Im on R11, using Pyrastrike with abdication on first strike on pyramid. I buy only Inn (for the starting money), Stone Pillars (more mana), Pyramid (obvious) and Hall of Legend (more income). With Lightning strike on autocast (and CoA too if using Demon Bloodline). As soon as I hit the pyramid I activate all 4 spells, buy all the other buildings for the bonus production and boost for CoA, and use the Tax Collection. With only 4 buildings, its 25% chance to hit a pyramid, making it a very fast run. I do 5min runs multiplying the gems by 1k, six runs from 1 Dc to 1 Sxd (so, 1e18 in 30min?). Not that usefull after 1 Sxd gems. Is it usefull what Im doing, or is that extra work for nothing? Better to buy something more buildings for more mana and more Tax Collection?

Why aren’t you including Iron Stronghold in which buildings to build? Its a requirement for LS to even function.

Lightning Strike is useless without Iron Strongholds. This means you are essentially only playing with CtA, GG, DP and TCs. Try building everything… they are worth it, trust me.

The LS at start is just for the Faction Coins, and to get more chance to hit Pyramid. Since Pyramid + LS get so much more income than the rest, its better to get a hit on pyramid 3x faster than buying everything. I just buy the rest when I get that good hit to get the full income from the combo. If I buy everything, it might take 15min per run instead of 5min. Is the income from buying everything right at the start worth making the run 3 times longer? (Maybe Iron Stronghold at the first 2 runs at 1Dc to get the necessary income for upgrades, with isnt necessary that much to buy at higher gems)

Lightning strike without iron stronghold is only good for faction coins…

Even if you add in Iron Strongholds to make Lightning work, you’re still thirding the impact of Rainbow Link and halfing the effects of Demonic Presence, so losing a factor of 6 to improve Pyramid hits by a frequency factor of 2. As long as you have Demonic Presence in there, any improvements in hit frequency will be negated by a loss in effectiveness of the upgrade, although for a less frustrating time you can legitimately drop Labyrinths, Monasteries and Deep Mines (also Alchemist Labs if you aren’t using Gold Synthesis, but it’s almost always better than Overgrowth).

if you want gains to be more consistent just do evil and forget about LS

> *Originally posted by **[why\_amihere](/forums/8945/topics/540498?page=1#posts-9676462):*** > > Even if you add in Iron Strongholds to make Lightning work, you’re still thirding the impact of Rainbow Link and halfing the effects of Demonic Presence, so losing a factor of 6 to improve Pyramid hits by a frequency factor of 2. > > As long as you have Demonic Presence in there, any improvements in hit frequency will be negated by a loss in effectiveness of the upgrade, although for a less frustrating time you can legitimately drop Labyrinths, Monasteries and Deep Mines (also Alchemist Labs if you aren’t using Gold Synthesis, but it’s almost always better than Overgrowth). Remember that you get 20 seconds worth of spells here – I believe what OP is suggesting is that you only buy as few buildings as possible, then when LS hits the pyramid you quickly max buy everything else. Will probably only lose 2-3 seconds of max production. Sounds like an interesting technique.

> *Originally posted by **[SeanDamnit](/forums/8945/topics/540498?page=1#posts-9677071):*** > > *Originally posted by **[why\_amihere](/forums/8945/topics/540498?page=1#posts-9676462):*** > > > > Even if you add in Iron Strongholds to make Lightning work, you’re still thirding the impact of Rainbow Link and halfing the effects of Demonic Presence, so losing a factor of 6 to improve Pyramid hits by a frequency factor of 2. > > > > As long as you have Demonic Presence in there, any improvements in hit frequency will be negated by a loss in effectiveness of the upgrade, although for a less frustrating time you can legitimately drop Labyrinths, Monasteries and Deep Mines (also Alchemist Labs if you aren’t using Gold Synthesis, but it’s almost always better than Overgrowth). > > Remember that you get 20 seconds worth of spells here – I believe what OP is suggesting is that you only buy as few buildings as possible, then when LS hits the pyramid you quickly max buy everything else. Will probably only lose 2-3 seconds of max production. Sounds like an interesting technique. So the technique should be: 1. Only build Inns (use Blacksmiths if you have the Speed Run trophy, or skip Farms/Inns/Blacksmiths altogether if you have Gift of the Kings), Stone Pillars (increases max mana), Halls of Legends (stupidly huge production bonus) and Ancient Pyramids (target building) 2. Cast Lightning Strike each time you hit max mana, move to next stage when you hit a Pyramid 3. Ctrl+Shift+click on Iron Strongholds, start your other 3 spells, then add all other buildings as fast as possible, and upgrade Pyramids and HoLs if you couldn’t afford the 1500 buildings upgrades before (this will take up most of the 20s before you achieve close to peak production) 4. Once all buildings and upgrades are complete, Ctrl+click on Tax Collection to get tons of profit 5. Abdicate This is not what was described in the original post, but it’s much better than what he’s doing. This will probably work really well up until you get to R8/R9 gem levels, a factor of e3-e6 below where PyraStrike will normally start to slow. After that, you’ll probably need to reinvest the profits from all those TCs and get another good Pyramid hit before you can earn any decent gems from this tactic. But yes, it has some potential, as long as you’re fast enough to do everything you need to in 20s.

> *Originally posted by **[why\_amihere](/forums/8945/topics/540498?page=1#posts-9677222):*** > > *Originally posted by **[SeanDamnit](/forums/8945/topics/540498?page=1#posts-9677071):*** > > > *Originally posted by **[why\_amihere](/forums/8945/topics/540498?page=1#posts-9676462):*** > > > > > > Even if you add in Iron Strongholds to make Lightning work, you’re still thirding the impact of Rainbow Link and halfing the effects of Demonic Presence, so losing a factor of 6 to improve Pyramid hits by a frequency factor of 2. > > > > > > As long as you have Demonic Presence in there, any improvements in hit frequency will be negated by a loss in effectiveness of the upgrade, although for a less frustrating time you can legitimately drop Labyrinths, Monasteries and Deep Mines (also Alchemist Labs if you aren’t using Gold Synthesis, but it’s almost always better than Overgrowth). > > > > Remember that you get 20 seconds worth of spells here – I believe what OP is suggesting is that you only buy as few buildings as possible, then when LS hits the pyramid you quickly max buy everything else. Will probably only lose 2-3 seconds of max production. Sounds like an interesting technique. > > So the technique should be: > 1. Only build Inns (use Blacksmiths if you have the Speed Run trophy, or skip Farms/Inns/Blacksmiths altogether if you have Gift of the Kings), Stone Pillars (increases max mana), Halls of Legends (stupidly huge production bonus) and Ancient Pyramids (target building) > 2. Cast Lightning Strike each time you hit max mana, move to next stage when you hit a Pyramid > 3. Ctrl+Shift+click on Iron Strongholds, start your other 3 spells, then add all other buildings as fast as possible, and upgrade Pyramids and HoLs if you couldn’t afford the 1500 buildings upgrades before (this will take up most of the 20s before you achieve close to peak production) > 4. Once all buildings and upgrades are complete, Ctrl+click on Tax Collection to get tons of profit > 5. Abdicate > > This is not what was described in the original post, but it’s much better than what he’s doing. > > This will probably work really well up until you get to R8/R9 gem levels, a factor of e3-e6 below where PyraStrike will normally start to slow. After that, you’ll probably need to reinvest the profits from all those TCs and get another good Pyramid hit before you can earn any decent gems from this tactic. > > But yes, it has some potential, as long as you’re fast enough to do everything you need to in 20s. I just tried this – I probably lost 4 seconds of max productivity, but the time it took from abdication to pyramid hit was all of 1 min, if that. I do have an auto-clicker however, so it was a matter of setting it to “Buy Max”, turning the clicker on, then waving the mouse over all the buildings and new upgrades. This is definitely worth it when doing those fast Pyra runs from the beginning of Mercs up to e57 or wherever you begin doing the more long term builds.

> *Originally posted by **[SeanDamnit](/forums/8945/topics/540498?page=1#posts-9680192):*** > > I just tried this – I probably lost 4 seconds of max productivity, but the time it took from abdication to pyramid hit was all of 1 min, if that. I do have an auto-clicker however, so it was a matter of setting it to “Buy Max”, turning the clicker on, then waving the mouse over all the buildings and new upgrades. This is definitely worth it when doing those fast Pyra runs from the beginning of Mercs up to e57 or wherever you begin doing the more long term builds. How many buildings could you have added if you had reinvested your Tax Collection profits? It might be worth sticking it out for a second Pyramid hit when you start to hit a bit of a wall with your 1min runs. :P

> *Originally posted by **[why\_amihere](/forums/8945/topics/540498?page=1#posts-9680369):*** > > *Originally posted by **[SeanDamnit](/forums/8945/topics/540498?page=1#posts-9680192):*** > > > > I just tried this – I probably lost 4 seconds of max productivity, but the time it took from abdication to pyramid hit was all of 1 min, if that. I do have an auto-clicker however, so it was a matter of setting it to “Buy Max”, turning the clicker on, then waving the mouse over all the buildings and new upgrades. This is definitely worth it when doing those fast Pyra runs from the beginning of Mercs up to e57 or wherever you begin doing the more long term builds. > > How many buildings could you have added if you had reinvested your Tax Collection profits? It might be worth sticking it out for a second Pyramid hit when you start to hit a bit of a wall with your 1min runs. :P Good question. Anecdotally it seems as though I got 5x less gems than expected, and if that is consistently true then I feel that this is the better method for those first several runs you make getting from merc start at e33 to the mid e50s. After that I’d assume you need to stick around for a second strike, or move on to a longer term build. I just reincarnated and will take a more scientific approach when I get back to merc levels.

Great, thanks! I won’t be reincarnating til at least tomorrow evening, would love to hear how it goes before I get back to Mercs.

Ok, attempting this a few times. This isn’t really a rigid scientific analysis by any means, but I believe it gives us a good idea of what we want here: I’m currently on R11, so I have access to Bloodlines, which is probably necessary for this. —Using this technique on your first Merc run around e33 is not practical. You don’t have the production to get all the merc upgrades up with just those 3 or 4 buildings —I was around e48 when I first tried it, but it definitely can be done earlier. Bought 3 buildings (Inn, Stone Pillars, AP). Used the save/import trick to preview an upcoming AP strike…which took quite a while considering there should have been 1/3rd of a chance (stupid Inn). I was at 3 min played when I finally had an AP hit queued up and was at full mana. Hit LS/CTA/GG and rapidly made a few passes at Max buying all buildings, and quickly bought relevant upgrades. Hit DP with 12 sec left on the other spells, re-bought AP buildings, and spammed TC at the very end. Went from ~8e48 to ~2e51 —I then re-loaded the game and bought all buildings and upgrades available. Waited for an AP strike and max mana, which brought me to about 15min played. As above I hit the spells, re-bought AP, and dumped all mana on TCs at the end. Went to 8e51 this time. So waiting 5x longer to hit AP got me 4x more gems, so from a gems over time perspective it immediately appears to be better, not even considering that you would be chaining these 3min runs for even better results. All that said, it seems like a fairly brief window where this is viable, and as is the nature of LS, subject to random swings. This probably requires more data or simulation to analyze the true benefit, but I’m confident enough in it personally to use it in the e43-e57 or so gem range.

I did this with a Labyrinth build (because I only used 100 excavations before getting to this point) through from about e38 gems to e52 (just past the R9 gem requirement). It starts to slow down around R9. It’s a stupidly fast way to get to that stage though!