*hears groans from the audience*
Yes, I know. Mega Snacks are tough to get, but not with my guide. I got this information from a Youtuber called Jack Frost who has a video on this stuff. You know, if you don't like to read and all that. :)
The worst ways to get Mega Snacks is from the Mega Snack Pack in the Crown Shop - KI made it cost 2500 Crowns for a purpose - to bleed you dry. That's half of a $10 Gamestop card Crowns haul! You could get Warlord's Wurst, a Rank 9 Mega Snack, from the badger in Unicorn Way(don't know the name) by spending 2500 arena tickets, but if you have arena tickets, you don't need a pet guide because you rock at PvP or Pet Derbies. There are places you can farm for Mega Snacks (Waterworks and Mirror Lake) but you need to have hit a certain level or point in the game to get there and the bosses have gimmicks that don't make it worth the fighting.
There are two easy (and only) ways to get loads of Mega Snacks at an early level:
The Quickest Way: Winterbane Hall runs
Pro: Fast with a strong wizard, don't need crowns or a subscription, you can do it before Level 12, get lots of housing items and treasure cards you can sell to supplement your income as well as common and uncommon reagents like Frost Flowers and Acorns.
Con: Tedious, need to have a weak wizard to speed up the process
I recently got a Winterbane Bundle card from my dear loving little sister(who is actually going on 30 and had birthed my nephew M.J. who is getting closer to kinder age) for Christmas; this is the only place you will find the Winterbane Hall, a housing item which houses a special 'gauntlet instance', a series of mob and boss battles leading to an epic encounter at the end. If you complete it, you also get two badges: "Winterbane Warrior" and "Grendel Slayer."
"But Z-Bu!" you are screaming. "Winterbane cost $29.99 and I can't find it at my [cut to avoid product placement]!!!!"
Don't get your skivvies knotted. You can actually do this as a free-to-play with zero crowns.
Recently, KI created a new place in Wizard City called the Castle Tour Building. Castle Tours let you visit any house that any player has added, as if they were friends. The bonus is this - ANY INSTANCE HOUSING ITEMS [WINTERBANE, PAGODA AND THE NEW SPIRAL CUP GAUNTLET] CAN STILL BE ENTERED EVEN IF THE HOUSE OWNER IS NOT HOME!
Thus, you can visit a house which has a Winterbane Hall housing item and do the dungeon there. Long before Castle Tours, you had to either (a) buy the card and install the Hall yourself or (b) beg and bribe someone to befriend someone who had a Winterbane Hall or let you use their Winterbane Hall. Same for the Pagoda but that and the Spiral Cup Gauntlet don't give Mega Snacks(and the latter give very bad boss drops except for blade Treasure Cards).
Any level of wizard can visit the Gauntlets - the Gauntlets' difficulty will scale to the LOWEST level of wizard in the group - so if I had three Archmages and a Apprentice, the game will give me the lowest tier difficulty of enemies. Each Gauntlet past and future has five tiers. The tiers will be set depending on the lowest level of wizard as so:
- Lowest Level = 20 or less; enemies are Rank 3-5
- Lowest Level = 40 or less; enemies are Rank 5-7
- Lowest Level = 60 or less; enemies are Rank 7-9 (critical hits start happening)
- Lowest Level = 80 or less; enemies are Rank 9-11
- All wizards are Level 80+; enemies are Rank 12-13 (even Exalted Wizards will struggle)
(1) Form a group of three Archmages or higher level and one Journeyman(Level 15-20; any lower and they may be unable to survive the fights).
(2) Go to Castle Tours
(3) Have someone scout for a house with a Winterbane Hall
(4) Have everyone port to the scout
(5) Enter and RAAAAAAAAAAAAPE the place. The Journeyman doesn't need to fight if you don't mind that guy not getting any rewards except gauntlet experience. :)
The reason you need a weak wizard is because Tier 1, the lowest tier, is the quickest way to get the Mega Snacks - stronger Tiers take longer(don't even bother farming at Tier 5, only do Tier 5 for a challenge or a livestream) and the highest Tiers are too tough to farm. You won't get the special ice dragon Eikikur Axebreaker drops (that's only at Tier 3 and the strongest tier) but you'll get ice pets like Frost Beetles rarely.
Winterbane has enemies of 450 to 4000(Eikikur Axebreaker, the final boss) in experience. Heck, you can even ignore the stew puzzle and beat the living (censored) out of those two Grendel thugs, they only have 1500 and are Ice. ^_^
Why do this? There is a 30% chance that you'll get a Mega Snack from each battle(except for the second Grendel mob with the big Grendels, they give nothing but housing items and reagents). If you are super-lucky, you will get 6 Mega Snacks from all the bosses, maybe even twelve. The Megas are only Rank 7-8 but they usually give 10 or 25 pet experience and will give you stuff to do while waiting for the second best way...
The Slow But Steady Way: Gardening
Pros: Don't need to fight anyone(except to get rare seeds), routine and easy to maintain
Cons: Need to be Level 12 and do the gardening quest, money-sink, time-sink
Several plants can be harvested at their elder stage and will give up one Mega Snack. Couch Potatoes are the easiest plants that do this - many mobs and bosses in Grizzleheim can drop Couch Potato seeds. Evil Magma Peas are the best, but you have to re-fight several Avalon boss monsters to hope for a Pea drop or spend 1500 Crowns a pea pod, so the Potatoes are the better way to go. On the extra plus side, Couch Potatoes will give you Shanta Pudding or some other Rank 6 snack which will help raise pets to Teen or Adult quickly(Shanta Pudding gives 10 Pet Experience).
The likes of Couch Potatoes are:
- Red Barn Farm (or the new Botanical Gardens but you need the Evergreen Bundle for that - you can buy a Farm for the low low price of 125,000 Gold in the Crown Shop)
- Pixie (Couch Potatoes usually had a 50% chance of spawning this anti-pest, or you can cast a spell to summon one when you get to Rank 10 Gardening - buy it with Barley in Krok for a mere 150,000 Gold)
- King Parsley (these plants will give two King Parsley seeds, one at adult and one at elder, so you never need to worry about reseeding and you will probably have one King Parsley seed from mob drops by the time you hit Azteca)
- Sandwich Station (buy the recipe at Grizzleheim and craft it - you only need to be Novice Crafter)
- Litter (the hardest like to get - it's only available as a drop from the O'Leary Burglars in Marleybone)
Next part, we'll get into basic pet raising and hatching. Yes, hatching! See ya next post!
(I apologize for not giving the recipe for the Sandwich Station, but you can find the list at this link on Wizard101 Central's Wiki.)
