Gold Hammer

Nobody thinks about hammers until a build needs slopes, half blocks or a background wall torn out, and then a slow one becomes painful within about a minute. Moving up to this tier buys back a lot of time you would otherwise spend holding the mouse button on empty walls.

Do not chase a perfect modifier. Mining speed on a tool this size rounds to the same value across most of the good rolls, so the first decent one you land is the end of the process. Anything past that is money set on fire.