Mining and Dwarves Upgrade Priority

Void shards open the Mining and Dwarves skill tree. Ore and gold keep the floor moving, but shards are the scarce currency, and the launch build has no prestige reset. Every node you buy is a permanent vote. This page is a shopping order, not a spreadsheet. It does not invent gold per second, shard costs, or a calculator widget. If a number is not on the node tooltip in your build, it does not belong here.

Read this after getting started, with the skill tree guide open for node names and skill-path rankings open if you want a named route. The abilities guide covers what Q and W do once you own them.

Buy order

1. Recruit a mixed pair. Hire at least one dwarf miner and one dwarf collector before you stack a single role. Miners deal damage to rocks. Collectors haul drops into the central deposit. A mixed pair is the first automation spike: rocks break while you look away, and the sink still fills. A miner-only crew paints the floor with ore nobody carries. A collector-only crew sprints at empty dirt. Mix first, then duplicate the role that is actually bottlenecked.

2. Worker speed. Once two jobs exist, travel time becomes the tax. Worker speed shortens the walk between rock, drop, and deposit. It is the difference between a crew that looks busy and a crew that actually completes trips. Buy speed before you buy another body you cannot feed.

3. Carry. Collectors only help if each trip moves a meaningful pile. Carry limit and similar haul nodes raise ore per walk. That fills the deposit bar faster, which is how you spawn the special orb and how you earn more shards. Extra collectors with tiny backpacks are a traffic jam, not a factory. Raise carry on the dwarves you already have, then hire.

4. Super Auto Miner cooldown. Super Auto Miner (Q) auto-clicks under your cursor. The ability is only as good as its uptime. Cooldown cuts return Q to your hand more often. Duration crumbs that add a second of buzz look friendly and lose to a shorter wait. Unlock the ability, hover a cluster, fire it, then spend shards on cooldown before you treat Q as a flavour button. See the abilities page. Cooldown is the first Super Auto Miner stat worth buying.

5. Then damage. Player mining damage and extra miner damage matter once the pipeline is not the bottleneck. If ore sits on the floor, damage is not the problem. If collectors stand idle because rocks will not break, then damage is the problem. Buy it fifth, not first. Click-power nodes feel good in the tutorial because you are still the only pickaxe. After the crew exists, damage is a multiplier on a loop you already trust.

What to skip early

Skip Super Auto Miner duration until cooldown is respectable. Skip reactive-rock and laser-direction nodes until those rocks are actually in the room. Skip max-rock caps while your current field already outruns the crew: more rocks with the same haul speed is more clutter. Skip one-role hiring; two miners and zero collectors, or the reverse, stalls the sink. Skip cosmetic dead ends that do not move gold or shards. Skip stacking player damage while you are still manually clearing a half-empty floor. Your click is not the late-game engine. The crew plus Q uptime is.

How to use the sheet

Look at the floor, not the tree. If drops sit, you need collectors or carry. If rocks sit, you need miners, speed, or Q cooldown. If the deposit is busy and shards still dribble, you need orb uptime: Multi ore on the special orb, not on a pebble. Buy one job at a time. Follow the five-step order until the bottleneck moves, then buy the step that matches the new bottleneck. When two nodes cost the same shard pile, prefer the one that shortens waits (speed, carry, cooldown) over a headline damage number.

When you want named routes rather than bottlenecks, read skill-path rankings. Mixed recruits, speed, carry, Q cooldown, then damage keeps the sink filling. After that, the skill tree guide is the map. If you have not hired anyone yet, finish getting started.