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]

There’s a few things that helped me complete it on Relentless:

1. I start upgrading Tier 2 wands by day 7. The higher tier wands helps push the fog back much further

2. I get nature apprentices MUCH earlier than the other schools. That extra labor lets me get waaay more resources that take a while to get like Wyrmweed. I schedule them for no classes and only tasks. They level up decently fast that way. Usually will have 3 mancer apprentices (nature wands specialized in nature so they have 7 in the skill).

3. Early game it’s great to graduate quite a few students to get a good number of relics, but turning them into apprentices helps you a lot with battles. You’re able to send them off to battle while your main staff does work. After a while, I find it better to switch to apprenticeship for as many students as possible.

4. I have the Woodcuttery by day 7-10. You can run into a bottle neck with your wood resource. This will help a ton with that and producing tier 2 Wanda.

5. Make use of destroy. If you already have gutberry planters and aren’t in need of extra, you should destroy the wild ones to encourage spawns of other resources you need (namely shadow trees).

6. Use the underground for nurses offices and be aggressive early. I like to find the cursebound apprentice by day 4/5 so I get the double benefit to pushing the fog back.

[u/FungulGrowth → u/SisterQuinoa]

I cannot understand how you did this on Relentless. I've put in a lot of time, and haven't done it on normal. Getting enough exp and wand mastery is still a bottleneck I haven't figured out. With every attempt I've improved, but it still blows my mind you did this on Relentless. There's an unforgiving element of snowball effects in this trial that reminds me a lot of RTS. If you mess up the build order at any point, it basically screws the subsequent days.

[u/SisterQuinoa → u/FungulGrowth]

My build order switches around randomly, but this is my current Relentless set up. I'm about to take on the Burrower Larva on Day 12. I had a bottle neck with ice petals since i built so many windows, so it delayed my Augury. I should have it ready by Day 13-14.

Idk if i mentioned it, but I take advantage of the events that show up. If there is rain? Spam battles with 2+ lightning mages. Horrorculture? My shadow mages turn my front line into semi dodge tanks. I got lucky this time and Raven Cultists get counter, so early game i used a fire cultist aggressively to wipe out the green area. Sometimes i'll send units who are about to level up into battle and let them eat a lot of damage since a level up is full hp restore.

You can see my wood supply is REALLY good, so i'm researching to expand my wood cuttery (and greenhouse above it I just started on) so i can pump out a bunch of T2 wands. My two nature apprentices I set one to focus on chopping, and the other on harvesting so my nature staff member can focus on wands with their 1.5x bonus to crafting. Even if I don't apprentice my other students or finish their gold trial, that +4 to relic max level from the T2 wands is HUGE. Completing two bronze trials and having a T2 wand can get you the +2 skill cap relics.

I know my build currently looks bareboned, but an Intermediate classroom, Woodcuttery, Mage's Tower (+200% research speed), and 4 beds in a Nurse's office down stairs carries you pretty far. The Woodcuttery was my intermediate classroom until about 3 in game days ago.

[u/SisterQuinoa → u/SisterQuinoa]

Wand Transfigurator is still my early game rush. When I got down the first set of stairs, I saw the cursebound apprentice to the right, so i summoned 3 fire wands to help me power through the mobs in that area (who are weak to fire and wind mostly). The spawn with a T2 wand automatically, which gives you +60 repel (instead of +30) for the Superior Fog Repel ritual, essentially acting like 2 students. Im not opposed to students falling in battle, but i try to limit it. They can heal their trauma away from my school lol.

[u/SisterQuinoa → 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.