Destroy a Vault Vault Tiers, Explained

What vault tiers are

Destroy a Vault’s official loop ends on a promise: “unlock stronger vaults for bigger rewards.” Vaults are the treasure containers your robot army attacks, and they come in tiers of increasing value and toughness. The starter vault funds your first rolls and upgrades; each tier above it demands more damage from your army and pays out more Gold when it bursts. Tier names, unlock costs and exact payouts show in-game — the structure below is what the game’s own systems confirm.

How the ladder works in practice

Tier progression is a loop of thresholds. You notice your current vault bursting quickly → you spend Cash on army damage (upgrades, roster depth, rare rolls) → the next tier becomes realistic → you unlock it → the bigger payouts fund the next push. Three rules keep the ladder healthy:

1. Climb when cracks get instant. If your army melts the current vault in moments, the tier is underpaying your damage — move up.
2. Do not unlock ahead of your army. A vault you cannot crack is Cash frozen in a door; stay one rung lower and keep earning.
3. Re-measure after every big pull. A rare robot can jump your damage enough to skip a rung — see robot rarities.

What the endgame looks like

The official art answers the “how fancy does this get” question directly: the game’s boss-vault key art is an angelic vault — white and gold, starred medallion, golden wings and a halo. That is the aesthetic of the top of the ladder, and the BOSSES update made vaults like it into raid targets for stacked armies. The damage popups in the same art (+67,000 to +99,000 per hit) hint at the money scale up there. In-game values apply, but the direction is unambiguous: the top tiers are where a mature army’s income lives.

Tiers, boss vaults and co-op

Since the BOSSES update (October 5, 2026), the ladder has a parallel track: boss vaults — special high-value targets raided by multiple players’ armies together on servers of up to six. Regular tiers are your solo income engine; boss vaults are the event layer on top. The split matters for planning: boss raids reward a deep, high-damage roster, which is the same roster that climbs the solo ladder fastest. See boss vault raids.

Common tier questions

Should I spread unlocks or push one ladder? Push the ladder. Every system in the game feeds army damage, and army damage is exactly what tiers gate.

Do lower tiers become useless? They become slow, not useless — a strong army still bursts them, just for proportionally less than the tier above. The offline earnings system means even your retired tiers contribute while you sleep.

How do I know a tier is within reach? Watch your time-to-burst on the current vault. When it drops fast and repeatedly, that is the game telling you the next tier is priced for your army.

Next steps

• How to attack vaults — the assault loop in detail
• Progression route — ordering all the systems by priority
• Gold and Cash, explained