Dank, the fastest way to advance is to scale back to a floor where you can one-shot the entire enemy wave. It sounds counterintuitive, but it's proven by all the top players. In order for it to be "worth it" to go from 1-shot clears to 2-shot, for example, the wave would have to give double experience, and that's just not how progression scaling works in this game.
3) Debuffs are made irrelevant as early as mid-game by the fact that a one-shot enemy wave wipe at a faster rate of speed than their attack speed (easily accomplished, and far below maximum speedcap) disallows their ability to ever attack in the first place. If the enemy cannot make use of its stats, then the enemy's stats -or lack thereof- become factually and objectively irrelevant.
The Bard is okay for early-game boosts, but its mythical status as a game-ender simply does not stand up to anyone who has amassed enough IP to place on the leaderboard, and even in the total absence of IP it is not only not the only source of debuffs, but also a fraction of the effectiveness of any multicast buffer. But...again...players are encouraged to do their own testing. We have Export File, so we can try anything without penalty. It's how I got this far.
On the subject of debuffing enemies, there are a few points to consider:
1) The Bard is not the only class which can do this. Players should explore other class options and discover this for themselves.
2) Debuffs, like buffs, do not benefit from the listed percentage bonuses when Imbuing a class, and certainly cannot compete against the use of Challenge points when enhancing gold/exp gains. Challenge boosts enemy stats with a percentage while the debuffs remain at their base values. Once a player explores the game to a point where IP become relevant, the endgame essentially removes buffs and debuffs from the equation due to this scaling, as well as the fact that endgame base stats can easily exceed the maximum available value of any buff -even multicast.
Multicast will always overpower AoE single-cast. There is no other outcome. If you aren't biased, you'll do the experiment yourself. That, or have a look at the leaderboard. ^_^
Finally cracked it. The Ghost kills itself pretty fast without enough Defense and HP, but there's another way to reduce the effect: Imbued Class. The way the buff works, adding to its first subskill provides a negative amount of Min/Max Power which scales at an already ridiculous rate. If you DO NOT spend on ATK/SKL and Rating increases on the buff, the amplification of Power you get from Imbued Class can quickly overtake the self-damaging quality and render it pointless.
With one of the highest hybrid stat scaling in the game, it isn't just possible to solo Ghost; with Imbue Class, it becomes dead easy.
Finally made it to Stavrium. I've got a pretty good setup, I think, but configuring the upgrades correctly is a bear. I'm generating 940Qa/t, but can only sell ~338Qa/t of it. Naturally, I'm focusing my money on capacitor upgrades, but it still takes a while. Maybe I should focus on exotic particles and get those prestige upgrades.
There are a few things which are not clear, just from a cursory examination of the in-game tutorial, and I'd love to see a diagnostic or experimental mode (as others have suggested) to test out new builds.
Apart from that, I gave it four stars. I'm an avid Minecraft (Tekkit) player and am always trying to optimize my reactor builds, so this hit home for me. I think it's different enough that the IC2 team shouldn't have a problem with it. Honestly, if this is an homage to their work, they should be both proud and impressed.
Planning, waiting, planning, waiting, planning and waiting. It's far more amusing than it should be.
Lastly, I'd like to point out that this is the only Idler I've seen where you can actually fail. I like that. It puts some challenge into it. Sure, it's frustrating when the whole thing goes kablooey, but at least there's a reward for not screwing up.
 "Endless Dream"){kind=icon}
 "Heroes Tactics"){kind=icon}
 "There is no game"){kind=icon}
 "Reactor Incremental"){kind=icon}