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Survive
Megabonk later tiers
Sources checked World and shrine pages cited on the maps and shrines guides, plus the quest-slot notes on the unlock index. No unpublished damage thresholds.
Later tiers kill you with the clock and with density, not with a secret item. Kill the stage boss before the swarm takes the map.
Desert is more open and adds sandstorms. Graveyard adds a crypt timer. Both punish stopping to loot.
Extra weapon and tome slots, Banish, and Skip are menu purchases. They are how a long run stays on one plan.
Greed Shrines and the Cursed Tome add difficulty on purpose. Take them when you are ahead, not when you are coping.
By the time Forest Tier 1 is boring, the failure mode changes. You have enough damage to clear a quiet wave and not enough plan for the moment the stage decides to end. These are habits, not a loadout.
The boss is a deadline
The world wiki says each stage boss has to die before a time limit, or a Final Swarm escalates, and that the teleporter shows up after the boss if the tier lets you go on. Play the stage as a path toward that fight. Pots and shrines are detours you can afford only while the wave is dying in one pass.
If you are still hunting a weapon unlock that needs a weird condition (no-hit boss, no items, every shrine charged), do that on a tier you already overpower. Do not combine it with your first Desert clear.
Desert, specifically
- You are easier to see, and so is everything else. There is less forest to break line of sight. Keep moving even when the screen looks empty.
- Sandstorms drop vision. The wiki says a Desert run includes at least one. Do not start a Charge Shrine at the moment the storm begins unless that charge is the Tornado task and you meant to do it.
- Tumbleweeds are a weapon drop, not scenery. If you need the Katana or the Shotgun, break them. The listed chance on both weapon indexes is about 5%, so one weed is not a plan.
Graveyard, specifically
Leave the crypt when the timer says to leave. Free chests in the crypt are how people meet Spooky Steve before they have a build that can fight him. Four coffin keys, then the door. Big Bob is the Scythe fight, not a surprise you should meet while reading the map for the first time.
A Balance shrine, if your Graveyard has one, is a permanent trade. Read the penalty. A Steam guide describes the penalty as stacking. That is enough reason to skip a trade you do not understand.
Menu power that only shows up later
Once quests let you buy them, use the tools in this order of usefulness:
- Another weapon slot or tome slot, if your build is actually two weapons or three stats. An empty slot you fill with a random offer is not a power spike.
- Banish, so a tome you will never take stops appearing.
- Skip and Refresh, when the three offers are all wrong and you can afford to see another set.
- Toggler, if a bought item is ruining the pool. The unlock index prices it at 4 Silver after 40 unlock purchases. Check the label.
Silver Tome is still a between-run stat. In a Tier 3 boss race it is the offer you take only if the other two are worse.
Difficulty you opted into
Turn one on when ordinary waves disappear and the boss still has a margin. Turn them off, by not clicking, when you are already spending the stage on the edge of the screen.
What “strong enough” feels like
This site will not give you a target DPS. The readable tests are: a normal wave dies without you dodging for the whole timer, a Charge Shrine can be finished without leaving the circle, and the stage boss dies with time left on the first try of that tier. If one of those is false, another projectile tome will not fix a map you are pathing badly. Go back one tier, buy the slot you are missing, and run it again.
Sources and last check
World and shrine pages cited on the maps and shrines guides, plus the quest-slot notes on the unlock index. No unpublished damage thresholds. Where a number comes from a community write-up and this site has not confirmed it in a current client, the page says Unverified.