Valour Rift Strategy Guides

A collection of advanced Valour Rift strategy guides covering climbing performance, retreating, Ultimate Charm farming, and the UC Prestige push. Originally written by Dajka on the MouseHunt Discord.

These build on top of the Valour Rift Guide and Valour Rift Additional Info — start there if you're new to the area.

Comparing climbing performance

In other words: how am I doing?

Reframe the question to: what is the probability to reach <that position> (floor/step) in <that number of hunts> or fewer?

• Tool: Re's sim (modified)

Checking current progress:

• At a certain TE: On the Sim sheet, input Step = 0, Sync = <number of hunts done>, Siphon = 0. (For example, if you reached TE2 in 20 hunts, enter 0 / 20 / 0.) Check the At least column of that TE.
• At the start of a custom floor: Same as above, except check the At least column of that particular floor.

Planning a retreat (i.e. "I will retreat if I can't reach TEx by y hunts"):

1. On the Sim sheet, input Step = 0 and Siphon = 0.
2. Track the change of the At least value at your make-it-or-break-it TEx (x can be any number between 2 and 6).
3. Decide a threshold you're comfortable with — Dajka's is 10%, which works out to ~20 hunts to TE2 (9.9%) or ~38 hunts to TE3 (8.6%).
4. Stick to the plan.

Retreating strategy

While the climb can be as simple as "arm your best setup, turn CF on, and widget-hunt for 10 days straight", some hunters want the best possible start (when TA AR is still as high as 18.3%) instead of relying on ~8% AR on the final laps. That's why this strategy exists.

It can be done with either UC or your best non-UC setup, and that choice heavily affects the rest of the decision-making.

⚠️ Retreat strategy is next-level whaling — think of it like a 1.5× UC push, and it may not even work for you. Be sure you understand the time and resource cost before committing.

Step 1 — Pick an aim you're comfortable with. Note the expected usage of charms, CF, Fragments, and Secrets. Make sure you see the big picture before committing.

Step 2 — Farm Fragments and Secrets.

• Retreating with UC: farm enough Fragments and Secrets for one climb, then start testing the waters.
• Retreating with non-UC setups: farm enough for multiple climbs and fit them to a certain aura span. A common span is 7 days (1 Cursed Skull of Spooky Aura), which can hold up to ~20 climbs depending on your aim. Account for the expected number of retreats — e.g. if you expect 20 climbs and are willing to use 4 Cursed Skulls, farming 5–7 climbs' worth before starting is fine.

Step 3 — Climb!

• Start with Super Siphon + Ultimate Umbra + String Stepping augmentations. All others are optional, except Elixir Rain, which should not be activated (to save Secrets).
• Retreat if the chance of reaching the aim drops to 0%.
• If you have more than one checkpoint, retreat only when the chance of all aims drops to 0%.
• If you achieve the aim, commit to the run.

Ultimate Charm farming

Where UC comes from, so you can plan your UC Prestige push efficiently.

Non-event sources

Mouse loot

• SC LotA (5%)
• Retired Minotaur (1.6%, 3 UC each drop)
• Kalor (0–3 UC per tonic-ed WF Nest)
• Consumed Charm Tinkerer (1%)
• MotM (0.5%) & HotM
• Ful'Mina (0.25%)
• Absolute Acolyte (>0.3%, requires Acolyte buff)

Crafting: 187,500 gold + 3 shattering loot

Treasure chests

• Rare Empyrean Sky Palace (4.7%)
• Rare Moussu Picchu (0.5%)
• Rare QCGT (0.2%)
• Rare Queso Canyoneer (0.2%)
• Any Elite-level chest
• Any RH chest

Other convertibles

• Unstable Magnum Opus (5%)
• Unstable Rift Core (0.5%)
• Ful'Mina's Gift (0.1%)
• Royal Loot Crate

Charm Shoppe: 187,500 gold + 375,000 Nachore in Queso Canyon

Unstable Charm proc: 0.005%

Event sources

• Lunar New Year: 3 per event (reward track)
• MouseHunt Birthday: 4 tickets per UC → 5–10 per event
• Spring Egg Hunt: 1,100 Chocolatonium per UC → 5–10 per event
• Ronza: 1 voucher for 10 UC → 20 per event
• Great Winter Hunt: 1 per event (Advent Calendar)

Ultimate Potion conversion

Ultimate Potion farming

• Generated by the Boiling Cauldron Trap: boon procs 4% per hunt, 14.3% of a boon being a UC pot, 2 pots per proc with the Alchemist base — averaging ~32 UC pots for a 2,800-hunt Halloween.
• Apothecary: 20 Evil Extract per UC pot. See the Halloween calc for how much EE you can likely farm (typically 100–350 UC pots per Halloween).

Essence farming — Lunaria materials

• Standard farming: ~0.6 mat/hunt → ~1,000 hunts for 300 Lunaria + 300 Plumepearl = 400 Camembert (using Living Base).
• Halloween Baron–Duke Shuffle board: 17.86% to appear, 30 per appearance → ~5.36 Lunaria + 5.36 Plumepearl = 7.14 Camembert per board.
• GWH golems (pre-2022): 12.8 Plumepearl per Lost City golem, 12.8 Lunaria per Sand Dunes golem → 470 golems for 3,000 + 3,000 = 4,000 Camembert.

Essence farming — Twisted Carmine

• TC minluck: 100. Recommended setups:
  • CSOS / PB14 / Rainbow + LGS + ChromeSlayerWinter + 20xx codex
  • CSOS / PB17 / Rainbow + LGS + ChromeSlayer + 20xx codex
  • CSOS / PB13 / ULC + LGS + ChromeSlayer + 20xx codex
• TC AR: ~29%
• Average chest essence: 1 Gur + 0.25 Fel = 0.12 Icuri → 0.035 Icuri/hunt. See the essence farming calc (or use the on-site Essence Calculator).

Essence from GWH golems (pre-2022): 0.01 Icuri/exceptional slot, 0.094 Icuri/hat → 30–80 Icuri per GWH.

Ultimate Umbra run (UC Prestige push)

TL;DR: farm UC, then yeet through the tower.

Requirements

• Before the run: 1,000 Sigils + 75 Fragments + 1,500 Secrets for augmentations
• During the run: 1,000 GSC + 500 UC + 1,000 CF (the run refunds 500+ CF from poking Unstable Rift Cores, so only ~500 CF is actually spent)
• Average UC needed: 475

Recommended steps

1. Farm UC potions during Halloween(s).
2. Farm Lunaria & Plumepearl during GWH.
3. Farm Carmine with PB14 between GWH and MHBD (you can also farm during LNY).
4. Push after MHBD / SEH.

Using the sims

• Average run: Aaron's sim
• Probability to reach a certain TE: Re's sim (modified)
• Comparing run performance: see the Comparing climbing performance section above.

Considerations

• You can climb in parts, since no aura/event boost is needed for the actual climb. Even without enough UC, raising your PB stats speeds up the UC farming process.
• 300–400 UC is a good starting point. It takes ~600 hunts to reach TE14 and ~850 hunts to reach TE17 — the two checkpoints that make minlucking TC easier. You can always farm more UC later (Ful'Mina and her gifts, Unstable Rift Cores, Kalor, LotA, upcoming events, or more Carmine farming).
• Turn off CF if it doesn't help reduce the needed hunts — see the lookup grid below.

When should I turn off Champion's Fire?

Champion's Fire adds one extra step per hunt, but that step is only worth spending if it actually drops the number of hunts you need to reach the next Total Eclipse. Check your steps until the next TE (the number on your HUD minus 1) in the grid below.

• Shaded cells = CF saves you nothing at that distance, so turn it off and save the charm.
• White cells = CF still pulls the next TE a hunt closer, so keep it on.

Calculated for max Speed 10 — each hunt covers 10 steps, or 11 with CF. A cell is shaded when ⌈steps ÷ 10⌉ equals ⌈steps ÷ 11⌉, i.e. the extra step doesn't reduce your hunt count.

What to expect from your push

This chart shows the probability of finishing your Prestige push at each Total Eclipse floor, for different push charms (R20xx, ULPC, RUPC, RULPC, TSC, RRSC, Ember, UC) and event-boost levels. Floors are colour-coded TE11 (brown) through TE18 (purple).

With no event boost, most push charms land you around TE14; Ember reaches TE15 most of the time, and a full UC setup ("gardeners assemble") reaches TE17 ~75% of the time:

Event boosts shift every distribution upward: Winter and Spooky each push you toward the next floor, they stack when used together, and LNY is the strongest single boost. With Winter + Spooky + LNY stacked, even mid-tier charms (RULPC/TSC/RRSC) reliably reach TE16, and Ember tops out around TE17. Use the chart to pick the charm and boosts that hit the floor you need.