately 5 seconds to fill, but this will vary with Huffy's equipment and with the enemy's stats and affixes). When one of the attack bars fills up, an attack is landed, which always hits, and inflicts damage based on the assailant's attack score, minus the defender's defense score.

There are three types of "status effect" that Huffy and the enemy may inflict on each other: poison, bleed and shock. Shock multiplies all damage taken from all sources. Poison is basic damage over time, acting independently of the attack bar, and ignoring enemy defense.

Bleed is the most complex status effect. If the enemy is bleeding, it takes damage every time **it** attacks, and this damage is based on **Huffy's** attack score. Likewise, if Huffy is bleeding, Huffy take damage every time Huffy attacks, based on the **enemy's** attack score.

Lifesteal heals Huffy on each of Huffy's attacks, and every time a bleed inflicts damage on the enemy, but is not triggered by poisons. The same applies to the enemy's lifesteal ability.

Both Huffy and the enemy may have *resistances* to the three status effects and to lifesteal. The amount of resistance is subtracted from the adversary's chance of inflicting a status effect, or from the percent of healing done by lifesteal. For example, if Huffy has a 70% chance of creating a poison, but the enemy has 24% poison resistance, the net chance of poisoning the enemy will be 46%.

If Huffy's health reaches 0, Huffy will lose the fight and the battle will start over with full stats for both.

If the enemy's health reaches 0, Huffy wins the fight, collects some dust and possibly shards (based on the SA level), and the battle will start over with a new enemy to fight.

If a battle takes too long, the enemy will become enraged, gaining more attack score.

Enemies on SA levels 51 and higher drop shards as well as dust. The amount of shards is always 1 billionth (1e-9) of the amount of dust. Shards and dust are both used as currencies for bonuses, contracts, and SA equipment level upgrades.

## Equipment

Huffy begins with 7 pieces of equipment. New pieces of equipment may be obtained by completing contracts. Each one involves two steps: some dust is spent up front to accept the contract, and then a Void Map must be completed at or beyond a specified zone in Universe 2. The contract may be canceled before the Void Map is completed, which will refund the dust.

## The Ring

The ring is a bonus that can be unlocked after completing 35 contracts respectively after accepting and completing the contract for a void map at level 170. After the purchase, a new menu is unlocked where you can upgrade the Ring.

After upgrading to the fifth level, the first customizable slot is unlocked. The player can choose between Attack, Health, Defense, Lifesteal and Dust Multiplier. A second customizable slot is unlocked after upgrading to level 15, in which the player can choose another modifier that has not yet been used.

## Enemies

Every level of Spire Assault has an unlimited number of "enemies" which Huffy will fight. In order to clear a level and advance to the next, Huffy must defeat **10 \* SALevel** enemies. This formula switches to **190 + 15 \* (SALevel - 19)** at level 20.

The enemies that Huffy fights have various stats that can be enhanced by modifiers, starting at Level 2 with one modifier, that increases the higher level the enemy is.

The list of stats, as well as their modifiers are illustrated in the table below.

Note that it is possible for enemies to stack status granting modifiers like Poisoning (displayed in-game as Poisoning x2), which grants a stronger effect, but it is not possible to have all 3 status (Poison, Bleed, Shock) resists on the same enemy.

The list is enemies stats and modifiers. Expand it if you want to see. (Dust Reward and Lifesteal Resist are omitted, see Dust Reward at next paragraph)

## Dust Reward

By successfully defeating an enemy, Dust is awarded which allows the player to purchase various upgrades and bonuses.

The dust reward formula is as follows:

Dust = (1 + ((**a** - 1) \* 5) \* 1.19 ^ (**a** - 1) \* **b** \* **c**
where

* **a** = current enemy level
* **b** = bonus for L50+ enemies = 1.1 ^ (**a** - 49), otherwise **b** = 1
* **c** = bonus from Lifegiving Gem and Dusty Tome = 1 + (sum of bonuses in % / 100)

Enemies on SA levels 51 and higher drop shards as well as dust. The amount of shards is always 1 billionth (1e-9) of the amount of dust.

## Strategy

Extra limbs are the most effective bonuses you can buy, and should be prioritized in almost every situation.

In the early levels, using equipment for all 3 status effects (known as a "rainbow build") is a good strategy, but as the enemies gain resistances, you will need to specialize builds. Typically, you will either use a poison-focused build or a bleed-focused build. If the enemy doesn't resist shock, you may add shock damage to either of those. For enemies that resist both poison and bleed, you may need to use a pure attack/shock build.

Fortunately, the game does not permit enemies to have all 3 resistance affixes.

Poison builds tend to de-emphasize (or completely ignore) Huffy's attack damage, but they benefit from reducing Huffy's attack time, because this allows poisons to be stacked up more quickly. Since Huffy's attack is very low, lifesteal is likewise ineffective. There are specific pieces of equipment that will heal Huffy when poisons "tick", and these may be included once they become available. Otherwise, Huffy's survival is dependent on having high enough health and defense to weather the enemy's attacks.

Bleed builds emphasize Huffy's attack, which is the basis of bleed damage. Lifesteal becomes important, as high enough lifesteal (together with Huffy's attack, the bleed multiplier, and the shock multiplier) will cause Huffy to heal for more points than the enemy's attack does, making Huffy effectively unkillable. (Of course, the enemy may overpower your lifesteal, especially if they can shock Huffy.) Decreasing the enemy's attack time is actually beneficial in a bleed build, as it means the enemy takes damage faster.

Bleed builds tend to kill enemies more quickly than poison builds, and are therefore the preferred choice for "farming" (staying on a specific level to collect dust). This is especially true with the Lifegiving Gem, which confers a bonus to dust collected based partly on Huffy's lifesteal score.

Some SA levels have enemy affixes which allow high-output dust farming. The keys here are lack of bleed resistance, lack of shock resistance, and the "fast" affix, which makes the enemy attack more frequently. The first three good "farming levels" are 15, 22 and 29.

In general, it's worthwhile to set up Huffy for dust farming on one of these levels, with a compatible equipment build, for overnight or other prolonged away sessions. "Pushing" to new levels will typically require an equipment change, so it should only be done when you're able to dedicate attention to it.

## Trivia

**Spire Assault** was introduced in patch 5.5.