It seems, to me at least, that the rate of finding a crafting orb is, like, one to a hundred, maybe more. I would like the rate to be, like, one to ninety, ninety-five, something like that? And maybe, find two at the same time? But the latter would be a lot rarer than just finding one. It could be though either I'm having bad luck or I'm just not looking in the right places. I forged through JK I don't know how many times for those elite orbs!
Anyway, this is just something to think on.
Wow... fast reply...
If I remember correctly... 3 elite orbs cost 500 energy, give or take? And it cost 8,500, give or take, per 100 energy? Three orbs would cost 42,500 crowns. For those who can't get into Tier 3 unless a friend or a guild mate invites them or can barely survive a shadow lair if they don't have tier 3 access (never been in one, but I imagine that they are really hard), they don't get a lot of crs. In one elite JK run, I got 3K crs.
Elite orbs cost 400 CE
CR to CE prices are set by the market so it can fluctuate.
FYI if you want to farm orbs easier just do this: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/106434
Orbs of alchemy are perfectly fine in drop rate on the elite difficulty. However, the drops should not be considered the "default" way to get them, rather buying them with energy should be. While you're hunting for crowns in the royal jelly palace you'll probably come across a few elite orbs anyways.
@Holy-Nightmare
Thanks for the link.
@Fangel
-_- I haven't gotten one in a while...
I think you would need around 7 JK runs to get three 4* orbs, and in the meanwhile some more orbs might drop. it's also around the same number of times you will need to run FSC in T3 to get three 5* orbs. but if you are running FSC you probably are already dropping like it's rainin' orbs.
Drops are not ensured, just influenced. You can find 4* and 5* fire crystals at depth 26, however you can influence more 5* fire crystals to spawn by doing D28 or a shadow lair. At the same time, in a shadow lair, you could only find 9 5* fire crystals, whereas another person in your party could find 81.
Farming for orbs is tedious and long, and is based on luck. If you want to invest time at a reasonable rate, I would say try to trade for energy to buy orbs with.
Why not just enjoy the game, and consider levelling up for free to be a bonus?
Why is everything gotta be about "gotta get to tier 3 fast", it just results in players underexperienced in the game being thrown into areas where they can drag down parties by dying a lot. If you want to run tier 3, get one four star weapon, and then have someone invite you through the Emberlight barrier like the good old days. BAM. You've gotten yourself a 9 floor run that also takes you past T3 Basil, who sells recipes that are rare that you can resell. (You can do the same in a tier 2 run to a lesser degree)
Also, dunno why you're running RJP for your Elite Orbs when IMF has almost 4x the chance of them per run, while having roughly the same crown payout.
When you make orbs more common, weapons are more easily gotten. That means more people are getting more weapons quickly, which may sound good, but if you got nearly every weapon in the game, would you still play? There would be no point in acchieving anything else!
I know this from experience, because I used to make minecraft mods (childish, yes), and in those mods I added way more weapons that were too easy to get. From that error, you could get OP weapons quickly, which soon made the mod boring. All I'm saying is that easy-to-get weapons are bad, and from increasing the drop rates of orbs, the same effect will apply to ALL weapons.
orbs aren't meant to be aquired via drops, and the AH prices are waaaaay too high to consider buying. don't buy from the auction house, just use the crowns you get from doing levels to buy energy and buy the orbs off the depot.