A much cheaper option for seeing the other choice is to create a second account, set them on the Search, and just pop into that account once a week to do the black cards. In seven weeks, they’ll be ready for a Weeping Scar, with very little time/effort on your part.
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Now, I need to find a way to become as Shadowy as possible, as soon as possible.[/quote]
[li]Honestly the affair of the box carousel is. Once again. Your best bet.
It’s arguably the best grind for both reliable amounts of candles and the higher leveled shadowy.
Barring loitering for chances of course.
[quote=lukeskylicker]Honestly the affair of the box carousel is. Once again. Your best bet.[li]
It’s arguably the best grind for both reliable amounts of candles and the higher leveled shadowy.
Barring loitering for chances of course.[/quote] The trouble is, I’m not Shadowy enough to even begin. I don’t even have access to the Mahogany Hall.[/li]
In that case try unfinished business in spite. I was recommending under the assumption that you were at about 120 shadowy without equipment (the keyword for that assumption was the infered "maximize"). I’m not certain but if you start the war of illusions in The Flit (you start after your first heist) or simply buy the route from your lodgings (the price is more tedious than expensive as I recall) you can get access the hall. You can then start the carousel pretty soon afterwards. A few times around on the right path and you can start getting candles very reliably. I’ve been using it for my echoes grind for an overgoat and getting to invisible eminence.
So yeah either take the time for the war of of illusions, cough up some items, or doing 1 action unfinished business is your best bet. Just make sure whatever you do the challenges are not straight forward or very modest. The former will need 70 actions and the later provides no additonal benefit to 80% - 90% challenges.
Oh and if you’ve not completed the university questline always talk with the porters. I recall that seeking is very watchful intensive. You’ll level quite rapidly that way.[li]
edited by lukeskylicker on 7/30/2018
I have looked up a list of other meditations one can attempt on The Seeking Road. Believe it or not, this is far from the worst. So many echoes must be thrown away for this search. I could get an Overgoat. I could probably get several.
But I’m going to make it my goal to see every meditation, one way or another. What sense is there in doing this halfway? No reward is waiting for me at the end, except a mark of shame for being so foolish to ignore the countless warnings. The goal is to see what there is to see, no matter what the cost.
EDIT: Looking at these other meditations, it doesn’t seem like many of them are actually that difficult. Pricey, certainly. But the only one I’m struggling to wrap my mind around is the one that takes Searing Enigmas. Pricey items are easy enough to obtain, I feel, but when you need to gain them over and over and over again, a dull ache sets in the mind. Novelty gives way to tedium.
But it’s looking like there may be a way to get Enigmas on the carousel you’ve already mentioned, the one with the Mourning Candles? Am I reading this right? It’s a little hard to follow these stories without actually experiencing them. Pardon my badgering; I am anxious to get this show on the road, and I want to make sure I’m not making any more costly tactical errors.
edited by asinineFlatfoot on 7/31/2018
The Affair of the Box refers to both a carousel and a storyline. Going through the carousel raises Boxful of Intrigue, which can be cashed in for rewards, but it’s also used to progress the story. You get a couple Searing Enigmas for finishing the story, but that’s a one-time thing. Some other ways you could try to get Enigmas:
- You can convert Uncanny Incanabula to Enigmas at the University, but it’s highly variable and inefficient[/li][li]Doing Heists at the offices of Baseborn and Fowlingpiece occasionally gives an Enigma instead of the usual reward[/li][li]The Court of the Wakeful Eye allows highly efficient grinding of Enigmas, but would require lots of input cash and finishing several storylines first[/li][li]Trade Secrets, of which you can get one every four weeks, can be exchanged for an Enigma and other goodies[/li][li]Making a wild guess from The Seeking Road gives an Enigma on a rare success, but you lose one on a rare failure
There’s probably other methods I’m forgetting, but getting enough Enigmas will be painful. But with enough time and effort, it’s definitely possible to do every The Seeking Road option. (Except the option to sacrifice St Cerise’s Candle, which is only possible for legacy Seekers.)
The Fidgeting Writer storyline, accessed through your Tales of Terror in your inventory, is another difficult (governed by RNG) way to gain Searing Enigmas if you trade-in for rewards at the penultimate choice (Lens of Black Glass), which gives one Searing Enigma in addition to other items (one of which is a Bazaar Permit, which you will also need for Seeking).
You might need to hold on to your Trade Secrets to make a Classic Short Story, which is one of the things you can choose to sacrifice for Cerise. It’ll likely be faster than the other non-Fate options.
When Neathmas comes around, the Rat of Glory will likely be given out on December 7, which can be exchanged for 1 to 6 Searing Enigmas.
The easiest way to get engimas is by using trade secrets, if you have any significant amount stored up. In my experience this option is often forgotten.
[quote=Frenjamin Banklin]The easiest way to get engimas is by using trade secrets, if you have any significant amount stored up.[/quote] 56 X 4 = 224. That’s 224 weeks, mind. Over four years. I will not accept the idea that this is the fastest method. It is only the laziest.
[quote=Frenjamin Banklin]In my experience this option is often forgotten.[/quote]We are not here to forget. Not even the things that are best forgotten. "Best" went out the window when we became Seekers. No stone will be left unturned, unless there is no choice.
Cash in Trade Secrets? Blasphemy!
If I get another one, I won’t hesitate to use it in whatever manner is most relevant to my current interests at the time. But I’m convinced I won’t get more then 1 before I could have 56 Searing Enigmas.
Just last week I sold off 290 Enigmas. That took a bit of grinding to get to, but if you just need 56, that costs under 3000 echoes, and the grind is profitable even before that approaching 1.9-2EPA very quickly (with like a few hundred echoes of investment). The only downside is that you need to actually gain the access to the Court of the Wakeful Eye, so that’s a bunch of storyline content to go through, but it’s undeniably far and away the most efficient source of Enigmas if you want loads of them (for reference, most other sources have negative EPA, meaning you lose money on every action on the path to an Engima, and those that aren’t as bad still have abysmal EPA making them unsuitable for grinding anything other than the Enigmas themselves - meanwhile, the Court is THE most profitable grind in the game by a wide margin).
Edit: for completeness, the other items that can now be grinded more profitably than anything else in the game are Night-Wispers, Favours in High Places, and Primeval Hints. You get one "free" choice with the 80 initial tribute needed to get to the Court in the first place, after that each new Minister (each one corresponding to one of the rewards) costs 240 Tribute (or 622 echoes in Orphans exactly, 648 if rounding to the next whole orphan).
Overall the Court is fantastic not only for its unmatched EPA, but also making some historically hard to get, very unprofitable, yet quite useful items into the most efficiently grindable ones in the game. Though most of this, other than the Enigmas, probably won’t matter to a Seeker - perhaps the FihP if one goes through the trouble of setting up a salon in order to help get the N12 candle.
edited by Dudebro Pyro on 8/1/2018
Money is not a great obstacle, or a great resource. Not for me. Mourning Candles can be gotten from purchasable items, but I’ll need a great deal of favours from the Revolution. Enigmas absolutely cannot be acquired by purchase. And now Veils-Velvet… the only way I can see is to trade three thousand scraps. I have… 20. There is much work to be done.
Besides just getting as many lodgings as possible, you can also acquire Urchins favours. There’s a Flit card where you can trade in three favours for 25 Scraps and a Bundle of Oddities.
What my alt did first for Enigmas was grind glim at Mahogany Hall, and upconvert to Zee-Ztories, then to Journals of Infamy.
I, much later, realized a better option. If you have the Implaceable Detectvie’s Card, you can track down an Absentee Aunt. To make it mostly guaranteed, you need 400 Whispered Hints and 5 Identities Uncovered. Depending on your luck, you either have a choice between Jade (1350) or her Journals (30). If you’re exceptionally lucky (a notable success) you can get both (1250 Jade + 30 Journals). The notable success is the best, as you can upconvert Jade->3rd Relics-Mystery oF Elder Continent, then covert to Journals, along with the ones you already have. If you need to round by 10 or 20 Journals, you can buy 500 cryptic clues and convert to Journals as well.
I then took those journals and converted to Ex. Implications->Uncanny Incubala, then to Searing Enigmas. This portion requires a lot of Benthic Connected, which can circumvented with an Endowment of a University Fellowship and 15 Abdominable Salts.
You should save some trade secrets for a Classic Short Story, which can be sacrificed to the Well to lead you to St. Cerise’s candle. (http://fallenlondon.wikia.com/wiki/Sacrifice_a_work_of_genius)
P.S. If do the Affair of the Box, you gain a Searing Enigma by doing the whole thing and siding with the Masters, or 2-4 by exposing it with your Newspaper. The Newspaper is another way to get Journals, but it requires Whirring Contraptions and high Shadowy.
edited by Ixc on 8/2/2018
Or just grind them at the Court for ~2.2 EPA; about 28-29 AP for one Enigma if one has enough Orphans to start with! :)
Has someone given you the text for Pervert Your Studies already? I’m currently grinding SotC to see it myself, could send you on a copy if you want.
Has someone given you the text for Pervert Your Studies already? I’m currently grinding SotC to see it myself, could send you on a copy if you want.[/quote]
You’re kind to offer, but I’ve decided to try and get that for myself. I’ve restarted the Seeking quest so I can get the Mourning Candle one more easily. This also allows me to have another shot at getting the Scholar one. It won’t be easy, but Scholar 9 is a trifle compared to the time I’ll spend getting Mourning Candles and Searing Enigmas.
Another thing you can do for Searing Enigmas, albeit it’s extremely slow since you cannot do it actively, is saving up your Professional Perks up to 4 and trade them in for Trade Secrets, which you can convert to 4 Antique Mysteries and 1 Searing Enigma.
We went over that. If that’s my only source of Enigmas, it’ll take me two years. No. Absolutely not. I’ll not delay my Search that long.