Hello fellow crusaders. I've created a Google Sheet for exploring formations and optimizing your investments. I want to thank May Juniper for the the spreadsheet she posted to the wiki. Her formulas gave me a big head start.

The Calculator:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i0mAeOR-Tq1j0KpEoSBL0mGJsoXNqe9kpCE119SUNXs/edit?usp=sharing

Instructions:
-First you'll need to make a copy of the sheet, I believe this requires a Google account. (File -> Make a Copy...)
-The tabs that start with "My..." have input fields. (e.g. My Items)
-The input fields are the lighter colored cells.
-The BenchDPS tab shows your crusader bonuses without formation bonuses. This helps to decide which crusaders to use in your formation.
-Use the drop-downs on the Formations tab to build the formation you want to test.
-The Investment tab provides the most efficient investment spread given your items and formation. (more on how this is calculated later)
-The OptimizedDPS tab calculates the DPS for your formation assuming you invest according to the Investment tab.

I'll continue to squish bugs and make improvements to the tool based on your feedback, so please let me know if anything is inaccurate, broken, or hard to use.

-WuLiMammoth

The calculator has 2 primary uses:

1) Enter your items into the 'My Items' tab, and then use the BenchDPS tab to see how strong your crusaders are at a given point in the game.
--The numbers across the top represent how much gold it would cost you to get the DPS for each crusader in that column.
--Use this to decide which characters to use, and where to put them in your formation.

2) Enter your crusaders into 'My Formation' to see how much DPS and click damage your formation would produce if you invested the amount of gold you've selected from the 'investment' dropdown menu.
--The 'Investment' tab provides the optimal distribution of levels for the items and formation you've entered. You may want to level some crusaders higher than suggested (to increase their HPs for example) but the listed levels are the maximum DPS/gold ratio.

And that's pretty much it. There are a few more tabs, but they are there reference and comparison.
-Abilities just shows you the basic stats of each crusader.
-OptimizedDPS lets you browse your formations DPS output at different levels, assuming you level them to the suggested values in the 'Investment' tab.
-My Bonuses is there to help you track your Idols, Trinkets, and Achievements. Since these are all global bonuses, they don't really affect your formation choices, so entering in that information is purely optional, but if you do, it will be used in the calculations.

Scratch all that - I figured out what I was missing. You enter the STATS of the items, not the items themselves. I guessed it was something simple.

So, updated question: I'm trying to adjust the formation tab to allow for the new event arrow shaped thing but I'm getting a little error message saying "Invalid Content" on the new cells (copied column F onto column H). How can I fix this?

Nice Work.
1.I have been working on editing the calculator to include the Carnival toons and I keep running into errors once I started fiddling with the named ranges. Specifically the range basedps. Which then turns all the calculations to reference does not exist.
2. I think you BonusDPS range is wrong. It should be G1 not L1
I am going to keep trying to fix it, but any advice would be appreciated or just do the update yourself and I can compare to see what I did wrong.

I am unable to click on file make copy or edit in anyway at this link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i0mAeOR-Tq1j0KpEoSBL0mGJsoXNqe9kpCE119SUNXs/edit#gid=980820551