https://imgur.com/a/HnowCrh

There is so much new to discuss on the 5.16 update, I think this one deserves it's own thread.

because rewards can be stacked I want to argue that the first choice should be either +25% AP or 3rd slot artifact.
I tent towards the artifact option.

I assume those who are ready to super-ascend have gathered many artifacts, so the rest can be sacrificed to bring the chosen ones to Legendary or even Insane levels.


Mine would probably be:
- Alloy Value
- Supercharge Army Camp
- Mercenary Discount

other good candidates:
- Army Camp Boost
- Army Cache Boost

what are your best choices?

EDIT: went for the +25%AP

Edited 12/10/2021 03:51:46

3rd artifact for sure.

Mine will probably be
- Leg Alloy Value
- Leg Triple Strike
- Leg Army Cache

AC and Time Warp artifacts are also interesting.

I'm starting an Army Camp boost upgrading to Legendary. I'll keep that and my existing Legendary Alloy Values and Time Warp.

The Idle Time Artifact is now super appealing to me for a future reward. At 320 min for Legendary that would greatly reduce the pain of dropping back to only 2 hours of idle time.

I have a bit more than 4 Legendaries worth of artifacts now. To avoid wasting artifacts, I'm tempted to wait for 2 months to upgrade my Time Warp to insane. Then, while everyone is struggling to decide whether to keep 2 or 3 artifacts, I just keep 1.

And then +25% AP of course.

3rd artifact seems the only viable option tbh, b/c everything else is transient and will be wiped out again on next SA, so best to maximize the only thing that truly persists, which is Artifacts. Question is ... how long will the next SA take?

I'm with MWL though, losing things like Idle Time is just going to make the game painful and super unfun, so dunno that I'll even bother doing the SA at this point. I just don't think I can mentally handle going back to touching into the game every 2 hrs while taking 1+ weeks of intermediate activity to finish levels from Sengoku/Creek and beyond. Maybe 3 good Artifacts would help with that, but not convinced.

Tbh, I think it'd be better & would make more sense if there were some kind of consideration for total AP earned & total Artifacts being "sacrificed" to get the rewards. So someone who did 1 Ascension and then immediately does an SA would get less reward than someone (which is all late phase 4 players right now) who has 500k and a ton of artifacts. It also gives the playing of the standard Tutorial->Europe Huge Ascension cycle more meaning and value to accumulate AP & Artifacts, rather than just do the minimum, do an SA, repeat the cycle.

@Mathmatician

I'm also really tempted to do that, but I would probably pick an Insane Alloy Values. I'm 3 epics short of an insane. I'd probably also wait for an epic of something else to bring along as a 2nd artifact in that case.

If powers regenerate, I'm definitely waiting as I could use superpower time warp to speed things up.

@MWL

Yea we need to know whether powers will regenerate!

Insane Alloy Values seems like a must tbh. Without that, I can't fathom how long levels will take to clear. Even with it, without 150% Additional Mercs, 50% Merc Discounts, etc, still not sure it's going to work out though.

I think getting 1 Insane, and then either 2 Epics or 1 Leg, 1 Epic to carry over would be the best reward.

Insane Insane Alloy Values
Legendary ?
Epic ?

+25% AP + Insane AV + 1 Leg could also work, hard to say.

But we need confirmation:
- Do powers that have been depleted on maps already finished regenerate?
- Does "level rewards are reset so you can earn them again" mean that (A) we lose the bonuses we earned from clearing them and have to get them again, or (B) we keep the existing bonuses, and re-earning them will stack?
Notably ...
(i) the ore rewards for the regular levels - eg: do we get another +30% for total of +60% Tin ore production when clearing Drakemor post SA?
(ii) hardened level rewards (where stacking doesn't make sense) - Superpowers, Seeing Circles, Updater; there is no context of stacking with these items, it's just a yes/no so just a matter of do we keep these rewards or do we need to re-earn them? (unless the idea is using 5 powers to get >10 power impact, or the draft circles go even farther/faster or radiate back inwards after reaching the max distance, etc)
(ii) hardened level rewards (where stacking does make logical sense) - Couch Potato, Rock Candy, Super Armies, Gladiator, Protection; each of these have a % buff that could easily stack; but the question is, do we lose these buffs and have to re-earn them, or do we keep them and redoing the level enables the buff to stack? eg: reclearing Hard China gives total +20% faster digging time, reclearing Hard Siege gives total +100% buff from ads on mobile app, reclearing Hard Old Town gives +20% total Supercamp buff, etc
(iii) The Legend - The question has been answered already for The Legend, we keep the existing artifact (if we even still have it, if we don't sacrifice it as part of the SA itself), but going forward it becomes an Epic artifact.
(iv) 4th Boy - This is the all important one ... do we lose the 4th slot and have to re-earn it? If we keep it, does re-clearing Hard Scand give us a 5th Active-only slot?

Lots of questions!

@krinid

Before ascension, I played in 5.13 for about 2.5 months and in 5.14 for about 1 week, and I got about 20k AP in total. With a Legendary Alloy Value, I believe that the levels after super-ascension could be cleared not too slower than that before super-ascension. I think it is safe to assume that it would take 1 to 2 months to reach 20k AP in 5.16, and unlock the new levels.

To reach around 150k AP, a lot of grinding is needed, and it would take about 4 months at the rate of 1k AP per day. It should be easy to get a new Legendary artifact by the time the next super-ascension is possible.

@Mathmatician

I agree with MWL that it might be better to take Alloy Value instead of Time Warp, unless you plan to get another Insane artifact in your next super-ascension.

I think the best strategy will be to get 1 new legendary to keep for each super ascension until 5 can be merged into an insane. At that point, the player can choose between faster digs and +25% AP. If they think they can unlock super ascend before getting another legendary, they pick faster digs. Otherwise, they pick +25% AP.

Mathematician said:

I have a bit more than 4 Legendaries worth of artifacts now. To avoid wasting artifacts, I'm tempted to wait for 2 months to upgrade my Time Warp to insane. Then, while everyone is struggling to decide whether to keep 2 or 3 artifacts, I just keep 1.

And then +25% AP of course.

After my aborted debacle of a SAsc, I am thinking that I might follow this strat. I currently have 4 Legendaries, and if I do my math right, I will have a 5th sometime mid January.

That leaves me with choices:
1 Insane + 1 Epic (I will wait those extra 15 days) and 25% AP
1 Insane + 2 Epic (If I feel like waiting 30 days)
3 Legendary

It is actually better for me to wait. Trying to do new levels without all my current upgrades and Idle time during the holidays was bad. Might as well start fresh.

That said, choosing artifacts will be tough. I was originally planning to take TW to Insane. It is still a great artifact despite the nerf. But AV is a very strong contender.

As I see it, my current options are:
1) Insane ??? + Epic ??? (one of which being AV) and 25% AP
2) Insane ??? + 2xEpic ???
3) Legendary TW/ACB/MD (I upgraded MD to Legendary instead of AV days before this update was announced. Kicking myself now.)

I can do option 3 as soon as the iPhone update comes out, but I would have to wait to January for the others. Still options 1 and 2 are likely the wisest choice (for starters, the Artifact that I would upgrade would be AV in either Epic or Insane form.)

Time to ponder what the best combination would be.

Edited 11/27/2021 16:22:59

How about Insane Time Warp and any tier Alloy Value, and then after super-ascend, trying to upgrade Alloy Value to Legendary before it becomes relevant?

I imagine that Alloy Value isn't the most useful artifact until you have a decent Additional Mercenary advancement. So there's a bit of time to upgrade it.

Yeah, that’s what I’m leaning towards. I’d probably take AV to Epic before the SAsc just because I can do it quickly now.

I rely on TW’s versatility to ditch it, and having it at Insane will help me in everything at all levels (except challenges).

I'm thinking if I ever bother to SAsc (undecided as of yet), I'd take:
Leg/Insane Alloy Values
Leg/Insane Time Warp
Leg/Insane Triple Strike

Leg TS is great for casual play. Activate it, get bonus armies, ensure you're digging, hit TW, come back later, repeat.

Which legendary artifacts are worth more than +25% AP?

Here is a list of artifacts with potential:

Alloy Values (112%) - More money for hospital upgrades and mercenary purchases
Army Camp Boost (160%) - Speeds up the beginning of the super ascension
Army Cache Boost (32%) - Fewer armies needed from mercenary camps
Bonus Money Boost (160%) - Helps with challenge levels and battles
Hospital Boost (12%?) - Fewer armies needed from mercenary camps
Mercenary Discount (32%) - Cheaper mercenaries on expensive levels
Quadruple Strike (192%) - Fewer armies needed from mercenary camps
Supercharge Army Camp (4 Hours) - Helps with battles, beginning of levels
Time Warp (4 Hours) - Speeds up digs and advances levels
Triple Strike (160%) - Fewer armies needed from mercenary camps

Thoughts? If you could choose between keeping the legendary and getting +25% AP, which would you choose for each artifact on the list?

Edited 12/4/2021 18:34:36

I’m having a hard time believing the third artifact is the play. It’s ultimately linear growth. What would you rather have - six artifacts or two artifacts and +100% AP? Even the dig time upgrade is going to scale to an insane level after a couple super ascensions.

I think there’s a path from two legendaries to insane + legendary to two insanes where you won’t be gated. Only then do I plan to get the third artifact.

And in my mind it has to be:
1a) Alloy Values
1b) Army Cache Boost

Playing with less than +150% mercenaries for an extended time will be frustrating and you have to offset this somehow.

Agree with graemes.
Think this way: first Super Ascension unlocks 17 new levels, that cannot be unlocked any other way. That's a significant incentive for SAsc.
Then players experience playing with no JS, no ACB, no other advancements, and probably no powerups any level. Lots of grinding.
Time comes for second SAsc. The memory of starting from zero is still painful. What reward do you choose?
- 1 extra artifact - compared to skipping the SAsc and keeping all 20+ artifacts;
- 20% faster digging - might be of value; grinding through levels is not that painful when you collect 25% more artifacts. Before SAsc the consensus was that AP are not important, digs are what we struggle to get. However SAsc should be planned in such way that you won't lose those extra artifacts.
- 100AP is of little interest and not worth the pain of starting from scratch.
- 25% AP is geared towards the third SAsc, for players who play to get closer to beating the game.
I computed on another thread that the fastest way to get 1340 SAsc of +100AP (at which point it would be possible to get unlimited instant SAsc), is to get 667 SAsc of +25%AP Followed by 1340 +100AP. Although one might find necessary to insert some of the other rewards before the 667th +25%AP, including a few +100AP to at least max out JS, players who play aiming for multiple SAsc benefit most from +25% AP.

By the 5th SAsc, the 25% AP boost will only be worth +12.5% above what you've unlocked. At what SAsc do you think it might be worth it to grab another artifact slot and keep another legendary?

@graemes @Dj Storm
It's not (ultimately) about comparing the benefits of artifacts against the other two (!) useful rewards. But with only two artifacts, you definitely lose out on artifact benefits on your super-ascension. The way the game is designed you have three (or four) artifact slots. That means if you only take over two artifacts, it will take months to again find and upgrade a useful complementing artifact. No player will use their first 39 super-ascensions to push the artifact-carry-over-limit to 41 and have one of each. The discussion always was whether you want to take the additional artifact once (or maybe twice) at some point in your super-ascensions in order to start a super-ascension with a full set of three artifacts. Whether you do this on the very first super-ascension or as you - say - fourth is totally up to you.

Another argument why you might want to take the additional artifact at some point: Imagine you are able to upgrade one artifact to Legendary each time you do a full super-ascension. With only two artifacts to carry over there will be exactly zero incentive to dig artifacts at all, because whatever you dig up (and upgrade) is lost when you super-ascend again. If however you upgraded your artifact-count on super-ascension to four, you can do four super-ascensions each resulting in on legendary and on your fifth super-ascension you can then collect and upgrade the final one in order to upgrade one to Insane. Within the next five super-ascensions you only have to increase your artifact-limit by another one to build up another insane artifact, and so on and so on.

TL;DR: Yes, the 25% AP-booster is (probably) more impactful than any single artifact that you might be able to carry over as your third artifact, but without a higher artifact-limit, digging doesn't make any more sense at some point.