Everything you need to get from a fresh save to your first transcension in Clicker Heroes 1.0e11. It assumes an idle build, which is the easiest way to start: gold keeps accruing while the game is closed. Once you have transcended and picked up a few in-game auto-clickers, a hybrid or active build will take you further.
Your first run
The first play-through is the slowest one you will ever do. Get to zone 130 and reset.
- Level each hero to their first upgrade at level 10, then move on to the next hero.
- Further down the roster, push to the level 25 upgrade before switching — and later, level 50.
- Go back and buy the all-hero DPS upgrades whenever you can afford them.
- Do not level heroes past their last upgrade yet.
- Failed a boss? Farm gold on the previous zone until you can kill it.
- Expect long waits early on. Gold accumulates offline, so walking away for a while is a valid strategy.
- Fire every skill to punch through a boss wall, roughly every half hour.
- Zones 110, 120 and 130 are all primal bosses, so each one is guaranteed Hero Souls.
When to ascend
Ascension is the main progression loop. Each reset should be faster than the last.
- The more Hero Souls you bank before ascending, the quicker the next run goes.
- Get at least to zone 130 before your first ascension — it is a guaranteed primal boss.
- Every 100th zone after that is also a guaranteed primal boss.
- Keep pushing until you hit a boss you cannot kill. If it is primal, farm gold and try again before giving up on it.
- Spend leftover gold on hero levels right before you reset: every 2,000 combined hero levels is one extra Hero Soul. This stops mattering later, but the souls are worth having now.
Beyond zone 130
From your second run onward, the Power 5 carry you.
- Back up your save regularly to cloud storage, or just email the text file to yourself. You can pull a copy out at any time with the save editor.
- Level Frostleaf to 150, then go back to the top and level Treebeast, Ivan, Brittany, the Seer and the Masked Samurai — the “Power 5” — in multiples of 25.
- You can buy all remaining hero upgrades at this point too.
- Ignore Dread Knight. His cost-to-DPS ratio is terrible; what you actually want is the ×10 bonus for taking a hero to level 1000, and the Power 5 will serve for a long while.
- After a few ascensions you will clear the early zones just by buying 25 hero levels at a time.
- Random de-gilding into the Power 5 is optional. If you do it, spend no more than 10% of your Hero Souls on it — and before your first transcension, do not bother moving gilds at all.
Ancients before transcending
Four ancients, kept level. Nothing else until you transcend.
- Idle is the build to start with, because gold accrues while the game is closed.
- Buy Siyalatas, Libertas, Mammon and Mimzee, and no others, until your first transcension.
- Keep all four at the same level, or as close to it as you can manage.
- Hold unspent Hero Souls equal to the square of their level — level 5 ancients means keeping 25 Hero Souls spare.
Ancients after transcending
Buy order is a rough ranking by usefulness, not a rule.
- Get an idle ancient or Juggernaut as early as you can in a new transcension, depending on whether you are running idle or active/hybrid.
- Buy first as idle: Libertas, Siyalatas, Nogardnit.
- Buy first as active or hybrid: Juggernaut, Bhaal, Fragsworth.
- Buy next: Atman, Kumawakamaru, then any gold ancients.
- Use “Summon All Ancients” once you can afford the remainder in one go.
- Only level Nogardnit if you have in-game auto-clickers. Without them he does nothing.
- Work out the actual levels with the ancients calculator — import your save and it returns optimal levels and costs for idle, hybrid or active.
Your first transcension
Unlocks at zone 300. Do it immediately.
- Transcendence is a second-tier reset that gets you moving again once ascensions stop producing meaningful gains.
- You give up ancients, relics, Hero Souls, zone gilds and zone progress.
- You keep Ancient Souls, rubies, outsiders, mercenaries, clan progress and any gilds bought with rubies.
- Ancient Souls are spent on the nine outsiders — meta-ancients, each with a different bonus, and respeccable for free every transcension.
- You also gain Transcendent Power, which exponentially increases the Hero Souls you get from primal bosses. That is why it is not worth grinding before your first transcension: take it at zone 300 and earn the souls back faster afterwards.
- To judge later transcensions, watch how fast your Hero Souls per ascension are growing. When the order of magnitude stops climbing, it is time to reset. The transcension viewer shows that history straight from your save.
Spending rubies
Auto-clickers first, permanent damage second, everything else later.
- Start with one or two auto-clickers, then the permanent double damage upgrade.
- Keep a small reserve for reviving mercenaries while it is still cheap.
- Quick Ascension is no longer needed at the start of a new transcension, thanks to the outsider Phandoryss.
- More auto-clickers come next; they scale exponentially once you have five.
- Timelapse becomes important tens of thousands of zones in. Use it at the start of a long ascension, with your gilds stacked and long ruby merc quests running.
- Do not spend rubies on recruiting mercenaries, gilds, relics, or extra raid boss fights. None of them are worth it.
Mercenaries
Free progress if you keep them questing. Ruby quests are the ones that matter.
- Every mercenary has a predetermined time until death, and only time spent on quests counts against it.
- Quest rewards are multiplied by mercenary level, and 24 hours of quest time is one level.
- Revive them while it is cheap. Past level 11 or 12 the cost usually is not worth it.
- Short quests pay better per minute; long quests need less babysitting but risk a high-level merc dying mid-quest.
- Ruby quests are the best. Hero Soul, gold, relic and skill quests are situational at best.
- Mercenary quality is pure RNG. Questing the ones you have beats cycling through hoping for better.
Clans
A daily raid boss, and free Hero Souls for showing up.
- Fight a daily raid boss with up to nine other clan-mates.
- The minimum reward is 4 Hero Souls, and it scales up as you kill primal bosses.
- Join a clan of players at a similar stage. The r/ClickerHeroesRecruit subreddit is the usual place to find one.
Relics
Helpful early, irrelevant soon after.
- Every relic stat is eventually dwarfed by ancient levels, but they help in the early game.
- Kumawakamaru is the best stat overall. Atman and Revolc are fine too.
- On active or hybrid builds without infinite skill uptime, a good Sniperino or Klepto relic extends Lucky Strikes and Golden Clicks.
Where to go next
Tools and references for once you are past your first transcension.
- Ancients calculator — optimal ancient levels and costs from your own save.
- Transcension viewer — track Hero Soul and Ancient Soul gains per ascension to time your next transcension.
- Instakill calculator — zones per hour and monsters per zone once Kumawakamaru and Borb start mattering.
- Hero gilding chart — which hero to move your gilds to, and when.
- Outsiders calculator — how to spend Ancient Souls after transcending.
- Ask questions on the Clicker Heroes subreddit or the official Discord.