Farming Routes/Farming Guides Compilation

The purpose of this thread is to compile all guides and suggested routes/ways of getting often desired resources in GD. I am simply setting up the framework for now. Feel free to suggest specific components you think merits a farming guide if it isn’t already listed.

I am calling on all players to help contribute so we can actually get some people testing runs. For now I’ll simply list generally suggested places and a few specific routes, but ideally we’ll end up having images with a drawn route through the map that is optimized for specific goals. Check “Ugdenbloom” to see what I’m aiming for.

I will need your help to get this compilation finished and optimized for the community!

CLICK BELOW TO REVEAL INFO

General Tips
  • Dynamite is extremely useful, so farming and crafting a nice reserve is a good idea. You can use dynamite to open treasure troves which give you rare components, sometimes epic-legendary quality drops, rare crafting materials, and a large amount of iron bits. You can use them to dismantle items, and dismantling epics-legendaries is a great way to get loads of scrap + rare crafting materials (and dismantling is pretty cheap!). They can be crafted at the homestead blacksmith for 1 aether shard, 1 scavenged plating, 1 searing ember and 5000 iron bits. 1 aether shard can be crafted from 3 aether crystals and 1000 iron bits. This is a great way to stack up on extra dynamite. Just make sure you don’t use up all your scavanged platings, searing embers, and crystals because plenty of craftable items need them.
  • Farming in multiplayer is way more efficient than farming alone. Fun trick: Play with friends and turn off instanced loot. Then SPLIT UP and farm different areas for what you individually need. The drop rate is multiplied for you, and monsters only have slightly more hp than they would in singleplayer. This is a great way to stack up legendaries if you’re all sporting top tier builds. You could each do separate challenge dungeons for example, and end up with an extreme pool of legendaries. If this isn’t clear I will make it clear: Turn off instanced loot. Play with a friend. Have your friend solo SoT while you solo Ancient Grove. You both will be getting double the loot. Note that in ultimate 4 players monsters only have effectively 50% more hp. So for less than a 50% reduction to clear speed (You tend to overkill trash mobs so it’s probably closer to 10-20%) you get 4x the gear. Insane trick.
  • In the Necropolis you can use the blacksmith there to convert one crafting mat to another for a small price. This can actually be efficient for your immediate needs, or even farming in general.[/li]
  • Don’t go out of your way to kill trash units, focus on the route and killing hero or boss creatures you find on it.
Scrap

Use Dynamite to dismantle epics and legendaries at the inventor in Devil’s Crossing. Trust me, more efficient over all then chasing loot containers. Though if someone finds an amazing route let me know.

Royal Jelly

Stirring Hive (Near Rocky Coast) or Swarming Hive (near Twin Falls). No guide needed though testing to see which is better would be nice. You can go to the ancient grove to get some while also hunting manticore eyes, ugdenblooms, some other crafting mats and some great MI’s.

Dynamite
  • General farming directions: Always kick junk piles in bandit areas as they have a chance to drop dynamite, and focus bandit heroes/bosses.
  • Probably more efficient over-all to focus on other runs and pick up dynamite as you go, and craft dynamite at homestead from all the excess aether crystals, scavenged plating and ember you pick up.
  • MephySix: You get 3-5 dynamites from Cronley’s Hideout on ultimate. Moneybags drops 1-2, there are two guaranteed spots (I think?), and you can get it from destroying the Scrap Piles environmental thing. It can also be called “multipurpose” because of the many heroics + maybe Fabius.
  • Fort Haron has 2 guaranteed dynamites on the floor, can get there pretty quick from the blood grove rift. An especially decent run if you need to farm up Kymon Rep/Death’s Vigil infamy.
  • Efficient but boring way might be to rush into Staunton Mine and rushing to the middle where the 1 guaranteed dynamite spawn.
  • Burning Cellar in Act 6. Nets 1-2 sticks. Also boss is relatively easy and lots of component chests. Might get Krieg boots too.
  • Weyu’s long run: Cronley -> Hanneffy Mine -> Staunton Mine.[There’s a guaranteed spawn in the 2nd mine as well, and the boss there always drops a Scrap or a Dynamite himself.
  • Decent chance to find Fabius as well. North and north-west from the Dynamite spawn in Cronley’s are 2 spots where junk piles can spawn (where the wasps are), killing the wasps and hives there give Battered Shells and Serrated Spikes too.
  • Dynamite/Crystal vendor farming by Weyu: Sometimes when I need multiple types of materials, I rotate between the Steelcap vendor and Isaiah in Homestead. Steelcap guy gives most of the stuff you need to craft Dynamite (and sells a variety of MIs), and Isaiah has some rare components but is mostly used to reset the Steelcap vendor.
Ugdenbloom
  • Directions for all Ugdenbloom routes: Ignore trash mobs. Focus on killing heroes and opening tree stumps.
  • http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61059 (use route 2)
  • I like the one Flavorious listed there as well:
  • You could do Ancient Grove if you have skeleton keys to spare. It will get you more legendaries/epics to dismantle, lots of hero mobs in general to drop Ugdenblooms and coveted Wendigo Spirits.
  • mad_lee route: “Best route [according to mad] is from Gloomwald Crossing rift, first turn to the left, keeping going that road on the left edge of the map until you reach Caraxxus Foul lair, collect two stumps on your way, go just a little bit to the right - there is always an ornate chest there (sometimes heroic) with quite a few Ents spawning (sometimes heroes). Then go to Caraxxus Foul lair, and you can sometimes find some more Ent heroes (and get a drop from Caraxus). Fast and easy and you can combine it with Caraxxus Foul bonty if you need rep/infamy.”
  • Stupid Dragon’s route:
  • Weyu run with fun shrine trick: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57405
Eldritch Essence
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/Grimdawn/comments/b9nvqo/forgotten_gods_56_purple_boss_run_with_up_to_3/ Good Eldritch Essence Route
  • Past a certain point in SR (Shattered Realm) you are basically guaranteed an eldritch essence, and in higher shards you often get 2. 1 essence is just enough to help you break even to make more SR checkpoint waystones in crafting, but in multiplayer this is a reliable way to get lots of eldritch essences (since at least one will drop per player), legendaries, and other crafting resources.
Aether Crystals & Shards
  • If you’ve got skeleton keys to spare and are strong enough to breeze through, Port Valbury will give you a shit ton of crystals. This is might be less efficient than the route below for specifically crystals, due to to the time taken running to port Valbury, fighting bosses, etc. But it will net you more resources overall, and well as a bunch of legendaries to sell and dismantle. So for general purposes Valbury is probably superior.
  • The Immolation - ~16 Aether crystal monsters densely packed together, and also 2 dynamites which spawn at the end of the run , alongside 2 strongboxes / 1 small box and 1 heroic chest. Should be tested at some point vs the southern route of the Warden Lab run. If you ignore the boss here it might compete in efficiency, and even if it’s a bit worse the other rewards still make it worth mentioning because overall it’s more rewarding than the southern Warden Lab route.
  • Warden’s lab -> Devotion Shrine South of Warden’s Lab, 13 crystals. This might be a little less efficient than the above route, but it’s safer if you hate dmg floor.
  • Malmouth outskirts portal clockwise path to Shrine. Nets 8 crystals.
  • Dynamite/Crystal vendor farming by Weyu: Sometimes when I need multiple types of materials, I rotate between the Steelcap vendor and Isaiah in Homestead. Steelcap guy gives most of the stuff you need to craft Dynamite (and sells a variety of MIs), and Isaiah has some rare components but is mostly used to reset the Steelcap vendor.[/ul]
Ancient Hearts
  • Shaded Basin run for Bloodbriar / Gloomweaver / Bloodfeast
  • Royal hive or TF hive
Tainted Brain Matter
  • I feel like there surely must exist a better way to get Tainted Brain Matter. Maybe farming a different material and converting it at the Necropolis is more effective.
  • Tainted Brain Matter farming sucks. Farm Blood of Chthon’s instead and convert at the Necropolis.
  • Feel free to pick up crystals along the way. Make sure you kill Zembrant and Gethrand before the Warden.
Blood of Ch'thon
  • Depraved Sanctuary
  • Any Chthonic Rift
    Need testers to find best route
Chthonic Seal of Binding
  • Blood Grove portal, immediately cross bridge and bee-line to Darkvale village boss. Very fast with any AoE and nets 1-5, usually 2+ each time.
  • Mephysix: run Darkvalle Village for Chtonic Seal of Binding, because there are a better cultist-to-chtonic ratio, and most of the time Zaria will drop one (45% Seal and 11.25% Blood at level 100, according to GrimTools).
  • Darkvale Rift all the way through to Karroz. Focusing on heroes/bosses and ignoring trash mobs as usual.
  • Tomb of the Watchers might be decent if you want to farm blood and seals at the same time
  • istealpylons: For cthonic seals, I personally like running tomb of korvaak. More spawns of those guys that summon/have red glowing rods, which I find drop the seals more often then not. Restart the run when you no longer see bloodsworn and only see ghosts/ghouls.
  • hammyhamster: Tougher character and ultimate only: edge of reality run to chests. Usually nets one or two. Also can net various others such as Bloods, etc. (hybrid run for blood and seals)
Manticore Eye
  • Pine Barren Portal -> Jagged WasteFocus on Mogara and Manticore Heros. Alphas have a small chance to drop. You can ignore trash mobs.
  • You can get a few in the Immolation from aether corrupted manticores. So it’s a much inferior run to the above, but if you want to focus on aether crystals and get some manticore eyes here and there, this is a choice.
  • You can go to the ancient grove to get some while also hunting royal jelly, some other crafting mats and some great MI’s.
Aetherial Missive
  • You could try your luck running Galakros, the Mountain in Malmouth Sewers which has a lot of heros + lets you farm his MI.
  • Fleshworks is okay for Mutagen as well as these Missives.
  • Missives have a chance to drop from Ascended Human and Aetherial Fleshshaper Heroes and Bosses.
  • Can also be purchased for 1 Aetherial Mutagen from Gaius Ember - Burning Smith in the Malmouth Outskirts or purchased from Kaylon - Forgemaster in the Steelcap District for 6 Tainted Brain Matter and a Polished Emerald.
Aetherial Mutagen
  • Fleshworks is okay for Mutagen as well as these Missives.
  • Mutagens have a chance to drop from Aetherial Corruption, Aetherial Bloater, Aetherial Imp and Aetherial Colossus bosses and Heroes.
Wendigo Spirit
  • Don’t farm these. Just convert Aetherial Missives into Wendigo Spirits at Gaius Ember - Burning Smith in the Malmouth Outskirts.
  • You could do Ancient Grove if you have skeleton keys to spare. It will get you more legendaries/epics to dismantle, lots of hero mobs in general to drop Ugdenblooms and a chance at coveted Wendigo Spirits.
  • If you must, Packla has a 15% chance to drop one, and the Ravager has a 100% chance.
Ectoplasm
  • Spined Cove
  • SoT if you want to mix it in with legendary farming, and undead component farming.
Soul Shards
  • Any Chthonic Rift. Bastion of Chaos is nice and long and will net you a lot. Don’t know which of the non-BoC rifts is most efficient.
Frozen Hearts
  • Best bet is to pick from below by which route gets you another resource you want along side Frozen Hearts
  • This is probably the most time efficient option, period: Farming dermapteran hive, including breaking the walls, can net you about 3 completed battered shells which you can use to craft frozen hearts.
  • This is probably the most time efficient option for literally farming hearts:Farm Battered Shells from The Royal Hive or The Swarming Hive (see royal jelly above for locations) and use them to craft frozen hearts. Costs an aether crystal, a battered shell, and an emerald. These runs can also get you Ancient Hearts iirc.
  • Use this if you don’t want to spend iron bits/crystals crafting themIf you can tough the damaging floors of Hargate’s Lab, or any Sith Cave, you can get them there as well + a nice supply of chipped claws.
  • If you’re dead set on getting them as drops, cold zombies from warden’s lab isn’t a terrible idea, and you’ll get some aether crystals + a chance at tainted brain matter. Non efficient option for hearts. But you get other resources on the way
Multi-Purpose Routes

These routes may not be the most efficient for farming one specific thing, but feel free to comment on routes that are good for multiple purposes. For example doing a full pine barrens -> desolate wastes -> shaded basin -> tyrant’s hold run will net you manticore eyes, ancient hearts, and dynamite on top of the components that drop there.

  • pine barrens -> desolate wastes -> shaded basin -> tyrant’s hold. Grants Dynamite, Manticore Eyes, Ancient Hearts. Make sure to kill Mogara, BloodBriar and Bloodfeast.
  • hammy hamster’s ugdenbloom + wendigo spirit + components + optional legendaries run: I start with your top path, then keep going clockwise around and down to Ancient Grove part 1. iirc Nets 1-8 ugdenbloom, depending on luck; usually 4-5. More from tree stumps than heroes. But this circuit can run into Bargoll(ugdenbloom drop) and the Wendigo boss on the way to Grove. You could cut it short at the Grove door, if trying for minimum time runs- for a general loss of 1-3 ugdenblooms. (Skipping Ancient Grove obviously means much less legendaries per hour)dun
  • Weyu’s Ugdenbloom route is a longer run that will net you some legendaries, and has like a 1/4 chance at a Wendigo spirit.
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEKERXYOsAQ&feature=youtu.be high amount of hero monster route. If you want some rare components and drops in a very unique run.

Attachment: ugdenbloom 1.jpg

23 Likes

Good stuff. This is something I wanted to write as well, but you’ve beaten me to it :wink:

Some personal experience:

  1. Valbury runs for aether crystals if you have a char strong enough
  2. I have a very different Ugdenbloom run. It’s either from ugdenbog rift up to barrowholm while doing Sylvarra’s lair or gloomwald, but different from mad lee’s.
  3. Darkvale up to Karroz is what worked best for me when it comes to Chthonic seals. Blood Grove is super inconvenient to farm due to blockers plus only about half of enemies are chthonic, the rest is DV/KC or beasts.
1 Like

I definitely agree on points 1 and 3

As it is now the thread is below the quality I’m aiming for. Just whipped it together as an outline that will get filled in over time. I really need other players help to do boring and tedious runs and record data so we can find the true optimized routes for each desired resource, as well as good routes for multiple resources.

They’d have to share the same character so other players can confirm the results and use the same character to test other runs etc. The ideal of this thread would be to have a truly optimized route in image form for each coveted material. I’ll organize the thread better as it grows (hopefully it’ll grow).

How many ugdenblooms do you get per hour? The guy who used route 2 was averaging like 80 an hour. This is before Forgotten Gods stuff too. With teleport runes coming into the game, I imagine farming these will get super friggen quick.

After no Warden only has 20% chance to drop tainted brain matter (what the fuck btw?) I think farming bloods and converting them + getting some from dismantling is probably more effective to the point that it’s not worth aiming for TBM at all.

I’ll update with your feedback for now but I’m hoping after we have a bunch of generalized ideas, we can start testing not just areas but specific routing.

What’s the best area for frozen hearts?

Also wondering if anyone’s tested chest runs. There might be some areas with higher spawn rates or clumped up chests which can be good for certain components.

Nearest blacksmith. They can be crafted out of IIRC Battered Shells which are the byproduct of hive runs.

What’s the best area for frozen hearts?

Warden lab.

Updated OP with my own thoughts on these + a third option.

I find that killing slith in the area for hargraves quest seems to have decent drops for hearts. Although farming battered shells, then crafting them is probably more reliable.

1 Like

I found The Immolation to be a very good spot to farm Aether Crystals ; this is how a run goes for me (im doing this on a high lvl DW ranged Sorcerer with high survivability) :
I tp to Deadman’s , kill the aetherials on the way to the aetherfire , then pit-stop at the small area without aetherfire to wait for Mirror of Ere to come off cooldown , and by the time it does , i kill the manticores in that small area , sometimes resulting in manticore eyes ; after that , i clear out the whole Immolation area (including the Herald , which has surprisingly good drops on Ultimate in my opinion)
My best results from a single run were : 15-16 crystals (cant remember clearly) , 1 shard , 1 cluster , and also 2 dynamites which spawn at the end of the run , alongside 2 strongboxes / 1 small box and 1 heroic chest
the run doesnt take too much time , and is clearly less boring than a Warden’s Lab run

1 Like

Awesome post – thanks for this! :slight_smile:

Tomb of Korvaak has always been another good place for me to farm Chthonic Seals of Binding.

Totally forgot about that area which is weird because I do it on all my characters for the quest and always think “This area is pretty rewarding.” updating OP

Also @Valinov updated OP again for clarity on why you’d pick one frozen heart option over another.

Here are a few that I mix up for variety:

  1. Chthonic Seal of Binding
    a. weaker character: Blood Grove portal, immediately cross bridge and bee-line to Darkvale village boss. Very fast with any AoE and nets 1-5, usually 2+ each time.
    b. tougher character and ultimate only: edge of reality run to chests. Usually nets 1 or 2. Also can net various others such as Bloods, etc.

  2. Dynamite:
    -Burning Cellar in Act 6. Nets 1-2 sticks. Also boss is relatively easy and lots of component chests. Might get Krieg boots too.

  3. Ugdenbloom:
    (you have mostly summarized this…)

  • -I start with your top path, then keep going clockwise around and down to Ancient Grove part 1. iirc Nets 1-8 ugdenbloom, depending on luck; usually 4-5. More from tree stumps than heroes. But this circuit can run into Bargoll(ugdenbloom drop) and the Wendigo boss on the way to Grove. You could cut it short at the Grove door, if trying for minimum time runs- for a general loss of 1-3 ugdenblooms.
  1. Aether crystals/shards:
  • -Malmouth outskirts portal clockwise path to Shrine. Nets 8 crystals.
  • -crossing from Malmouth outskirts to Mourndale. Nets 5-6 crystals.
  • -Lazy vendor farming in Steelcap District nets 1 each time and potentially an aether shard.

For Dynamite I usually do Cronley -> Hanneffy Mine -> Staunton Mine.
There’s a guaranteed spawn in the 2nd mine as well, and the boss there always drops a Scrap or a Dynamite himself.
Doing both mines and some other spots means you can find Fabius as well.
Always kick all the junk piles in these areas too: they have a decent chance of dropping a Dynamite. North and north-west from the Dynamite spawn in Cronley’s are 2 spots where junk piles can spawn (where the wasps are), killing the wasps and hives there give Battered Shells and Serrated Spikes too.

Sometimes when I need multiple types of materials, I rotate between the Steelcap vendor and Isaiah in Homestead. Steelcap guy gives most of the stuff you need to craft Dynamite (and sells a variety of MIs), and Isaiah has some rare components but is mostly used to reset the Steelcap vendor.

For Ugdenblooms I do the Gloomwald Crossing Rift that has 2 stumps NE of the Rift, and 2 more not too far away (someone probably has a map of this), and the original run I made when AoM was new.
Nowadays I kill all the treants and the plants along the way as well, since they have a good chance of dropping a bloom.
If you run this area a lot, try to keep the Gloomwald Shrine unpurified, since it’s a bunch of extra bosses every run.
Just kill the first wave of creatures and leave the rest and reset the game or go somewhere else.

You can do the above with the shrines in Bastion of Chaos and Ancient Grove as well, by the time you reach these shrines you should be capped on Devo points already so you don’t need them for that.

One of my Ugdenbloom farming routes:

At this point I, or someone else ought to test a few of these Ugdenbloom routes to see which is best.

Selectively updating the OP. Updated a bit based on feedback from reddit

This. Very nice place, and close to the riftgate.

awesome thx for this nice guide!

Been farming SoT for a while, now that my fresh char has Ugdenbloom-crafted components in most slots and he’s strong enough not to die to Alkamos.
A tip I have is that the Solael Guardian is very close to the exit of SoT after you finish that run: you just have to walk a bit to the west and then north, so you can farm him as well with little time loss.
I finish the run up by selling at the Steelcap vendor, and buying his components and crystals.

Made an addition to my Ugdenbloom run as well: after hitting the 4-5 stumps in Gloomwald Crossing, I walk back north to the Den of Carraxus.
The chest just outside the cave usually has several treants popping up from the ground when you approach it, and inside the place you can often find a cluster of treants as well.
Sometimes you get 3-4 hero treants in one of those places, who usually drop a bloom each.

Can you show the route on an edited snapshot of the map? with circles for ugdenbloom locations?

Not sure where you want me to put the tip.

It’s just the route SD uses in post #14, but at the end of the route you can walk north to Den of Carraxus for more treant spawns inside and outside the cave.