orb of expansion farming

[MOTHMAN]

all of the endgame buildings need it but it seems so rare? i know they drop from fights with 5 or more enemies, but they drop so rarely.

[Tyrant]

What act are you farming in?

[MOTHMAN]

2

[Ancey]

First, ignore other people who say it's easy to farm; it's not. It's the hardest resource to set up a farm for, and you need so much of it.

Second, a tip from me to you: do NOT use blood/hungry groves when farming for it. The roots will eat the enemies and prevent extra spawns (like bats from vampires, ghosts from enemies, etc) and that will dramatically reduce your chances of getting it.

Also note, from what I can gather, every enemy fought past 4 has a set chance to drop. Say it's 20% on the second level expedition. If you fight 6 enemies, it would be 20% for 1, then another 20% chance for another. If you fight 7 enemies, you get another 20% chance. This is really the secret to getting them to drop consistently and sometimes in multiples.

Good luck!

[Ancey]

Oh, as for a setup... try setting it up yourself just for fun, but if you need something specific:

Reset your expedition until you get your camp on a straight-away. Place a vampire mansion above your camp, then two spider nests next to the mansion. Place a swamp on the road where the spiders will spawn. This will give each loop 2 chances to fight 6 total enemies, and the swamps destroy the vampires. Add crossbowmen, if you have them, and it makes the fight very easy. You can bring home a good 10 or more per run with this

[mouzy]

They are very easy to farm with the right strategy. The easiest way is with vampire mansions next to villages. They spawn four ghouls each loop, plus a vampire plus a swarm of bats for a total of 6 enemies guaranteed each loop, which as far as I can tell drops an orb about half the time on chapter 2. If you want you can add on empty Bookery's or Battlefields for even more potential enemies. With that setup you can reliably get like 5 orbs per loop after the first few loops, and after many loops you can get like 10. This usually hits around the cap by the time the boss spawns. The easiest class for this is Rogue because you get a ton of trophies from the vampire villages.

[gengar_1603]

Here's the best way I found, doable from Chapter 2. Take the Warrior, Arsenal, Spider cocoons, and the vampire manor. find a straight line strip of 3, and place the spider cocoons along it, place the vampire manor on the other side. Spiders generally have low HP, and spawn quick enough to fill up to 4 in the time it usually takes to make a loop. You are gonna need the helmet slot from the arsenal to grant you retaliation damage, and just try to max out that retaliation damage. This setup guarantees 6 mobs in one fight (1 vamp, 4 spiders, 1 bat swarm), and I always seem to get an orb from it. If you are really brave, you can bring swamps as well to counteract the vampire's life-steal buff, but you are also shooting your own sustain/recovery options in the foot. Regen, Vampirism, and even healing per day all damage you while in the swamp.

[Azure Fang]

Originally posted by Halpenstance:

First, ignore other people who say it's easy to farm; it's not. It's the hardest resource to set up a farm for, and you need so much of it.

No, it's the easiest resource to farm as long as you put in only a little work for it. Before running Chapter 2 for the first time, I had over 100 just from how I play and didn't even know what was dropping them.

OP, to put it short, the expands drop from any battle that has 4 or more enemies. The following setup rapidly maxes them out for me each expedition, usually around loop 7-9:

      Spider>Vampire>Spider
        V        V     V
Grove>Wheat>Village>Wheat>Grove>etc.
                ^
          Battlefield

Groves spread ratwolves to nearby fields, Vampires reinforce same, Spiders fill in gaps, Battlefields have a chance to convert Vamps, Ghouls (from ransacked village before conversion), and ratwolves to ghosts which effectively increase numbers per encounter. With this setup, I generally get at least one expand per loop per village for three loops, with additional from adjacent tiles. If you're feeling strong, you can shrink that by removing the wheat and going Grove>Village>Grove for more wolves at the cost of less healing on later loops. Do this on Chapter 1 for fast turnaround.