Strategy for completing Pride

[Whaitea]

Cheers to all late game players who decided to challenge themselves with Pride. :)
I've just completed all the basic ones, had no problem blazing through all of them stat-wise except the 5th ED4, which I had to use strategy and farm a little gluttony to kill the mutant at the end. My question is - what is the most efficient strategy to pursue all those challenges (ED1-4 with many variants from no habit to no Envy) to get #5 completion bonuses ASAP? Should I maybe farm some more inspiration for habit and stats before that? Finish all ED5s (completed only once)?

My stats:
- all seeds maxxed;
- habit efficiency+ 8M clears;
- status up 800k clears;
- Envy lvls 400 all across the board except few in body, which are between 300 and 400.

So, what do you guys think? :)

[Darnavir]

My experience:
- Fully seeding everything is a good idea.
- Everything capped in Akashic Record and Astral World should be maxed.
- Status up and habit efficiency (I'm working on these 2 now; both at ~15M) are the
progress blockers. Status up matters once it surpasses the fire drake stats.
- Envy feels less effective - the hard block is usually stats or rank, when habit efficiency is
too low to raise sacred ritual efficiently. I don't think element caps need too much
attention - armors+summons do a lot, too low habit for caps kills rank too.
- Greed can raise certain stats quite a bit - a decent stock of every research type
speeds up many things. Elemental cap extension speed could be helpful without
sufficiently leveled summons and elemental armors.
- There's no need to use a guide in the reincarnation selection - afaik Norn is needed only
for ED5, leaving alone speeds up Lostlorn Forest a lot, good mostly for ED1; 2 and 3 are
blocked by smith and steel (not sure if farming DK+gray slime is possible, if yes, then ED2
and ED3 should be done guideless as well; gotta test it once I stop my current long run)

ED5 only gives you destiny. Unless destiny is a problem, there's no need for more completions (ED5 runs are good for long experience farming runs though).

[Whaitea]

Originally posted by Darnavir:

(not sure if farming DK+gray slime is possible, if yes, then ED2 and ED3 should be done guideless as well;

How do you want to farm the DK if you need the sword before you graduate?
This is why greed and envy help - more scrap metal dropped == less time wasted in the ruins to make steel.

ED5 surely needs a little time to get enough stats through gluttony for the final boss, but as you said the runs give you experience and rubies! :)

Do you go with 1:1 habit:stats clears ratio or in other words 1:5 inspiration allocation into those 2?

And what is the optimal order of those Pride runs? Should I start with ED1 no habit? What next?

[Darnavir]

You don't need the sword before you graduate. You need to get the smith's village before graduating; no idea how far you have to clear it (maybe unlocking is enough, didn't test). I don't know about defeating the first DK though - if getting the sword after the first defeat allows unlocking further endings, he can be used to farm steel.
The guide prevents you from graduating before getting the sword, but graduating is safe once in the smith's village - this is why I suggest going guideless.

ED5 gets rubies, but I don't think they really matter (4k isn't doing much). The exp isn't from a simple run, I refer to focused exp farming - all 4 "NPCs" and millions in valuable experience (it has no sharp drop in efficiency, i got it to over 10k%).

I use 1:1 now, might be changed as needed - like once I get the stat boosting envy routines. The pride level hits stats harder than habit though.

I focused on endless prides for the 2nd equip and did little else. Shortcut slots/autoeat slots seem kinda meh - they don't limit me, will be grabbed once easy to do so; advanced prides are nasty - limit something important or the pride level is too high. I would focus on prides I can clear on level 5.

[Darnavir]

Now I can confirm that yes, DK can be used to farm steel for ED3 (I assume ED2 is the same). It still takes a while (30 to 60 minutes) and requires prior knowledge of the actions though, no guide is available when graduating before getting the holy sword.

Unlocking smith's village and doing nothing in it before graduating was enough for it to stay, collapsed town appeared though - given that these 2 are meant to be the same location, future patches might change what is needed.


Edit: As I suspected, stats seem to be the biggest problem. With 20M status up levels, ED4 got first problems at pride level 6, 7 would require quite a bit of farming. ED1 could be reasonably doable up to pride level 11; 5th clear of don't need speed,

[JayXan]

I max seeded for a month or 2, still didnt cap out so I got bored and attempted prides. I'm probably going to max one or two pride levels and go back to seeding.

Your stats are a hell of a lot higher than mine thats for sure though. Looks like you probably wont have too much trouble with most of the earlier tier ones.

I was considering raising durable leathers and wood a drastic amount to give those stat boosts as well.

[Darnavir]

For some ideas about needed stats:
With 20M status ups, 3 AoEs and 3 atk-attachments from equipment, I kinda maxed out at ED1 Don't need Habits. Fifth level of that is about the highest resonably (1 DR) doable, other advanced prides are no go (maybe ED1 gluttony, but the reward isn't worth it now). Endless done to 5/4/3/3; for 15 2nd equipments. This is about as much as is doable.

I'd personally recommend starting with endless prides and hope for some good 2nd equipment.

I wouldn't spend too much sin on most resource caps. If the cap is low enough to hinder you, go for it, but that's about it.
Wood requires the otherwise useless Elder treant in party for questionable benefits - HP doesn't make farming faster and the apples don't give that much satiety for the multiplier.
Stats-wise, every sin spent on resources is wasted - inspiration+ is far better.

And, if possible, prepare "additional effects" on equipment. Atk-attachment, AoE and Penetrate multiply attack by 1.5 per occurence; 8 to 10 total can be stacked with guaranteed equipment, more with lucky 2nd equipment drops. This can make the DK/mutant killable for another pride level (or 2).

[cas]

i think soldier bee might be making a comeback for longer, high pride runs.
at some point, his +% habit will start to give better gains than habit efficiency+
although, the time spent picking 10k+ flowers might be better spent elsewhere. still worth considering doing some maths on

[Darnavir]

Both math and my experience disagree. The problem are stats, not habit. Greed can be used to brute force DR/rank, stats can't be brute forced.

Habit and stats go up at about the same rate, at least if status up and habit efficiency+ are kept around the same level (5:1 inspiration ratio). Each pride level multiplies stats by 0.1 and habit efficiency by 0.18 - this kills stats a lot faster. One DR was always more than enough for rank (or elemental caps), even when the DK/mutant was barely killable.

[JayXan]

Originally posted by cas:

i think soldier bee might be making a comeback for longer, high pride runs.
at some point, his +% habit will start to give better gains than habit efficiency+
although, the time spent picking 10k+ flowers might be better spent elsewhere. still worth considering doing some maths on

I didnt even consider the bee, interesting.

[cas]

Originally posted by JayXan:

I max seeded for a month or 2, still didnt cap out so I got bored and attempted prides. I'm probably going to max one or two pride levels and go back to seeding.

spend a day questing for seed rewards from quest
spend another little while building greed for seed drops/cap
if you have allies with seed drop amount not max, turn off phys and mag dryad until you max their seed drops.

if you're doing a long run anyways, you may also consider:
clearing a difficult chronicle
pushing to new zones / guardians
stocking up on exp for sin/complaints
working on crystals for gear
stocking up on research for greed towards the end of the run

[JayXan]

Originally posted by cas:

Originally posted by JayXan:

I max seeded for a month or 2, still didnt cap out so I got bored and attempted prides. I'm probably going to max one or two pride levels and go back to seeding.

spend a day questing for seed rewards from quest
spend another little while building greed for seed drops/cap
if you have allies with seed drop amount not max, turn off phys and mag dryad until you max their seed drops.

if you're doing a long run anyways, you may also consider:
clearing a difficult chronicle
pushing to new zones / guardians
stocking up on exp for sin/complaints
working on crystals for gear
stocking up on research for greed towards the end of the run

Thanks for the advice - I'm at 4600 hours played though! Good for others looking :)

[cas]

use endlesses to gauge what you can reasonably complete. stats seems to be the bottle neck for most of these. the rank is only an issue for ed1s. by the time you have the stats for ed2+, you should have plenty of habit. if not, can always get rank overnight. scrap metal is also an issue for 'dont need speed'.

i went ahead and grabbed 2k flower max for 'dont need greed/dr'. these were alright for ed1, but at ed2 'dont need greed', i still had to wait on gluttony for 5/5. it seems an hour of sammiches is was worth more than an hour of picking flowers.

sin/complaint runs seems to be the way to go to prepare for prides. once you get the envy upgrades from shop, you can start getting more inspiration from fast reincs. at about 2-3k all envy routines, you can do 6min sin runs that gives the same ins/hr as a longer research run, plus the added complaints and sin.