Basic guide for Tap Ninja

Greetings, everybody! I'm Ruby. I started playing a while ago and noticed that there wasn't a text guide so I decided to write one with my own experience while getting process in my game. Any thoughts and corrections are welcome.

**1. General Information**

***Control***

Just like other idle/clicker games, Tap Ninja gameplay doesn't require much action except "clicking-on-screen" to slash and throw shuriken, there are 2 more skills to help increasing your income later with the hotkey Q (Rope Hook), W (Shuriken Vortex) and E (a hotkey for "auto-attack").

***Automation***

There is a thing called Energy in game which allows you to auto-attack enemies. Its base timer is 10 minutes and after your Energy runs out, your Ninja will just run freely till the bar is fully recharged or you re-activate the ability. A manual slashed enemy will recover a base amount of 5s, so ideally, your run would be 10 mins of auto-attacking and 2-4 mins manually playing (100-120 enemies). The base timer and energy recovery can be upgraded with Elixir later.

***Actively play***

I found this game quite different to others idle games because the offline (away) rewards are quite awful comparing to what I could have done playing actively. You can leave this game run in the back but its efficiency will be halved (even until my state with around 40k Elixir).

***Economic***

This game includes 2 economic systems: Coin and Income (Gold), you can earn Coins and Gems (high value, will be converted to Coins) through killing enemies and Income through Buildings. By combining these 2, we have Gold. There are a few things that boost the Gps (gold per second) which are multipliers and Coin amount and value booster. Clearer explanations below.

* Coin: Enemies will drop a certain amount of Coin when killed and will be convert into gold by multiplying with it value. So there are upgrades involved with Coin:
	1. Max speed step (combo-like, multiplier)
	2. Increase Coin's base value
	3. (%) of Coin dropped can be converted to Gem with a value of (x5, x10, x20, x50)
	4. Amount of Coin dropped by certain enemy
	5. More enemy
	6. (%) of Income is converted to Coin's value
	7. Increase Gems' value

* Income: Gold can be used to build Buildings for passive income (Income) that generate more gold, there are many Tiers for building (1, 10, 25,50, +50...) that doubles the Income generated. Upgrades include:
	1. Increase Income by (%)
	2. Increase (%) Income per Achievement/Building level/Upgrade Tier/Building Tier.
	3. Ascend

* Gold: Beside those from above, there are upgrade that affect Gold in different ways:
	1. Firefly appears more often, more event
	2. Increase Away Income (offline reward)
	3. Increase Gold earned by completing Challenge
	4. Increase maximum Quest

***Ascension***

Just another name for Rebirth, which resets your process and gives you something as a reward. You will earn Elixir through rebirthing and those can be used to purchase upgrades for higher Gps or open new functions. Personally, my advice is to aim for a slightly higher upgrade that can help you break through walls than leveling them up equally, for example: Buy All Upgrades, Energy, more Quest, Unlock Rope Hook, Unlock Crit, Increase Speed Step, Unlock Shuriken Vortex, Unlock Firefly Events...

Also take note that the highest Elixir earned in a single run will increase Income by the same amount of (%), so it's reasonable to stay for a while to seek for multiplier to break through instead of Ascending.

***Fireflies***

The wiki page of Fireflies are carefully written. I will just add a little more information on those.

1. They are the main source of key, amber in the game
2. They are also the key to breakthrough in the game (mainly with G/s increase and events early game), if you're on the edge of Ascending, wait for 1 more firefly, if you hit Big one, you have chance to double your Elixir in just 30 seconds.

***Quest***

Quests are not hard to do but they are rare and only replenish once a day, they also play a vital role in breakthrough with their gold reward. You should focus on upgrades that grant you more quest per day.

***Amber***

VIP stuff mostly, you can earn amber slowly everyday so spend them wisely (or if you have money to spare and want to spend on the game, feel free to use those power-ups). Personally I don't buy anything except Katana of Legends (increases basic Coin value) and Kimono of Legends (increases basic Income) 'cause everything helps a little. When the impact is getting small, you might consider buying A small bag of gold instead for breaking through moments.

***Challenge***

A great way to earn some bonus for the game (including extra events, high tier of automation and event upgrades) with stars from each challenge. It takes 1 key to play 1 level which can maximum give you 3 stars if you can slash all the enemies in one go. Each challenge has some kind of rhythm to slash because the speed and Attack recharge are constant.

Take note that if you DIDN'T get 3 stars, you can click on the "X" button and retry level, always aim for 3 stars because Keys are scarce (2 Keys/day + x).

**2. Getting started**

You have just joined the game, the 1st thing to do is to choose the character.

Male character has higher strength and health while female character has higher agility, the color is for the element: Fire (Red), Wood (Green) and Ice (Blue)... just kidding, none of those stats are real (yet), you can choose whatever you like. Now move it and slash some samurai for Coins.

After a while, you will have enough gold for Buildings which generate Income, and Upgrades which increase your slashing value, prioritize on Coin first, then Income.

Keep those slashy slash coming while leveling your Upgrades and Buildings till your first Ascension.

Now, you should balance your time and decide what to do by answering these questions:

1. Am I at the limit? (5-10 slashes for 1 Elixir, it's up to you)
2. How many Elixir will I get if I ascend now? And what can I upgrade with it? And will it be vital? (See Ascension)
3. Should I stable ascend at this point or should I wait for fireflies?

Personally, my circle is: Stable ascend -> Chance to breakthrough/leveled up everything -> Wait for fireflies with multiplier -> Ascend to next "step" -> Stable ascend.

Later in this game, you'll find Upgrades that share (%) of Income in Coin value, after getting a good amount of that, focus on Buying next Buildings tier (prioritize the higher quality Building, too, if you can afford after farming for a while or with 1 multiplier) and Speedstep.

*Breaking through*

It's important to know when to breakthrough and ascend to the next "level". Normally, I'd go for double the current bonus amount from Elixir (or at least x1.5), for example, your Income bonus is 200k%, then you should aim for 400k% at least in the next ascension. The signs should be:

1. Your stable ascension is getting slower to reach unlock skill with Elixir (4-5 Ascension for 1 skill)
2. You can't reach the next tier of Building or Upgrade (those that dramatically increase GpS)
3. You hit a BIG ONE on fireflies and is currently at a good position for a "break-through"

Follow these steps:

1. Stay at the edge of the wall (don't ascend from stable ascension to reach the highest possible position of GpS
2. Assess your aims: which upgrade you should aim for if you have enough resources (next tier/higher building or a good upgrade), consider those that's around x50-x100 your current gold
3. Gather the resource needed (for me it's either quests with huge gold rewards or lucky fireflies with Big one bonus). If luck is not by your side, farming a few extra hours might be good. Also, if your Katana and Kimono of legend has reached a decent amount of level and the impact of buying more is not that large, consider using amber to finance your break-through with A bag of gold.
4. Breaking through: complete your aim when the resource is gathered enough
5. Wait a bit after to collect extra stuffs won't hurt (or if you're lucky with another Big one, push further)
6. Do the big ascend and continue playing till the next wall

***Buying single building strategy***

For every building, the reward for buying a few level is quite small, so you will tend to save money till the next tier of the building is affordable (NEXT in the Building tab), but there are time that you'll find single-level purchase can help you push further.

There will be a stage when you have to buy a building level-by-level till the next tier (namely, from the Chemist building, when the Elixir bonus is around 2 to 3 million), and with every purchase, the GpS does increase a good amount, so it's faster to buy the next level of the building. Don't save money the next tier as you'd waste a lot of time farming.

After you've purchased 50 level of the Chemist, do a breakthrough, this can get you up to 5 millions bonus (or even more if you're lucky).

***The Treasury wall***

As you continue playing, nothing much changed from the 2 strategy above (Break-through and Buying single building), you can consider buying the previous tier till level 7x before aiming for the next building as level 100 is unreachable but buying 20 more levels improve your GpS a decent amount in comparison with staying at level 50.

You'll find yourself hitting another wall after purchasing Castle level 50+: the next building - The Treasury - is unavailable, which you will have to unlock through the Ascension tree (1.2e9). The strategy here is to reach all other upgrades beside The Treasury, get it and prepare for a break through.

Your 1st option is to wait as the Treasury costs around 22e57 gold (base 22e57 but you've bought all the discount upgrade so it's halved), your current gold income should be around 50-100e54 per wave (more or less depend on your playtime and other buffs). It costed me a whole day and half to reach 22e57 gold and another half to reach Treasury level 50. It's worth the wait as the Treasury raised my Elixir bonus 10 times after 2 ascension (500mil to 2.5e9 and then from 2.5e9 to 5e9) using the 2 strategies above.

If you are not interested in waiting, the 2nd option is to stably ascend a few (dozen) times for the Key to the Metropolis and Gigantic pocket which might help you reaching your goal easier.

**FAQ**

Q: Should I use auto-clicker?

A: You may, but not necessary. I mean, it does helps in getting back the auto-attack but won't yield much more Gps like others clicker games as you always 1 shot enemies (except Shield-bearer, I guess) and they don't appear continuously. So, overkill, I guess. For challenge due to the longer slash interval, I recommend playing manually.

Q: *[phrase]* is incorrect/lacking.

A: Well I'm writing this guide as I'm playing the game, so I haven't reached some part of the game, if you're further than me and found something wrong, please post your correction in the comment.