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The goal of the game
The goal of Clicker Heroes is to optimize the speed at which you progress through zones. This can be sped up by gaining hero souls, (
Hero Souls) and buying ancients, and the process of gaining these can be further sped up by gaining ancient souls (
Ancient Souls). For now, we will focus on gaining Hero Souls, but first, we need to know the most efficient way to earn them.
How to level up your heroes
By clicking on the monsters with your mouse, the first hero you hire, after gaining 5 coins, is 
Cid, the Helpful Adventurer. She will help upgrade your click damage, making it easier for your to progress through the zones. Once you get her to level 10, you can get her first upgrade, which is called Big Clicks and will double her click damage.
This is Cid's first upgrade, Big Clicks
Now when you get enough gold to hire 
Treebeast, do so. He will deal damage over time, called DPS (damage per second). This kind of damage is different from click damage, as you won't need to click for him to do damage because he will damage the monsters himself. Level him up to level 10, and buy his first upgrade, called Fertilizer, which will double his DPS. Note that each level requires more and more gold to level up a hero. This is because every level requires about 1.07× as much gold to level up, while the damage increase is linear until level 200.
You will then earn enough gold to hire 
Ivan, the Drunken Brawler, and then level him up. You'll want to get him to level 10, where you will be able to buy his first upgrade, Hard Cider. You will then hire 
Brittany, Beach Princess, level her up to level 10, and buy her first upgrade. You will do the same with 
The Wandering Fisherman, levelling him up to level 10, buying his first upgrade. Now level up Cid, the Helpful Adventurer to level 25, and buy her 2nd upgrade, Clickstorm. This is really a skill, and you can use it to auto-click for a while, which is nice. Then hire 
Betty Clicker. You'll get Betty to level 10, but instead of buying her first upgrade, you will move on and hire 
The Masked Samurai. Level him to level 10, as usual, and buy his first upgrade.
Here are the next steps:
- Level
Treebeast to level 100, and buy his last upgrade only.
- Level Ivan, the Drunken Brawler up to level 100, and buy his 4th and 5th upgrades.
- Hire Leon, level him up to level 10, and buy his first upgrade.
- Hire The Great Forest Seer, level him up to level 10, buy his first upgrade.
- Level The Wandering Fisherman to level 100, and buy his last 2 upgrades.
- Hire Alexa, Assassin, level her up to level 10.
- Hire Natalia, Ice Apprentice, level her up to level 10, buy her first upgrade.
- Level Betty Clicker to level 100, and buy all of her upgrades.
- Hire Mercedes, Duchess of Blades, level her up to level 10, buy her first upgrade.
- Level Leon to level 75, and buy his last upgrade.
- Hire Bobby, Bounty Hunter, level him to level 10, buy his first upgrade.
- Hire Broyle Lindeoven, Fire Mage, level him to level 10.
- Hire Sir George II, King's Guard, level him up to level 10, buy his first upgrade.
- Level Alexa, Assassin to level 100, and buy her 1st, 4th, and 5th upgrade.
- Hire King Midas, level him up to level 10.
- Hire Referi Jerator, Ice Wizard, level him up to level 10, buy his first upgrade.
- Level Mercedes, Duchess of Blades and Bobby, Bounty Hunter to level 100, and buy their last upgrade each.
- Hire Abaddon, level him up to level 10, buy his first upgrade.
- Level Broyle Lindeoven, Fire Mage to level 100, and buy his 1st and 5th upgrades.
- Hire Ma Zhu, level him up to level 10, buy his first upgrade.
- Level Sir George II, King's Guard to level 100, and buy his last upgrade.
- Hire Amenhotep, level him up to level 10, buy his first upgrade.
- Level King Midas up to level 125, and buy all of his upgrades.
- Hire Beastlord, level him up to level 10, buy his first upgrade.
- Level Referi Jerator, Ice Wizard to level 125, and buy his last upgrade.
- Hire Athena, Goddess of War, level her up to level 10, buy her first upgrade.
- Level Abaddon to level 75, and buy his last upgrade.
- Hire Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, level her up to level 10, buy her first upgrade.
- Hire Shinatobe, Wind Deity, level her up to level 10, buy her first upgrade.
- Level Amenhotep to level 50, and buy his 2nd and 3rd upgrades.
- Level Shinatobe, Wind Deity to level 25, buy her second upgrade.
- Level Beastlord to level 100, and buy his last 2 upgrades.
- Hire Grant, The General, level him to level 10, buy his first upgrade, level him to level 25, buy his second upgrade.
- Level Aphrodite, Goddess of Love to level 100, and buy her 4th upgrade.
- Hire Frostleaf, level him up to level 10, buy his first upgrade, level him up to level 25, buy his second upgrade.
- Level Shinatobe, Wind Deity to level 100, buy her last upgrade.
- Level Grant, The General to level 50, buy his 3rd upgrade.
- Level Frostleaf to level 50, buy his 3rd upgrade, level him up to level 75 and buy his last upgrade.
This is how you will play for a while, until a certain point. Note that the next hero, 
Dread Knight, will not have to be hired. He is too expensive to hire in your first ascension.
Zone progressing
You may have noticed that every 5 zones, there is a boss, who is about 10 times as strong as a normal monster, and requires you to defeat it in 30.0 seconds or less. If you succeed, you can continue progressing, but if you fail, you will have to farm on the previous zone in order to gain more 
Gold, level up your heroes, and increase your DPS to be able to defeat the boss in sub-30.0 seconds. Also, some bosses will be primal when you get past level 100 (Omeet), that is, they will offer Hero Souls if killed. If you go back to a primal boss, it won't offer Hero Souls anymore, but it might on the next ascension. (You'll find out what that is later.)
When to ascend
You can either stop at zone 130 (because the zone 100, 110, 120 and 130 bosses are guaranteed primals) or grind on to zone 160. When you get to your chosen stopping zone, you will want to level up all your heroes to quite high levels. Press 'T' twice to toggle to the ×25 levels, and go to each hero, leveling them up until the Gold requirement is beyond 1000O or so. You should have about 14,000 hero levels (shown in the stats in the 3rd tab. (Don't worry if you have fewer, just ascend anyway). This will give you 7 more Hero Souls, because, for every 2,000 hero levels, you will gain 1 Hero Souls upon ascending. Then you will ascend. Only try to defeat the zone 160 boss before ascending if it is primal, in which case you will use all your skills to try and defeat it. The zone 160 boss has a 25% chance of being primal. The boss is a Big Feets .
How to ascend
To ascend, level 
Amenhotep to level 150 and buy his last upgrade, ASCENSION. When you ascend, you will restart back at zone 1, and you'll have to buy your heroes again. You'll keep your rubies, your achievements, your ancients, your relics, your clans, and your mercenaries. The difference is that you will have earned Hero Souls, each of which gives an additive 10% bonus to your base DPS. They will help make you stronger in order to progress even further into the zones. Once you earn enough Hero Souls, you'll be able to pass zone 160, 165, 170, and so on, until you reach zone 300.
Ancients
After you have ascended and have enough Hero Souls, you'll want to buy some Ancients. The ancients tab is the 4th tab from the left, and you have 4 possible options for which ancient to summon first. Ancients require you to spend Hero Souls, so you'll want to be careful with your selection. The first ancient you'll want to buy is either 
Atman, 
Libertas or 
Siyalatas. Another good option is 
Juggernaut if you have an 
Auto Clicker. If none of these are possible options, you should probably reroll to gain new options. The one Hero Souls it costs to re-roll is worth it.
Levelling Ancients
Once you summon an ancient, you'll want to make sure you don't spend too many Hero Souls upgrading it. Each Hero Souls provides 10% DPS. Upgrading Siyalatas to level 2 (+50% DPS) costs 3 Hero Souls, and it is worth it as it is better than the 30% otherwise provided by the Hero Souls. However, to go to level 3, you'll spend 3 more Hero Souls, losing 30% DPS only to gain 25%.
There are calculators (use one of the top two, or the 4th from the top if you are on console) available to help decide how many Hero Souls you should spend levelling them up.
When to summon another ancient
You should summon another ancient if you can gain the amount of Hero Souls it requires to summon that Ancient in 20 minutes or less, from the beginning of an ascension. If you can't, it's probably not worth buying it. After every ascension, you should import your save into the calculator to find out the optimal way to spend your Hero Souls on summoning and levelling up ancients.
Idle Path
If you've bought Siyalatas or Libertas, you won't need to hire Cid, the Helpful Adventurer (click hero) or any of the click-enhancing upgrades ( Treebeast's last upgrade, Ivan, the Drunken Brawler's 5th upgrade, etc etc), since these won't have any effect. You'll no longer need to click on the monsters in your games. You will still need to click to beat bosses in many cases early on. If you mis-click, then you will not lose your idle bonuses, unless you click again in the next 5 minutes.
Ancients:
For the rest of your ancients, you'll summon pretty much anyone you want except for
Bhaal, 
Chawedo, 
Fragsworth, 
Hecatoncheir, Juggernaut, 
Kleptos, 
Pluto and 
Sniperino.
Clicking path
If you bought Juggernaut and hopefully an Auto Clicker, you'll want to level him with Relics. If you can get 3-4 Juggernaut relics, you'll be doing ~25× combo damage very soon. Look for other ancients that help with DPS or clicking, but not idle-mode enhancements.
Rubies
Rubies are earned from clickables (always click these when they appear, not the 
, but the 
), or from mercenaries (not suggested for pre-transcendent players). The first thing you will buy, when you get 50 Rubies, is the 2× damage multiplier to all your damage forever. After that, the next thing to buy is an Auto Clicker, even when idle, since you can get a DPS boost if you use 
Nogardnit.
Relics
In the middle of an ascension you can have as many 
Relics as you want, but can only use the bonuses from 4 of them at the same time; the others are placed in Junk Pile and you need to salvage them before you ascend. Salvaging Relics grants you forge cores, which are used to upgrade Relics. You should upgrade the high tier Relics first. For now, you'll want Relics that give bonuses to Atman, 
Dogcog, and 
Bubos. After transcending, the Relic tier will change, but this is what you'll want for now.
Clans
You can request to join a clan, or you can make a clan for 50 Rubies. (not suggested for you right now.) You can fight the immortal by clicking on it. (It won't affect your idle status.) You'll deal damage, and this damage, called immortal damage, is based off how many Hero Souls you've earned through primal bosses. If you've been given the option to be the clan leader, good for you! You can decide whether or not to let certain people in. They should all have close highest zones ever(shown in the 'members' section), if you want a good clan.
Mercenaries
Make your mercenaries go on quests for Hero Souls. After transcending, you'll want them to go on quests for other things, too, but for now, Hero Souls are the bonuses you want from your mercenaries.
Re-gilding
If you've heard a lot of people say that you should put all your gilds into The Masked Samurai, don't worry about it, if you haven't yet transcended, because it would be too early. Once you can get past level 200 without having to farm, you can regild into the "Power Five": Treebeast, Ivan, the Drunken Brawler, Brittany, Beach Princess, The Masked Samurai, and 
The Great Forest Seer. To do this, scroll to the bottom, and click the gilded button. Hold ctrl and click on a gilded hero that is not one of the Power Five. Keep doing this until all the gilds are on the Power Five. Then, level 
Treebeast up to level 200. (Make sure you've bought his first 4 upgrades). Level him up to 225, then level 
Ivan, the Drunken Brawler up to 200. (Make sure you've bought his first 3, and last upgrades. Level Treebeast to level 250, then level Ivan, the Drunken Brawler up to level 225, and 
Brittany, Beach Princess to level 200. (Make sure you've bought all of her upgrades.) Level Treebeast to level 275, Ivan, the Drunken Brawler to level 250, Brittany, Beach Princess to level 225, Treebeast to level 300, Ivan, the Drunken Brawler to level 275, Brittany, Beach Princess to level 250, Treebeast to level 325, Ivan, the Drunken Brawler to level 300, Brittany, Beach Princess to level 275, and 
The Masked Samurai to level 200. (Make sure you've bought all of his upgrades.) Level Treebeast to level 350, Ivan, the Drunken Brawler to level 325, Brittany, Beach Princess to level 300, The Masked Samurai to level 225, Treebeast to level 375, Ivan, the Drunken Brawler to level 350, Brittany, Beach Princess to level 325, The Masked Samurai to level 250, and 
The Great Forest Seer to level 200. (Make sure you've bought all of his upgrades.) Then level up the Power Five by intervals of 25, starting with Treebeast, e. g., Level up Treebeast another 25 levels, Ivan another 25 levels, Brittany, Beach Princess another 25 levels, The Masked Samurai another 25 levels, The Great Forest Seer another 25 levels, and then go back to Treebeast and repeat the process, by levelling him another 25 levels, then moving down the Power Five, continuing to do this until you can no longer make progress in the zones. The Power Five will be your heroes for DPS, as they will soon overtake the DPS of 
Frostleaf. Once you've gilded the Power Five, the next ancient you should be getting will be 
Argaiv, which increases the bonus damage from gilds. Once you have transcended, you'll go by a different re-gilding strategy.
* It's easier to do this if you press 'T' twice to enter the ×25 level toggle modifier.
Achievements
For now, don't worry about achievements. None of them will help your game really, except the ascension achievements, but you'll get those with time, so don't even think about them. Once your game gets boring, and you're already pretty far into the game, then go for the achievements.
How to transcend for the first time
When you get to zone 300, you'll be faced with this boss:
Once you beat him, you should click the transcend button in the last tab. It's that simple, but it's only that simple for the first transcension. You should check the transcendent bar(the eighth and last bar/tab) to see whether or not you can transcend for 12-14 Ancient Souls. If you can transcend for more, that's fine, but if you can't transcend for 12, you have to keep ascending, until you can. On your first transcendence, you'll want to spend your Ancient Souls on 3-4 levels of 
Phandoryss, 2-3 levels of 
Borb, and then put the rest in 
Ponyboy.
Nicknames
Many people shorten/modify the names of heroes to save time. This is not recommended, but since the vast majority of players do this, it is helpful to know what they are talking about, since it is rather awkward when pros chat in front of newbies. Here is a table of what such names really are:
| Heroes | |
|---|---|
| Nickname | Real name |
| Sam | The Masked Samurai |
| Seer | The Great Forest Seer |
| DK | Dread Knight |
| Potato | Phthalo |
| Banana | Orntchya Gladeye, Didensy Banana |
| Wep | Wepwawet |
| CaduCeus | Cadu and Ceus, Tomb Guardians. Usually used to refer to the time in the game where you alternate between Cadu and Ceus and their upgrades. |
| Hero groups | |
| Nickname | Real name |
| Power Five | Heroes Treebeast, Ivan, the Drunken Brawler, Brittany, Beach Princess, The Masked Samurai and The Great Forest Seer |
| Rangers | Heroes Dread Knight to Astraea |
| Beasts | Heroes Chiron to Wepwawet |
| Elementals | Heroes Tsuchi to Madzi |
| Ancients | |
| Nickname | Real name |
| Morg | Morgulis |
| Nog | Nogardnit |
| Siya | Siyalatas |
| Jugg | Juggernaut |
| Frags | Fragsworth |
| Outsiders | |
| Nickname | Real name |
| Xyl | Xyliqil |
| Chor | Chor'gorloth |
| Phan | Phandoryss |
| Pony | Ponyboy |
| Rhag | Rhageist |
| Sen | Sen-Akhan |
| Currencies | |
| Nickname | Real name |
| AS | ancient soul / ancient souls |
| FC | Forge Cores |
| HS | hero soul / hero souls |
| Miscellaneous | |
| buy (ancients) | summon |
| buy (heroes) | hire |
| EDR | Energize + The Dark Ritual + Reload |
| FANT | First Ascension on New Transcension |
| HZE | highest zone ever |
| HZTT | highest zone this transcension |
| LANT or LATT | Last Ascension on New (This) Transcension |
| level / floor (not floor as in floor function) | zones |
| OoM | Order of Magnitude |
| perks | upgrades |
| QA | quick ascension |
| SANT | Second Ascension on New Transcension |
| TP | transcendent power |
| wall | A boss zone, divisible by 5, of course, which you cannot beat with your current DPS or by clicking. |
| FATGAS | First Ascension (of a transcension) That Gains Ancient Souls |
