Post by Administrator on Apr 15, 2012 12:34:19 GMT -6
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After looking where things stood in the park I share with my grandson Jack (GCID:queenvictoria5) Fletch gave us the following blueprint for getting our gold shrines:
103 dragons bred and taken to level 15! That's why we call it the shrine grind.
So, the question is, where to get started? It makes sense to me to start with the dragons that are big producers of gold coins as the most arduous part of the shrine grind is generating the amounts of food required to level dragons up to 10 or 15. You can keep your new high producing level 10/15's and have them contribute to your efforts.
Jack's park already has a well established Chinese Gold Coin Factory (CGCF) so we're starting with the Panlongs. At 411 coins a minute when fully optimized (Fire & Water boosts), nothing beats Pans for flat out production.
Next would come Blooms, which are a bit of a surprise. Triple boosted (Cold, Plant and Lightening) they produce 195 coins a minute, a tad more than the 193 produced by Frostfires and Bluefires. High capacity Cold habitats work well for Blooms, but it's best to put these on a separate island from your Cold habitats filled with Frostfires and Bluefires, as the Cold boost negatively affects those.
It falls off quite a bit after that, but check production levels.
One other thing...
As the most difficult part of the process is earning the coins to buy the treats to feed the dragons to level them up, you should add to your production by breeding dragons to sell for coins. Use one breeding cave for the dragons used in the shrine process and use the other to breed dragons to sell. At this time, at four hours breeding and four hours hatching and selling for $1,150,000, Magnetics and Irons are your best bet.
koala!
Poppy
Last Edit: Apr 15, 2012 17:12:09 GMT -6 by Administrator
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Question for you gurus - am able to sweep my islands quite often and am wondering how many rare dragons I really need. Right now I have 1 sun, 1 moon, 1 lyd and 1 frostie. Should I take the time now to try to get a rainbow and bluefire, or 2? Or, just keep breeding pans and filling earth habs? What do you think?
Don't know about the guru part, but we've run a lot of numbers on this. Suns and Moons, at 260 cpm (coins per minute) are actually pretty mediocre producers. Of course, at 400 cpm, Rainbows and Leaps are a lot better. Fully optimized Pans in Earth habitats produce 411 cpm per dragon, or 1,233 cpm per habitat. You're spot-on with your mention of how often you're able to sweep. If your average frequency is under 3.1 hours then you're better off having as many Pans in Earths as possible. If it exceeds 3.1 hours, then you're better off with more Rainbows and Leaps.
And now there's a third alternative that gets overlooked - Metals. With their large holding capacity of 125,000, they're a contender also. Fletch sweeps less often than I do and uses Metals extensively - and can add to this discussion. To sum up:
Frequent Sweeping - average under 3.1 hours 1. Fully optimized (Water & Fire boosts) Pans in Earth (capacity: 75,000) habitats 2. Fully optimized (Plant, Lightening & Cold boosts) Blooms in Cold (capacity: 50,000) habitat 2. Non-optimized Frostfires & Bluefires in Cold Habitats 3. Rainbows & Leaps (capacity: 1,000,000)
Moderately Frequent Sweeping - average 3.1 to 8 (?) hours 1. Rainbows & Leaps 2. Fully optimized (Metal & Lightening boosts) Magnetic dragons in Metal (capacity: 125,000) habitats. Slightly behind them are double boosted Rust and double boosted Steel.
Infrequent Sweeping - average over 8 hours 1. Rainbows & Leap
Poppy
Last Edit: Apr 16, 2012 3:31:05 GMT -6 by Administrator
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Post by Administrator on Apr 15, 2012 13:20:46 GMT -6
Using Breeding Caves By mcneeze
Another tiny bit of strategy for newer players would be how you divide your Breeding Caves when single breeding + cash. If you are collecting pans for shrines it is always good to keep them in the regular breeding cave and the metal up on the EBI. That way if a new dragon comes along you can give it a try on the breeding island without cutting into your sometimes very long pan breeding.
Note this only matters if you are breeding in a single cave for shrines and the other cave for Mags/Irons.
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Originally I had a sequence of dragons that had the lowest number of dragons required, because of the amount of food required to feed a Dragon to Level 15. I am working on adjusting this now to be more about the amount of time required to breed the dragons, because 32 million coins earned a day is pretty easy to do so that 2 dragons can be leveled up to Level 15 as soon as they are born. My current numbers are:
400 elements in 138 dragons in 2235 hours or 93 days. 1.5 dragons per day. 24 million coins required per day to buy food to keep up to date with leveling up dragons as soon as they are born.
The above assumes you are breeding in just one cave for the required dragons, and using the other to breed Iron/Mag dragons for cash. If you find that you are earning a lot more than 24 million coins per day there are 3 ways you can speed up the Required Dragon breeding.
1. Use Gems to speed up breeding times. 2. Breed required dragons in both caves. 3. Replace a Panlong Dragon with a Mud and a Blazing. This will use up your coins/food quite quickly, because not only will you be feeding two dragons to Level 15 you will replace 36 hours of breeding time with 14 hours of breeding time.
Now this is just an arbitrary number because players generally have a number of dragons leveled up to 15. Adjustments need to be made to take into account the dragons you already have.
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Post by Administrator on Apr 16, 2012 6:38:57 GMT -6
XP Points
The way you earn your way to higher levels is by generating XP points. An aspect of XP that I haven't seen discussed much is simply what generates the most XP? Many of us here are at level 30 and we've kind of forgotten about XP. I was noticing it not too long ago though because Jack's park just got there. It appeared to me that the following were the major XP generators:
(1) Colesseum gold metals. Far and away #1. The XP you earn is said to be connected to the value of all the dragons you have in your park. If you have a lot of Baby dragons you won't earn as many XP as if you have a lot of Level 10-15 dragons (unless they are "Turbo Babies - high level dragons that have been made younger in the Fountain of Youth). As an aside, of course you also earn gold coins. When you win a Gold Medal you are credited with a days worth of earnings for the dragon that you entered into the competition (unboosted): 24 hours x 60 minutes for 1440 minutes by their earn rate. A Silver Medal earns half their daily earnings and a Bronze earns a third.
(2) Treat generation.
(3) Buying high cost decorations. A good, but wasteful, way to convert coins into XP is to buy expensive decorations.
(4) Hatching dragons.
(5) Clearing islands. A minor contributor.
There are a couple things about XP that we don't know at this time. We don't know the amount required to move up to the next level, but we do know it increases with each level. And we also don't know if the XP you earn while maxed out at level 30 is accrued and if there are additional levels added in the future.
It would be great if those of you still working your way through the levels could add to this.
Poppy & Fletch
Last Edit: Apr 18, 2012 4:35:22 GMT -6 by Fletch_smf
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Post by Administrator on Apr 16, 2012 18:53:08 GMT -6
Gold Coin Production vs. Sweep Frequency
Revised Nov 8th, 2012, by Fletch
There are a number of ways to produce a high rate of gold coin production in Dragonvale. The one that works best for you depends on how frequently you visit your park and sweep for coins. Here are the main three high producing scenarios and how they compare with each other depending on how often you visit your park:
Panlong Dragon in Earth Habitat
Production at fully optimized level 15: 411 coins per minute (cpm)
Boosts: Fire & Water
Maximum dragons in habitat: 3
Habitat production: 1,233 cpm, 73,980 coins per hour (cph)
Habitat capacity: 75,000
Time to fill habitat: 1 hour
Note: 4 Pans in a Large Water Habitat will actually earn faster, but if you can sweep your park every 18 minutes to collect there is something seriously wrong with your life priorities.
Rainbows & Leap Year Dragons
Production at level 10: 400 cpm
Boosts: None
Maximum dragons in habitat: 1
Habitat production: 400 cpm, 24,000 cph
Habitat capacity: 1,000,000
Time to fill habitat: 41.7 hours
Gold Dragons in Olympus Habitat
Production at fully optimized level 10: 194 cpm
Boosts: None
Maximum dragons in habitat: 3
Habitat production: 582 cpm, 34,920 cph
Habitat capacity: 500,000
Time to fill habitat: 14.3 hours
As the chart shows, if you visit your park and sweep for coins frequently - 2.1 hours intervals or less - you will get optimal performance from the Pans. Every longer interval after that gives the nod to 3 Gold Olympus Dragons. Rainbow/LYD overtake them at about the 21 hour mark, so if you're only checking in once a day they would e the way to go.
Bottom line? It all depends on how often you visit your park and sweep for coins. Have fun!
EDIT: Have added the new chart to this post, but have not worked out how to delete an attachment. Poppy's original chart is therefore still attached, which also shows Cold, Metal and Sun/Moon habitat earnings, but not the Olympus.
Attachments:
Last Edit: Nov 7, 2012 21:33:50 GMT -6 by Fletch_smf
This account was previously Poppy’s account. All posts are by Poppy.
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Feel free to move this Poppy if it is insubstantial.
This is for the lurkers who have just started the game and need a boost RIGHT at the beginning. First thing you should ever do while playing DragonVale is to upgrade the hatchery with your free gems at the beginning. The Wizard will give you gems during the tutorial if you are at zero. So it's a win win. Especially for players who won't be spending any real money on the game. (At least before the addiction sets in)
Post by Administrator on Apr 18, 2012 20:24:57 GMT -6
How to Use Boosts Most Effectively by Fletch
The only important boosts are the high earners (Panlong / Frostfire / Bluefire / Quake / Clover), and that's really only if you are regularly clearing their habitat before it fills up. Adding 20% to a dragon with a base earn rate of 130 coins per minute is going to Net you much more than adding 20% to a dragon earn 35 coins per minute. With that in mind:
1. Plant, Lightning & Air Boosts are wasted on their habitats because they hold so little and fill up so fast anyway. So use them on hybrid dragons in other habitats, keeping an eye out for their opposites.
Use the Lightning Boost in the Earth Habitats to boost Quake Dragons or Cold Habitats to boost Storm dragons, but be aware that Mud and Ice/Iceberg dragons are going to take a hit so you should move them to a different Island if you can. If you can't for whatever reason, then just remember that Quake at 59 is gaining 12 coins a minute whilst Mud at 35 will lose 7 coins a minute, a Net Gain of 5 coins a minute. The figures are almost identical for Storm (59) and Ice (36) in the Cold Habitat, though Iceberg earns 53 so you're closer to a break even proposition thought still slightly ahead. Of course if you have 2 Quake Dragons and only 1 Mud Dragon your Net Gain is 17 coins a minute, and so on. And these calculations are for Level 10 Dragons, and the higher the level of the improved dragon the better off you are again.
Personally I'm about to put the Lightning Boost with my Metal habitats, and fill one with 4 x Level 15 Magnetic Dragons. These will be double boosted to earn 68 coins per minute each for a total of 272 coins per minute for the habitat. I only check to collect coins about every 6 hours, morning, lunch and evening, when I put my 6 hour Pumpermelons into my Treat Farms. They'll generate about 98 000 coins in those 6 hours, meaning I can collect more from them then my Panlong/Earth habitats which max out at 75 000.
The Plant Boost is best used on Clover Dragons in Earth Habitats. Next choice is Swamp Dragons in a Water Habitat. Love, Flower and Poison in a Fire Habitat is also good, but as Fire caps out at half of the value of a Water Habitat, it's the weakest option.
Air Boost is best used on Fog Dragons, so place it on your Water Island.
2. Cold Boost used to be ideal with the Cold Habitat, because it positively boosted the high earning Blue/Frostfires and didn't negatively affect them. That changed with the new update, so we found ourselves in a position of needing to remove the Cold Boost away from our Cold Habitats. The only decent earning Cold dragon is the Iceberg, so place them in your water habitat, and place your Cold Boost there.
3. Earth Boost has been kept away from the Earth Habitats since the Panlong came to town, because it negatively affected the Air portion of the Panlong. Generally the best idea is to have Earth Habitats on 2 Islands. Panlong on one (which I'll get to shortly) and Quakes and Clovers on another with the Earth, Plant and Lightning Boost. If you can't manage that, than Boosting Muds in a Water Habitat is probably your next best bet.
4. Fire & Water Boosts have been used exclusively for Panlongs since that dragon hit the market. Giving a double boost to a dragon that earns 193 coins a minute at level 10 is such an enormous advantage that any negative consequences that you get from using these two boosts for this, and only this dragon, dwarf into insignificance.
Poppy's Chinese Gold Coin Factory (Patent Pending) perfected this set up with an island populated exclusively by large Earth habitats, each housing 3 Level 15 Panlongs. Each habitat has an output of over 1200 coins a minute, and literally tens of millions of coins are collected each day. There is now no other way to use these boosts. It is important to note that only these 2 boosts should be used on the Panlongs. Air and Earth boosts boost act on the negatively, and should be removed from the Panlong island.
5. Metal Boost is only for the Metal habitats. This species of dragon is such a low earner that a single boost is not going to help them perform well in any other habitat. Leave it on your Metal Island, and make sure there are no Plant dragons on it.
6. Collecting Coins from the Habitats is a big factor on your boost usefulness. If you're not able to collect coins every couple of hours, then you will find that your habitats are generally full when you get to them anyway and the boosts are unimportant. What you should do in this case is to see which habitats are not filling up and seeing what you can do about placing higher earning dragons in them, or moving boosts to help.
As I can not check regularly, I have moved half my boosts to the Island with my Metal Habitat to give those slow earners in the big capacity habitat a decent chance. This will double boost all the dragons there and help make the most of that 125 000 capacity.
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Post by Administrator on Apr 18, 2012 20:30:40 GMT -6
Cost of Leveling Up by 250Strong
I just did a quick spreadsheet to show how much food is needed to get to each level. I have also summed up how many coins it will take to purchase this food. (assuming that you use ONLY the BEANSTALK to grow food).
To Level 2 Coins needed: 1,000 Treats Needed: 20
To Level 3 Coins Needed: 2,000 Treats Needed: 40
To Level 4 Coins Needed: 4,000 Treats Needed: 80
To Level 5 Coins Needed: 8,000 Treats Needed: 160
To Level 6 Coins needed: 16,000 Treats Needed: 320
To Level 7 Coins Needed: 32,000 Treats Needed: 640
To Level 8 Coins Needed: 64,000 Treats Needed: 1,280
To Level 9 Coins Needed: 128,000 Treats Needed: 2,560
To Level 10 Coins needed: 256,000 Treats Needed: 5,120
To Level 11 Coins Needed: 512,000 Treats Needed: 10,240
To Level 12 Coins Needed: 1,024,000 Treats Needed: 20,480
To Level 13 Coins Needed: 2,048,000 Treats Needed: 40,960
To Level 14 Coins needed: 4,096,000 Treats Needed: 81,920
To Level 15 Coins Needed: 8,182,000 Treats Needed: 163,840
Total Coins (1-15): 16,383,000 Total Treats (1-15): 327,660
To Level 16 Coins Needed: 16,364,000 Treats Needed: 327,680
To Level 17 Coins Needed: 32,768,000 Treats Needed: 655,360
To Level 18 Coins needed: 65,536,000 Treats Needed: 1,310,720
To Level 19 Coins Needed: 131,072,000 Treats Needed: 2,621,440
To Level 20 Coins Needed: 262,144,000 Treats Needed: 5,242,880
Total Coins (1-20): 524,287,000 Total Treats Needed (1-20): 10,485,740
koala!
Last Edit: Apr 18, 2012 20:35:37 GMT -6 by Administrator
This account was previously Poppy’s account. All posts are by Poppy.
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I just did a quick spreadsheet to show how much food is needed to get to each level. I have also summed up how many coins it will take to purchase this food. (assuming that you use ONLY the BEANSTALK to grow food).
Total Coins (1-15): 16,383,000 Total Treats (1-15): 327,660
Total Coins (1-20): 524,287,000 Total Treats Needed (1-20): 10,485,740
koala!
puts things in perspective ty
Last Edit: Apr 18, 2012 21:40:21 GMT -6 by Administrator
Breeding Tips Whilst we have the Rare Breeding Guide which has heaps of great info on pairings that have worked for specific dragons, I thought it would be good to post some useful tips when trying for dragons. I will say now, that generally picking your breeding pairs by using one of these tips, will negate the use of the others. I also rely heavily on a free Breeding Calculator designed and updated by one of the kids at the Dragonvale Wiki. It shows all possible combinations when breeding two dragons, possible combinations to use when trying for a specific dragon and the average time taken by the fails. It is a great resource.
Open dvcalc.pf-control.de/ in a browser window of your mobile device and it works just like an application, without him having to pay a fee to Apple. He hasn't had to pay to build it and you don't have to pay to use it.
Trying for Multiples If you have a couple of rare/limited dragons you're trying for, then whenever possible use combinations that cover more than dragon. Percentages for rare/limited dragons do seem to affect each other, but rather eat into the "failure rate". For example,
In the Epic Breeding Island you have approx 7% chance of making a Sun/Moon Dragon when you breed dragons that contain cold and lightning with at least one hybrid (93% failure).
You also have approx 10% chance of making a Bluefire when you breed Fire + Cold Hybrid (90% failure).
And you have approx 1% chance of making a Rainbow when you breed dragons that combine at least 4 different elements (99% failure).
Now if you breed Fire + Bloom all these percentages are added together and you have an 18% chance of breeding one of these dragons. Your failure rate has dropped to 82%.
Breed for short Fail Times. Open up the breeding calculator and put the dragon you're trying to get into the Dragon 1 position. Then click on "List combinations for Dragon 1"
This will give you a list of dragons that you can breed to get the one you're after, by shortest average fail time to longest.
In this case it shows the fails of Cold + Flower/Poison are Lichen/6 hours, Flower/1 hour and Poison/0.5 hour for a total of 7.5 hours. Divide by 3 possible fails gives an average of 2.5 hours. That's the average time you have to wait until you try again.
The opposite end of the spectrum is Cold + Lava/Bone which has two possible fails, Mountain/14 hours or Lava/10 hours, for an average of 12 hours wait before you can try again.
Breed for Fail Resale by using Metal Hybrids. As well as short turn around, the other thing to look for when trying for rares is the return on the dragons you're going to be selling. Keeping with Frostfire, if you breed Cold + Brass, then your fails include Mine, Steel and Brass for an average fail of 9 hours 40 minutes, but the dragons resale for 1.5, 1.5 and 1 million for an average resale of 1.33 million. If you through that in overnight, when the short time wasn't such a big factor, you'd sure appreciate that more than the 45k for the Lichen or the 5k for the Flower/Poison.
These are 3 things to keep in mind, when trying for those rare/limited dragons.
Last Edit: Sept 5, 2021 23:57:48 GMT -6 by Fletch_smf
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