Chapter 3: T4-BAE

UUG has been defeated and you’ve now got some swanky Beards
Note: There is an alternative method to LRB from Mega to T5, see this guide by Rust

Beards

Turn on BEARd, keep BEARd on always outside of challenges

  • Buy the second beard slot (50k EXP) when feasible, following 10% of lifetime EXP rule
    • Third beard slot typically comes from TC4 or AP Shop
  • Second beard should be kept on Neckbeard, third beard kept on Beard Cage
    • If you obtain a 4th, cycle through magic beards to reach soft caps

Rebirths

After T4, it’s optimal for beard growth to rebirth every 24 hours

  • Focus on a one feature at a time, equipping optimized gear and allocate all resources
  • Example 24 Hour Rebirth (with suggested GO priorities)
    • First hour: Time Machine, GO priority: Time Machine
    • Second hour: Advanced Training, GO priority: Advanced Training
      • Put magic into Blood Magic or Magic NGUs as desired
    • For first T4 kill of rebirth, GO priority: Gold Drops, Drop Chance
      • Time Machine gold production is based on highest gold drop
      • Can set a timer for when titan spawns, or turn off AK in settings to switch gear
    • Remaining Time: NGUs, GO priority: Energy NGU
      • Run Energy NGU digger during this phase (swap to DC/Adv for Titan kills)

NGUs

NGUs are your primary source of progression from this point forward

  • For the majority of your NGU time, focus NGU Adventure a and Drop Chance
    • The typical split approach: split half your energy in Adv/DC. Splitting 50/50 will naturally lead to a ~10:1 Adv:DC level ratio
    • The specialized approach: focus Adventure until you can kill enemies in a new adventure zone, then focus Drop Chance to get better chances at gear drops. This approach is extra helpful for Titans that have guaranteed drops, like T5.
    • When you hit softcaps, keep going. You will need adventure stats all game
  • At certain points, it’s suggested to complete challenges in a CBlock (challenge block)
    • Before any CBlock, you want to run NGUs that will help complete challenges faster
      • Challenge NGUs (cNGUs) or PAWGs: Power, Augments, Wandoos, Gold
      • After getting T4 AK, you can get PAWGs to 500 each to prep for Mini-CBlock
      • After getting T5’s CCoD, you can get PAWGs to 5k each to prep for CBlock1
  • When it’s fast to do so, you can also get NGU Respawn to Level 401
    • Respawn has sharply diminishing returns after Level 401, don’t invest further yet
  • For Magic NGUs, focus NGU Yggdrasil

EXP Spending

Most of your EXP should be spent on Energy in a Base Power:Cap:Bars ratio of 5:160k:4

  • Almost all your EXP should go into Energy, only invest in Magic for Ygg auto-activations
    • This changes in CBlock1 post-T5: start dumping in Magic to bring E:M ratio to 5:1
    • Post-CBlock1, you should be keeping a 5:1 E:M ratio until T6 in next chapter
  • Buy one-time EXP purchases when cheap (10% of Lifetime EXP under Misc Stats)

Yggdrasil

Leveling order: FoG 10 → Pom 5 → FoK 1 + FoL 1 → Pom 10 → FoL 5

  • Optionally after Pom 5, can get some levels in FoL/FoPb to help with DC/CBlocks
  • If you finish FoL 5 before TC3, save 5k seeds to max FoG after TC3, or level FoL/FoPb
  • After TC3: FoG 24 → Pom 24

Your main goal is to increase seed income, so you should harvest most fruits before FoL

  • When should I eat instead of harvesting?
    • FoG - Eat when diggers are capped, so the influx of gold can unlock more levels
    • FoPa - Eat during NoRB challenges
    • FoL/FoPb/beyond - Always eat, the permanent buff is better than seeds

Important Perks

  • Finish Generic Energy Power/Cap Perk 1
  • Titan EXP (just 1 level needed due to bug: perk gives bonus EXP for all online AKs)
    • Doesn’t count down on online AKs, get bonus EXP as long as game is kept up
    • If you go offline long enough for 3 titans to get offline AK’d, you lose the bonus EXP
  • What a Crappy Perk
  • 10 Levels of Boosted Boosts 1
  • Faster NGU Energy (buy until you reach CBlock1)

Items to Keep

Note: This is NOT an exhaustive list of good items or the only items to keep. These are just items obtainable in this chapter that may come in handy in future chapters. Most E/M items are not included in this list, use GO to keep track of items that fit in your loadouts. Generally, any item with a unique special bonus (AT / wandoos / respawn / cooldown / NGUs) is likely worth keeping.

  • Keep Forever:
    • Ring of Greed (respawn, drop chance)
    • Ring of Might (move cooldown, respawn)
    • stoob s’rerednaW (seed gain)
    • UUG’s Special Ring (seed gain)
    • Green Heart (respawn, drop chance, beard speed)
  • Keep Temporarily:
    • Ring of Utility (NGUs, AT) - useful through the end of Normal
    • Dorky Glasses (NGUs, wandoos) - useful through early Evil
    • Badly Drawn Gun (augment speed) - useful until late Chapter 5
    • Badly Drawn Smiley Face (AT) - useful until late Chapter 5
    • Stealthiest (NGUs) - useful until late Chapter 5

Adventure Zones

Prioritize finishing any set bonuses you haven’t completed yet (especially Pissed-Off Key)
From here on, adventure zones are further apart, spend time in between zones in ITOPOD

  • When you can, climb your highest zone to a new 10 floor milestone for first clear bonus
    • Every 10 new floors over 100 gives you 2 PP, clearing floor 200 gives 20 PP
  • If you don’t have gear to farm, farm PP at your optimal floor
  • Equip Ring of Greed (RoG), and keep it locked and equipped for the rest of the game
    • RoG is the best respawn item in the game, which helps speed up PP and drops
  • TL;DR: T4 → Mini-CBlock → Beardverse → T5 → CBlock 1 → BDW/BAE → LRB for T6

T4 LRB

Stay in the LRB killing T4 until you’ve obtained the Rings of Energy and Utility

  • Ring of Greed is guaranteed, Ring of Might can be delayed, Ring of Magic is useless
  • If it has been 4+ days after your first T4 kill, go ahead and rebirth for perm beard levels

Mini-CBlock

After T4 AK, push PAWGs to 500 each, then jump into some challenges:

  • If you haven’t done Micro-CBlock in Chapter 2, complete your 5 basic challenges
  • Complete the following challenges for their First Completion Reward:
    • No Rebirth 1, Blind 1, No Time Machine 1
    • Expect the NoRB to take a while, potentially 12+ hours. Can run overnight
  • Complete all 5 100 Level Challenges
  • Finish with a 24 Hour Challenge to build up Number again towards Beardverse
  • After finishing challenges, go back to 24 hour rb’s focusing NGU Adventure

Beardverse (BV)

  • When you’ve reached 2-3k NGU Adventure and have unlocked Beardverse (Boss 108), push Advanced Training until ~2.5m Power/1.8m Toughness to reach Breadverse idle stats
  • You may require higher stats if you have not maxed Mysterious Red Liquid (from T2)
  • Beardverse gear doesn’t have great special stats, but you can use the P/T to kill T5
    • Yes, the drop chance sucks. Beardverse base DC drops to 1%. Run NGU DC if needed
    • For optimal NGU speed, you’ll probably continue to use AVSP/Mega gear
    • This is a good time to obtain a second digger, to use Adventure/DC diggers together
    • Suggested to obtain by maxing ‘A Scrap of Paper’ from T3, 100k AP, or 25k EXP

T5: Walderp

Walderp has 5 forms that must be defeated, with only the final form being his true form

  • The first four forms only need to be killed once, progress persists through rebirths
    • Killing the first four forms will not unlock a new feature or drop any loot
    • The first form of Walderp can be killed before Beardverse, around 800k/400k P/T
    • Each successive form is stronger than the last, up to ~4m/3m for the final form
  • The fight with Walderp cannot be idled, as he has a special mechanic in the fight
  • When fighting against Titans, your GO priorities should be Move Cooldown, Power
    • This means you should wear both Ring of Might and Sands of Time for the T5 fight
    • You don’t need Respawn while fighting Titans, so you can take off RoG
    • Once you can kill Titans more easily, you can switch out some Power items for DC

Killing Walderp’s final form unlocks MacGuffins, which is located in the Inventory menu

  • MacGuffins is the slowest scaling feature in the game, will start out useless
    • MacGuffins will start scaling in Evil Difficulty, and become crucial in Sadistic
  • Killing 1k consecutive enemies in an adventure zone will drop that zone’s guff
  • Guffs placed in a guff slot will grant rewards on rebirth
  • Farming guffs is never worth the time investment, it’s better to farm ITOPOD for PP
  • If you get a guff while farming a zone, equip it in a guff slot to get a small bonus per RB
    • Beardverse gives a drop chance guff, BDW gives a gold drops guff

Walderp drops two complete sets of gear:

  • The Energy-focused Wanderer’s Set
  • The Magic-focused S’rerednaW Set

Walderp also has two weapons, with a guaranteed drop on every kill:

  • The Wanderer’s Cane has very good power/toughness stats, but no special stats. This weapon has a 99% chance to drop.
  • The Candy Cane of Destiny (CCoD) has very good energy/magic stats, but the power/toughness pf a Level 0 Wanderer’s Cane. This weapon has a 1% chance to drop.
  • A Level 100 Wanderer’s Cane can be transformed to a Level 0 Candy Cane of Destiny. This guarantees that a Candy Cane of Destiny can be obtained within 10 Walderp kills.

Ideally, you want to obtain a CCoD as soon as possible to utilize the E/M specials to boost NGU speed. To achieve this, it’s suggested to transform your first Level 100 Wanderer’s Cane to a CCoD, then keep a second Level 100 Wanderer’s Cane to use for the Power.

  • CCoD specials are very inefficient, so don’t boost CCoD, it will be replaced soon
  • After obtaining CCoD, it’s time to start preparing for CBlock1
  • Equip CCoD and your best Energy NGU gear (with RoG), push PAWGs to 5k each

CBlock1

  • After getting CCoD from T5, push PAWGs to 5k, buy 1k% Rich Jerks Attack/Defense Boost
    • Not advised to prep beyond 5k, the extra time investment in NGUs does not help much
  • Challenge List: (Most important challenges: Troll Challenge 3, No Rebirth 4)
    • All (5) No Augs Challenges, No Equipment Challenges
    • Up to the fourth No Rebirth Challenge, Blind Challenge, No NGU Challenge
    • Up to the third Troll Challenge, with the fourth optional for a beard slot
    • Up to the third No Time Machine Challenge
    • Finish with a 24 Hour Challenge to climb Number
  • For tips on completing challenges, see Challenge Tips
  • CBlock1 will provide a lot of EXP, dump this into Magic to bring E:M ratio to 5:1
  • After finishing CBlock1, resume 24h rebirths, focusing NGUs and Beards on Adventure

Post-CBlock1 Perks/Priority

After you finish CBlock1, Yggdrasil starts to become a lot more important. After getting Pom 24 in next chapter, your big seed income you’re growing will be invested into FoK, which scales off both NGU Yggdrasil and EXP, and has multiple modifiers from ITOPOD Perks, to become a huge source of EXP to push your progression further. It’s finally time for Magic to be important.

  • I Want Your Seeds ;)
  • The First Harvest’s The Best
  • Fruit of Knowledge Sucks, 1/5
  • Fruit of Knowledge STILL sucks, 1/5

Badly Drawn World (BDW) / Boring-Ass Earth (BAE)

  • After T5, there are two adventure zones before the next Titan (T5 → BDW → BAE → T6)
    • It’s possible to kill T6 with low level BAE gear and you can snipe BAE before max BDW
    • To kill T6 ASAP: snipe BDW → idle BDW → snipe BAE → fight T6
  • Both BDW and BAE have terrible drop rates, so it may be helpful to run NGU DC
    • If you have any Lucky Charms, farming BDW/BAE is the best time to use them
  • Before starting the LRB to T6, make sure to solve the T6 puzzle and have T6 unlocked
    • Just having the zone unlocked does not mean that T6 has been unlocked
    • To start the T6 puzzle, kill the Guardian in T6’s adventure zone to obtain a clue
    • For answers, see Secrets & Spoilers: T6 Unlock Puzzle
  • Once you are able to idle BDW, you can begin the LRB to T6. Use an Energy Beta potion.
    • Aim to reach 60k-80k levels in NGU Adventure, AT Power/Toughness, 5k in AT Block
    • Wear the BDW helmet while leveling Advanced Training
    • During the LRB, invest in Magic to bring your Energy:Magic ratio to 3:1
    • Farm as many levels of BDW gear as needed to reach BAE snipe stats (~180m power)
    • Snipe a full set of Level 1 BAE gear (aim for 1-2% DC to snipe, run NGU DC if needed)
    • Once you have around 650m-700m power, you should be ready to attempt T6
    • Video of Rust killing T6:

Once you’ve killed T6, you’ve graduated from Chapter 3 and can proceed to Chapter 4: T6