Cheap time pieces for Wanda

[Gabepelegrini]

So I just found out, didn't check if anyone is doing this, but you can use the celestial portal to get 3 time pieces and a timeless watch for the cost of one moonrock and a purple gem. Imo this is broken

[Captain_Rage]

It's probably more by design than omission so that switching to Wanda won't leave you stranded and doomed by accident, since she soley relies on her watches for reverting her age and surviving.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

13 hours ago, Gabepelegrini said:

Imo this is broken

how when you can get more without rng moonrock varg farms, rng with meteors or killing an end game boss to get monrock vs getting ~2 stacks of thulecite from the ruins+~1 from the archives + a bunch of thulecite fragments

is another way of getting them but i dont see it broken, i rather keep my moon rock for fancy things and waste thulecite since as wanda you dont waste that much armor anyways and is funnier than farming moon rock

but thanks for sharing the info

[HowlVoid]

At this point I think we can all assume its intended. Getting thulecite fragments from the ancient archives isn't hard and its about the same waiting time as the spawning of the moon boulder thing-y or finding the lunar island.

It also allows for people to get time pieces (which Wanda's entire kit revolves around) when they have caves disabled.

[Notecja]

Honestly even on day 1 you can go to Archieve and speedrun some thulecite (I mean if you are lucky with worldgen but still would faster and cheaper than portal)

[Mike23Ua]

47 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

caves disabled.

I still wish Klei would provide console players this option. Or even a “cave only” option.. because on Xbox cave entrances are littered all over the map to the point that bat attacks can often get rather annoying.

Plus- I really just want to see how long I (and other people who join my world) can survive without access to the surface/cave

It would also help players who are scared of staying down in and exploring caves become more familiar with caves content when they can’t retreat to the surface.

there’s already an animation where the entrance/exit points will seal themselves off while your world Retro-Fits in new update content…

So why not put that animation to use in actual gameplay?

I don’t want to be off topic, but I just wanted to point that out.. sorry guys.

[ShadowDuelist]

52 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

Getting thuleite fragments from the ancient archives isn't hard and its about the same waiting time as the spawning of the moon boulder thing-y or finding the lunar island.

You can speedrun the celestial portal by rushing reaching the moon island, since when you build the altar you have the celestial portal and the idols as crafting options. (Same as the orb)
 

I actually tried rushing it in 2 public worlds to see if in the long run is more profitable than rushing the archives. I’m either too slow finding the lunar island or it really isn’t any better than getting to the archives in the first 10 days. But hey, the option is there.

If I join a world without caves or where the archives have already been picked clean, and the orb didn’t come down yet, I’d go the moon island route to get more time pieces.

So back to the main topic of the thread, it’s actually a friendly system with late joiners too, that if you wanna play Wanda but didn’t join in the first autumn-winter, and other players already cleaned the archives and the ruins, you still have chances to get more pieces on your own through celestial portal.

[totestoto]

1 hour ago, ShadowDuelist said:

You can speedrun the celestial portal by rushing reaching the moon island, since when you build the altar you have the celestial portal and the idols as crafting options. (Same as the orb)
 

I actually tried rushing it in 2 public worlds to see if in the long run is more profitable than rushing the archives. I’m either too slow finding the lunar island or it really isn’t any better than getting to the archives in the first 10 days. But hey, the option is there.

If I join a world without caves or where the archives have already been picked clean, and the orb didn’t come down yet, I’d go the moon island route to get more time pieces.

So back to the main topic of the thread, it’s actually a friendly system with late joiners too, that if you wanna play Wanda but didn’t join in the first autumn-winter, and other players already cleaned the archives and the ruins, you still have chances to get more pieces on your own through celestial portal.

This is for a very specific case for public long term servers. Besides, I would imagine if a server had 3+ active players who cleared out the ruins and archives, they also have the abilities to take on afw and reset the ruins for more fragments.

 

I think OP has a good point. Besides, if you are at the level of play where you can upgrade the celestial portal, you shouldn't have trouble making time pieces on your own. Typically character switching is considered more late game and I would imagine that most players will have more than enough to make their own time pieces at this stage of the game.   

[Yuuko]

tl/dr I think the celestial portal duping watches is a complete non-issue, and is actually a good feature for pubs / multiple wandas.

4 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

You can speedrun the celestial portal by rushing reaching the moon island, since when you build the altar you have the celestial portal and the idols as crafting options. (Same as the orb)
 

I actually tried rushing it in 2 public worlds to see if in the long run is more profitable than rushing the archives. I’m either too slow finding the lunar island or it really isn’t any better than getting to the archives in the first 10 days. But hey, the option is there.

If I join a world without caves or where the archives have already been picked clean, and the orb didn’t come down yet, I’d go the moon island route to get more time pieces.

So back to the main topic of the thread, it’s actually a friendly system with late joiners too, that if you wanna play Wanda but didn’t join in the first autumn-winter, and other players already cleaned the archives and the ruins, you still have chances to get more pieces on your own through celestial portal.

I was going to mention that too.  The problem is speed running the lunar island takes a while because the placement is not always easy to locate, and you often have to traverse the full ocean border first, which is about a 8-10 day job.  I'd say its easier to locate the archives as its easy to find the mud lands, blue mushrooms always branch from there, with lunar grotto / archives from there.  Its a much more linear discovery usually taking me only 1-2 days including clearing thulecite, and synergizes with rushing t2 magic as you can more reliably get living logs from the lunar grotto than finding totally normal trees or spawning tree guards early game.  Also I often get 2+ stacks of thulecite fragments from the archives alone, which is more than enough for a single Wanda and several teleport watches.

2 hours ago, totestoto said:

This is for a very specific case for public long term servers. Besides, I would imagine if a server had 3+ active players who cleared out the ruins and archives, they also have the abilities to take on afw and reset the ruins for more fragments.

 

I think OP has a good point. Besides, if you are at the level of play where you can upgrade the celestial portal, you shouldn't have trouble making time pieces on your own. Typically character switching is considered more late game and I would imagine that most players will have more than enough to make their own time pieces at this stage of the game.   

imo pubs or a server with multiple people using Wanda is the only time duping with the portal is worth it.  I don't usually prioritize rushing a full ruins clear or reset.  Getting 1-2 Wanda well equipped with just the archives is easy, but getting 3-5 is gonna be more difficult.  Duping with the celestial portal actually covers a pain point, which means its probably a good thing and should stay as a backup option for Wanda crowds / pubs.

[Viktor234]

If you all have troubles locating the Lunar Island quickly, why not use the power of the Weregoose to locate the Lunar Island more quickly?

You are not forced to play as Wanda if you want to create more watches via the Celestial Portal, simply crafting and using one more Moon Rock Idol to turn yourself into Woodie (in terms of: Start playing as Woodie and swap later on to Wanda while using the one extra Moon Rock Idol to obtain the four Time Pieces you would normally start with) could save you alot of trouble locating the Lunar Island, considering how fast Woodie can sweep the ocean in Weregoose form.

Also when looking for Lunar Island you can almost ignore the fact that you'll drown if you transform back to normal while on water, because the health penalty can be negated via Celestial Portal. Just make sure to keep all your items in your backpack to avoid loosing items when drowning and get some items to restore your stats and to dry off.

Drowning might even help you locating the island faster because there's a chance that it will spawn you right on Lunar Island.

[ALCRD]

Oh... This thread again.

Nothing is broken.

Both ways time pieces are not hard to obtain. Rushing Archives isn't problematic neither is waiting for the Suspicious Boulder to drop.

Which method is faster depends purely on your luck.

Also again another person that forgets that some people play with caves disabled so Wanda should be completely locked out of her additional crafts for those people yeah?

[ShadowDuelist]

32 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

If you all have troubles locating the Lunar Island quickly, why not use the power of the Weregoose to locate the Lunar Island more quickly?

I did that too! I've been a Woodie main for a long time and I'm used to doing that, when Wanda was released I tried this. Still not worth it, its still a lot more profitable in the first year to clean ASAP the archives and ruins.
The moon island way is good only in the late game, or like I mentioned before, if the ruins/archives have already been cleaned. Or of course if you coop play with a Woodie and while you clean the archives, he makes the portal (Which is an overkill anyway, it would be useful for obtaining other things like catapults or spiced food, but not for time pieces because you won't get enough tusks to need using the switch in the first year)

People who tends to play in pubs would know that its not an uncommon sight to get tryhards that join in early autumn, take 90% the thulecite in the world to flex, make all the crowns they can carry without green gems, and leave with most of it.
Speedrunners "for no reason" in pubs are extremely hurtful for endless worlds, but just as griefers they exist, and can damage Wanda's playthough, were it not for the alternative to just go the celestial portal way.

You can go all the way of FW and reset the ruins but that takes far more time really.

[Yuuko]

29 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

If you all have troubles locating the Lunar Island quickly, why not use the power of the Weregoose to locate the Lunar Island more quickly?

You are not forced to play as Wanda if you want to create more watches via the Celestial Portal, simply crafting and using one more Moon Rock Idol to turn yourself into Woodie (in terms of: Start playing as Woodie and swap later on to Wanda while using the one extra Moon Rock Idol to obtain the four Time Pieces you would normally start with) could save you alot of trouble locating the Lunar Island, considering how fast Woodie can sweep the ocean in Weregoose form.

Also when looking for Lunar Island you can almost ignore the fact that you'll drown if you transform back to normal while on water, because the health penalty can be negated via Celestial Portal. Just make sure to keep all your items in your backpack to avoid loosing items when drowning and get some items to restore your stats and to dry off.

Drowning might even help you locating the island faster because there's a chance that it will spawn you right on Lunar Island.

I've considered that - but while Woodie can get to the lunar island quicker in that he can skip getting a boat, I find locating it takes me about the same amount of time, as you've still got to locate where the island is and running blindly over the ocean doesn't help me locate it any faster.  Probably just shaving off a day of cutting logs for the boat crafting station, a boat and an oar.  Maybe I'm missing some techniques though.  If you want the other lunar loots this is great, but since the rwys and removal of disease I find stone fruits and kelp fronds are much lower priority, so rushing lunar is also much lower priority.

Another fault of rushing lunar vs archives is that you need more purple gems.  This gives variance as you might be unlucky in digging graves.  You already need 1 purple gem to get t2 magic, adding another for upgrading the portal, switching from woodie to wanda, and then to wanda again to actually make gains means you're burning 4 purple gems.  Without rushing the ruins (which vies against rushing lunar more than it does rushing archives since they are in proximity of ruins.  Its possible to even find them first.) or getting lucky on graves, I don't usually have so many purple gems to burn early.  Again, maybe I'm missing some technique.

imo the real win with archives is the synergy.  Living logs, blue caps, and thulecite fragments are all found there plentifully, and are all key to fully equipping Wanda.  Also you might get blue / red gems from cave ins while you're down there so I don't usually dig graves until I get back to save time in case I get them en route.

[xhyom]

Not that again

[Pig Princess]

2 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Without rushing the ruins [...] or getting lucky on graves, I don't usually have so many purple gems to burn early.  Again, maybe I'm missing some technique

To increase your chances to obtain red/blue gems you can mine stalagmites or at least tall stalagmites for red gems. It's still low chance and you might not get a single gem from the whole golden pickaxe spent on mining, but chances are better that just waiting for earthquake since it's not alternative but addition to waiting for earthquake (+ synergyses well wish rushing 6-pot cooking station and base in general).

I tried to combine ruins rushes with tier 2 magic rush for dark swords as primary weapon, and it was a success, but even with mining stalagmites from the start to tech to alchemy (2 regular + 73-100% of golden pickaxes spent) I still had to rely on bishops for purple gems in a lot of cases, so if there is RNG-independent way to obtain gems other than bishops in the ruins, I would like to know.

Technically there is 1 guaranteed bishop on the surface, but location is pure RNG, one needs to repair statues before full moon, and it's not enough for celestial portal method. There is also Malbatross with guaranteed 2 blue gems on kill, but locating shoal (+ building boat and fishing, fighting itself and getting back) is more time consuming than locating archives, and it doesn't synergyse well with rushing magic (for alarming clock) anyway. Red gems technically can be farmed via hound mounds in Dfly desert (although mounds themselves are common, but not guaranteed), but locating Dfly desert + Malbatross shoal + independently searching for living logs is by far more time consuming than locating ruins/archives. + there is RNG in obtaining celestial orb and player can't do anything about it at all.

Not to mention the fact that if I play as Woodie my top priority on lunar island is kelp (as much as possible), 4 dragonfruits, saplings if twiggy tree world, then stone fruit bushes, and only after that - moonrocks and other minerals, anenemies, alive moon moth, alive lunar spider. I technically could do bath bombs for chance to obtain gems, but best case scenario it's still day 11+(12+ in fact), so what's the point of bringing moonrocks before that time?

[Yuuko]

16 minutes ago, Pig Princess said:

so if there is RNG-independent way to obtain gems other than bishops in the ruins, I would like to know.

Dfly is the least rng.  You get 2 red, 2 blue, and 1-2 purple.  BUT the red gems are contested so its hard to put all 4 towards the portal and respawns for clock parts.  I usually want at least 1 red gem put to a rewind watch, and I like to put 2 towards the furnace as its nice to keep some hot rocks on hand.  So if I haven't found a purple yet, my last ditch is to hambat down the dfly.  That isn't too difficult on Wanda, as her backstep can help you avoid the initial hit from dfly, and its pretty simple kiting after that w/wall & flute method.  Usually between graves and cave-ins I'll get at least 1 purple and red to get set up before dfly though, and I do prefer to get my whip first as I'll score a second scale from the stun with whip and 2 furnaces are better than one XD

I'll try out mining stalagmites.  You're right on the synergy with everything else on the path.  Good tip ^_^,b

[Pig Princess]

58 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

Dfly is the least rng.  You get 2 red, 2 blue, and 1-2 purple.

Somehow I totally forgot about her, good catch. But as you said, red gems are used for furnace, and if there is extra scale, then 2 extra red gems for second furnace becomes a priority, there are no spare ones. Also if there are multiple people on the server, this turns into choice "furnace(s) for everyone" or "extra 4 time pieces for 1 Wanda", and for me choice is clear regardless of my character choice (especially if someone rushes ruins for duplicating scales; red gems become limiting resource since people throw out red gems from the ruins 99% of the time). If it's personal server, then player has archives, ruins and monkey biome not cleared for themselves, so there is no problem for getting extra time pieces.

I guess Dfly strategy can be the most efficient in very specific case though:

1. Player has very good ping.

2.a Ruins and archives are already empty from both thulecite and gems, and these thulecite/gems are already spent/deleted via disconnecting forever/earthquake in case of gems.

2.b There are multiple Wandas on the server (a lot of them), but they are not willing to cooperate (to reset ruins).

3. There is nothing done to progress towards Fuelweaver fight at all.

4. Player is really good at fighting Dfly

Then yes, Dfly is a way to go + as a bonus one gets at least one yellow and green gem, meaning progress towards activating archives. Activating archives means renewable thulecite pieces for everyone without FW or Dfly fight (salt grind).

I once managed to kite Dfly with ping 50, but was never able to reproduce it (I have no problems with kiting her when I'm host/ping<20), nor it continued long.

58 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

So if I haven't found a purple yet, my last ditch is to hambat down the dfly

It doesn't synergyse with other things as well as rushing ruins/archives does though.

But I have another idea: one can try to clear atrium (if late joiner), it's usually untouched, especially if players are not progressing towards Fuelweaver fight (+ earthquakes are still happening during that process).

Edit: searching for atrium synergyses with farming tentacle spots for rain coat and mapping caves in general, clearing atrium synergyses with progressing towards Fuelweaver.

Edit2: it's probably better to start as Wes, Wortox or Wendy for clearing atrium though.

[Zeklo]

It's not really that big of a deal.

If anything rushing the Archives is better if you're the only Wanda, whereas Celestial Portal is probably better if there are multiple.

Maybe.

[Viktor234]

8 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Again, maybe I'm missing some technique.

Farming Blue Gems is enough to switch characters as Wanda since she already spawns with a red gem in her inventory. That can be achieved by frequently killing MacTusk during Winter as his hounds have a chance of 36% to drop at least one Blue Gem. Also as Wanda you wouldn't want to skip your Backtreck Watch considering how much time it saves you to travel from one spot to another.

Also Dragonfly can be soloed quite easily as Wanda with an Alarming Clock, a Panflute (to calm DF down), some Snurtle Armors (can negate 100% of the incoming damage) & Football Helmets (to avoid death if you get hit accidentally) and a Wall to keep Lavae away from you. Killing DF grants you 3-4 Purple Gems allowing you to craft 12-16 more Time Pieces. Her Backstep Watch isn't that effective since it requires good timing and doesn't allow you to stun DF for the one extra scales due to its long cast animation.

Other options to obtain Blue Gems are killing Klaus or Malbatross.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

7 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

Her Backstep Watch isn't that effective since it requires good timing and doesn't allow you to stun DF for the one extra scales due to its long cast animation

It does, i always use the backstep watch to kite and most of the time i get the 2nd scale and, in some fights she gets stunned twice

I didnt used voltgoat or cc crown 

[ShadowDuelist]

8 hours ago, Pig Princess said:

it's probably better to start as Wes, Wortox or Wendy for clearing atrium though.

Why Wes? I get about Wendy being able to control the spiders , open the pillars easily and control the clockworks aggro, and Wortox being able to quickly jump through the atrium. But I don’t know what Wes gives.

Walter is also a good FW rusher, he can move the pieces really fast, and open the pillars with the slingshot. And then pray for the poop pellets to work just right on the clockworks. Maybe rushing magic he can take an ice staff or his freezing rounds too.

[Mx-Pain]

I guess what you just find out is how the celestial portal works. You can "swap" a character using the celestial portal and yes it can be swaped for the same one you are using at the moment. Not any new news mate.

[Pig Princess]

1 hour ago, ShadowDuelist said:

Why Wes?

Because of better ice/fire staff usage + sanity control. I admit that I never tried on practice to clear atrium as him (hence "probably"), but I cleared rook rooms as Wendy without Abigail with the help of ice staff; although even more important and convenient was +-15 sanity due to summoning/unsummoning Abigail, which allowed me to get to the chests without nightmare amulet/sanity control via food.

Wes can very conveniently lower sanity with balloons (and very precisely), but instead of loosing it permanently by eating blue cap or cooked monster meat he "stores" it, which means he can get it back without any external resources (like mushrooms), just like Wendy, but a bit slower. He is also one of the few surviviors who can go to maximum sanity with only weapon in his hands: lower what is left with party balloons, then fight 2 terrorbeaks (already 60-66/75 sanity), then use party balloons to go to full. Which is just nice in my opinion, also helps to see more with non-moggles light source due to insanity filter. He is definity not suvivior for speedrunning, it's just that I value efficient resource usage very high, and speed - not so much (when that doesn't lead to qualitative change, like exiting ruins with star callers in winter (people either died or survived without it, I'm either dead due to freezing or I don't need star caller) or not delivering rocks for thermals until winter as Woodie from lunar island, bringing dragonfruits when local Wormwood already has them from random seeds, etc.).

Wortox, on the other hand, has to spend soul each time he teleports, and he has only 20. He can resupply from spiders, but he wastes a lot of time, not to mention that the more time he spends, the more souls he needs to eat; in other words, it's huge insanity spiral. He also wastes time fighting extra shadows due to soul consumption. Unless you have bundle with meaty stews, but at this point comparing characters looses any sence.

Wendy in the atrium most of the time have to travel without Abigail or she would be drastically slowed down. The reason is Abigail triggers debth dweller creep even though she technically flies above, so one has 2 options: unsummon Abigail or rile her up. The latter can easily result in her even more dead than she already is due to her being overwhelmed by non-stanlockable swarm of spiders or aggroing on rook/closely spawned multiple 3 bishop set pieces (the latter is rare though). Rooks are obvious. For spiders either Wendy would need to wait for Abi to kill them all, or Abigail will eventually stop to attack while Wendy is far enough (even when riled up), and spiders will get a lot of free hits. Abigail is good for bishops, but whether it's worth the trouble depends on how much purple gems one wants to get from atrium.

I once was a part of hilarious full-server-rip in the atrium: there were around 6 people wanting to fight Fuelweaver, 3 people were already in the gateroom me included, the other experienced player showed the way to 2 less experienced; 3 of us started to run out of food and eat pierogie (I was Warly, so I died, but then revived), and when the 3 of them came, we understood why that took so long: one of them didn't unsummon Abigail, Abi of experienced one died on our eyes due to taking too much damage, and then dozens, maybe even hundred of spiders stunlocked all 6 of us to death, they filled arena entirely; they went through at least 1 of my crown and 1 thulecite suit. They were worthy opponent, I would never underestimate swarm of spiders again even with Abigail. Reason was Abigail triggering spider creep.

[Yuuko]

7 hours ago, Viktor234 said:

Farming Blue Gems is enough to switch characters as Wanda since she already spawns with a red gem in her inventory. That can be achieved by frequently killing MacTusk during Winter as his hounds have a chance of 36% to drop at least one Blue Gem. Also as Wanda you wouldn't want to skip your Backtreck Watch considering how much time it saves you to travel from one spot to another.

Also Dragonfly can be soloed quite easily as Wanda with an Alarming Clock, a Panflute (to calm DF down), some Snurtle Armors (can negate 100% of the incoming damage) & Football Helmets (to avoid death if you get hit accidentally) and a Wall to keep Lavae away from you. Killing DF grants you 3-4 Purple Gems allowing you to craft 12-16 more Time Pieces. Her Backstep Watch isn't that effective since it requires good timing and doesn't allow you to stun DF for the one extra scales due to its long cast animation.

Other options to obtain Blue Gems are killing Klaus or Malbatross.

You're right that you could use dfly to get extra gems, put those towards upgrading the portal and make up for it later with Klaus.  You can usually get 4-6 antlers in first autumn / winter, and you can get a red + blue for each of them by enraging / despawning klaus, rinse repeat.  I do this to get more LGA and a second furnace if the graves weren't profitable.  And yeah, good point about Wanda coming with a red gem built in.

Spoiler

 

 

7 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

It does, i always use the backstep watch to kite and most of the time i get the 2nd scale and, in some fights she gets stunned twice

I didnt used voltgoat or cc crown 

I've never had a second stun solo-wanda.  She barely gets the first stun, usually requiring you tank a hit or get lucky with a tight dodge.  I usually delay the stun until I can avoid a rage with it.  I prefer to use the backstep watch to only avoid the first hit from dfly which is usually very difficult to dodge, and then kite her as normal.  idk maybe I'm just bad at timing her rage mode, but I often died to her stomp when I used backstep watch because you have to commit to using it as soon as she's starting her attack or you just get hit anyway, and sometimes if you use it too soon you still get hit anyway...  Kiting just seemed more reliable to me.

Spoiler

 

 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

20 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

You're right that you could use dfly to get extra gems, put those towards upgrading the portal and make up for it later with Klaus.  You can usually get 4-6 antlers in first autumn / winter, and you can get a red + blue for each of them by enraging / despawning klaus, rinse repeat.  I do this to get more LGA and a second furnace if the graves weren't profitable.  And yeah, good point about Wanda coming with a red gem built in.

I've never had a second stun solo-wanda.  She barely gets the first stun, usually requiring you tank a hit or get lucky with a tight dodge.  I usually delay the stun until I can avoid a rage with it.  I prefer to use the backstep watch to only avoid the first hit from dfly which is usually very difficult to dodge, and then kite her as normal.  idk maybe I'm just bad at timing her rage mode, but I often died to her stomp when I used backstep watch because you have to commit to using it as soon as she's starting her attack or you just get hit anyway, and sometimes if you use it too soon you still get hit anyway...  Kiting just seemed more reliable to me.

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i just could done it on 2 or 3 fights of many