Whisker Woods Rift!!!!!

OOOo Another one!

And so I enter....

At First glance it appears to have 3 sections!

Apparently it was'nt in seqeunce as I thought, as the first catch was from the Deep Lagoon section and apparently catching a mouse from a section increases the rage? in the area.

This was my setup:

This is with the full "Rift" gear courtesy of the Burroughs Rift

Also there is a Trapsmith!!!

• Fracture Base  (200 Power)
• Power Bonus: 10%
• Attraction Bonus: none
• Luck: 10
• Cheese Effect: Fresh
• 
  
• Fissure Base  (450 Power)
• Power Bonus: 15%
• Attraction Bonus: 5%
• Luck: 12
• Cheese Effect: Stale

•  Two new bases!!
• 
  
• 
  
• Well actually it is just one, since it is a "build up" kinda thing. Looking at the requirements (you can see this by going to the trapsmith ;)), the fissure base requires both the Fracture Base as well as the Rift base. 

Both bases count towards the Riftwalker set. Which is kinda cool as (although its still too early to say) it may provide an early alternative to the Rift base, and allow you to get the full Rift walker bonus earlier.Still. The Fissure base's existence is evidence that the devs are NOT gonna let you simply by pass the Rift base =) You are still gonna have to work your way through the gardens to get the Fissure base!

Hmmm so far the mice haven't seemed particularly difficult to catch using the full powered rift gear... still, it is only two hunts :P

The gold seems pretty good too! Still I am using Magical String... so my cost aren't exactly low.. :P I will try out Brie String later though, and I will update on its results.

...


So mousing over the HUD also provides some interesting tidbits!


I am only focusing on the Lagoon but it is the same for the clearing and the tree. So it appears you catch the mice until you hit 50, then the boss will come out, presumably dropping some important loot that allows you to get the base. =) Knowing how MH tends to work, I reckon, each section will drop a component loot that will be a requirement!

Each section comes with its own charm that can be armed. In this case it is the stagnant charm.

So I am guessing this is a little bit like the City Grub portion f the living gardens where you the more you catch using salt the more likely the boss or bigger mice will show, and when you catch the big bad, the rage drops off (like the salt levels in the Grub mini game)

Reading Larry seems to point to this...anyways I am guessing things will get clearer we progress through the hunts !



Happy Hunting ppl!

[20150129 01:47]




And apparently something interesting happened when I was'nt looking!

I'm not sure how this works out but it does seem exciting to suddenly seem to progress for no apparent reason :p


But I dither so.... I needs to go to slumberland.... so .

Again, happy hunting ppl!


[20150129 01:52]



Alrighty, I thought I would share some of my experiences =)


I actually only noticed the new Whisker Woods Rift last night, and was trucking through the Sunken City. As you can see, it was actually beginning to get interesting! Hence I was a little sad to leave, but I had been left behind before and did'nt want to fall too far back for this area... so away I whisked to the Whisker Woods Rift .... alright alright bad pun....

First of all, I am glad I went again to build the Multi Laser trap, catching the non-boss mice so far has gone without a hitch! You can also see my setup from below:

And in case you are wondering, no you DO NOT need to use Magical, in fact it really is a waste, since the area is going to be grindy. I switch to Brie String cheese after awhile....

As you can see the points and gold seem pretty good =D Note too that the rage is uneven! So that is what the charms are for, it makes your hunting more targetted, in the description of the charm, it says funneling of the rage.... I think it just means you attract mice from a particular area (hence the funneling). Its like the mage/cavary,scout,warrior classes in the Warpath.

Now, in case you are wondering why my HUD (heads up display), looks funny, its cos it is the IPhone interface. Now under tasks you can see three tiered tabs. And you see a red vertical bar. Thats actually the visual display of the rage, i.e. the rage meter!

Now what do i mean by tier? Once you catch more than 25 mice from a single area (or 25 rage), within the first twenty five mice of each area you catch, the rage for that area only goes up by 1 rage. After the 25th "rage point" or "mouse caught", you start getting the tougher mice from the area, i.e. the next tier! Also at this stage every mouse caught increases the rage by 2 instead of 1.

You can actually see the count, my screen is too small so I need to scroll:

Now remember that funneling thing? Well, this bugger below will allow you to get up to 6 rage in an area if used with the appropriate charm. So the funneling is pretty nice when this mouse is involved. Without the appropriate area charm, the Gilded leaf mouse will instead cause 2 rage in all three areas.. which is a bit of a waste. Also Gilded Leaf Mouse is attracted to Magical String cheese, so when hunting him, you probably want to arm Magical String together with the appropriate charm for maximum effect!

Now remember I used the Multi Laser? Well once I hit 50 rage, I switch to the Focused Laser instead. I also switched back to Magical as I was rushing for time :P The other IMPORTANT thing to note in the pic below? ALL the rage in all three areas are wiped when you catch the boss for that area! :P

Below is a screenshot of the boss mice for the lagoon area

[20150130 02:14]

Anyways Happy Hunting!!

[20150207]

Alrighty it has been almost a WEEK since the area has been released! I am now quite a bit clearer about the area and how it works =D

First of, there is no rush. You might have a few concerns such as the use of charms and the like... however... I dunno I did donate some, but the truth is while I was hunting the Monstrous Black Widow, I realised something. This place is alot like my favorite hunting ground, the Zugzwang Tower!! Think about it, there are multiple ways you can run up to the end of the area, with Zugzwang it was either with Technic, Mystic or go for the DOUBLE run! or Triple if you count the chessmaster (Disclaimer: I cannot remember if a triple run is possible :P  Specifically I cannot remember if you get kicked out or something) With the Whisker Woods Rift, its, whether you run up and get the boss for the Crazed Clearing, Gigantic Gnarled Tree or the Deep Lagoon! Or... you max EVERYTHING (like in ZZT, you max out the technic and mystics) and go for the Monstrous Black Widow! Sure it is quite different, where in the ZZT another consideration is the conservation of AMP and the advantages of rank, while here its simplified to maxing out rage to get better loot!

Now back to strategy.

There are three "stages" 

Stage 1 (1-25 rage)

I used Multi Crystal Laser here mostly.

I used Brie String cheese, with MCL and Rift base.

That setup is adequate for most purposes. Now what is your purpose? Are you in a rush? Or are you just taking a casual stroll through the Rift? If you are casual? Then this setup is all you need!

If you are on your first run, you can assume you fall into the casual category (at least for now =)) If you have gone through one or two runs, and you might be interested in a more targeted run. How do you do this?

Now the Whisker Wood Rift (WWR henceforth) has a built in relatively deterministic (compared to the Warpath) streakiness. There is usually one path (path being Crazed Clearing, Gigantic Gnarled Tree or Deep Lagoon) that is favoured. If you are on your first run or you are just casual and don't care, then with the generic setup of MCL\Rift\Brie String you can just follow whichever is the natural streak. HOWEVER, if you have already gone on a run, say Deep Lagoon and you caught the Deep lagoon boss, you should still go casual and see which path is getting the streak. Now. if say as assumed before you have already caught the Lagoon Boss and you are after the other bosses, AND you are not casual (i.e. you want to get your first crack at the Monstrous Black Widow ASAP so crafting the Lactrodectus Lancashire Cheese (henceforth LLC) is a priority), you WILL likely want a targeted approach, i.e. if you see your streak going Lagooona again, it makes you loco. So what to do?

You arm the funneling charms! Now, the devs have hinted that a little goes a long way. And although I have donated some to get charms, I found that the bottleneck was the amount of Calcified Rift Mist.

Now have no doubt about it! You are going to need the charms whether you are casual, non-paying or hard core mousehunter. The only difference is WHEN you are going to need the charms. So the first important rule of hunting in the WWR is:

1. Hunt Often and Hunt with Rift Vacuum Charms whenever possible!

[edit:20150208 ... will be updating this in a bit]

[edit:20150208 2211 ... heh I will really be updating in a bit... but maybe in an hour or so....]

[20150209 0047]

Woo Hoo!

[edit 20150209 0129 ]

Oki this is going to take a while to sort.... essentially I took screenshots of various points in the path to capturing the monstrous black widow

Now. Back to the hunting with vacuum charms often! This is important especially when you are at the point when you are going for the Monstrous Black Widow. You want to make sure that you are able to hunt actively! So if you gotta go to work or simple just go to bed, what should you do?

You should travel to a region where you are comfortable with hunting passively and remove yourself from the WWRift! I recomment going to the BRift, the reason being, hunting at BRift gives a much better yield of Calcified Rift Mist!

Why do I keep harping on it? Cos my first hunt for the Monstrous Black Widow ended tragically when I fell asleep :P

Since then for my first and second Monstrous Black Widows, I have traveled to BRift to farm Calcified Rift Mist!

Anyways back to how to hunt for the Monstroud Black Widow.

Now once you are doing targeted runs you have two ways of doing it. If for some reason you need the loot from the Crazed Clearing Boss, but the natural streak is Deep Lagoon? You can "alter" the streak by funnelling the rage to the Crazed Lagoon using the Cherry Charm. The key is to use the funneling charm until the rage for the Crazed Claring is at 25. By then the streak takes care of itself and you should get your Crazed Clearing Boss.

"Stage 1" is betwen 1 - 25 where the mice are weaker and the rage yield per mouse is 1, rage level 26 onwards, the mice yield 2 rage! So it actually ends faster than it looks =)

For stage 1 I would use Multi-Crystal Laser. For Stage 2 (26 to 50), its abit more subjective. My rule of thumb is, if you miss 2-3 times (FTAs not ncluded) you should switch traps (FCL to MCL and vice versa)

For stage 3, the boss of each of the areas, I would use FCL.

For hunting the Monstrous Black Widow, be sure to use either Ultimate luck Charm with MCL or Ultimate Power Charm with FCL. Personally I prefer power and got my second Monstrous Black Widow using FCL with Ultimate Power charm on the first catch. (my first Monstroud Black Widow was caught without Ultimate charms, just FCL and some random charm I think, but it took 5 pieces of the LLC ... not worth it =P)

Now as for the strategy for balancing the rage using the charms. if you are hunting for to get the Fissure base ASAP (assuming you have the Rift base)

1. Hunt any area to 25 rage with normal charms

2. Use funneling charms to get the other two areas to 25

3. Hunt with normal charms until an area hits 48-49 rage

4. Use funneling charms to bring the other two areas above 45

Do not breach 50! By not breaching 50 you ensure you attract only the Monstrous Black Widow. If you breach 50, you may end up with a boss... which seems rather wasteful given the effort to balance and max out the rage.

I would breach 50 only after I have the Fissure base and am hunting for fun and profit. And BTW, only by breaching 50 (in any of the areas) and catching the Monstrous Black Widow, would you be able to get the Ultimate Rift charms as loot! So there is a reason for maxing and hitting 50, just that that reason does not involve getting the Fissure base asap ;P

Below is my attempt to chronologically share and describe my journey in getting my Fissure base =)

I am currently at 3 webs, so the next Monstrous Black Widow (my third one!) will get me the base!

[edit 20150209 0159: I am still sorting the screen shots below so you can skip if it messes you up looking at unsorted random screenshots :p]

[20150215 1459]

Making a detour to the SC =) due to the Valentines Day event... I'll try to clean up the mess above heh =)


[20150218 0100]

Anyways for the Valentines Day event bonus i ended up hunting in the WWRift. Was'nt too bad, I got through Single boss runs pretty quick... I do have an imbalance of crafting materials for the LLC so thats annoying, but seeing as I will need golobs of LLC, this imbalance will likely right itself in a matter of days. I hope anywasy =P

In any case cny (chinese lunar new year!) is upon us.... so I ended up at Calamity Carls area again :p



Happy Hunting! And Happy Lunar New Year in a few days :p