Rebirth

In Seraph, Rebirth provides an increased level of replayability by giving the player permanent boosts, but at the cost of all progress, save Codex entries.

Cost of each Rebirth
This is a table of the equivalent values towards the necessary Arteos Shards for each Rebirth. Remember that a Litheos shard has a value of 3, and each step up is worth three of the previous step. Therefore, an Arteos Shard is 243 Shard Value.

The total value is provided for the purpose of being able to simply add the Shard Values for each category of Oath.

Shard Value Example
This is a real-world example from User:Formedras; at this point, Formedras is at Rebirth III, trying to get to Rebirth IV. At 3300 Shard Value, he only needs 102 more Shard Value to get to that point: 1 Litheos Shard, 2 Photeos Shards, and one Keleos Shard, assuming the fewest Shards to get that exact value.

When to Rebirth
The answer to this question depends on whether the player in question is concerned with the bonuses that Rebirth gives. Many of the best players chose not to use Rebirth at all, instead focusing on Oaths and Transmutation. Others Rebirth as soon as possible, taking the bonuses and instead waiting for Rebirth V to start focusing on maxing out their Oaths and Transmutations. (These players do utilize their Shards for the purpose of Oaths, though prefer to not consume them for Transmutation before Rebirth V.) The players that do Rebirth will, after sufficient play time, be stronger than their non-Rebirthed peers, but it will take them much longer to get there, having to return to nothing upon each Rebirth.