UW/FoW farming, best speed/drops combination?

Hello people.

I am well aware of the many builds out there for farming UW and FoW, however, I never seem to be able to find a good one which balances time taken for a run with a decent amount of foes killed.

I've tried SoS in vairous areas, while it seems strong, it's not terribly fast (at least I think), and it takes a while to rack up a lot of kills.

I've tried D/A (or A/D) for the plains, which is good, but seems very slow, although you do kill a lot of foes, I never seem to have a run faster than 20mins.

I'm also aware that there's a few Dervish builds floating around for spiking the smites (last one I tried was centred around VoStrength).

I've ran SoS on the beach in FoW (spider cave too), which has been the best FoW build i've tried.

I've also tried a forest farming assasin, which has very fast runs, but few foes, just the shepherds (i think :S the lightning eles)

So do you have any opinions as to which is the best expendature of time against amount of foes?

Learn speedclear roles.

Quote: Originally Posted by Calista Blackblood

It is the perfect answer to your question. You just chose to not accept it.

Speedclears are often dismissed but it's not hard to find a guild that's willing to teach you. Most require reasonable knowledge and some pve skill ranks but it's not exactly difficult to get there. Nobody gets anything for free,the effort you put in is equal in reward.

Solo builds while great in their own right,can only ever be capable of farming so much of an area. You want more drops in less time then the solution is a simple one,do more of the area. Speedclears facilitate that..

Ranger can solo the entire Underworld, minus the quests. It's not exactly fast; quite the opposite.

Warrior can solo Smites with various builds; Hundred Blades should be comparable to Vow of Strength. Warrior can also solo beach and spider cave, but don't run PvX bars, because Dolyak is slow. Warrior can clear beach and cave in less than 25 minutes, and 20 should be possible. UW smite solo is 7 or 8 minutes on warrior I believe.

How long did spirits in FoW take? I'm curious.

Solo builds eliminate time spent forming a party, don't require cons, and can be left at any time without hurting the group. They also don't depend on the group for performance. I don't doubt that SC's are more profitable in the long run, but zzzz, SC's.

Quote: Originally Posted by Calista Blackblood

It is the perfect answer to your question. You just chose to not accept it.

Speedclears are often dismissed but it's not hard to find a guild that's willing to teach you. Most require reasonable knowledge and some pve skill ranks but it's not exactly difficult to get there. Nobody gets anything for free,the effort you put in is equal in reward.

Solo builds while great in their own right,can only ever be capable of farming so much of an area. You want more drops in less time then the solution is a simple one,do more of the area. Speedclears facilitate that.. exactly what id have said as well as - if you have tried the numerous builds out there then you would actually know the answer to your question as well.
Solo will always take longest - anet hates the idea of solo players farming uw really fast - they added/changed a few foes several times since uw came about.Add more players then more dmg is added and foes die quicker also means more survivability.
So in a way the equation is (no of players)=(faster time) .
Btw groups that require stones are the most stupid ppl around ( no offence intended ) because if someone has the cash they can buy xx stones and not step foot in uw - does that make them a gd or elite player ?
How many times has some of us normal players felt like getting some stones and joining a group to purposly fail just to show how stupid it is ? Quite a few i reckon but actually it would be unfair ... but bloody funny.

Quote: Originally Posted by Calista Blackblood

It is the perfect answer to your question. You just chose to not accept it. If my question was "How should I make money" that would be a perfect answer. As it is that was not my question.

My Guild/Ally does run UWSC, FoWSC, DoA ect, however, all of these, as has been said require cons, setup time, finding players. I'm yet to do an UWSC where no stones have been required which has got further than 20 mins in.

Sure, FowSC is good, it's quite fast, reasonable rewards, but it too takes setup time, and if you don't get anything good, may only be 2k+ from the entire run.

I know SCs are good, however, I am asking about solo farming. From comments, I am understanding that smites are the fastest run, and there are a reasonable amount of them.

Just FYI, whoever asked, SoS cleared the spider cave im around 18mins.

SoSing only the inner chamber wields 16-17 kills of aatxes/skellies. This run takes 6-7 minutes and drops 0-2 ecto per run. Chance of getting an ecto is something like ~85%. This is imo the fastest way to farm ecto + it doesn't cost any cons/no risk of failure if you know what you're doing. entrance cost is halved by the drops. I've farmed +3 stacks of ecto this way and yes it's very boring but still gets the job done.

Quote: Originally Posted by Calista Blackblood

Quote: Originally Posted by Vampire of Bone

I agree with Maya Cerestiez. It's an incredibly easy run and you usually get at least one ecto. I once got three ectos in a run.

Quote: Originally Posted by turbo234

Quote: Originally Posted by Calista Blackblood

It is the perfect answer to your question. You just chose to not accept it.

Speedclears are often dismissed but it's not hard to find a guild that's willing to teach you. Most require reasonable knowledge and some pve skill ranks but it's not exactly difficult to get there. Nobody gets anything for free,the effort you put in is equal in reward.

Solo builds while great in their own right,can only ever be capable of farming so much of an area. You want more drops in less time then the solution is a simple one,do more of the area. Speedclears facilitate that.. If someone was just starting to learn SC's its a little bit more difficult. I don't know about you but I don't have the extra 12 hours a day to spend trying to setup and start a practice group. I know how to SC but I can see the reasoning behind people wanting to do it solo. I honestly have no time between classes and life to go out of my way to wait for a practice group. I could see how others could run into the same problem.

I'm in the boat that Mists describes. I don't have time to wait for practice groups for SCs. I've learned to farm UW and FoW solo as a SoS rit. One weekend I was actually able to clear FoW in NM(took about 5 hours I think).

With all my time farming added up I could do SCs, but in my experience the practice groups take too long to form(30-60 minutes minimum), they fail, and I'm occasionally out a conset or a scroll.

I can solo at my own pace, with no wait, and the drop rate in FoW is pretty damn good for shards. You can clear all monsters in FoW with an SoS(burning forest is a HUGE waste of time, though). For the people who want to do solo, I suggest clearing the beach, the tower of courage, the battlefield, the spider cave, and the forest of the wailing lord. You get a lot of monsters with potentially good drops per 1k spent, it's somewhat quick(once you get used to it) and no waiting! Obviously much easier in NM.

UW farming is also pretty successful, clearing outside the labyrinth is pretty much a waste of time(too much effort for too few drops), but smite crawlers are possible if you spam summon spirits. Best chamber I've seen was 3 ecto and a sapphire(when they peaked around 10k a pop), its usually at least 1 ecto, though sometimes nothing good drops. You always get your 1k back in gold drops though.

I've been out of the farming game for quite some time, but I know for a fact that variants of the UW farm are still quick ways to earn a bit of cash.

However, you need to elaborate on your request. Are you looking for fast runs with reasonable/good drops, builds that make runs it go faster, or runs that require little set-up prior?

As for fast runs, here are the options off the top of my head. As I mentioned earlier, I've been out of the big farming scene for many years (back when Ectoes were worth double what they are now...Those were the days):

UW Labyrinth clear - Aatxe hunting in the first area(s) of UW. Good for a few ectoes, sometimes a decent drop. Lots of vendor trash quickly accumulates for either salvaging lots of glittering dust or some small change.

UW Smites clear - Still doable, still profitable. Obviously longer than the straight Labyrinth run, but better drops, more likelihood of chests, and more enemies to get ecto drops from.

UW Ranger Run - As somebody already mentioned in this thread, Rangers are capable of doing most of UW. It's not a quick thing, but it's easy to set up. Doesn't require any good timing or skills, just a working build and you're golden.

FoW Beach clear - Probably the best bang for your buck here. Shards are still worthwhile, there are always chests along the way, and it's not as long-winded or tiresome as the UW runs.

FoW chest running - Easy, fairly fast, and possibly profitable.


I'm afraid I can't help much with the current builds for any of those, but I'd wager there's not been much change. Pretty sure 55/160 builds still work in UW, as do Warrior Smite tanks and trapper Rangers. FoW beach clear still works, and possibly even better than before thanks to PvE skills.


Hope that helps.

Might I ask what this ranger UW build is? Trapper? Spirits? Hit and run?

Quote: Originally Posted by tuna-fish_sushi

Might I ask what this ranger UW build is? Trapper? Spirits? Hit and run? If it's anything like it was back in the day, it's a Trapper build. 2+ trappers running a bar of traps and Serpent's Quickness etc. can peel through most things in UW without so much as a scratch. The downside, of course, is that it's relatively slower due to it lasting longer and requiring more set-up to attack (but to deploy and get into UW, of course).

Labyrinth takes a fraction longer than normal, Smites/Ice Wastes a little bit longer still, and everything else takes a similar amount of time - But the other builds can't handle most of the rest of UW.

Quote: Originally Posted by tuna-fish_sushi

Might I ask what this ranger UW build is? Trapper? Spirits? Hit and run? It's the SoS spirit farmer. It can be done by any profession. Some better than others ofcourse.

Quote: Originally Posted by tuna-fish_sushi

Might I ask what this ranger UW build is? Trapper? Spirits? Hit and run? Solo trapper is what I referred to. It can kill almost anything in UW (No Obsidian Behemoths, but meh). It's slow, like I mentioned. Spirits work, but they're slower than traps in Wastes and possibly Planes.

This thread isn't about ability though; it's about speed and drop efficiency, and traps aren't either of those things.

Thanks for the replies people!

I'm reading from this that either clearing the Lab with SoS, or the beach is probably my best bet for a decent mix of speed and drops.

RE the SoS in the labrinth, is it purely the aatxes and skeles that you bother with?

Quote: Originally Posted by Andemius

RE the SoS in the labrinth, is it purely the aatxes and skeles that you bother with? Almost. The dryders and mindblades can also drop goodies(ecto, sapphire, ruby). Also, once you've killed the Aatxes in the lab there's 3-4 skeletons right inside the village and only one group of graspings in the way. Graspings and dark nightmares don't have interesting drops.

And FYI for those who haven't used SoS builds before, it's definitely better to be a Rt/? than ?/Rt. Your spirits live far longer with a few points in spawning power, which is a huge deal with Aatxes. Without spawning power, Aatxes will one-hit your spirits.

Here's the boiler plate build I run in UW:
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For FoW just change shadowsong for anguish or any other damage dealing spirit. It's also good to have a decent rank in the sunspear track for Vampirism(not really necessary, so don't go farming points if you don't have a high rank). The key in both areas is to keep using summon spirits to move them out of AoE, heal them, and reduce the amount of times that strong melees can hit.