The flagship feature of the new 1.0 version of Clicker Heroes is Transcendence. It’s a meta-version of ascending. When you transcend, you sacrifice all of your hero souls, ancients, relics, and gold, keeping only rubies, mercenaries, and clan immortal damage. You gain ancient souls which are spent on Outsiders, the new meta-ancients. This guide will help you determine when to transcend and help you make the necessary preparations to get you back up and running quickly.
The Flow of Transcendence
The idea behind transcendence is to start over with a generous boost every time your progress comes to a halt. In previous version of Clicker Heroes, the end game was all about grinding a small range of levels for a very small gain each time. In version 1.0, transcendence changes all that. Once you’re making very small gains from one ascension to the next, it’s probably time to transcend and do it all over again; progressing farther and farther each time you transcend.
Earning Ancient Souls
Each ancient soul costs about 58% more than the one more it, which puts a soft cap on how many you’ll earn each time you transcend. When you transcend, you’ll spend several ascensions building back up to where you were previously until you start earning ancient souls. Once you get to that point, you’ll earn several ancient souls quickly until it starts to slow down. Which brings us to the #1 question…
When Should You Transcend?
While the number of AS you’ll gain when you transcend is a useful piece of information, the most important thing you need to look at is how long the next one will take. On the Outsider tab, it will tell you “Next AS in X HS”. Divide X by the number of HS you get in one ascension (use the Quick Ascension amount for a rough estimate) and you can estimate how long it will take to earn the next AS.
If you can get another AS in one ascension, then you should try to earn it before transcending. On the other hand, if the next AS will take 4 or more ascensions, then it’s a good time to transcend. It is up to your own personal preference whether to do 2-3 more ascensions for 1 more AS.
Preparations For Transcendence
Having 50 rubies and a couple of clan rewards available will help get you off the ground a lot quicker after you transcend. You can use the 50 rubies to buy a Quick Ascension at the start, and you can save two days’ worth of clan rewards to collect as well – the current day, and the previous day. This will give you a total of 15 Hero Souls toward purchasing Siyalatas/Libertas or Juggernaut (depending on if you use an active or idle play style.)
In addition to rubies and clan rewards, saving gold quests from mercenaries can help boost you through the slow points while you’re leveling to 100 the first time after you transcend. HS and relic quests are also helpful after you transcend, and their value will increase the longer you wait before you hand them in. If you’re a strictly idle player, then the gold quests can also be saved for later as well.
Leveling Outsiders & Phandoryss Heroes
While the optimal strategy is still being debated, this Simple Rules of Thumb Calculator provides a good enough outsider build for anyone who isn’t a mathematician. Phandoryss is costly to level because of the exponential growth that Transcendence Power provides. While the other outsiders provide additive bonuses, Phan gives a multiplicative bonus. The farther into the game you get, the more this is noticeable.