Ghost Puzzlers Tutorial

DISCLAIMER: This tutorial is for educational purpose only. I don't guarantee you after reading this tutorial, you will be able getting 2900+ in one shot. It all depends on your perseverance, experience, and of course LUCK. And this is not the only way of playing the game - this is MY way of playing the game that I think will be useful to share with you all.

This tutorial can also be found at Ghost Trappers Forum.

1. Begin - START FROM THE CENTER AND NOT FROM THE EDGE

A lot of people are doing the puzzle by connecting blocks that are at the edge of the 8x8 block. I don't think this is a good idea, since big blocks that stuck in the middle will be difficult to handle later on. Let's take a look at an example:

We see that there are lots of 'easy pairs' at the center of the stack and one at the bottom left. Eliminate all the 'easy pairs'. Now we will have a lot of holes inside the stack, which is good.

2. Divide and Conquer - EXPAND YOUR CHANNELS

The main strategy of this guide is to divide-and-conquer: slice the stack into thinner layers, horizontally and vertically. I strongly recommend you to clear a line of blocks, be it vertically or horizontally. I called the cleared line as 'channel'. Let's look at the example:

Here I want to create a vertical channel as indicated by the yellow vertical line. I need to clear all the blocks on that line, and the corresponding pair are marked with the yellow star. After this, we will have a nice vertical channel. Let's create the horizontal one:

The desired horizontal channel is the white horizontal line, so we need to clear those starred blocks. After those blocks are eliminated we have our second channel in the stack.

You may be wondering why I insist to create channels? The answer is that you can connect any two blocks located at the edges of any channel. For example the orange greedy ghosts and the black reaper ghosts are located at the edge of the vertical channel, and they are easily connected through the channel itself. Try it yourself and you will know.

3. Finishing - MORE CHANNELS

After 'slicing' your stack horizontally and vertically, usually almost half of the blocks are cleared. What we need to do next is just keep creating more channels, or put it in other way, slice any remaining big blocks. Lets see at the example:

Here the remaining big block is the 3x3 block at top right corner, we just need to slice that block. The next-to-be-eliminated blocks are starred, as always. After that slice practically nothing much to do now, just need to wipe off all the remaining pairs and we're done.

Special Case: LOCKED BLOCKS

Pay attention to the top left corner. I call the position of the blue executioner ghosts and the red devil ghosts as 'locked' position. The key to the lock is the purple samurai ghost or the blue electric ghost that are starred. You need to 'open' those locks first buy eliminating the starred block.

Stalemate: DEAD LOCKS

This position is what I called a 'deadlock'. This will put you in a stalemate position and you will not able to finish the game. The only way to open this deadlock is to connect the deadlocked block into another block outside this 2x2 block. If you can't manage to find any, then you should restart your round.

Fun fact: For the holy name of Nessy, I spent about 15 minutes restarting the game over and over to get this screenshot. LOL



LUCKY NUMBER 2900

We know that there are 32 pairs of blocks in the puzzle. Each pair has maximum score of 100, so theoretically the perfect score is 3200. Our aim here is to reach 2900+, since it will give us the beatiful Biochemist Dana Hunter contract. Simple math, 2900/32 is about 90.6. Converted to time, you only have roughly about one second to think and connect each pair in the puzzle. And trust me, it is POSSIBLE.

Keep practicing in the casual mode, once you are used to it, move to competitive. Don't worry if you can't reach 2900+ at the first time. I myself also still not be able to reach 2900+ everytime. Usually 1 out of 6 game will give 2900+ for me. Perseverance is the key here.

To end this tutorial, as all of you know:

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

hope you enjoy the guide! :D

Vexatious Villains

I was supposed to study for my final exam... but I turned to my blog instead. LOL. Just want to share some facts about these 4 villains with you all :D

Freddy Ghost

This ghost invades the dreams of guests in the castles, giving them nightmares about stolen whisky from the cellars.

Scare factor: OMG!

Rarity: Legendary Nocturnal

Souvenirs: Glengreens mini

Discussion: Personally, I believe that Freddy is the easiest from these four villains. My catch count up to now is 14 Freddys. He seems to love mocktails, Devil Driver attracts him quite nice. I haven't extensively research on him, though, but the rarity factor "Legendary" is the same as Nessy-only ghosts such as Kelpie and Cu Sith. I suspect whether he is able to be attracted using Nessy instead of mocktails?

Update: My friend just caught one Freddy with the Glengreens mini. He was using Nessy's without any + attraction at all! That was one interesting found there ^^

2nd update: I've managed to get the Glengreens mini, with Nessy + 3. Two Freddy's appear at the single night. He was quite easy :D

Jason Ghost

This ghost has become so accustomed to his hockey goalie mask that he will keep it on even in death. Same goes for his machete, which he now uses to chop off the necks of bottles!

Scare factor: OMG

Rarity: Legendary Nocturnal

Souvenirs: Moormist mini

Discussion: This is by far, the hardest ghost to catch in R3. Its global catch count is 11,159 at the time I wrote this post, compared to the 13,913 of Shiny Golden Ghost which only appears on Haunted Weeks. This just shows how RARE is this Jason guy. My catch count for Jason is ZERO. How on virtual Scotland could that be? Well, I haven't start my hunt on this guy yet. Some discussions on the forum suggest that Devil Drivers + some attraction bonus still yields almost no sightings of Jasons. Same suspicion as Freddy's: will Nessy's attract him?

Update: Last night I was trying to catch him using Nessy + 4 attraction but yield no results. Will continue to search him again tonight...

2n update: Nessy + 3 works!! Attracted him once per midnight, and the second Jason drops his mini for me. Consider yourself lucky if you have attracted him, he's one tough guy.

Ripper Ghost

This ghost is rumoured to have committed terrible deeds in London during the 19th century. So far, the only crime that can be proven is the taking of magic potions.

Scare factor: Stunning

Rarity: Epic Nocturnal

Souvenirs: Moonshadow mini

Discussion: This legendary killer is also one of the rarest ghost in GT. Its global catch count at this writing time is only around 15K. I only caught him once. If I recall correctly, it was using mocktails (either Devil Drivers or Nightcaps) since I was hunting for ghost DJs at that time. I haven't experimented with Nessy's though.

Jigsaw Ghost

Many ghosts owe their current state of being to this ghost and the silly games he has forced them to play.

Scare factor: Lethal

Rarity: Boss Nocturnal

Souvenirs: Whisperwind mini

Special quote from Wiki:

"The Jigsaw ghost seems to be primarily attracted by Nessy's Golden Reserves, although the cocktails have yielded at least a few catches each."

Discussion: This psycho-clown seems to be easier then Jason and Ripper, I caught him three times already. However last night I was using DD + 4 attraction yet I didn't attract single Jigsaw. Furthermore the special quote from wiki brings up the confusion, whether Nessy's is really effective to attract him? Some discussions on forum suggests that DD + 5 attracts him well, but is it really sure?

Update: I accidentally got his mini. Furthermore, it's on DAYTIME. It was using this setup: MM/WP/CW/Nessy/Goat as I was Nessy-hunting. I don't know what to say, I think it's just pure luck. But it shows that he is actually quite easy to attract (easier that Jason or Ripper, at least).

General Suggestions for Villain Huntings

1. T/SC: They can only be caught on midnight hour everyday. Hence it is advised to use a 2-min hunt setup. That means SHQ, dragon whelps, Devil Drivers, and/or Nessy's are the things you must have.

2. Baits: Devil Drivers and Nessy's. Nightcap might be tested, too, since we need the -3 t/sc. I don't recommend other mocktails which has no t/sc reduction, since you can't achieve the 2-min setup if you use such baits.

3. Attraction: I am suspecting this component plays the most important part in this matter. So you need everything that gives you attraction boost: platinum ID card, MBS, EPH, vilevere (I don't have it T_T), little cu sith, etc. Since you have to focus on t/sc and attraction, loot can be sacrificed for the time being. We need the ghosts to actually come first, we need to know what bait and how many attraction works best. You cannot satisfy t/sc, attraction, and loot all at the same time... unless you have nice augmentations of donation pets, of course.

My Little Cu Sith has +2 attraction augment, thus the total is +3 attraction. And he has x2 loot multiplier. I managed to craft a Nessy+3 setup which is quite all-round in tsc, raw, attraction, and loot:

Ether Portal/Wax Pyramids/Nessy/ CW/Little Cu Sith/Devoted ID/Witch Cauldron

Which gives 290+ raw, 71 mystic, +3 attraction, and considerable amount of loot. Furthermore it is 2 min cooldown. If you change Nessy to Nightcap, the circle can be changed into Neon lights or some other time reducing circles.

Feel free to comment here if you managed to catch (even without dropping the souvenirs) these four villains, possibly with the setup (at least the bait and the + attraction). It might be useful for others!

See you on the next post!

Monster Hunting

As usual before I start the post, my apologies for the slow updates... and my final examination is coming soon, hence for this month you may expect less posts here. But I will try my best to share interesting topics to you all =)

Now back to the title. Monster hunting. Why should you do monster hunting? First, because they drop some nice loots and souvenirs. Second, big monsters are producing nice amount of XP and money. There is no strong reasons of why you should NOT try monster hunting at all.

I assume that all of you already know how to put plasma into cauldron, and how to get your monster caught and what is malty mist and what components contributes to malty mist. If you feel you are lacking knowledge on this matters, please visit this page for a good info from wiki.

There are 4 things that you need in monster hunting. You have to attract the monster first, and then catch it, before you spread the link to your friends and finally trapped the monster and get the loots hopefully.

To attract - you need a good amount of Malty Mist and lower cooldown to make it quick.

To catch - you need a good amount of Mystic.

To get the loot - of course you need a good loot multiplier (this loot multiplier only counts at the hunt which you caught the monster the first time).

I am suspecting that Attraction also took part on monster hunting, but I haven't do the research, so I just leave it first at this time.

So in your setup you must balance these 4 parameters: Malty Mist, t/sc, Mystic power and Loot Multiplier. Let's discuss some of the possibilities.

MECHANISMS

We go straight to the classic debate, should we use Magic Maze or Lucky Rabbit? Magic Maze is a solid mystic mechanism, with good tsc and good contracts (arcane contracts are well-known for mystic, t/sc reduction, and loot); whereas Lucky Rabbit has some interesting stats: it has loot multiplier (the only trap with loot), and malty mist stat. The downside of LR is that it has no t/sc reduction, and its mystic is 5 less than MM. Which one to choose? It still depends on other factors described below.

CIRCLES

While Wax Pyramids and Runic Candles have good mystic attributes, they lack the t/sc reduction and the malty mist stat. Pumpkin Candles is a fairly good choice for lower-level players, it has fair amount of mystic and nice boost of malty mist. However, the winner of all is undoubtedly Black Dragon's Breath, since it has all the stats we want: -t/sc, mystic, and malty mist.

CONTRACTS

There are no better replacement for Countess Wilhelmina in arcane contract. Mr Bastian Shaw has no loot stats, while SN has no t/sc attributes. For bio, the choice is more versatile. All bio contracts have malty mist stats, hence we need a contract which has some mystic to boost the total mystic which lucky rabbit lacked of. Hence the choice will go to Etain Pict Huntress, which has all the stats that we want.

PETS

I can't really say which pet is the best here. It all depends on your pool of companions. Generally I just go with any -1 t/sc pet with maximum loot (Leprechaun or Pixie), however you can also use Amber Dragon Whelp for a mystic and malty mist boost. If you are aiming for Cool Chimera which often drops special editions, arming the Snake will be nice. No exact choice for pets, all depends on you.

BAIT

Nessy is always good for bait, since it covers the t/sc reduction that can't be provided from other components. If you already have a nice t/sc reduction, instead of using Nessy's you can switch to mocktails. Black Widow has outstanding stats for monster hunting. If you are non-donator, Frozen Mist is quite ok to use also. I personally don't recommend you to use Nessy Platinum despite its powerful stats. Trust me, the price of Nessy PE is not proportional to the money that you get from the monster.

Oh and by the way, speaking about Nessy, there is an interesting write-up about Nessy Reservation in my friend RayChris' blog right here.

ID CARD

Arm cosmic ID if you feel impatient with your t/sc. Otherwise, arm your twilight ID :D

CAULRDON

I would say that Witch Cauldron or Super Jura Atomizer are definitely much better than the normal ones. The addition of 5 mystic, x1.25 loot and 5 malty mist are indispensable. For arcane setups, donated cauldron are not really necessary, since the mystic power we have is enough (70+). However, for bio setups, without the donated cauldron the mystic power will be less than 70, hence I don't recommend bio setup if you don't have any donated cauldrons.

HOW MUCH MALTY MIST SHOULD WE HAVE?

I would say that too many malty mist is not really good for your setup. If you increase the malty mist to the max, there must be any sacrifice made, be it on the mystic power or on the t/sc. A large amount of malty mist without enough mystic will go to waste. I would say that 10+ MM is quite good already. If you already reached this amount, focus more on building your minimum t/sc and mystic power.

My recommended setups:

Arcane approach: 76 Mystic, 10 Malty, 2 min cooldown, highest loot (Twilight ID armed)

Bio approach: 71 Mystic, 19 Malty, 2 min cooldown, less loot (cosmic ID armed)

See you on the next updates!

T/SC >>> Everything

Hi everyone, I've been busy with school works again this week so I rarely can spend my time to write here. During this week there were a lot of big updates in GT, including the assist loot, the devoted ID for common goal, the monsterslayer attribute and the midnight mission. I'm pretty sure you are aware of those things, hence I need not to touch that part anymore :D

Now moving on to the topic. As stated in the title, this is the postulate that I always keep in my mind in choosing my setup.

"T/SC >>> Everything"

(cooldown time is much much important than everything else)

Why is that so? First reason, of course, I am an impatient person. LOL. I don't like waiting more than 10 minutes in my setup. Of course this is not a valid reason. The valid reason is, grinding XP and money is way better using t/sc rather than the XP or money modifier... Take example 15 min hunt with +50% XP, in the same 15 mins if your setup t/sc is 5 mins you can get +200% XP since you catch 2 more ghosts. Same argument goes for money and loot.

Since the minimum t/sc is capped on 2 minutes, now we are moving on how to achieve that. When I started playing GT about one year ago, the most important item to reduce t/sc is of course

NESSY'S GOLDEN RESERVE (-5 t/sc)

But the cost of nessy was very cheap back then, unlike now :D. With the advancement of GT now the most important thing to reduce your t/sc is

MIGHTY CHRONO CRYSTAL (-2 t/sc, costs 250 CCF)

This strategy that I will share with you revolved around this MCC. So if you haven't got your MCC, I strongly suggest you to farm it first before reading this article :P

We have six components in our setup, which is mechanism, circle, contract, pet, bait, and ID. With MCC we already have 13 min cooldown, add Cosmic ID we have 12 min cooldown. Hence we need to cut 10 more minutes to achieve 2 min hunt. As a rule of thumb, then, each component of the setup must have around -2 min t/sc to do so. Of course some adjustment and variations will be explained below.

1. Bio
   Unfortunately as of now, bio type mechanisms are terrible in terms of t/sc. Be it Lucky Rabbit (bio's highest mystic) or Doomshroom (bio's highest raw), both are neutral in t/sc. Same goes for contract, only EPH and Lorelle have -2 min. This neutrality in t/sc cannot be covered by the other parts of the setup, unless you use NESSY as bait. Hence, the most possible setup for bio is
   
   
   Lucky Rabbit/Black Dragon's Breath/Nessy/EPH/Dragon Whelps/Cosmic ID/MCC
   
   which gives around 66 mystic, 1 min cooldown. However this is not really a good choice since the mystic is only 66. You can't be sure to get 100% catch rate.
   
   
2. High Tech
   High tech traps are known as raw-based and not mystic-based. With the introduction of Biochemist Dana Hunter contract from Ghost Puzzlers, now 2-min hunts with high-tech is possible. Of course you need to have the BDH contract first. If you don't, go play ghost puzzlers now :D The setup will be:
   
   
   Slapping Machine/Neon Lights/Dana Hunter/Cosmic ID/MCC
   
   while the choice of bait and pet may vary. That is, we have 3 minutes that we need to reduce. You can use dragon whelps (-3 min) and any bait, or you can also use nightcap (-3) and any pet. Do pay attention though, that SM has a +1 burner, which means Diamond Whelp will be better here. Or you can use -2 pet and -1 bait, the choice is up to you. Also if you want to switch the cosmic ID with twilight ID, you have -4 mins to reduce, which can come from anywhere. Play around with this arrangements and find your optimal setup.
   
   Before I move on to next type, just a quick reminder that this SM/NL has the power of about 266, of which you can hunt safely until R3.2 Dormont Cemetery.
   
   
3. Traditional
   Traditional setups are good for t/sc hunting, especially after the introduction of SHQ contract. A lot of mechanisms from traditional type got the -2 min cooldown, such as Time Warper (as well as its platinum edition), and Danse Macabre, which is the 2nd strongest trap available at the moment. The setup will be:
   
   
   Danse Macabre/Neon Lights/SHQ/Cosmic ID/MCC
   
   Of course the choice of pet and bait I have explained in the high-tech part above. It is just the same for the traditional contract, but without the burner, which makes this is the best possible raw-t/sc setup at the moment. This setup can reach the power of about 344, of which you can hunt safely until R4.1.1 Kirkyard Cemetery.
   
   
4. Arcane
   The usage of arcane type setup is split into 2 categories, the raw and the mystic. This separation is mainly because there are no -2 circle other than Neon Lights (raw based) and no -2 arcane trap other than Magic Maze (mystic based). A hybrid combination of MM/NL will yield a so-so setup which is not powerful in both raw and mystic, hence it is not effective.
   
   For raw arcane setup, there are many choice of traps available, since all the traps only give -1 t/sc. Xkaliboo, Abyssal Phone Booth, or Ether Portal will be used. Choose one depending on your current location and the raw power needed. The setup will be something like
   
   
   Ether Portal/Neon Lights/Countess/Cosmic ID/MCC
   
   which leaves us with 5 more minutes which we need to reduce. Hence the choice will be -3 pet and -2 bait (Dragon Whelps and Black Widow) or -2 pet and -3 bait (Nightcap and Little Nessy). However the problem here is, -2 bait are not common: Jesperian Way and Black Widow come from donation, and Midnight Rider is not really that popular. Same argument goes for -2 pets: Little Nessy has no loot multiplier and Little T-Rex or Triceratops are hard to get.
   
   Do pay attention to the raw power too:
   Xkal/NL will give about 248 raw - safe until R3.1 Wellsington Tower
   APB/NL will give about 280 raw - safe until R3.3 Castle McDonohan
   Cow/NL will give about 350 raw - safe until R4.1.1 Kirkyard Cemetery
   
   Moving on into mystic arcane setup, we will use Magic Maze for the trap. However the circle needs a good mystic with some t/sc reduction, where Black Dragon's Breath comes to play. With 20 mystic and -1 t/sc, it is a big deal! The setup will be something like
   
   
   Magic Maze/Black Dragon's Breath/Countess/Cosmic/MCC
   
   which also leaves us with 5 minutes to reduce. Same argument as above applies, but one more thing here. Since this setup can yield around 70 mystic, it is really good for nessy hunting, which can be exploited. If you use Nessy's, the 5 min problem is solved and you can use whatever pet you like. Furthermore you can change the ID to Twilight, and arm your -1 pet to ensure the 2 min cooldown remain intact.
   
   This mystic-based setup is practically safe to apply anywhere on Scotland.

It is really a wall of text, but I hope that you can find some insight and new ideas from this post :D Also I need to emphasize that this guide will suit more on the higher-level players. However for the lower-level players, you can use this article for your future reference. You can still use this article as a guide though, for example using PC/Lava Lamps for high tech with less raw power. You got the idea :D

See you on the next post!

Sir Hyronimus Quatermain!

It's been almost one week since my last post, a lot of school works made me hardly got any time to sit down and write here! But now it's weekend, and I'm free :D

As you all know that we have the first ghostathon mission in November. And the reward is the last part of the best traditional contract out there which is SHQ.3. With -3 t/sc, x2 loot multiplier, this contract will surely introduce the new speed-raw power-full loot setup which is

Danse Macabre - Neon Lights - SHQ - Leprechaun - any bait - Twilight ID - MCC - Witch Cauldron.

How cool is that!! :D

I just realized that I am mumbling out of topic due to pure excitement of getting SHQ.3. Lol. Back to the mission, just arm your lowest cooldown with raw power setup (I don't recommend you to use mystic since it is risky). Go to the castle where you can get 100% catch rate with the raw power and hunt there. You should be able to finish the mission within 2 days.

While I am using Nightcap and Little Nessy for this mission, my friend told me that he was able to reach 1.5 min cooldown without any -t/sc from the bait. I was wondering how could it be done? Because the implications are big for this: you can simply hunt with mocktails that have no -t/sc bonus (generally mocktails with -t/sc bonus are expensive). His setup was:

Slapping Machine - Neon Lights - Dana Hunter - Diamond Whelp - any bait - Cosmic ID - MCC - Witch Cauldron

with about 266 raw power. With SHQ you can do the same, but the raw power will be around 340. Enough for going into Kirkyard Cemetery! This is one of the big implications of the SHQ contract.

Another implications will be on raid setups. Instead of using usual arcane-raw for minions and arcane-mystic for bosses, now we can implement traditional-raw for minions and bio-mystic for bosses, since the loot multiplier is better.

For minions:

SHQ gives x2 while SN only gives x1.75 and CW only gives x1.5

For bosses:

LR gives x2 while MM gives nothing

TWL gives x2.5 while SN only gives x1.75 and CW gives x1.5

so theoretically even you don't have white lady contract, bio contract is still slightly better. However bio contract can be less-mystic power if it's not set correctly, therefore you need to consider it carefully before going for raid.

Well I think that's all for today's post. I am planning to write about monster hunting sometime later on which will be very interesting. So stay tuned for the next updates!

Haunted Week 5 has Finished!

After one week, finally our HW5 is ended, marked by the common goal of catching Guy Fawkes ghosts and the buff of Mysterious Glow. I'm rather disappointed though, since I'm expecting it to be the Rainbow Ghost buff :D But nevertheless, it's been a great week! Here are some of my HW5 stuffs.

7+ sets of MBS contract

12+ sets of PAZ contract

44+ sets of Pumpkin Candles #_#

1126 bottles of Pumpkin Punches (thanks to my snake :D)

And finally, 3000 bottles of Highland Pride. This is not all, since I have another 1000 bottles deposited as a stake for a challenge with my friend RayChris (follow his blog here). Whoever of us caught more Guy Fawkes ghosts, our HP stock will increase by the amount of 2000. LOL

Now we are back to normal hunting, and today we have a special mission out there to catch Ghostzillas (Angel Ghosts for R1 players). The reward is really nice, which includes EPH.2 and SHQ.2 with it. So go to McKenny and find your best setup! One thing to remember, Ghostzillas are mystic-immune, so make sure that you arm your raw setup there. Raw power of 220+ should be good enough to catch it.

And to update you from the previous post which is related to dino hunting, the theory that I wrote last time seems to be not so practical. 13 malty mist gave me three consecutive Nodosaurus and one Triceratops so far. And worse, most of them are lootless. Where is the T-rex? Should do more experiment later on..

After this mission finished I will be going to R3, and completing my exhibition souvenirs there. So stay tuned for the next update!

Haunted Week 5 Progress

We are now in the middle of the Haunted Week 5. Since this is my 3rd HW (I started playing GT around HW3 which is a year ago), I have nothing much left to do in this HW5. Basically I just completed my tombstone collection, and getting all the ghost photos that appears only in Haunted Week (now only left the rainbow ghost photo). Also 2 days ago we have the Halloween Ghosts coming, and he had the exhibition loot also (the Killer Knife). Now I just doing normal Nessy-hunting (hoping for Little Kelpie) and piling up my stock of Highland Pride and Pumpkin Punch (I arm my ghost snake which gives +10 special editions).

Some of my thoughts on HW5:

1. The introduction of Pumpkin Candles magic circle definitely gives a great impact in Dino Monsters hunting. You can try this setup:
   
   Magic Maze - Pumpkin Candles - Countess Wilhelmina - Black Widow - Amber Dragon Whelp - Twilight ID
   
   which gives 13 malty mist using normal jura atomizer and around 4 min hunt (provided that you have MCC). Using this setup, I caught my first T-rex and it gives me his T-rex Skull. I'm aiming for a little T-rex companion, so I can tweak the setup a little bit. What you need to keep in mind is, the amount of malty mist (13) is our lucky number here, so we must try to reach that number. Let's consider this setup
   
   Magic Maze - Pumpkin Candles - Countess Wilhelmina - NESSY PLATINUM -LEPRECHAUN - Twilight ID
   
   which practically gives same cooldown time, same amount of Malty Mist, but 2.75x more loot multiplier. I will try this out soon.
   
   
2. A new contract, the Dancing Skulls which is the Magic Circle type. The stats given to him are quite weird, with 5% pet trainer which is really negligible (just use your 2-min hunt to hunt more often then your pet will be trained very quickly). But the interesting stats is, the +10% mystic power. Let's say my mystic now is 78 (with CW contract). If I change to DS contract, then the mystic power will be 68+6.8 = 74.8 which will be rounded to 75. I can't think of any possible interesting development of setups right now, but I'm sure the GT developers had already something special in their mind!
   
   
3. Biochemist Dana Hunter contract from the ghost puzzlers. Since she had a very huge boost of +6 malty mist, I foresee there will be a mystic high-tech type mechanism coming out soon. [Mystic High-tech] / Pumpkin Candles / Dana Hunter will be good for monster hunting, although I believe that the setup in point no.1 above is still more superior.

Well, next in the schedule is the release of Guy Fawkes ghost at 5 November. Hunt your ghost phoenix from him! See you in the next post!

Haunted Week 5 Preparation

HW 5 is round the corner, just tomorrow. With some exclusive ghosts, locations, prizes and items, this is surely an event not to be missed! Now are you ready for HW5?

I've been through 2 HWs before, and here I will share with you some of my thoughts.

What you will need is:

Trap - Magic Maze for mystic, Ether Portal for raw. It's the best mystic and raw setup available now.

Circle - Wax Pyramids for mystic, Neon Lights for raw. The other powerful raw circles usually have a side effect, be it a burner effect or +t/sc effect. So neon lights is more useful, in some case.

Contract - since our trap is arcane, you should prepare your arcane contracts - Countess Wilhelmina is mandatory, and make sure you have MBS and SN too.

Pets - not necessarily important, use any pets that you have depending on the situation.

ID - twilight ID, cosmic ID, puzzler ID, and platinum ID are the IDs that I think will be useful for HW5. That is, loot multiplier, -1 t/sc, -1 burner, and +1 attraction.

Bait - This is where the thing matters most. First and foremost you have to pile up a stock of Nessies. I recommend around 200 bottles for this case. Later on you will also need the best attraction mocktails which is Devil Driver and Green Goddess. GG can be bought from the bar on HW, don't worry; and DD can be acquired from the Bayoushi's shop. And prepare some mocktails that have -t/sc since it will be very useful here.

Money - I highly doubt there will be new exclusive non-donation buy-able traps or circles in HW5. Usually there is always new contracts, traps, or circles, but it is acquired as a loot from the special HW-only ghosts. But nevertheless, you should have around 8-10 million cash on your pocket, so you will be prepared for any surprises.

Plasma - Don't waste your plasma right now. Don't augment or buy anything yet. I suspect there will be some need on plasmas during the HW, be it for the new trap, or new items, so better save it for now. 20 plasmas is minimum I think.

CCF - You should have the MCC right now or else your HW will not be used to fullest extent. And same argument as plasma applies, don't waste everything now. Save it first and see how tomorrow.

If you see from my thoughts above, I am emphasizing on MYSTIC hunting with fast COOLDOWN time and highest LOOT multiplier available. Most likely you will be using Nessies all the time, since Nessy drop rate on HW is extremely high (Haunting Temptresses and Nessy-only ghosts are believed to be more generous then). Raw power is used only for completing your photo album of the mystic-immune HW only ghosts.

The setup will be something like this:

Magic Maze - Wax Pyramids - Countess Wilhelmina - Leprechaun - Nessy - Twilight ID - MCC

which offers highest loot multiplier available, highest mystic available, and 3 minutes cooldown time.

See you tomorrow on HW5!

Mini Mocktail Collection 1

Recently I completed my dinner set, jewel set and the keyring set. Now I set my goal to complete this mini mocktail collection 1. Unlike the first three sets which are fairly easy to get, this mocktail collection is more tricky in the sense of how to acquire them.

My core setup for this is:
Ether Portal - Neon Lights - Frozen Mist - Countess - Little Cu Sith - Twilight ID

Justification for this setup:
Ether portal is chosen since it is arcane. The best loot multiplier contract that I have now is Countess, hence choosing Ether Portal is mandatory, since it gives good raw power too.
Neon lights is chosen merely for the -2 cooldown. And the pair of the cow with the lights will give a heavy amount of raw power, which is enough to capture the party ghosts.
Frozen mist is a new mocktail which you can acquire from Ghost Puzzlers. I found this mocktail has a very good stats with a relatively cheap cost to make. I have a HUGE stock of Widow tears and I never use it, now with this mocktail I can simply get rid of those tears away! And on top of that, it has +20% XP and -1 t/sc which is a real deal. Alternatively you can use Braveheart for this, it basically is the same as the Frozen mist, only it gives +20% money instead of XP.

Countess Wilhelmina is mandatory since it gives loot multiplier and -2 t/sc which is incomparable with any other contracts that I have right now.

Little Cu Sith may be a bit controversial here, why not pixie / leprechaun? I choose my little cu sith since he gives +1 attraction, which I thought will be helpful for attracting the party ghosts. And he has x2 loot multiplier which is acceptable. Of course if you have donated for Ice dragon whelp then use it.

Twilight ID - self explanatory.

This setup will offer you a good 6 minutes cooldown (assuming you have the MCC). Now I would like to discuss the targets in a more detail.

Jack Jones mini - Warlock Ghost - Kilwittig House

I found out that warlock ghosts appear quite often, using only the setup I described above. I got mine after about one day hunt, using ~150 frozen mists on the way. A lot of my friends are doing quite well too in collecting this item.

Apple Zapper mini - Succubus Ghost - Castle McKenny

I believe that this succubus ghosts are more or less in the same difficulty of attraction as the warlock ghosts. Just wait patiently there... and you will get it soon enough. I'm currently here and I hope I'll get it in one day.

Gentleman Mini - Ghost MC - Wellsington Tower

Ghost MCs are quite well known as the stingy one, since one rarely gets SN.2 from him. His same habit I think is also applied to the Gentleman mini. So the problem is in getting the loot from him, and not in the attraction; as he is attracted quite easily with any mocktail.

Braveheart Mini - Ghost DJ - Castle McDonohan

This is by far I believe will be the hardest item to get in this collection, since Ghost DJ is sighted very rarely. Using the setup above, when I camp in McDonohan to get the Keyring sets, I didn't attract any single DJs out there. I suspect that you have to add +2 attraction to your setup regardless of the mocktail (right now I only have +1 attraction from my cu sith). Or maybe using Devil Drivers or Green Goddess might help? I haven't tried that out since my stock of those mocktails are a bit low right now.

Black Tartan Mini - Frost Ghost - Count Church

I got this one fairly easy, since Frost ghost is known for its generosity (I really believe so, because I ever got two SN.3 from two consecutive icy frost ghosts). Attraction is also not quite a problem here, just try whatever mocktail you have in mind and you should be ok.

I will update soon with my progress of these items. While doing so, stay tuned and start preparing yourself for the Haunted Week 5 this Friday!

Exhibition is Open!

Well, so many great updates on GT in this 3 days! As you all know, the exhibition is now open at 9th floor. Basically, this exhibition is a personal collection of souvenirs, which are the same as loots - from various ghosts spread all over virtual Scotland. From the name of the collections and the graphics, one can easily guess, which ghost drops it. For full info, always refer to GT Wiki.

Until now, I have collected 5 of them, which is:
Crystal glass - from matrix ghost
Silver knife - from spooky ghost
Ghost Puzzler tile - from puzzler ghost
Nightcap mini - from barkeeper ghost
Witchhunt mini - from go-go ghost

How about your progress? :D

Exp and Money Grinding in Duke Leyton Castle

This is what I have done in the last 3 days. I go to DLC, arm ether portal with laughing skulls to get 400 raw. Then, equip your diamond whelp to neutralize the burner effect of the skulls as well as to reduce your c/d by 3 mins. I mix a lot of Braveheart cocktails (since I got so many unused bloody widow tears :D) and enjoy your 4-min money making hunts! I don't care about the loot here anyways, since it is mostly whisperwind-blue or some dogtags which I don't need them at the moment.

Otherwise for exp grinding, switch your cocktail into Black Tartan or Jack Jones, and you can still get 5-min hunts. I advise not to use Nightcap here, since Nightcap is meant to be used at Crypt, the thing is, if you hunt using Nightcap in DLC you can't replenish your stock of mystery milk since no ghost dropped it. So Nightcap is generally better used in Crypt or Morgue.

I might try to switch to Library soon enough to pump up my stock of Lucid Lemonades, since I want to try mystic hunting in Pinnacle. So stay tuned! :D

New Mission Today - Heaven 17

Heaven 17
Catch 1 Stonecold Temptress Ghost
Rewards: 5 GP, 100 BW, 1 EPH.3 and some others

I finished this mission within 1 hunt! The trick is, go to Morgue, arm your best mystic setup, and use Devil Driver with any + attraction companions. This will ensure you to attract special ghost since DD has the best attraction rate among all mocktails.

Goodluck with the mission! It's easy one! :D

See you in the next post!

Ether Portal - where to hunt?

Recently I have bought my ether portal, finally. Also I got my Mighty Chrono Crystal about a week ago. Now the question is, where should I go?

The first answer is, the pinnacle. Since now EP is the highest raw mechanism available, its logical to consider to go to highest hunting location available. However, EP requires the circle Lightning Coils to be effective in pinnacle, yet the coils costs 3 bottles per hunt which is painful. On top of that, you need Witch Hunt mocktails, which I only got a few stocks. I haven't got any + raw pet yet, (little kelpie, please come T_T) and the only raw-boosting arcane contract is the Balthasar daily click, which need me 60 more days to click (I clicked Arlington Steele already). If you consider to go mystic in pinnacle, magic maze will be better, but the witch hunt is irreplaceable.

Now moving down the castle ranks, is the library. Of course EP/LC pair will give a good catch rate there, but with the cost of 4 bottles per hunt I advise not to use any mocktails. Which will lead you to use normal potions, and any contract or pet you like best. The cooldown time here is around 8 mins, if you equip your dragon whelps and the Countess, or can go to 7 with cosmic ID. But I think 7 mins with rarely loot drops and moderate xp/money grinding... this is not the best choice. The same argument also applies to the Duke Leyton Castle.

So the best answer I come up so far is, to go to the crypt. Equip your EP with the Skulls circle, it will give you -2 mins already. Since you are forced to use Nightcap here, then it will be -5 mins, and Countess is still the best arcane contract in terms of loot and speed. Now we have -7 mins. Oh, I forgot my MCC, then make it -9 mins :D. Now the choice of your pet and your ID is up to you... you can go lepre/puzzler to opt for better loot, 5 min hunts; or go diamond whelp/twilight to opt for 3 min hunts with slightly worse loot multiplier. I opted for the latter, since I want to train my diamond whelp.

Oh and another good point using EP in crypt is, beside you got 100% catch rate here, you can also get the hidden treasures from the nightmare ghost. I'm looking for EPH.2 also, so I think this is the best option that I have right now.

See you on the next post! :D:D

Mystic Power Optimization

Mystic power differs from raw power that, mystic catches ghost by chance. 70% mystic means 70% chance to catch, provided you have 0 raw power.

Mechanisms that have high mystic power are always Arcane type, meaning that the contracts are also restricted to Arcane type or Magic Circle type. As for now, the best mystic mechanism is Magic Maze (30), followed by Basilisk Pit (25) and X-kaliboo (25). Others include Abyssal Phone Booth (20), Ghost Bus (15), Magic Mirror, Crystal Spider, German Volkmusic Band, Emerald Pearl, and Sleeping Dragon (all 10).

There's nothing much to say about the magic circle, simply choose the one that give you highest mystic power. The best circle is Wax Pyramids (25) and Runic Candle (25), but RC gives you +1 cooldown time. Others include Dance-of-the-Wisps (20), Starlight and Ivory Candles (15), and Violet Candle (10).

Companions, same as raw power optimization, can give mystic power bonus too but unless it reached level 5, the contribution will be insignificant. Pets that have mystic bonus are Fire Dragon Whelp, Ghost Puppy and Special Ghost Puppy, Ghost Reindeer, Ghost Snake, Little Cu Sith, Little Devil, and Little Nessy.

Contracts, since we are mainly talking about Arcane type mechanism, I will only mention the Arcane contracts. The best arcane contract now is Countess Wilhelmina (10) followed by Mr. Bastian Shaw (10) and Sensei Nakamura (10). All three of them has different bonuses, though, but I prefer CW than the others. Last but least, there is Novice Bryan Bigglesworth (3).

There are some baits that give mystic power, too, the best one is of course the Highland Pride (10) followed by Nessy (5) and Midnight Rider (5). Nessy's give you -5 cooldown time and has very high attraction which is valuable to take into consideration.

What is the use of mystic power?
1. Raid Boss Ghost (Jonas Davey, Vocalist, Inspector, etc)
In this matter you need your highest mystic setup, meaning that setups like MM/RC/MBS/LilNessy/Highland Pride is the best combination giving 80 mystic power. However we know that the bosses drop rare loots, so you may consider to switch some part of the setup to increase the loot chance. The most common way is to change the companion into Pixie or Ghost Snake, and also to change MBS with SN or CW or VV. The best combo in my opinion for this raid boss ghosts is MM/RC/CW/Snake/HP, which gives you 80 mystic power (provided snake lvl 5), and the loot chance is x3.

2. Special Ghosts
Special Ghosts are ghosts that are only able to be captured using mystic power only. You may regard that they have infinite raw power. Additionally, they can only be attracted using Nessy's as bait. Examples are Kelpie and Luring Kelpie, Ghost Nessy and Glowing Ghost Nessy, Cu Sith and Howling Cu Sith, etc.

Here of course you need high mystic power which can be supplied by MM/RC/MBS/Snake/Nessy. However to increase your chance of encountering them, you need to increase your attraction level also. Since MBS contract already gives the most attraction, and the Nessy bait can't be changed, the only way to further increase the attraction is by switching the companion. Change your companion into Little Devil (+2 attraction) or Snake (+1) which still give mystic bonus, or you can just sacrifice the mystic bonus with a greater attraction from Unicorn or Emerald Dragon Whelp.

An advanced strategy in this matter is to extremely reduce the cooldown time although the mystic power is not maximised. Here MM/NL/MBS/LilNessy/Nessy will give you 2 minutes cooldown time with 50 mystic. Let's compare it to MM/RC/CW/Snake/Nessy which give 75 mystic with 6 minutes cooldown. Statistically speaking, using the first setup you can catch 1.5 special ghost in 6 minutes, while the second setup can only catch 0.75 ghost per 6 minute; hence the first setup is better.

Raw Power Optimization

This is the easiest optimization of the setup. Simply choose your mechanism and magic circle that gives you best raw power. However people seldom pay attention to the other 3 factors i.e. contract, companion, and bait. These 3 parts can contribute to raw power too. A difference in only 5 points of raw power can be significantly important!

Contracts that have raw power bonus
Traditional: IJS (+5)
High Tech: DFN(+5) ECT(+2) SOD(+1) MDR(+1)
Bio: ZEP(+3) TWL(+3) GTS(+2)
There is no Arcane and Magic Circle contract that gives raw power bonus.
So depending on the type of your mechanism, choose your best contract accordingly.

How about companion? They can give you raw power bonus too, but the best bonus that they can give is +5 only if they reached level 5. These pets includes Emerald Dragon Whelp, Ghost Kitty and Special Ghost Kitty, Ghost Owl, Little Kelpie, and Twilight Dragon Whelp.

Bait is the most underestimated component in this raw power optimization. Unlike contracts, bait gives the boost with no restriction to the type of mechanism used. Examples of these baits are Jimmy Stalker 12 y.o.(+5) and its older counterpart Jimmy Stalker 30 y.o. (+5). However these 2 Jimmy's have low attraction, meaning that it may not give you the best results. Mab Bier (+10) seems very attractive, but actually its attraction rate is very low, leading to FTA's or Angel's Share's if not properly managed.

Cocktails is better in terms of attraction, and these special cocktails that give raw power bonus notably is The Jesperian Way (+5), Cherry Bomb (+3), Midnight Smash (+3), Ruby Tuesday (+3), and Devil Driver (+1).

Optimizing Setup

In Ghost Trappers, you didn't simply click every 15 minutes. There's a lot of advanced strategy behind it. Optimizing your setup is useful if you want to catch a specific goals. There are 10 purpose of your setup, namely:
1. Raw Power
2. Mystic Power
3. GTP
4. XP
5. Cooldown Time
6. Efficiency (burner rate)
7. Attraction Rate
8. Loot Chance Multiplier
9. Midnight Attraction
10. Catch Rate

Before proceeding to the analysis of 10 purposes above, you should know that your setup consists of 5 parts i.e. Mechanism/Magic Circle/Contract/Companion/Bait. What does each of these parts affect?
Mechanism affects: 1,2,5,6
Magic Circle affects: 1,2,5,6
Contract affects: 1-9
Companion affects: 1-9
Bait affects: 1-9

Catch rate will be discussed specifically later, since it is quite complex.