I'm using almost the same formation for my free plays: Sal as DPSer, Mindy with Boggins and Milgrid. I also have Veronica and Montana, but I use Artaxes instead of Bubba. Mainly because I'm missing his epic goggles whereas Artaxes is has 3x legendary gear.
unfortunately I'm missing Shadow Queen's cloak as well...

I have one question about your formation: How do you use Pete? I see that one of his legendaries buffs global DPS for every crusader affected by "Bad Joke" and another for every crusader not affected. Is Sal in your formation buffed by "Bad Joke" or not? If I'm not mistaken this would need Pete at one corner and Sal at the other "end line" of the formation. But in this way Sal's legendary cape loses its effect (he needs to be in the center slot for this).

I haven't done all the math (as my Pete has only one epic/legendary), but I can't really imagine that it makes up the sacrifice of losing the cape-effect...

ah yeah, and I'm using Slisiblyp,as a single click makes somewhere around 200-300x my DPS (haven't done the exact math on this either, but it's two points higher in the scientific writing, so it has to be at least a factor 100x)

LorinBardric, I typically have Sal in the middle of the formation due to his cape, but only during the time when my formation is geared toward gold find and speed. When I'm going for pure DPS, Sal's cape doesn't buff anywhere NEAR as much as Pete's legendary abilities, so I put Sal in the back of my formation with Pete at the rightmost tip so that Pete affects 4 crusaders in the back, letting him get a 4x stack of his shoes, x6 stack of his rubber chicken, and Sal still benefits from Bad Joke itself. Believe you me, the cape effect is nothing compared to all those stacking buffs. Sal's cape at level 5 only gives a buff by 1600%, but since Pete's gloves, alone, can easily buff Bad Joke's effect WELL beyond 1600%, AND the effects stack multiplicatively, they amount to a FAR greater buff. Each of his items, for me, are level 6, so...

Bad Joke buffs by 6600%

Shoes buff by 800% per crusader affected, and in my formation, that's x4, so 3200%

Rubber chicken buffs by 320% per crusader not affected, which is 6 (including Pete, I think), so 1920%

67 x 33 x 20.2 = 44662.2, or a 445,620% buff. Compared to 3200% with Sal's level 6 cape.

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I like that setup, Amanda. Nice and easy to read, and sorts the info cleanly. I'll post my own revised list as a separate message to keep this one less cluttered.

1. World's Wake
2. DPS/Speed
3. From front to back. Legendary (L), Golden Legendary (GL)
Sal - All L5
Artaxes - L4 Goggles, GL5 Hat
King Reginald - L4 Crown, GL5 Cape, L1 Proclamation
The Princess - L5 Cape, L5 Necklace
Sjin - L5 Hammer, L5 Vest (I unlocked Billy late and have no Epic+ gear for him)
Natalie - L4 Knife
Pete - All L5
Cindy - L5 Pom Pom, L1 Ribbon (Top of the Pyramid bonus on Sal is 1.83k%)
Turps - L5 Sauce
Nate - L5 Explosive, L5 Sword
I don't use Mindy yet because she does not have good gear.
4. Level 1130
5. 2.08M
6. 6700

Andreas, many of my idols have been split between Idols Over Time and Sprint Mode. The investment into IOT was before the introduction of bonus idols, but I don't have any free respecs left or else I'd re-invest some of those IOT levels into Superior Training. My IOT is at level 18 and Sprint Mode is level 6, so those two have sapped up a ton of my idols.

My IOT is maxed out and SM is at level 5. I also have T1-T3 of the active tree maxed(except the gold one), and a decent chunk in Passive T1-T3. Also have ES9 and IS10. I have one free respec left, but am waiting to see what the wonderful devs come up with to even out the idol gain across the eight campaigns OR until teases of T5 talents are put out there.

My question for Animenut and Andreas: Why use Sal as your DPS? I'm sure you both have a well geared DPS in a later slot.

I don't use him, to be honest :) For some time, I've moved away from animal / royal formation. I've tried to focus on robots, but did end up at human/magical formation for now with Ilsa as DPS. Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out whether there is a good formation for Chiyome since I have all Legendary gear on her. Focussing on humans and females shouldn't be that difficult I would guess.

1) Which campaign? World's Wake
2) What kind of build is this? DPS/Ranged
3) Which Crusaders are you using and why if you feel it needs further explaining?
* Chiyome(DPSer) -- Legendary sword and shuriken, rare cowl
* Veronica -- All legendaries
* Billy -- Legendary cufflink and suit
* Pete -- All legendaries
* Bubba -- All legendaries
* Penny -- All legendaries
* Milgrid -- Legendary hat
* Shadow Queen -- Legendary cloak and animal(?)
* Agent 79 -- Legendary briefcase and vest
* Mindy -- All legendaries, mimicking Veronica and Milgrid
4) Highest area you can reach with those Crusaders in the campaign listed above without the use of buffs? 1470
5) Your current idol count? 11M
6) Your current level cap? 7175

NOTE#1: Many of these crusaders have all of their legendaries, but I only listed the ones that were most important to the formation. GL universal 120% buff doesn't make enoughof a difference to list each time.

NOTE#2: Chiyome only has 104EP. Whenever a crusader gets added to her slot, EP will be way easier to farm, as well as getting buffs from Swap Day.

Sure :D

3) Which Crusaders are you using and why if you feel it needs further explaining?
* Mindy (L5 L5 GL5) -- mimicking Billy and Phoenix
* Phoenix (GL1 GE GE) -- for her "Vengeful Fury", GL gem
* Karen (E L1 E) -- for 9 lives
* Billy (GL5 L5 L1) -- for "Act of Congress"
* Mr. Face (R R E) -- setting the enemies on fire makes me feel better, but don't think it actually adds much of anything useful
* Montana (GL5 GL1 L1) -- for "All That Swagger." All my damage reducers are decently geared, i prefer Montana b/c he is easy to place.
* Princess (GL1 GL1 GL1) -- b/c she has the shortest firestorm cool down for the slot
* Greyskull (L1 GL1 L4) -- for his high HP, so enough monsters get on screen before any crusader dies and being a human he works well with Montana
* Kaine (GL4 L4 GL1) -- for magnifying Princesses firestorm, he has the shortest magnify cool down for the slot
* Merci (GL5 GL5 GL5) -- this is another, just makes me feel better 'sader with his "Deflect Evil", he is also human so works well with Montana's "All That Swagger", also can use "Alchemy" if I need a little healing

As you can see I'm decently geared on these 'saders. If you are having trouble keeping your crusaders alive long enough to get enough monsters on the screen then you might want to add in a healer. I'd eliminate Mr. Face if I was to put a healer in. Using a magnified firestorm helps speed things along and is sometimes necessary on a boss level.

This is a screenshot of my older firebomb formation, it's still basically the same just with Mr. Face where Veronica is and Greyskull where Thalia is. =====> https://prnt.sc/gtce2n

**EDIT** Jack not Pete
Any help/info would be appreciated THANKS!

1) Campaign = World' Wake
2) Build = Clueless
3) Explained
Listed Front to Back
*Jack- R/L2/E (Tank & Can hold 1337 amount of mobs)

*Gryph- L3/R/L2 (DMG Reduc)
*Gloria- E/R/L2 (Poly/Heal/Slow)

*Jason- L2/GL4/L2 (+Gold)
*Mindy- L2/R/L3(cause she is Mindy LOL)
*Karen- L2/L3/L3(DPS)

*Larry- L3/L2/GL4 (Magnify/+Gold)
*Fright- L2/R/E - Mob HP Reduc + Blows up mobs since Pete holds them all
*Santa- GL5/L4/L4 ++Gold
*Cindy- R/E/L3 - Buff

4) Highest Area = 1045 takes no effort, just hit the lvl up button / have to buff or click for another 10+ areas
5) Idol Count = 2.07m (LVL 11 Idol O Time)
6) Level Cap = 6625

only getting 30k ish idols on rest

Like Amanda said...

1) Karen is technically a DPSer, but if you're capping your crusaders, literally almost any other DPSer would be better than her. Crusaders farther down the line will benefit far more from levels due to higher base DPS as a whole. It almost doesn't even matter what your legendaries are. The difference between the third slot (Karen) and the 25th slot (Chiyome) is so massive that I doubt there's any legendary effect in the game that can close that gap. If you want to stick with an animal DPSer, Sal is a good alternative.

2) Stick Mindy in the top-left, bottom-left, or far-right corner (depending on which is best for the copied abilities) because Mindy can only copy 2 crusaders. She has a legendary ability that buffs based on how many crusaders are around her, but view that as supplementary, not main buffing. Don't sacrifice her mimic-refreshing for the sake of a bit more DPS. You'll get WAY more out of having reliably-mimicked abilities than a few more stacks of her legendary buff.

3) To expand on Amanda's comment, I personally have 3 types of formations for any given free play. At first, I start off with a formation that has my main DPSer just so it can get XP, but otherwise is geared entirely toward speed and gold find. Crusaders like Billy, Baenarall, Turps, Sjin, and Penny make progression much, much faster, and Gold Panda's legendary clover, Kaine's legendary mask and magnifying glass, Thalia's legendary amulet, and Bubba's legendary goggles buff gold find incredibly. Bubba is also a great DPS-buffer. Once I reach the cap for all crusaders, I switch to speed/DPS, swapping out gold finders for crusaders that buff my DPSers, and moving my formation to put the crusaders into better places for DPS and speed, still prioritizing speed, but now able to progress farther due to the added DPS buffs. Once THIS formation hits it's area limit, I forgo all speed and put in more support to go pure DPS to push a few more areas for the bonus idols, now switching it up so that Mindy mimics DPS-buffers.

4) If you have her unlocked, use Milgrid the Mining Mage with any and all DPS builds. She doesn't even need legendary gear to make her one of THE best buffers in the game. Her "We've Got To Go Deeper" ability is laughably overpowered, AND Mindy can mimic it to double-dip that unbelievably overpowered ability. No lie, past the area-1000-mark, her ability can buff in the tens-of-trillions percent. And that's without Mindy buffing it at 150% effectiveness.

5) Fright-o-Tron is really good for tanking builds, but if you're just in a standard free play for idols, you really shouldn't be tanking. Takes too long at the end of a run, even for the sake of bonus idols. Since you're clearly not using a robot formation, her legendaries are pretty useless to you, too. Switch her out for a crusader that purely buffs DPS and you'll gain several areas without even needing to tank anyway. If you keep Karen or switch to another animal DPSer (seriously, Sal would be better in every single way), swap out Fright for Mr Boggins and watch the maaaaaassive difference it makes. Especially if you have his legendary gear. Also, Montana James has legendary gear that greatly buffs animals, and he turns pretty much every crusader into a tank, especially humans.

6) Again, Gryphon is AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZING in tank formations, but if you have another crusader that buffs DPS, just go with that one. Tanking is slow and takes forever to push the few extra areas you could speed through just by buffing DPS outright with someone like James, who is in the same slot as Gryphon.

7) How do you have Pete and Jason in the formation at the same time? They are from the same bench slot.