Am I the only person who has serious difficulty getting enough Midnight Roots?

[Little_Infinity]

Reading posts about the event, some indicate that it’s blissfully easy to just go in with direct damage battle items and weaken the bosses that way.
A bit of a flaw in that idea for me is my lack of Meteors. I farm every day (not obsessively, admittedly) and find myself massively constrained by midnight roots. They are an ingredient for both mana potions (which I always use / need in tough encounters) and Meteor (which would be really handy to get through over-tough encounters).

The meteors are also handy as direct damage / weakeners in Titan fights (although I’ve stopped using them, because, you know… midnight roots).

You’re meant to have enhanced chance to get them in region 22 of the map (which is not the simplest to play, and is expensive in energy), but I can easily go runs of 6 consecutive fights in that region for the total of ZERO midnight roots.

Am I missing some secret way of procuring midnight roots (assuming F2P)? Am I just insanely unlucky?

[Maldoror]

Midnight roots are my rarest ingredient as well. As you say, it’s used for the items I need the most, and they have no valid alternatives.

[giljs]

This is the reason I almost exclusively use minor mana potions. While not the best mana choice, they are the only one that doesn’t require midnight root, and I need my meteors! The only material I have a greater need for vs supply is dragon bones (which I expect to be ultra-rare anyway).

The best places I found to farm for root are either 8-7 or 13-6. While you have no better chance to get the root there than any other places, they give the best other rewards while you farm. 8-7 offers more items per energy, but 13-6 is better for XP and recruits per energy. 5-6 is a viable alternative if you also want to farm Adventurer’s Packs for training uncommon heroes. You may not get many roots, but the runs aren’t wasted if you are getting other useful items.

[Ravindau]

The key to getting roots is to keep farming. Do you ONLY farm when you have a monster chest? You should keep your energy at zero except when you’re about 4 hours away from a monster chest.

[Little_Infinity]

I farm as or when I play the game. I don’t play it obsessively… but when I pick it up (once or twice a day, normally mornings and evenings either side of work) I’ll farm my energy down to zero, regardless of monster chest.

I’d normally get 2 or 3 runs during the evening in which I run my world energy down to 0. (I accept that this style of play means I will take longer to level up heroes, etc, but not prepared to play ANY game that obsessively).

Be interested to know if farming level 22 for roots gives a better energy per root ratio than some of the cheaper levels mentioned by @giljs (nice answer, by the way - thanks).

If it doesn’t then this is pretty silly of SG - I’d expect the province in which you have ‘an improved chance’ of obtaining a material to always give you a CLEAR advantage and yield the lowest energy per item ratio for that particular item. Anecdotally so far, this does not appear to be the case… but haven’t done any sort of a quantitative assessment. Has anyone else looked in to this?

[Ravindau]

Just to clarify - I run short of roots just like everybody else. But I also use them wisely. I don’t squander them on cheap stuff. I save my high level items for events and don’t spend them on titans.

[Little_Infinity]

Believel it or not, I know this (now). It is a learning experience gained from the realisation that they are actually rare items. One only realises this once one has denuded their backlog of them, and then finds that you can’t get new ones for love or money. I have found other items where I finished my backlog I was able to replenish reasonably quickly with the farming I do. It’s midnight roots that I have noticed to be the primary exception to this. (Makes mental note about dragon bones. Haven’t been a big user up to now).

I’ll give minor mana potions a go for a bit, saving my roots for Meteors. When trying minor mana previously in Events I found I ran out during the battle, but that was prior to me maxing my 4* heroes… so I was more dependent on regular influx of mana. That’s less of a case now, so minor mana could work again.

Main thing was checking I wasn’t missing anything obvious, or being exceptionally unlucky.

Anyone has any thoughts / feeling (or better) solid figures/experience on the energy per item ratio for items in their ‘preferred’ provinces vs cheaper provinces?

[Rook]

I know that Mai’s list showed them obtainable in 22-9, but I’m wimpy and farm much lower than that. I rejoice when I find them, but they are a rare item for me.

[havok333]

22-9 would be a pretty tough place to farm items regularly. For the last couple weeks I’ve been running 13-6 when filling monster chest, or otherwise 12-9. That 12-9 level seems to give more items (and recruits) over time for whatever reason, and still only costs 4 flags.

If you watch the little chest in the upper left of your screen, it shows the total number of items + recruits + heroes you’ve accumulated on a run, and that number seems to be consistently higher on 12-9 than other levels in the 4 flag range.

Give it a try and see if you get better luck.

[giljs]

Be interested to know if farming level 22 for roots gives a better energy per root ratio than some of the cheaper levels mentioned by @giljs (nice answer, by the way - thanks).

If you farm them at 8-7 or 13-6, you get about the same root per energy as 22-8 as far as I can tell. You have roughly double the chance for root to drop in region 22, and 22-8 is the most rewarding battle to farm in the region. It costs 7 energy, compared to 3 at 8-7. So you can try 2 runs at 3 energy vs 1 at 7 and get about the same results. about the same with 13-6. However, the advantage to farming region 22, assuming you can auto-attack and win regularly, is that you get a LOT more XP, food and iron per energy.

The big problem is that drops are still very random. You can get 3 root in a row on 3 Region 5 battles, and then get none at all after using all your energy on a region 22 battle. The lower energy maps may give a lower payout per run, but when you don’t get a root, you don’t feel like you lost as much as when it happens in higher energy maps. Unfortunately, without seeing the actual game data for drop rates, there is little that can be done to determine the exact chance of a given drop per energy.

Incidentally, when checking my numbers on the (E&P Data Bible), I noted that for ITEM farming, 13-5 is slightly better than 13-6. This is due to 13-5 being a special level with a slightly higher item drop rate (avg 9 per 13-5 vs 7 per 13-6).

[Little_Infinity]

Nice one @havok333
I was a regular farmer of 12-9. Nice combination of high troop rate, and decent drop quality with chance of higher tier items, but easy/quick to auto-farm. I also found 18-9 really good (albeit more expensive). Can auto-farm it reasonably comfortably (small chance of fail on exceptionally bad layout and/or AI decisions, but rare) and the drop quality is great, along with decent troop rate.

@giljs
No way I can auto-farm 22… that’s the thing. The manual effort required to farm it means I expect a decent / noticeable uplift in drop rate to make it worthwhile. Maybe will try auto-farm 13-5 for a bit. Thanks for the link to the E&P Data Bible.

Thanks guys (n gals). All good feedback.

[Ravindau]

Just got 2 consecutive roots in 12-5.

[havok333]

That was the only multi-root run today since watching for it. Several single root runs too. Also doing well on lumber and fine steel!

[Avicious]

You’re doing it in the morning. That’s your problem

[Rook]

@Avicious: ? I’m not following…

[Avicious]

“Midnight” roots

[Rook]

-20 characters

[Liono421]

I have been getting midnight roots and dragon bones on 22-1. Not all the time but more then not. Also lots of backpacks, wooden swords and many other random items. It takes 7 flags but gives good exp and lots of items.

[Little_Infinity]

Since I started pushing 22-1, I’ve actually got no roots more often than I have had them. I think I’ve got something like 4 roots in about 10 attempts - and one of those was 2 roots for a single battle. So that’s 3 battles out of 10 with the item I was seeking. Very small sample, so means little… but still.

I’ve also been looking out for roots in other levels now as well, and as it turns out, I haven’t received a single one from any of those either (also about 10 or more across different levels - mostly 8-7 and 13-5.

So kinda getting the idea that roots are just stupidly rare. Then again I haven’t been actively looking for any individual other ingredient either, so probably find a lot of them are stupidly rare too.

[Liono421]

Yeah I think they are just a rare item. I had just played and got 2 midnight roots in a row. They seem to come and go. I get dragon bones more then I do roots. Its really a hit and miss thing. The more we want them the less we get. Hahaha.