Hello, I was wondering how the use of artifacts change after one Super Ascend, then if there is certain thresholds where they become better or worse.

Usually it is reccomend to get
Insane - Army Cache Boost
Legendary - Alloy Values
among the first most usefull artifacts.

In the beginning many also tend to also focus on:
Supercharge Army Camp
Army Camp Boost
or others, depending on your playstyle.

But the effectivenes must go up or down, the further you go into the game.

Army Camp Boost migth be usefull at first, but its not expensive in terms of AP to unlock 100% boost.

Super Army Camp and Time Warp are great for Idle Battle, but if one finishes a level faster than 8h, the slots are occupied for long.


So with this, I open the debate on when to use which artifacts. I have gotten many good reccomendations and a variety of experience in the Global chat, but it dissapears.

If you want: state the amount of SA, and which 4 main artifacts you use, both for Idle and for Idle Battle. What would you use instead for challenges?
Players who have yet to SA are also welcome to discuss.

In general, actives rapidly become less useful. As you noted, they set a slot on fire that could be used for a passive instead. When you have fewer than 3 good artifacts, it doesn't matter, when you have a dozen or two, it's a big deal.

A$B, AV, CB, and HB are all staples, they never decline in value.

SAC and TW are essential for WZIB and otherwise basically not used after the early SAs. TW generally gets parked in 4th boy until that only lasts a few hours (or less) until SA.

A^B becomes more valuable the deeper you get. Each SA proportionally becomes more and more the early terrible levels where even with +1000% AP gain, they still barely move the needle. You really don't want to set 320% IACP worth of AP on fire because it won't arrive in time anyways and it'll slow you down tremendously. It also helps you fire off a CRA that much earlier on every level, which is huge. Easy contender for 2nd most important Insane after A$B.

RCB is a hidden gem. It's really helpful on the early levels if you know the right caches to hit for instant drafts and as such also increases in value like A^B. Nearly worthless in early SAs because it's way too much bother to swap in constantly on the bigger levels for mostly meaningless gains and the early levels where it helps aren't your bottleneck.

MD, BMB, TMB, MCB, ACD, OV are luxury artifacts that save seconds to perhaps minutes off of the critical time to first market. Worth bringing to Legendary once you can spare the slots.

IM is also a luxury artifact, but only serves to slow your IM burn rate on Hex once you learn the 0.48 IM Hex path. Value will vary with how stingy you were with IMs in your early SAs. Some people like to go crazy with the super-IMs.

SC is useful modulo whether ICS is in your budget and whether you still play any levels with crafting where it could be a bottleneck. I churned this one regularly around Rare-Epic for awhile.

Before first market is usually A^B, TMB, BMB, swapping in RCB/MCB + CB (sometimes), or other luxury artifacts as appropriate.

After first market, it's HB, A$B, CB, with brief swaps for AV to drain markets and (usually not, but if it's a tight money level, then) MD when buying mercs.

WZIB is A^B, SAC, TW. If 4th boy, probably add A$B.

Challenges aren't worth running, they take too long for a flat 100 AP. The first one is a possible exception.

I've completed 42 SAs, and artifact swapper didn't exist until after I retired, YMMV.