Azaka Farming: Boss method

[Nomad `o_]

I'm not sure how many folks around here also frequent r/idlechampions, but if you haven't already seen Psylisa's excellent guide to Azaka farming it's worth checking out: https://www.reddit.com/r/idlechampions/comments/ch1zx1/psylisas_guide_to_azaka_farming_72319/

I've never been particularly interested in the AFK farming method (too much hassle to set up, and I have other things to accomplish with my overnight runs) so I put together a guide for my preferred method, which involves active play to knock the boss back between Azaka's ults.

The guide is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/idlechampions/comments/fyodir/azaka_farming_boss_method/

But here's an excerpt of the important bits:

How do we Azaka farm a boss?
After Vlahnya takes out the trash, you push the boss back, then Azaka ult, then push back, then ult... Rinse and repeat.
Only a couple champions change between the knockback formation and the max gold formation, but I find it's quicker/easier to make the swap using saved formations. For example: https://imgur.com/Xe6olbG

1. Go to the boss zone at your wall (if you wall on non-boss zones, go to the most recent boss).
   
2. Use Vlahnya's ult to clear out the 10 mobs once they've all spawned - https://imgur.com/a8iKkBA
   
3. Switch to your Knockback formation to keep the boss away and ensure Donaar applies his debuff and Krull gets 10 stacks of Pilfer
   
4. Hit Azaka's ult and switch to your max gold find formation - https://imgur.com/sXbEzkY
   
5. Once Azaka's ult finishes, switch back to your Knockback formation

After Azaka's ult comes off cooldown, repeat steps 4 and 5 to your heart's content.

TL;DR: https://imgur.com/a/ChNKpby

[Phantom]

Can be improved from what your mentioned by a HUGE factor

1 - Kill the boss, leaving a couple minions
2 - Jim swap a minion into a mimic, remove remaining minions (or bonus pilfer them before killing and hope it stacks up to 20-30-40-50 on the mimic
3 - Swap out Jim and in Donaair with of drop on the mimic, swap in Regis
4 - Make sure you have a full gold find party (not that hard to look up) ensuring Krull does not leave the party (or his pilfer goes away and if its above 10 pilfer thats a loss you can't easily recover). Putting your tank Wulfgar at the front and making sure the mimic is on him (don can be used to push it back and make sure it lands on him)
5 - Chug 4x sizes of gold find potion, and possibly 10x speed
6 - Hit azaka's ult when shes not in wolf form

Repeat and repeat and repeat to absurd money

[Nomad `o_]

Thanks for the note Phantom - what you're describing is the 1-mob, AFK friendly farm (Psylisa's guide provides a more verbose explanation of the steps you listed). The 1-mob farm is great at what it does, and (as I mention in my guide on the subreddit) the ceiling is higher in terms of total gold gained.

That said, I've often found that in order to reliably get step #1 in your list (killing the boss but leaving mobs alive) I need to back down at least 2 bosses from my wall, and then hope I get lucky with step #2 and end up with more than 10 stacks (40 is the max) on a mimic.
That whole process often takes long enough for me to set up that by the time it's in place I could have already gone through 3-5 Azaka ults on the boss at my wall.

I'm sure there's an element of skill/practice involved and no doubt other folks can reliably get the 1-mob setup in place in a timeframe they're comfortable with. If single-mob farming works for you, great! I'm not suggesting anyone stop doing anything they're happy with, just trying to provide an option for those who may be looking for alternatives.

To be clear, the remaining steps (max gold find, gold potions, Azaka ult) are the same regardless of farm method. The main advantage the 1-mob method has (other than being AFK-friendly) is the potential to get extra stacks of Pilfer on a Mimic.
However, if you're dropping down 2 boss zones from your wall, the Mimic will be dropping approximately the same amount of gold as the boss 10 zones higher would drop. In order for the 1-mob method to come out ahead you'd need to be able to get that lone Mimic setup either at your wall or only 1 boss lower, or get >10 stacks of Pilfer on it.

If you're able to consistently get lone Mimics with 20-30-40 stacks of Pilfer on them then sure, that would improve on the gains from the boss farming method "by a HUGE factor" - more power to you! :)

[Phantom]

I tend to be happy with 10 pilfer on a mimic, favour becomes pretty much pointless when you've got lots anyway :P

I've had a higher pilfer mimic before (30-50?) all about luck... best possible would be a 110 pilfer mimic I guess... if you went non boss you'd likely eventually stack enough pain that the mimic would die or get overwhelmed by enemies you couldn't take out :P

Thing is its not really that hard to wipe out the boss and keep the rest alive, but what your suggesting is infinitely inferior to the makos ultimate gold farm method which essentially is the same but you remove krull for a passive gold find hero increase

swap out to your highest DPS party land a good DPS hit then swap in your gold find party and ult with makos for some absurd gold find numbers too...

Pretty much goes

Mimic Azaka farm --------> Makos ultimate farm ---> Alternative Azaka farms -> DPS pushing for the 20% gold find per level increase swap to regular gold farm party

[Nomad `o_]

I guess I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to make - what's inferior about the boss farming method, exactly?

The differences between farming a mimic and farming a boss are:

1. Mimics drop more gold. The extra gold appears to be equivalent to about 10 zones, so if your wall is zone 550 but you have to drop down to 540 to farm a mimic, the gains are (approximately) the same.
   
2. Mimics can get >10 pilfer stacks. This is potentially a major difference in income, but again, if we're comparing a mimic with 10 pilfer at zone 540 vs a boss with 10 stacks at zone 550, the gains are about the same.
   
3. Mimic farming is AFK-friendly (no need to active play to switch to a pushback formation to keep the boss away from the formation). This is really the main distinction between farming the boss vs. farming the mobs, but it doesn't sound like this is the issue you're talking about.

I'm familiar with Makos farming, but how is that superior to active Azaka farming?
Makos farming only works if he can kill things (usually with his ult). If you can kill things then you're not at your wall. The benefit of boss/active Azaka farming is that it can be done right at your wall - if zone 550 is the boss your formation can't kill no matter how hard you try, that's the boss you can actively farm.

The formation for farming the boss vs. farming a mimic is identical, the only difference is switching to a pushback formation (swapping out 2 champions) to keep the boss away while Azaka's ult is on cooldown.

Am I missing some key point, and we're just miscommunicating? Did you read the guide (or at least look at the pictures)?

[Phantom]

Mimic farming shouldn't be done afk, its less efficient and you only really gain benefit from the first 3-5 ults after that the gains will drop down to where doing a new run is far FAR more efficient

Boss farming shouldn't be done afk either, is less efficient than mimic farming, you can see gains for the 100-200th time you do this on the boss, because its so much less effective...

1.xx e05 increase to gold dropped by makos kills > any other non repeating gold find method, its not as easy or IMO as good as the azaka farming method due to losing Nrakk and Drizzit but it does eek them out in terms of total gold find dropping

Problem is you need to be very active to make use of it (swap into a DPS formation, land up a good bud hit, swap back to gold find, land the ultimate, wait for the ultimate to cooldown, repeat)

You should be able to take out the boss at your wall and do one of his minions... ESPECIALLY if you have jim mimic the enemy before killing the boss... If you can't I'm not sure as to what formations you are using

Long and short is if you are below e25-e28 you should mimic farm, if you are above e28 it no longer matters anyway

But if you like doing it the way you like it doesn't really matter,

its just empirically not as efficient

[Nomad `o_]

Alright, this is an interesting discussion, let's step through this point by point:

Originally posted by Phantom:

Mimic farming shouldn't be done afk, its less efficient and you only really gain benefit from the first 3-5

Seems like the main advantage of mimic farming is that (unlike boss farming or Makos farming) it can be done afk/overnight - but otherwise I think I agree with this statement - just to clarify, why do you say afk mimic farming is less efficient than active mimic farming? You mean because of the diminishing returns after the 5th ult or so?

Originally posted by Phantom:

Boss farming shouldn't be done afk either,

I think the issue with afk boss farming isn't so much about efficiency as that you really can't afk farm a boss at all - you need to actively swap between pushback champions and max gold find to ensure maximum gains from azaka's ult.

Originally posted by Phantom:

is less efficient than mimic farming, you can see gains for the 100-200th time you do this on the boss, because its so much less effective...

This part confuses me - you're saying that boss farming is less efficient because you continue to get gains each time you do a new boss farm? Why would this be any different than mimic farming?

Originally posted by Phantom:

1.xx e05 increase to gold dropped by makos kills > any other non repeating gold find method

I haven't bothered with Makos farming since I got Azaka, and I'm not sure what you mean by 'non repeating', but if your general point is that Makos farming is the next best option after Azaka+full gold find formation, then sure, I agree. I also generally agree with the rest of your notes about Makos farming.

Originally posted by Phantom:

You should be able to take out the boss at your wall and do one of his minions... ESPECIALLY if you have jim mimic the enemy before killing the boss... If you can't I'm not sure as to what formations you are using

Maybe I'm being dense, but this really has me confused. If you can kill the boss at your wall, then that's not your wall, right? Killing the boss means you can continue to the next zone - probably the next boss. If you can continue to higher zones, you aren't at your wall yet.
Are you saying that your wall is actually on non-boss zones? If so, I'm curious what formations you are using :) With Zorbu dps and Tyril (Wild Shape) tank formations, I almost exclusively wall on boss zones.

Originally posted by Phantom:

Long and short is if you are below e25-e28 you should mimic farm, if you are above e28 it no longer matters anyway

I think that around e28 favor (maybe closer to e30 with new level cap) is probably where the returns from favor farming diminish to the point where it's a chore to gain much more in a single run. But I mean favor always matters - the move favor you have, the sooner you can hit level cap and the higher your click wall gets.

Originally posted by Phantom:

its just empirically not as efficient

Just to be completely clear here, I'm not saying that farming the boss at a given zone (say, zone 540) is comparable to farming a mimic at that same zone. If the point you're trying to make is that a boss drops less gold than one of its minions after converting to a mimic, I wholeheartedly agree!

The reason I wrote this, and the premise I explain at the start of the guide, is that in my experience it is time consuming and/or difficult to reliably kill the boss while keeping a mimic alive. At my wall it's virtually impossible (since my wall is generally the zone where I can't kill the boss at all).
If I go down 5 levels it's possible (I killed the boss before, I can certainly do it again) but it usually takes a fair amount of luck and several tries - I'd rather spend 15 minutes farming the boss at my wall than waste 20 minutes trying and failing to set up a mimic farm at the previous boss.
If I go down 10 levels from my wall (2 boss zones) then I can usually get the mimic farm set up after just a couple tries (depending on how cooperative Jim is being).

However - this is the key point - a mimic at zone X drops approximately the same amount of gold as a boss at zone X+10.

So, to recap:

1. Mimic farming at your wall (although I still don't quite understand how this is possible) gives more gold than boss farming at your wall.
   
2. Mimic farming at the boss below your wall (-5 zones) gives more gold than boss farming at your wall.
   
3. Mimic farming two bosses below your wall (-10 zones) gives about the same amount of gold as boss farming at your wall.
   
4. Mimic farming three or more bosses below your wall -15+ zones) gives less gold than boss farming at your wall.

The benefits of boss farming (assuming you have the necessary champions) are that it takes less than 30 seconds to set up and doesn't rely on Jim's mood that day :p

Obviously if people are able to quickly and reliably set up a mimic farm at their wall or only 1 boss lower, that's the superior option.
However, for folks who (like me) find the mimic setup process tedious/unpleasant/slow/unreliable, or who don't have Jim, or who didn't know another option existed, hopefully this guide is useful.

[Phantom]

Yes absolutely because you get e tons favour the first few times then get e fractional later

Really I disagree with any afk favour farming, its never going to be as efficient as active farming, not even close... plus you should be using your overnight time to knock off patron variants, patron challenges or just gem farming

For one I think that potions don't work when your afk, I've dropped some and come back the next morning and the potion was still active... so thats a loss of a TON of gold drop

because one mimic farm run is 100-2000x more effective than one boss farm run which translates to that much faster

Makos farming is a one shot ultimate then a lot of waiting and prepping to do the next one, so its really an effective one shot farm method... works good if you can cluster up a ton of enemies that you CAN kill with an ult then push them back and swap formations, but again lots and lots and lots of prep work vs the mimic version

I have several in the e3x levels one is almost e4x... it helps but its not necessary by any means and doesn't really benefit you in anything other than just farming stages for gems over and over... and with the upcoming modron mode that will be relegated to something pointless


Mimic farming benefits from being able to add gold find to your total without losing access to heros to do so, you get a pretty sizeable increase for an of drop mimic at your wall vs the alternatives

Not discussing the people who don't have access to various heros, yes they won't be able to as effectively use something the devs themselves said was the #1 method by enough of a wide margin they considered nerfing it

The timegate change lets them more easily obtain the heros now so their is that

I fail to see how getting the mimic takes very much time, you should be using speed potions anyway, they are common cheap and make the whole thing take less time to get to your wall, farm your wall and repeat


Like I said

You do you, but its not as efficient as doing this

[Nomad `o_]

I'll try to keep it short this time and focus on just the main points you raised:

1. Potions do work while afk - there's no system in the game that detects whether you're at your desk or not... Maybe your computer went to sleep? Or when you say afk do you actually mean offline?
   
2. Mimics drop 10x the normal gold drop. Can you explain how you're figuring a >100+ improvement, exactly?
   
3. Mimic farming and boss farming use the exact same gold find formation when Azaka's ult is active. The only difference is the additional gold from the mimic (10x normal).
   
4. It's still not clear to me what you mean by 'efficient'.

It seems like the only difference between the mimic farm method you're advocating and the boss farm method I'm describing is literally just which enemy Azaka's tigers are getting gold from: mimic or boss.
Mimics drop 10x normal gold, so of course comparing a mimic and a boss on the same level means the mimic gives more gold. But a mimic five zones lower than a boss is less of a difference, and a mimic ten zones lower than a boss drops about the same as the boss ten zones higher.

Are we on the same page with any of this? I'm getting the impression from your responses that you're arguing against something I haven't said, but I'm not sure where the disconnect happened, and it seems like maybe you're not reading what I write :p

Also, I'm still really curious how you are able to kill bosses at your wall. Do you just always wall on non-boss zones (and if so, what formations do you use)?

[Phantom]

1 - Well was considering AFK as game shut down, not game running and your away. But yeah you can go away from it and do that, again uber diminishing returns

Assuming your correct

2 - Mimics dropping 10x gold would be = to 12 levels of advancement

3 - Similar not the exact same, plus your stuck with double ult cooldown waits

efficient "capable of producing desired results with little or no waste (as of time or materials)"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/efficient


What your saying is that your formations / hero access needs improvement

DPS for myself I like to use

Turiel, Regis/Korth, Gromma, Sentry, Quilk/Pwent, Shandy/Krull, Minsc/Cattle-bri, Walnut/Hitch, Alia/Morgan/Birdsong, Tyril, Warden/Avren, Zorbu/Melf

Sometimes I swap in other heros if they have more of a benefit

Haven't tried a super slow attack 'buff' party yet but I've read good things about them

[Nomad `o_]

Looks like the short bullet list format is working!

1. Aha! This clears up a lot of the earlier misunderstanding I think. Offline Azaka farming is completely pointless. AFK Azaka farming just means things are set up so that your formation won't get wiped out if you step away from your computer for a while. Mimic farming is AFK friendly (Pwent's ult and Regis's heal may keep Wulfgar alive with no extra help). Boss farming is not AFK friendly (need to actively play to keep boss pushed back between Azaka ults).
   
2. You may be right about 10x gold find being 12 levels - when eyeballing the gold drops the amounts looked pretty much the same, the numbers after the decimal point may be higher from the mimic.
   
3. The max gold find formation for boss farming is: Azaka, Jarlaxle, CotH (Drizzt, Wulfgar, Regis, Bruenor, Catti), Pwent, Krull, Nrakk. What's the difference between this and the mimic gold find formation, exactly? And what do you mean by double ult cooldown waits?
   
4. I'm familiar with the definition of efficient - and from my perspective boss farming is more efficient because it wastes less time than setting up a mimic farm - but you haven't explained what is less efficient about boss farming. If you're talking about how mimics drop more gold than the boss at the same level - sure, but I'm not proposing that anyone should farm the boss on the same zone they could be farming a mimic. Farming the boss is only useful for players who have to go backwards 10+ zones to farm a mimic (or players who are willing to gain less gold in exchange for reducing setup time).
   
5. My main DPS/pushing formation (example from Kelemvor campaign) is: Tyril / Deekin, Krull / Zorbu, Avren, Korth / Qillek, Spurt, Catti, Aila. This formation (and similar in other campaigns) gets me to around zone 600 or so, depending on how much fiddling I want to do to stack debuffs or chain ults, etc. But I find that especially with Tyril tanking, I never wall on non-boss zones. It's only bosses that are able to take down Tyril. Still curious if you're walling on non-boss zones, or if we have different definitions of 'wall', or what. :)

Point #1 probably isn't really relevant to our discussion at this point since we're both talking about active (not afk, not offline) farming.
Point #2 is worth mentioning but I don't think ~2 zones worth of gold counts as "HUGE factor" in terms of 3-5 ults worth of income.
Points 3, 4, and 5 we still haven't reached agreement on, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts on these if you care to continue this conversation. :)

[Aztraeuz]

Hey I also enjoy the ease of Boss farming. I just wanted to add that you can AFK while Boss farming.

While using knockbacks to keep the boss off of your formation, you can put Havilar in and put a familiar on her Ult. It has a really low cooldown, like 10-20 seconds. Each ult will slow the boss down, and it stacks. If you hit the boss with enough ults from Havilar, it simply can't move, or hardly move.

Having a familiar on Pwents ult also moves the boss back. After you're done slowing, swap Havilar for Wulgar.

I typically have Havilar ulting while I swap in my gold find team. I prefer the boss farm because it requires very little set up. Hit your wall, swap Donaar in to knockback, swap Havilar in to slow, put the gold find team in, level them up, swap Havilar for Wulgar and move the familiar to Azaka's ult.

Let it sit for a few minutes, collecting the good amount of gold from the first few ults and restart.

[Coo Coo Pigeon]

Wow, I must be weird.
I don't bother with the boss since there's barely any gold to gain.
Just grab 1 minion, mimic it, stack it 20/30 pifflers (if failed cause 10, kill it repeat) grab full companions of the hall, jarl +rogues, azaka, anything to heal if afk long time, 1 fam on azaka ult and relax. havn't tried freely yet, might help as well.

[Nomad `o_]

Originally posted by Aztraeuz:

you can put Havilar in and put a familiar on her Ult. It has a really low cooldown, like 10-20 seconds. Each ult will slow the boss down, and it stacks. If you hit the boss with enough ults from Havilar, it simply can't move, or hardly move.

That's awesome, I had no idea Havilar's ults did that. Thanks for the info!

Originally posted by Coo Coo Pigeon:

Wow, I must be weird.

You're not weird, that's the standard method. :)
I created this post since it seemed like everyone who talked about Azaka farming was talking about mimic farming, which (as I explained above) I find to be slower, and tedious to set up compared to boss farming.

[Aztraeuz]

Originally posted by Nomad `o_:

Originally posted by Aztraeuz:

you can put Havilar in and put a familiar on her Ult. It has a really low cooldown, like 10-20 seconds. Each ult will slow the boss down, and it stacks. If you hit the boss with enough ults from Havilar, it simply can't move, or hardly move.

That's awesome, I had no idea Havilar's ults did that. Thanks for the info!

Originally posted by Coo Coo Pigeon:

Wow, I must be weird.

You're not weird, that's the standard method. :)
I created this post since it seemed like everyone who talked about Azaka farming was talking about mimic farming, which (as I explained above) I find to be slower, and tedious to set up compared to boss farming.

Yeah I really think the boss method is better. It's just so much easier and faster. Jim hates me I guess. I can pull off Mimic farm just fine but the boss farm is just so easy.

I think it's especially nice with Modron now. I'll set up a wall pushing formation and leave it. I'll keep my Gem Farming as my main party because it's faster. Only have to switch over to wall party every so often and at the end just do a quick boss farm.