Clicker Heroes Beginner Guide: Your First Hour, From Cid to the First Boss

Clicker Heroes explains very little. You get a monster, a gold counter and a hero list with one name in it. Here is what the first hour looks like, and the handful of decisions that make it go faster.

Zone 1: clicks only

Press PLAY and you are in Forest Lvl 1. The monster on the island has 10 HP and you do 1 damage per click, so ten clicks kill it and it drops a coin. The skull counter under the zone name shows how many of the ten monsters you have killed. You need 5 gold for your first hire.

Cid and Treebeast

Cid, the Helpful Adventurer, is the only hero who works on your clicks. Her first upgrade, Big Clicks, arrives at level 10, then Huge Clicks at 50 and Massive Clicks at 75, and at level 25 she teaches you Clickstorm, an auto clicker that performs 10 clicks per second for a while. Treebeast costs 50 gold and is the first hero with DPS: he attacks every second whether you click or not. Get him as soon as you can.

Which hero to level

After Treebeast come Ivan, the Drunken Brawler (250 gold), Brittany, Beach Princess (1,000), the Wandering Fisherman (4,000), Betty Clicker (20,000) and the Masked Samurai (100,000). Each new hero does far more damage per level than the one before. A simple rule works for a long time: put your gold into the newest hero you can afford, and buy the upgrade icons under each hero when they light up, because they often double that hero's damage.

The x1, x10, x25, x100 and MAX buttons above the list set how many levels one click buys. The keyboard does the same without changing the setting: hold Shift for 10, Z for 25 or Ctrl for 100.

Zone 5: the first boss

Every fifth zone has a single boss instead of ten monsters, and a timer. If the timer runs out, the game tells you to go back to the previous zone and farm gold. Do exactly that: click the left arrow at the top right, level up, and come back. When you are strong enough, Progression Mode moves you forward on its own after each cleared zone, so you do not have to click the arrow every time.

Treasure chests and gold

Now and then a Treasure Chest appears instead of a monster. It drops far more gold than the monsters around it, so do not skip it. Later, King Midas brings Golden Clicks and Broyle Lindeoven brings Metal Detector, both of which exist to multiply your gold.

Skills and when to use them

Skills appear as icons beside the monster once a hero reaches the right level: Clickstorm from Cid at 25, Powersurge from Ivan at 75, Lucky Strikes from Alexa at 100. Each has a cooldown, so keep them for boss zones, where a few extra seconds of damage decide the fight.

Keep your save

The game saves in your browser on its own. Open the wrench icon at the top right to Export a text copy of your save now and then; if you switch computers or clear your browser, Import brings everything back. When the boss timers start winning no matter what you do, it is time to read about Ascension, Hero Souls and Ancients.