Day 4+5: Ore wa kami nari
Goals for 11/19:
-Pirate Level 82
-Diamante to level 50
-Ideo to level 50
-Trebol to level 50
-Law to level 70
Goals for 11/22:
All of the above plus:
-Pirate Level 85
-Nolan to level 50
-Vergo to level 50
-Thunderbolt Tempo Nami to level 50
-Calgara to level 50
Day 9: Overachieving
-Clear everything up to and including Alubarna
-Chef Zeff
-Chessmarimo
-Miss Doublefinger
-Mr. 2 Bon Clay
-Crocodile x 2
-Mr. 1
-Wapol
-Miss Valentine
-Dorry
-Brogy
Day 13: Last Minute Goals
Goalposts have been for a lack of a better word, smashed. Not only was every goal that was listed above cleared, it was cleared and then some. For example:
- Ideo was leveled to Lv 70, evolved, and leveled up to 40 again
- Same story as above for Nolan, to Lv. 50 two times
- and Calgara
Then we have other fortunate events that were previously not accounted or planned for:
- Pirate Lv. 97
- Heracles'n and Chopper raids completed for one copy of each raid boss
- Obtained all of the current FN characters
- Obtained Mr.4, 4 Carnes, and 2 Pattys while trying to farm other characters. Mixed blessing on the last two
- Evolved Mr.5 in anticipation of dumping his 15 skillbooks on him soon
All in all, good shit all around right? Cleared all my goals and then some, already have short and longterm goals set up for story farming, and with promising content starting tomorrow to dig into? About that...I dun goofed. You see, the same team that cleared Monster Chopper can also sleepwalk through 30 stamina Alvida. Had I known this, I'd have been farming Alvida for the last week or so and gotten enough manuals to max out her special. Sadly, I only realized this yesterday evening. Yeah...whoops.
Today was dedicated to farming Alvida more or less nonstop for as long as stamina permitted. Sadly, that was only three book's worth of Alvidas since the drop rate seems to be terrible, the fat Alvidas are only good for sockets, I only got one meat from snails, and this is the end of boosted meat rates on snails. 3 out of 30 is faaaar from ideal. The good news is, all those STR pigs helped get Diamante to Lv. 65 and that barring my lack of a Rainbow Penguin, he'll be ready to be evolved and with a healthy pile of STR turtles and pigs with which to boost him up once he's evolved.
The one exception to running Alvida all day was turtle time, as the abundance of INT turtles helped get Thunderbolt Tempo Nami, Vergo, and Nolan to Lv.50 and let me begin dumping exp onto Straw Hat Franky, who's been doing work on my Trebol team as a beater and orb shuffler even at level 1.
That leaves me with just a little over a day to try and get as many Alvida books as I can manage. Now, I won't have a maxed out Alvida in time for the Mihawk raid this week no matter what, but I'm sorely tempted to do my best to have the books I'll need to max her out ready to roll for the 29th regardless. Or in other words, I'm strongly contemplating the merits of gemming to max her out. I'm currently at a 68 stamina bar, but the good news is that at the moment, that's just about enough to level me up on each use of a gem between the natural stamina refill of a level up and the use of a gem.
For the math:
68 *2 = 136 total stamina from refill + gem
136/15 = 9 Alvida runs at 15 stamina
9 * 2895 = 26,055 exp per gem + refill
I'm going to be about halfway through level 98 by the end of the night off of natural stamina, meaning ~15k exp in. Below is the amount of EXP I'd need to reach each level from 99 to 110.
30,458
31,071
31,690
32,314
32,944
33,582
34,224
34,872
35,528
36,189
36,856
37,530
That's pretty damn close to the threshold I'd need to level up. It wouldn't be perfect margins for minmaxing of my gem refills, but I could make do by recharging after running through my 26k, using the excess stamina for other purposes that are less exp-efficient (tomorrow is double drop Alabasta cough cough) to get me to a razor's margin of level up, then use my remaining stamina to clear Alvida again, leveling me up and letting me go into the next level with enough EXP to let me keep repeating the same trick. This'd work all the way up to Lv. 110 by my numbers at the cost of two gems a level for near endless Alvida farming intermixed with Alabasta grind. Now, would the gem cost be worth it? That's the real question. According to the reddit thread, Alvida's book has a 28% chance to drop. At anywhere between 10 to 15 runs every two gems for 10 levels, this is the expected number of manuals:
12.5(avg # runs per level) * 10 levels * 0.28 = 35 books, or about 3.5 per level
Yes, it would be! What's more, it can be pulled off far earlier than the original estimate of it taking up to Lv. 110. We'd only need about 27 books, so in reality it'd be up to about Lv. 108 or 109 at worst. If we assume the worst and say 9 levels it is, that totals out to 18 gems. The question becomes, is a maxed Alvida worth 18 gems or so? The opportunity cost would be 90 less box space, 3 less pulls, or a loss of gems that could be used to otherwise farm other content. I'll offer up the early disclaimer that having recently binged on box space, the original intent for these gems was a sugopull. I'll offer an additional disclaimer and say that I was already planning on going in on at least one Sugopull this runaround whether I had to pony up a bit or not to get the gems to do so.
Now, the bad side is yeah, these gems could go towards farming Mihawk. The problem with that is, without at least 80 stamina going in on Mihawk quickly becomes very gem expensive, as if you're not getting at least 2 Mihawks per gem it seems like bad business. What's more, the total amount of EXP garnered from farming Mihawk from 80 stamina with a natural bar + gem is equal to 4 runs at 6600 exp each, or 26.4k exp. Or in other words, I get about as much exp maxing Alvida as I would farming Mihawk, except it'd cost me far less gems to do so for Alvida at my current level, and farming Alvida would get me far closer to making Mihawk farming good business at Lv. 121.
That is of course, ignoring other benefits like the steady stream of STR turtles and pigs with which to boost up units like Monster Chopper, Diamante, and Legend Lucci currently sitting in my box, the large amount of Alabasta farming that will get done to eat up excess stamina, and most importantly of all maxing out God Coby's sockets and getting Gaimon to Lv. 50 solely by feeding him onto himself. You know, the really important things. As I guess it's pretty apparent, I'm feeling pretty pro-grind atm since the immediate benefits hit all of my checkboxes for things I want to get done in the short term like inflate my player level, level up my underleveled STR units, and get me an incredibly useful character for future content ready to roll under the best possible conditions to do so(half stamina + upcoming skull up). I'm looking for feedback here; how justifiable is my current plan? Anybody want to talk me out of it, or encourage it? Feedback pls, before I commit :s