Perfect Lucent Forging Method
NOTE - Skip to the end of this post to see a video tutorial
Disclaimers:
It has been months since I forged one of these so I hope I have got this right. I take no responsibility for any costs incurred if I have made mistakes. If you or I identify any mistakes then I will correct them.
This is not for the faint hearted.
This forge takes approximately 300 rounds to do 1 item at a time.
This is not cheap, it uses around 4 or 5 road runner feathers per item forged as well as a load of other ingredients coming out at an guesstimated cost of 40,000ish coins.
This is not risk free, I operate it on a knife edge to complete this forge in a minimum number of rounds and with the minimum number of ingredients used. You may be able to find more optimizations (most likely) and I challenge you to do this in under 287 rounds (I think this was my best result, I will provide a screenshot of it when I get home to my PC).
I did not come up with the really clever part of this method, it is based on a technique (vigor stacking) devised by a gentleman named Crete (I think) and a video of his that I came across showing how to forge max level hammers. I did formulate the rest of it with lots of theory crafting and experimentation (I’m a madman and have too much free time on my hands).
I will be using a Lucent Grapple in this example as it is the easiest to explain, however it can also be applied to slingbows and with some modiications also to hammers, etc. The boons i will be targetting are Range, Projectile Speed and Reel Speed.
Please don’t ask me to forge you any of these as I simply do not enjoy this form of forging, it was fun to figure out the method, but it just isn’t fun for me.
Thankyou to @Mayumichi for creating The Forge Simulator which allowed me to test out theories until I got this right.
Ingredients
- Corrupting Boon Compound 2
- Defect Removal Solvent 2
- 2x Gums (Effect, Lightness)
- Vigor Catalyst 2
- Protection Paste 2
- Stabilization Paste 2
- Invigoration Paste 1
- Deconstruction Resin 3
- Setting Resin
Phase 1: Acquiring your first boon
Yay, the fun part of getting boons! To make this even more fun I am going to do this gum free because who doesn’t love complete and utter RNG with no control whatsoever right? BUT, this is a reasonable thing to do on a grapple as there are only 7 possible boons, this is an absolute nightmare on a slingbow which has 16.
So simply start throwing your Boon Compound at the forge until you get the Long Range boon. If you get an unwanted boon then use your Deconstruct. If this takes you more than 3 or 4 compounds to get the boon then you have used too much stability so deconstruct.
Phase 2 - Vigor/Stability Stacking
Now the clever part, stacking vigor and converting vigor back to stability.
The Vigor Stack:
- Protection Paste x1
- Stabilization Paste x3
- Protection Paste x3
- Invigoration Paste x 10
- Vigor Catalyst (BOOM, you have just converted 150 - 160 stability into 1000 vigor)
The Stability Stack:
- Protection Paste x1
- Stabilization Paste x4
- Either gum x 17 (OUCH! You just converted about 1900 vigor into about 700 stability)
So clearly we are going to minimize the stability stacks as they are so inefficient.
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Step 1 - Stack Vigor 3 times
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Step 2 - Stack stability 1 time (use 9 effect, 8 longevity or vice versa)
I choose to stop stacking at this point and acquire my other 2 boons, this is the earliest I can do it unfortunately but hey, at least it’s not at round 200+ I guess.
Phase 3 - Acquiring the other boons
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Step 1 - Pray to RNGesus. (With 18 effect gums on a bow I have recieved the Light Source boon… not just once but twice this has happened and I have only bothered to forge 4 or 5 lucent bows)
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Step 2 - Gums still active from the Stability Stack. Apply Protection x1, Stabilization x3, Protection x3 (Just like a vigor stack, your compounds will now cost 0 stability)
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Step 3 - Apply Corrupt Compound up to 10x. Deconstruct if you get the wrong boons Vigor Catalyst otherwise. STOP if you get to 1000 vigor as you need a minimum of 900 Vigor and 160(320) Stability to start stacking vigor again and also be able to stack stability again if required.
If you have been a well behaved boy or girl this year then RNGSanta has provided you with the boons you wanted and you have almost guaranteed your forging success at this point…. Assuming you don’t misclick just one time from here on out!
Phase 4 - Finish stacking
Now you need to stack enough vigor and stability to finish the process off. Remember that it costs 900 Vigor and 160 Stability to start a vigor stack and another 160 Stability to start a Stability Stack. To apply 10x compounds and Vigor Catalyst will come at a total cost of 2100 Vigor and 160 Stability but you will return a load of this Vigor of course.
So! Stack Vigor until all your invigoration paste is gone and you will need to do 1 more stability stack also at some point in between.
I can do this in 9 vigor stacks total and 1 and a halfish stability stacks when all goes well, this is your call to make if you wish to save a few components.
Phase 5 - MAXING those boons
- Protection Paste x1
- Stabilization Paste x3
- Protection Paste x3
- Corrupt Compound x 10
- Vigor Catalyst.
Rinse, repeat until all boons are max level.
Phase 6 - But WTF defects!?!
No problem, I have a ridiculously expensive solution for you!!
Spam Defect Removal until they are all gone.
This takes anywhere up to 20+ solvents (sometimes as few as 17) so you will want to reach this phase with at least 4000+ vigor remaining and hopefully a lot more.
Phase 6 - Pat yourself on the back and shut down all your portals because now you can simply grapple from planet to planet.
I personally have found that the range of a Rift grapple is 98% of the time completely unnecessary. Increased projectile and reel speed is far more useful to me so my favourite is the Umbris Grapple but I have yet to spend much time playing with the Blink (@SilverSunn thankyou for the gift!!)
Thankyou @Jiivita for the following video!