Not only can you use the time lapse cheat to get free gold or to reset the tournament timer right away, but you can also use it to get a ton of free essence. All you have to do is to do the unlimited gold trick as before, except when you watch the ad, in addition to getting free gold, you will also get free essence. Do the trick and load up on essence to get those permanent relic boosts extremely quickly.
Equip characters with items that will give them splash attacks. A good example of this (a very strong one) is the Holy Cannon, which enables 70-100 damage per attack, per enemy. Battles with three or four enemies at a time are almost always the toughest to beat because of how much damage they can do to you per turn, so these super splash attack items can put you far ahead of the game.
In the VIP area, a good way to get more essence is to purchase the gnomes, which increase the amount of essence you earn per turn that you take in the dungeon. In addition, get the magic well, and you will be able to spend your extra gold in order to get essence. Gold is easier to earn than essence, so this will make for a huge boost.
You can also unlock the most powerful fighter of all in the VIP store. To do that, purchase the Fury Extreme and you will unlock the Ragezerker. You have to have 1,000 tavern reputation as well in order to complete the unlock, but this is fairly easy to do after purchasing the soda.
If you want to earn gold even quicker, make sure that you have at least one merchant in the battle party with you. Each merchant that you have in your party will increase your gold earnings by 20%. If you really want to load up on a ton of gold at a time, then fill your entire party with merchants and start way back in the dungeon, so that you are guaranteed to have an easy time killing enemies.
Purchase the coat rack in the VIP store and you will be able to save a specific loadout for every type of character that you hire. Purchase the stables in the VIP store and you will be able to get pets to put into your tavern.