Endgame Strategy | Idle Slayer Wiki | Fandom

This page is just one part of an entire guide series. Visit Strategy Guide for an overview of other parts of this guide.

Ok, here you are. The end game. You’ve been through an Ultra Ascension, and you’ve mostly gotten back to where you were before. There’s still a ton of game ahead of you, including gamestyle changing upgrades. In fact, in total hours played, you’re not even halfway there if you want to take advantage of all that Idle Slayer has to offer! But, the upgrades are pricey, and grindy, and the strategy for most of this all will stay the same: click lots, play lots, and become an Idle Slayer hero.

You’re going to have a few gamestyle upgrades along the way, like Rage Mode, new equipment and even a new Stone of Time. But, throughout the endgame, the basic way to measure how far you’ve gone is through Achievements. So look through the rest of this guide for some insight (master the Bonus Stage! slow kill Giants! Don’t be afraid to ascend… or not!). But, be aware - there is absolutely no substitute for sheer hours put into gameplay.

Consider using the following suggestions for when to UA, and the type of Equipment, Upgrades, or Major Ascension Tree items you can plan on getting at each level:

1st UA: Around 6 Lifetime USP : After your first Ultra Ascension, plan to get the new Equipment: Cape, and Rage Mode.

2nd UA: Around 20 Lifetime USP : After your second Ultra Ascension, plan to get the important craftable, the Book of Death Pact (Dark Divinities), and Astral Slayer, Mastery of Multipliers (10x), and the important Eternal Rage.

3rd UA: Around 35 Lifetime USP : After your third Ultra Ascension, plan to get the new equipment, the Claw, and the Stone of Hope (see below).

4th UA: Around 45 Lifetime USP : After your fourth Ultra Ascension, plan to get Silk Master, Triple Silvers, and Provisions.

Get the other tree items at your own preference or according to the Tier List.

The Stone of Hope is a very expensive, but very important addition. At 2.50e10 / 25 Billion SP, it is achievable after about 35 USP, but it’ll still be a long grind. Use the "If Chasing Astral Upgrades" ascension strategy below.

One of the most common questions during a Stone of Hope grind is whether you should purchase the Ultra Ascensions Soul Surge I, Soul Surge II, and Reincarnation. We recommend purchasing Soul Surge I and II as soon as possible, but not Reincarnation. All three upgrades are multiplicative, and so in theory, all three upgrades should pay for themselves in regards to soul gain (if purchased as soon as possible). For example, Soul Surge I costs 3B, which is 12% of the total cost of the Stone of Hope. But it results in a 20% gain. Buying this is a no brainer. While the math is similar for Reincarnation, it doesn't affect Megahordes or Bonus Stage spawns, which make up a large percentage of SP gain. Even though SS I&II are expensive, they're worthwhile and cost less than you'll gain.

Once you do unlock the new stone, you’ll still need to respec for some Stone of Hope levels. There are two options: first, you could simply Ultra Ascend and put any new USP towards Hope, according to the helpful distribution sheet.

But, probably the better option is to toggle the Dark Reset Dark Divinity and reset your Divinities for 100 DP (while also resetting your Stones of Time). This will allow you to respec your USP into the Stone of Hope. Just remember that after respeccing, you don’t technically have any Stones of Time - so hurry to the Ascension Menu and reallocate your USP (and then the rest of your Divinities)!

Ultimately, the best way to track your progress through the endgame is through your total achievements collected. There are some massive Ascension Tree nodes and expensive Astral and Ultra nodes that you can chase, but the true mastery of the end game grind is measured in achievements, mostly max item levels. Some will take a while, and others will simply take a lot of luck. These should be tied to your goals (see below).

Set Goals

You need to set goals as your endgame strategy progresses. These goals will inform ascensions (or Ultra Ascensions) and give form to your gameplay. Goals should either be game style upgrades (Rage Mode, Stone of Hope, etc), Astral upgrades, or Achievements. Ultra upgrades should be viewed as steps to those goals (See Ascension Strategy below).

If chasing Equipment level achievements, it’s helpful to view them in total sets of 50 levels (this will make more sense with the CpS Ascension below).

Stack City

In end game strategy, your main goal is to stack as many Random Box buffs on top of each other for maximum gains. These stacks are multiplicative, and can dramatically increase your earnings. There are ways to increase the likelihood of earning good stacks (like the Less Coins More Fun Divinity, Bonus Stage, and the Giant Slow Kill strategy), but your life is now determined by RNG (Random Number Generation - or the idea that it's a dice roll). Yes, there’s ‘luck’ involved. But it’s also, technically, just time. If you invest the time, you will get a massive stack in a bonus stage. But it does take time.

Max Your Equipment

The Equipment Bonus is one of the better CpS buffs you can get. If you can stack a major Equipment buff with an 18x CpS bonus or more, do it! Don’t leave it up to chance; max level every equipment item you can. The higher their levels, the more bonus you’ll get.

Master of the Bonus Stage

The bonus stage is an essential element of endgame strategy. As you’re aware, bonus timers pause during the Bonus Stage, and then your coin and soul gains can be massive. With Bonus Rewards+ from the Ascension Tree, you also have 4 random boxes each time you finish the Bonus stage. Flawless will give you two more. If you enable the Silver Death Dark Divinity, those are silver boxes, too! Hard Mode (Dark Divinity), Specialist (Divinity), Death Trinket (Divinity), and Bonus Stage 2 all improve your gains even further.

And the best part of the Bonus Stage is that it’s pure skill. Chest Hunt can be very lucrative, but it’s entirely luck. In the Bonus Stage, on the other hand, the only factor that can lead to failure is you.

If you’re going to play into the endgame, you’ve gotta master the Bonus Stage. Put in the work and git gud.

Huge SP Gains

Whether you’re chasing Astral upgrades or just pure achievements, you need more SP. Have a lot already? You need more. The more SP you have, the more SP you’ll get. The more SP you have, the more massive your Ascension CpS bonus.

Which Dimension?

End game strategy can vary a little in various dimensions. With all enemy upgrades, souls gains are similar in Mystic Valley, Factory, and Hot Desert. There are far more coins to be had in Hot Desert, but if you're using the Dark Projectile Dark Divinity (and you should be), the chance of a sword lock in Hot Desert severely reduces the SP gain (although Rage Mode can bypass this). There isn’t a giant in Factory, so you can’t slow kill. So, if you’re just grinding souls then Mystic Valley might be your best bet.

Daily Quests might send you to different dimensions each day, but pick one to be your 'home base' and farm there. Regardless of what the math said above, most endgame players tend to play in the Hot Desert.

Portal at Night for Materials

Once you’ve unlocked Rage Mode, you’ll want to stay stocked up on roots and slime for the Rage Pills. But who wants to go somewhere with slime, much less the jungle for roots? Luckily, the factory is an alright SP farm, and you can collect Slime there as well. Consider heading to the jungle at night before bed, and gather your roots offline. You can head back to your preferred Dimension when you wake up and send your minions back out on missions.

Mine DP and Ultra Prestige Your Minions

There’s no way you have enough Divinity Points yet. Do everything in your power to check your minions frequently, prestige them often, and gather DP.

Whenever you’re preparing for an Ultra Ascension, take some time to get your minions close to max level. It’s unlikely that you want to permanently spend 450 DP on Ultra Prestige. If you don’t, enable it right before your UA, and then reset your Divinity Points after unlocking Blessing of Cronus. As long as you have more than 20 minion levels that get auto-prestiged, you’ll gain more DP than you spent.

Making use of Ultra Prestige can still make sense even if you'd need to reset your Divinities before and after your UA. But for that you will of course need at least 41 minion levels (which is easily possible). It’s easy math to figure out, and definitely worth doing! There's a lot more on Ultra Prestige on the Minions and Divinities page.

This is a fairly easy concept, but it takes intentionality. It’s also considered the premier endgame strategy for intentional and efficient gameplay. This strategy maximizes opportunities to stack multiple random events on top of one another (CpS bonuses, coin value bonuses, Gemstone Rushes, etc). When you fight a Giant, random event timers pause - so, if you have an 18x CpS Multiplier active, it won’t tick down while fighting the Giant. But, the timer responsible for spawning Random Boxes will continue to count down. So, if you take as long as possible to kill a Giant, you can increase the likelihood of stacking random events on top of one another. In a horde with patient Giant Slow Killing, players have gotten as many as four boxes on screen at the same time! You’re still playing the RNG game - you could easily get Coins four times. But it increases the odds of major stacks greatly.

The Dark Divinity Shadow Sword removes all bonus damage dealt to Giants. Use this for Giant Slow Killing, and simply choose not to click the screen when fighting Giants. Anubis Warriors (Hot Desert) and Fairy Queens (Mystic Valley) will both take 16-18 swings to kill, and provide the best opportunities to use the slow kill strategy. Make sure to unlock Giant Hordes in the Ascension Tree! Whew - Giants take a long time to kill!

Is this strategy boring? Perhaps, especially if you like highly active gameplay. But no one will argue against its effectiveness. Go ahead - slow kill those giants!

Credit for first identifying this strategy belongs to Jerf/thejerfman#0608 on Discord.

On average, Rage Mode will give you about 6x the normal SP gain of killing with a bow. It’s not amazing, but it’s something (and can generate a ton of souls if used right). The best strategy seems to be to not Rage until you have a soul bonus. Then, wait until about the last 15 seconds. The hope is that you’ll also get a horde. Slow kill any giants along the way.

Pause bow firing as soon as you see a box on the screen - if it is a megahorde, you want to kill the enemies with Rage Mode, not your bow.

If you don’t get megahorde, just fire the Rage Mode with about 10 seconds remaining and hope for the best.

If you do have a soul bonus, chew through those Rage Pills. In general, in the endgame, rage will last enough to kill two giants if you fire Rage when one the first giant is onscreen. With a soul bonus, wait to see a giant, fire rage, use a rage pill, and wait to see the next giant.

Your strategy in ascension is still basically the same. Review the extended discussion of Ascension Strategy for a reminder. But the concise strategies:

If Chasing Achievements:

If you’re chasing an achievement goal, use the CpS Ascension Strategy. This essentially asks, “If I ascend, will I increase my CpS gain by a higher % than I’ll reset by ascending?” You can estimate your CpS ascension by looking at gained SP/lifetime SP. For instance, if by ascending, you’d gain 100M SP, and have a lifetime earned 1B SP, you’ll be gaining a 10% boost in CpS by ascending. If you’re not yet 10% of the way to your goal, ascending makes sense - even though it'll reset your progress!

For achievement goals, it’s helpful to use sets of 50 for the goals. So as an example, let’s say you’re chasing the Gloves 400 achievement. That costs 90Qd (9e49) - that’s a lot of coin! Your lifetime SP is 25B, and you’ve been grinding for a while. You have 7Qd saved up - more than you’ve ever had - and if you ascend, you’ll gain 2.5B SP. The math says you’re a little less than 8% of your way to your goal (7/90), but your CpS would increase by 10% if you ascend (2.5/25). Even though you’ve never had close to 7Qd before, you should ascend; you’ll gain more than you’ll lose!

This might sound complicated, but try and apply it. It’s fairly simple in application, and very helpful in answering the question, “Should I ascend?” Chasing end game achievements is often about a grandslam in the bonus stage, gaining you a ton of coins quickly and pushing you past that ascension barrier. It's a lot of grinding, but you love the game! Play away.

If Grinding SP:

If you’re just grinding SP, you should be using the SP Ascension Strategy. Simply ascend whenever you get close to 10% of your current lifetime SP. Any higher and you’re noticeably hampering your gains. Some players in end game will lower than number to 5%, too - simply because that's still a lot of SP to gain. Ascending at this level is not costly - you'll be back where you were quickly. As always - ascend often!

If Chasing Astral Upgrades:

Finally, if you’re chasing an Astral Upgrade, be aware that there are expensive Ultra Upgrades along the way that might be worth purchasing. For example, if you’re chasing the Stone of Hope for 25B, and you have a chance to buy Soul Surge 1 for 3B, you might initially balk at ascending and spending 3B SP on something. But 3B is 12% of 25B, and it increases your gains by 20%. Spending 12% to gain 20%? Sounds good! Reincarnation and Soul Surge II meet the same criteria (though you might choose not to buy Soul Surge II and just grind on for Stone of Hope).

Also, if you’re an endgame player, you’ve joined the Discord server, right? It’s a great place to talk grindy, nitty gritty details of the game. 17,000 players can't be wrong, can they? Join away!