I know myself and a few others have been coming up short on alchemy orbs and finding ourselves unable to complete 5-2 HALL OF HEROS (teir 3 helm, armor, weapon, and shield). Did we mess up somewhere or is this level of progression typically the end of the road for free-to-players?
I've noticed crowns can be exchanged for orbs, but it's really expensive and would take just over the total number of crowns I've ever earned to pass this kind of mission which, up until now, have been a freebies. For multiple reasons too complicated to get into, most types of online transactions don't work for me or people in my town (though i haven't tried yet), and when they do it's really frustrating navigating all the channels needed to get it working; so could we go over the most efficient way to get orbs?
Do purchased Alchemy Orbs bind to players, and does it cost anything to sell items on the player market? I'd imagine no matter how you buy orbs, whether by Visa-purchased energy, Crown-purchased energy, or from the market with crowns, it would always come out to about the same cost (right now about 6000 crown or 67 energy each), but what stratagem should players use to get the most bang for their buck, and is there any advice for players unable to directly purchase energy?
I never thought I'd have to bother with energy sales until now but I've really been enjoying the game and it would be a pain if it ended here. Any advice would be appreciated.
You are giving up too early. Back then, elevators costed 10 energy and we had mist tanks that could store 100 energy at most. We were limited to 10 levels per day, so T2 players would do one of the following:
-Do RJP 3 times a day. Vendor token reward for 3.5k cr. (2500*5+3500=16k cr per 36-48 hours.)
-Do RJP w/o boss 5 times a day. (2300*5=11.5k cr per 24-36 hours)
Both methods earn you enough money to pass 5-2 HoH in 4-7 days. And guess what- completing all 5-2 missions reward you 8 (eight) Advanced Orbs of Alchemy. That covers the helm, armor and shield (Considering you should get at least one orb as a drop, that is.).
The real problem is 6-2 HoH, where missions give you only 1/6 of the orbs you need. But elite orbs are significantly more common than advanced orbs. They have a chance to appear between D10-D22. You will probably get enough orbs for at least two 4* items while going through the missions and playing the game.
And the final BAWS- 8-2 HoH! That was one of the reasons I committed suicide with my old account. One single 5* item would cost 86k cr in total. Therefore, Champion rank(9-1) would cost 344k cr, unless you are using the mission reward recipes (And you should not. At least not the Cobalt set). If you continue on with regular RJP farming, passing the final HoH would take 15-30 days. Hard, but far from impossible.
TL;DR: With missions generously covering a lot of crafting costs, the loot increase from elite difficulty, elevators being free, and pet foods as a good crown source, all the HoH missions can be past without spending a single penny.