Hey everyone, I was hoping to get a brainstorm and discussion going on [big]small[/big] ideas and tricks and tips. Routing is daunting and tough, and that’s a whole other beast. This topic is about the little things! Since the most optimized route will try to maximize gold, fate, experience, while minimizing time, share what you think might help

I’ll get us started. :) - In the Tutorial, you can skip the triggered Big Spider spawn by turning the camera away from where it spawns, i.e. back toward the way you came. Rolling seems to help, for me. There might be other cases where if you don’t look at where something spawns, it won’t trigger but I haven’t looked that hard. :) - The third Lore stone in Erathell (the one after leaving Ayten and going around the bend), normally we go out of our way to avoid triggering a fight. However, don’t have to take the long way around. The fight triggers if you run between the two boulders there, so just avoid running between the two boulders. :) - Discovering Rundamir (near Cair Nyralim) makes the run to Detyre later a bit quicker. If you’re willing to sacrifice a second overall, you can also pick up two stones! As a bonus, there’s an additional location on the way so you get more exp from discovering it. It's called Aodh, and Aodh is the closest warp to Ysa once you unlock it. :) - You can get a 24k-gold ring from Elund, before you go to the siege of Mel Senshir. You just need to persuade him. It has a decent success rate of about 50%, so you can either save the game beforehand, go for the risk, or use a seduction potion before speaking with him (even if you’re male). :) - If you’re just short on gold and you do the Siege and want to purchase items or weapons after, you can tell the NPC right after the siege that Tilera ran like a coward (lie), you’ll get two random items that you can sell, instead of one. :) - In the game options, you can map the run button to the left stick click. This might help avoid accidental action button presses, that could slow you down by talking to NPCs (I’m looking at you Alyn).

Once we get going, we can start to build a knowledge base, use these to perfect routes and get the time down. Or we could consolidate them into a guide for players who want to learn. Onward, on the path toward optimization and a slightly shorter run!

When running through Ettinmere I noticed the runs getting the Holnstead waypoint for extra experience. If you take the short detour into the camp and talk to the gnome he gives you a quest. On the way out of Dellach the final room where you use reckoning mode there are normally two ettins. With this quest there is a third one that drops the Shine and Shadow (daggers), and potentially more fate essence. Quick stop in the camp after and you can get more exp, and keep the daggers to get more juicy purple gold.

Edit: if the persuasion chance is too low you can kill the gnome, ending the quest and keep the daggers that way. There are no guards in the area so the crime doesn't matter. May need to kill the one other guy in the camp too (haven't tested)

Traveling to Starcamp to run to Haxhi is about 5-7 seconds faster than traveling to St. Eadric's Mission, depending on your load times.

Okay, I just did some movement tech testing based around Mel Senshir and running through to Alfar Camp and Foe's Hearth. So I ran through the normal route with Foe's Hearth first, then going to Alfar Camp to clean up the quest with the Tuatha towers, the timing for this came out to be about, 6:00 - 6:16, I was delayed on a teleport due to enemies, and did get hit once by a bog to slow my movement, so take this with a grain of salt, plus loads and fast travel movement, mouse over controller. I hit my split end when I went in the door at Foe's Hearth, time started at movement in Mel Senshir.

Next I time the alternative movement I saw 6oliath do, with running to Alfar Camp backwards, I ran to Alfar, then to Balor's Crossing, up to the Tuatha tower, fast travel back to Alfar, do the two Tuatha towers as normal, then fast travel to Mel Senshir and run to Foe's Hearth to finish the quest. This took me about 5:46, give or take. I think the argument can be made that even on a good day with the normal movement, the back way is faster, even if only 15-20 seconds saved.

The only other test would be running backwards from Balor's Crossing to Foe's Hearth, I just did a quick test, normal way of Mel > Foe's is 1:19, from Balor's > Foe's is 1:28.. so going from Mel > Foe's is still faster. Ideally you don't want to fast travel to Mel Senshir twice, because you load inside and have to run out. So you wouldn't want to run to Foe's Hearth first, then back to Mel and then to Alfar Camp.

Alright, the other movement tech we can work on is stuff in early parts of the run like we were talking about on stream.

Again, this is not adding in cutscenes, fights, and other impacts, this timing was trying to be as pure as possible with movement timing only, subtracting anything else. I also made sure to run to basically where the towers were and teleport out in each of the 3 tower locations too, just to be accurate.

__Something most of us already do: __ When you discover a location, it is sometimes faster to immediately open the map and fast-travel to it. This is often faster than just running to it. These moments are the perfect time to go and get Ysa buffs, since we're fast-traveling anyway! Here are a few (not all, there are probably more) where we can do it. Cair Nyralim, Rathir, Emaire (possibly), Adessa, Mel Senshir, Camp Ariad (possibly), Bhaile.

Here's a new one that no one does yet: If you go and discover Mel Senshir -right- after Urul Tusk, you can skip Tilera's Rathir dialogue because she is still at Urul Tusk (you are still able to go and convince Elund, and get to Mel Senshir without talking to Tilera in Rathir). Then, once you discover Mel Senshir, just warp to Rundamir and continue to Detyre as usual. You are now able to squeeze in a Mel Senshir trip for early EDP at your convenience... after Saltwell, or right before Octienne, whenever you like. So we essentially do the Rathir-Ferry-Mel Senshir stuff earlier in the run, which we have to do anyway. This saves time because we skip Tilera's dialogue, and it gives us a chance to do the fast travel exploit at Mel Senshir, and it gives us the chance to get early access to the weapons seller there if you have the cash, which can speed up Octienne etc.

This one I think saves a few seconds: As soon as you get to Dannestar island, run toward the tower door. That hits the door unlock trigger timing early. It also lets the Laz group up behind you so that you can kill them easier. By the time you kill them, the tower door will be unlocked without any need to wait for Alyn.

Some new stuff:

When you run to Tam's Wagon, normally we would run forward and grab the stone on the left and continue to Gloam Thicket, however I tested doubling back and running down the hill behind Tam's Wagon, and running across to Gloam Thicket, it saves about ten seconds this way. There is also a cave that is discovered called Lucky Mine, which will compensate the exp in part over not getting the stone.

One could decide to get the stone later during the Windstone quest, but it's probably going to be a time loss.

Also I have toyed with the concept of killing the Fae meditating around the tree in the cradle of summer vs using our Fate on the mob to the right of the main path after Emaire. 1. this would be faster, 2. we would probably have the Fate meter full, 3. the exp amount needs to be tested, and drops from the Fae would not happen, or provide Fate? I am not fully sure. Can someone confirm like 6oliath?

There is also a stone in the center of the area we never get which could also provide exp here, we usually only grab 2, one off the ledge, and one in front of Urul-Tusk, this could also boost exp if the Fae provide less than the normal way. Or just provide more exp period.

The draw back is the Windstone order, you wouldn't have fate for Gloamthicket, so you would probably want to do Tam's Wagon, then Gloamthicket, pop fate, then do Helmguard and Emaire like normal for fate order, afaik it should work, and you can kill mobs otw at Tam's for a little more fate fill if you feel the need.

Tam's: great find. I think we can forfeit the stone as long as we can still hit level 5 after Wyl's lockpick quest in Rathir.

Another idea, we could just forego Tam's altogether and get the other location if it's close by. Could be worth a look.

In the cradle of summer, the fae yoga session there is very good for exp but I'm almost certain they never drop anything, let alone Essence of Fate, even in Reckoning mode. I have used this spot for backup exp if I get a bad spawn like brownies outside of Emaire 1. The lodestone and "The Deep Slumber" location discovery provide even more exp.

I have some ideas about the Windstones too.

Right now we do Gloam, Tam, Helm, Emaire. What if we instead did Emaire, Tam, Helm, Gloam?

At the Emaire stone, if you are short on fate you can kill the small enemies on the way there. Then, Reckoning gets us two hunters and two lanaeshes, and maybe whatever else spawns there.

At the Tam's windstone, if we travel to the cave instead of to Tam's, there are some kill options en route to the bell.

Then if we are still behind on exp or essence for whatever reason, on the final windstone at Gloam it's possible to lure enemies (Bolgans sometimes spawn nearby) to Reckon them too.