Spiral Knights - Where to find Orbs? (Other than purchasing them!)

Where to find Orbs? (Other than purchasing them!)

11 replies [Last post]

Sat, 11/30/2013 - 11:38

Bossbane

Hey there! Styrka here back again, but as a new character!

For a variety of reasons I've chosen to start over, but that's not what this post is about. What it IS about is the wondering on how and where to find Orbs for alchemy. I have heard that they can be found in treasure boxes, CAN'T be found in treasure boxes, can be acquired from boss battles, CAN'T be acquired from boss battles...You get the picture.

So what's the deal? Are you only given X amount from story line missions and then that's it, go buy them from greedy, greedy Kozma? Or can I unearth some orbs to craft my armors and weapons elsewhere? On that note, can the same be said for Fire Crystals?

Thanks very much and it's nice to be back,

Neo-Necrosaber

Sat, 11/30/2013 - 11:48

Bopp

wiki, search

I'm sorry, but there have been tons of threads on this topic. Try the wiki page "Rarity". Or try searching Google for something like "orb alchemy site:forums.spiralknights.com".

Sat, 11/30/2013 - 11:52

Glacies

Orbs of Alchemy have a uncommon chance to be found in specific strata's:

Strata 1: Prominent with Flawed Orbs of Alchemy
Strata 2: Prominent with Simple Orbs of Alchemy
Strata 3: Prominent with Advanced Orbs of Alchemy
Strata 4: Prominent with Elite Orb of Alchemy
Strata 5: Prominent with Eternal Orbs of Alchemy
Strata 6: Eternal Orbs of Alchemy

Whoever told you that they'd drop from bosses most likely meant the treasure boxes from Boss Depths. Any Box has a chance of obtaining an Orb of Alchemy. I'm pretty sure the drop rate is 0.5% so 1/200 boxes will usually net you at least one orb. Also to note that you'll usually find a range between the Lower and Higher Star-varainted orbs per depth (So Strata 1 has a chance to find Flawed AND Simple, but the latter isn't as prominent, Strata 4 can find both Advanced and Elite and so forth)

Sat, 11/30/2013 - 13:20

Wobblegong

Subjective niche answer ahoy!

Hi there! I'm just a newb who's been poking around for a few days, so take my observations with a grain of salt:

Orbs of Alchemy CAN pop out of treasure chests, but it's fairly rare. Only happened to me once so far (in maybe a week's worth of playing a few hours a day) and it only gave me one orb. Probably best to view them as a perk you might get sometimes, not an easily-farmed thing.

Fire crystals are less rare but still not super common. A luckier, lucrative run might get me 9 crystals or so; lots of futzing frequently ends in no crystals or only 3.

For the Orbs of Alchemy, Kozma or the Auction House is necessary. In the time it'd take you to find a triplet of orbs in treasure boxes you've probably ground up the crowns to buy more than one set of orbs by converting to energy anyways. For Fire Crystals, I'm still asking around, but my suspicion is that forging gear up to level 10 isn't meant to be easy. But you can get by on drops with a little patience, at least at lower ranks/stars (I'm only rank 4ish/2-star).

I hope that might help you. Good luck and have fun!

Mon, 12/02/2013 - 10:14

Dragon-Knightz

Go to the Arcade / Missions

Go to the Arcade / Missions and grind them on Elite.

It's better than buying cause you can get mats, crowns, and orbs from grinding the arcade.

I hope this helped. .3.

Tue, 12/03/2013 - 01:46

Omoikami

Boom Boom Pow!

TBH the most success you'll have is to find depths that have a chance of giving lots of treasure boxes, since thats the only place to get them dern orbs. Bosses dun drop em D:

Im not sure about the specific depths, but 1* and 2* orbs are strata 1 &2, 3* orbs are found in d9 to d12 (although I've gotten them numerous times in RJP d14 on elite).

4* and 5* orbs are found everywhere apparently :P seriously, I've found both of them in the later depths of RJP (d15 and d16), in FSC, etc. [PS. I always play on elite, so I'm not sure if that changes the where they drop, or even the drop rates].

For the most part, if you're looking for a large number of 5* orbs, try farming the Gauntlet mission. Its a great payout and also, the final arena is lots of fun (I think people have problems with the 2nd room - ice fiends and undead).

Otherwise try looking in the arcade for an arena thats easy to farm, since there are lots of treasure boxes.

The best I've found so far was a d9 arena that I could redo continuously to farm for advanced orbs.. I think I did around 3 hrs of play, and I got about 5-6 orbs.. The drop rate is something like 1 orb every 20-30 boxes if you're unlucky.

Tue, 12/03/2013 - 09:25

Jenovasforumchar

As far as I know difficulty

As far as I know difficulty affects the chance that a tresure box will be a red one.

I can definitely say that red boxes got a significant better chance to drop orbs than green boxes (to be honest: I never got an orb out of a green box)

So you shall play on Elite difficulty since it only changes the health a monster has; it doesn't change the damage a monster deals to you.

To your other questions:
Spiral Knights can be played completely without using energy (if you do not mind about extra missions like OCH or Shadow Lairs and price boxes or costumes).

Nevertheless it is hard to play it on this way since drops from the rarity group are not comon at certain grades (e.g. the 5 star Heating Crystals: Radiants or 4 star Orbs).

Let me add one more thing:
Monsters do *never* drop radiants, orbs or Spar of Lives; this includes boss monsters. You get them only out of boxes.

Tue, 12/03/2013 - 15:56

Omoikami

^Greenies

I've gotten most of my orbs out of the green boxes though...

Sat, 12/07/2013 - 22:14

Plasterz

Try running missions.

I got lots of elite orbs from mission 7-2 In Cold Blood, And i usually go to FSC for CR and eternal orbs.For advanced orbs, try doing JK, theres a chance for advanced and also elite orbs!

Fri, 12/13/2013 - 15:44

Tender-Footmender

Has anyone noticed what will happen if you leave subject blank?

I'd rather just do a bunch of missions and buy them than spend a lot of time trying to get orbs from fighting bosses. I've heard some eternal orbs may drop if you manage to come out of Vanaduke's throne room alive.
BTW subject is just something I thought of asking you guys.

Fri, 12/13/2013 - 18:14

#10

Halandin

You don't have to fight

You don't have to fight bosses to get the orbs, it's just that fighting bosses is common to try to get orbs due to the large number of treasure boxes they have at the end. The prestige missions are something I discovered just a couple days ago that can have a nice payout from boxes. I found that Assault on Machine Shop 13 and A Pinch of Salt had lots of boxes and weren't that hard even on elite. If you don't use the elevator to go up on the second level, you can repeat doing them--it's especially nice doing the first level of Machine Shop and then rushing the second level (a gremlin Deconstruction Zone) to grab the key, smash the boxes, then quit to Haven. White Collar Captives (fiends) was harder, although part of that was wearing neg-fire resistant Seraphic Mail with fire fiends, and skelly shields don't have fire resist.

Also, a couple days ago, I got an eternal orb from a green box in "In Cold Blood." Nice to have, but I need elites, not eternals. :/ Also got 2 SoLs in the three levels of that "In Cold Blood" run, when I usually am lucky to get 2 from an entire tier 2 and 3 run.

Sun, 12/22/2013 - 07:35

#11

Geotoast

...

i have some fire crystal recipes

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Where to find Orbs? (Other than purchasing them!)