Taking it a step further, on a per-world-energy basis (actually, the numbers below are on a per-three-world-energy basis, since it results in round numbers, and three WE is the least you can spend to play any level anyway):
- S2N (normal difficulty) provinces 7, 8 and 9 give the most ascension mats rolls, clocking in at 3.5 per 3 WE
- After that, there are a TON of provinces that give 3 ascension mat rolls per 3 WE.
- S1 provinces 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (plus level 9-1), and S2N provinces 7, 8 and 9 give the most crafting mat rolls, at 5 per 3 WE
- There are a pretty good number of provinces that give close to 5 crafting mat rolls per 3 WE as well.
- S1 province 4 gives the least ascension mat rolls, with 2 per 3WE. S1 province 9 (other than level 9-1) comes in second-worst, at 2.3 / 3 WE.
- S1 levels 20-5 through 22-9 give the least crafting mat rolls per 3 WE, at 3.4. There are some levels in S1 provinces 13 and 17 that are close to that too.
I don’t know how much this really helps in terms of where to go for best farming. I do think it might help break ties when you’re deciding between a couple of spots, so hopefully some of you find it useful that way.
Some random related thoughts to keep in mind when making farming choices:
- Troops and feeder heroes drop more frequently (per world energy) in the cheap S1 provinces.
- I think the 3 star and 4 star crafting mats appear more frequently (per world energy) in the more expensive provinces (and I’m fairly certain that’s true with respect to the S2 hard mode levels), but this hasn’t been truly verified by Barry’s farming project yet, as far as I know.
- Recruits should probably remain the top focus, since they’re the easiest valuable reward to predict accurately. (In other words, the number of ascension/crafting material rolls noted above still doesn’t tell you much about how many of a specific material to expect. If you’re farming for Dragon Bones, I suppose going to the provinces that yield the most crafting mat rolls per WE would make sense, but 4 star mats drop so infrequently even in the provinces where they’re supposed to be more common, that it simply doesn’t make a ton of sense to make them a priority over more predictable loot of similar value, like recruits.)