Ascension Quick Guide

This is meant to serve as a how-to for building a good record. The information was collected and compiled by members of the community on just how everything works in Ascension. I cannot verify 100% accuracy as a lot of this information is not stated anywhere in-game, but to the best of my knowledge from personal testing, everything should be correct. Everything assumes you are maxed on monolith research, but if you aren't, I hope you will still be able to learn from this and find it useful.

Menace Arena and Boss Blitz both serve as an excellent barometer to measure your record compared to others. If you get stuck, or feel like you're struggling to get a higher score, you may want to ask for advice from others about your build and what's holding you back. Some teams are unconventional and you may not learn about them unless you seek out the information yourself.

Disclaimer: While this may lean towards pushing for higher record score, it is mainly intended to give you tips on how to optimize your runs. How you choose to adjust for suboptimal situations is up to you, and the build guide you're following. Use your best judgment.

Here is a couple of handy charts that compare the value of various things. note chart potentialnotechart

I will break this down into sections as you want to change the way you play throughout the run.

Preliminary checklist:

  • Difficulty 7 unlocked?
  • Monolith Research complete?
  • Guide for the build you want ready to go? See here if not.
  • Discs leveled to 60? (Not the most important, but helps)

Important notes:

  • Most people recommend to run manually, but you can exit a ticket run by turning off 'Auto Advance' in the bottom corner.(This consumes the ticket) auto example
  • The thumbs-up icon recommended potentials in-game are a lie. Follow your build guide, and adjust when necessary.
  • If the run starts to feel like shit, and you lose a gamble or get really bad shop RNG, just reset. Recovery is possible but rare due to RNG.
  • The 30/70 +650/-200 gamble is NOT the most important thing, it's up to you if you want to try for it when it comes up.
  • Trading 5 random notes for 150 coins is a good deal, especially when it takes away useless starting notes you may have from a support disc, or any wrong element notes you picked up.
  • The most important shops are the first and final. Floor 12's shop is a good spot to assess your run and consider resetting.
  • Start Tall, then go Wide later around/after Floor 12.
  • The best time to reroll for specific Potentials is at the shops. If a drink has your main trekker's icon, rerolling it will only give you Pots for that character.
  • The limit to how many times you can see level 3 Potentials in your options is 5 sets of Potential cards. It doesn't matter if you see 1 or 3 in the same set, only that you see 5 sets that have at least one level 3 potential in it.

Note on the 30/70 +650/-200 Event:
You will encounter this and it may make or break your run. It is not mandatory to win this event to get a good record, you can easily get screwed still. However, the extra coins make for a nice cushion for your coin economy, and allow you to do things like reroll more, buy more potentials, buy more x15 notes you otherwise might have had to skip. I personally always go for it.

Note on the Enhancement Machine and how it works:
There is a Monolith Research buff that has a 30% chance of offering +2 instead of +1 upgrades. This can only activate 4 times in your run and ONLY from the Enhancement Machine. If you do not use these, they can appear again at other Enhancement Machines.
Example: I just upgraded a Potential from +3 to +5. I have one boosted upgrade left. When I go to enhance, the only boosted upgrade is on the +5 card, and choosing that would waste the upgrade along with the boost. I SKIP enhancing that, and spend the enhancement on a +1 upgrade for something else. When I go to the next Enhancement machine, I can redeem the last +2 on something so as to not waste an upgrade.

upgrade example As you can see, the left most is upgraded, but still only gives +1, so we can either take it and lose half the upgrade or get the one on the right, which preserves the +2 for the later shop. (if you do this more than once, I cannot guarantee it will preserve all your attempts, as in my testing it seemed to only work once per run) (there is a claim that this functions differently, however I have only seen it from a single person and have not been able to replicate the results they claim which is that the limit is 5 times and showing up twice in the same set removes two chances to upgrade, all of my testing shows limit 4 claimed upgrades with 1 chance to skip and claim later)

Floors 1 - 5

You're mostly hoping for good events here. Some people restart if they don't get an event on the first floor, but I find that can easily be negated by the 2nd floor having a great event that you win the coinflip on.
Regardless, the most important thing in these early floors are the Potential Cards you pick to start. If your build wants you to grab something early at +3, or you need certain core potentials maxed, this is where you want to get them. If you get past the first shop and you don't have at least some of your core build at +5 or +6, it's safe to reset the run and try again. Try to avoid rerolling Potentials as much as possible here, but if nothing in your build shows up you have no choice really.
If you skip a +3, it may not show up again and you might brick the run, be careful
Purple Potentials for your build should be prioritized as you can brick yourself if they never show up again
First shop order of operations:

  1. Check shop discounts. If there's no x15 Notes, or they're the wrong element, just reset. The ideal first shop has x15 Notes that match your build for 200 or 320 and a 100-cost Potential for your main trekker.
  2. Buy the notes first. Any discounted notes that aren't the wrong element (ie Ventus in your Aqua run) are top priority.
  3. Go to the Enhancement Machine and use it 4 times AT MOST. You are fishing for +2's on your core Potentials to get them to +6 or +5.
  4. Go back to the shop and buy what discounted items you can afford. 90-cost notes are fine if they're part of your build.
  5. Leave with 0-100 coins

shop example Ignis team example. This shop is good because 200 for 15 Pummel, which contributed to multiple disc harmonies.

Floors 6 - 12

For this section, you're still looking to +6 your core Potentials for main and supports. You will also try to pick up other Potentials at +2 if you can. Especially be conservative when rerolling Potentials here, as you will have a lot of opportunities to upgrade the important ones instead of taking new ones, and that should be a priority still. Keeping your coin economy healthy is important for these floors and will pay off later.
Second shop order of operations

  1. Check for discounts
  2. Buy notes, maybe a discount main potential if there is one and you're still missing something important
  3. Enhancement machine 2 times (160 > 180)
  4. Buy whatever else you can that is discounted, do NOT refresh shop
  5. Leave with 600-1200 coins

Floors 12 - 19

Now that you're here, you should have some parts of your build maxed. A purple or two, a crucial yellow on a support, whatever. As long as your build looks decent at this point, you haven't been royally screwed by RNG, and your coin economy isn't totally in shambles, you're good to keep going.
This is where you're rounding out the rest of your build, trying to make sure you get every potential needed. Remember to try to max important ones before taking new ones. Grabbing stuff at +2 here isn't as important anymore, as most of what you'd want will likely only be needed at +1. Still, it's nice when it happens.
If you are missing ANY purples that you need by this point, you should be trying to reroll occasionally to get them. You can also wait until the Floor 18 shop and try to reroll for specific potentials there. Just try not to blow all your coins spamming the button. Economy still needs to be managed.
Shop priority basically stays the same but since you have a good bank of coins the order you do things doesn't matter anymore.

Floor 20(Final)

The only thing here is the shop and enhancement machine, you should have somewhere around 1600-2200 coins here.
Last shop order of operations

  1. Enhance first once or twice, then get into the shop.
  2. What you buy depends on what you have and what you need. If you need more potentials still, grab as many discounted ones as you can afford.
  3. Check your Disc Harmonies and what Notes you still need to activate them. Regardless of cost, activating Harmonies is important here as it will push your record to level 31 easier. All level 1 or three 1 three 2 is good enough. Just make sure you can still afford other things.
  4. Use both shop refreshes here and return to step 2 each time.
  5. Enhance again if you still can afford to.

That's it, you should come out with a solid, level 31 record. Even if you didn't reach 31, you probably got a great 30, and if you post a screenshot of your record in /sora/ some anon might give you an award.

Edit

Pub: 23 Nov 2025 09:54 UTC

Edit: 25 Nov 2025 03:00 UTC

Views: 1900