Ray In Blue

Nessy Hunting - Haunted Week only

2011-04-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

Dear agents,

Yesterday I promised to share you some tips of Nessy Hunting you can utilize in this Haunted Week. Of course there are several ways you might think of, including the normal one that is focused on Nessy-only ghosts. If you haven't read my previous posts about basic Nessy Hunting, you can refer to this post and other posts in Nessy Reservation series to flourish your knowledge even more.

WHO

Okay let's start by the most important thing. The ones that actually will make the difference are these duo Haunting temptress ghost & Widow temptress ghost.

You might think that they are just 'additional Nessy providers' that reveal themselves in Haunted Week. Wrong. They should be the main targets if one wants to farm Nessy even more. Previously, I've said I've gained about 2000 Nessy during this HW only, and most of them are dropped by the temptresses. Okay, but how is this true ?

First, they are party ghosts, which can be attracted by mocktails. And they are anti-raw in the sense that only your mystic value counts. So you can use mocktails with mystic setup to catch them and hope that they will drop Nessy, that's the basic.

For the mystic setup, I've found that there is a "Mystic Cap". Clearly, 100 mystic doesn't mean perfect catch rates for non anti-mystic ghosts as I've tried it myself and there are a lot of stories going out in the forum regarding the same topic. There have been a lot of theories suggested , but what I can see from my previous data (where mystic > 85), the 'cap' is about 80 - 85%, and thus you don't need to really push the mystic after that point, and you can try to maximize loot / attraction instead.

Now, there are different mocktails to use, but I found this interesting occurrence from my data while hunting with Devil Driver(DD) and some midnight attraction outside midnight time : "The rate of Widow temptress (compared to midnight ghosts only) is higher 5 to 10% then the rate of Haunting temptress (compared to non-midnight ghosts only)". It means that more midnight attraction (MA) is better, especially enhanced by the fact that midnight ghosts have a slightly higher chance to drop loots. It's then quite natural to use Iron Maiden/MAC (7%) or Magic Maze/CW (5%) but personally I prefer the first setup (infernal one) since even without a loot contract, the Nessy is coming in an unbelievable rate; and I get extra 5 mystic ad 2% midnight attraction at the same time. Also don't forget attraction does matter. Bait such as Green Goddess / Devil Driver and additional attraction will definitely improve your rate. In this case you can use the modified arcane setup Magic Maze/MBS (1%) for extra 2 attractions.

Depend on baits, we will have different setup (provided that you equip Mighty Chrono Crystal and Cosmic Agent) :

Normal Mocktails

Iron Maiden / Black Dragon's Breath (BDB) / -3 min companion / MAC

Magic Maze / BDB / -3 min companion / MBS

Amber Dragon Whelp is the suggested companion for its mystic, although Icy Whelp Dragon is the best for its loot and +2 attraction; only if you have one.

If you don't have Ice Crystal -> use -2 min mocktail, Midnight rider will be a good choice for its MA and 5 mystic. You can use black widow instead.

If you have Ice Crystal -> use -1 min mocktail (Frozen mist or Midnight smash, again for its MA)

You can also try Green Goddess for a 3 min cooldown (or 2.5 if you've finished your tombstone collection), sacrifice a bit of t/sc to attraction.

DD / Night cap/Corpse reviver

The baits here are -3 min ones, so now we need to think about the companion we should use.

If you don't have Ice Crystal -> use either Wax Pyramid (WP) / -3 min companion or BDB / -2 min companion

If you have Ice Crystal -> use either WP / -2 min companion or BDB / -1 min companion

If possible try to use WP for its additional 5 mystic compared to BDB, and 5 more MA.

Of course Devil driver is a better choice, it has the best attraction afterall. I've been researching the rate of DD+1 to DD+5 in R3 (Castle McMahon) and here are the results so far

For those of you having the recipe, mixing Devil Driver with Nessy will still make you more profitable, since the rate of catching them is about 15% (up to 3 times the Nessy ghost's rate). Otherwise you can buy the IG 1s from the Bayoushi shop, and then you can sell your Nessy profit in return.

But nevertheless, if you want the slower-but-steady approach, use the Nightcap instead. Your Nessy will still go up pretty fast compared to normal Nessy hunting.

WHERE

Basically, everywhere in Haunted Week castles except R4. If you've read my previous post, I mentioned that their rate in R4 are very very low. Some of you may have noticed this anomaly. So just do the trick in the highest region available for you to maximize your exp/money intake.

Try this, and be rejoiced, enjoy the remaining of your Haunted Week stocking your Nessy ! :)

HAUNTED WEEK VI - EXCLUSIVE

2011-04-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

Dear agents,

I'm back after getting haunted with my final year projects to share some updated and exclusive info about Haunted Week VI, I hope this will make up for my long absence !

So, here's the outline :

- What's new on HW VI ?

- Naughty she-devil ghost anomaly

- Haunting/Widow temptress ghost anomaly

- What to do for the remaining days of HW VI ?

- Nessy hunting tips-HW only

What's new on HW VI ?

Okay, most of you should have known these, but let me do a quick review plus some additional tips. First, we now have an incredible infernal mystic trap called the "Iron Maiden".

Equipping this with MAC (Mr. Alistair Crow), gives you a total of 50 mystic, -4 min, 7% midnight att. Compare this to our favourite Arcane-mystic setup MM/CW which gives 45 mystic, -4 min, 5% midnight att, x1.5 loot. Although lacking on loot, the new infernal-mystic setup has 5 extra mystic and 2% extra midnight attraction. And what makes it better is the 150 raw which provides more than enough raw to catch seasonal ghosts (you must use BDB for the arcane-mystic setup in order to catch the seasonal ghosts, but you can use Wax Pyramid for this infernal-mystic setup to get more midnight attraction !). Believe me, even with the lower loot multiplier, I caught a lot of Haunting/Widow temptress ghost which already dropped more than a thousand Nessy in total, but let's save the detail for later.

And how to obtain this awesome trap ? The new seasonal ghost drops the parts (1/3,2/3,3/3) occasionally, which is why now I want to introduce you to She-devil ghost & Naughty she-devil ghost (the midnight counterpart) !

These are the new seasonal ghosts that I believe all of us have caught them1, especially after the last Saturday mission (15 She-devil, 3 Naughty she-devil) and the finished Common Goal (100k She-devil). They also have the Overdrive-Infernal vulnerability and dropped this new bait called Condensed Halo.

It's natural to use this bait with infernal setup because of its purify stats. But as far as I'm thinking this bait doesn't really appeal for a specific use, so let it be in your inventory in the meantime.

Haunted week means new donation items, here are the three new items for HW VI :

Far better than special little spooky, but my Lightning Dragon Whelp easily beats this. Available for $20 donation.

The cooldown and power bonus is great, better than Emerald Dragon Whelp (not counting attraction). Equipped with Vintages loot hunter and 10% purify bonus, he's very potential for some great augmentations. Of course this one is $100 donation, but don't worry, you can still try to purchase him via Bayoushi shop (9th floor) with 300 Elemental Plasma.

Another $100 donation. This infernal contract is good (for it easily beats Vilevere with -2 min, x2 loot), but not that great. I still prefer my Maya Yendri (+5 raw, -2 min, +5% purify) to focus on raw power.

A minor update, now Screaming Strawberry Juice is dropped by Czar ghost/Ruling Czar ghost in R4, make sure to check it out if you want to hunt in High Security Section more often.

Haunting/Widow temptress ghost anomaly

Your additional source of Nessy for this Haunted Week, since they act like the Nessy-only ghost and you can attract them by mocktails, and thus not wasting any Nessy to get more. The first thing is, DON'T HUNT HAUNTING/WIDOW TEMPTRESS GHOST at R4, since the rate of encountering them is very very low from my observation. Oh, there's another interesting one but I've decided to postpone this topic, and write another blogpost on Friday together with Nessy hunting tips for HW (see below).

Naughty she-devil ghost anomaly

Noticed this anomaly at the previous mission. It's quite simple, THERE'S NO NAUGHTY SHE-DEVIL AT R3. I confirmed this fact by trying taking data with different setup on R3 with a decent midnight attraction (each 10+) and there's not a single Naughty appearing after more than 1k hunts. Easily caught them with the same setup in R4.

What do to for the remaining days of HW VI ?

- TOMBSTONE'S COLLECTION

Firstly, forgive me but I won't include any tips for tombstone here because this is the old stuff from last Haunted Week and I'm only interested in writing new updates. Afterall, you can always find more tips in the Ghost Trappers very own message board http://forum.diviad.com/forum.php, and patience is all you need in completing the collection. Here is the checklist if you haven't finished it yet (not that the regions mentioned below are in HW castles only) :

- Tombstone of the unkown soldier - Infantry ghost/Fighting infantry ghost - R1 (Easy)

- Lord McIngverson's tombstone - The spectre/the hypnotic specter - R1

- Lord McDoyle's tombstone - Lord McDoyle/Crazy Lord MCDoyle - R2

- Lord McMahon's tombstone - Necromancer ghost/Master necromancer ghost - R3

- Lady Katarina's tombstone - Icequeen ghost/Frozen icequeen ghost - R4 (Hard)

My only suggestion for you, is the last tombstone is the hardest (Lady Katarina), and try to use mystic setup + partylicious attraction (I used DD before) to get a better encounter rates. Don't get too focus on the loot before making sure your attraction is high enough.

- IRON MAIDEN + some blueprints/molding halves

Have you got yourself your own Iron Maiden ? Try to not buy it from the store, you'll get a lot of parts by yourself eventually. Molding halves like Pumpkin Candles drops very often and becomes pretty useless. Try to get Magic Maze / Lucky Rabbit parts as much as you can, for it might cost more expensive sometime after Haunted Week when it gets scarcer.

- VINTAGES + MIXERS HUNTING

Definitely a must, besides Condensed Halo, don't forget we also have Pumpkin Punch to farm, the best midnight bait ever (+25), despite its low attraction. Also for the mixers, we have Mystery Milk drops from Czar/Ruling czar and Icequeen/Frozen icequeen. Also the Screaming Strawberry Juice as I've mentioned above. I suggest to farm vintages on R3 or below, and mixers only available at R4. Try to use companion with loot hunters, like Snake or Beaver/Badger (from daily rewards) to get extra vintages each time. Believe me, the loot hunter works like a charm and your vintages stock will be thousands in no time.

- RAINBOW HUNTING

Haunted week means Rainbow/Magic Rainbow ghosts ! And moreover it's Paradise Paradigm buff again (which slightly increases the rates to catch Rainbow ghosts) at the time I write this post. Three of my friends just caught their first Rainbow ghost and three other friends missed, while I haven't attracted once this HW. Anyway don't worry about the bait, I would say maximize your mystic and don't worry about the loot multiplier since the catch comes with the loot each time.

Let the hunt of luck begin !

- HW-ONLY GHOST PHOTOS

Complete your ghost photos. The hardest ones should be Eastern champion/Underdog ghost in R4, since they are anti-mystic so you must use high raw setup to successfully catch them.

Have you got their photos ?

- NESSY HUNTING

Arguably the most important thing you need to do in this Haunted Week. Why ? Because Nessy = $$$, you can always sell Nessy for some big money and you can always farm Nessy anytime. In this HW, lies the secret to farm A LOT, really a lot of Nessy. My Nessy stock has been increasing by around 2000 Nessy from the beginning of HW VI ! But I will only tell you on the next post on Thursday to make it less unspammable. Don't worry I'll be in time, so that you will still have sometime to test it yourself =)

For now, enjoy your Haunted Week, goodluck in catching the Rainbows and see you in the next post !!

Weekly Issue 17March2011 - St. Patrick's Day

2011-03-17T01:34:00.000-07:00

Hi agents,

Today is St. Patrick's Day and that means St Patrick's Ghosts are back to town !

As most of you are aware, there have been some interesting updates related to the newly introduced attribute Leprechaun's Luck (LL).

Basically it's similar to Overdrive, but regardless the type of mechanism you're using. In other words, you have a slight chance of getting an 'Overdrive' (reset your CD to 3 second) after successfully catching a ghost. Here are the things that now possess LL attribute :

Leprechaun

Now, Leprechaun got +3% LL additional stats !

Pot of Gold & Rainbow Pot of Gold (New Items !)

The new drop from St. Patrick's ghost, Pot of Gold, with +2% LL. For donators, there is the upgraded version; Rainbow Pot of Gold, with +5% LL.

Lucky Punch (New Mocktail !)

DESCRIPTION - The lucky punch is a mocktail that radiates pure luck to those who even touch the glass.

A new recipe that is currently available only from donating $10, you can see the stats below.

To mix, combine 2 SilverStarGreen + 4 Widow Tears for 2 Lucky Punch or 2 Nessy + 4 Widow Tears for 4 Lucky Punch.

Lucky Agent ID

Available after donating for Leprechaun / Rainbow Pot of Gold; adding another +1% LL (unfortunately they don't give the ID to agents already buying Leprechaun before this new update)

Personal Suggestion

I don't see Rainbow Pot of Gold worth buying if you already have Pot of Gold, just imagine $20 for an additional of 3 LL, which is not sigifnicant at all..

Lucky Punch is actually a good all-round recipe although compared to Black Widow, it's overwhelmed almost in all aspects except the 5% XP bonus and the 2% LL stats. Nevertheless, if you're too lazy to go back to R2 to farm Midnight Apple Juice for Black Widow, you might want to buy Lucky Punch's recipe instead.

Most importantly, as St Patrick's ghost is seasonal, don't forget to hunt them 'till u get the Pot of Gold and the Souvenir : Four-Leaf Clover. But honestly, they are just too common, I've caught around 90+ of them so it shouldn't be hard for you to get both in time. And try to reduce your midnight attraction, since he doesn't seem to appear at midnight time (from my observation and others in forum).

4 in a row, with Glengreen !

Side Note about LL

If you are curious in understanding how LL affects your t/sc, just use this simple formula to get the new expected t/sc (assuming you catch 100% of the ghosts) -> (Normal t/sc in second * (100-LL) + 3 ssecond * LL ) / 100

For instance, if your t/sc is 2 minute and you have 5 LL, you can expect your new t/sc to be around (120*95+3*5)/100 = 114.15 second, around 1.9 minute.

Before ending this post, you might have seen the announcement that Haunted Week VI is coming soon (see here if you haven't). I'll try to make some guide on what you can do on this HW, including the souvenirs later on, so stay tuned for my next post and happy hunting !!

Weekly Issue 18Feb2011 - Forensic is back !

2011-02-17T09:34:00.000-08:00

Dear agents,

I've been quite busy these days and hardly find time to write and research something about GT, but hopefully from now on I can steadily write something weekly.

And sorry for the long wait, I'll continue the "All About Companion" series as soon as possible.

So let's start with some recent updates/news since my last post :

-> Deaugmentator now costs 300 badges instead of 200 (oh man it hurts !)

-> Now we have some new possible augmentations, which are -3 monsterslayer, +3% Purify, and new Loot Hunter : Jurassic Plasma (+1), Screaming Strawberry (+3), and Lucid Lemonade (+3)

-> We just have experienced Valentine day with the arrival of Valentine ghost which drops SSP and also the new buffed little cupid (from $20 donation). Behold, the new king of midnight attraction (10%) !!

-> Now to the main issue. Forensic ghost, as I've mentioned in my previoust post here, didn't drop CCF. But it turns out after the lastest forensic thread here, an agent reported it to the Dev and they managed to make Forensic drops the CCF again. This is a post from a friend of mine just after the fix

‎18th of February 2011, 01:24

You have successfully trapped a Forensic ghost. The reward for this ghost is 4370 £ and 963 experience points. Furthermore, this ghost dropped some loot:

1 x Chrono Crystal fragment

Now this is a quite important update that you need to know. Currently, some people prefer hunting CCF in Count Church (from Poltergeist and Viking) since only Stagecoach who is the only ghost that practically drops the fragments in Morgue. But as what it is now, Kirkyard Morgue will be your CCF warehouse, especially if you're farming for Chrono Dragon Whelp =)

Forensic is back with the CCF !

Let me share a great 2 min setup for CCF hunting in Morgue :

Scarecrow - Neon Light - Nightcap - Spider (or special) - SHQ - MCC - Cosmic/Devoted ID (or chance Cosmic to Twilight if using special spider)

This setup is better than DM - LS, since you don't need to put an anti-burner / ghost puzzler in your setup while having the same cooldown. Don't forget you also get the "Silver Rain" (50% exp) from Forensic ghost occasionaly by using Traditional trap !

And that will be all for today, see you next week on the same channel !

All about companion - Part 2 : Augmentations

2011-01-24T03:06:00.000-08:00

Hi agents,

It's been 2 weeks since I'm away, so take a deep breath and hope you enjoy this one =)

Previously on All about companion (Part 1 : Leveling), I have discussed some important tips and trick about companion levelling. Afterall, levelling isn't just for improving the stats. When your companion reaches level 5, it's ready to be augmented. For every pet, you're given 3 slots for augmentation, each with either 50 Ghost Plasmas or 1000 Nessy's Golden Reserve.

Before proceeding, as promised, here are the augmentations of my Emerald Dragon Whelp (Ravi, Uchiha Sasuke, and Easton guessed them right)

Do you think it's awesome ? Why ?

A good augmentation is one that suits the original stats of your companion. As with my EDW, extra 2 to 5 raws, and -30 sec to 3 min are really the proper upgrades.

Don't get mistaken, augmentation IS NOT a double-edged sword. Obviously good augmentation would have significant effect to your pet. Yet a bad augmentation is really just a bad augmentation. It doesn't make your pet worse. It just looks bad, like a collection of fruit juices with a bottle of a sour lemon in between.

And so here is the list of the augmentations, grouped in accordance to my personal categories =)

Any companions would be happy to have this

The currency, of course. Once you got one of the above, it means no more deaugmentations.

The all-rounder

Though -30 sec seems one level above midnight attraction, sometimes it's not always preferable. It's always not bad to have the anti-burner and loot multiplier on the stock.

The situational

Attraction ? It's good on those who got attraction on the stats initially, like my Icy Whelp on the last picture below. Otherwise it could somewhat disrupt the role of your pet. One example is when you use Snake in hunting the blue bottles from Poltergeist in Count Church, while using SSG, you should keep it low right ? Mystic and Raw are really situational. You don't want mystic on Kelpie and raw on Cu sith. But it's good if it fits like my Emerald above. Malty Mist is the least preferable within this category, even having +3 doesn't mean that much.

The elite drinks

Self explanatory. Nessy and Nightcap, very useful in any way.

The trio

The juices ! You'll need these sometimes.

The useful ones

Vintages are good. Having this turns your Cu Sith to half Snake. It helps you on getting more of the special baits like Devil Driver or seasonal baits such as Pumpkin Punch. Widow Tears ? Look carefully at the products : Braveheart, Frozen Mist and the Corpse Reviver, 3 mocktails with -t/sc. Perfect for monster hunting companions as you'll get a lot of those bottles.

The remaining..

Black Tartan ? Please, dude. It really needs some improvement in the future.

Almost in every condition, a suffering ?

Except if your companion is a exp/money machine. But still, you can get a better one, can't you ?

FYI, all the augmentations are repeatable (it means you can get more than once with the same companion) except for the loot hunter.

The best thing now is we have the chance to redo our augment, a. k. a. DE-AUGMENT. Thanks to the constant whining and Andi for finally giving up and making the.change =p. The deaugmentator is available via Badges (another new currency you should know by now) for 300 each, or $20 donation for 5 chances. Yes you will lose all the previous augmentations at once, but if they're all trash you'll have no regret.

This changes everything once again, and Ghost Plasma hunting becomes more tense. Thus I'll write something that might help you to get your plasmas ready for augmentation in no time.

To brighten up your days, I'll give two gifts, each consists of 250 Nessy. One for the best augmentation, and also for the worse one. Just message me here with a print screen of your companion in your GT profile (just to make sure it's yours and not others') just like this format (You might want to resize the view in your browser by holding Ctrl + scrolling up/down to get a fitting print screen)

The winners and some interesting ones will be announced in the next part of this topic, "All about companion - Part 3 : Ghost Plasma hunting"in around 2 weeks time. So you still have some time to raise and augment if you haven't got one =)

That's all folks, see you next post and happy hunting !

EDIT : thanks for someone noting about the new price for deaugmentator =)

All about companion - Part 1 : Levelling

2011-01-10T00:44:00.000-08:00

Hi agents,

I'd like to say thanks to everyone who reads and follows this blog. To start my first post in 2011 and satisfy some of your requests, I've come out an idea to write up about companions.

Ever since companion augmentations was introduced to Ghost Trappers, there has been a lot of motivation in raising a companion until level 5. However some of us might find it hard, have no idea nor patience to do it.

The number of hunts needed are given below :

level 1 level 2 = 500 hunts
level 2 level 3 = 500 hunts
level 3 level 4 = 1500 hunts
level 4 level 5 = 2500 hunts

Thus in total, we need to perform 5000 hunts to complete the task. A lot ? Maybe, but let's take a deeper look to the core.

There are some important points in levelling your companion. First thing is that any of your hunts count, including friend hunts, automatic hunts, and even those end up with 'Failed to Attract' and 'Angel's share'. Taking this into account, I can safely announce that the most important thing in levelling a companion is CD/cooldown time (t/sc). Faster cooldown = more hunts (all hunts counted), makes sense ?

Now that the attribute 'Pet trainer' was known to GT agents, you might think that this will change how you level a companion significantly. The answer is no, not exactly. To illustrate, I'll give a simple example about this issue. (Perhaps you remember my post about how to count your loot multiplier. Now this is just a similar, easier version of that.)

Consider Setup 1 with 2 min cooldown, no pet trainer and Setup 2 with 3 min cooldown, 30% pet trainer. Taking automatic & friend hunts into account,

Setup 1 -> 1 hour = 60/2 (normal) + 3 (1 auto,2 friend) = 33 hunt * 100% exp = 33

Setup 2 -> 1 hour = 60/3 (normal) + 3 (1 auto,2 friend) = 23 hunt * 130% exp = 29.9

And thus the winner is Setup 1 !

But it doesn't mean lower cooldown is better all the time. Consider Setup 3 with 5 min cooldown, no pet trainer and Setup 4 with 6 min cooldown, 30% pet trainer. Now perform the same counting method,

Setup 3 -> 1 hour = 60/5 + 3 = 15 hunt* 100% exp = 15

Setup 4 -> 1hour = 60/6 + 3 = 13 hunt * 130% exp = 16.9

The winner here is Setup 4, which have longer cooldown !

You see that it really depends on both aspects, so calculate yours wisely !

-Some terms that will be used-

Fake-raw setup : using a raw setup whose raw is deliberately set lower than the raw needed to catch some/all ghosts in that area
Very low-mystic setup : as the name suggests, using a setup with very low or even zero mystic

Provided these knowledge, let's see what you can do to optimize your "companion levelling setup" for each type of traps to the max. Note that Mighty Chrono Crystal (-2 t/sc) and Cosmic Agent (-1 t/sc) is a must to own before thinking of doing these tricks (Keep in mind we have a start CD of 12 min now). Most of the non-donators setup mentioned would be without Pet trainer contracts since most of them have no reduced CD (except The Chairman).

Mechanism : Magic Maze ( -2 t/sc)
Magic Circle : BDB (-1 t/sc)
Bait : Nessy (-5 t/sc)
Contract : CW (-2 t/sc)
It's natural to use Nessy as Arcane's strong point is high mystic. This setup is already a well defined 2 min setup.

Mechanism : Lucky Rabbit ?
Contract : EPH (-2 t/sc)

Using bio is not really a smart move. Bio setup is meant for hunting Monster ghost, so the best option possible is to use Lucky Rabbit + EPH + Nessy + BDB to reach a CD of 4 min (not counting companion). You can use those with high loot multiplier such as Pixie/Lepre as it synchronizes well to rob as much loot as possible from those Monsters.

Mechanism : Addictive PC Game / Slapping Machine (-2 t/sc)
Magic Circle : Lava Lamp / Neon Light (-2 t/sc)
Contract : Nurse Chapham / PAZ (-2 t/sc)

We already have a CD of 6 minutes without counting bait and companions at the moment. This is the easiest way to use a very low-mystic,fake-raw setup since by its nature, high tech mechanism lacks of mystic power. For instance, you might want to use Nightcap + PAZ around R4, in which your raw is greatly insufficient but you'll catch some from your additional mystic only. If you think about it, there's even a naive way of using Nessy + any companion to reach 2 min and make sure you use Nurse to prevent any ghosts from drinking your Nessy; you'll earn no exp and money though in return. And of course you can upgrade your contract to BDH (-3 t/sc) for a faster alternative and extra loot multiplier.

Mechanism : Timewarper / Danse Macabre (-2 t/sc)

Magic Circle : Lava Lamp / Neon Light (-2 t/sc)
Contract : Selena Darkblade (-2 t/sc)

The fastest type of setup we have at the moment. By upgrading your mechanism to Timewarper Platinum Edition (-3 t/sc) and contract to SHQ (-3 t/sc), you reach an awesome CD of 4 minutes without even counting bait and companions. It means you just need to reduce only 2 more min to get the minimal CD ! One notable setup is by using Danse + Neon in Cemetery/Morgue, you will have 100% rate of catching Witch and Stagecoach ghost (while hardly catching other ghosts) to fill up your GP & CCF stock quickly.

ONLY FOR DONATORS
You might have the Ice Crystal (-1 t/sc) at the moment, so you can reach 2 min cooldown even by using some Pet Trainer contract. For instance, you can modify CW -> The Chairman if you're using the arcane setup or Traditional setup with Silverstar Purple + a special incubated companion to farm a lot of GTP while levelling. And if you have some donated companions, at least you'll have another reduced time of 1 min, so things are getting more flexible for you to modify your contract. Some of you might even have Peter's Plasma crunchies for additional pet trainer attribute but personally I don't think it's worthy enough to spend $20 just for levelling a companion.

If you can reach 2 min cooldown while training your companions, let's see how long it takes to raise one companion. Assuming you actively hunt about 200 per day + (2-3)*24(auto+friend hunts) means about 250-300 per day. Your beloved companions will grow up from zero to max in about 2-3 weeks. Not to mention if you can hunt more than 400 daily or if you have non-donator Whelps, you can do the same thing as changing your contract to those with Pet trainer attribute, and it will be even faster than that.

You see all the possibilities, and I'm sure you can decide yourself what's best for your current condition given these hints. Of course the next thing to do after your companion reach level 5 is to augment them, but I will pause for a moment now. Will resume this issue in the next part of "All about companion - Part 2 : Augmentations" about 2 weeks from now since I'll be having some business abroad until 20.

A bit teaser. Below is an edited picture of full-augmented Emerald Whelp Dragon, one of the best augmentations I've had so far.

Can you guess what are the 3 augmentations ? I'll give the choice of 50 Nessy's Golden Reserve or 1 million GTP for anyone answering correctly. Just mention your answer and facebook profile in the comment box below. I'll put the original picture in the next post for proof =)

Thanks for reading and happy trapping !

Celebration Week II.. and more

2010-12-30T11:22:00.000-08:00

First of all, I am sorry to not post anything for a while since I've been in my holiday, until now. However, with a decent connection at my hand at the moment, I can't stop to start writing =p

Official Celeberation Week II flyer

Enhanced by the issues swirling around, you might find the current Celebration Week II isn't really satisfying. Perhaps we should see once again what Andi said previously regarding the event itself.

-------------------------------------------------

November 11th - Things to come in GT

Dear agents,

I was asked a few days ago if I could give a little preview of what to expect in GT the coming months. Here is a little roadmap that can of course change anytime.

First of all you should know that after two years we will have a vacation over the festive days. However, since Michael and me will stay in Munich, we can still release stuff. The other guys should be back on January 7th 2011. I hope you understand.

We will have "Celebration week II" from December 22nd to January 2nd, which includes Michael's birthday, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and the second anniversay of GT. Yes yes, presents for everyone.

After that we are trying to open up the third location in Lothian, the "Crows Hill sanatarium", an asylum which Daniel is already working on. It will have three tracts that need keys to be accessible. You can find the 3rd diary page of The Black Knight there.

After that we want to do a few little things such as a new collection for the midnight horror ghosts (Freddie, Jason, Jigsaw etc.), introducing a unique reward for the 10 agents who contributed most to the common goal, and items that can be looted when assisting others in trapping monsters.

Speaking of monsters, there will soon be a new stat called "Monsterslayer" that .. well .. you'll see.

As you know Facebook has disabled the profile tabs. We plan on bringing them back and make them accessible via the team tab.

Since you liked the Dino raid we will do something whacky again for the R4 raiding location.

Then it will be time for Region 5 "Central". Do you want 4 castles or 3 castles with floors and keys? Your choice.

The big thing in "Central" will be the opening of the training room, which will be a (very easy) talent tree system for those of you who know what that means.

And that was the preview.

-------------------------------------------------

December 21st – Celebration week II has begun!

Dear agents,

first of all the most important thing: Merry Christmas to you and your families!

From December 22nd to January 2nd we will celebrate these festive days with all of you.

You can expect a few special ghosts, starting today with the Michael ghost, and then you will see what gosts come out on Christmas eve, New Year's day, and the Second GT anniversary. Expect a long post from me on that dax.

Of course you can expect presents on Christmas and our anniversay, so make sure you log in.

Donators will get 10% more Nessy's and we included two new items, the Snow Dragon Whelp and the Ice Crystal, a cool item for monster trappers that also makes your Chrono Crystal recharge every 30 minutes instead of 45 minutes!
. Also we added the fourth gift ghost, the Christmas Elf Ghost, that you can send to your friends. Isn't that the perfect Christmas gift?

We didn't do a common goal this week on purpose because we didn't want it to interfere with the snow in the GT header.

Now we go back to the last two weeks of our vacation and then we will open the third location in Lothian as fast as possible.

Again, merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

-------------------------------------------------

Let's sum up what have we gotten so far during Celebration Week II !

Michael ghost and his laptop

Santa ghost and his wrapped present

Michael ghost has strayed around for more than 2 days so most agents should have received the 'Laptop', but people has complained about Santa ghost staying for only 1 day, and some of us can hardly hunt often enough to encounter Santa during the holiday, let alone to get the 'Wrapped Present'.

It seems that the Dev has made it hard for us to complete one of the best collections so far : Four Seasons Collection. Nevertheless, Andi mentioned it clearly that the crew (or most of them) went for their holiday and thus, can't be on the spot to fix anything that might need to be fixed. Whether this phenomenon is a bug or a deliberate action, nothing we can do to get that particular souvenir at the moment (if unfortunately, you haven't) unless we wait for one more year.

For donators or those considering to donate, we are provided one step ahead for a better setup

The Ice crystal, a temptation

Equipped with 1 more permanent decrease on the cooldown, it's much more easier now to retain the 2 min cooldown even if we're using baits without t/sc buff. So far, the ice crystal has not released on the Bayoushi shop yet (or maybe never), so donating for this item does make a difference. And don't ask me, I grabbed it within my first sight.

The new whelp, snow dragon

Personally I don't have any problem in slaying ghost monsters, even the most epic ones. Hence I still prefer to use Amber dragon whelp than the new whelp. Augmentations can make difference, but yeah, $100 is far too much this time.

What remains ?

Important things come first : the seasonal souvenir. You don't wanna miss it again if you happen to have the same problem mentioned above.

- New Year's ghost with his Explosives, expect his arrival on 31 Dec - 1 Jan (this is one of the Four Seasons Collection, expect a short 1 day trip just like the Santa ghost)

- Anniversary ghost with his Badge, expect his arrival on 2 Jan

Don't forget about the new present on Anniversary for all agents.

There had been a massive updates on first Celebration Week last year, including "anti-burner" and "midnight attraction" (you can see the details here). And therefore as also adverted on the flyer, expect more surprises to come ! GT Anniversary (2 Jan) is my best bet if there will be any.

What more to expect ?

For veteran agents waiting for the latest location, we will have the "Crows Hill Sanatarium" unleashed shortly after the event finished. Save your bucks for the latest traps and try to obtain "The Diary of Black Knight" as the 3rd page will be coming with the new place.

For you regular raiders, Andi mentioned something about the whole new raid on R4. Please don't add anything from there to the raid collection ^^"

And afterwards we're going to witness the opening of R5, Central and what keeps my interest high until this point, the Training Room. Specialization of trappers ? Really can't wait.

Last but not least, Happy New Year for every agents and wish you all the best for the upcoming years ! =)

So see you in my first post in 2011 & happy hunting !!

The Essence of Nessy Hunting

2010-12-19T03:21:00.000-08:00

Hi agents,

As promised, in this post I'll tell you some exclusive info you might never observe so detailed before, be ready folks !

Have you tried hunting with Nessy before ? If yes, did you get profit ? Or the other way around ?

The golden rule to Nessy hunting is you must use mystic setup. Thanks to latest updates from the GT Dev, we now have two ultimate traps for mystic setup, either with Magic Maze (MM) or Lucky Rabbit (LR). Moreover, we also have some possible choices of great magic circles, Wax Pyramids (WP) or Black Dragon's Breath (BDB). While there is Countess Wilhelmina (CW) in the Arcane side, Bio side will count on their new reinforcement contract Etain, Pict Huntress (EPH). I won't go through the details, so if you never hear some of the terms mentioned above (or below), please visit http://wiki.ghost-trappers.com/wiki/Main_Page for more complete explanations.

And so, I've been collecting data over 5000 ghosts while using Nessy with different attractions, setups, and in distinct hunting places. There are some interesting similarities over different sets of data, and I'll try to give the answers to some popular questions based on my findings.

What is the percentage of attracting Nessy-ghosts while using Nessy as bait ?

This, I can say answer precisely : 5%

Please note that it's the total percentage of all five Nessy-ghosts attracted. One of my friend suggests that it comes from 1% for each of 5 Nessy-ghosts (although I never counted them in individually), well that's one good way to think about it. But anyway, 1 out of 20 ghosts ? Very reasonable indeed.

Are you sure ? I can't see any of them in my last 40 hunts !

Stay on your knees. I've been worse (81 hunts, my record). But fter thousands of hunting those myth creatures and keeping track of the data., I realize the number always converges to 5% in the long run. Do you have the same problem as above ? Don't worry, it means you'll get some soon, just be patient, and your time will come.

The Myth 5

What is the base multiplier of a Nessy-ghost to drop Nessy ?

This will be less accurate, since the number of Nessy-ghosts caught is only hundreds, but the data says it's about 15%

And what does this mean ? Suppose you have Ghost Seal / Countess Wilhelmina / Twilight / Witch Cauldron / Mini mocktail collection for a x3 loot multplier (don't know how to count ? see my previous post). It means now you have 45% chance for the Nessy-ghosts to drop the yellow bottles if you manage to catch them. Of course their midnight counterparts will have better chance of dropping, so if you use the Arcane setup (with at least 10% midnight thanks to WP and CW) your have a slightly higher chance.

One warning though, I sense a cap on the final drop percentage (the rate while I was using Leprechaun is less from what it should be), so using Seal/Goat will be a better way to do it. And remember, choose your hunting places wisely depends on your available areas, especially those with more Mystic-resistant ghosts.

Is the last thing mentioned really useful ?
Common sense. When you hunt with Nessy, you don't only catch Nessy-ghosts. In fact, most of the time (95% to be exact), you'll attract other ghosts and throw away your Nessy by catching them. So more mystic resistant ghosts means you won't be able to catch those (thanks to near-zero raw) and eventually will reduce that 95% down to as low as 60% if you choose the correct hunting place.

How is this gonna makes profit in my Nessy hunting ?

Now this is quite important. Assume that you use the arcane setup with those loot multipliers I mentioned just now, from which we have at least 75 mystic.

From 1000 ghosts, we will attract 5%*1000 = 50 Nessy-ghosts.

From 50 Nessy-ghosts, we will catch 75%*50 = 37.5 Nessy-ghosts.

And let's say 30% are mystic resistant ghosts, so we will catch 75%*(100%-30%)*1000 = 525 ghosts.

We can get an average of 30 Nessy per drop (I have another separate data to back up this), and since we're using Ghost Seal, it's 40 Nessy per drop.

Thus from 37.5 Nessy-ghosts, we will get 45%*37.5*40 = 675 Nessy.

We get a profit of 150 Nessy, more than enough !!

Oh in fact the mystic won't affect whether you'll profit or not, but more mystic means more profit. This includes some algebraic stuff, so I try not to go further.

Does additional attraction affects the rate of attracting them ?

So far no significant effects detected by adding attraction (even +3), so don't bother to maximize attraction instead of mystic or loot multiplier. It does affects the distribution for the normal ghosts though, you will attract the rarer ones more often. Haven't checked the effect of using Nessy PE though, I'll do the research when I have enough to spend freely ^^"

Seems doubtful for me..

No forces in the world can convince you my friend. If you believe and wanna try, that's good. Otherwise, you can stick to your personal plan. Just remember this is a long run effort, not short trial and error. And longer cool down means you have to wait longer for the same amount of ghosts to be caught (I hate waiting thus my personal favorite is Arcane setup).

Now that you own the extra knowledge, I'll be glad to hear any good news from you =)

Last question, what to expect for Celebration Weeks ?

Whoops, that's out of topic for today's edition, but I definitely gonna post something about it soon (coz I'm gonna have to face my last paper on 21..) So see you in my next post, thanks for reading and happy hunting !

Misc 2 - Optimal Loot Multiplier & Raw Manipulation

2010-12-15T07:10:00.000-08:00

Hi agents,

Today I'll give you a short tutorial on how to count your loot multiplier wisely. This might be useful for your knowledge especially that Celebration Week 2 is coming and definitely you want to get the most out of the event.

To count your loot multiplier (not official, but at least the way most agents do) is by adding 1 (base multiplier) to the bonus multiplier. For example if you have Pixe (x2.5 = +150%) + Countess Wilhelmina (x1.5 = +50%), you have a loot multiplier of 1+150%+50% = 3. Basically, an additional stacking.

Now, talking about maximizing loot multiplier, some people said just max your loot, others suggested to lower your t/sc, but mathematically both are not quite correct. It should be the combination of both, of what I call optimal loot multiplier.

Take a look at this particular example. We assume a 8 min traditional setup (without counting companion, contract and ID).

Setup 1 : Leprechaun (-1 min, x2.75), Sir Hyronimus Quartermain (-3 min, x2), Cosmic Agent (-1 min), t/sc = 3 min

Loot multiplier = 1+175%+100% = 3.75

Active hunt = 2 (friend hunt) + 1 (automatic hunt) + 20 (60/3 normal hunt) = 23 hunts in 1 hour.

Optimal loot multiplier (active) = 3.75*23 = 86.25

Passive hunt = 2 (friend hunt) + 1 (automatic hunt) = 3 hunts in 1 hour.

Optimal loot multiplier (passive) = 3.75*3 = 11.25

Setup 2 : Amber dragon whelp (-3 min), Sir Hyronimus Quartermain (-3 min, x2), Twilight ID (x1.5), t/sc = 2 min

Loot multiplier = 1+100%+50% = 2.5

Active hunt = 2 (friend hunt) + 1 (automatic hunt) + 30 (60/2 normal hunt) = 33 hunts in 1 hour.

Optimal loot multiplier (active) = 2.5*33 = 82.5

Passive hunt = 2 (friend hunt) + 1 (automatic hunt) = 3 hunts in 1 hour.

Optimal loot multiplier (passive) = 2.5*3 = 7.5

(Passive means you're afk, Active means you're clicking every time the cooldown reaches 0, both assuming you have lots of friends from different timezone that you're getting one friend hunt every 30 minutes)

The higher the value, means the better your optimal loot multiplier. By optimal, I'm talking about the probability in the long run of you getting a certain loot. Don't talk about luck, I'm not a fans of Gladstone Gander, afterall my motto is quantity > quality =)

PRACTICE

For setup 1, try to change Cosmic Agent to Twilight Agent, call this setup 3.

a) In active hunting, which has better optimal loot multiplier, Setup 1 or 3 ?

b) In passive hunting, which has better optimal loot multiplier, Setup 1 or 3 ?

c) In active hunting, which has better optimal loot multiplier, Setup 2 or 3 ?

You can see the answers in the end of this post, but try counting yourself first.

As you can see in your GT camp, today we have the Ether Distortion buff (see the complete explanation at wiki here), and of course the aim is to get the drop from Ethereal ghost, which is a super rare contract called Ether Guardian (EG).

By super rare, because you must collect all three parts which are available only on this kind of one day buff. And rare means expensive; I've seen my friend sold an EG. 2 for 50 million, yeah that much money. Anyway, the stats are not bad, actually it's pretty cool for midnight hunting while catching ghost monsters, but lacking on t/sc. I'll say it doesn't worth that much money, but it's still an okay contract for me.

Just for your information, the common belief is that the seasonal ghost such as Ethereal ghost itself can be caught more easily with low attraction baits (Silver Star, Moonshadow, etc). Yup, it might be true, but some people wouldn't be able to reach 2 minutes cooldown using those baits. And some people use Nessy because it's kinda balance on the attraction and you can have very low t/sc to catch more ghosts. Another thing is that this ghost can be caught using very low raw (as low as 15-20 I guess), so no matter what your rank is, you can definitely conquer them.

Now, I want to reveal some ideas that my friends and I generate while talking best setup in this particular buff.

Setup 1 : Mystic

Take a look at this setup Magic Maze/Black Dragon's Breath/Nessy/Coutess Wilhelmina/Cosmic Agent/Mighty Chrono Crystal/any -1t/sc companion.

A 2 minute setup with at least 25 raw (from BDB), this setup is a good for hunting nessy while catching the seasonal ghosts. Of course if you want to maximize the loot multiplier, it's natural to use Special Pixie / Leprechaun.

Setup 2 : Fake Raw

There is no specific setup for this, but the point is to use any setup whose raw isn't sufficient to catch any normal ghost in an area. Any normal raw setup should be sufficient to catch seasonal ghosts, and you can use any bait you want. For example, using Nessy and 250 raw setup in Count Church won't get you any normal ghost catches from the raw itself (depends on mystic). Minimizing mystic, lowering t/sc, maximizing loot multi are the next moves you want to think of, and thus you will use your bait mainly (or entirely, if your mystic is 0) for the special ghosts. Of course you will sacrifice some exp/money as much as one day hunting, but you'll save a lot of your baits, especially if you use Nessy.

(Credits to Rudy Kwok for pointing out this tricky setup =p)

You got the idea folks, it's all about manipulating your raw.

To end this post, let me give you some informal proof of the last week's issue about the midnight occurrence of the HeartBreaking Temptress ghost (read it here). My latest data shows this :

SETUP : Magic Maze / Wax Pyramid / Devil Driver / Icy Dragon Whelp / Countess Wilhelmina / Devoted Agent / Mighty Chrono Crystal / Super Jura Atomizer

Non-midnight (91 ghosts) : 1 Succubus (1.1%), 0 Heartbreaking Temptress (0%) !

Midnight (241 ghosts) : 16 Seducing Succubus (6.64%), 16 Heartbreaking Temptress (6.64%)

Note that those are the numbers of ghosts I attracted (not caught). You can see the big difference on the percentage. Althought I didn't continue my findings until attracted at least a single HBT for the non-midnight part, we can safely assume that we can attract her more often on midnight, so you might not want to waste your daylight hunting.

That's all for today. On this Friday/Saturday, I'll post some exclusive info regarding Nessy ghosts so stay tuned for next updates and happy hunting !

*Highlight the row below for the answer of the practice questions*

(Answer for practice, a) setup 1 , b) setup 3, c) setup 2 )

Nessy Reservation 2

2010-12-10T06:04:00.000-08:00

It's been a week and Celebration Week 2 is closer than it looks. You might want to stock some precious baits (including Nessy) before using them intensively during the event. Some of you might also in the rush to obtain your Mighty Chrono Crystal or Dragon Whelps (Amber/Diamond) from Bayoushi Shop to help you in getting low cooldown later on.

Provided that you've read my previous post about Nessy Reservation (if you haven't, please take a look here), I'll try to give a concise intro and more thorough explanations about this topic.

Okay. You must understand that Nessy is not just a special bait. Nessy is a CURRENCY (you can trade those with money). And not just a currency, but also a PROPERTY whose value is rising up as time goes by. I've gone through the moment when Nessy is just 5k per bottle, and now you can see the price is around 30k per bottle, about 6 times more expensive !! Imagine if you need to sell 1600 Nessy for getting Abyssal Phone Booth, now you just need around 270 bottles, and how about a few months from now ?

One of the reasons is this : As the number of GT players are increasing, the demand for Nessy is steadily increasing, while the supply of Nessy doesn't seem to follow. It can be said that there are two main supplier of Nessy in GT : those who smart in managing their Nessy stock, and the other ones are the donators. If you're not one of these people, you will provide more and more money for them as you're keep buying and buying.

Yes you might not need to use Nessy at the moment, but the time will come : special ghosts in common goal buff (need low t/sc and preferably not mocktails), exhibition loots (especially the myth collection), Haunted Weeks ?

Following my previous tips about RAIDING, there's some important info you need to know :

1) To attract 6 minions, you need to use a single Nessy for each of the extra minion (5th and 6th).

2) People normally use Highland Pride (+10 mystic) for Boss, don't waste your Nessy.

3) If you want to save even more, you have the option not to use Nessy at all (given that all 4 first minions are successfully caught, remember Boss will be attracted only if there are at least 4 caught (not attracted) minions). If for some reasons you fail to catch all 4, use as little Nessy as possible to complete the requirement to attract boss (1 if you fail once, 2 if you fail twice).

Let's say the average drop of Nessy for Boss is 15. I'm pretty sure if your team is decent enough (have at least pixie and CW, or maybe twilight ID + the average of total mystic is 70+), you will get one in less than 10 raidings. Thus, a profit even if you used 1 Nessy each time you raid.

Advanced tips : Hunt lots of Ghost Monsters, preferably Cool chimera and above since they drop Nessy once in a while (Tempest Ghostlem drops Nessy PE sometimes too !). I haven't researched about this yet, but as with my experience, you can attract more epic ones using higher attraction baits (Nessy / mocktail).

Now to review the Nessy Reservation process, below is a screenshot of my first savings.

Note that I put 5k bottles into my savings initially from a total of 6367. Then every time I get nessy, I'll save half of them and put the rest into the "Investing part" (remember this is the part which you're free to use) and so on and so forth.

NB : I use excel to take note of my Nessy stock so I can simply write the formula in the "Free to Use" column as Total minus Save (in the respective rows) and update only the Gain and new Total. Also, I formulated so that half of my latest gain will be added automatically to the Save column.

In this situation, of course I ain't in a very strict condition since my Free Nessy is over 1k. In case where you run out of Free Nessy, you can either put your hope from Raiding Bosses or do the following : move some Nessy from Saving to Investing part so that you can start investing and repeat the process.

Advanced tips : While you are trying to invest your Nessy, make sure you have decent mystic (70 or more) and loot multiplier (Pixie/Lepre and Twilight ID). And of course some midnight attraction (Countess Wilhelmina / Wax Pyramid) since midnight ghosts have a greater probability of dropping loots -> or you might want to wait until the midnight itself before using the Investing part.

Of course there's no reason to save your Nessy all the time. If for instance Haunted Week is coming, you can allocate some portion of the Saving part to be used during the event. Or if you need to buy a new trap as soon as possible, you can sell your Nessy (also from the Saving Part) in the tradepost/forum to . Just make sure never use the Nessy from Saving Part directly, that's the main rule.

Overall it seems complicated, but if you're already accustomed to the method, stick to the plan and try to control your Nessy expenditure wisely, your Nessy stock will be literally eternal. Play smart, a bit of melancholist work won't kill you right ? =p

Thanks for reading and happy trapping !

Misc 1 - Stingy Forensic & Heartbreaking 'Midnight Lover ?' Temptress

2010-12-07T23:14:00.000-08:00

Hi GT-ers,

This week I decide to start writing short update about some rumors that have been straying in GT community, some tips that might be proven useful for you, or maybe some issues that I haven't been able to understand yet (and you might experience similar thing, so you're very welcome to share).

Firstly, about Forensic Ghost.

He's available to hunt at both Kirkyard Morgue and Crypt. He's also vulnerable to traditional mechanism (silver rain) so you can possibly gain more exp if you have Danse Macabre on your setup. But the real issue is about the drop. Wiki said he's giving out CCF and Mixers (Kreepy Koko/Widow Tears), while this info somehow has been controversial nowadays. Some people already complained in the forum and I decided to research about this issue.

To be sure, I've been collecting data over 200 caught Forensic and I found out that he dropped no loot at all ! You might say that the probability is small, but his midnight counterpart REALLY DOES drop both CCF and Mixers (and in a considerable amount), so I assumed that the fact is somehow Forensic won't drop anything at all in the meantime. So for anyone hunting CCF in Morgue, you might want to limit your hope only to Stagecoach ghosts (or using some midnight attraction to attract Dark Defender ghost)

The other one is about Heartbreaking Temptress Ghost.

In order to finish my Kiss collection, I still need two more kisses (Pink & Green) from the temptress. Now, the issue I want to bring up is "Why is it easier to encounter her at MIDNIGHT time ?". My data in Castle McKenny (R2.4) shows that I attract 3 out of 180 on daytime (with DD+1), while on midnight I attracted 4 out of 40 (with DD+2) ! The additional attraction might be useful, but shouldn't be very significant and of course I've seen this anomaly happening while hunting RickRoll ghost (which unfortunately isn't included in my current data).

Therefore, I open the room for discussion whether any of you are also experiencing the same issue (just comment below if you want to share something)

Thanks for reading and happy hunting !

Nessy Reservation 1

2010-12-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

Finally, after several weeks of absence, now I return to discuss one interesting issue about Nessy. But first of all, these days in Ghost Trappers had been incredible for me. I completed my myth collection, also I got that Silverstar mini from the Mr. Hard to Encounter - Rick Roll ghost (and surprisingly it wasn't on midnight !).

But one of the greatest feeling is when I got the Devoted Agent ID (combination of Twilight ID x1.5 loot and Cosmic Agent -1 min) on 24th November (2nd common goal that gives this reward).

Recall that it was the spooky ghost hunting, and with some hard core effort and a bit of luck I manage to somehow catch 244 of them, which is sufficient to get into the top 10, which means I'm one of the first 20 agents who got this magnificent ID ! Love how they design and make it catchy as you can see below

Now, a bit intro about the main subject.
Nessy's Golden Reserve (a.k.a. Nessy) is obviously the symbol and leader of all baits in the game. With -5 min t/sc, 5 mystic, 2 malty mist and very high attraction, there's no way you can get your eyes off these yellow bottles.

Oh and don't forget about Nessy's Platinum Edition (a.k.a Nessy PE) which is an excellent upgrade of Nessy. You need extra raw ? Do you need higher mystic ? Do you need higher malty mist to hunt monster while attracting more top tier ones ? Faster cooldown ? Midnight hunting at day ? It has everything you want.

In short, a perfect bait with only one downside : TOO EXPENSIVE ! One of the few ways to obtain it is by donating $10 (to get the recipe and some extra Nessy PE) and then you can start mixing 1 Nessy PE for 3 Nessy. This is considered to be very very expensive by taking the current market price of Nessy which is about 28k -> 1 bottle of Nessy PE = 84k @!#*@(&$(*

You can enjoy exclusive advantages by having a reasonable stock of these baits. In other words, you need to know how to reserve your Nessy's stock wisely ! Below are the steps :

STEP 1 : Have a stock of Nessy !
I recommend that you have at least 50. IF you seriously don't have any, you can ask some of your friends to share a bit.

You know (or maybe not) that you can get drops of Nessy from ghost monsters, but rarely. The better alternatives are Raid Boss and Nessy-only ghost (the famous five : Ghost Nessy, Cu Sith, Kelpie, Selkie, Glaistig). So here is the next important move.

STEP 2 : Start raiding and take note of the amount of Nessy's you have !
The first is clear, you need to start raiding to encounter a raid boss. And so how my plan works ? Start by jotting down the number of Nessy before raid. If the bosses don't drop ones, that's okay, take note the number of Nessy after raid (at most you will use 2 for the extra minion hunts). But if they do, now this how it goes.

STEP 3 : Save and invest ! (This might be a bit complicated so please read carefully)
Let's say you start with A bottle of Nessy, then after one/several days of raiding, one of the bosses drop Nessy, so that now you own B bottles. If B is still less than A, you need to repeat the procedure until B > A. Now, I have a B-A profit which I divide into two parts :

-> Saving part
You save at least 50% of them. For instance if you save X, then your main saving is A+X now (take note of this number).
-> Investing part

You are free to use the rest of the profit, I'll call them "Free Bottles". If you're smart enough, investing is a risky, but smart way to go. 'The famous five' loves Nessy so much that sometimes they will also drop more decent amount of Nessy for you (20-50). If by investing you do get some extra bottles, take not of that number, and repeat this process as much as you want (now A is the number before you get those bottles, and B is after) until you run out of Nessies to use from the investing part.

By investing you might have less profit since you're taking out some of your extra profit. But there's nothing to lose, your income is always positive from the saving part, while you have the chance to gain more.

Let's have a real example of how this works. Let's say Istart with 30 Nessy at first. Then I use 2 Nessy for raiding, and the boss doesn't drop anything. Next day, I use 2 more Nessy for raiding, and now the boss drops 15 Nessy. Now you have B = 41 (30-2-2+15) and A = 30. Now I have 11 profit, and decide to save 6, from which now I have 30+6 = 36 in my savings.

Now, I want to use the remaining 5 bottle, and at the third trial, I get Selkie which drops 30 Nessy. Stop at this point, and now I have 5+30-3 = 27 bottles outside of my savings. Repeat by saving 14 and use the remaining 13 and so on until I run out of free bottles.

This is simply a theory, but you may still have more extensive thinkings/ideas about the process. How if the boss/nessy-ghosts never drop nessies ? How if I want to save / invest more ? I'll continue more on the next session which further goes on to some tricks you can use to improve this method and about chance of getting your nessies back after investing. Thanks for reading and happy trapping !

Novemberthon, SHQ & New Collections

2010-11-13T07:44:00.000-08:00

Finally, we have a mission to complete our SHQ set, and it's Novemberthon ! (Catch 350 ghosts, or 200 for the beginners I supposed). After both SHQ.1 and SHQ.2 were given as rewards for the previous missions, now it's SHQ.3. Obviously, you just need to focus on t/sc for this kind of mission + enough raw to catch all the ghosts or high mystic if you're using mystic setup (not recommended though).

SHQ stats

Just for sharing, my current setup is this 2 min setup : Timewarper Platinum (-3) / Neon Light (-2) / Nightcap (-1) / Chrono Dragon Whelp (-4) / Vilevere (-1) / Twilight ID / Mighty Chrono Crystal (-2) / Witch Cauldron. My progress is 218/350 at the time I wrote this, since I woke up few hours after the mission started, but one of my friend has already finished with another 2 min setup, so it's very achievable, especially if you can push your t/sc below 6 min.

You can see here on my friend's blog for a great explanation about the consequence of having SHQ in your inventory (and more about how you can have a 2 minutes setup in different ways).

Anyway, there are some updates from Andi about what to expect for the next months in Ghost Trappers (see here). In short, now we have two new collections on the exhibitions :

- GBP coin collection, consisting of 1,2,5,10,25 GBP coin which are dropped from the Hidden Treasure vulnerability (see here for details which ghost and what kind of trap u need to use). The effect is +5 loot hunter special edition.

- Stone tablet collection, consisting of Cool chimera, Manticore, Mac Marshmallow, Pegasus, Tempest ghostlem tablet, which I guess haven't been implemented to drop yet. The effect is +5 Monsterslayer. The only explanation I know about this new attribute is from Wiki : "The monsterslayer attribute reduces the amount of friend clicks (assists) that you need to catch a monster ghost / dino ghost monster."

Okay, time for another private showoff. This week I've gotten a reasonable number of loots from the collections, so here they are in order I got them :

Amber

What's strange is recently I've gotten another Amber from the Lost Island, and someone told me that it's possible to get duplicate exhibition drops from raid (he himself has gotten 6 Footprints!, so don't be surprised if this kind of thing happens to one of you.

Highland pride mini

Making it the first for my midnight collection, 4 to go.

Ghost puppy sculpture

I also obtained the Ghost judge sculpture right after this, making it 3/5 for the ghost sculpture collection (2 more haven't been put on the show, so this is everything I can own at the moment)

Fang & Nightcap Mini

Yes, in a very short interval. Clearly, I used nessy and mystic setup while I was getting this one.

Spyglass + loads of Silverstar purples !

Which we've just got about one hour ago in today's raid, I used my snake by the way for an extra of 30 Silverstar purples =) 2/7 for the the raid collection.

Phew.. That's all for today, hopefully next week I can publish something that will interest you, about "Nessy Reservation". So stay tunes with my latest update and happy trapping !

Ether Wormhole 11/11 - Cow hunting

2010-11-11T00:46:00.000-08:00

As you have recognized, the buff "Ether Wormhole" is already active for about 8 hours. For those of you new to this game, it means that we can catch Misty Ethereal ghost which might drop companion called Ethereal Cow (2-10%, +2% midnight attraction, +4 Mystery Milk Loot Hunter -> what else can you expect from a cow ? XD). I've been catching 34 of those (including those caught in the previous Ether Wormholes), still no sign of cow, and yet two of my raid teammate just got theirs few hours ago !

Anyway, my setup now is Magic Maze / Black Dragon's Breath / Nessy / Twilight ID / Leprechaun / Countess Wilhelmina / Witch Cauldron / Mighty Chrono Crystal (+ mini mocktail I and tombstone collection) for 26 raw, 73 mystic, 1.5 minutes in Kirkyard Morgue. While targeting the lowest cooldown, I also aim for the two remaining items for Myth collection (Fang from Cu sith and Horseshoe from Kelpie) plus the Nightcap mini and of course Overdrive vulnerability from Barkepeer ghost.

By the way, after 3 days of lootless experience in Lost Island, my team finally found some light in yesterday's raid

Fossil and 10 GG Purple, not bad. We're still aiming for SHQ.3 though, plus Amber and Little Bronto if possible (we've found Footprint previously).

And so, my current research is postponed until I got the cow or the buff is finished, any of which faster. Let's hunt that cow and happy trapping !

*UPDATE*
I just got mine few minutes ago ! Wish you luck for yours =p

New Common Goal 09/11 & McKenny Statistics

2010-11-09T05:26:00.000-08:00

Hi agents,

The next common goal is up, catch 80k invisible ghosts within 48 hours. For those going to participate, they're available on Castle McWallace (R2.1). For the CCF hunters, they also drop some, so you can help our CG while farming the fragments and patiently waiting for the next buff.

Recently, I said that I'm going to undergo some research about bait attraction. Yup, I've been doing it in distinct places, and the most complete information I got so far is from my tour in McKenny as you can see here in this format

Mc Kenny partial data

There are some interesting things I can derive from this data :

- My midnight attraction is 13, while there are 50 midnight ghosts attracted (yellow cells + seducing succubus) from which we can calculate the percentage of midnight ghosts is 50/360 = 13.89%.

- My mystic is 73, while there are 113 anti mystic ghost attracted (the ones with "AM"). Therefore, the percentage of anti mystic ghosts that is caught is 181/(360-113) = 73.28%

Now, the percentage do makes sense, don't they ? Of course, there are more simultaneous analysis is going on including the loot multiplier & monster ghosts so just keep track with my latest research info.

Last but not least, I'd like to share some of my latest cool catches
Pegasus Feather

Hydra head + extra CCF

Blue kiss after midnight time

The secret recipe for this is Pumpkin Punch, the bait with the mightiest midnight attraction in Ghost Trappers so far (25). Here is the detailed setup : TWPE/NL/PP/Icy/Vile/MCF/Cosmic/Witch (2.5 minutes t/sc and 30 midnight attraction). And thus I've completed 2 kisses on R1 so the next objective would be 3 more in the next regions.

-Progress of the common goal will be updated below-

So far it'ss 50,968 in 26 hours, with the average of 1960.31 ghosts. At this rate, we're going to see the buff around 14-15 hours, so be patient, and keep hunting the invisibles !

End of HW V - Double Surprise

2010-11-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

It was so sudden.. and I'd been transported back to McCloud without notice (they should make some notification so we can prepare next time !).

Anyway, the buff is on and I was wrong, it's not the rainbow buff but the Mysterious Glow which, as we know it, increases the percentage of catching Ghost Nessy by 3% regardless baits we use. Even though the HW was over, we can still enjoy the buff and catching the Guys Fawkes/Vendetta in case you haven't got the Bomb yet. I''ve been using the usual mystic setup at 2 min. (MM/BDB/Nessy/CW/Twilight/MCF) while training my lvl 3 Seal.

Just before the big event were done, I got my 2nd Magic Rainbow ! I'll consider this very lucky since even me didn't believe it is possible before, but now you should know that it is !


1st Magic Rainbow

2nd Magic Rainbow - a surprise

As you can see, I grabbed Nessy for the first and the money for the 2nd (and I guess I'll keep taking the money if I obtain more next time).

Last but not least, I finally reached the highest rank in GT so far, INNER CIRCLE AGENT with 40m exp requirement !

My next plan is doing some research on bait attraction and which bait is better to attract some particular ghosts. The project will start as soon as the buff is done, please share if you've got some ideas related to this issue that might be helpful, thanks and happy hunting !

Guys Fawkes Missing ?

2010-11-05T02:06:00.000-07:00

Just few hours ago, you might notice that you stop catching Guys Fawkes/Vendetta ghost. Moreover, the number of ghost in CG stays the same. The problem's been solved though, and the target is decreased from 250k to 175k, so we should expect the buff coming in around 4-5 hours, I guess.

Anyway, I wanna share some of my cool drops in the meantime :
Nessy, Bomb & Scorpion Sting

Scale

New Common Goal 04/11

2010-11-04T01:08:00.000-07:00

Tasks : Trap 250k Guys Fawkes Ghost
Time : 48 hours

Guess what buff will be given, I bet it'll be the 'rainbow buff' !

47k ghosts have been caught within 7 hours, so I expect we must wait another 30 hours before the common goal is reached, be patient and don't forget to hunt for Phoenix and Bomb =)

Inizio - Haunted Week V

2010-11-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, this is my first Ghost Trappers post in my blog and it's just on the verge of of our beloved event, Haunted Week V. But before everything else, let me introduce my career in GT.

I am a long time-loyal player + constant donator, currently world-ranked at 270 and less than 300k exp to Inner Circle Agent (40m exp). These are my exclusive companions/contracts that has been acquired so far :
By Accident
- Amber Dragon Whelp
Bayoushi Shop
- Diamond Dragon Whelp
Donate
- Chrono Dragon Whelp (latest)
- Icy Dragon Whelp
- Emerald Dragon Whelp
- Leprechaun
- Little Cupid Ghost
- Unicorn
- Little Icebear Ghost
plus of course all 5 special companions from the nessy-only ghost and little t-rex.

Anyway, talking about HW V, I already set some targets to achieve :
- Finishing tombstone collection (done)
- Killer knife (done)
- Catch rainbow/magic rainbow ghost (done, you can see the proof here http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=452457679802&set=a.189253119802.125275.521474802)
- 'Nessy-stealing' from Haunting/Widow Temptress ghost !

Also ,two new things have just been introduced, which is Pumpkin Candles and Pumpkin Punch. The first is a magic circle that has +5MM and 15 mystic, making it an excellent equipment for monster ghost setup (required PC 1/2 and PC 2/2). Both parts drop quite often in any HW castle, so I assume everybody's got this piece of magic. The latter is a low attraction bait with +25 Midnight Attraction (which is really big !), which I've been collecting as much as I can before the event is done (Hint : you can use companions with loot hunter + 10 special bottle)

Yet, I'm still waiting for two things :
- Paradise Paradigm. Yes it's the common goal's buff that gives a slight additional chance of attracting a rainbow ghost for 24 hours. I'm suspecting there will be one in the near future.
- Guys fawkes/Vendetta ghost. The special ghost that comes in every 5th November every year, and additionally it'll drop exhibition loot : Bomb plus Nessy and Phoenix drop ! You don't wanna miss out hunting them !

That's all I can think about for this HW, please share if you've got something different in mind =)

Intro - It's Time To Write

2009-07-13T09:42:00.003-07:00

After months of absence, akhirnya pribadi ini termotivasi untuk memulai kembali "blogging career" yang pernah terbengkalai. Mudah-mudahan content dari blog ini bisa berguna buat saudara-saudari yang membaca. So let's get it started =)