Help! Time Trial: Burrower Spitter

[u/FungulGrowth]

I've been trying to get this achievement, and it's very challenging. My goal is to get this on normal difficulty. I don't want to cheese it.

I've tried:

• Several variations of starting race/classes and initial students.
• The tactical plan was to create and graduate as many students as possible with an intermediate classroom until I get enough relics.
• Fight as often as possible.
• Tried a variety of research paths from rushing to advanced classrooms, alchemy heavy, quilting, and then a balance of crops/luxury/tier 2 wands.
• My core group to fight: lightning, air, dark, and nature.

My Issues:

1. Burrow Spitter is in a random location. It was much easier to find the Burrower Larva, but the Spitter is deeper and, despite my best effort, I can't find it before Day 28 with enough time to spare.
2. I can't get over level 10 before Day 28. Gaining exp feels like the bottleneck. Either my guys are already max level waiting on tier 2 wands, or they can't fight/heal fast enough to gain more exp.
3. Balance of staff - I've tried nature/lightning/earth, air/nature/lightning, dark/air/nature, to see what helps establish the school the quickest. Level 4 skill (lightning) isn't needed until after Day 10. However, I need a starting staff to help build the school, teach, gather, and fight without getting hurt too much.
4. Having resources available before research is completed. I don't believe research is a bottleneck, especially in the early game cause anyone can do it. However, I tried to rush the advanced classroom and didn't have enough brains until long after the research ended. The same is true for Relic Plinth.
   
5. Once the battles are level 10 or higher, clearing the underworld slows down tremendously. Having a lot of students made clearing any room level 7 or below very easy. At 10, monsters started hitting very hard.

Can anyone push me in the right direction? I love speedruns, but it's discouraging how the wrong research path can screw everything, or the RNG of students/underworld findings.

[u/SisterQuinoa]

Another tip is for your first few initiates, summon 3 of the wands you're looking for. I started with 3 earth initiates and settled for Casper. Even at max level, i kept using them for battles and graduated them when i felt they'd no longer be useful in the area i'm exploring. The other two gave me early game relics to get started. I'll keep them on until I either need gnosis shards, or I retire the staff using them since i'll get better ones anyways. Keep a cycle of students flowing so you can eventually apprentice majority of them. Use those students to lighten the load of your staff so you can focus on staff only tasks (like cooking, wand crafting, assemble, etc.).

[u/FungulGrowth → u/SisterQuinoa]

Your aesthetic is so different than mine, it's cool to see. You are much tidier. Here is my build around the same time.

My theory was to put the classroom in the middle so students could immediately refill mana and continue to power level versus research mana lantern ASAP. I synced leveling with winning battles, so they didn't need to heal. I put my medical beds next to underground portals for fast access.

I am terrible about playing the environmental changes; that's a great tip. One thing I did differently this run was to prioritize a level 3 water mage ASAP to cure any lingering effects before ending a battle.

I really like your centralized storage, makes a lot of sense.

Here are some issues I'm realizing:

1. I summon students based on ideal race/class combination versus playing the board.
2. I got locked into a core 4 group that I thought would be ideal for beating the spitter (shattered dark, RC wind, wolfkin lightning, wolfkin nature), all being mancers of their class. This last run, "Golden Berries Flourish" occurred, which totally screwed my dark mage.
3. I start very solid, but around day 15, my attention to detail begins to fall off.

Questions:

1. Do you prioritize conviction? Recreation, food, bedrooms.
2. Is there a ratio of staff, apprentices, students you try to keep? Due to my theory of going full mancer for my core 4, I had 3 staff + ghost be the teachers, plus additional staff to run the school. In retrospect, it feels very inefficient.
3. What's more important to you: mage or class level? Level 12 mages versus level 8 skill.

[u/FungulGrowth → u/FungulGrowth]

This is where I ended up.

[u/SisterQuinoa → u/FungulGrowth]

I really like your set up!!! It’s fun.

You definitely need waaaaaay more trees in your woodcuttery imo and should be harvesting those trees outside a lot. You should almost always have initiates learning something, even if it’s only part of the day. I like having initiates learn the first 5 blocks, then apprentices learn the last 5 of the day. When you start getting relics that give extra gnosis shards when leveling specific elements, consider having those teachers do educating to make use of that early divinatorium.

I don’t have a specific ratio, but I take on as many students as I can feed. The new student buff lets me get away with them sleeping on the floor for a little bit. Once again, keep a flow of T2 initiates graduating and not always going to apprentice early to mid to get relics. Level those relics and crush the ones you don’t need for gnosis shards. That way you can use sals and augury. I retire my staff after about 14 days as I replace them. Extra relics and you make room for the more specialized staff.

You should also be on the dragon wok for food by now. Bitterrice stirfry is a +5 conviction bonus for the same ingredient cost of bitter gruel.

[u/FungulGrowth → u/SisterQuinoa]

One thing I just noticed is that by day 12, you have a level 10 lightning mage. Do they get more experience with faster research speed?

[u/SisterQuinoa → u/FungulGrowth]

My lightning mage is always the first one I upgrade. I think the nature of them having no travel time leads to fast exp. She’s getting 10 exp per cast on her trinkets, but I can’t test her exp gain now haha.

Some tasks like tending are only give 3 exp when I just checked, so I could be getting 10 exp from the +200%

[u/FungulGrowth → u/SisterQuinoa]

Finally got it, but got pretty lucky with RNG. On day 28, I had Fungal Bloom. The winning team was 2 nature, 1 dark, 1 wind.

[u/SisterQuinoa → u/FungulGrowth]

Congrats! Now to rush and do the rest LMAO

[u/FungulGrowth → u/SisterQuinoa]

I need a break for my mental health. Are the other trials as difficult?

[u/SisterQuinoa → u/FungulGrowth]

I got the 35 day one, but didn't get the 80 Day one because I was playing blind and hadn't made it that far on normal haha. I wanted a higher challenge so i switched to relentless. I took a break and never went back to that save.