**The-Pink-Pillars** aka **ThorStrike** Based on the 7-pillars Faction: Neutral Spells: Lightning Strike, Fairy Chanting Don’t Build Deep mines, Alchemist labs, Monastery or Labyrinths. **T1:** Strong Currency, Druidic Vocabulary, Starmetal Alloy, oversized legends **T2:** Cyclopean Strength, Earthly Bond, overgrowth, Fairy workers **T3:** Battlehammers,swarm of Fairies, professional assassins, Titan Obelisk **Fairy blood.** Harlequin – 343% This jumped me from 1.5 e60 to 2.5e61 in one hit… Now i know most of these builds are hit it and quit it but this also works really well if you leave it running as many of the skill build up with the extra fc’s

> *Originally posted by **[darkraiders](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=19#posts-9704853):*** > > The 580 more to base production is basically a 2700% boost to blacksmith production and that’s without counting the extra building. Might be interesting to compare Starmetal Alloys to Oversized Legends though. Starmetal Alloys increases base production of b lacksmiths from 20 to 600, that’s a x30 bonus, and gives you about 14% more blacksmiths. So that’s a x34 bonus. A bit more if you count that more blacksmiths = higher fairy heritage and assistant count from swarm of fairies. Meanwhile Oversized Legends gives you 14% more HoLs, which boosts demonic heritage and cyclopean strength both by 14%. And of course it gives you 1% per HoL which for me (R14 almost R15) would be about 2200%. Oversized Legends is still weaker, but the difference isn’t huge. Certainly less than a factor 2. And the big advantage is that you can now do your combo when LS hits farm, inn or blacksmith, instead of just blacksmiths. So you pay some efficiency in exchange for triple the strike chance. Worth it at lower gem counts where you still go up a lot per run and faster runs are more important than efficient runs.

I have a question: I noticed that the wiki lists a short term build called Halls of Breaking, that focuses exclusively on HoL production. Yet it uses Druidic Vocabulary, which boosts primarily low tier buildings. This is not the first time I see this upgrade on a high-tier-centered build, and I don’t understand why it’s there. Is there some hidden mechanic to it that I don’t know about?

> *Originally posted by **[Michos](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=20#posts-9705000):*** > > I have a question: I noticed that the wiki lists a short term build called Halls of Breaking, that focuses exclusively on HoL production. Yet it uses Druidic Vocabulary, which boosts primarily low tier buildings. This is not the first time I see this upgrade on a high-tier-centered build, and I don’t understand why it’s there. > Is there some hidden mechanic to it that I don’t know about? It gives huge boost to every building. Even smallest boost to HoL is ~ 40x production

Yep it’s 40x, 80x, 120x, 160x, 200x, 240x, 280x, 320x, 400x, 440x from _edit: highest to lowest_ for buildings. (12-Tier number)\*40. I assume Michos is appreciating the extreme irony of a skill with the description, “Increase the production of all buidlings based on their tier, giving the best bonus to the lowest” being the best skill choice in a build that uses Hall of Legends. I know I do. That change made Labystrike builds better than Pyrastrike and probably even Zen Strike in the previous patch (1.3.34).

> *Originally posted by **[Diadem](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=20#posts-9704950):*** > > *Originally posted by **[darkraiders](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=19#posts-9704853):*** > > > > The 580 more to base production is basically a 2700% boost to blacksmith production and that’s without counting the extra building. > > Might be interesting to compare Starmetal Alloys to Oversized Legends though. > > Starmetal Alloys increases base production of b lacksmiths from 20 to 600, that’s a x30 bonus, and gives you about 14% more blacksmiths. So that’s a x34 bonus. A bit more if you count that more blacksmiths = higher fairy heritage and assistant count from swarm of fairies. Meanwhile Oversized Legends gives you 14% more HoLs, which boosts demonic heritage and cyclopean strength both by 14%. And of course it gives you 1% per HoL which for me (R14 almost R15) would be about 2200%. > > Oversized Legends is still weaker, but the difference isn’t huge. Certainly less than a factor 2. And the big advantage is that you can now do your combo when LS hits farm, inn or blacksmith, instead of just blacksmiths. So you pay some efficiency in exchange for triple the strike chance. Worth it at lower gem counts where you still go up a lot per run and faster runs are more important than efficient runs. I swapped Mining Prodigies for Oversized Legends in Lightening Forge, it’s giving me (even) better results.

> *Originally posted by **[maulflower](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=20#posts-9705378):*** > > *Originally posted by **[hosia](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=20#posts-9705268):*** > > > > I swapped Mining Prodigies for Oversized Legends in Lightening Forge, it’s giving me (even) better results. > > What excavation count, reincarnation, and gem count are you at? 439 excav, R13 and 335 Nod at the moment.

This isn’t mathematically derived (so it’s not particularly accurate), but I always assume that Oversized Legends provides a 2900% bonus and choose Mining Prodigies or Oversized Legends according to that number.

For lightning Forge, isn’t it better to use bardic knowledge instead of gold synthesis? For me it is like ~32x versus ~25×. Also, why choose Swarm of Fairies instead of Professional assassins? The reason to choose one over the other always confused me as I’ve never actually found SoF to be better in my runs.

SoF has nice synthesis with fairy chanting.

Fairy bloodline benefits a lot from extra assistants, so I would’t touch that. It might be good to switch Building Jungle to Professional Assassins, though.

> *Originally posted by **[Fernace](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=20#posts-9705643):*** > > For lightning Forge, isn’t it better to use bardic knowledge instead of gold synthesis? For me it is like ~32x versus ~25×. The Harlequin bonus from the Faceless upgrade makes up the difference. > *Originally posted by **[Audaces](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=20#posts-9705658):*** > > Fairy bloodline benefits a lot from extra assistants, so I would’t touch that. It might be good to switch Building Jungle to Professional Assassins, though. Starmetal Alloys brings Blacksmiths up to over 4500% bonus from Building Jungle in this particular build. > *Originally posted by **[Magmardooom](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=19#posts-9704786):*** > _Rush Instructions : Play until you get a Blacksmith lightning strike, then drop all your mana on a combo with tax collections. Abdicate after._ For rushing low gem totals, I would use Diamond Pickaxe instead of Lightning Strike.

Are there any builds designed to get to 300 assistants, I used mana-rama to get 300 m/s mana regen, but capped off at around 250 assistants…

> *Originally posted by **[Adamperfection](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=20#posts-9705944):*** > > Are there any builds designed to get to 300 assistants, I used mana-rama to get 300 m/s mana regen, but capped off at around 250 assistants… I don’t know your R-level, but i just did another manana-rama with undead bloodline.

[Fairystrike](http://www.kongregate.com/forums/8945-realm-grinder/topics/535779-list-of-base-merc-builds?page=15#posts-9684741) updated to version 1.3.35. Bardic Knowledge switched out in favor of Fairy Workers and… that’s it. With the changes to Fairy Workers and Fairy Chanting, how does it compare with active ZenStrike now? Should be pretty close?

> *Originally posted by **[Adamperfection](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=20#posts-9705944):*** > > Are there any builds designed to get to 300 assistants, I used mana-rama to get 300 m/s mana regen, but capped off at around 250 assistants… Is it really that hard to go into Mercs and take a look at what gives you assistants, and buy them? No not really.. you don’t need a specific build for it, its just like Lucifer or Harlequin, just go in and use common sense

As far as the trophy for 300 base assistants, you will need bloodlines, and probably a higher reincarnation than just 7. Undead bloodline at R13 gives 62 assistants. Also, as of the 1.3.35 patch, you gain an assistant for each reincarnation as a base reincarnation bonus. Regarding build names, I’m not sure about Thorstrike (aka Pink Pillars) – it seems to be basically Lightning Forge. However, I’d like Lightning Forge to be called “Thor’s Hammer” or “Mjolnir.” :D

Just tested this **Fairystrike** build – my verdict, it’s THE build to use from now on, instead of ZenStrike (non-Elven Luck version, by Audaces) but remove STF and keep both Oversized Legends and Mining prodigies – this is optimal, and then the build is identical to Audaces’ ZenStrike just with another spell Also it’s viable to change Professional Assasins for Building Jungle for short runs, their break-even point (including Harlequin) is 125 exchanges(each) vs 2000 buildings (or 140 vs 2200) – usually my building count wins side note – this build can take more tinkering with Bloodstream, since it’s possibly even more optimal if you use Starmetal Alloys (x30) instead of oversized legends (~x33 all in), Bloodstream will give x1.2 more for having more fairy, however you’ll have to hit only one building instead of 3 ~~it affects dispersion, not statistical end result~~ scratch that, it does matter – blacksmith only accounts for ~67%, so it’ll be x0.67 – sub optimal

Mining Prodigies is highly dependent on excavations, but once you have a decent count, it becomes quite strong. Grinding those gems for reincarnation (I was on R12, recently reincarnated to R13 and working my way back to mercs), I was using STF & MP. I tested a few times with STF vs. OL, but I figured I wasn’t getting as much with Oversized Legends. I’m not very good at math, though, and was mostly doing it by eye, so it’s possible that OL is better. Don’t forget that STF boosts your Harlequin, though. For an idle build, I definitely recommend Fairystrike, especially with the new boosts Fairy has received with the update (I think it was better than an idle ZenStrike before, but I could be wrong). Fairystrike is meant to be idle and run for medium-long, though (multiple hours to a day or so), assuming one will buy royal exchanges, buildings, etc. Given enough time (and royal exchange purchases), Professional Assassins (with the Harlequin boost) becomes better than Building Jungle. You’re also spreading your “good buildings” over farms, inns and blacksmiths. For shorter runs, Magmardooom’s [Lightning Forge](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=19#posts-9704786) is better. Starmetal Alloys focuses everything on blacksmiths, as you don’t care about anything else. Building Jungle is also better in this case since you don’t have the time to build up Professional Assassins. Lightning Forge is great for quick gem boosts, but once you’re grinding, I still prefer Fairystrike, letting it run for a while. Blacksmiths in Fairystrike are almost as good as in Lightning Forge (I think?), though not quite. Since you’re boosting other buildings as well, though (instead of focusing with Starmetal Alloys), you get the added bonus of extra gems from farm and inn strikes. Anybody have any thoughts about not building certain buildings, light in ZenStrike? I have no idea how to calculate how/if that would make it worth it.

> *Originally posted by **[Snufkin82](/forums/8945/topics/535779?page=20#posts-9706249):*** > > side note – this build can take more tinkering with Bloodstream, since it’s possibly even more optimal if you use Starmetal Alloys (x30) instead of oversized legends (~x33 all in), Bloodstream will give x1.2 more for having more fairy I don’t really know how Bloodstream multipliers work, but if “Upgrade matches bloodline” = extra income. Then wouldn’t it be better to use Titan (1,1) instead of Dwarf (1,1) in the Elven Luck version of Zen Strike?

Bloodstream’s tricky… I have no idea what the exact equation is, but the bonus is based on total time spent as a certain faction, not on what upgrades you have in a build. I mean, yes, indirectly, but that’s minor for any given run. Time spent as the “real” (non-merc) faction counts, but using upgrades of a certain faction as a mercenary also boosts your “total time spent” with that upgrade’s faction by a little bit. Using one faction’s upgrade over an other will, indeed, boost that faction’s bloodline bloodstream bonus, but unless you’re doing an especially long run, I doubt that picking one upgrade over another will make a considerable difference on any given run. For those that missed it, “total time spent” for each faction has been listed in the stats tab since an update or two ago. The time does carry over between reincarnations.

I just tested it, and although the tooltip doesn’t describe it this way, with the Fairy bloodline each Fairy upgrade is adding 43 hours to my “adjusted time spent for Fairy”. That’s about 12% of my time spent as mercenaries. Other upgrades add nothing. _edit: I suppose the tooltip sort of says that, but I just assumed it was referring to a slow addition of seconds to the faction time spent stats themselves._

Bloodstream – just test it with using one less or one more upgrades of a bloodline faction, you’ll see the dependance is quite strong – and yes, it’s indirect, through the merc total time, the formula is apparently “bloodline faction upgrade count”/“total upgrade count” so if your merc time is dominating, you’ll get linear growth of this bonus – so if you have 6 instead of 5 it’s a 20% increase of the bonus (and less than x1.2 depending on your total bonus size) STF is a flat x17 plus the x1.4 increased harlequin total x23.8, the OsL is usually almost the same directly, plus other bonuses like heritage, CS, CtA, etc. which usually end up at least as another x1.3 = so OsL ALWAYS beats STF (Mining Prodigies beat STF+Harlequin at exactly 417 excavations) Lightning Forge build is WEAKER: Starmetal Alloy seems like x30 (plus the ~x1.15 from the Bloodstream actually, plus x1.143 from more buildings plus some small extra from synergy), but it’s not since it’s applied only on ~67% (my usual blacksmith %) so it ends up as x20 (x27 tops if you count everything), thus it’s always weaker than OsL which I estimate usually at x34 I can elaborate if it’s not yet clear