Idle Raiders Reddit FAQ

**SPOILERS MAY APPEAR BELOW - READ WITH CAUTION!**

^(Latest updated to game version 0.3f)

Since we get a lot of the same questions, I figured we might make a place for the most frequent and/or important ones.

Feel free to suggest questions, answers or other edits to this post, in the comments below. But keep in mind this post is supposed to help as many people as possible, so we don't want it cluttered. Anyways: On with the FAQ!

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                                                   Questions:

>^(**NOTICE**: If you can't find the question you're looking for, try searching for it in the search form, located in the upper right corner of this page.)

**1. Farming**

* **1.1** Is this the last farm map?
* **1.2** What is the best map to farm?
* **1.3** I've been farming for days, and the item I'm looking for hasn't dropped. Is the game bugged?

**2. User Interface**

* **2.1** How do I equip an item?
* **2.2** How do I unequip/remove items or skillbooks?

**3. Skills and Items**

* **3.1** Do skillbooks stack?
* **3.2** How do different types of skillbooks work?
* **3.3** How do I get this item? And what does this item do?
* **3.4** I bought an Equipment Bag. How do I get the new slot?
* **3.5** Do Sunlight Capes affect Blood Swords?
* **3.6** How do (equipment) item procs/effects stack?
* **3.7** Do active abilities work with passive abilities or item procs?
* **3.8** I've created a snapshot! How do I apply it?

**4. Raids**

* **4.1** How do I beat this raid boss?
* **4.2** Which bosses have elemental resistances?

**5. Arena**

* **5.1** When should I buy the arena?
* **5.2** What reasons are there to continue the arena after round 5?

**6. Soft resets**

* **6.1** How do I soft reset?
* **6.2** When should I soft reset?
* **6.3** I paid the Mystery Mage but I didn't soft reset. What happened?

**7. Events**

* **7.1** How long does "Love is in the air" last?

**8. Miscellaneous**

* **8.1** How do offline earnings work?
* **8.2** Is there a chat for Idle Raiders?
* **8.3** I lost all my progress - how do I get it back?
* **8.4** I am experiencing a bug. How do I fix it?
* **8.5** How do I check the game code?

*****

                                                     Answers:

# 1. Farming

## 1.1 Is this the last farm map?

If you're currently farming Frozen Coast West, then the answer is 'yes'. New farm maps are typically added with new content updates, so you can expect this to change.

## 1.2 What is the best map to farm?

It depends on what you want to do. The typical choice is to farm a map for specific items. The community has made a list of all available items here:

[[v0.3] Ultimate List](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/38cb7e/v03_ultimate_list/)

If you have no idea which item to go for, you can start out by going for healing books or Transparent Swords.

Later you might want to utilize [Large Bows for farming items](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/38nth0/use_for_large_bows/).

If you don't care about items, and just want to farm for XP, you can try testing each map for XP gain:

> [Personally](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/39rcth/question_exp_at_my_first_reset/cs5teh0) what i did, is set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes, and calculate how much exp you get in that time, and then farm the zone which gives out the highest amount, for me it's abandoned mountains.

Most people recommend Sewers or Desert, because they have a nice balance between low hp, decent XP per kill and the strength required to raid 5 in that soft reset. Because Abandoned Village and onwards all give higher XP per kill, but if you can 1-hit them, you might want to consider soft-resetting for a higher XP gain from all monsters instead. If you play actively, raids are also important for XP gain.

## 1.3 I've been farming for days, and the item I'm looking for hasn't dropped. Is the game bugged?

Most likely, the game is just working as intended. For example, it is not uncommon that no AoE Heal books drop in 3 days straight. And it's neither uncommon that the arena doesn't drop the specific book you're looking for in 30 arena runs.

Both scenarios are although unlucky, and everyone gets unlucky sometimes. If you keep at it, odds say it will change for the better eventually. Otherwise you can try farming something else for a while.

But make sure to double check that you're farming the right place:

[[v0.3] Ultimate List](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/38cb7e/v03_ultimate_list/)

*****

# 2. User Interface

## 2.1 How do I equip an item?
You equip an item by clicking the item in your inventory to select it, and then clicking the equipment slot you want to put it into.

## 2.2 How do I unequip/remove items or skillbooks?

In the current inventory system, you can unequip items or skillbooks by clicking [the tiny X button](http://imgur.com/uEgeLRo) on the upper right corner of each item or skill slot.

*****

# 3. Skills and Items

## 3.1 Do skillbooks stack?

Yes.

Oh wow, that was an easy one... Oh, you want to know how it works as well? :D Well, take a look below (3.2)

## 3.2  How do different types of skillbooks work?

>^(If you're not interested in the details, you can check out the )[^(guide on healing)](http://redd.it/376u22) ^(and the) [^(guide on damage)](http://redd.it/37n94p) ^(for some graphs that show the best builds.)

There's currently 3 types of skillbooks:

1. Passive abilities (chance to do something)
2. Active abilities (conditional skills)
3. Stat modifiers

**Passive abilities** (also known as 'passives') only stack in chance, and they do so by the "at least one" probability rule. So the formula for the chance is 1−(1−C)^(B), where C represents the chance for 1 book, and B represents the number of books you have equipped. An example:

You have 4 Hitstreak books, each with 20% chance to trigger.

The formula is then 1−(1−0.2)^4 ≈ 59% chance to trigger.

**Active abilities** (also known as 'actives') stack by giving the raider an additional ability they can use, each with separate cooldowns. E.g. adding 3 Fireball books to one raider gives the raider 3 fireballs to use, each with separate cooldowns. These active abilities will be used instead of basic attacks or basic heals.

**Stat modifiers** stack either additively or multiplicatively. Currently we have 1 of each type. Respectively the Venom Alchemy and the Swiftness book. An example:

You have 3 Venom Alchemy books, each adding 50% increased poison damage - and 3 Swiftness books, each increasing movement speed by 20%.

3 Venom Alchemy books give you a total increase of 3×0.5 =
150% to poison damage.

And 3 Swiftness books give you a total increase of 1.2^(3)−1 = 72.8% to movement speed.

## 3.3 How do I get this item? And what does this item do?

The community has made a complete list of all items in the game - and their effect - which can be found here:

[[v0.3] Ultimate List](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/38cb7e/v03_ultimate_list/)

And if you're here for the Lord Sword, it has two effects:

* 0.1% (1 in 1,000) chance of killing any non-boss monster on hit.
* 0.00001% (1 in 10,000,000) chance of killing a boss on hit.

Note that neither of the effects proc with passive skillbooks like Multi Shot or Cleave.

## 3.4 I bought an Equipment Bag. How do I get the new slot?

The Equipment Bag is a usable item that you should now have in your inventory. When you use it, you should get the new slot.

## 3.5 Do Sunlight Capes affect Blood Swords?

No, see 3.6 below.

## 3.6 How do (equipment) item procs/effects stack?

>^(If you're not interested in the details, you can check out the )[^(guide on healing)](http://redd.it/376u22) ^(and the) [^(guide on damage)](http://redd.it/37n94p) ^(for some graphs that show the best builds.)

Currently, equipment items (also known as 'equips') have 2 properties:

1. Stat effect applied when equipping the item. - `applyTo`
2. Procs that are executed when performing an active action (all actives and basic attack/heal) - `executeProc`

Most equips use only either of these properties, but some equips, like the Sabre of Sacrifice, use both.

    **Stat effects** are permanent stat modifiers that stay there as long as you have the item equipped. Modifiers include damage, HP, range, XP gain, gold gain and elemental resistances.

Almost all stat effects stack additively. E.g. 2 bronze armors = 40% increased HP. Currently the only exceptions are Transparent and Golden Swords, which stack multiplicatively, like the ingame tooltip says.

*Note* specifically that Sunlight Cape and Cursed Blade are hidden elemental resistance modifiers of the element called 'holy'. And all heals currently work light negative holy damage. Although bloodswords do not use holy damage, which is why these two holy modifier items don't affect it.

    **Procs** are executed when performing any active action. This means that both healing and offensive actives can trigger them, as well as basic attacks and basic heals. Note you can also [damage your allies](http://imgur.com/CnDpVv9) on heals, with offensive procs, although there's currently no beneficial reason to do so.

To understand how these procs work in detail, we have to dive into the 2 different types of procs:

1. Probability procs (chance for an effect)
2. Constant procs (every attack/heal gets an effect)

**Probability procs** stack only by chance, and not by effect. They stack by the "at least one" probability rule. For instance, the Fire Tinged Sword has a 3% chance to do 1000% of base damage. If you equip 3 of them, you'd have a 1−(1−0.03)^3 ≈ 8.7% chance for doing 1000% of base damage on the target. So **probability procs can't trigger more than once per active action**.

**Constant procs** stack by effect, as separate entities. For instance, equipping 3 venom daggers will give 3 separate counters that each will apply a DoT on the target whenever each respective counter hits 5 active actions.

Bloodswords stack additively, so equipping 3 will grant you 9% of max HP on every active action. Similarly, equipping 3 Sabres of Sacrifice will steal away 12% of max HP on every active action.

## 3.7 Do active abilities work with passive abilities or item procs?

>^(If you're not interested in the details, you can check out the )[^(guide on healing)](http://redd.it/376u22) ^(and the) [^(guide on damage)](http://redd.it/37n94p) ^(for some graphs that show the best builds.)

Yes, in a way. Active abilities can trigger passive abilities, but the passive abilities only proc with attack damage, as if it was a basic attack.

And there's two categories of passives: `onAttack` (offensive) and `onHeal` (healing).

Offensive actives can only trigger offensive passives. And healing actives can only trigger healing passives.

This means that e.g. fireballs can trigger Critical Hits, but they still only double the basic attack damage. On the other hand, fireballs can't trigger healing passives. Just like AoE heals can't trigger Critical Hits. AoE heals can only trigger healing passives like Healing Propagation and Full Heal.

Active abilities can also trigger item procs. So you can get e.g. a Venomous Dagger or Bloodsword proc from a Taunt or even a Fireball. Keep in mind though, that the damage of item procs still only scale with attack damage and health, respectively, not the active ability damage. However, **both types of active abilities can trigger item procs**. So this means you can [damage your own allies](http://imgur.com/CnDpVv9) through item procs an AoE heal.

Although, **item procs don't trigger through passive abilities**. Which means that multishot and cleave can't spread venom, give you multiple bloodsword heals or proc multi-burns from the Fire Tinged Sword. And the same goes for AoE heals.

## 3.8 I've created a snapshot! How do I apply it?

If you've hit the "Create snapshot" button, in your equipment and skills overview, and named it, you'll get an item in your inventory called ["Equipment Snapshot"](http://i.imgur.com/eHtDndM.png). If you use this item, you'll apply your snapshot to all your raiders. The item has infinite uses, and you can create multiple snapshots.

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# 4. Raids

## 4.1 How do I beat this raid boss?

The first three raids primarily need leveling to beat. But farming good [healing](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/376u22/healing_calculations/) or [damage](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/37n94p/guidedamage_and_you/) items can help the process accelerate.

But the 5th raid (Frozen Coast) is a highly discussed topic. Some people go for [optimal builds for the full raider group](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/396cqc/perfect_build/). Others go for builds that take utility of [Bloodswords and Large bows](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/38ugyk/a_build_to_kill_everything/). There may even by other methods that are yet to be discovered!

## 4.2 Which bosses have elemental resistances?

Not many monsters have resistances yet. But here they are:

4th raid (Mountain Refuge):

Monster Name | Earth modifier | Fire modifier | Ice modifier
---------|:----------:|:----------:|:----------:
Earth Elemental |70% | - | 130%
Ice Elemental | - | 130% | 70%
Lava Elemental | - | 70% | 130%
Metal Elemental | 110% | 110% | 110%

And besides that: all normal, spiked and cube slimes takes 200% damage from fire.

No bosses in Frozen Coast, or other raids, have elemental resistances.

*****

# 5. Arena

## 5.1 When should I buy the arena?

It's up to you when you want to buy it. The arena rewards can be very useful. You can check out the arena rewards here:

[[v0.3] Ultimate List](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/38cb7e/v03_ultimate_list/) (Slightly outdated for the arena, see 5.2 below)

As you probably know the arena costs 50,000 gold to get. However, it also costs 5,000 gold each time you start an arena run. And depending on how far you can get, you'll get a gold reward (see 5.2 below). So your decision should probably depend on how much you need the rewards over the merchant's inventory.

## 5.2 What reasons are there to continue the arena after round 5?

New reasons have been added in 0.3d! Now, you gain gold by the amount of waves you complete. The formula works like this:

If you have 4 or less rounds completed: waves^(2.5). E.g. if you've completed round 2 wave 5, that's 17 waves, which is 17^(2.5) = 1,191 gold.

If you have 5 or more rounds completed, you gain 5000 gold + 15 × waves. E.g. if you've completed 10 rounds, that's 60 waves, which is 5000+15×60 = 5,900 gold.

Here's a rough overview of gold rewards (and [here's a more detailed one](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K7_Q8tjAq-iVCSNN1bvCr6BI4e_nXS3UUpcHP4Qm1nk/edit?usp=sharing)):

Gold reward | Rounds completed |
---------|----------
1 | 0
129 | 1
609| 2
1573 | 3
3125 | 4
5465| 5
5555 | 6
5645 | 7
5735| 8
5825| 9

Also, there's also new item rewards:

Item reward | Rounds completed
---------|----------
[Sniper Crossbow](http://i.imgur.com/fTwF0AY.png) (10%) | 7
[Golden Sword](http://i.imgur.com/q4qm5oQ.png) (10%) | 7
[Elemental Amulet](http://i.imgur.com/g2bTFAL.png) (10%)| 8

*****

# 6. Soft resets

## 6.1 How do I soft reset?

>^(**Note**: The "Reset Game" option in Options is *NOT* the way to soft reset. That is a complete wipe of your save file, commonly known as a hard reset.)

Soft resetting is done through the Mystery Mage. And the Mystery appears when you've beaten the last raid at least once on your current run.

However, the Mystery Mage can also appear when you have more than 0 soft resets, without having beaten the last raid. When that happens, you're presented with the option to go back to 0 soft resets for a price.

## 6.2 When should I soft reset?

First of all, the only thing that soft resets do, is to scale enemies and their rewards. Like the Mystery Mage says, you do not lose your levels or items.

So the decision depends on what you want. Do you want to farm some more items while things are easier? Or do you want higher XP and Gold rewards, while things get harder?

You can see how soft resets scale the game [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/38ot7w/soft_reset_scaling/).

## 6.3 I paid the Mystery Mage but I didn't soft reset. What happened?

Soft resetting is free. If you see an option to pay the mystery mage, it's *NOT* a soft reset.

Instead, it's an option to reset your soft reset count to 0. It's an option that was put there for people who soft reset too early and regretted it. The developers are also considering to add [the option to just revert 1 soft reset at a time](https://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/38jxxo/suggestion_granular_reset/crw96fp).

*****

# 7. Events

## 7.1 How long does "Love is in the air" last?

[According to John Paul Young](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNC0kIzM1Fo), it's everywhere you look around. In the whisper of the trees. In the the thunder of the sea.

But by extensive testing and some code-peeking, we now know it only lasts for **15 minutes**, and appears on a random farm map.

*****

# 8. Miscellaneous

## 8.1 How do offline earnings work?

Currently you only gain gold and XP when the game is closed down. But the developer team plans on making it possible to [gain items even when offline](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/36obgz/suggestionsending_different_raiders_to_different/crg7oyw?context=3).

You can see more details about how offline earnings work [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/idleraiders/comments/38xga1/how_to_increase_offline_earnings/).

>^(**Note**: You don't gain anything if you keep your game open while you put your computer into sleep mode. So it's recommended to close down the game before putting it into sleep mode, so you'll at least gain offline XP and gold.)

## 8.2 Is there a chat for Idle Raiders?

Yes, there's a Kongregate chat, which may be hidden because not enough people use it (yet). If you go to the Chat tab, you'll see a [settings button](http://imgur.com/XraysWZ) with a cogwheel on. Click that, and pick "Change chat rooms". Under "Game Rooms" you should at least see "Idle Raiders - Room #01" which you can click to tune into the chat.

There's also an unofficial chat here: http://us23.chatzy.com/Idle-Raiders

## 8.3 I lost all my progress - how do I get it back?

A slight edit of what Travis (lead developer) has said on this issue:

>If your game crashed and the game asks you to backup your save and send it to you via email, then you should do that.

> But if the progress is just gone, there's not much we can do. Right now there's two major reasons: People having their cache cleared (either manually or by 3rd party programs like CCleaner) or people running in private/incognito mode where the game can't save.

>We can't offer new saves via email, because assembling those takes a lot of time that we unfortunately don't have. However the next update will already change how we're saving the game - we will save the data to multiple storage backends, including HTML5 localStorage, flash and other places, and just load the first one available when the game is started up. We hope this will prevent a lot of issues people are having.

## 8.4 I am experiencing a bug. How do I fix it?

First of all, you should report the bug. Either here on reddit or directly to social [at] pitforest.de if you think it might be a new or gamebreaking bug.

Secondly, many bugs are temporary, so you can try refreshing the page to fix it. If you can't fix your particular bug by doing that, it's probably even more important to report the bug.

Other than that, you'll have to wait until the Pitforest team gets around to fixing it. For most bugs, they get around to fixing it pretty quickly though.

## 8.5 How do I check the game code?

Currently the game is entirely client side JavaScript, non-obfuscated, which means you can read it if you are interested in how the game works, want to check how a mechanic works, want to see unobtainable features, want to double check drop rates or something entirely different. It's up to you! This is how to do it:

1. With the game open on Kongregate, click outside the game frame, but within the window, and then **hit F12 in Chrome** (or Firebug in Firefox, but I don't have much experience with that, sorry) to open the developer tools. They can also be accessed through Options --> More Tools --> Developer Tools.
2. Click the **"Sources" tab** and find the folder called **game238770.konggames.com**. Open that up, and also the folder within it.
3. You should see a file called something like "**gamea03d3.min.js**". (If he keeps the naming convention, it will slightly change name with future updates, but will probably always start with "game" and then the version name afterwards).
4. Right click that file and select "**Open link in new tab**".
5. Hit **Ctrl+A** to mark all the code in the new tab, and then **Ctrl+C** to copy it.
6. Go to **jsbeautifier.org** (or any other js-unminifier) and paste it there, to convert the minified code into more readable code. Hit either of the Beautify buttons.
7. Look at the code on that website, or copy the beautified code and put it into an editor. I prefer Notepad++ (notepad-plus-plus.org) simply because it has syntax coloring, but there's many options of course.