Clicker Heroes Basic Guide

Hero Gilding

Before being able to afford regilding and after getting Frostleaf's final upgrade, you should level Treebeast, Ivan, Brittany, Samurai, or Seer.
These 5 heroes have the most base/upgrade damage. They need to be level 1000+ for a 10x multiplier.
Pick the one above level 1000 with the most gilds, and in the case of a tie, pick any. If you can afford regilding but haven't reached Atlas's gild point you should regild to Samurai.

After Samurai level 2425: Follow the Gilding Chart.

When to ascend?

At zone 130 or when you consistently fail bosses, whichever happens later.
For your first ascension of the transcension, ascend at zone 130 and don’t bother pushing further.

What build do I use (idle, active, hybrid)?

Hybrid is generally the best option, as being the best of both worlds without significant downsides.
Idle is absolutely terrible, the higher you get, the larger this difference.
Active can be chosen if you have autoclickers, and don't need offline progression or timelapses.

So:

• When timelapsing (50k-250k and z1m+) always use hybrid.
• When often using offline progression (mostly for mobile players), use hybrid. A lower ratio, like 2 or 3, might be desirable for more offline progression.
• In QA rush you could switch to active, but hybrid with a high ratio (such as the maximum 20) is good too.
• During pre-transcendence (below zone 300), if you don't have autoclickers, you can use idle. Post-trans, idle is always bad.
• If you don't have 2 autoclickers after transcending, use hybrid with lower ratio, like 1 or 2, so you can use idle for most progression, while keeping the option to click to higher zones.

What ancients do I buy?

Before transcending for the first time:

Juggernaut is optimal if you have an autoclicker; place it on the monster for combo. Level Jugg when HS is more than his (cost × level).

Otherwise use idle: get Siyalatas and Libertas, level them equally. Level both up when HS is more than Siya's (cost × level).

Don't worry about any other ancients until you reach 300 and transcend.

After first transcension, the first ancients you want, in random order:

• Active/Hybrid: Juggernaut, Fragsworth, Bhaal, Pluto, Kumawakamaru, Argaiv, Mimzee, Mammon, Atman.
• Idle: Siyalatas, Libertas, Kumawakamaru, Argaiv, Mimzee, Mammon, Atman. (Nogardnit if you have autoclicker, but then hybrid is way better)

If you have more than 1e6 (1 million) hero souls, summon all ancients.

Use the Ancient Calculator to level ancients. Level by either holding V and pasting/typing in the value, or using the Autolevel feature.

When to transcend?

If you are transcending for the first time ever, transcend upon unlocking the feature (zone 300) immediately.

For following transcensions: Ascend until you have more HS than last transcension (when transcend for +0 changes into +1 or more, in trans tab).
Then ascend another 3 times, then transcend.

This works until you have ~24% TP, afterwards use the Outsider Calculator.

Use the Outsider Calculator to level outsiders.

What do I spend my rubies on?

• 4 Auto Clickers
• (optionally 2x damage and a fifth autoclicker)
• Then save your rubies for Timelapses (zone 50k+) and Quick Ascensions (zone 250k-1m) later on.

Never spend rubies on gilds, purchasing mercenaries, and relics.

What is a clan?

Clans are the best source of rubies, unlocked after zone 50. Clans allow members to run daily attacks by attacking an “immortal” boss. When your clan defeats the Immortal, everyone earns Rubies and Immortal Souls. You can spend these Souls to level up your class, which increases the damage you deal to the Immortal. Classes are each the same, except a minor damage bonus of 1.25x on days the immortal would be weak to that class.

When you unlock the clan tab, consider immediately joining a clan to begin earning ruby income. You can find clans in the Clicker Heroes discord, the Tsuchi Construction Co. discord, or the r/ClickerHeroesRecruit subreddit.

Immortal Maths

• Rubies gained from defeated immortal = 90 + 10 * immortal level.
• Ruby cost for buying a bonus fight = 400 + 100 * immortal level.
• Souls to level up = 150L * (3L+1) where L is current level
• Damage per click at level L = 10 * 3 ^ (L-1)

The Random Clan button is terrible, most random clans are dead, and they're picked based on zone, which is irrelevant.

Legacy immortals give hero souls and are only slightly useful early game, and give a minimum of 4 hero souls.

What relics should I keep/upgrade?

Relics are quite terrible, and only have a slight use very early game. They can be a nice way to get a extremely long duration on skills, but at some point this can be done by just leveling ancients. Don't worry about relics much.

How/when do I Timelapse?

After zone 50k and onwards (unless the calculator says to use Quick Ascension), follow the Timelapse Calculator in 6 simple steps.

1. Ascend and level ancients
2. Level all heroes for unlocking skills, and use skills (only after just ascending)
3. Level the optimal (specified by TL calc) hero as high as possible and regild
4. Send mercenaries on quests
5. Timelapse the specified amount of time
6. Repeat for each row of the calculation

When the “Duration” column shows a specific time (not 8h/24h/48h/168h) this indicated regular progression, so no timelapse.

How/when do I use Quick Ascensions? (QA rush)

In between zone ~250k and 1 million, it is better to use Quick Ascensions (QA's), instead of ascending and using TL's to regain most zones. Check the Timelapse Calculator when to start exactly.

In this 'QA rush' you don't have to ascend at all, but you'll end up using about 66 QA's. This will cost 33k rubies, which you can end up spending in less then a week.

So after getting 5 Autoclickers, make sure to save up rubies for this QA rush!

The second QA rush comes very quickly after the first one, since the zone 1M transcension doesn't take a lot of time to finish. So when you're approaching the first QA rush, consider to save up rubies even after getting 33k.

What quests do I send my mercenaries on?

From highest to lowest priority:

1. Recruitment quests (use a low level merc, since level does not affect speed/reward of a recruitment quest)
2. Ruby quests
3. Non-ruby quests like gold, hero souls, relics (all equally bad)

The order of best to worst quests is: 4h ruby > 2h ruby > 1h ruby > 30m ruby > 15m ruby > 8h ruby > 5m ruby > 5m-4h non-ruby > 24h ruby > 8h-24h non-ruby > 48h ruby > 48h non-ruby

Should I revive my mercenary that died?

Overall, mercs with levels between 2.5 and 8.5 are worth reviving. If your merc has a ruby bonus, follow this chart.

If your merc has an extra lives bonus, you can consider reviving it at levels slightly higher (1 or 2 levels) than the specified maximum level, with no minimum level (1).

Other Tips

• Backup your save regularly.
• Progression mode (the boot icon) is unlocked upon beating zone 100 for the first time, allowing you to progress through zones automatically.
• It is recommended not to touch gilds during the first two ascensions, until you stop instakilling. Then open them all at once. Regilding all your gilds onto one hero isn’t a necessity, as the bonus is additive for each gild. Never regild if it costs a significant fraction of your hero souls.
• Always follow the calculators.
• Don’t buy rubies with money unless you want to support the devs. In that case, buy rubies with money.