If you had to choose 4 artifacts (Insane level), and they were the only ones you could use ever again, what would you pick?

I’m pretty sure that Alloy Values and Army Cache Boost are shoe-ins for passives, and Time Warp for Active.

But as for the last passive, I can’t decide what would be more useful: Cache Boost, Hospital Boost, Mercenary Discount, etc.?

I’m curious what those what many Super Ascensions behind them would think.

AV, A$B, HB, IM, idk though SAC super useful for level starts....

Edited 8/12/2024 15:40:03

ligma artefact is the only artefact you need

The utility of TW drops off fairly sharply as you get deeper into SAs, the same is true of SAC. I barely use either anymore, if not for WZIB (where they're all but mandatory) I would probably fodder them. Also, you spend very little time with 4th boy, for me it's only ~12h of each SA that I have it now, and this time around I may just skip HScandi entirely as I was able to get enough CSL to jump straight from HOT to HRome.

A$B is an easy choice, as is A^B. AV is mandatory even though it's a weak Insane, and that leaves just one choice...Which is probably CB or HB. I would have to run the numbers on that one to decide. Another viable option would be either a BMB or a TMB. For me, roughly 2/3rds of an SA is spent getting to Far Land and then the SA basically feels "done". For the early levels without markets (and Ursa: Luna) you can't CRA to the first market and instaclear, and those are an increasingly large portion of an SA.

That being said, if you're starting at SA1, it'll be very painful to go without a SAC, because you still need one at that point. Artifact needs change significantly as you get deeper into SAs, A$B and A^B are evergreen though.

AV, Army Cache Boost natch
Army Camp boost, for those early levels and for that time before you get the first market and you can delay putting 500 points in army camp boost perhaps even forever go right from Joint strike to additional mercs.
SAC if very nice for some hardened levels, double plys so with ACB

Hospital Boost in underloved.

Merc discount is very useful at least for a period of time, once you get your AP bonus high enough to max out AV and MD, not so much.

But number one of course in fog buster.

I put as much value on battles as level so TW and SAC for battles and AV and ACacheB for levels. I think this really boils down to what are the seven artifacts.

I'm going to take this as the game changed and I can only have 4 insane artifacts while the other artifacts can only be upgraded to legendary at most. This turns the problem into which artifacts are more significantly better at Insane compared to their Legendary version and mostly ignores everything else.

AV = Leg
AcacheB = Insane
AcampB = Leg
CB = Insane
HB = Leg
MCB = Leg
MD = Insane
RCB = Leg

IM = Insane
SAC = Leg
TW = Leg
TS = Leg


ACacheB, CB, MD, and IM as insane while the rest can stay as legendary.

Note: I keep flip-flopping between AV and CB as 4th. AV has a more significant bump from leg to insane but legendary is honestly good enough. 16% extra from CB is mehh but other artifacts are even more mehh.