The smartest idle farmers aren't just AFK, they're efficient
TBH: Task Bar Hero sits in your taskbar and runs while you work, but that doesn't mean your setup can be lazy. The difference between a player who crawls through late-game content and one who clears it in seconds comes down to stage selection, Rune Tree priorities, and knowing when a full inventory is silently killing your progress. This guide covers all of it, from your first boss kill to Torment-difficulty Soulstone farming.
What does farming actually mean in TBH?
Farming in TBH means repeatedly clearing stages to stack Gold, EXP, Soulstones, and gear. Because the game runs in the background, the real metric isn't how hard a stage is. It's Loot Per Hour (LPH), which balances drop rates against how fast you can clear.
Here's the counterintuitive part: a stage that takes 2 minutes to clear can produce less loot than one you finish in 15 seconds, even if the slower stage has better individual drop rates. Speed compounds over hours. A 15-second clear runs 240 times per hour. A 2-minute clear runs 30. The math is brutal.
What are the best early-game farming stages?
Stages 1-1 through 1-5 exist purely to get you moving. Don't linger. Your first real milestone is Stage 1-10, the Act 1 boss stage, which is where your first Rare gear starts dropping. Once you can clear 1-10 consistently, you've graduated from the tutorial phase.
The rule that carries through the entire game: if regular mobs aren't dying in one hit, you're farming too high. Drop back, clear faster, and let the kill count do the work.
How do you farm Gold efficiently?
Gold is what upgrades your Cube and opens new hero slots, so it deserves its own strategy.
Boss stages (the X-10 stages) drop significantly more Gold than regular mob stages. Farm the highest X-10 stage you can clear in under 20 seconds. Once Act 2 opens up, Stage 2-10 becomes more profitable than 1-10 because the gold multiplier increases with each new act, even if the clear takes a few seconds longer.
For accessories, prioritize substats with Gold Gain %. Those percentage bonuses stack across long AFK sessions and add up faster than any single damage upgrade.
How do you farm EXP as fast as possible?
EXP scales with kill count, not stage difficulty. That means monster density matters more than boss quality when you're grinding levels.
Stages like 2-5 and 3-5 tend to pack more enemies per run than their corresponding boss stages, making them better EXP targets. Aim for a clear time of 15 to 20 seconds per run to hit the best EXP-per-hour ceiling.
Once Torment difficulty unlocks, the EXP multiplier jumps dramatically. Stage 1-1 in Torment will out-level Stage 5-10 in Normal. Don't waste time grinding Normal difficulty stages for EXP once that option is available.
Where do Soulstones drop?
Soulstones are the late-game bottleneck, and they have strict requirements before they appear at all.
- They rarely drop before Stage 1-5
- Normal difficulty drops are so infrequent they're not worth targeting
- Torment difficulty is mandatory for consistent Soulstone farming
- Stage 1-10 in Torment is the standard starting point for Soulstone runs
- Blue Chests and Boss Chests have the highest Soulstone drop rates, so prioritize stages that reliably trigger those chest types
How do chest types affect your farming route?
Every stage has a loot table tied to specific chest types. Knowing which chests drop where lets you route efficiently instead of farming blindly.
If you need synthesis materials, farm mob-dense stages for Common Chests. If you're building toward high-tier gear to sell on the Steam Market, boss stages are the only answer.
Why is a full inventory your biggest farming problem?
This is the one thing most new players don't account for. Your hero stops opening chests once the inventory fills up. Eight hours of AFK can produce one hour of actual loot if you're not managing it.
The game's built-in auto-open feature has a cooldown and won't touch high-tier chests automatically. Meanwhile, the loot table fills with lower-tier gear that clogs every slot. Without a system to clear that gear through synthesis or storage, your farming efficiency drops to zero within an hour.
Full inventory kills your farm
Which Rune Tree upgrades help farming the most?
Raw damage isn't the priority in your Rune Tree if farming efficiency is the goal. These nodes matter more:
- Rune of Exploration: Increases Common Chest drop rates, which feeds your synthesis pipeline
- Movement Speed: More movement between mobs means more kills per minute
- Loot Radius: Missing a Legendary drop because it landed slightly off-screen is a painful and avoidable mistake
- Hero Slots: Unlocking additional hero slots is the single largest boost to overall farming output
What's the best AFK farming setup?
A clean AFK setup comes down to a few settings and skill choices working together.
- Toggle Auto-Retry on so your hero restarts the stage immediately after clearing
- Equip AoE skills to clear screens in one pass. The Archer's Rain of Arrows is a reliable example of what to look for in any class
- Use Alt + Left Click to lock items before running auto-fill for synthesis, so you don't accidentally break down gear you want to keep
- Use the Windows Always on Top shortcut (Win + Ctrl + T) to keep TBH visible in a corner while you work
The 20-second benchmark is the target for any stage you commit to farming. If a run, including the boss, takes longer than 20 seconds, you're losing efficiency. If it exceeds 40 seconds, find an easier stage immediately.
AoE skills keep clears fast
How do you calculate your actual farming efficiency?
The game doesn't display EXP-per-hour or Gold-per-hour natively, which is a legitimate gap. Players have noted in community discussions that you can calculate Gold manually by checking totals at the start and end of an hour, but EXP is harder since the bar doesn't show raw numbers without watching individual kills.
The practical approach is to track your clear time as the primary variable. Record your Gold and EXP at the start of a session, check back after 60 minutes, and compare results across two or three different stages over separate sessions. Whichever stage produces the highest net gain at your current power level is your target.
For class-specific farming builds that maximize clear speed, the TBH: Task Bar Hero best builds and formation guide covers formation setups and skill picks that directly affect how fast you move through stages.
Quick reference: farming by resource
Build your farming foundation first
Farming efficiency in TBH compounds over time. A good stage choice today means more hero slot unlocks tomorrow, which means faster clears next week. Getting the Rune Tree right early, staying on stages you can clear in under 20 seconds, and managing inventory before it becomes a problem are the three habits that separate players who hit walls from players who don't.
For more on which pets boost your Gold and EXP gains passively, check the TBH: Task Bar Hero pets tier list to see which companions are worth slotting into your farming setup. The full collection of TBH: Task Bar Hero guides covers everything from class-specific builds to formation theory if you want to push further.