When does the value of PW farming kick in?

I'm working on a RA, now mid-LVL49. I actually picked up a few pieces of equipment in the last Full Moon event which have given me a few build options, but the toon is still relatively weak.

I run PW maps only occasionally, generally when required by Daily Quest grind.

I read all the time how y'all love Q3M1, but I'm wondering what you consider a good run?

Just finished Painful (i.e., normal) run, got 0 essence drops; 1 Ander drop; ~40 materi fragments; 5 exos, 4 blue, 6 green gear, all garbage with the possible exception of one green pauldren with 4 gem slots so potentially suitable as crafting junk ... if I had any yellow-line greens and was willing to start crafting at Lvl49. Oh, and 1 splintered cyanite and 2 splintered amethysts.

These resulsts are typical for me, at the expense of 2K blue essence and about 20 minutes of effort. Not enough of anything to make a dent in my build. Well, after 40 runs I'd have a full Amethyst to actually upgrade a gem slot in my current gear, and 80 runs to get that bit of extra armor boost (assuming I've got an existing Simple or better gem waiting in inventory to fill the other emptied gear slot).

But, after 40 runs (unless a miracle happened), not enough Ander to buy / upgrade anything (and I typically die at least once battling the Miller, though survived, ok this time; I often die once battling that RA, though Heredur is survivable, if tedious; so, a PW run usually is a net negative on my Ander count), not enough GoP to upgrade anything, not enough materi to buy anything (maybe enough for a legendary belt, which would almost certainly become GoP melt).

Ok, that was too much detail and whining, but you get my drift: At Lvl49, I don't find slowly slogging through Q3M1 especially rewarding; do the drops increase exponentially at Lvl50 and the higher modes (Excruciating and Fatal, not that I could come close to surviving those modes now, with my current gear)?

Or should I just idle in between events that actually provide me with upgrade possibilities (either directly from drops, or indirectly via accumulating Draken to purchase equipment from Gnob)?

(And, yes, I'm a solo F2P user on barren Teagan; won't burdern a guild with my weak character).

 

Are you at wisdom level 50 yet? Or at least over 45?

As for farming, I still do painful when soloing. Excruciating and Fatal farming can be good in a well functioning group as the ander drop value increases, the rate of gold line increases, and teammates can take advantage of armor breaks, etc.

Advantage of level 50 is getting into those groups.

 

PW is really hard if you rushed through the levels and soloing it isnt really recommended. Try to do it with friends or find a good group so you can slowly upgrade yourself without using too many resources.

 

Thanks for the input, gents ... I think I've paced myself reasonably well with this toon, other than the fact that I avoided doing events as everything seemed so messed up in the moon events previously, and I didn't see shooting for Lvl33 event uniques .

I know that going solo flies in the face of the concept of an MMORPG, but my play schedule is inconsistent, and I'm frankly only an average-skilled player at best, so never wanted to be a burden on a team. I may try to make that more of a priority.

Cheers!

 

I think someone here didnt read my singanture.

 

I think the most important thing when it comes to farming is to do it in a reasonable pace. If it takes too long for you to farm pw, you should look for a party or probably just do nat.

Also, I don't know if I was lucky, but last full moon gave me very good drops. I crafted my dmg torso and weapon at lvl 47-8 that I'm still using with ingredients from full moon. The thing is people often don't mind having a weaker character in their party during full moon as long as you have some vials to spare.

Aim for small improvements here and there. I had a very hard time too when I just reached lvl 50 and tried pw dungeons about 3 weeks ago. Took me forever to unlock all the dungeons. Now I can comfortably farm q3m1 with green essence in 5-10 mins. One final note: don't kill the miller when you do those runs, it's a waste of time.

 

Full moon is still giving very good drops.

Additionally, while I did stupidly spent about 3200 silver ess and 800 red ess to kill vargulf solo in the highest setting this afternoon (i gave in and traded in 1999 silver for a 5 minute scroll after i got tired of whittling the hp down so i could use the red ess, it did reward me with 10+ cubes from the spawned wolves during that boss fight.

 

Well, firstly you need to understand who is the persona who is talking about q3m1, and that he/she loves it. If thats an end game pro, thats whole different story comparing to a lvl50 newcomer.

Someone has said here about a pace. Thats an extremely valid point, whatever your normal sustainable pace it, keep it.

On the q3m1. When I talk about it, I talk glyphs and gold. And, since recentlty I also talk about items with golden stats, primarily in fatal. But, my persona, my character is capable of clearing the 3 mini-bosses in 2 minutes at normal, 2.5 minutes at medium and 3 minutes at fatal solo, including the return to the city and back to the map again.

Of course this is absolutely irrelevant to you, as you cant do it yet. Also, when I talk about q3m1, I only talk about 3 minibosses, maximum 4 including the rare one by the mill, and never about a miller. Miller is a waste of time, it adds time to pickup 10 frags, click on the house, clear that area. So i only focus on the 3 minis when I do those q3m1 marathons.

If I was capable only of normal, I would do normal, because its faster and its guaranteed purple drop = glyphs. As you go through your glyphs journey, you will be getting better, but it will sure take time.

Eventually, you will also getting some items that are worth wearing or using to craft some magic.

But its all the question about who you are (persona, what you are capable of at some sustainable pace), and what are you goals.

If you need glyphs, I would do normal runs on green. I would switch to blue for the bosses when or uf required, and that might be yournsustainable pace. Perhaps, you will be getting enough blue essesnce drops so you have just enough to keep the pace.

If thats not the case, it means you are not there yet, and I would couple with the mage/archer to run through it together.

If your goal is items, I would go higher the level, and team-up as required, just to get a chance to get better items. But the chance is, honestly, miserable. You need to do 1000 runs to get 1 legendary worth considering. Just be prepared.

And finally, all that q3m1 love comes after the q6m2_3kn / q6m2_5kn love (hall lof dead), which is now dead as you cannot reset the map easily. Q3m1 is the only map with sustainable number of minibosses, which you can run through reasonably fast, as they all are nearby. Thats why you do it.

And if you need gems and ander, I dont even know what the place is. Its not what it used to be 14 months ago, no longer. There is not a good map for it. Permium is, thanks to cubes.

 

What means scroll ''unleash special monster''? I never found any special monsters. When that scroll is on, I clearing all map and then clicking scroll which gives message ''special monster appeared'', then mounted I run as fast as possible through all map and there is nothing. Is it very short time limited or hiding soewhere, or is it random? I did that few times but still can't find anything on q3m1.

 

I think it might be messed up on q3m1. I've seen a fourth miniboss by the Mill as sebastian has said irregardless of the Special Monster podium. On q1m1, for instance, that podium will spawn a mini-boss in-between the first and the ritual circle most of the time.

 

the forth miniboss appearing despite that scroll and quite often to me, I always clearing around the mill coz there is a lot mobs in small spot and that for DK is like candy

 

It is indeed. That mini boss is just random, and not related to the scroll at all. But that area is fun for a DK because a BoW and a DH means that most of the mob will be dead within 10 seconds.

Like many others have said, the nice thing about Q3M1 is the ability to farm exos for crafting and melting at a high pace.

Also like others have said, if you don't have the stats for it, you will end up taking more time or more resources than you'd like.

The truth is that you need time and a little bit of luck to build up your gear and then it won't be that hard.

If you are just trying to farm for improvements, don't worry about the miller, m2, or even Heredur. Just focus on M1 with the 3 standard mini bosses, and then reset (maybe the random 4th mini boss that shows up near the mill with the mobs there... good drops for blues and greens, realm frags, ander, materi frags, gold, gems, etc). That way you will have easier farming, and if you die, all you lose is a bit of silver to repair and you don't need to respawn in the map. That will save you andermant big time and over time, you will gain ander.

The thing that I disagree with you the most about is this line right here:

If they are a good guild, then you won't be a burden, and if they are decent people (not elitist butt holes), then they will want to help, not feel forced to. I'm a very strong DK and I could do nothing but solo play all day, every day, but I am in a couple guilds and assist those players when I can (my main is in one, and my alts are in another and because of that connection, I also assist the alt guild). New players won't get strong or become the super strong end game players any time soon if they are forced to be solo all the time. I've helped people who were nothing impressive when they reached LVL 50 get to the point where they can now solo 3 bosses in Q3M1 with greens in less than 5 min. Helping each other is the very purpose of a guild. Go check out the Guild Section of the forums and take a look for a good Tegan guild and you will improve in no time. Maybe one of those people will see this thread and reach out here.

 

The improvements you make on your gear comes out as very minor improvements. But, as you make improvements to your build, little by little, you will improve.

You cannot expect huge gains every time. Initially, when you start out as a weak character, you may gain substantial improvements.
However, when you character is decently equipped, from thereafter, the improvements will be minor.
Minor at first glance, I may say. Because, after a while, you will realize how much these minor improvements can really grow your character to be powerful.

As others have said, you should farm where you can easily farm. Start with PW painful maps and collect melts and gear to improve your character.

Initially it may take 30 minutes or so to do one run of a map, but believe me, as you get stronger and stronger you can do one run in less and less time.

Some of the more stronger players can do one run in about a minute or so.

As your time to run maps get less and less, you will realize you will accumulate more and more gear and melts easily, and then you wouldn't need guidance of what to do next.