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In the Loop Dungeon, Jacking is a popular and effective playstyle for players in NA. This strategy takes advantage of the leveling system, stars scaling and hero pick system to create an ideal active playstyle.
This Loop Dungeon Idle RPG Jacking guide will provide you an in-depth explanation of this playstyle and its key components.
Related – Loop Dungeon Character Traits Guide
Loop Dungeon Idle RPG Jacking Guide
Step 1: Set up your priority
Hero Card – Normal – Preference
Hero Card is how you reset your normal monster level up picks and level your sacs, normal is how you level your cores. PvP can go in between Hero Card and Normal Monsters, as PvP can never occur on the same floor as hero card, and you lose out on very normal fights. The preference portion can be? or elites for gold and shops for amber.
Gold is an issue as you will see later, but can be solved by buying it with 10 diamonds, or by giving priority to elites above normal (but this results in much later 99s and slower run times, called a “half-jack”)
Step 2: 1st Pick
There are competing thoughts as to what to pick in your first pick, but the absolute fastest way to get 99s is by picking 1 core and 1 sac, ideally your strongest core you have. The other jack strategy is the double core on 1st pick, which allows you to rely less on just 1 hero doing your damage or tanking.
For me the best “jack” is the ash/tanya/iris or ash/tanya/mag jack, these 3 heroes do the “fastest” damage and the most damage to multiple targets (tanya aps and ash/iris aoe) and magnus is just the best tank so would want him anyway.
I have the option to do ash/mag, ash/iris or even ash/van if i wanted to. I am going to do the fastest jack i can and aim for 66f or 67f on my cores being 99, so I am going to pick ash/van, this way the 2nd pick can be iris/mag again if I wanted.
On floor 1f you should have spent 10 diamonds for 300 gold, so gold will not be an issue until about 60f-64f
Step 3: 2nd Pick
This pick is contentious as well, you could pick the mag and have 2 of your 3 cores, but then the value of your 3/4 pick goes down, and you lose some level efficiency: You want to spend the first 3 floors leveraging the leveling system to ONLY level your 1st pick core, this way you have 1 core super over leveled, and your 3rd and 4th pick cores are closer to the level of your sacs, and can be picked more often for level ups. This start also allows for you to get free levels on your 2nd and 3rd core, as the avg level of the card you draw on 3rd/4th pick is always higher.
We don’t know the true way the game is designed to offer you level ups, but having jacked 4 runs a day for a month has given me some insight. It picks based on the hero levels, with weighting towards your 2 sacs, but cannot pick less than 2, and wont default to your 2 lowest level sacs unless the level disparity is 10+ (all 3 cores level 50, sacs < level 40.)
This is where we can leverage the order in which we level/pick our cores to make as few possible low value level ups as possible. I’m going to pick my 2nd sac here, and hopefully get a 3rd and 4th pick core to round out my draft.
Step 4/5: 3rd and 4th Pick
As we have gone with the 1 core 2 sac by pick 3 strategy, we will pick our 2 cores on these picks. We are rounding out our draft to start the jacking process fully. As you can see we have put 0 levels into our 2 sacs, all levels into our 1st pick core, and have been (and can only have been) offered only triple options for level ups, making our 1st pick core much much higher level than our 2 sac picks, and our 2nd and 3rd are averaged out.
This gives us our full roster, we have our 2 sacs and our 3 cores and we are ready to jack.
Step 6: Stair Stepping
This is where we start replacing our sac hero cards to get free levels on them, and guarantee we get as many level ups on our cores.
The hero card you pick will ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS REPLACE YOUR LOWEST LEVEL SAC. REPLACING YOUR HIGHER LEVEL SAC RESULTS IN ENTIRE FLOORS WORTH OF LEVELS BEING WASTED. I replaced zeph with tanya, and because it was our 5th pick it doesn’t have any noticeable effect on our bottom line.
Below are our 6th and 7th hero card pick, and the ideal level to be at for Act 1 Boss.
As you can see, as we replace each card, our average level goes up, and you can see we barely have to put any levels into our sacs. This is where I will talk about leveraging our core level ups for max value.
Lets say we get the option of all 3 cores, Ash Tanya Iris, you always look at which of your cores is highest level (if you’re doing it right, its always your 1st pick core) and level that one. This is done for 2 reasons: 1, it levels your strongest 1st pick to extend that lead, and 2, it maintains the same distance between 2 of your cores and 2 of your sacs.
What does this mean? It forces the game to give you as many 3 option level ups as possible, allowing you to level your cores many more times than if you maintained the same level across the board on your cores, and waste as few levels as possible on sacs (which you want 0 levels on because they get replaced.
Ok, lets say you do only get a 2 choice level up, with both your sacs: always level the highest level sac. Leveling the lower level sac is essentially like skipping 3 level ups: 1 because you’re replacing that sac asap, 2 because replacing that sac changes your average on your next pick, and 3 because the other sac is 1 level lower and thus the 2nd pick after is 1 level lower because you cannot have half levels.
These 2 principles seem to be overkill, but everything short of perfection is irrelevant, and getting 3 99 before the hero card choice on 67 saves you 4 floors of waiting, and allows you a full 29 floors to shop/kill elites in act 4.
Step 7: Act 1 Boss
You’ve made it to 19f, and if you’ve done everything correct, your average hero level should be 25-26. This is 7 levels above current floor average, meaning your sac heroes can be used as actual DPS, and speed up your farm.
Step 8: Act 2 Stair Stepping
You follow the above principles and start getting to the fast point of the run, where you cores do a shitload of damage because they are so over leveled, and your sacs are higher level than the floor you’re on, so they do nice DPS too.
Step 9: Act 2 Boss
As you can see, we are much much higher level than Wyrm, and handle him nicely. At this point we are an average 53-55 level, which is 14-16 levels higher than the boss.
Step 10: Act 3 Stair Stepping, Mag Pivot, Reflect, Gold Issues
Act 3 is again stair stepping, and as you can see I have no Mag, but want one, so any mag I get at 70+ level i will take and replace my lowest sac, and start giving priority levels on him (right below your highest level core)
The main issues in these floors is reflect plants, the best way to solve this is to put your highest tank gear on your cores, as the levels will carry their DPS, but not their tankiness.
You will also run into gold issue if full jacking, and I ended up spending 4 sets of 10 diamonds in gold to keep up with levels. Giving priority elites saves you 50 diamonds for 10 floors earlier of 99s, up to you how you do it.
Step 11: 99s and Aftermath
If you’ve done everything right, and have a bit of luck, you should have your cores at level 99 by floor 67, and all 5 of your heroes 99 by 69. After this you fight Act 3 Boss, enter into act 4, and priority however you want for most gains in terms of gear/completion.
Not only does this form of leveling make the game more engaging, but its also faster and more fun. Not much feels as good as watching aps tanya clear entire rooms and bosses before the timer gets past the mailbox icon.
Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or any little advice.
