Necesse Incursion Guide | How to Raise Your Tier, the Perk Tree, and Gear Upgrades

Incursions are Necesse’s repeatable endgame content, unlocked once you defeat the Fallen Wizard. You place a Gateway Tablet at the Fallen Altar to open one, clear its Objective, kill the boss, and pour the Shards and Dust you bring back into the Perk Tree and your gear. Repeat that loop and you climb from Tier 1 to Tier 10.

The key to raising your Tier is the Perk Tree. The highest Tier of tablet you can get is capped by the highest-Tier Perk you’ve already bought — no matter how strong your gear is, if you’ve only bought Tier 3 Perks, Tier 4 tablets simply won’t drop.

This guide walks through where tablets come from, how to raise your Tier, which Perks to buy in what order, and what gear upgrades cost — all backed by the game’s actual data.

The Loop, Start to Finish

It boils down to five repeated steps.

1. Get a tablet → drops, crafting, boss reward, or completion reward
2. Place it at the Altar → set it at the Fallen Altar and "Open gateway"
3. Clear the Objective inside → Hunt, Extraction, or Trial
4. Kill the boss → Upgrade Shards, Alchemy Shards, Altar Dust, and a tablet one Tier higher
5. Close it out at the Altar → collect the completion reward, invest in Perks and gear, then go back to step 1

Steps 3 and 4 earn three separate resources, and each one has a completely different use.

Run short on Altar Dust and your Tier stalls; run short on Upgrade Shards and your gear falls behind. Whichever one you’re running low on mid-grind, buy the Perk that boosts it first.

Getting Started: Build the Altar and Open Your First Tablet

Crafting the Fallen Altar

Defeating the Fallen Wizard drops a Gateway Tablet and unlocks the Fallen Altar recipe at the Tungsten Workstation.

Once the Altar is placed, set a Gateway Tablet in it and press “Open gateway.” The opened Incursion stays tied to that Altar, so if you leave, you can walk back in through the same Altar.

Five ways to get tablets

There are five ways to get a tablet, and you can craft Tier 1 tablets at the Fallen Workstation, so you’re never stuck without one.

Four Tier 1 tablets can be crafted, and the materials decide which biome you land in.

The Ascended Incursion tablet (Tier 10) is a separate case — it’s crafted from 5 Ascended Shards. We cover the full path to it at the end of the “Fastest Route to Tier 10” section below.

Reading a Tablet

Placing a tablet at the Altar shows you everything about that Incursion up front. There are 4 things worth checking.

In this example, the destination is Spider Castle, the Objective is Extraction, and the difficulty is Tier 4. Two modifiers are active — “Powerful lightning strikes from above!” and “All enemies are accompanied by a crawling zombie” — and below them are the Tier-based bonuses: +81% enemy max health, +42% enemy damage, +60% drop rate.

Three Objective types

Clearing the Objective once spawns the Boss Portal. You get 5 attempts against the boss — if you fail and still have attempts left, the portal automatically respawns, and you don’t need to clear the Objective again. Fail all 5 attempts and the Incursion is repelled and ends.

What Raising Your Tier Changes

Tiers run from 1 to 10. Higher Tiers make enemies tougher and hit harder, but in exchange you get more loot and more completion reward slots.

These multipliers show up directly on the Altar screen — the Tier 4 tablet shown above displayed “+81% Enemy Max Health / +42% Enemy Damage / +60% Drop Rate,” matching the Tier 4 row in this table.

The modifier count and the reward slot count move together: every time you gain a modifier, you also gain a shared completion reward slot. Tier 4 and Tier 8 are the big milestones for reward growth.

The HP multiplier applies to bosses too. Crystal Dragon’s base HP is 52,000, so at Tier 7 that works out to 145,600.

The 7 Area Modifiers

Modifiers are hazards that apply only to that specific Incursion run, and you can check them before opening the tablet. 1–3 of the 7 modifiers get attached, depending on Tier.

If a tablet’s modifiers are hard to deal with, you don’t have to force it — raise your Tier first, or clear a different tablet instead. Tablets are assets, not consumables, so you’re free to work through them in whatever order you like.

Biomes and Bosses

There are 12 possible tablet destinations, each with a minimum Tier. From Tier 2 onward, a biome’s tablets won’t drop at all until you’ve bought the matching Perk.

Unlock Perks chain in order from one biome to the next — you can’t skip ahead. From Graveyard onward, there’s an additional requirement: you must have already cleared the previous biome at or above its minimum Tier. The Graveyard Perk needs Slime Cave cleared at Tier 2+; the Spider Castle Perk needs Graveyard cleared at Tier 3+.

These unlock Perks aren’t just about adding biomes. Each one is the “gate” for its Tier — it blocks every other Perk at that same Tier until you buy it (more on this in the next section).

Scrapyard and the Ascended Incursion are the current endpoints as of v1.3.0. Scrapyard is the new Tier 8 biome added in 1.3.0, with 5 new enemies and dedicated armor and weapons.

The Perk Tree: What Actually Sets Your Tier Cap

You spend Altar Dust on Perks from the Altar’s “Incursion Perk Tree” screen. This is what actually controls your progression through Incursions.

Four rules, that’s it

1. Your Altar Tier equals the highest-Tier Perk you own. Buy even one Tier 5 Perk and your Altar becomes Tier 5
2. You can only buy up to Altar Tier + 1. To buy a Tier 6 Perk, your Altar needs to already be Tier 5
3. The Tier cap on tablets you receive matches your Altar Tier. Want Tier 10 tablets? You need at least one Tier 10 Perk bought first
4. Tiers 2 through 8, plus Tier 10, each have one “gate” Perk. It’s the Perk that unlocks that Tier’s biome, and until you buy it, none of the other Perks at that Tier are purchasable

Rule 4 is what progression actually comes down to. At Tier 2, for example, there’s Time for an upgrade! (50 Altar Dust), which gets you Upgrade Shards — but it won’t even show up as an option until you’ve bought Mother comes… (100) first. In practice, the route to a higher Tier is a single fixed path.

The screen scrolls vertically, stacking Tier 1, Tier 2, and so on from the bottom. Perks with a bright border are either already owned or buyable right now; dimmed ones are either missing a prerequisite or got locked out because you picked a different Perk.

The fastest route to Tier 10

Buying the gate Perks in order is the fastest path. Tier 1 has no gate — all 6 Perks there are purchasable with no prerequisites. Tier 9 also has no gate, but of its 5 Perks, only A taste of your own medicine! is buyable with no prerequisite — the other 4 need a specific Tier 8 Perk bought first.

That’s 6,585 Altar Dust total. Dust comes from boss kills (30–45 each), Incursion completion reward slots, and — once you’ve bought More Dust! — regular enemies too.

Buying a gate Perk unlocks that biome’s tablets; clearing that biome unlocks the next gate. Raising your Tier and unlocking new destinations are the same single route — that’s how the system is built.

Reaching the Ascended Incursion

The Tier 10 gate Perk, The Beginning of the End (2,300), is different from the other gates — it doesn’t unlock a biome directly. Getting from there to the Ascended Incursion takes 3 steps.

1. Buy The Beginning of the End (the Tier 10 gate, 2,300 Altar Dust)
2. Kill bosses in Tier 8+ Incursions to collect 5 Ascended Shards (bosses won’t drop them until you’ve bought this Perk)
3. Craft the Ascended Incursion tablet at the Fallen Workstation using 5 Ascended Shards

Ascended Shards are also a material for upgrading gear to +10, so it’s worth stockpiling extra — you’ll need them for both the tablet and your gear upgrades.

The first Perks to buy

Since gates aren’t optional, the only real decision is what to add besides them. For grind efficiency, the first two picks are settled:

1. More Dust! (Tier 1, 30) — enemies inside Incursions start dropping Altar Dust. Dust now comes from more than just bosses, which speeds up every purchase after this. Tier 1 has no gate, so this is a fine first pick
2. Time for an upgrade! (Tier 2, 50) — enemies start dropping Upgrade Shards, so your gear upgrades stop stalling. You can’t pick it, though, until you’ve bought the Tier 2 gate, Mother comes… (100)

Building on these two leads into Even MORE Dust! (Tier 4, more Dust from enemies) and It’s HUUUGE! (Tier 3, spawns a mega Upgrade Shard vein).

Perks that lock each other out

A few Tiers have pairs that lock each other out. Worth deciding your direction before you buy.

The Tier 8 choice branches further up. Pick A and Tier 9 gives you A Third Chance? (one more revive); pick B and you get Empowered Empowerment Time? (doubles the buff duration).

That’s what it looks like once you push into the upper Tiers. Whichever branch you didn’t pick at Tier 8 gets locked out at Tier 9 too. You can always respec later if you change your mind, so you don’t need to overthink this until you actually hit the wall.

Respeccing is an option

Perks can be undone. Pay 1,000 Coins per Perk, and the Altar Dust you spent on it comes back so you can pick a different Perk at that Tier. There’s also a “Reset” button in the bottom-right of the Perk list that undoes everything at once. Getting a mutually-exclusive pick wrong doesn’t cost you any Dust, so don’t agonize over those choices too much.

The full Perk list

All 54. Within each Tier, the gate Perk (if any) is listed first.

Using Upgrade Shards to Strengthen Gear

Craft an Upgrade Station (10 Upgrade Shards + 10 Alchemy Shards) at the Fallen Workstation, and you can start upgrading weapons, armor, and tablets. The cap is Tier 10.

Upgrade costs

Weapons follow “Tier × 30 Shards” as the base formula, armor “Tier × 20.” For the same number of Shards, armor climbs faster — so if you’re stuck taking too much damage, push armor first.

There are only 2 Tier 3 Essences, and each only drops from one biome — Crystal Hollow or Scrapyard. In practice, you need to be clearing Tier 7+ to push gear past +8. Ascended Shards (needed for +10) don’t drop from Tier 8+ bosses at all until you buy the Tier 10 Perk, The Beginning of the End (2,300).

Salvaging gear you don’t need

The Salvage Station (10 Upgrade Shards + 10 Alchemy Shards) turns upgraded gear back into Upgrade Shards. This uses a separate formula from the upgrade cost — you get back “Tier × 20” for weapons and “Tier × 15” for armor, summed down to Tier 1. A weapon upgraded to Tier 5, for example, returns (5+4+3+2+1) × 20 = 300 Shards. Treat gear you don’t need from Tablet Rewards as raw material.

Two Ways to Raise a Tablet’s Tier

Kill the boss (free, guaranteed)

Killing an Incursion boss guarantees you a tablet one Tier higher than the one you’re currently in. This rule applies regardless of biome — clear a Tier 7 and you get a Tier 8 tablet, clear a Tier 9 and you get a Tier 10 tablet. If all you want is a higher Tier, this is the cheapest way to get there.

That said, there’s still a cap: you never get a tablet higher than your highest-owned Perk Tier. If you want a Tier 8 tablet but your Altar is stuck at Tier 7, you need to buy the Tier 8 Perk first.

The destination biome for a boss-kill tablet is rolled on the spot. Biomes registered at exactly that Tier are more likely to be picked, and even when a lower-Tier biome gets picked instead, the tablet is still generated with the Tier bumped up to what you earned.

Upgrade a tablet at the Upgrade Station (spend Shards)

Put a tablet you’re holding into the Upgrade Station, and it goes up one Tier without changing its biome. Cost is 25 Upgrade Shards × (new Tier − 1).

Pushing a single tablet from Tier 1 all the way to Tier 10 costs 1,125 Shards total. Use this when you need a specific destination — say, farming a particular boss at a higher Tier — but for raising Tier alone, killing bosses is cheaper.

Tablets you don’t need can be salvaged for “Tier × 10” Upgrade Shards.

What We Learned From Actually Grinding This

Soloing the Tier 1 Swamp Deep Cave, I lost twice. Fresh off beating the Fallen Wizard, that gear gets overwhelmed even by Tier 1 enemies. The Blink Scepter let me phase through the boss’s body to dodge, and bringing a settler along got it done in one try. At these early Tiers, before your gear catches up, evasion tools and extra bodies matter more than raw damage.

Even within the same Incursion, difficulty spikes hard as the Tier climbs. Sunlight Champion, the Sun Arena (Tier 6) boss, was the hardest fight I’ve had so far — 5 straight losses, then I backed off and geared up through a different Incursion before coming back. Its gauntlets track independently from the main body and are hard to read, and once it closes the distance you can’t fully dodge. I eventually upgraded my settlers’ gear too and won by kiting and shooting from range. The difficulty gap between biomes is real — even at the same Tier, some fights are easy wins and others force you to rebuild your entire approach.

Three things that consistently paid off:

• Blink Scepter — instant short-range movement. Lets you phase through a boss’s body to escape, so it gets more valuable the more you’re getting hit at higher Tiers
• Superior Health Potion — craftable at the Fallen Alchemy Table. Runs with Alchemical Interference halve potion duration, so bring extra healing
• Ancient Fossil Pickaxe — needed for Extraction Objectives and digging through high-Tier walls. At Slime Cave Tier 2, I couldn’t break through without at least 245 tool damage

Boss fights usually start right around the entry portal. Pillars block your view and movement, so breaking them before the fight starts cuts down on unnecessary hits.

Killing one boss nets you a batch of Shards, which you can spend right away at the Fallen Anvil to update your gear. Progression feels continuous every single run — that’s the most fun part of Incursions.

A Rough Progression Guide

Based on how the HP and damage multipliers scale, gear and Tier line up roughly like this.

[Tier 1–3] Whatever gear you had after beating the Fallen Wizard Only 1 modifier. Stockpile Dust here and buy the first 2 entry Perks Build the Upgrade Station and start upgrading gear
[Tier 4–7] Upgrades become mandatory 2 modifiers, enemy HP roughly ×1.8–2.8 Push gear to +4–+7, take the biome-unlock Perks in order Tier 5 and 6 are Trial-format arenas, so they run fast
[Tier 8–10] Tier 3 Essence and Ascended Shard territory 3 modifiers, enemy HP ×3.2–4.0 Farm Tier 3 Essence from Crystal Hollow and Scrapyard, push gear to +8 or beyond Buy the Tier 10 Perk and you're set up for the Ascended Incursion

Rushing your Tier tends to be slower in the long run than keeping your gear upgrades 1–2 Tiers ahead. If your gear can’t keep up, you’ll burn through all 5 attempts and waste the tablet.

FAQ

Q1: My Tier won’t go up, and I keep getting low-Tier tablets

A: You’re capped at the highest-Tier Perk you own. Open the Altar’s Perk list and buy one Perk at the next Tier up, and tablets at that higher Tier will start dropping from then on.

Q2: Do I waste the tablet if I lose to the boss?

A: You get 5 attempts, so you can lose up to 4 times and still try again. The portal respawns automatically, so you don’t need to redo the Objective. Only failing all 5 attempts ends that Incursion.

Q3: Should Upgrade Shards go to weapons or armor first?

A: For the same number of Shards, armor is cheaper to raise (weapons cost Tier × 30, armor Tier × 20). Enemy damage tops out at ×2.15 even at Tier 10, but HP scales up to ×4 — so building up your armor to survive first, then chasing weapon upgrades after, tends to keep you from getting stuck.

Q4: I picked the wrong Perk

A: You can undo it for 1,000 Coins. The Altar Dust you spent comes back in full, so changing direction only costs you Coins.

Summary

• Incursions are a repeatable loop: open a tablet → clear the Objective → kill the boss → invest in Perks and gear
• Your Tier cap is set by the highest-Tier Perk you own. Buying one Perk per Tier is the only way to progress
• Tiers 2–8 and Tier 10 each have a “gate” Perk, and no other Perk at that Tier is buyable until you get it. Buying only the gates in order to reach Tier 10 costs 6,585 Altar Dust total
• The first two Perks to buy are More Dust! and Time for an upgrade! — everything after them speeds up once Dust and Shards flow in faster
• Higher Tiers scale enemy HP up to ×4, damage up to ×2.15, and modifiers up to 3 — while also growing your completion reward slots up to 3
• Gear upgrades cap at Tier 10. Weapons need Tier × 30 Upgrade Shards, armor needs Tier × 20
• Boss kills guarantee a tablet one Tier higher. Only use the Upgrade Station when you need to raise a tablet’s Tier without changing its destination
• There are 12 biomes. Buy a gate Perk → clear that biome → the next gate opens, forming a single progression route

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Article created: 2026-03-31
Last updated: 2026-08-04
Test environment: Necesse v1.3.0 (Steam build 24475645, PC), Classic difficulty. Tier multipliers, costs, and unlock requirements were confirmed against the same version’s game data; all values shown are base values. Gear/buff variance and how hard higher Tiers feel in practice are not included.
Rights notice: Necesse and related images/assets are property of Fair Games ApS. Images are used for gameplay guide/reference purposes.