Clicker Heroes Beginner's Guide

Pumpkin Hat on Cid. Lol

So you just started playing Clicker Heroes? It's starts out pretty simple, but tends to be confusing as you reach your first ascension, because you won't know what to do with Hero Souls. Maybe you don't even know what Hero souls are. Let's Start this guide from the first stages of the early game all the way to your first ascension.

There are tons of ways you could level and play this game. This guide is just based on my personal experiences and the suggestions & advice that have been given over and over again at Clicker Heroes Kongregate Chat.

Starting your game. Leveling Heroes and Clicking all day

The road to your first ascension will be a very long one. Right at the very start you will have to keep clicking because you won't have DPS(Damage Per Second) from other Heroes.

Your first Hero--Cid--will never add to DPS, instead She(yes..she's a girl) will only increase your click damage. She's the only hero that increases click damage, other heroes have upgrades that increase click damage but if you level them up they'd only increase your DPS.

A strategy on leveling early on is always getting the highest level hero to at least level 1 as soon as you can. This is because heroes who are further down the list increase your DPS far more than leveling Treebeast from 25 to 50.(Veterans, please don't flame me on this. I know Treebeast gets insane damage boosts after 200).

If you don't think it's cheating, you could also use an autoclicker or an autohotkey script to help you through the early massive-clicking stages. There are people who think this is cheating, though. Clicker Heroes is a solo game, do whatever you want as long as you don't think it's cheating. Personally, I used an autoclicker because I can't afford to break my mouse(Yes, I'm that poor. lol)

Here's a list of currently available heroes. Note that you'll only unlock heroes once you're close enough to get them to level one. Be patient, they will appear soon.

• Cid, The Helpful Adventurer
• Treebeast
• Ivan, The Drunken Brawler
• Brittany, Beach Princess
• The Wandering Fisherman
• Betty Clicker
• The Masked Samurai
• Leon
• The Great Forest Seer
• Alexa, Assassin
• Natalia, Ice Apprentice
• Mercedes, Duchess of Blades
• Bobby, Bounty Hunter
• Broyle Lindeoven, Fire Mage
• Sir George II, King's Guard
• King Midas
• Referi Jerator, Ice Wizard
• Abaddon
• Ma Zhu
• Amenhotep
• Beastlord
• Athena, Goddess of War
• Aphrodite, Goddess of Love
• Shinatobe, Wind Deity
• Grant, The General
• Frostleaf

Right now, Frostleaf is the final hero and is the best end-game hero in terms of DPS, but we'll get more into that some other time.

What are Hero Souls? When do I ascend? How do I ascend?

I have a 10M morg. That DPS % is too high. lol

Hero Souls boost your DPS & Click damage by 10% for each soul you have. These souls are also used to purchase ancients, remove gilds, and re-spec your ancients list(You lose some HS if you don't have free re-specs). 

There are only two ways to instantly get the souls you've accumulated without actually ascending: One is by beating Omeet, the level 100 boss, for the first time. The achievement you get from him instantly gives you one Hero Soul. The second way is by buying a Quick Ascension(only available on Kongregate, I think), People really don't suggest doing this because it costs money and I don't know, it seems pointless.

You can get these souls by doing any the following before ascending:

1. Leveling Heroes to a point where you 2000 levels in total. This is the most suggested way to earn souls early on. There are 26 Heroes and just be leveling them all up to 100, you can get 1 hero souls. Alternatively, you could check your stats page(The one with the Bar graph Icon) to check your total hero levels.
2. Beating Primal Bosses. These Creatures appear randomly every 5 levels after level 100. You can only meet them on the first encounter. If you reach a boss stage and it isn't a primal, it will never be one even if you kill the boss over and over again(doing this gets you an achievement, though)
3. Beating Centurion Bosses. These bosses will always appear at every 100th level. You can only get the Hero Souls once.

Now, let's proceed to the explanation of Ascensions

I should've started a new game just for this guide.

Ascension is a skill upgrade that can be bought when you have a level 150 Amenhotep. Buying this skill will make you lose all your hero levels and your zone progression will reset back to level 1, but you will get those hard-earned hero souls from your previous universe.

And now...The most asked question..When should you ascend?

The most suggested first ascension point is when you have 7~10 Hero Souls waiting for you when you ascend. This is because having this much HS will significantly boost your DPS and will help you progress faster on your next run. Always remember to level your heroes for more HS before ascending. Remember this especially when you're still below the 100 HS per ascension point.

When Should I buy Ancients? Which Ancients Should I get First?

Yes, I did this guide just to show-off my Morg.

Personally, I'd advice getting ancients only when you have at least 75~100 Hero Souls banked. Why? Because at the early stages of the game, hero souls provide more DPS than ancients(Idle or Clicker). Having some souls banked will also help you be constant on the zones you reach, just be careful that you don't spend those banked souls, ok?

Now...Which ancient should you look for first? Most suggestions will always be Siyalatas and Libertas because they provide idle boosts in both DPS and Gold gain. There are several combinations as to which ancients you should get, here's my suggestion on which ancients you should aim for first.

1. Vaagur, Ancient of Impatience - Vaagur reduces the cooldown time of your skills and it only takes 40+ Souls(I think) to max him. Once maxed, he reduces cooldowns by 75%, and with the right combo usage of Energize, Dark Ritual, and Reload, you could get 10% DPS boosts from DR every 30 minutes(More on this combo later)
2. Siyalatas, Ancient of Abandon - Siyalatas boosts your Idle DPS depending on his level, he has no level cap, and he will be a big part of your core ancients in terms of DPS. One thing to note about having this ancient is that you can not click on monsters or use skills if you want those idle bonuses to kick-in.
3. Libertas, Ancient of Freedom - Pretty much like Siyalatas, Libertas boosts your gold gain while your in idle status. These two ancients go together like *insert some good metaphor here*, that's why you want them both early.
4. At this point, it's your choice really. You could aim for ancients that boost Gold gain or Hero souls--It's a matter of preference really. Keep in mind that there are more Gold ancients than Hero soul ancients. In my opinion, getting the Atman(Boosts primal chance) and maxing him then aiming for every gold-boosting ancient is the way to go, but that's just me.

Most Optimal Way of Leveling Ancients?

I really have no definitive answer for this one, if you want to optimally level your ancients, you could use this calculator. Ancients Optimizer.(Credits to whoever made this calculator!)

I'm really bad at math and just go with what I feel would be beneficial for my runs. I have a 10M Morg at the moment, so I'm not really good at optimizing ancient leveling.

Gilds? How Do I Get Them? Which Heroes Should I Get Gilds On?

Gilds boosts a hero's DPS by 50%(could be boosted by Argaiv) and they can only be obtained by beating every 10th level for the first time from level 100. This means that if you ascend and want a brand new gild, you have to reach farther than your last run and beat a level ending in 0. That's the best explanation I could give, sorry for my inadequacy.

Gilds also give a visual change to a hero, and gives their tab a gold-highlight. You could also view your current gild list by clicking the Gilded button at the bottom of the hero list.

Which Heroes should you have gilds on?

At the early stages of the game, You could allow having your gilds on everyone except Amenhotep, Betty, and Midas. This is because these heroes barely have any DPS-increasing upgrades which basically makes them close to useless with gilds.

If you prefer to have your gilds on a single hero, the most preferred way of gilding this way is to focus on Treebeast until you're able to easily get him to 3K(or 4.1K or lower), then switch those gilds into The Masked Samurai, then finally to Frostleaf. At the endgame, Frostleaf becomes the best DPS hero, so having every gild on him would really be beneficial. This method requires a few hundred hero souls, though, because de-gilding a hero costs 2 souls, so think about that before you go and waste hero souls on de-gilding.

In summary, the best heroes to have gilds on are: Treebeast, Brittany, Ivan, Seer, Masked Samurai, and Frostleaf. 

If you want more information on hero DPS and power and maths. Go check out this post.

What's EDR? How Do I Use it?

EDR means Energize-Dark Ritual-Reload. It's a skill combo that aims to lessen the cooldown of Dark Ritual. Combined with a maxed Vaagur, you will be able to use Dark Ritual every 10 minutes. Simply put, +10% DPS every 30 minutes, if used correctly.

To be able to maximize the effects of this combo, a maxed Vaagur is recommended. The combo works like this:

Use Energize. Use Dark Ritual. Use Reload. Wait 15 minutes. Use Energize. Use Reload. Wait 15 minutes. Repeat.

In skill hotkey terms: 8-6-9 wait 15 mins. 8-9. wait 15 mins. Repeat. 

You could also sneak-in some skill combos before using EDR. For example, using clickstorm, golden clicks, etc. before 8-6-9. Then once again after 8-9. Just be careful enough to not mess up your combo or you'd have to wait awhile until you could do it again.

How do I make runs faster?

Purchasing Kumawakamaru(reduces levels from 10 to 5 when maxed), Iris(let's you start at a later level), Khrysos(gives starting gold). These 3 ancients will help making runs for Hero Souls faster.

Iris, though, will only be really useful when you're able to rack-up a lot of Hero Souls per run. She costs a lot to level-up.

This Guide still needs some more information, which shall be added soon. I hope it somehow helped you guys! Happy Spicy Gaming!