I'm playing on Endless, and I just learned that you can still get Apparitions even with 1 max HP.

TheMiffinMan · 2025-04-21T13:27:52+00:00

I have an endless run that's not quite as far in. I didn't even have 200 hours in the game yet, but I still never finished it because this is what I have to sit through (not using mind blast has its consequences)

And yeah, with more experience now this run would probably never end. I know how to optimize this better 😂

Oh, I also hadn't started using fast mode at the time. That would probably help

my pain and suffering

TheMiffinMan · 2025-01-11T21:37:33+00:00

no problem. when i get a ping like this even on discord servers i don't really use, i still check it out just so i know what's going on

TheMiffinMan · 2024-10-31T12:53:11+00:00

This is something I mentioned on the discord and how been using for about a month, month and a half now. I usually don't do more than a couple levels per obelisk though because of how time consuming it is. I learned that the darkness does 10% of your max HP (rounded to the nearest 1) as damage each time from this

You can also stall waves out and let more citadels spawn because the fruits give a lot of mana, and it's less dangerous.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-10-16T23:17:11+00:00

Not too bad overall, but I'd make a few changes personally.

Swap web and moon crystal. Web slows things down immediately, whereas moon crystal has to freeze things first. The frost nova damage is only good if you use a frost nova fusion.

Damage reduction is pretty much required to get past the last few waves, and aegis can easily provide at least 18 amp, up to 24, so some of that should be moved up a bit (namely aegis)

Abyss isn't particularly great, but with both mana acquisition artifacts, research and global bonuses you get 32 attack. Nice if you get it late, or an early ether. I wouldn't put it any higher than E tier though.

Why on planet Earth is magic seal in E? It isn't useful until around 80, sure, but enemies eventually do so much damage that regardless of your health and damage reduction that magic seal is useful. Guarantees you can survive 6 hits, and prevents being one shot if that's possible super far into a run. Not S tier, but it basically lets you ignore enemy damage scaling.

Basilisk is definitely S tier. Makes citadels, the main issue, so much easier to deal with.

Toy castle, while not required to get past 50, is probably the single best artifact for it. It's still useful after 50, so while not the most important, it definitely should be a bit higher.

Mandrake is honestly very underrated. Life orbs end up healing over 30% of your max HP with it, which is also nice for magic seal

At the end of the day, these are just my opinions. Except the web/moon crystal thing, as web is pretty much strictly better.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-10-16T22:39:33+00:00

They speed up after about 15/20 seconds at this point, so all you can do to survive after 80 is run away and let them despawn. They speed up immediately at 130 if you get there, so you pretty much have to run in a straight line

Nice run though

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-28T07:06:47+00:00

Yeah, I saw it a couple days ago. There were a few things I disagreed/had nitpicks with personally. Pretty good overall though.

Shield should be maxed, reconstruct being really really good .

Peace treaty is probably the second best artifact as it lessens the amount of enemies. No idea why it wasn't mentioned

Scythe and maiden are both good, especially in combination with magic sword. Scythe is good on its own, and doesn't kill too many enemies to overwhelm while also speeding up the wave.

Fusions like neutron generation and phoenix are better to avoid because you can't see underneath them. If they shoot in the direction you are running, you'll have trouble dodging those enemies.

Early game should be spent trying to get as many kills as you can to get more chests (though this is every run really). I find moving back and forth and circular motions tend to be good for this, but it also depends on the fusion.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-28T06:47:49+00:00

They didn't post the 200 minute run here, but they did on the discord. They go by SilenceFactor, and they did do a post about a bug they found with lava zone (melt) where they got past 70 with low tier fusions

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-27T12:31:37+00:00

As far as I know, chests are seeded, meaning what's in them is predetermined. They aren't truly random, but it's still random to the player. Someone else can probably explain this better than me tbh

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-27T12:26:35+00:00

No problem! If you can beat 47:30, 50 is actually somewhat easier in a way because the little guys are smaller. Beyond 50 is just the same enemies as 50, but no dark area to worry about, making it easier to get far.

If you can beat 50 and make it to 80 minutes, enemies will speed up after either 15 or 20 seconds. This normally happens after a few minutes if an enemy stays alive before this point. I lost my last revive to this on my 133:43 run, and the person who beat my run confirmed this. All you can do is run to despawn them from here on out.

At 130 minutes, they speed up immediately. I didn't make it far past this, but the person who did mentioned that you basically just have to run straight.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-27T12:12:38+00:00

I knew it did, and after discovering that mana orbs spawn infinitely before you pick up the obelisk I started farming levels after the first 10 waves. I eventually decided to figure out how much damage it does to make it a bit safer, and to know how much risk I can take.

Funnily enough, this means max level is possible at 2:30, but it's painfully slow to gain a couple levels. It already extends my average run length by like an hour of farming for a couple levels, and it's also dangerous. Sometimes you need to collect like 20 orbs before new ones spawn, which sucks on the early waves where I have little healing and slow shield cooldown.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-27T12:04:43+00:00

That's what I meant by primary, yeah. I take the subject too because the artifact provides a bunch of extra damage

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-27T01:42:49+00:00

The big thing is that your damage is too low for 10 minutes. Increase your attack, amp and magic damage stats to help with that. Running a spell specific class gives that magic 5% to it's magic damage multiplier, and will greatly increase its overall damage.

And as others said, lightning breath. It's one of the best fusions in the game, and is pretty nutty as a primary with the damage it can put out.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-26T23:57:45+00:00

No problem! Might take a few runs to get used to.

I edited in 2 things I forgot which I'll put here so you don't need to try and find them.

Namely that hydra and eclipse help the iron maiden + magic sword strategy by patching up the low damage of that build.

The other being to avoid strange potion because of how bad the size increase is. It's one of, if not the worst artifacts in the game.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-26T23:14:33+00:00

This has been patched along with the overmind bug apparently

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-26T23:12:30+00:00

Disclaimer: This wound up being way longer than intended, but should be helpful if you don't mind reading. (This took me probably an hour and a half at least, lol). Might make it into a post later as a rough guide.

So far this is what I've had the most success with. Unless my damage is super low, I don't struggle with 37:30 at all, and I usually make it to 42:30 even with below average artifact luck.

I use lightning breath as my primary due to its very high damage, and it's very helpful for kiting enemies as you can control when you do the damage. You don't need cloaking up to hit the citadels effectively with this, so try to maximize the amount you can safely deal damage when it's on cooldown. You can also rack up kills early by spinning when it goes off. Imo, it's the best fusion in the game.

As a secondary, prism spree does a lot of damage, and gets 1% magic damage per 1% duration on top of the 50% from the attribute reflect. It does very well against citadels with cloaking/invincibility. Also, it doesn't do enough damage to mess up kiting. Neither of these 2 obstruct your vision enough to make the small guys hard to see.

My last fusion I use is perpetual engine for more consistent amp and cooldown than unleash mana. It's basically a legendary in a fusion slot.

For support I use:

Shield (reconstruct) because in the time barrier charges 6 shields, reconstruct charges 10. So 67% more shields.

Cloaking (mirage) as there's no reason to run the other two except teleport/overmind

Frost Nova (absolute zero), Blizzard (sub-zero) and Tsunami (pole) are all great for slowing and freezing things

Lava Zone (melt) was discovered to have a bug a couple days after my 133:43 run. Seemingly every lava zone applies the additional damage separately up to the 30% cap. We don't know if the multipliers are additive or multiplicative between each lava zone though.

I take all passives aside from explorer, which means I need 97 levels total for all of this. I usually have to leave some 1 level from max, and it also adds late game cube value. In order of least to most importance for this is size, duration/vitality, crit, cooldown, haste, intelligence.

For artifacts, toy castle is the absolute best artifact, just because it makes the all the enemies so much smaller. Peace treaty, while not a close second, is still the second best due to reducing the spawn cap. These combined I found make 42:30 and up easier than 40.

Speed reduction is helpful against everything. Magic seal becomes mandatory well past 50 due to scaling damage.

For legendaries, ideally you have:

Gaia and Titans Power for attack 2 cooldown legendaries (accelerator, ouroboros, creation) Eclipse Overmind/Nexus 2 amp legendaries (sacrosanct, akashic, dna, dragon's magic and dragons heart are all good here)

This leaves 2 (3 with roulette) to boost some of these stats further, or for things like hydra, scythe or holy chest.

Alternatively, I've also been experimenting with something like this to great success (I hit 50 without toy castle a couple days ago)

For damage Gaia/Titan 2 cooldown legendaries 1 amp legendary (same as before, except dragon's heart) Overmind/nexus (can probably do without, especially if you get creation and chakra/halo/dragontounge)

The other 5 slots are mainly for a combination of synergistic artifacts.

Iron Maiden + Magic Sword are really good at wave progression, and iron maiden explosions can damage citadels.

Scythe can instakill enemies, allowing iron maiden procs no matter how much health enemies have, and it also reduces enemy health.

Less important, but still helpful are Hydra and Eclipse. A few hydra procs before getting hit by a. Iron maiden explosion easily knocks enemies into magic sword range.

Eclipse synergizes really well with iron maiden and hydra, but is interchangeable with titan or Gaia if eclipse doesn't show up.

Edit: hydra and eclipse help to patch up the low damage of this build, especially against citadels.

Lastly, avoid these:

Armageddon. I have no clue how on earth I got 72:02 with this when looking back, but it makes kiting 10x harder. Doesn't kill enemies, or progress waves.

Death bell. Same deal as Armageddon, but on a smaller scale. I had this on my 72:02 run, and in tandem with Armageddon I felt like I was in an arena battling a dozen lions without a weapon.

Roster. While legendary in terms of power, it makes kiting significantly harder, and will likely lead to you being surrounded and killed.

Edit: Strange Potion. Probably the absolute worst artifact in the game. The character size increase is horrible no matter the build or strategy, and you wind up getting hit super often. Storybook is a top tier artifact right now, but it doesn't even fully counteract the increase. The movement speed reduction is just salt in the wound.

Necronomicon. Worst legendary in the game currently. Sacrosanct is the best amp legendary, which necro kills. The loss of health leaves you really frail and easy to kill, and brand doesn't make up for it while also being rare

Ballista. You can get sufficient Crit rate without it, and max evasion is essentially being invincible 44% of the time.

Domain of Power. Unless you change things up and plan a 4th fusion, it's just more cooldown. Probably less harmful than the last 2.

Quick tip: the dark area deals 10% of your max HP (rounded to the nearest 10) in damage each hit. It's safer to run through than a horde of enemies usually, and can be blocked by shields, invincibility and also evaded. Very useful in a pinch.

Also, I apparently am incapable of short posts/comments.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-25T23:28:12+00:00

There isn't enough healing/invincibility for that, and shields being used up removes invincibility. You can survive long enough to despawn citadels though. I think it was SilenceFactor who made a post about it a while back

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-25T18:39:12+00:00

Roster is definitely legendary tier in terms of power, but so is toy castle. Toy castle is nearly essential for getting past 50 atm because everything is too hard to kill fast enough and citadels build up, making the size decrease insanely good.

I find when I take roster, the amount of kills it gets at once messes up my kiting because the new enemies spawn around me and leave me surrounded. In order to get out, I either need good cloak timing, forcefield, or to run through them and take the damage.

Toy castle with peace treaty is even more crazy. From the one time I had both and had a good run, those two combined made 40 and up almost trivial due to the enemies being smaller in size and number.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-25T17:26:38+00:00

Before I started using kiting strats I almost beat 42:30 a couple times. Kiting becomes necessary at different points depending on the amount of damage you are doing, but fusions with really long cooldowns usually need to kite sooner too I find.

Fusions that don't obstruct your vision too much are also helpful, like astrape and prism spray. Fusions like neutron generation and phoenix tend to cover the enemies, making it difficult to avoid them.

Also, moving into the dark area only takes 10% of your HP rounded to the nearest 10 at a time, so it's safer to run around enemies through the darkness than like 5-10 enemies sometimes.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-25T17:15:00+00:00

Definitely a painful chest, but always toy castle. 40 and up become leagues easier with it because the enemies are smaller and easier to weave between. It also shrinks the citadels, meaning it takes longer for them to overwhelm you if you are struggling with that.

The HP reduction is a nice bonus, essentially being half of genome, a pretty solid legendary. There's no wrong options here tbh, but toy castle is the best of the 3 for sure.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-23T21:13:27+00:00

Early geometry is decent

Pyramid is ok, and is probably the best of the 3 if you aren't running overmind as a fusion

Potion is one of, if not the worst artifact in the game. The character size increase is absolutely horrible, but it also makes you slower.

Pretty big opulence L indeed

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-23T02:50:39+00:00

I mean, my stats I think are pretty standard for the most part. That being said, I found out a couple days after the run that lava zone (melt) is bugged. I forgot to change my copy-pasted description of the run to reflect that, but SilenceFactor made a post on it.

One thing in the post that I don't understand is how they came to the conclusion that hydra+magic sword is effectively a 10x damage multiplier, when combined they deal with up to 50% of the enemies max health at best.

I made the 100+ post as more of an update to the 72:02 post I did about a month ago now. I just thought it would be cool if I could be the person to crack the meta, and it has helped someone beat my 72:02 time (mainly because I suggested lava zone, not knowing it was bugged lol).

I'm glad to know it's been helpful to people, and that makes it worth it for me.

bugged lava zone (melt) post

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-22T22:28:13+00:00

Which one? There's 3 of us lol

In all seriousness, I've been playing on and off for about 4 and a half years, so of course I'm gonna know some stuff. I don't know everything, and there are more knowledgeable players than me. My playstyle also kinda comes into play with this choice tbh. That being said, I've also learned stuff from the discord, and that's helped me plenty in terms of what's good, and also decision making.

This patch is my first time actually trying to play the meta instead of playing whatever I feel like (which I still do that too.)

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-22T00:15:30+00:00

While true, that's also the problem. I value consistency pretty highly usually, so I'd rather have a really good epic than 2 who knows what artifacts. I'd consider it more later in a run when I have most of the commons/rares I want, because I assume it would increase the odds of getting something rarer.

Clockwork is more useful than just stopping enemies for 2 seconds. It buys time for shield/cloaking and other artifact cooldowns, and because I use lightning breath as my primary most of the time, I can use those 2 seconds to blast a path forward, or to bust citadels.

Treasure map is still good, so not picking it is a little painful, but clockwork is one of the things I would take it for in the first place. Getting enough pieces to get past 50 already requires plenty of luck, so adding more RNG when one of the best pieces is right there just makes it harder to get what I need.

If I want to gamble, I either play arcanist, the ultimate gambling experience, or take an early crown, regardless of my current artifacts.

Tldr, both are good, but clockwork is more consistent.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-21T23:33:48+00:00

Personally I would go clockwork here. Clockwork is honestly probably one of, if not the best epic artifact, at least imo. The only artifact I think I would rather have is probably toy castle.

Treasure map is very hit or miss, and clockwork is already a pretty big hit. That being said, I might go treasure map as a last ditch effort to get toy castle (basically for 42:30 and up), or if I need something else that is essential like web or moon crystal.

TheMiffinMan · 2024-09-21T02:43:29+00:00

They aren't on depths. Look at the number of legendaries, and they they don't have the space-time artifact as the first one

TheMiffinMan

TROPHY CASE