Whats the best way to get to shadowy 200?
If you dont care about it being profitable, the best way to grind any stat is just doing a lot of the social actionns to earn second chances, and then use the action that converts 5 of those into CP.
From Shadowy what? We have little of value to offer in the way of information, but we feel that knowing this might help others. [li]
From Shadowy what? We have little of value to offer in the way of information, but we feel that knowing this might help others. [li][/quote]
[/li][li]187[/li][li]
Just be aware that Suspicious Loitering drops your making waves and connected society. I’m happy to accept invites ay the moment though - I’m at Shadowy 197, just cashed in my making waves to get to Notability 5 and would love to use the shadowy POSI upgrade.
And with some help from a friend I am now at Shadowy 200 - and just did this "You are an Invisible Eminence"[li]
Edit to say I will still help other people though.
edited by circe on 12/17/2013
[quote=circe]And with some help from a friend I am now at Shadowy 200 - and just did this "You are an Invisible Eminence"[li]
Edit to say I will still help other people though.
edited by circe on 12/17/2013[/quote][/li][li]
[/li][li]Are you still willing to help? I kinda need someone to be suspicious with. >_>
[/li][li]
Yes I will - It is better if you send the invitations as the sender gets 2 second chances.[li]
Edit - I’ll accept as fast as I can but I’m a bit low on actions at the moment, the Cave of the Nadir took a lot to get through this time. Much as I like Searing Enigma’s they can be a bit hard to get in there.
edited by circe on 12/17/2013
If you DO care about being profitable, then the best approach is to grind the Affair of the Box. Try to adjust your outfit stats so you have a 90% chance of success. This is probably the most profitable straightforward grind in London, earning you 143 pence per action.
Assuming you start at Shadowy 187 and 0 CP, it will take about 500 actions to reach Shadowy 200. Along the way you’ll earn over 700 echoes’ worth of goods.
Using Suspicious Loitering and Tricks Traps and Treats will be much faster, but harder to predict. For me, it took about 3 uses of TT&T to gain 1 level of Shadowy, which means you would need about 195 Warning Notes. So, that would take a total of about 120 actions to finish. You’ll wipe out a decent portion of Making Waves and Society along the way, but will be able to get back to what you were doing before much more quickly.
All of these second chance stat gains are very variable. I think I have gotten as few as 5cp and as many as 50 or so but it is still the quickest way.
Affair of the Box is what I did to regain any Nadir losses when I was capped before but it’s 70cp to gain a level now so doing a big shadowy grind at 1cp an action would be very slow.
I cashed in my Making Waves before starting this and society is one of the easiest connections to grind.
Well, with a 90% chance of success you’ll gain 2CP on a success and 1CP on a failure, so it averages out to 1.8CP of Shadowy per action. But, yes, in either case it’s much slower than second chances.
If you don’t care about profit but you want something highly reliable, try this:
-Go to the Flit and grind CASING, not Shadowy. The highest-yield option will gain you 18 casing for 5 turns on a Shadowy challenge you sound ready to handle. That’s 3.6 Casing/Turn.
-Do this for a long time. I’m not kidding.
-When your total CPs of Casing exceed the CPs you need to cap your shadowy (200 - your current Shadowy * 70, approximately), start selling information to a colleague. You’ll get 10 CP of Connected:Criminals and Shadowy, like clockwork. Alternately, theres’ an option that will give you 15 casing for 5 turns with no Shadowy check, provided you’ve reached the first tier of overall significance.
18 casing / 5 turns = 3.6 casing turn, or 90 casing x 25 turns, if you’re succeeding consistently. For transactions of this size, you might want to use your Hastily Written Warning Notes - a single failure will cost about a fourth of a level in prospective gains.
If you can keep your chance of success (before accounting for warning notes) at or below 90%, you’ll also gain 2 shadowy x 5 turns on success, or about 0.4 shadowy/turn. This adds up, given the nature of what you’re already doing.
25 turns grinding casing = 75-90 turns casing, depending on success and method of grinding, plus 8-10 shadowy.
9 more turns selling information to a colleague will gain you 90 shadowy, as well as 90 CP of criminal connections. With your other ~10 from the initial grind, that comes to ~34 turns for ~100 Shadowy, which is just under 3 CP/turn.
Given that farming impossible tasks when you’re at a sub-Menace level only brings in about 4 CPs/turn, and given that farming 90% should only yield you 1.9 (maybe closer to 2.0 if you burn through a high quantity of warning notes), 3 CPs/turn is screamingly fast.
So, 200 - 187 = 13 levels needed, x 70 CPs/level = ~910 points you need.
(1+44) x (44/2) → 990 CPs of casing needed to reach level 44 in casing. 990 / 3.6 CPs/turn = 275 turns you’ll need to invest. That sounds like a lot, but think of it as a 3-ish day investment in becoming a master thief. You won’t grind Shadowy ever again unless they raise the cap or you lose your levels somehow.
Once you reach casing 44 (that’s rounding up, 42 might even do it), start selling information. It will take you 99 turns to sell 990 CPs of casing, so think of that as about a fourth day’s worth of turns.
This will gain you almost 1k CPs of connected criminals, which only seems fitting for an invisibly eminent operator like yourself. It will pay NOTHING financially, but will also cost you very little, just some very modest risk of suspicion.
So you can get this done in about 374 turns and get paid nothing, or spend about 750 turns grinding the 1-turn shadowy action of your choice if you can keep your chance of success between 85-90%. You’re going to find that difficult with 200+ augmented Shadowy, but unfinished business in Spite (with gear that LOWERS your shadowy as needed) might serve you well. Stick to 1-turn actions if the Shadowy gain is still your focus. If you find something with a good return, you’re looking at gaining 700+ echoes and maxing your shadowy with perhaps 7-8 days’ worth of turns grinding your preferred shadowy task.
My advice would be to go the casing route and get this over with; three days are three days you could spend exploiting your newfound eminence for further profit, or training proteges for Making Waves to start on notability.
If you go the traditional route, try to focus on actions that pay in a currency that is of use to you. I took a break from my Shadowy gains to rob couriers for old times’ sake. Saving up for a membership in the Parthanaeum, so I’m grinding both Shadowy CPs and influential currency.