Mutated Mycelium leveling

[eqalidan]

is it better to stay in darkwood or idle free roam?

[JazzyJ]

Never idle Free Roam. You need to win an encounter to get the drop. At max expedition level you only have 30% chance to win the first encounter going down to 15% for the 10th.

Added to that, in Free Roam you only have 1/14 chance of getting the enemy that drops the item you want. Compare this to Darkwood where it is 1/6. Even if you are running manual expeditions you should just run Darkwood to farm the items that drop there.

[Scoobydeux]

Originally posted by JazzyJ:

Never idle Free Roam. You need to win an encounter to get the drop. At max expedition level you only have 30% chance to win the first encounter going down to 15% for the 10th.

Added to that, in Free Roam you only have 1/14 chance of getting the enemy that drops the item you want. Compare this to Darkwood where it is 1/6. Even if you are running manual expeditions you should just run Darkwood to farm the items that drop there.

JazzyJ, I have been idling Mausoleum. I get a high win rate, and with those, catalyst shards. I have most of the gear, except the four newest pieces are not maxed yet, so I am also farming keys while I do this. Have to run Cathedral and Secret Alter for those (never on idle; need the wins). I wouldn't say the keys are tumbling in, but I'm getting an acceptable rate.

I was curious what would happen if I dropped down to Darkwood, so I idled one session. I won every battle. I received almost nothing, only one distribution of a catalyst for the last (highest) battle. Too low for rewards.

Did you mean Mausoleum, or is your answer specific to equalidan's situation?

(I agree that for the most part, Free Roam seems pointless. I think I used it to finish off a few items that I had no better option for, but the XP gap has widened, I believe.)

[JazzyJ]

Yes, the answer was specific to the OP as they are farming an item that drops in Darkwood and not in Mausoleum. With Idle expeditions the higher your level compared to the zone the more likely the win but the lower the drop rate. Mausoleum is the optimal zone as you will get the most drops and wins.

By farming keys I assume you mean running green dust experiments? There is a weekly bonus that increases the keys you get. I would suggest saving your dust for a couple of weeks and then dump it all at once during that week. Even when you aren't farming for those trophies you can't have too many keys. Gotta get them memetic splinters.

[Scoobydeux]

By farming keys, I mean for Cathedral and Secret Alter, added last November, I believe. I still need all four items, two each, have them all up to blue. I'm not stressing over it because the bonuses seem odd and not particularly useful, although if they have a use, it is probably in the triumphs. They focus on pairs of sources bonuses, could help if you've shut off other means of accruing mana.

[pac230]

Originally posted by Scoobydeux:

By farming keys, I mean for Cathedral and Secret Alter, added last November, I believe. I still need all four items, two each, have them all up to blue. I'm not stressing over it because the bonuses seem odd and not particularly useful, although if they have a use, it is probably in the triumphs. They focus on pairs of sources bonuses, could help if you've shut off other means of accruing mana.

The strong thing about all those advanced Trophies is their Enchant bonus, such as Anointed Ashes which has a 4.5% Incant Eff Enchant, where Anima Core's is just 4%.

[Scoobydeux]

Do you have yours up to Legendary?

[JazzyJ]

Inquisitive Eye is BiS for Archon, Warbanner Fragment is BiS for Shaman, Anointed Ashes should be used in place of Heart of the Storm for the "snap" set for Heretic and Temporalist. It would not replace Anima Core as this has 192% base Incant Efficency and Anointed Ashes never catches up to this even at max enchant level. Blessed Armor Scales may be BiS for some classes at specific enchant levels but has a completely separate use which is to massively boost the speed of trials of innovation. At Legendary it is 4 times the speed.

I got all of them to Legendary within a few weeks of them being introduced. As Archon and Shaman are my main classes it made sense and I had a lot of keys.

[Scoobydeux]

Nice explanation.

[PseudonymousBosh]

I'd exercise caution about replacing heart of the storm with anointed ashes in incantation sets. The base efficiency bonus on heart isn't impressive, but the small advantage ashes has when enchanting needs a lot of levels to overcome it.

[pac230]

Originally posted by Scoobydeux:

Do you have yours up to Legendary?

Not quite. I had to check as I haven't played my most advanced save much since January. Mine is Rare (making those two Trophies my only non-Legendaries).

[JazzyJ]

Originally posted by PseudonymousBosh:

I'd exercise caution about replacing heart of the storm with anointed ashes in incantation sets. The base efficiency bonus on heart isn't impressive, but the small advantage ashes has when enchanting needs a lot of levels to overcome it.

Correct. The point at which Anointed Ashes becomes better is enchant level 19 (including the +5 from Legion and Resonator).

[PseudonymousBosh]

Originally posted by JazzyJ:

Originally posted by PseudonymousBosh:

I'd exercise caution about replacing heart of the storm with anointed ashes in incantation sets. The base efficiency bonus on heart isn't impressive, but the small advantage ashes has when enchanting needs a lot of levels to overcome it.

Correct. The point at which Anointed Ashes becomes better is enchant level 19 (including the +5 from Legion and Resonator).

Hmmm, I thought it needed level 39 - have I miscalculated?

[InvalidError]

Originally posted by PseudonymousBosh:

Hmmm, I thought it needed level 39 - have I miscalculated?

If the two incantation bonus parts from equipment are additive, then it looks to me like the break-even point on incantation boost between Anima Core's 192% base from maxed-out expedition + 167% from 25 total enchants is 29 enchants on Ash.

ln(1.92 + 1.67) / ln(1.045) = 29

Edit: that should actually have been ln(1 + 1.92 + 1.67) / ln(1.045) = 34.6 with the extra '1' representing the 1.00x base (no bonus) multiplier.

[pac230]

Originally posted by JazzyJ:

It would not replace Anima Core as this has 192% base Incant Efficency and Anointed Ashes never catches up to this even at max enchant level.

Yeah, did not mean to suggest that Anointed Ashes was a replacement for Anima Core. Just using those as examples of how advanced Trophy enchants exceed typical enchantment bonuses.

[PseudonymousBosh]

Originally posted by InvalidError:

Originally posted by PseudonymousBosh:

Hmmm, I thought it needed level 39 - have I miscalculated?

If the two incantation bonus parts from equipment are additive, then it looks to me like the break-even point on incantation boost between Anima Core's 192% base from maxed-out expedition + 167% from 25 total enchants is 29 enchants on Ash.

ln(1.92 + 1.67) / ln(1.045) = 29

I've been proceeding on the basis of them being multiplicative, and was intending to compare anointed ashes with heart of the storm in this case anyway.