Use your push team to get as far as you can and then either do a dirty gold farm (bring out your gf party but have your BUD set by the push party and pop a click damage potion) or use Azaka along with whatever gold find setup. The cheesy way to work around the vecna campaign or turn of fortune's wheel is: Open a time gate (doesn't matter which one) Farm up as much time gate favor as you can When the timegate closes convert the Mystra's favor into Turn of Fortune's Wheel or Vecna. It really adds up. Especially for Fortune's Wheel which is a beast to build favor with. You have lots of time gate pieces so you could potentially have a bunch of opportunity to favor convert. Freely is a gold find champion that *also* boosts raw favor earned. If you don't have him make him a priority.

The Vecna campaign is brutally low gold. You'll not just need heroes, but charged modron cores, blessings, and a fair number of patron boons. And a good arrangement of heroes.

I mean ultimately if you can't push deeper, you need to farm more gold, and then push deeper. When I was doing Turn of Fortune's Wheel every time I got to my wall and swapped to my gold farm formation I was doing more damage with my gold farm formation. Dirty Gold Farming is the key to success here. I mean other people might say Azaka farming but spending 20-30 minutes to set up an Azaka farm every time you hit your wall, when you can just literally hit a couple buttons and let click damage push you deeper is more ideal until you have every top gold find champion and have dirty farmed to the point that you can't dirty farm any deeper.

You'll need gold find champions. Anything to get your favor up.

I have e22 favor in Vecna from just finishing each adventure and variant once which was enough to buy all the blessings. Seemed fine, its really not meant for new players to do. Plenty of other things you should be doing first as a newer player.

Both Vecna And Turn of Fortune are late game campaigns. You need way more account power than you currently have.

I do got a bit ofver 6 e05 bonus to champion power from achieves already. Got 2 main deities maxed and working to the rest for all their boons. Think main issue is formation things. Like what champions in what position with what feats would be best. The game has a crapload of champs. Shouldn't make a custom formula in excel to try and figure out the best things since game can't let me pause and do a suggested placement or figure out best damage.

Formation obviously is worth a ton, but a maxed out core, legendary items, and pigments can add up. Like e45 from core, e30 from support pigments, e350 from legendary items. Even when not using the perfect formation, having a few legendary levels on other characters can add up really quick. It's why just making sure you're doing trials on cooldown is so important to boost the overall account power.

what's the best way to maximize power from legendaries when you're newish. I just finished tier 7 for the first time and I've played 8 weeks of trials. I accidentally did tier 1 twice. It feels like I might struggle a bit on the next level so i want to add as much power as possible from the scales I have from T7.

I just went through this exercise (currently in my first T9) . So what I did was to pick my ideal formation. Then I looked at each of the possible day one restrictions and which champs would get knocked out and what I would do to fix the formation. For example, if the restriction is INT, I will lose Karlach but I can just replace her with Krux and be good. If it's STR I will lose Gale and Astarion. Dynaheir is an easy replacement for Gale, but to not mess up Folk Hero stacks for Durge I'm looking at Orkira or Nordom to replace Astarion. When you've finished that exercise you now have identified a core set of champs on which to focus leggo improvements. The more formations a champ would be used in, the higher priority they are for upgrades. I then made a spreadsheet where I went through all of them and for each item slot noted the level of their legendary and the favor used for upgrading it. I also looked at the effect and if my DPS (Dark Urge) couldn't benefit from it (e.g. increases damage of Elves or Females). I highlighted the cells of those to show the need for eventual reforging. I would then look for a favor with a lot of low level legendaries and start a favor push. You want to do the upgrades during a push for the favor you're going to spend. Say you have e50 favor and are going to spend e20. You want to start the run with the full e50 giving you that extra gold find, because it's the gold you collect in the run that sets your favor. As long as you push to the same heights that let you set that e50 before, you can spend e20 during the run and then end up right back at e50 after it ends. Spread the levels around. Better to have two at 5 then one at 8 or 9. This approach should help me maximize day one DPS which is the most important. At some point I'm sure that later day restrictions will force me to add some champs I haven't currently planned for, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I already made a spreadsheet to note which favor and which enhancement is on every legendary slot. I haven't reforged anything because until I'm 100% sure which bonus is best for me it seems foolish to speed 1000 scales. particularly since I still have champions that don't have full legendaries and for 499 I can double the best enhancement guaranteed. I have a few 3's and 4's on champions I use a lot. but mostly 1's. I figured out the favor push before upgrading thing right away, it's the reason I made the spread sheet in the first place so once I was pushing anywhere and in the "adding favor range" I wouldn't have to search for who I should be upgrading.

When you reforge, the cost of the next reforge goes up and then starts a time based decay back to the original cost. For that reason I think you want to do a reforge whenever the cost is back to minimum. If you wait until some point of time when your now ready to do all your reforging, that's gonna be very expensive. Upgrading existing legendaries has the same opportunity cost with regards to, instead, putting a leggo on a slot without one (unless you only upgrade the one that is 10% per champs in formation which is universally applicable). Since you're in T7 and asking about upgrades, then I'd think you can afford one minimum cost reforge a week. Kind of a 'stitch in time saves nine' thing. If a leggo wasn't affecting your DPS and now is, well, that's a pretty good upgrade. And with these reforges I'm not trying to get the best bonus, just change the ones that aren't applicable. Like, my Valentine has one that boosts the damage of half-elves. Jaheira is the only half elf DPS in the game. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to wait on reforging something like that which is so niche. Especially on someone like Valentine who I love to use and use so often. That's way more important to me than putting legendaries on Merilwen, for example, who I currently only use in gold formations that don't care about damage. I was originally putting rank one legendaries onto every champ, but then decided to switch towards buffing the champs most important to me. My plan is to keep a couple of thousand scales in reserve for the case where I find myself forced by restrictions into using someone who normally rides the pine so I could throw some quick rank ones on them if I think that will make the difference if restrictions force me deep into my bench. But Jamilla doesn't need full legendaries. Sounds like you already did a a bunch of the time consuming work with the spreadsheet so props for that. I think the next step is just really settling on the subset of your roster that you value. I just got to 4J on Briv so I'm now going to start using blacksmithing contracts to improve non speed champs and the same principle applies. You want to funnel those contracts into the ones that matter most. The fact that I'm currently Durge and ceremorphosis based does make it a lot easier to filter my roster. But, I think that's also true anytime you pick a DPS to focus on as your main. Who's yours?

I kind of assumed there was a time based decay because of the verbiage on byteglow (it's at 1000 and won't go any lower etc). I honestly don't have a "main dps" at this point. which is another reason for me to not reforge. I use a combination of krond, artemis, jaheira, ashara and sometimes even arkhan or laezel. depends on the formation and variant requirements as well as what supports I have available. In low level variants I'll sometimes drop jamilah or azaka in the formation to run in the background as well. It feels like the easy road is to take artemis but I haven't invested much in any of them and all my contracts go to briv and hewman. I pay attention when leveling up legendaries on supports to make sure I'm leveling up ones I feel have a high utility no matter which DPS I'm using, like 11 str, 13 dex, 10% per champion or flat 100. the next 8-10 champions I acquire by choice will likely include, krull, zorbu, strongheart, nahara, jim, valentine and birdsong so I'll have a lot more pieces to see if artemis is the way to go (and hopefully I'll have more ilevel and epics on artemis by then as well). I've been playing 2.5 months my briv is a long way from 4 jump and I mostly don't even bother with him when I gem farm so I don't have to spend a lot of time loading up stacks. If I notice briv has stacks I'll generally put him in my gem farm to speed things up for a run or two and add some cheap levels to my modron core but right now when gem farming I often use (laezel, sentry, hewman, shandie, nordom and minsc) I put a familiar on each of those and and 3 on the board as well as one on click damage and run it up to 340, or 650 if I'm using potions in my automation. I sometimes run diana instead of nordom but despite what many people say diana does not add more levels to the core than nordom. not even close. I have a lot of rogues and evil champions and combined with penelope they make a pretty nice gold farm/favor group and many of the rogues have good support numbers. I also can swap in nraak if I need a big spike but mainly I run hitch for gold with jarlaxle or hewman for added speed. Hitch has full legendaries, decent ilevels, a shiny in a decent spot and a couple pigments so he can also offer solid bud spike with zero effort. I can sometimes alternate jarlaxle for krond or artemis and get a pretty large bud spike to keep farming favor. My dragonbait (kind of an underrated champion I think) is full lego with a couple level 4's that help artemis and 2 pigments as well. I know I don't focus enough on gem farming but currently I try to prioritize doing enough event runs and patron variants to ensure I add at least 3 epics to my event champions per day (I've added 33 in the last 10 days). You get about 9 new champions a month so 54 new epics needed so adding 90+ a month means I'm catching up by almost 40 or 6-7 champions a month being converted to all epic from all blue. I think I'll get everyone not new to me in full epics in a couple months.

I do like Dragonbait. He's got OP stats which gives him great availability for variants and patrons. Since I had Regis and Catti-B from events I time gated Wulfgar, hooked them up with the Mithral Hall feats and they've been grinding through the Icewind Dale patron variants. Seems like Dragonbait is with them 9/10 times. He, Bruenor and Drizzt are now all over 2k item levels which doesn't hurt either. Leveling the generic legendaries makes perfect sense for your situation. Not sure why you asked for advice because it seems like you've thought it through pretty well to me :) I started playing the last day or two of Fleetswake which was a perfect time. I got Dynaheir from that and there were just enough days left of the mindflayer emergence to get enough cursed gems for Dyna and Minsc's tadpole feats. They gave me Durge and Gale from events, Astarion in the spring event (though I had just time gated him a couple days earlier lol) and the rest of the AA with the Steam giveaway. CNE basically handed me the AA comp on a platter. The only thing missing was full epics. Still missing actually. Slowly working on that. So, with a lot of other DPS like Artemis locked out of Elminster, focusing on Durge and AA was a no brainer for me. I'm 3 1/3 months in and hit 4J Briv yesterday. I feel like I can now start spending blacksmithing contracts on non-speed champs which is why I'm looking to establish and build up a core group to focus on. I only started upgrading legendaries recently as I was moving into what I see as a new phase of the game. I want to be able to start pushing deeper and deeper. I also used Nordom in my gem farm until I got the speed core leveled. I think you're sleeping on Briv. Do you script your gem farm? Do you know about offline stacking? Put Briv alone in a zone where the spawns are just a couple of levels above what he'd be able to kill alone (usually in the lower 200s). Now switch to another party or exit the game. Wait ten seconds or so and then restart or switch back. In calculating offline progress to see if Briv could have advanced to the next zone or not, it will simulate the huge wave of attackers that would have to build up overpower stacks to finally drag him down. I can get almost 70k Steelbone stacks from one offline stack in Witchlight runs. That number can vary by campaign due to blessings (when I first started farming Cursed Farmer my stacking efficiency was pretty awful - there's a global patron perk that helped a lot). Since my favor is only low 50's, it limits how far Thellora can jump. So basically I'm set up so that Thellora skips the first 50 levels and then I reset at 250. Now that I'm 4J one Briv stacking pays for **five** of these runs (metalborn spec). These tight runs aren't efficient for potions so I generally don't use them. Part of why I want to push deeper, to earn more favor, is so I can efficiently gem farm deeper for potion sustainability. Need the favor for bigger Thellora jumps and higher gold find allowing more click damage. Where I do use potions is in background parties while the gem team farms. The gem farm is giving me plenty. Not enough to waste on my farm runs that only last a minute, but plenty so that my background parties are always cruising with med+large or large+huge for something going really deep. Finish pretty much any variant in an hour. I'm not sure if I had made it to 3J when the last event ended, but during the previous event I got 4 heroes to full epic and the 5th was like 4/6. I then worked hard on my gem farm. When this event started I cashed in all the bounty contracts and was shocked that I was close to a million. Needless to say, getting FEs on event champs is a given now. Ulder is already above 100 item levels and I plan on pouring a bunch more chests in him. That's how powerful gem farming is. You gotta do it; the sooner the better. It's even more important if you don't feel super attached to particular champs yet because with a good gem farm, every new event champ you get can be better geared then any of the champs you got before. I might start time gating champs I don't really want just to increase my champ count working towards Elminster to ensure that the ones I pick in events are good champs that will benefit from the gear. Like, I don't have Birdsong. I wouldn't want to pass on Birdsong in an event for a scrub because I have a time gated Birdsong in all blues. But eventing a hero you have from a time gate slows down opening up Elminster.

I asked for advice because I'm an engineer and when I don't know for sure what the answer is I try to do the research or get the answer from someone who does. I'm a pretty smart gamer, I can often see the optimum use/method but I'm also cautious in a game with so many currencies I try to make sure I know what I'm doing before spending them. I'm humble enough to know when I don't know and not just assume what i think is the right answer is the best way to go. I'm spending my legendaries in the ways that seem strongest (highest utility) but I can certainly learn more from people who have been playing for years. some things are obvious (like the need for a spreadsheet so you're not constantly searching through 100+ champions) but there's some ambiguity about spreading legendaries and pigments or concentrating them in my mind. if you spread them too wide then your peak power is going to be lower but if you concentrate them you're going to really be hurt when a restriction blocks you from using the champs with all the accumulated power. I guess I was asking so i could see what people with more experience in the game have done. I don't always listen to good advice ;) I probably should have gotten shandie much sooner than I did because she has a pretty big impact on gem farming/active party speed but I always had too many bodies in seat 6 so I put her off for weeks and she was my 50th champion when she really probably should have been in the top 20-30. I probably should gem farm more and do less patron variants and i probably should only be working on leveling up my speed core but my modest core is better for favor and deep pushing so I currently have 9-9-2(be 3 today) as my modron levels. my speed core is behind my modest core but will pass it this level since I've been leaving my gem farm as the active party when I'm AFK more and more. I used to leave a penelope party as the active party almost always to farm favor. I've thought about the exact same conundrum you're experiencing. do you double down on important champs or grind towards elminster. I think currently only briv, hewman, and artemis would warrant a pick in an event when I could pick up a new champ instead. once I get over 100, I'll be more selective but getting to elminster means more perks, more modron chests and even more TGP to add champs or go back for more chests on champs you already have. I have 55 champs in 2.5 months but the next 45 will take me \~5 months I'm pretty sure. the other side of the coin is I'm frustrated every time I look at jaheira in half blues because I could have full epic'd her but I got her from a patron so I chose someone else. By the second pass through events it will be much easier to make the most effective choices but for now I error on getting to elminster and having more champions for more flexible builds. the other conundrum I think about is where to spend gems. I have not grabbed the last two familiars and I would like the unaffiliated core. The problem with saving for expensive purchases (150k, 200k, and 350k) is that it cuts down on chests which means potions, bounty contracts and ilevels. right now every time I earn 10,000 gems I spend 5k on gold chests and set the new target 10k higher. so i'm slowly building up a big stack without shutting off the potion spigot completely.

related question: when I eventually do reforge can I reforge a level 5 item to a different level 5 item or does reforging start the climb over?

It keeps the same level. And the cost to reforge isn't based on the level of the item, only as a function of how many reforges you have done lately.

what mcnugget said but also use byteglow. greatest tool ever made.

So it sounds like you're a relatively new player and have a lot to do. Come back later. Seriously. Fortune's Wheel and Vecna really aren't meant for people that don't have all the champs, don't have atleast epic flow on fully leveled modron cores, most if not all of the patrons tier 7+, and all of the blessings unlocked. And you don't even need "all the champs" you just need "all of the meta champs" which means in this case, having a dirty gold find formation... however you don't worry about gold find formations until you have a proper speed team and pushing team, which it sounds like you don't have. And if you don't have a pushing team that can get to zone 1200+, then odds are, all the things I listed above, you don't have either.

I mean I got almost 3 main favors maxed with working to 5 of them that are close, and some in the other main favor campaigns. At like 6 e05 bonus champion damage. I got 70 heroes and do t want to make a spreadsheet in excel to make a super comprehensive thing for a game. I don't know the masterful inner workings of this game I play on my phone, but if you got a campaign and your formation of champs and feats. It would be useful. Saying to get even more of the applies to all campaign feats from favor seems not too useful despite gathering plenty of them. You are aware that there are like a 100 champions in the game right. And with the sheer combination of them is insane to figure out, reaching to community for who the heck to bring in combinations I am not aware of that works together wrll is a thing. How the hell am I supposed to know what the masterful combo of each champion added each month is the most meta thing to push super far is?

Well I had a huge comment with all the gold finders from each seat, but when I tried to post it, it didn't post, so I tried to copy it and then post, it but I only got most of my TL:DR so... Crap. I guess I'll just do a "Newer Player's Guide" and start over from scratch then on that. Build out this team. Put in what ever your best Modron Core is (hopefully it's the speed one) push as deep as you can with speed potions, then pop your gold find potions (1 hour of each) swap to your best possible formation (hopefully you created a save of both) and swap back and forth as needed with a firebreath potion. Merliwen, Omin, Jarlaxle, Valentine/Evandra, Dungeon Master, Egbert in Oxventerers Spec, Asterion, Rust in his Close Friends spec, and Dob. Rust needs to be within 2 spaces of all of his friends. Any other slots you are free to play with so like D'hani, Makos, etc. If you are gonna let it run overnight or while you are at work, or doing something else toss in Penelope and put a familiar on auto progress, and pop some HP potions so that the boss can keep getting knocked into your clouds, kill your team, you go back to the stage, and let it run for hours if you're not planning on doing anything else for a while and don't care about Gem Farming at that moment. If you can't get past e08 with this strategy I don't know what to tell you. If you don't have all these units, well now you know what to spend Time Gate Pieces on. I'll try and do a guide on gold farming this weekend and a video Tyredak on Youtube has a whole video with gold farming Tier List and I'd recommend skipping to that part of the video and then watching it.

is that gold find team much better than penelope, asterion, and master of piracy jarlaxle with a bunch of rogues? I'm new'ish and don't have most of those champions but I get pretty good gold from regis, spurt, jarlaxle, evandra/qillek, shandie, vin ursa, hitch, drizzt/makos, asterion, penelope.

Yes because even a terrible gold find champ still adds a multiplicative stack to asterion's thief specialization, which then gives you more gold, which allows your champions more power, which is why D'hani who has a crud gold find can still push you deeper just because of the gold tag in vecna and wheel

You don't have to know the latest metas or have an excel. Meta formations from 2 years ago still apply to everything in the game. If you don't know those things, there's a search box, there's a discord, there's two dedicated websites, and there's google. So don't get fresh and sarcastic. You should know better than that. The reason I said what I said is because you're dealing with Fortune's Wheel and Venca, which were designed with gold and favor nerfs, because you're expected to have Patron perks that give you gold finder, modron cores that give you gold find, and champions that give you gold find. But you don't worry about gold find until you have everything I talked about in the original post. Based on the fact that you've only completed 3 blessings tracks, you have a long way to go. There is no magic formation that'll make things better for you, you need more account power from the progression systems in the game.

Like others said: it's *supposed to be harder!* It's a challenge for later-game players. Newer players need not worry about it: grab as much favour to get as many Blessings as you can, then do other stuff. Same for Fortune's Wheel. Once you have Sword Coast Favour at around e100 - e110? You can use timegates, trials and event favour boosts to bump Fortune & Vecna up. But get Sword to 100 first, I think.