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!