How worthwhile is '25ing' and which zones are best for it?

[Zarrg]

I recently tried to collect 25 treasures in early lands in order to unlock there respective orbs dimension-wide, while this was fairly successful I have noticed that I am able to make more immediate progress (e.g. make it to 60-90 treasures) when only collecting ~15 treasures in each land, as well as dying significantly less. Which orbs are worth going through the trouble for and how valid is a no-orb strategy?

[hotdogPi]

Most people only collect 10 of each type.

[__m__Yn_F_onY__d]

This has been discussed before, but I had difficulty finding the thread. I don't have as much experience as some other players, but these are some lands that I would consider 25ing:

General:

• Land of Eternal Motion—Orb of Safety teleports you away from enemies and let's you save the game.

Crowd clear:

• Icy Land—Orb of Flash let's you clear a two cell radius of enemies/obstacles.
  
• Jungle—Orb of Storms let's you clear several lines of enemies/obstacles; perhaps more difficult to use than Flash and Jungle can be dangerous.

Mobility:

• Alchemist Lab—Orb of Speed let's you move more quickly.
  
• R'Lyeh—Orb of Teleportation let's you teleport to a visible open space.
  
• Zebra—Orb of Frog let's you jump two spaces, but Zebra can be dangerous.
  
• Dry Forest—Orb of Thorns let's you attack enemies by moving adjacently to them and gives you a protected side.

Other orbs may be useful for particular lands, or you may find you like to unlock an orb just because it's fun. Personally, I usually go for Safety, Flash and Speed at least, but if you're going for the Hyperstone Quest, it may be wise to stick to ten treasure per land to keep monster spawns low. It certainly isn't necessary to unlock any at all; often a land's native orb is the most useful.

[tricosahedron]

I usually collect 25 treasure in Land of Eternal Motion. Collecting those doesn't take long (you can use mouse wheel down to simulate "speed clicking"), it's one of the easier lands, and the Orb of Safety is useful and convenient.
Collecting more treasure in a land has the downside that more monsters spawn there, which can be disadvantageous when moving near that land in the Crossroads, but it's not that bad with LoEM, because if a Running Dog leaves the land, no other Running Dog can follow through that same opening in the Great Wall.

When trying the Hyperstone or Orb of Yendor quest, I usually only collect 10 treasure in other lands.
(unless collecting 25 treasure is part of the Yendor Quest strategy)

When I tackle a specific land or task, I occasionally collect 25 treasure in Dry Forest (Orb of Thorns), R'Lyeh (Orb of Teleport), and / or Icy Land (Orb of Flash -- partly because it's convenient to collect 25 treasure in the first land), but it depends on what is useful for the particular task.


Another good strategy is to unlock Camelot and Orbs of Teleport, Time (and maybe Energy), and some useful Orb(s) (10 treasure is sufficient). Then collect Orb of Time and the useful Orbs near a Camelot, making use of occasional Orbs of Teleport to avoid using up Orb of Time while moving around. Then find and enter the land you want to tackle with the collected Orbs.

[Zarrg]

Thanks,
I can normally unlock the orb for Icy Land without trouble, I have only really tried for the orbs in Alchemist's Lab and The Land of Eternal Motion with mixed results.

[bluetailedgnat]

In my experience, the Minefield is also not terrible to try to 25 (or go even higher with to pump up the number of prize orbs you get; I can get 25 eggs pretty consistently; it's going for more than 30 or 40 that's really risky), and tame bomberbirds are worth it. One of the skills I'm working on is being able to 25 the Caribbean with any consistency at all so that my other orbs will last longer, too.

The Ivory Tower is doable, and when I'm in a perfectionist mood I do it, but the Orb of Matter isn't really worth it (and the risk of dying is pretty high)

Also the desert isn't too terrible once you get the hang of it, and orbs of shielding are nice to have. I suppose more strategic crossroads use (and orbs of time) can make orbs of shielding last long enough to be useful in other lands without having to 25 the desert, though.

[__m__Yn_F_onY__d]

I know people like Bomberbirds, but they just get in the way for me. Orb of Time is one of those that I unlock for fun, but I wasn't confident about whether it was actually useful or not, and Caribbean can be somewhat time consuming and dangerous.

One thing to keep in mind is that the more orbs you've unlocked, the less likely it is for each individual orb to drop, so you definitely want to avoid unlocking orbs that you don't plan to use.

[hotdogPi]

Originally posted by _monad:

I know people like Bomberbirds, but they just get in the way for me. Orb of Time is one of those that I unlock for fun, but I wasn't confident about whether it was actually useful or not, and Caribbean can be somewhat time consuming and dangerous.

One thing to keep in mind is that the more orbs you've unlocked, the less likely it is for each individual orb to drop, so you definitely want to avoid unlocking orbs that you don't plan to use.

It's a very negligible effect; it only happens when an orb overwrites another orb.

[tricosahedron]

Some tips to survive in the Caribbean:

• Use <alt> to highlight monsters, to avoid being surprised by Pirate spawns.
  (note: compasses don't work correctly in highlight mode)
  
• Defeat Parrots that may become a problem later in advance.
  
• It's sometimes necessary to engage pirates in open areas; in those cases, try to lure them on heptagons to force them to line up, avoid being surrounded, count their distance and plan ahead a few turns etc.
  
• If you secured an area on an island (i.e. defeated all monsters there), you can move in a direction other than the red compass direction to look for treasure. If too many Pirates spawn, you can retreat to the safe* area by following the red compass direction.
  (*warning: there's still the possibility of wandering monsters)
  
• If you're being chased near / on the water, you can shake off pursuers by entering islands, and leaving them somewhere where only a small number of boats (ideally one) is.

[Arseface™]

I've been getting Orb of Space recently and it makes a HUGE difference. Normally it's great for crossroads scumming, but unlocked everywhere can be a lifesaver when it nabs you an unreachable safety or speed orb, not to mention otherwise hard/unreachable treasures reducing your time in harder lands.

And it's not too hard once you have the high ground, which you need for the first 10 anyways.

[Blind]

I try to 25 at least one combat rune; Orb of Life is usally good enough, I'd prefer Orb of Storms, but Orb of Flash is the easiest to do since you always start cold.

[Halfshell]

My baseline is 1 combat rune, 1 movement rune, the safety rune and some kind of utility rune if I feel like it.

[J Pystynen]

I've sometimes put in a bit of elbow grease and 25'd all the older basic lands (i.e. not Hunting Grounds). This makes many later lands much more convenient. In terms of effort/convenience ratio, Flash, Life and Safety are probably the best of these though. Speed is also quite powerful in theory, but the change in how combat tactics play out tends to throw me off a bit.

For long runs, 25 Pirate Treasure → Orb of Time + 25 Apples → Orb of Energy is an amazing combo. I've not pulled it off often, but having them both active roughly quadruples the value of any other orb you run across. I happen to like both lands quite a bit, though. If you don't, especially the former can be tedious to pull off.

My default strategy for the Caribbean, FWIW, is to circumnavigate it at a depth of about 15 and to mark covered ground by strategically killing pirates every 3-4 tiles. By far most treasure spawns only at a depth of 10-11, because of geometry; and scouting them out "from below" keeps the monster spawn rate down. Something to deal with trees blocking the way to treasure (Flash, Teleport, Aether, Sword…) helps speed things up too, of course.

[PDV]

My usual practice is to get Safety and Speed before moving on to whichever Land(s) I'm aiming for a new achievement in. Recently I've tried swapping out Speed for Life; they don't go well together, and both roughly double your ability to clear mobs. Adding Flash would be easy but I don't find it's very helpful; I burn through the charges or fire it accidentally before it ever gets me out of trouble.

I find Jungle pretty easy, way easier than Alchemy Lab or Hunting Ground, but Storms has the same misfire/exhaustion problem as Flash. Zebra I agree is dangerous, I've only gotten competent at it recently when I looted it several times in succession on my way to Frog Park.

Minefield I find frustrating because I usually navigate with the numpad and the displayed arrows are both necessary and in the way of seeing the count. But Bomberbirds are pretty useful, particularly for Zebra, Frog Park, and ocean zones.

[MightyLad]

call me crazy for this, but i enjoy going for orb of slaying. (yes, the ruined city one.) it might not always be helpful, but it does its work in some particularly tough lands. it can replace an orb of thorns in the dry forest, letting you cut big trees in one hit as well, it can help in the terracotta army if you like fighting rather then counting, and i cant confirm it yet, but i believe it may help against draugers (if thats how you spell it) in the burial grounds. it also makes the palace a breeze, letting you instakill anything there, including viziors. (if thats how its spelled. (sorry, i slept through every grade in school.)) it also does some good in hell and Camelot, but they both seem easy enough on there own. also, just globalizing orbs of slaying make good practice, since the whole premise of the ruined city is about understanding how enemy's move. even with an orb of slaying on hand, you still need to remember the movement style of each raider. anyway, im off track here. if you want to test your chess skills, (hyper rogue is pretty chess like) try for 25 crysoberyl (i think thats spelled right...)

[jennlbw]

lands good to 25 at:
hell: it should be obvious why you would 25 at hell. hell is easy enough that 100 treasure is as hard as 50 treasure is in most other lands so 25 treasure would be closer to 10 treasure difficulty

land of eternal motion: orb of safety. no elaboration.

graveyard: finishing our trio of lands to get global orbs in who were introduced in 3.0 is graveyard. mostly, this should be done for ruined city for the first 10 treasures where you need to kill more enemies so you can blanket the land in items to stop brown warriors but need to also not increment the difficulty or in irradiated field where brown warriors also appear. seeing dead orbs in other lands can also be handy even if you already have them in crossroads.

icy land/emerald mine/ruined city: if you're looking to kill as many unique enemies, i suggest this trio. orb of the mind can kill sleeping bulls while orb of slaying can kill shadows (temporarily).

alchemist lab: beginner lands are extremely good to get 25 treasure (except for jungle since you have to run through it for the lost mountain orb) due to their low stakes for defeat being their lack of requirements and ability to start at. of them. this is the best land to get it at due to land of eternal motion being much more of a land to swoop by after this one.

zebra/reptiles/jelly kingdom: you only need 24 for the frog park unlock but 25 treasure is much better since swooping in for 1 extra treasure can be dangerous (especially in the case of the latter).