SR Waystone blueprints?

[jamesc70]

I've never been a huge fan of Crucible or SR, but I gave it a shot tonight and got to 15 on ultimate. Went into a 'treasure' room and opened a bunch of chests, and there was a merchant in there that sells health/energy potions... but no waystone blueprint.

From Google, it seems I should have gotten at least a level 5 waystone blueprint? Are these rare and just have to hope to get them, or are they supposed to automatically drop when you reach a certain level?

I only died once, and didn't find it all that hard on my Blademaster (never got below 2:30 in any shard), but it did take a while and was a bit boring, so can I run normal SR to get the waystone blueprints and maybe have it go faster, or do you need to do ultimate to get the ultimate 'version' of a waystone blueprint?

A little miffed I gotta start over to get a blueprint...

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

waystones you get from recipes, recipes you get from fixed level/shard ranges in SR, get to the xyz Shard interval and finish the shard/cashout and get recipe from chest

Shattered Waystone - Opens the 5th, 10th or 15th Shard
Resonating Waystone - Opens the 20th, 25th or 30th Shard
Haunted Waystone - Opens the 35th, 40th or 45th Shard
Desecrated Waystone - Opens the 50th,55th or 60th Shard
Celestial Waystone - Opens the 65th, 70th or 75th Shard

smartest thing is to get them on Normal as SR is way easier there

[jamesc70]

Hmmm, well I finished 15, and didn't get that first recipe. It is supposed to be a guaranteed drop then?

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

yup - sure you don't already have it? might be you've been in SR before and maybe gotten it from shard 5? (check blacksmith, just type waystone in the search bar on the last tab with misc)

[OrbPlaytime]

To save time you can redo them on Normal as Blueprints still drop, so do the lore notes at specific levels.

BTW Did you get the extra skill point for the L15 Ultimate and also completing quest Exploring the Shattered Realm?
Also worth doing L25 on Ultimate as well for the extra skill point it also gives.

The most efficient way to do this is to exit SR every 5 levels as the rewards do not improve for doing more than completing 2 shards, but you need to do 5 to unlock next region.
So 2 shards to farm (say L55-60 and upwards, ideally L75 if can face it), and 5 shards to unlock next region while also getting loot each time.
Nicer as an example to collect loot 3 times (5,10,15) from L1 to L15 rather than just once when doing L1 to L15 in one go without a break.

Regarding when to switch between Normal and Ultimate, some use Normal to reach more quickly the SR level they wish to farm without the slower crawl , it can make sense if you have done SR multiple times with various chars because it can feel like a fair bit of work doing this for each char reaching L60-L75 on Ultimate from the 1st SR level.
I tend to like doing Ultimate all the way, but will in future probably limit myself to doing it just for L1-L25 on a new char, switch to normal at that point and reach L50 quicker where I will switch back to Ultimate.

Comes down to preference on how you wish to do SR.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

you're confusing me again with how you describe the SR approach

Originally posted by OrbPlaytime:

it can make sense if you have done SR multiple times with various chars because it can feel like a fair bit of work doing this for each char reaching L60-L75 on Ultimate from the 1st SR level.

^thought we covered this, you don't do 1-60 on multiple chars, you do it 1 time, total,
then use waystones to skip straight to 50 or 65 (or 30 if only for the partial quest) on all alt chars after that
^sole exception being if you're nuts enough to delete your blueprints on each new playthrough (or switching from HC/SC chars - but still only once more then)

[OrbPlaytime]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

you're confusing me again with how you describe the SR approach

Originally posted by OrbPlaytime:

it can make sense if you have done SR multiple times with various chars because it can feel like a fair bit of work doing this for each char reaching L60-L75 on Ultimate from the 1st SR level.

^thought we covered this, you don't do 1-60 on multiple chars, you do it 1 time, total,
then use waystones to skip striaght to 50 or 65 (or 30 if only for the partial quest) on all alt chars after that
^sole exception being if you're nuts enough to delete your blueprints on each new playthrough :cwat:

It comes down to preference, hence why I laid out my own experience and what others do.
And as we concluded, doing this is may be breaking spirit of the game as is not possible be done in Crucible mixing normal/ultimate, so who knows whether this is intentional or not when also considering Crucible design *shrug*.

So for me as a preference going forward all my chars will do L1 to L25 on Ultimate before switching, but I can appreciate others will just do all of it on Normal until they reach the high SR farming points for Ultimate to save a serious amount of time and grinding through the levels.
And maybe some will prefer to do all on Ultimate for a few chars to L50 until they have had enough.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

yeye i get that, but it can still apply to your way of play "spirit of the game"
- you clear SR (on ultimate) once, and after that you use the waystone for your alt chars to skip through Ultimate - using legit obtained waystones, and "in the spirit of Ultimate SR approach"
going through ultimate SR only, obtaining the waystones, and still doing 1-25 individually is... idono... maddening in approach to me - you have legit obtained waystones, your way, use them, surely it's fair?

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by wespe___o=/:*:

true.. but same for Crucible.. you can do it with one char, then use tokens for all others

not fully, hence why Orb thinks the "spirit of the game" might mean that getting waystone recipes on Normal could be an oversight/unintended, possibly even "exploit" to some degree
- because while you can skip straight to gladiator in Crucible, you still have to manually run through all 150waves to get the checkpoint with each char, no skipping straight to 150-170 runs like you can skip straight to sr 65

[OrbPlaytime]

Originally posted by wespe___o=/:*:

I do it partially like Orb.. to check build differences ..at least till I feel stuck
.. some builds get utterly destroyed in Crucible

Yeah that is one reason I like it as well, especially if not in end-game gear, up to L25 it is kinda fun and it seems these lower levels have more predefined set boss rooms than later on, which IMO is nicer to encounter on Ultimate than just blasting through on lower difficulty.

I do tend to think "spirit of the game" can take a side-step due to the mechanics of the waystone recipes, but hey even I am now in future looking to use Normal or Elite after L25 Ultimate until I reach higher farming levels lol.
Doing SR Ultimate completely L1 to L65+ with 3 different chars is enough for me, unless they remove one chunk from each shard.