Guide Version: v1.0
Game v25.7.2
Intro / Who is this for?
My goal with this guide is to help you with the following:
- Ultimate Weapon (UW) unlock order
- When to upgrade vs unlock new UWs
- How to efficiently upgrade your UWs
- How to efficiently sync UWs
- When to sync vs upgrade your UWs
- What to do while saving stones
- How to efficiently use Multiverse Nexus while syncing
- How high to upgrade your Econ UWs, before upgrading end-game UWs
- Avoid common pitfalls that will slow your progression down.
This is a comprehensive step-by-step guide that will help players upgrade their 1st 5 Ultimate Weapons as optimally as possible.
- This is meant for anyone who hasn't reached Legend League in Tournaments yet.
- Or Legends players with under-leveled Econ UWs lol.
- This is meant for both paying & free to play players.
- If you're buying stones, don't skip steps or you'll have underwhelming results (I'm speaking from experience lol)
This is the guide I wish I had when I started playing The Tower!
- It is VERY long, but VERY thorough.
- I wanted to provide the reasoning behind every decision so that you can adapt according to your personal tower, and play-style.
- Taking the time to understand everything in this guide will help you progress faster than someone who doesn't.
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Acronym reference - I'll clarify acronyms as they're mentioned, and throughout the guide, but feel free to refer back to here if you get a little mixed up. These are some of the most used acronyms in this subreddit, and it is worth learning them.
- UW - Ultimate Weapon
- UWs - Ultimate Weapons
- BH - Black Hole
- CL - Chain Lightning
- DC - Dimension Core (a module)
- DW - Death Wave
- GT - Golden Tower
- MVN - Multiverse Nexus (a module)
- SL - Spotlight
Here's a complete list of commonly used acronyms for The Tower
Ultimate Weapon (UW) Unlock Order
Unfortunately, which 3 UW options you get to choose from is completely random. But there is a well-established optimal order to unlock them in. In most cases, you want to pick the highest ranked UW from your 3 choices.
The top 5 UWs to unlock - in order (if possible):
- Golden Tower (GT)
- Black Hole (BH)
- Death Wave (DW)
- Spotlight (SL)
- Chain Lightning (CL)
- A very good argument can be made to pick CL before SL if you have a Dimension Core (DC), but I'll touch on that later.
If none of these are listed as an option, pick the highest ranked UW from below, and start saving for your next UW (assuming it is time for you to save for your next UW - I'll cover when in detail later)
- 6th - Chrono Field (CF)
- 7th - Smart Missiles (SM)
- 8th or 9th:
- Poison Swamp (PS)
- Inner Land Mines (ILM)
Keep in mind that these UWs aren't bad! They are considered "end-game" UWs that require significant investment to pay off. Earning the stones & coins to justify that investment will be much easier once you've developed your Econ UWs & Chain Lightning.
Credit to minionek247 for polling & presenting the community-ranked UW pick order!
Why Golden Tower, Black Hole, Death Wave, Spotlight, & Chain Lightning?
GT, BH, DW, & SL are economy UWs because they have ways of boosting your economy.
- Boosting your coin economy is fundamental to progressing as quickly as possible.
- The more coins you have, the more you can upgrade your tower.
- The more upgraded your tower is, the better you'll perform in tournaments.
- The better you perform in tournaments, the more stones you'll earn to upgrade your economy UWs.
- This is the repeating cycle you want to emphasize, clear up until you're in Champions League in tournaments, which is where having damage UWs starts to become more important.
- These UWs are listed in order of how helpful they are for boosting your economy, and in the order that you should unlock them if you're able to.
If you can get GT, BH, & DW as your first 3 UWs, congratulations!
- We all hate you, but you can be happy about it!
Spotlight (SL) also boosts economy, but requires a lot more investment than GT, BH, & DW to be useful
- It is also good to have unlocked, but it is considered best to focus on GT, BH, & DW for a long time before you invest in SL.
- It will eventually generate more coins than DW though, so don't worry if this is your best option for your next UW.
Chain Lightning (CL) is a damage UW that requires minimal investment to be useful compared to the other damage UWs.
- It doesn't directly help you farm more coins, but it can help you perform better in tournaments with minimal investment, thereby earning you more stones, which can then be used to upgrade your economy UWs.
- If you have a Dimension Core (DC) module, CL is arguably a better pick over spotlight (SL).
- If you don't have DC though, SL is likely better to pick 1st.
- My general advice is to avoid upgrading CL until you're in Champions League in tournaments, because you'll get a faster Return on Investment (RoI) from the other UW upgrades.
- There are many people who recommend upgrading it much sooner than Champions league, as long as you have a DC module (even as early as Gold League).
- This is solid advice, though I can't speak from experience on this point.
- I personally didn't unlock CL until late-Champions, and outperformed a lot CL users with a highly developed hybrid build that focused on Black Hole & a highly developed wall in order to get into Legends League.
- I took this route because developing my Black Hole & The Wall helped me in both tournaments AND farming runs, whereas CL would only help me in tournaments at the time.
- Once I got to Legends, upgrading my CL became my #1 priority though.
- Even though it is recommended to upgrade GT, BH, & DW before CL, this is a VERY good UW that requires minimal investment to be useful, which is why it is in the top 5, and many consider it to be the 4th best UW to unlock.
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Pre-Guide FAQs & General Advice
When it is better to restart your tower?
Because the 3 UW choices you get to pick from are random, there are some situations where it may be more time-efficient in the long-run to completely restart your tower until you unlock a good 1st UW.
Opinions on this subject differ, but my personal opinion is that it is worth it to restart if your 1st choice doesn't include one of the following:
- Golden Tower
- Black Hole
- Death Wave
- Spotlight
- Chain Lightning
In my opinion, it isn't really worth it to start over after you've unlocked your 2nd UW, unless you don't have one of the top 3 UW choices as your first 2 UWs (GT, BH, & DW). Again though, opinions differ on this subject and you may want to request personalized advice for your specific case if you fall into this category.
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DO NOT Upgrade "Cooldown" For Any UW Until You Understand "The Sync"!
"Cooldown" for GT, BH, & DW refers to how frequently an UW activates.
- These cooldowns can be "synced" so that all 3 of them fire at the same time as frequently as possible.
- This is called a 1 to 1 to 1 sync or 1:1:1.
- Syncing these 3 UWs has the potential to SKYROCKET your economy, because the coin multipliers of all 3 of them are multiplicative, rather than additive (they multiply off each other).
By syncing them at the same cooldown so they always fire together, your coins can be boosted by x2041 (max stone & lab upgrades)!
- GT Bonus of x24.75
- BH bonus of x11
- DW bonus of x2.5
- SL bonus of x3
This coin multiplier can go even higher with sub-module effects & GT+, but we won't cover them much in this guide. Reaching this multiplier will take a lot of investment, but even mid-game players can get a x400 coin multiplier or higher with minimal investment.
If these are firing alone, you'll be missing out on a lot of progression.
- A GT & BH sync is much more important than syncing DW, because their coin multipliers can be significantly higher
- Once your GT & BH are synced & properly upgraded, then you can worry about syncing DW.
- More details on this later.
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If you've upgraded the cooldown of GT, BH, or DW & gotten them out of sync, I highly recommend looking at this chart by kaodt to figure out how best to get them to your next best sync before saving up for a 1:1:1 sync.
- Keep in mind that this chart was made before DW had a coin multiplier, and discusses the possibility of a 2:1 sync (BH firing 2x for every time GT fires).
- Since DW was updated with a coin multiplier lab, it has become even more efficient to get to a 1:1:1 multiplier so that all 3 of them fire at the same time.
- Though a 2:1:1 can also work if you've already significantly lowered your BH cooldown.
- DW has the same cooldown levels as GT, so use GT's numbers on the chart when figuring out DW's cooldown.
- If you have the Multiverse Nexus (MVN) module, you can use it to keep your GT, BH, & DW synced while you lower GT's & DW's cooldowns to match BH's as you get the stones.
- Otherwise, focus on getting GT synced with BH 1st, and then DW.
- Check the chart to see where your next-best sync is. Once you're there, save however many stones you need to drop their cooldown to match BH's in 1 go (starting with GT 1st, and then DW).
If you haven't upgraded GT's, BH's, or DW's cooldowns at all, I'll provide more detail on how & when to upgrade them later in this guide!
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UW Lab Upgrades > UW Stone Upgrades
This isn't 100% true, but I needed a flashy title to stress how important Ultimate Weapon LABS are lol. In truth, you need to upgrade both your UWs base stats along with their labs to fully utilize them, but if you ignore your UW labs, they will perform very poorly in comparison (I'm speaking from experience here lol).
Upgrading your UW labs is CRITICAL to unlocking their full potential.
- The #1 thing you should do after you unlock ANY of the top 5 UWs, is start working on their labs.
- Some UW labs are so important that it is worth it to permanently upgrade them until they are maxed in some scenarios.
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Don't Ignore your Tower Labs
While developing your UW's via labs is crucial, they can also take a very long time to max out.
- When your UW labs become longer, it may actually be more beneficial to swap them out for other labs that will give you faster gains.
- Remember that getting further in your farming runs is another way of boosting your economy.
- A mixture of upgrading your tower while also upgrading your UWs is usually the best method
While I won't be doing a full breakdown of how to efficiently upgrade your tower beyond UWs, here are 2 resources that I've found incredibly helpful:
- While Hybrid & Glass Cannon builds are end-game builds, Effective HP (eHP) builds are widely considered the most effective way for you to upgrade your tower until you're in end-game (Legends League or ready to farm Tier 13+.)
- Make a copy & input your tower's stats for customized upgrade recommendations.
- This is an INCREDIBLY powerful tool
- The econ paths "should not be trusted blindly" (creators words), but it is still very helpful.
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Upgrading Econ UWs > Unlocking all of the UWs
One of the biggest pitfalls I frequently see is saving up stones to unlock your next UW when your current UWs are under-leveled (This was actually something I did too lol).
- To progress as quickly as possible, you want a balance between upgrading your existing UWs, and unlocking your next economy UWs.
- New UWs look shiny & exciting (and they are lol), but the cost to unlock new UWs ramps up QUICKLY!
- Spending those stones on your current UWs could give an immediate boost to your econ, which would progress your tower, helping you perform better in tournaments, which makes it easier to earn more stones for your UWs.
- Not every UW stat is worth upgrading with stones early on, and I'll do my best to outline which ones are, and when it is a good idea to start saving for your next UW.
Note: After you unlock all of the Ultimate Weapons, you gain access to Ultimate Weapon Plus (UW+)
- These are additional abilities that can further boost the power of your UWs.
- Keep in mind though, even getting Golden Tower Plus (GT+) will only provide a significant boost your econ if your current GT is well-developed.
- In other words, it is more cost-efficient to upgrade GT for a LONG time until it starts to make sense to unlock & upgrade GT+.
- Disclaimer: I'm nowhere near unlocking UW+, so I'm speaking from the advice I've seen on other posts on this subreddit.
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Upgrade GT Duration to be 12s+ longer than BH Duration
Assuming you have Golden Tower & Black Hole synced at 2:1, 3:2, or 1:1, it is highly efficient for them to last as long as another (we wouldn't want either one to finish prematurely ;)
- BH has a perk during farm runs that increases its duration by 12 seconds, so you want GT's base duration to be 12+ seconds longer than BH's so that they finish at the same time while you're farming.
- Neither one is nearly as efficient by themselves as they are together, so upgrading their durations like this is a cost-efficient way to upgrade them.
- GT's duration can be upgraded in 3 ways:
- GT Duration lab - this is the preferred method since stones are precious & there are often better ways to spend them.
- Stone Upgrades - If GT Duration lab is maxed, or takes too long, or the stone cost isn't too high, this is your next best option.
- Module Sub Effect on your core - If you're desperate, you can use this to get your GT duration up.
- The following module sub effects are usually preferred over GT Duration until you unlock GT+ though:
- BH Size (until BH has 100% coverage)
- DW Quantity
- SL Angle
- GT Bonus
- If your GT duration isn't 12s+ longer than your BH duration, the GT duration sub effect is likely preferred until GT+.
- Note for GT+: If you have Golden Tower Plus, GT Duration scales much better than GT Bonus, because it gives you more time to kill as many enemies as possible.
- I won't be talking about mod sub-effects much in this guide, but they can be used to help you reach new UW stat thresholds as you go.
- Once GT duration is 12s+ longer than BH, I recommend upgrading GT duration via its lab, and upgrading BH's duration with stones as it gets upgraded.
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Lab Priority: BH Coin Bonus > GT Bonus > DW Coin Bonus >= SL Coin Bonus
The bonuses you get from BH, GT, DW, & SL Labs are NOT the same! They provide varying bonuses, coverage, durations, and trigger conditions. Understanding their pros & cons will help you better understand which lab will provide the most benefit for your current build
Minimum Bonus Comparison (lab lvl 0)
- 7.0x with the 1.5x GT Bonus Perk
- Credit to Aggressive_Roof488 for correcting my original math here. The exact calculation is more complicated than 5.0*1.5 (It is 1 + (4.0*1.5))
- DW: 1.5x
- BH: 1.0x
- SL: 1.0x
- Note: Without lab time, GT provides the most benefit with DW in 2nd. BH & SL provide zero benefit without upgrading their Coin Bonus labs.
Additional Bonus Per Lab Level Comparison
- BH: +0.50x
- GT: +0.15x
- SL: +0.10x
- DW: +0.05x
- Note: Upgrading BH provides the most bonus per lab level, followed by GT. SL & DW provide the least value per lab level.
Enemy Coverage of Coin Bonus
- GT: 100%
- DW: 100%
- BH: ~30% without upgrades (rough guess on my part lol)
- Extra Black Hole Lab
- Spending stones on BH Size
- Decreasing tower range
- SL: 8.3% without upgrades
- Note: BH isn't nearly as good as GT & DW, but with the Extra Black Hole Lab, the coverage can reach ~80% with relatively low stone investment
- Don't discredit BH coin bonus lab because of this:
- It doesn't take much investment into BH before the effectiveness of BH Coin Bonus lab overtakes GT Bonus lab even with a lower coverage.
- Note: SL requires a LOT of stone investment before it provides decent coverage (4955 stones for 50% coverage LOL), which is one reason upgrading SL is a low priority until GT, BH, & DW are upgraded
- Its bonus does eventually surpass DW though, so it eventually pays off.
Minimum Duration of Coin Bonus
- 27s with the +12s BH Perk
- 5s with the +1 Wave DW Perk
- Each additional wave adds 4 seconds to its duration
- Note: SL is the clear winner here with 100% uptime without upgrades. BH beats out the others with perks. DW's duration may look awful, but it has a better "Trigger Condition" meaning that its duration isn't as important.
Trigger Condition for Coin Bonus to apply
- DW: Applies to all enemies on the field when DW activates, no matter when they die
- GT: Requires enemies to die while GT is active in order to apply
- BH: Requires enemies to die inside an active BH in order to apply
- SL: Requires enemies to die inside SL in order to apply
- Note: DW has the best trigger condition.
- By adjusting your tower range & orbs, you can maximize the number of enemies that die inside GT & BH. I won't cover specifics on this in this guide, but for a while you want enemies outside of orb range, but lined up so that when your BH pulls them in, they get wiped out by your orbs.
Other considerations
- BH activates 33% more frequently when cooldowns haven't been upgraded, making the BH Bonus Lab even more effective than GT & DW Coin Bonus Labs until they're synced.
- Lab times and the cost of each lab goes up significantly as they are upgraded.
- Rather than permanently upgrading one until it is maxed before moving onto the next lab, it is more efficient to swap between labs as they get upgraded, while prioritizing some more than others.
- The effects of each coin bonus lab gets multiplied by the others when multiple UWs activate at the same time
- This is another reason why it is more efficient to swap between them as they get upgraded
- Getting GT duration 12s+ longer than BH's duration should usually be prioritized over upgrading the bonus labs, because of the +12s BH Perk
- We want BH & GT active together for as long as possible so the bonuses are multiplying for as long as possible
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Lab Guideline for GT, BH, DW, & SL Coin Bonus:
- Upgrade BH Coin Bonus 1-2 levels
- Upgrade GT Bonus 2-4 levels below BH Coin Bonus
- Within 1-2 levels once GT is synced with BH
- Upgrade DW Coin Bonus 2-4 levels below GT Bonus
- Within 1-2 levels once DW is synced with GT & BH
- Upgrade SL Coin Bonus 2-4 levels below DW Bonus
- Upgrade to match DW bonus once SL has a total range of 105°+
- 3 spotlights & 35° or higher
- Repeat until all 4 are at lvl 20
- GT Bonus can go up to lvl 25, but its lab times scale up significantly harder after lvl 20, so it makes sense to save those final 5 upgrades until later.
This guideline will help you balance the diminishing returns of lab time, with the effectiveness of upgrading each coin bonus.
- Upgrading them all at once, along with the Coins / Kill lab is also fun if you wanna see your econ shoot through the roof lol.
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Should I Spend Medals on Stones to upgrade UWs?
Depending on who you ask, you'll get varying responses because:
- The medal cost for 15 stones increases with every purchase!
- 1st costs 40 medals
- 2nd costs 65 medals
- 3rd costs 90 medals
- The cost continues to scale beyond this, but it isn't worth buying unless you're buying Event Boosts
- The "value" of 15 stones changes as you rank up in tournaments
- 1st place in Copper gives you 20 stones
- 1st place in Platinum gives you 160 stones
- 1st place in Legend gives you 425 stones
Here is my personal recommendation:
- Prioritize more important medal purchases 1st:
- Background & Tower Themes, Relics, and Songs
- Buy 3 stone packs (195 medals) if you're in Copper or Silver
- Buy 2 stone packs (105 medals) if you're in Gold or Platinum
- Buy 1 stone pack (40 medals) if you're in Champion rank 16-30
- Don't buy stone packs if you're in Champion rank 15 or better, or if you're in Legends
- By this point, you probably want to prioritize bots now, though I won't judge you for still spending medals on stone packs at this point haha.
Personally, I'm more aggressive with buying stone packs than some players, but I think they are super worth it early on when you get so few stones from tournaments.
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Should I sync my Golden Bot with GT, BH, & DW?
Yes, but this isn't a priority for a LONG time!
- Syncing GT, BH, & DW, and upgrading them along with SL is a lot more important than worrying about Golden Bot.
- Golden Bot takes a lot of time before it starts being useful because bots are upgraded with medals, and you want to prioritize medals on other upgrades first
- #1 Priority - Background & Tower Themes
- #2 Priority - Relics from previous seasons
- #3 Priority - Songs
- #4 Priority - 0-3 stone packs
- See "Should I Spend Medals on Stones?" for more details
- #5 Priority - Golden Bot Upgrades
- Newer f2p players won't be earning max medals/season, and there are a lot of other important upgrades to get before buying Golden Bot upgrades, so it'll stay under-leveled for a LONG time.
- Golden Bot's cooldown is really hard to keep synced with GT, BH, & DW because it requires a lot of lab time or medals.
- Unlike UW cooldowns that upgrade 10s at a time, Golden Bot cooldowns upgrade 3s at a time.
- You don't want your Golden Bot's cooldown to prevent you from upgrading your UW's cooldowns because you're afraid of getting them out of sync.
- Personally, I don't think Golden Bot is worth syncing with your UWs until it is properly upgraded:
- Range: 44m+
- Bonus: 4.0x+
- Duration: 25s+
- Cooldown: 100s
- I arbitrarily chose this number because it has a nice sync when GT's & DW's Cooldown are maxed, or when your UWs are at 2m 30s (150s)
- Eventually the cooldowns & durations of your econ UWs will be so high that your Golden Bot will have a lot of overlap with them even without being synced.
- Don't get me wrong though, once your Golden Bot is properly developed, it can provide a TON of value, especially when synced!
- Don't ignore your golden bot! Just know that it will take some time & investment for that to happen.
Here is a good guide on bots if you're interested
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Now that this guide is really long, we're finally ready for "THE GUIDE" lol
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Step #1 - Unlocking Your 1st 3-5 UWs
This is worth reading, even if you have GT, BH, DW, SL, & CL! A lot of this information is fundamental to the rest of the guide. Understanding it will help you no matter where you're at in your tower progression.
In The Tower, you want to unlock as many coin multipliers as possible, because they multiply the effects of other coin multipliers.
- This means unlocking your 1st 3-5 UWs can quickly skyrocket your economy, and should be a high priority!
- The 1st 3 UWs only cost 5, 50, & 150 stones, making them relatively inexpensive compared to the others.
- The reason this section is about unlocking your 3 to 5 UWs (not just 3) though, is that they don't all boost your economy equally.
- Your 1st goal is to get "The Big 3" - GT, BH, & DW
- Once you have these 3 unlocked, the most efficient UW progression is to focus on upgrading these for a LONG time!
- If you don't get these 3 as your 1st 3, it is still efficient to unlock your 4th & 5th UW in hopes of getting these 3 unlocked.
- However, it may also be worth putting ~50-150 stones towards the following upgrades before saving 300 stones for your 4th UW (go with your cheapest upgrade to keep things simple):
- BH Size
- BH Duration
- GT Bonus
- GT Duration
- Don't spend any stones on any other UW at this point, including Death Wave, Spotlight, or Chain Lightning.
- If you're still missing GT, BH, or DW, and they aren't an option as your 5th UW, what you should do depends on which one you're missing.
- If you're missing GT or BH, saving for your 6th UW is likely a good idea.
- If you're missing DW, it is likely more worth it for you to upgrade your current UW's instead.
- My specific recommendation would be to get your GT & BH upgraded up to “Step #4 - The ‘2nd Great Sync’”, and then save stones for your 6th UW
Note: While you're saving stones to unlock UWs, work on the labs for the UWs you already own (more info below)
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The Big 3 - Golden Tower, Black Hole, & Death Wave
These 3 UWs will boost your progression faster than any other UW early on in the game. 2 things make them good at boosting progression.
- They all have coin multipliers that boost each other when they activate at the same time.
- A lot of their econ buffs come from labs, meaning you can save up your precious stones to unlock other ultimate weapons even while you're upgrading these 3 UWs.
Your optimal upgrade path will be the same for GT, BH, & DW, no matter which order you unlock them in:
- Immediately start upgrading their priority labs
- Save up stones to unlock the next UW.
- Stop saving up for your next UW once you have GT, BH, & DW, or once you have 5 UWs unlocked
- If you're still missing GT, BH, or DW, and they aren't an option as your 5th UW, what you should do depends on which one you're missing.
- If you're missing GT or BH, saving for your 6th UW is likely a good idea.
- If you're missing DW, it is likely more worth it for you to upgrade your current UW's instead.
- My specific recommendation would be to get your GT & BH upgraded up to “Step #4 - The ‘2nd Great Sync’”, and then save stones for your 6th UW
- If you're missing more than one, may the RNG gods take pity upon your soul...
- I'll provide more info on how to spend your stones a bit later.
Golden Tower Priority Labs
- #1 Priority is the GT Duration lab
- This should be started as SOON as GT is unlocked, as long as you have the coins for it.
- If you don't have enough coins, focus on other econ or tower upgrades until you do.
- You want to get GT's duration to be 12 seconds longer than BH's duration, so that it lasts as long as BH with BH's +12s duration perk.
- This doesn't change if you don't have BH unlocked yet. You'll want this ready by the time BH is unlocked.
- Starting this lab now will give you a head start on keeping them synced for as long as possible.
- We don't want BH or GT finishing prematurely without the other! That would be inconsiderate.
- In all seriousness though, syncing GT & BH is incredibly powerful, but it is only effective if they're both active!
- It is most cost-efficient to keep them both lasting as long as possible together, supplementing GT duration with its lab.
- #2 Priority is GT Bonus Lab
- If you have the coins & lab space for it, this will help you, but it will help you significantly more later one once your GT, BH, & DW are synced.
- At this stage, chances are you have more important labs to work on, unless you unlock GT later on.
- To be clear, this is a GOOD lab to work on. It will always provide value.
- But if the lab times or cost seem daunting, pass on it until they look more manageable.
- Don't spend any stones on GT yet - You want to prioritize upgrading with labs & save up for the next UW so that you can unlock another UW's coin multiplier.
Black Hole Priority Labs
- #1 Priority is Black Hole Coin Bonus lab
- This can get upgraded all the way to a x11 bonus, which is insanely strong when paired with GT's bonus.
- You should upgrade this lab until it is maxed out, so long as you have enough coins for it.
- An exception is if your BH is very small, doesn't last very long, isn't synced with GT, and/or has a higher coin bonus than your GT does.
- In this case, work on other labs, and use your stones to further upgrade GT.
- #1 Priority is Extra Black Hole lab (Two #1's? That's weird lol)
- At this point, you likely won't have enough coins to unlock this, and you should save it for later.
- If you can get it though, DO IT!
- I've seen it recommended that this lab is worth saving all your coins for 2 weeks! - It is THAT good!
- Very few labs are worth saving for, but this is an exception.
- Personally, I'd save for 5-7 days to start this lab. If it takes longer than that, use your coins elsewhere until that seems manageable.
- Once you can unlock this lab, that is your signal to start investing more into your BH, because its effectiveness will double.
- This is eventually a REALLY good lab, but at this stage you can ignore it until later.
- My recommendation is to save this lab for when protectors start shot-gunning your tower & kill you (if you know, you know lol)
- When this starts happening, make this lab a HIGH priority to get you further in farming runs.
- If you max this lab out, and you're still getting shot-gunned, your solution will come from increasing BH duration with stones.
- Black Hole Disable Ranged Enemies
- You'll be ignoring this until much later - likely until you're close to a permanent BH
- Don't spend any stones on BH yet - You want to prioritize upgrading with labs & save up for the next UW so you can get another UW's coin multiplier.
Death Wave Priority Labs
- #1 Priority is Death Wave Coin Bonus lab!
- This can get upgraded up to a x2.5 bonus, which doesn't sound as strong as BH's or GT's coin bonuses, but don't discredit it!
- Unlike BH's coin bonus which only works on the small area that a new BH covers, this coin bonus will shoot out in a 360 degree wave, meaning it will hit every enemy on the field!
- It also works on enemies who get it by the wave, no matter when they die!
- Additionally, this coin multiplier will multiply off GT's & BH's coin bonuses (Multiplying coin bonuses is HUGE)
- #1 Priority is Death Wave Health lab! (another lab I can't decide between - absolutely worth filling 2 lab slots with these as soon as you unlock DW, if you can afford the lab slot)
- This doesn't directly increase your coins/hour, but just like getting a new coin multiplier is super powerful, getting a new health multiplier is super powerful!
- As soon as DW is unlocked, you immediately get a 5x health multiplier as long as your runs last long enough, and this multiplier can be increased up to 12.5x with labs
- It is eventually worth maxing, but the lab times can get very long compared to other health labs, so it is a good idea to balance this with your other health-based labs.
- Death Wave Cells Bonus lab is a lower priority for early-game players.
- DON'T GET ME WRONG! This lab is INSANELY useful - one of the best!!
- It is probably the 1st DW lab that you'll max out, because the cell gain is incredibly powerful.
- But this cell gain only happens to elite enemies that get hit by the death wave, and in early game, you don't find a lot of elite enemies staying on the screen for very long.
- Once you do find Elites stacking & staying on the map for a while before getting killed, that is when this lab becomes a higher priority, and should probably take a lab slot until it is maxed!
- Lab Time is the bottle-neck for all Tower players.
- Cells boost lab speed, which is why this lab is worth the investment
- Death Wave Damage Amplifier
- Won't be a priority until you need more damage in tournaments (I didn't upgrade this until Legend League)
- & Death Wave Armor Stripping lab
- Very low priority for a very long time, and not worth considering until late-game.
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TL;DR on GT, BH, & DW Labs
- GT Duration
- BH Coin Bonus
- Extra Black Hole
- DW Coin Bonus
- DW Health
- Medium Priority Labs (for early game - these become more impactful later)
- GT Bonus (High priority if lab costs & times aren't overwhelming)
- BH Damage (High priority if you're getting shot-gunned by protectors)
- DW Cell Bonus (One of, if not THE highest priority labs if elites are stacking & staying alive for a long time)
- BH Disable Ranged Enemies
- DW Damage Amplifier
- DW Armor Stripping
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What to do if you unlock GT, BH, & DW before SL and/or CL?
- Stop buying new UWs, and invest in your current ones for a LONG time!
- Seriously!
- These are "The Big 3!"
- You've hit the "Econ Holy Grail", or the "UW Trinity" if you will!
- Don't waste your blessed RNG by saving up stones for another UW, when you could be dumping your stones into the BEST 3 UWs for really good IMMEDIATE gains!
- I'll provide more details on how to spend your stones on these UWs shortly.
What to do if you unlock SL and/or CL before you have GT, BH, & DW?
- Don't touch them!
- Seriously!
- You're better off using lab time on other labs than Spotlight Coin Bonus lab
- Without upgrading SL Angle, your Spotlight will only cover 8.3% of the screen at a time.
- This is another multiplier added to your arsenal, but it requires significantly more stone investment to make it as effective as the others.
- Other labs will be more impactful until later when you're ready to invest stones into SL.
- I'll talk more about when the time is right to start upgrading SL.
- Chain Lightning is unlikely to provide you with as much benefit as other upgrades.
- IF you have a Dimensional Core (DC) module, an argument can be made toward upgrading Chain Lightning.
- This will help you perform better in tournaments, thereby helping you earn more stones for your other UWs.
- My argument is that focusing on Econ will help you in both tournaments AND farming runs, while CL won't help you in farming runs until end-game.
- I don't have experience with CL below Champion League though, so take my advice with a grain of salt.
- I'll cover CL later in this guide for when you want to work on upgrading your Chain Lightning!
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With GT, BH, & DW Unlocked, it is time to start prepping for "The Great Syncs"
------------------------------
Step #2 - Prepare for "The 1st Great Sync!"
NOTE for Multiverse Nexus (MVN) owners! I recommend reading all of the sections on "The Great Syncs" because it is useful information, but there will be a section on how this all changes if you have the MVN & decide to use it to simplify this part of your progression.
- Even with MVN, you'll want to get GT, BH, & DW synced 1:1:1 so that you're not stuck having to keep MVN equipped all of the time.
- There's a very good chance that MVN won't always be your best Core Module, and you'll want the flexibility of swapping off of it
- Higher rarity sub effects from your modules can be incredibly strong for econ.
- Trust me on this - I'm speaking from experience lol.
- MVN is an incredible tool to use while lowering the cooldowns though. If you have MVN, I highly recommend using it while getting GT & DW synced with BH (Even if you only have an Epic MVN).
- More details on how to upgrade with MVN after Step #5.
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General info
Lowering the cooldowns of Golden Tower & Death Wave to match Black Hole's cooldown is an incredible way to boost your economy because it MULTIPLIES all of their coin bonuses (GT x BH x DW). However, it is EXPENSIVE:
- Lowering GT's cooldown to 3m20s costs 910 stones
- Lowering DW's cooldown to 3m20s costs 800 stones
Saving up those stones requires a lot of time (or money lol), and it is important to have a strategy in place so you don't hinder your economy progression while saving up the stones for these upgrades.
Unless you have the Multiverse Nexus (MVN) module, DO NOT upgrade GT's & DW's cooldowns 1 level at a time!
- If GT & DW are at 5m00s and BH is at 3m20s, they are already at a 3:2 sync!
- BH fires 3x for every 2x that GT and/or DW fire
- This is the 3rd best sync in the game, and is actually REALLY good!
- Not as good as 1:1 or 2:1, but still REALLY good!
- If you upgrade their cooldowns 1 level at a time, the sync will immediately be ruined and you'll be missing out on MASSIVE econ until they're down to 3m20s to be 1:1 synced with BH
- This is why you should be saving the 910 stones & 800 stones to upgrade GT's & DW's durations 10 levels at a time (or until they are synced, if cooldowns got upgraded & the sync is messed up).
- It is most efficient to save 910 stones for GT 1st, and save 800 stones for DW later because GT's sync with BH is significantly more impactful than DW's sync.
- I'll provide specific thresholds to reach before each sync in order to optimize progression.
- If you've already upgraded GT's, DW's, or BH's cooldown, these syncs will be more expensive, but are still VERY worth it. I listed some advice in the Pre-Guide FAQs & General Advice section if this is you.
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Syncing for "Long-Term Gains" vs Upgrading Your UWs for "Immediate Gains"
Syncing GT & DW with BH is undeniably one of the best things you can do for your econ growth. But the question of "when to sync?" is a bit more complex.
I recommend considering the following:
- If your GT, BH, & DW are underdeveloped, syncing them will yield underwhelming results.
- A lot of people suggest syncing GT, BH, & DW as soon as they are unlocked!
- I followed this advice and found that my econ barely improved at all because my GT & BH were underdeveloped.
- The sync only multiplies your existing bonuses. If you don't have strong multipliers, syncing them will be underwhelming.
- Saving the stones to sync GT & DW with BH takes a LOT of time!
- Time that could be used to get immediate gains.
- A majority of upgrades in The Tower provide "diminishing returns".
- This means that the optimal progression path often comes from upgrading a lot of aspects of your tower or ultimate weapons, rather than by hard-focusing on a few aspects.
- This is further compounded by the fact that a lot of upgrades multiply the effects of other upgrades.
- This is true whether we're talking about Econ upgrades, Health/Wall upgrades, Damage upgrades, or nearly every other aspect of The Tower.
- In other words, hyper-focusing on 1 upgrade isn't as strong as working on multiple upgrades.
- Some times focusing on "Short-Term" upgrades, is actually better in the "Long-Run" because those immediate gains can be used to boost your economy faster than "Long-Term" upgrades.
- More econ ► stronger tower ► better at farming & tournaments ► more econ
- Eventually though, there is a turning point where the "Long-Term" upgrades are worth saving for over the "Short-Term" upgrades.
- In spite of all these other considerations, do not underestimate the power of "The Sync"!
- It is INSANELY strong, but ONLY IF your GT, BH, & DW are sufficiently developed!
- The goal of this entire guide is to provide a concrete plan to optimize progression while taking all of these points into consideration.
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Before "The 1st Great Sync"! - (285 stones)
The 1st priority is to work on upgrading your existing UWs to boost your progression NOW, and so that syncing GT with BH will actually be worth it later!
- This will also give you an immediate boost in progression, and make saving stones for the sync a bit easier.
- I recommend following this guide even if you're buying stone packs.
Golden Tower (GT) Upgrades - (189 stones)
- Cost: 115 stones
- Should be supplemented with GT Bonus Lab to get past 9.0x
- Not as high of a priority as GT Duration & BH Coin Bonus labs, but still worth doing, and is a higher priority than DW Coin Bonus at this point
- Do as much of this with the GT Duration Lab as possible
- For the purpose of this guide, I'll assume you'll buy 4 levels with stones with a lab level of 8
- GT Cooldown: DO NOT TOUCH - Keep at 5m 00s
- GT Labs:
- Definitely keep going beyond this if the cost & lab time aren't overwhelming.
- Prioritize GT Duration & BH Coin Bonus over this, but don't ignore this.
Black Hole (BH) Upgrades - (96 stones)
- It isn't as effective to upgrade this until after GT duration is 12s+ longer than BH duration
- An exception is if you've upgraded the BH Damage lab, and you're struggling with Protectors shot-gunning you. More duration will help you in this case.
- BH Cooldown: DO NOT TOUCH - Keep at 3m 20s
- BH Labs:
- Upgrade to MAX, or as high as you can until the cost or lab time look overwhelming
- Extra Black Hole: Unlock ASAP (worth saving coins for up to 5-7 days to unlock)
- See Black Hole Priority Labs section for info on other labs
Death Wave (DW) Upgrades - (0+ stones)
- Upgrade this as needed, but not more than that:
- Your 1st priority is to be able to reach your max DW Health Bonus during farming runs.
- To check, you can tap the "Health" in "Defense Upgrades" during your run, and look at the "Bonus from Death Wave".
- As long as it reaches your max by the end of your farming run, don't worry about spending stones on DW Damage.
- Your 2nd priority is to reach your DW Health Bonus during tournaments, though eventually this will be very difficult to do, and shouldn't be prioritized in Champions league or higher.
- It is unlikely you'll hit your max Health Bonus during Champion tournaments or higher.
- I have seen people do this in Champions using an devo build, but I didn't personally experiment with it, and did just fine in Champions without reaching max DW Health Bonus.
- If you're close to your max DW Health Bonus in tournaments, and you think increasing the damage would help, upgrade DW Damage at your own discretion.
- DW Effect Wave Quantity: 1#
- This can be ignored for now, but will be upgraded eventually.
- DW's trigger effect is so good that upgrading DW Quantity isn't really worth the stones for a while.
- Enemies hit by death wave will trigger the coin bonus no matter when they die.
- Getting hit by more than 1 effect wave will NOT stack the coin bonus. So upgrading this simply adds the effect to enemies who spawn for the next 4 seconds.
- DW Cooldown: DO NOT TOUCH - Keep at 5m 00s
- DW Labs:
- DW Health: Upgrade as high as you can until the cost or lab time look overwhelming.
- DW Coin Bonus: lvl 4+
- At this phase, DW Coin Bonus will help boost your econ right now, but preparing for the "1st Great Sync" is all about boosting GT & BH as much as possible.
- GT Duration, GT Bonus, and BH Coin Bonus are the priority right now, but don't completely ignore this lab either.
- DW Cell Bonus: Low priority unless elites are stacking during your farming runs. If elites are stacking, this is one of the highest priority labs you could work on.
- See Death Wave Priority Labs section for more info.
- DW Damage Amplifier & Armor Stripping: Don't upgrade for a long time.
- See Death Wave Priority Labs section for more info
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Once your UWs are properly upgraded, you're ready for "The 1st Great SAVE"
------------------------------
Step #3 - "The 1st Great SAVE!"
It is now time to stop spending stones, and start saving until you have 910 stones to sync Golden Tower (GT) with Black Hole (BH)!
- DO NOT UPGRADE GT COOLDOWN 1 level at a time, unless you have the Multiverse Nexus (MVN) module. More info on MVN before Step #6.
Things to do while saving 910 stones:
- You can multiply the effects of the sync by continuing to upgrade your UWs via labs.
- #1 priority is BH Coin Bonus lab
- #2 priority is GT Duration lab until GT duration is 12s+ longer than BH duration
- If it is 12s+ longer, it is still worth upgrading this, because once GT is synced with BH, upgrading BH's & GT's durations will be one of the most stone-efficient ways to further boost your econ.
- #3 priority is GT Bonus lab
- #4 priority is DW Coin Bonus lab
- How high you take your UW labs will depend on how overwhelming their cost & lab time is compared to other labs.
- Take them as high as feels right to you.
- Labs are about balancing the diminishing returns of many different labs, so it is important to follow your gut.
- Just keep in mind that syncing GT & BH will be more effective if their up-time & coin multipliers are more upgraded.
- Don't forget your other coin multipliers!
- The Coins / Kill lab is something I haven't talked about enough in this guide. You can also directly upgrade your coins/hour by upgrading Standard Perk bonus & Improve Trade-off Perks
- The whole reason we're syncing BH & GT is to take advantage of their coin multipliers.
- These other labs will multiply your BH & GT sync as well!
- You can "check" to see what your next UW options are!
- You can tap the "New Ultimate Weapon" button to see what your next 3 choices are once you have enough stones for them.
- You don't have to choose one. You can back out without choosing, but that choice will remain the same later one when it is time to pick.
- The 4th UW choice is at 300 stones
- The 5th UW choice is at 800 stones
- Even if Spotlight (SL) or Chain Lightning (CL) are options, it is more worth it to save up to sync GT with BH than it is to buy a new UW at this point.
- But it is helpful to know so you can make plans for later.
- Daydream of the magnificent econ boost you'll get once GT & BH are synced, because you've properly upgraded them!
Once you've saved 910 stones, upgrade GT's Cooldown 10 times at once, from 5m 00s to 3m 20s!
- This is a big accomplishment!
- I recommend sharing this occasion surrounded by loved ones.
- Make sure you film the event, and post it on social media!
- Consider reserving an ad spot in the newspaper to be hailed as a local hero!
- I am proud of you ♥
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With GT synced with BH, it is time to start prepping for "The 2nd Great Sync!"
------------------------------
Step #4 - Prepare for "The 2nd Great Sync!"
With GT synced with BH, "The 2nd Great Sync" is to sync Death Wave (DW) with GT & BH.
Important considerations:
- You JUST got GT & BH synced together, which are the best 2 UWs to have synced.
- Rather than immediately start saving stones to sync DW, you want to capitalize on "The 1st Great Sync's" power by using stones to upgrade:
- Do I need to say it again? Multiplicative bonuses multiply your econ!
- At 27s duration (including BH perk while farming) and a 3m 20s cooldown, they only have 13.5% up-time.
- Increasing that up-time is effectively another way to "multiply" your hard-earned bonuses!
- At 40m and only 1 BH, your BH coverage is less than 40% of the screen. (I didn't do the math because it depends on a few factors I don't know about your tower, but it is definitely less than half the screen for most players at this point).
- That means that the GT & BH sync is NOT hitting a majority of enemies!
- Increasing BH size is effectively another way to "multiply" your hard-earned bonuses!
- Syncing DW right now is not as effective as upgrading your GT & BH.
- DW's Coin Bonus lab is only part of what makes DW the 3rd best UW.
- The other 2 parts are the DW Health lab and DW Cells Bonus lab (once elites are stacking in farm runs).
- DW's Coin Bonus caps at 2.5x, which is much smaller than the 11x from BH & 20x+ from GT.
- The fact that it multiplies the other two is what makes this coin bonus strong!
- In other words, the strength of DW's coin bonus lies in how upgraded GT & BH are
- If you sync DW with an underdeveloped GT & BH, you'll have underwhelming results.
- By just unlocking DW, you immediately get a 1.5x coin bonus when it activates, which is 60% of DW's maximum coin bonus - WITHOUT LAB TIME.
- In other words, by just having DW unlocked, you've already unlocked a majority of its multiplier!
- It is still important to work on DW's Coin Bonus lab, but it doesn't scale as quickly as BH & GT, or go nearly as high.
- With DW at 5m 00s, and GT + BH at 3m 20s, you're at a 3:2:2 sync which is already REALLY good!
- Good enough that you can develop GT & BH for a while before it makes more sense to save the 800 stones that are required to sync them 1:1:1.
Upgrade GT & BH with Stones BEFORE saving for the DW Sync
- I'm about to list a LOT of stone & lab upgrades that are focused on improving the GT + BH sync in 3 different ways:
- Coin Bonus
- Up-Time (duration)
- Coverage (BH size)
- You'll want to get all of these upgrades BEFORE saving for the DW Sync, to maximize your progression.
- This will take time, but the consistent upgrades will give you a lot of econ growth along the way, which will feel super exciting!
- As a general rule, upgrade whichever is currently the cheapest as long as your GT duration is 12s+ longer than your BH's duration.
- There are mathematical ways to determine the exact best upgrade at every stage, but it depends on a lot of factors like BH size & quantity, your DW coin bonus lab, whether or not you have Spotlight upgraded with labs or stones, etc.
- Following this simple guideline of "cheapest as long as GT duration is 12s+ longer than BH's" is efficient enough lol.
Golden Tower (GT) Upgrades - (842 stones)
- Final upgrade will cost 138 stones
- Should be supplemented with GT Bonus Lab
- Still not as high of a priority as GT Duration & BH Coin Bonus labs
- Do as much of this with GT Duration Lab as possible
- For the purpose of this guide, I'll assume you'll buy 5 more levels with stones (9 total) with a lab level of 13
- Final upgrade will cost 77 stones
- GT Cooldown: DO NOT TOUCH - Keep at 3m 20s
- GT Labs:
- Definitely keep going beyond this if the cost & lab time aren't overwhelming.
- Prioritize GT Duration & BH Coin Bonus over this, but don't ignore it.
Black Hole (BH) Upgrades - (780 stones)
- Final upgrade will cost 86 stones
- BH Cooldown: DO NOT TOUCH - Keep at 3m 20s
- BH Labs:
- Upgrade to MAX, or as high as you can until the cost or lab time look overwhelming
- Extra Black Hole: Unlock ASAP (I'm going to stop mentioning this lab, and assume you have this unlocked from this point on)
Death Wave (DW) Upgrades - (0 stones)
- Upgrade as needed, but not more than that.
- More info in the "Prepare for 'The 2nd Great Sync!'" section
- DW Effect Wave Quantity: 1x
- Can be ignored until after DW is synced with GT & BH
- DW Cooldown: DO NOT TOUCH - Keep at 5m 00s
- DW Labs:
- GT's & BH's labs are still the priority right now, but this shouldn't be completely ignored.
- The priority will shift to this lab once it is time to start saving stones to sync DW with GT & BH.
- See "Death Wave Priority Labs" section for more info on DW's other labs.
------------------------------
Once your UWs are properly upgraded, you're ready for "The 2nd Great SAVE!"
------------------------------
Step #5 - "The 2nd Great SAVE!"
It is now time to save 800 stones to sync Death Wave (DW) with GT & BH!
- DO NOT UPGRADE DW COOLDOWN 1 level at a time, unless you have the Multiverse Nexus (MVN) module. More info on MVN after this section
Things to do while saving 800 stones:
- As long as GT Duration is 12s+ longer than BH Duration, we want to pause it to focus on Coin Bonus labs for GT, BH, & DW.
- Lab priority doesn't change too much, but we want to get GT Bonus & DW Coin Bonus "caught up" with BH Coin Bonus.
- Lab Guideline for GT, BH, & DW Coin Bonus:
- Upgrade GT Bonus 1-2 levels below BH Coin Bonus .
- Upgrade DW Coin Bonus 1-2 levels below GT Bonus.
- Upgrade BH Coin Bonus 1-2 levels.
- Repeat until all 3 are at lvl 20.
- The other advice in "Step #3 - 'The 1st Great SAVE!'" is applicable here, and is worth reading, or re-reading.
Once you've saved 800 stones, upgrade DW's Cooldown 10 times at once, from 5m 00s to 3m 20s!
- This is also a big accomplishment!
- You can invite your loved ones to join you for the event, but by now they might think you're weird for obsession over an "idle game" that isn't really idle until after several months of play-time.
- I am still proud of you though ♥
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With GT, BH, & DW synced, you can FINALLY play the game! (work on other UWs lol)
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Syncing is BETTER with MVN!
Multiverse Nexus (MVN) is a module that forces GT, BH, & DW to activate at the same time, but the cooldown will be their average cooldown +20s, +10s, +1s, or -10s depending on the rarity you have it at.
- If you have MVN, it is VERY worth using while you get GT, BH, & DW synced, even if all you have is an Epic MVN
- If your MVN is only Epic, but you have higher rarity core modules with better sub-effects, you'll want to prioritize upgrading GT & DW cooldowns more than upgrading the other stats, but you shouldn't completely ignore other upgrades while focusing only on GT & DW Cooldowns.
How MVN changes your upgrade path!
- It allows you to upgrade your GT & DW cooldowns alongside upgrading your other stats with stones
- In other words, you won't have to wait for immediate econ buffs with your stones.
- My general advice is to upgrade whichever is cheapest stone-wise, until they are at my recommended stats before moving on to unlocking your next UW (listed in the next section)
- DO NOT UPGRADE BH COOLDOWN, even though it is a cheap upgrade!
- You still want to focus on getting a 1:1:1 sync, even if you have an MVN
- MVN adds a time penalty until it is ancestral.
- Yes, that time penalty could be negated by upgrading BH cooldown, but you can also use those stones on other upgrades, and there are other reasons to get GT & DW synced with BH.
- Which modules you unlock is based on RNG.
- Some players won't get MVN for a long time.
- MVN likely won't always be your best-upgraded module, and you'll want to be able to take advantage of higher rarity sub-effects without losing your sync
- If you have an Ancestral MVN, you can ignore this advice lol.
------------------------------
Upgrade GT, BH, & DW with MVN equipped, until you have these stats:
Golden Tower (GT) Stone Upgrades
- Should be supplemented with GT Bonus Lab
- Do as much of this with GT Duration Lab as possible
Black Hole (BH) Stone Upgrades
- BH Size: 50m
- BH Duration: 25s
- BH Cooldown: DO NOT TOUCH - Keep at 3m 20s
Death Wave (DW) Stone Upgrades
- Upgrade as needed, but not more than that.
- More info in the "Prepare for 'The 2nd Great Sync!'" section
- DW Effect Wave Quantity: 1x
- Can be ignored until after DW is synced with GT & BH
GT, BH, & DW Labs
- Work on getting all of these labs to lvl 14-18+ (max them if that seems reasonable to you)
- BH Coin Bonus
- GT Duration
- GT Bonus
- DW Coin Bonus
- General guidelines on upgrade order:
- Upgrade BH Coin Bonus 1-2 levels
- Upgrade GT Duration to match BH Coin Bonus level
- Applicable until GT Duration is 12s+ longer than BH Duration
- Upgrade GT Bonus 1-2 levels below BH Coin Bonus
- Upgrade DW Coin Bonus 1-2 levels below GT Bonus
- Repeat until all 4 of these labs are at lvl 20
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With GT, BH, & DW synced, you can FINALLY play the game! (work on other UWs lol)
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Step #6 - The 4th Econ UW (Spotlight)
It is FINALLY time to start working on Spotlight (SL)!
- If you already have SL unlocked, it is now time to start SL Coin Bonus Lab.
- You want to prioritize this lab until it matches DW's Coin Bonus lab.
- Once SL Coin Bonus matches DW's Coin Bonus lab, your new UW lab priority is:
- Upgrade BH Coin Bonus 1-2 levels
- Upgrade GT Duration to match BH Coin Bonus level
- Applicable until GT Duration is 12s+ longer than BH Duration
- Upgrade GT Bonus 1-2 levels below BH Coin Bonus
- Upgrade DW Coin Bonus 1-2 levels below GT Bonus
- Match SL Coin Bonus lvl with DW Coin Bonus lvl
- Repeat until all 5 are at lvl 20
- If you don't have SL, start saving the stones to unlock your next UW while you work on GT's, BH's, & DW's econ labs (or other tower upgrades).
- Unless you already have 5+ UWs and you're still missing SL.
- In this case, it is likely more worth it for you to focus on upgrading GT, BH, DW, and Chain Lightning (if you have it) for a bit before saving 1250 stones for your 6th UW.
- If this is you, continue reading the guide to help you make an informed plan for when you think it'll be worth saving for SL.
- If you have Chain Lightning (CL) and not SL, I recommend moving onto Step #7 and start upgrading CL to help you perform better in tournaments.
- If you have a Dimension Core (DC) mod, and you're in Champions League, this is arguably the preferred upgrade path over upgrading SL at this point in time.
- Some will argue that it is optimal even if you're below Champions.
- Come back to this section later, when you have SL unlocked, as I won't be repeating this information later.
- If your next UW choice is between CL and SL, I personally recommend picking SL.
- A developed SL will help you with both Econ & Tournaments, whereas CL will only help you in Tournaments until late-game.
- Speaking as someone who didn't unlock CL until late-Champions League, you don't need CL to do well in Champions.
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We've waited to upgrade SL this long because it requires a lot of stone investment before it starts performing well. But now that GT, BH, & DW are developed, investing stones in SL will give us another multiplier to take your econ even further, thanks to its Coin Bonus Lab!
- The 1st step is to catch SL up to DW in terms of coin generation
- Any additional upgrades will take SL even further than DW for coins/hour!
- We will be ignoring the stone upgrade for SL Bonus, because it is a damage multiplier. SL gets its Coin Bonus from it's lab, not from spending stones on SL Bonus
- This damage bonus isn't worth investing stones into, until after your SL has a large angle & quantity, and you start needing damage in Champions League for tournaments.
Step-by-step process to catch your SL up to DW for coin generation - (1770 stones)
- SL Angle: 30° ► 31° (5 stones)
- SL Quantity: 1 ► 2 (375 stones)
- SL Angle: 31° ► 35° (130 stones)
- It is efficient to have a "Spotlight Break" & put more stones into GT, BH, & DW at this point. More details in the next section.
- SL Quantity: 2 ► 3 (850 stones)
- SL Angle: 35° ► 40° (410 stones)
This is about when my SL started generating as many coins/hour as my DW with an equally leveled Coin Bonus Lab for both of them. The exact turning point may be different for your tower though, since I made a lot of mistakes along the way & had a weird build lol (one reason I wanted to make this guide lol).
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The "Spotlight Break" - (2155 stones)
Saving 850 stones for a 3rd spotlight can take some time. It is a good idea to put some more stones into GT, BH, & DW in order to make "the save" more worth it.
- As a general rule, upgrade the following stats starting with the cheapest upgrades (other than cooldowns, which should all be done at the same time if you don't have MVN)
Golden Tower (GT) Stone Upgrades - (499 stones)
- The final upgrade will cost 250 stones
- Should be supplemented with GT Bonus Lab
- Do as much of this with GT Duration Lab as possible
- For the purpose of this guide, I'll assume you'll buy 1 more level with stones (10 total) with a lab level of 16
Black Hole (BH) Stone Upgrades - (668 stones)
- Final upgrade will cost 131 stones
Death Wave (DW) Stone Upgrades - (200 stones)
- Upgrade as needed, but not more than that.
- More info in the "Prepare for the 2nd Great Sync!" section.
- DW Effect Wave Quantity: 1x ► 2x
GT, BH, & DW Sync Upgrade - (788 stones)
- Duration of GT, BH, & DW: 3m 20s ► 3m 10s
- GT: 190 stones
- BH: 10 stones
- DW: 168 stones
- Total cost: 368 stones
- These should all be upgraded at the same time, unless you're using MVN
- GT, BH, & DW:, BH, & DW: 3m 10s ► 3m 00s
- GT: 208 stones
- BH: 28 stones
- DW: 184 stones
- Total cost: 420 stones (nice)
- These should all be upgraded at the same time, unless you're using MVN
Once you're done with these "Spotlight Break" upgrades, finish catching SL up to DW:
- SL Quantity: 2 ► 3 (850 stones)
- SL Angle: 35° ► 40° (410 stones)
- Final upgrade will cost 104 stones
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When to upgrade damage?!
- This really depends on your build, but I am a firm believer in focusing on effective health (eHP) builds until you're in Champions League, where damage starts to become more helpful.
- eHP build are used for farming for a long time, even after you reach Legends League, because eHP provides more value than Damage does with less investment.
- By the time I reached this point of progression with my econ UWs, I was firmly in the middle of Champions league, and decided to make some upgrades to damage
- At this point I got DW Damage to x66, and Spotlight Bonus to x17.2
- DW Damage did barely anything for me.
- SL was more helpful since I had invested so much in its coverage, but it still didn't benefit me much in tournament placement.
- Keep in mind that your UW damage scales off your tower's damage.
- The more upgraded your damage stats & labs are, the more "worth it" it is to upgrade your UW damage.
- At this point, going for Chain Lightning (CL) will provide a significantly improved upgrade to your damage than DW or SL.
- Though, their effects to multiply each other!
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With 4 well-invested Econ UWs, it is time for some LIGHTNING (that chains, cause that's cool)!
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Step #7 - Your 1st Damage UW (Chain Lightning)
PRE-REQUISITE: You need a Dimension Core (DC) module to make Chain Lightning (CL) effective.
- DC provides 4 MASSIVE benefits to Chain Lightning:
- It gives you a 60% chance of hitting the initial target
- Without it, CL will only hit secondary targets, meaning you'll miss out on a ton of damage on big threats like elites & bosses
- It doubles your Shock Chance
- Enemies that are "shocked" take more damage from ALL sources, and this doubles the chance that will happen
- It doubles your Shock Multiplier
- Increasing this multiplier increases the amount of damage that enemies take from ALL sources, which means they'll take 2x damage from everything (including other UWs)
- If Shock is applied to the same enemy, the shock multiplier will add up to a max of 5x-20x (depending on the rarity of your DC)
- This is another 2x-20x multiplier on how much damage enemies can take from ALL sources!
- Without DC, CL won't be nearly as effective, and isn't worth investing in at this point.
- You can still upgrade it if you want it ready for when you get a DC, but module RNG is notoriously awful, and you shouldn't "count on it" happening any time soon.
- Even just an Epic DC can make CL worth investing in.
With a DC equipped, it is FINALLY time to start working on Chain Lightning (CL)!
- If you already have Chain Lightning, it is now time to start the CL labs!
- Complete the CL Shock lab to unlock the Shock Chance & Shock Multiplier labs
- I recommend upgrading CL Shock Change & Multiplier at the same time, but if you only have 1 lab slot, alternate between the two.
- Prioritize getting Shock Multiplier to lvl 14 (max level), and Shock Chance to lvl 15+ (lab times start scaling fairly fast after that)
- If you have reached Wave 60 on Tier 16, you'll unlock the Chain Thunder & Lightning Amplifier-Scatter labs
- Both of these are also worth upgrading if you can, but will be more worth upgrading once your CL is better developed
- If you don't have CL, start saving the stones to unlock your next UW while you work on your other labs.
- Your CL acts as a multiplier of your tower's damage, so working on your damage labs may be a priority, or you could focus on econ/health labs that will give you better return on your investment until after you have CL.
- If CL isn't an option as your 5th UW:
- Pick Chrono Field & consider working on its labs for later.
- It is considered the 6th best UW to invest in & you'll eventually want its labs as high as possible.
- You could also work on other upgrades & save these labs for later.
- If Chrono Field also isn't an option, grab Smart Missiles, and save it for later.
- If you have 5 UWs and CL isn't an option as your 6th, it is likely more worth it for you to focus on upgrading your existing UWs for a bit before saving 1750 stones to unlock it.
- If you're missing Chrono Field, I recommend grabbing it as your 6th & start working on its labs & consider upgrading it for more crowd control.
- If you already have Chrono Field, rather than spending 1250 stones to buy Smart Missiles, it is likely more worth it for you to spend those 1250 stones are upgrading your current UWs.
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At this point, your econ UW upgrades are going to cost a LOT of stones, and upgrading CL will help you earn those stones faster in tournaments!
- The 1st step is to increase how consistently your CL is hitting enemies
- We want the "shock" status applied to as many enemies as possible, and as frequently as possible!
- This will even boost the damage enemies take from your tower & other UWs.
- The 2nd step is to increase damage.
- Once enemies are consistently getting "shocked", increasing CL Damage adds another multiplier to your damage!
- Until then, CL Damage is less impactful than CL Chance & Quantity.
1st Upgrades - (358 stones)
2nd Upgrades - (907 stones)
3rd Upgrades - Time for Damage!
- CL Damage: 32x ► 309x or higher
To be completely honest, upgrading my CL to these levels is what I am working on right now. I don't have experience with further upgrades, but here's what I've seen people suggest on this subreddit:
- Some people stop upgrading CL damage, and instead start upgrading Smart Missiles (SM) when they want more damage.
- Smart Missiles have significantly higher potential for damage than CL does, though Smart Missiles requires a lot of investment before it overtakes CL.
- Smart Missiles still takes advantage of the damage multiplier that you get with "shock", so it is still worth upgrading CL before Smart Missiles.
- Some people take CL damage up to 1094x or higher (1447+ stones) for more immediate gains.
- I don't know when it becomes effective to max CL quantity (400 stones), or CL Chance (1120 stones)
- But if it is like anything else in the game, these upgrades have diminishing returns and it will be a while before maxing them becomes worth the cost.
Do not farm with Chain Lightning on!
- At least, not if you’re farming with a Health build.
- Chain Lightning will kill a lot of your enemies before they get scooped up into Black Hole, meaning you’ll get a lot less coins/hour.
- You can turn CL back on when you’re near your farming run to get a little bit further into the run without dying.
- The same can be said with other end-game UWs that don’t boost your econ.
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With CL well-upgraded, it is time for more econ!
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Step #8 - The finishing Touches
At this point, you'll have 5 very well-developed Ultimate Weapons to build your econ, and a really good understanding of how they each benefit your tower! But this guide isn't quite done yet.
- While you'll want to get all of the upgrades in this section done before moving on, these aren't listed in any particular order!
- Go with whichever upgrades you feel like going for the most
Max Your UW Labs!
- If you haven't already, maxing your UW labs should be a priority
- An exception is the GT Bonus Lab which should be taken up to lvl 20 as well. But it has 5 additional levels that take a relatively long time to do.
- Lab Upgrade priority order:
- GT Duration
- BH Coin Bonus
- GT Bonus
- SL Coin Bonus
- DW Coin Bonus
- Other labs to balance these with, if you haven't been:
- Coins / Kill Bonus
- Improve Trade-off Perks
- Standard Perk Bonus
Lower your GT, BH, & DW Cooldowns to 2m 30s
- As always, upgrade all 3 at a time, unless you have MVN
- Keep them synced 1:1:1, even though you may be tempted to go for Perma-BH
- I'll talk about this in the next section.
- 2m 30s (or 150s) is a really great stopping point for now because it is easy to sync with Golden Bot at 100s (3:2 sync), which by this time could start being a decent additional coin multiplier.
Some important Econ UW upgrades
- Pump up the GT Bonus to 20x+!
- With everything else upgraded, every GT bonus will give you a nice econ boost
- The final GT bonus levels cost a ton of stones, but it a bonus of 20x should be relatively doable with GT bonus lab at lvl 20+
- Increase BH & GT Duration to 33s+ & 45s+!
- With a max GT duration lab, chances are your BH might be finishing prematurely, even with the 12s BH perk!
- Get GT duration up to 45s & BH up to 33s so they both have a lot of stamina during your farming runs ;)
- The exact value of BH size to get 100% coverage will depend on your tower range, and a few other factors (orb position, size, etc.)
- In general though, a BH size of 60m-64m will "cover you"
- If it isn't, take it further or mess with your tower range.
- Prep SL for a 4th Spotlight!
- A 4th spotlight costs 2500 and won't make sense for a while.
- But you can upgrade your SL Angle to 45° before it becomes more cost-efficient to save stones for the 4th spotlight.
- At this point, this is a good idea to help not only with econ, but also with damage in Legend tournaments.
Consider working on other UWs
- Especially if you've reached Legendary League by this point, you're going to want more damage & Crowd Control (CC).
- For more damage, upgrade your CL until you're happy with it. Then you can unlock & upgrade Smart Missiles for a very long time before it will make sense to go for Poison Swamp.
- For more CC, unlock & upgrade Chrono Field (CF) until you're happy with it. Then you can unlock Inner Land Mines, which is helpful for stunning bosses & other enemies who get too close before you can kill them.
- If you're not in Legends League yet, continuing to work on econ & CL is likely your best option.
- However, some people consider it worth transitioning to hybrid while you’re in top 10 in Champion league or higher.
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Step #9 - End-Game Econ UW Upgrades!
Take this section with a very big grain of salt. I've only done one of the upgrades I'll cover in this section (Permanent BH), and most of my advice comes from a collection of reddit comments I've read lol. This section is meant for you to consider when the rest of your tower is properly invested & you're considering how to further boost your econ with UWs.
Upgrade Your Other UWs
- The upgrades in this section are end-game upgrades that will require a lot of stones.
- Getting the stones to make these investments will be much easier as you unlock and develop the 4 UWs I didn't talk much about in this guide:
- Chrono Field
- Smart Missiles
- Inner Land Mines
- Poison Swamp
- Eventually most players make the transition from eHP to a build that relies a lot more on damage & crowd control during farming runs.
- Upgrading these UWs will help you get further in your farming runs, which will also improve your econ!
- By the time you get this far, you'll absolutely want to be working on your other UWs even if they aren't typically considered "Econ UWs".
Take the GT, BH, & DW Sync to 1m 40s
- 1m 40s is the max level for GT & DW, but BH can be taken further to 0m 50s
- Lowering these cooldowns is one of the best ways for you to take further advantage of all of the stones you've invested in these UWs.
- Somewhere along this journey, it will make sense to "De-Sync" BH from GT & DW, and go for Permanent BH (perma-BH) - which is still technically a sync lol.
- BH will still be firing 100% of the time, so even if it has a different cooldown than GT & DW, it will still provide the bonus you'd get if they were synced, while also getting crowd control.
- Personally, I went for perma-BH too soon, so I don't know when it becomes optimal, but I'll provide insight in the next section.
Permanent BH (perma-BH)
- Once you reach this point in the game, the cost of getting your BH to be up 100% of the time actually might not sound too daunting.
- Why perma-BH is so good
- With 100% up-time, the only enemies that can deal damage to your tower are Bosses & Elites.
- This will increase your survivability, helping you go much further while farming, or in tournaments.
- Keep in mind that you won't have the +12s BH perk in tournaments, so BH won't have 100% uptime without the Galaxy Compressor (GComp) module.
- If BH is firing 100% of the time, it doesn't have to be "synced" with GT & DW because it'll always be firing when GT & DW will be.
- The 11x coin bonus from BH will always be applied, and will multiply the effects of your SL's coin bonus 100% of the time.
- Getting perma-BH "too early" can DECREASE your coins/hour
- I went for perma-BH too early, and saw a 30% decrease in my coins/hour, even though I was surviving more waves while farming.
- If you get perma-BH too soon, there won't be as many enemies on the field when GT & DW activate, which decreases your coins/hour.
- The way to counter-act this is to lower GT & DW cooldowns enough that them activating more frequently counteracts there being fewer enemies on the field!
- Though the exact turning point may vary for your build & modules.
- Taking their cooldowns lower will further boost your econ with Black Hole
- If you made this mistake like I did, your best option is to use MVN during farm runs while you upgrade GT & DW cooldowns until this stops hurting your coins/hour.
- The good news is that perma-bh is still super useful in tournaments & milestone runs!
- The bad news is that you might be stuck on an under-leveled MVN for a while lol.
- There are 3 ways to do get perma-BH
- You can max BH Cooldown at 50s and duration at 38s using stones
- This is super expensive, and not typically considered "worth it", since you'll eventually want a highly developed Galaxy Compressor module for both farming and tournaments either way.
- With a well-upgraded Galaxy Compressor (GComp) module, and a high enough recovery package %, your UW cooldowns decreases anywhere from 10-20s depending on the rarity.
- I wouldn't know... despite getting 46 unique modules, I still haven't gotten a single GComp... and yes, I'm very salty about it lol.
- This seems to be the most cost-effective way to get a perma-BH, especially because GComp is considered one of, if not THE best generators modules for farming
- It is super useful in tournaments as well because it also reduces the cooldowns of your offensive UWs.
- Without a GComp, I maxed out BH's Cooldown (the final 5 upgrades only costs 1130 stones), and got BH's duration to 34s.
- Then I used a Legendary Mod that isn't MVN or DC, and got 2 legendary sub effects
- +2s BH Duration
- -2s BH Cooldown
- This matched my BH's cooldown & duration at 48s with the +12s BH Duration perk that is available in farming runs.
- This isn't as cost-effective as using Galaxy Compressor (GComp), but when the RNG Gods hat you, you need to adapt.
Unlock Card Masteries
- You unlock Card Masteries at T16, Wave 100.
- These cost stones to buy, which makes them competing upgrades with UWs.
- I'm not going to go into details in card masteries, but thanks to MrSnufflewumps for the following suggestions:
- Card Masteries are likely worth it before upgrading to your 4th spotlight
- The following Card Masteries provide good value even without the econ to upgrade their labs:
- Super Tower - 1000 stones
- 35% of Super Tower’s bonus gets added to UWs. Additionally, Super Tower’s cooldown decreases -3s
- Can be upgraded to -30s with labs
- 1.4x damage multiplier.
- Up to 5x with labs
- Wave Accelerator - 1000 stones
- Increases spawn rate acceleration by 110%
- Up to 200% with labs
- Enemy Balance - 1000 stones
- 6% chance to spawn double Elites.
- Up to 60% with labs
- Intro sprint is active for 1.8x more waves
- Up to 18x with labs
- These Card Masteries are likely worth unlocking before unlocking Poison Swamp and Inner Landmines.
Unlock & upgrade 4th Spotlight
- The 4th spotlight costs 2500 stones, which is a steep investment, but with an angle of 45°, your SL will provide 50% coverage
- Any upgrades beyond this will improve this further!
- I don't have enough experience to know when this is worth it, but I've been told by macaronianddeeez that this is worth going for before unlocking every UW & GT+ (Golden Tower Plus):
- A 4th spotlight provides accelerated growth faster than GT+, which isn’t super impactful until GT is very developed.
- This is true for both boosting SL’s econ boosts, as well as its offensive bonuses in Legends.
Golden Tower Plus (GT+)
- After you unlock every UW, you can spend stones to buy Golden Tower Plus (GT+)
- The general advice on GT+ that I see on the sub is to wait until you have a well-developed GT before going for this.
- A poorly developed GT will result in a GT+ that provides disappointing results.
- GT+ increases the coins earned after GT finishes, depending on 2 factors:
- How upgraded your GT+ level is
- There are 10 levels starting at 300 stones, and scaling up to 1650 stones
- How many enemies are killed while GT is active.
- Only enemies that spawned while GT was active count.
- Enemies that were alive before GT activates don't increase the bonus.
- Because of how GT+ works, you want a GT with a really high duration so you have as much time to spawn & kill enemies as possible.
Permanent GT (perma-GT)
- Maxed GT cooldown
- Ancestral MVN with DW & GT cooldown sub effects
- Ancestral GComp with a high enough package chance to consistently lower UW cooldowns enough
- A long enough GT Duration to fill the gaps
- I don't know the specifics on package chance or GT duration required to make this happen, but I'm sure you'll be able to figure this out if you're at this point in the game lol.
Max GT Bonus
- This is self explanatory, but I felt like I couldn't ignore it after all of the talk about GT Cooldown & Duration.
- The last 3 upgrades will cost 4050 stones total, but if you have a perma-GT & GT+, this will take your econ further.
- Perhaps it is even worth it to max GT bonus before those upgrades.
Take Death Wave Further!
- Because DW affects enemies no matter when they die, increasing DW Quantity isn't a cost-effective way of increasing econ early on.
- Once you increase GT, DW, & BH up-time a lot though, it starts to make sense to upgrade DW quantity
- This is especially true once you transition to a damage build while farming, because Elite enemies won't be stacking as much because you'll be killing them too fast to get hit by DW.
- DW damage doesn’t make a lot of sense to upgrade for a LONG time.
- By this point, you'll want more damage, and if your DW cooldown is maxed, or close to it, it will provide its damage boosts more frequently!
- So upgrading DW Damage might actually make sense, though I suspect other damage UWs still are a higher priority.
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Closing Remarks!
Every tower is different! Every player is different. If you want to deviate from this guide, please do! The whole point of playing The Tower is to have fun! Personally, I find it fun to maximize econ as efficiently as possible, but it is completely fine if that sounds boring to you!
Feel free to share this with others! I don't even care if you don't give me credit lol, though I would appreciate it. I don't even care for upvotes lol. I made this for fun & to help others. Not for clout or internet points lol.
Thanks for reading! Happy Tower-ing! lol
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TL;DR
Number go up make brain happy.