What is S5?

I'm on the hunt for 4* orbs too. They're oddly rare. Been doing In Cold Blood, RJP, IMF, depths 19-21 in the arcade and I've found only 2 so far. Does the difficultly affect the loot type? Because I'm getting more 5* orbs from these levels than 4*, playing on Elite.

Pretty sure they've fixed the drop rates. I hardly see any orbs at all these days.

Also, I like to grind Return of Ur on Elite. 4* fire crystals, chance of elite orbs and fiends are fun to fight on Elite. With 300ms ping.

Wispur is right, no kidding. You get 4* Orbs in Stratum 4 because you need 4* gear to enter Stratum 5. You wouldn't be able to proceed without friends otherwise.

Roarmies don't take long if you know what you're doing. I usually run with Zeddy, though. And he's pretty skilled at that stuff.

@Krakob
The twins don't take "long" if you know what you're doing but you can most likely kill jelly king in the time it takes to finish round one of the twins...

CE is 62 per 1.
Three elite orbs cost 400 energy (Hello, supply depot).
133 energy = 8,246 crowns

8,246 > 13,000 - 20,000?

grim, right now sprite foods are waaa[...]aaayyy[...]yyy overpriced. so they have incentive. also, profit is good.
running stratum 4, I got a 3* orb, then a 5* in a danger room loot. something is not right.

A lot of these explanations above are pretty unclear. This is how it works:

Stratum 1 (Depth 1-3): Flawed Orbs of Alchemy (1*)
Stratum 2 (Depth 5-7): Simple Orbs of Alchemy (2*)
Stratum 3 (Depth 9-12): Advanced Orbs of Alchemy (3*)
Stratum 4 (Depth 14-17): Elite Orbs of Alchemy (4*)
Stratum 5 (Depth 19-22): Eternal Orbs of Alchemy (5*)
Stratum 6 (Depth 24-28): Eternal Orbs of Alchemy (5*)
(There seems to be a higher drop rate of Eternal Orbs in Stratum 6.)

Also here's what I've found about drops on each difficulty(going through a whole Stratum):

Normal: It usually takes around 4-5 runs before I find an orb
Advanced: Usually 2-4 runs
Expert: Usually 2 orbs per 3 runs (1.5 per run)

tl;dr Farm expert depths 14-17 for Elite Orbs.

Grind arcade on tier 3

Elite mode, anything from depth 14-17 would be best. You might get advanced orbs as well though. Try arcade diving for arenas and danger rooms. I got 2 elite orbs and 1 advanced orb with this method. Luck has some role though.

I've found a 4* orb on Depth 11 on elite mode. I think grinding Tier 2 as a whole is the fastest way, because it's so easy and quick.

I have 4 Eternal Orbs from Elite In Cold Blood, I get some Elite Orbs from only RJP/JK.

I'm supposed to get minimum 1 Eternal Orb,but noooooo,it gives me 3 Flawed.

How did you arrive at this "minimum"? I have not seen it promised anywhere, and it disagrees with my experience. You seem to have a misconception about the game.

Edit: Sorry for responding to this guy.

IMF Depths 1, 2, and 3 (15 16 and 17) all give Eternals.

RJP D 16 (boss depth in mission) gives 4star orbs.

Hope this helped (if it hasn't already been said .-.)

where

play sewer stash on elite. Yup. Sewer stash. Gives at least 1 orb every full run...if you're lucky.

whoops necro.

I've found Eternal, elite and advanced orbs in jelly runs :\

Here is in my opinion the fastest and best way to farm elite orbs.

Go to 6-2 Sewer Stash(-Elite -Solo), bring stuff to kill slimes in case of danger rooms.

Ignore combat just run through the level shooting all the boxes, unless of course you get blocked by a danger room,
once you reach the first elevator going down, don't take it start over.

there is between 5-12 boxes on that level and you can literally run it every 1-3 minutes non-stop.

What a lot of people here don't tell you is that each box in the game has a specific percentage of drop, so it's not just about the level,
it's about how many boxes you have rolled the dice on recently.

This isn't a golden run, it won't drop the first time, or every time but its fast, easily repeatable and dependable!

that is what I mean, I am terrible with terms, more or less gated arena's

I might as well link to the Lancer Knightz data on rarities. They add new data pretty often, by the way. Everything from Shocking Sentient Sentries through Built to Destroy! offers 4-star orbs, it seems.

Lancer_Knightz_(Guild)/Missions#Rarities_and_Treasure_Boxes

None of this changes the fact that you can buy orbs (by finding crowns and saving up) faster than you can find orbs.

Sweetiejaws, my comments tend not to incorporate time, because it varies so much from player to player. But you are right that we should consider it.

Sewer Stash may offer as much as one 4-star Orb per two trips. Does each speed run really take you only 5 minutes? I'll have to try myself.

Another poster recently mentioned Axes of Evil. You can open six treasure boxes immediately, before fighting any monsters. If you don't get anything you want, then restart the mission.

Edit: I just did two speed-runs of Sewer Stash (Elite) on one of my alts, whom I would characterize as "weak 5-star". They took 12 and 11 minutes respectively. Better equipment (higher MSI, damage enough to one-shot kill enemies, guns to hit boxes) would help. On the other hand, I have this mission pretty much memorized.

So 5 minutes seems quite optimistic for the average knight. But even at 11 or 12 minutes this is probably a good strategy for getting 4-star Orbs. So I'll update my FAQ. Thanks again.

An experienced party can complete all of Firestorm Citadel in 30 minutes or even less. Search YouTube to find some videos.

Sweetiejaws is not saying that you find 4-star orbs in FSC. Indeed, the Lancer Knightz data record 13 runs with no 4-star orbs and only one 5-star orb.

He's saying that one run of FSC earns you 10,000 crowns (or more), which is roughly enough to buy one 4-star orb. For example, if you run FSC three times and earn 32,000 crowns, then you can buy 400 energy, and then three 4-star orbs. In this way each FSC run earns you one 4-star orb.

While running with guildmates I accidentally found a lot in t2 elite OCH