Effective Dragonet Ichor farming on 2x elix
Hi all,
After starting farming for Ichor, I noticed that in PUG’s, even on elix, runs could take up to 3 minutes. The reason for this is that people run back and forth on the map to kill some stray enemies.
Please note that this was written with elix users in mind. Many people seem to be running on elix there, so it’s basically for those people that I decided to make this post.
The first part will be a (theoretical) time/cost analysis, while the second part will contain the strategy on how to clear effectively.
1. Time/cost analysis
Since Ichor isn’t dropping every run, this quest seems to take an eternity. It’s probably an underestimate to say that it would take at least 1000+ runs before you’ll get to the 500 needed Ichors. So basically, if you could shave off 1 min a run by playing effectively as a group, that would mean you’d save 1000+ minutes (or about 16-17hours!) total farming time.
Here’s an example of the difference between 2min and 3min in 1000 runs:
- Let’s say a clearing would take 3mins in a not so effective group:
3 mins * 1000 runs= 3000 minutes or 50hours of gameplay (O.o).
50 hours = 100 x 7plat 30min elix (if bought from guild hall, 8 plat if bought during the run), or 700plat in total
- By playing a bit more effective, you could do it in under 2mins:
2 mins * 1000 runs= 2000 minutes or 33h20mins
33h20m = 67 x 7plat, or 469 plat
So, farming more effectively won’t only save you many hours of farming (about 17hours), it will also save you a lot of plat (231 plat).
And these are the numbers for only 1000 runs. As it will probably take way more than 1000 runs, these differences become even (a lot) bigger.
2. Clearing strategy
First some basics:
- You’ll need a maximum of 5 enemies left before entering the boss room if you want the boss to spawn
- When you reach the top of the open area, there are 13-14 enemies in the narrow part leading to the boss. So you’d need about a maximum number of 18 enemies left alive before entering that part (given that you’d kill everything in there).
The most effective way is to split up in 2 groups. 1 goes to the left, 1 goes to the right while running in a quarter/half a circle and meeting in the middle of the map. All while maintaining agro of course.
I tried meeting in the upper and lower parts of the map (so bears could actually use beckon/stomp), but that seems too far away for some enemies, so they’ll just run back. In the end you’ll have to chase some stay enemies if you don’t pull them to the middle.
Bears should be especially careful on how/when/if to use beckon/stomp, because they could mess up the entire pull with 1 beckon and/or stomp.
I recorded a video about it, to show you the basic strategy. It was just a recording of a random run, so it might not be the absolute best run possible, but it should give you an idea of the general strategy.
I ran with a mage, and took the left part to group up. If running with 2x elix on a staff mage, you’ll need to keep your magic shield until you meet in the middle. BOV should keep you alive for the grouping part. I basically use lightning and fire storm while running around to ensure agro from the surrounding enemies.
Once your group meets in the middle, it’s mass murder time :D
Then, all that’s left to do is move up and kill everything in your path until you get to the boss.
Once at the boss, just focus everything you have on the boss and ignore everything around him/her/it.
Below you’ll find the video…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-p7cLcHtEE
If there are more effective clearing strategies, I’d be happy to hear them. I just wanted to share a strategy that I thought to be effective.
As always, leave your constructive feedback below and happy Ichor farming :)
Leading the Dragonet away from the lava pool
One aspect that I would like to add to the discussion is how to efficiently get the Dragonet to a position where:
1. It can't move so you don't have to chase it all the time
2. It's as far away from the lava pool as possible so that the team doesn't get damaged by it
3. It's far away from the cave entrance so that there is no danger that its health resets.
I am sure that you have figured this out by now but I still see a lot of lava baths in Ichor runs so I think it's useful to show how it can be done.
The idea is that the Dragonet moves backwards in the direction that his main opponent (= team member with aggro) faces. The rest is simple as shown in the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk7VbAbZKWo&feature=plcp
P.S. near the end of the clip we have a guest star appearance LOL!
