Wednesday, December 14, 2016

2016 Christmas Season farming

I've farmed for seasonal pets on occasion, but rarely came up with anything worthwhile. This year appears to be different. I definitely farmed more earnestly, as I had a goal - collect Yuletide Spirit so I could finally get the pet ability Unicorn. Please laugh at me now, since I could have just asked a friend to breed my pet with. Maybe I'm Friend Challenged.

Let me tell you when my farming really picked up. I started right away with Lord Nightshade. You can really farm the heck out of that guy. But I get so so so bored killing him. I can only seem to stand 20 minutes at a time. You know a guy you can one shot on the first turn is going to have a dismal drop rate to make up for it. So, the upshot is, I got nothing from him. I think this means nothing EVER in all my years of playing the game. Nothing new, so nothing disappointing.

But this new Krampusgarten key(s) area opens up. I started in right away, and no one knew the mechanics or cheats. We just went in and found out for ourselves, one key level at a time! It quickly became apparent that the best approach was to blade the hitter, and have the hitter refrain from casting any buff other than an aura until it was time to hit. Good times! I remember that poor low level trying to hang on in the Gold Key room. (hint: pack some fire shields in your sideboard if you want to help your low level friends). But wait! After some stingy coal-dropping runs, on my final attempt before moving onto something else... I got a Golden Goose! My first holiday pet drop! (I think. First that I remember at least.)

That fueled my desire to farm pets in earnest, but where to farm? Krampus is quick, but requires keys. (Side note: Gold Key Krampus seemed to like to respawn after being killed, so that saved a few keys). Lord Nightshade was too boring for me, so next I considered Jade Oni. I spent an hour or two farming him with better results. And another pet to boot! The Rescue Rover! What's more, this pet has a chance at Unicorn! I quickly got him to adult, but alas, no Unicorn yet. After running out of powerful pet snacks, I decided to strike out and farm some more. And I needed more good pet snacks to boot. Well, the choice was pretty clear. Mirror Lake.

Mirror Lake was the answer. Besides the guaranteed 2 Pixie Stix snacks, I wound up getting a full Santa set of cosmetic gear, a number of Yuletide fish tanks in various sizes (at least one that was a regular keeper)*, lots of different holiday wands, some presents, holiday seeds (holidaisy and boon tree and missile toe), 3 snowglobes, a Gingerbread house, another Rescue Rover, a Snowball, 2 more Golden Geese, a Nutcracker, a Frostman, and 2 Yuletide Spirits. I leveled both Yuletide Spirits to adult, and both have Unicorn! Huzzah! Finally!

* I also completed one run on the last dungeon of Azteca, and that got me some loot too... I think more drops in a run than the typical Mirror Lake run.

It has been very addicting to gather so many holiday decorations, gear, seeds, and pets. I already had a very nicely decorated X-Mas house before, but this year's haul helped me really beef it up. I can't help it; I'm going to keep farming until the final day of the 12 Days of Christmas event. I'm still looking for one more Yuletide Reg Keeper Tank before I feel I have it all. Perhaps it's not the gifts, it's just the getting. I've made a couple of farming buddies along the way as well. It's a nice social time with the excitement of gifts!

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