Talent order: which of the eight first
The eight talents, what each level adds, and which levels are worth stopping at.
Swiftness to 5 while you are starting out, then Ingenuity to 5 and 10 the moment Ingenuity is available to you. That is the short answer, and the reason is the shape of the system rather than the size of the numbers: every talent adds the same small stat at every one of its twenty levels, and the things you actually feel are the perks that land at levels 5, 10 and 20.
Read the eight as “four points of stat plus an unlock” rather than as sliders, and the order sorts itself out.
The eight, level by level
Five are open from the start — Wrath, Wisdom, Endure, Survival and Swiftness. Greed, Ingenuity and Willpower become available later.
| Talent | Every level | Level 5 | Level 10 | Level 20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ingenuity | Max HP +1, Evasion +0.5 | 2 extra inventory slots | +1 choice on weapon, item and miracle offers | Universal Damage Boost +7% per active combo type |
| Swiftness | Attack Speed +1% | Evasion +8, Dash Count +1 | Dash Recovery Speed +20%, Weapon Damage +8 | Dash invincibility +0.1 s, Weapon Damage +15 |
| Wrath | Critical Chance +1% | Critical Damage +20% | Damage to bosses and minibosses +10% | Defense Penetration +20% |
| Willpower | Luck +1 | Starting dice +2, Wishing Fountain capacity +1 | Max HP +15, Max MP +25 | Wishing Fountain capacity +4 |
| Survival | Max HP +2 | A random stat +1 every time you drink a potion | 3 extra inventory slots | Tablet Imprinting, at a cost — see below |
| Endure | Defense +1 | Start the run holding tablets | Below 25 HP, recover 1 HP per second | Revive once at 60% HP |
| Wisdom | MP Regeneration +1 | MP Steal +5, Max MP +10 | Unique on everything, duplicates merge — see below | 1 free reroll per item reward, Experience Drop +20 |
| Greed | Leaf Drop +3% | — | — | — |
Two rows need a caveat rather than a number, and they are the two most interesting rows in the table.
Survival at 20 switches on Tablet Imprinting — the ability to consume a tablet and burn its effect into the bag permanently — and pays for it by taking a large amount of bag space away. The trade is real and it is severe enough to redesign a build around; the exact number of slots it costs is not something to take on trust from anyone, so read the level’s own text in game before you spend the point.
Wisdom at 10 forces every artifact you pick up to carry a Unique effect, and in exchange duplicates merge into each other and gain a level instead of being dead picks. It also hands you dice for beating a boss. The count of dice is the part nobody should be quoting, including this page; the mechanic itself is worth building around and the level rows on the talent pages show what is confirmed.
The order
1. Swiftness to 5, then Ingenuity to 5 as soon as you have it. A dash and two extra bag slots are the two things that change how a run plays rather than how a number reads. The dash is an extra mistake you get to survive, and it arrives with eight evasion attached. A slot is a whole extra artifact or tablet, every run, forever — see how much room two slots really buy on the bag planner.
2. Ingenuity to 10. This is the strongest single level in the system: one more option on every weapon, item and miracle you are ever offered. It is not a percentage, it is a wider choice at every reward node for the entire run, and it compounds with everything you already know about your build.
3. Survival to 10, if you want more bag. Three more slots, and Survival’s per-level Max HP is the least wasted stat trickle in the game while you climb to it. Stop at 10 unless you have decided you want Tablet Imprinting badly enough to pay for it.
4. Wrath to 5 and 10 once your damage is real. Critical Damage +20% does nothing if your crit chance is near zero, and it does a great deal once artifacts and the Precision combo have pushed crit up. Level 10’s flat +10% against bosses and minibosses is the cleanest boss-damage in the game, and it is the one to have before you start climbing hard mode tiers.
5. Willpower to 5 or 10 if you build around the Wishing Fountain. Two extra starting dice and a point of Fountain capacity is a strong opener for anyone who plans their runs around a specific artifact; the capacity at level 20 is only worth it if the Fountain is genuinely how you start.
6. Endure to 10 or 20 if you keep dying at full commitment. The regeneration below 25 HP is a slow safety net; the revive at 20 is the single biggest anti-death perk available, and one revive per run at 60% HP is worth more than any amount of Defense +1.
7. Wisdom whenever MP is your limit. If you cast, the level 5 MP Steal and Max MP land early and the level 20 free reroll is a build-shaping effect on every reward. If you do not cast, this talent is close to inert.
8. Greed last. It is the one talent with no perk levels to aim at — Leaf Drop +3% a level, and no unlock waiting at 5, 10 or 20. Leaves are genuinely useful, and this is still twenty levels of nothing but leaves.
Where the points come from, and why the order matters
Talent points do not drop in the tower. They come from exactly two places: the Talent Point entries at the village tree, five of them, five purchases each, most costing one or two Sapphires, and hard mode clears, thirteen reward tiers paying twenty points across a save if you take them one tier at a time. That is the whole income.
It is far less than the eight talents can absorb, so the levels you buy in your first evenings decide what your runs feel like for a long time. This is also why so many players end up with five talents at level 4: the stat per level is small, the perk levels are the purchase, and stopping one short of a perk wastes the run-up. Pick a perk, buy up to it, stop.
If you have not sorted out which of the village’s two systems is paying for what, the difference between the tree and the talent panel is worth five minutes — the tree is where the points are sold, and what to buy there first decides how quickly you get to spend them.