This comprehensive guide will walk you through every stage of Clicker Heroes, ensuring you understand how to progress effectively, whether you’re just starting out or aiming for the late game. We’ll break down strategies for Ascension, Transcending, Ancient Souls, Gilding, and more, helping you optimize your gameplay and maximize your Hero Souls gains.
Baby Steps in Clicker Heroes: Your First Ascensions
For your initial runs in Clicker Heroes, the best approach is to experiment and learn the mechanics. Don’t worry too much about perfect optimization just yet. Let the gild tokens fall where they may, explore the skill tree, and get comfortable with using skills like Dark Ritual, Energize, and Reload in combination. Your primary goal should be to understand the basic gameplay loop and earn Hero Souls (HS) through Ascension.
Aim to accumulate around 12 to 20 Hero Souls before your first Ascension. This will give you a good starting boost for your subsequent runs. Experiment with different Ancients, but don’t stress about min-maxing their upgrades at this stage. Remember, you’ll eventually reach a point where you’re earning hundreds of thousands of Hero Souls per run, allowing for more experimentation and refinement.
Initially, managing Gild Tokens isn’t crucial. You won’t have many Hero Souls to effectively utilize them, and their DPS bonus will be relatively small until your Ancients are more developed. We’ll delve into strategic gild management later. For now, simply focus on upgrading all your heroes as gold allows.
Once you can comfortably level up the hero Grant to level 75, you’re likely ready for your first Ascension. Before you do, check the top right corner of the hero tab. It displays your current Hero Soul count and the additional Hero Souls you’ll gain upon Ascending. Aim for at least 8 Hero Souls for your first Ascension to make it worthwhile.
To speed up hero leveling, utilize these secret hero level-up controls:
SECRET HERO LEVELUP CONTROLS
- Click: Upgrade hero by 1 level (or current increment)
- SHIFT-Click: Upgrade hero by 10 levels
- Z-click: Upgrade hero by 25 levels
- CTRL-click: Upgrade hero by 100 levels
- Q-click: Max upgrade – spend all gold on the hero
- T: Toggle upgrade increment (1, 10, 25, 100, Max) for regular clicks
These hotkeys also work in the battle screen without interrupting your attack.
As soon as you acquire 50 rubies, prioritize purchasing the permanent 2x damage upgrade from the Shop. This is a game-changer that persists through Transcensions. After that, save your rubies primarily for Gild Tokens or reviving mercenaries when necessary.
Before Ascending for the first time, it’s beneficial to research Ascension strategies to better understand the process and its benefits.
For your next 2-3 runs, follow a similar pattern, but aim to increase your Hero Soul gains with each Ascension. Target at least 12 HS from your second Ascension and 16+ from your third.
Walking on Your Own: Mid-Game Clicker Heroes Strategies
By this stage, you should have grasped the fundamental mechanics of Clicker Heroes. You’ve Ascended a few times and might be pushing heroes like Frostleaf to levels 200-300, possibly even approaching Dread Knight. Now, it’s time to refine your strategy and plan for the mid-game.
Ancient upgrades become increasingly crucial and expensive. Decide on your preferred playstyle: active (click-focused) or idle (background progression). Your Ancient choices should align with this playstyle.
Start experimenting with the Gild management page. Initially, consider placing one gild on each hero to appreciate their unique appearances. Then, begin focusing your gilds on a select team of 5-6 heroes, ideally from the “Awesome Goodness” tier lists you can find in more advanced Clicker Heroes resources. This is the beginning of implementing an “effective team” strategy, although you might not have enough gilds to fully realize it yet.
Continue your runs, Ascending when progress slows significantly. With each Ascension beyond your fourth, you should be able to reach deeper into the game and earn progressively more Hero Souls. Eventually, the Outsiders tab will unlock. Explore it when it does, but resist the urge to Transcend immediately. Wait until the game indicates you’ll earn at least 8 Ancient Souls (AS) from your first Transcendence. Before Transcending, you should aim to unlock the hero Atlas, although you might still struggle to level him up significantly beyond level 25 at this point.
The Wonder Years: Transcending and Beyond in Clicker Heroes
The Transcend button beckons, promising greater power but requiring you to sacrifice your current progress. Transcendence is a significant step in Clicker Heroes, so approach your Outsider upgrades thoughtfully.
Your first 8 Ancient Souls are relatively inexpensive. However, the cost quickly escalates, eventually requiring millions of Hero Souls for a single AS. Resetting your Outsider upgrades (Respec) requires another Transcendence with the “Respec” option checked, so initial choices matter.
For your first Transcendence, consider allocating Ancient Souls to Xyliqil, Phandoryss, and Ponyboy. These Outsiders provide substantial early-game boosts. Xyliqil reduces skill cooldowns, Phandoryss increases primal boss chance, and Ponyboy boosts idle DPS, all crucial for faster progression after Transcending.
Transcendence resets your Heroes and Ancients, but you retain your Outsiders, providing a permanent power boost. Your early runs post-Transcendence will again focus on earning 12-20 Hero Souls per Ascension, similar to your initial runs before Transcending. You’ll need to re-establish your Ancient collection, but this time, prioritize Ancients that synergize with your Outsider investments.
Focus on Ancients that boost gold gains: Dora (treasure chests), Mimzee (treasure chest gold), Mammon (gold dropped), and Fortuna (10x gold chance). Increased gold allows for faster hero leveling, accelerating your progress through the early stages and quickly reaching zones where Hero Soul gains become substantial (around zone 600+).
As you progress beyond zone 600, prioritize these “bread and butter” Ancients:
- Gold Ancients: Dora, Mimzee, Mammon, Fortuna (already mentioned)
- Idle Gold: Revolc
- Golden Clicks Gold: Midas
- Click Damage: Fragsworth, Juggernaut (if active build)
- Critical Click Damage: Bhaal (if active build)
- Idle DPS: Siyalatas, Libertas (if idle build)
- Hero Souls: Solomon, Atman (primal bosses), Bubos (boss life), Chronos (boss timers)
Also, consider Ancients that improve boss fights: Chronos (+30 seconds to boss timers), Bubos (-10% boss life or -0.5 monsters), and Krysos (-25% skill cooldowns).
If you have surplus Hero Souls after Ascending, you can either save them for Gild Tokens or invest them in Morgulis. However, always keep at least 1 HS unspent to maintain Morgulis’s bonus.
Once you consistently earn over 5,000 Hero Souls per Ascension and have accumulated at least 70 Gild Tokens, it’s time to optimize your gilding strategy for maximum efficiency.
For optimal damage at the lowest upgrade cost, redistribute ALL your gild tokens evenly among Treebeast, Ivan, Brittany, and the Great Forest Seer. These four heroes will form your core damage team for a significant portion of your progression.
In battles, level up all heroes to around level 200 to unlock all their skills. After that initial setup, ONLY level up your gilded core team (Treebeast, Ivan, Brittany, Great Forest Seer). They will be your primary damage dealers for a long time.
Avoid Transcending again until you anticipate earning at least a dozen Ancient Souls for your second Transcendence. Continue focusing on your four-hero gilded team, accumulating more gilds, and upgrading your Ancients to consistently achieve over 100,000 Hero Souls per Ascension. Maintain this strategy until you prepare for your third Transcendence, where aiming for 8 AS (ideally 10+) is acceptable.
