Lootrunning the Canyon

A brief and subjective collection of thoughts to help your lootrunning experience

Disclaimer

Hey, the name’s Star, and if you’re reading this, I’m assuming that you are an aspiring lootrunner who saw that the Canyon of the Lost loot pool this week is particularly good and you want a tip or three to help you nab some mythics/shinies. That’ll be my goal in this document, but I need to start by laying some ground points:

• This is all mostly subjective info that comes from me and my experiences. I’ve pulled 13 shinies to date by myself and have accrued hundreds of thousands of effective chest reward pulls over my time lootrunning.
• I’m a mage main (arcanist to be specific) so my experience mostly comes from there. Your mileage will vary based on class. The Canyon of the Lost run favours mobility over all else, so something that may be easy for me might prove a challenge to your class, and vice versa!
• This document was last updated on 22nd August, 2024, where the current Wynncraft version is 2.1, post the Rekindled update launch.
• I’m assuming that by reading this you at least understand the basics of lootrunning. If you don’t, I’d definitely start with the wiki page to understand the mechanics first. (Ignore the strategy section, it’s very outdated and… honestly flat wrong in areas.) If you’re not Master/Grandmaster yet that’s fine, but lower your expectations accordingly. You can still pull a mythic/shiny with garbage runs and low pulls, but you shouldn’t be expecting too much.

With all that said, let’s start by talking about beacons.

Beacons

Yellow

(Spawn 1 Flying Chest)

Yellow beacons are, at a baseline, mediocre. They don’t offer anything on their own and the return rate on getting valuable items in flying chests is fairly lacklustre. With the update to 2.1, however, there are some minor synergies that can make flying chests valuable (such as Jester’s Trick or Chronokinesis). Either way, these beacons should be a low priority that you should only really take if nothing better is being offered to you.

Blue

(Choose a Boon out of 3)

Boons are pretty essential to any lootrun you do, for one main reason: Enemy scaling. The more challenges you complete, the more health/damage enemies have. In the Canyon of the Lost lootrun, the enemy scaling is the slowest of all camps at +15% damage and +30% health per challenge. However, you still need to be able to scale yourself accordingly, as these stacking buffs will start to get overwhelming at some point. In order to achieve that, you need to prioritise Blue beacons at some early point in your run. The biggest issue is, the buffs you get are pretty much entirely random. Some Blue beacons will only offer you redundant/dud boons. That being said, you still need to weave in Blue beacons into your run if you want to survive, so I’d take these rather favourably if nothing better is pressing.

Purple

(+1 Curse, +1 End Reward Pull)

This is the big risk/reward beacon, and is the main individual source of getting good pull numbers out of runs.There is, of course, a serious cost, as each curse can buff the mobs’ defensive (resistance/health) or offensive (damage/attack speed/walk speed) stats. You won’t be able to directly influence which of these you can get, so make sure you can handle curses before going for Purple beacons. I would also discourage taking Purple early until you have crafted your game plan (grabbed boons, gotten your challenge numbers in order, etc.) as the enemy scaling can become overwhelming with even a few curses.

Aqua

(+100% next Beacon effects)

Aqua is always a strong beacon and a pretty good choice to default to if your current selection isn’t offering anything better. Doubling/tripling the effectiveness of the next beacon is powerful, especially when used in combination with beacons like White, Orange, Red, or even Dark Grey if you like having curses/pulls. However, there is one noticeable quirk to the beacon: It will never be offered to you twice in a row, a trait that is shared with Green and Red. Pay attention if you see any combination of these, because you won’t see them again next challenge!

Orange

(+1 Beacon choice for the next 5 Challenges)

Orange is an interesting beacon in that its power is strongest early on in a run and diminishes the longer the run goes. In the early game, you have the luxury of unscaled enemies and the need to find more challenge numbers and/or a Rainbow beacon as incentives to pick up or even stack a few Oranges. Later on in runs, the need to find specific beacons goes down and the scaling of enemies tends to go up, meaning you can’t really afford to take too many of these without Aqua boosting at the very least. There’s also the previously hinted-at downside to having too many beacon choices: If you are offered Aqua and either Red or Green, you are guaranteed not to see the beacons in the next offering, meaning you won’t be able to stack their effects reliably. If you have too many beacon choices, there’s a chance you might end up seeing Aqua/Red/Green at the same time and not be able to stack their effects!

Red

(+2 Challenges to this lootrun; gain no Time Bonus for completing them)

Red beacons are rather high risk/high reward in that they extend your lootrun, but they have some pretty ugly downsides, both visibly and secretly. For one, finishing Red does extend your run but also buffs enemies without scaling yourself - meaning you really can’t afford to just keep taking these without boons and/or a well placed Treasure Hunting. Then, when you complete a Red, you go into what I like to call “red debt” for the next few challenges. If your timer is high, you’ll barely notice it if at all. But if your time is low, or you’re running Ultimate Sacrifice, or your current mission requires time added to your clock, then red debt is the last thing you’ll want, so you need to think carefully before attempting one! (At time of writing, Wynntils is bugged and does not correctly track your red debt, so be careful!)

Green

(+120s Time Bonus; mobs gain no Buffs this challenge only)

Personally, I tend to be able to lootrun pretty fast, so time is rarely if ever an issue for me personally. Recently I’ve realised that’s not always the same experience for everyone, so take my assessment here with a grain of salt depending on how much issue you have with timer management. I can understand a desire to take Green beacons more in Canyon of the Lost due to how stingy the time rewards are (4m starting, +1m per starting challenge, +2m per completed challenge, which is the lowest of all camps along with SE).

That being said, Green beacons are rather low on my priority list. There isn’t much benefit to having excess time on your clock past 15 minutes (and in the case of Ultimate Sacrifice, it’s an active detriment as you’ll be guaranteed not to be able to add time to your clock!) with the notable exception of Gambling Beast. However, with all of these edge cases out of the way, Green is still fine as a backup choice since it prevents enemy scaling for the challenge which is nice (as long as you complete it of course).

Dark Grey

(+3 Curses, +3 End Reward Pulls)

There’s not a lot to this beacon past what it says on the tin: It’s a more potent, one-time-only Purple beacon. There are basically two use cases to why you would want to take this:

1. Your current active mission requires curses or end pulls and you want to spend as few challenges as possible to get it online.
2. You took an Aqua and are looking to get as many pulls/curses as possible before ending your run.

Past that, well… treat this as a big Purple and plan accordingly.

White

(+5 Challenges to this lootrun)

This is one of the crucial beacons to getting a clean mid-length run. You want this as soon as possible, but you also want to get the most value out of it possible, which is a combination of Rainbow/VAqua/VWhite for an extra +30 challenges. This combo makes up a majority of my runs personally, and I can frequently get it with enough Oranges and good reroll timing. That being said, don’t be too afraid to take a smaller version of it as necessary if it means extending your run!

Grey

(Choose a Mission out of 3)

Grey beacons are weird. Early game, you don’t want them mostly because you’re looking for the other beacons (Blue/Red/White/Rainbow) to show up first and you don’t really want to rush missions just to have these start entering the beacon pool. However, once your run has been established and you have challenge numbers and/or boons, you definitely want to take these as soon as possible, preferably under the effects of an Aqua to get 5 missions to choose from. And you want to do it sooner rather than later, because at a certain point (unknown for sure but generally considered to be around challenge 30-35 or so) Grey will be offered significantly more rarely.

Rainbow

(Only Vibrant Beacons can appear for the next 10 challenges)

The nerf to this beacon has been the talk of the town for a while, but when you actually sit down and play with it, you’ll find the nerf to not really be all that big of a deal. If anything, the slight uptick in frequency is actually a really good thing, since you’ll be able to find it somewhat more reliably (not that it’s guaranteed or anything; that’s just the luck of the draw with beacons, sadly). Skipping this beacon has actually become a valid strategy at times, too, since you can find them again at a decent rate.

This all being said, Rainbow is still a high-priority beacon, as guaranteeing Vibrant effects for a time is very good for crafting lootruns in the early-middle stages. The strategy of rushing Rainbow to then get VAqua/VWhite is my default for any new lootrun.

It’s worth noting that all of this talk about prioritising beacons should not be taken to the letter. Any good lootrun requires you to adapt to what you’re getting. No Rainbow after your Oranges are gone? Stack some Aqua/Red/Greens and grab some Blues so you don’t fall behind, then start just finishing your missions. Can’t get VAqua/VWhite going? Settle for VAqua/VRed and play a bit faster or grab some Greens to mitigate the time pressure, then you can probably even settle for a regular White/VWhite.

Missions

The mission system introduced in 2.0.4  is great. It may be a bit RNG-heavy, but it incentivizes you to do different things each run, which helps keep the system feeling rather fresh. It is worth noting that each mission has a randomly assigned task for you to activate to complete, ranging from merely being offered beacons to having to take extra Boons/Curses. It’s entirely random, so it is always worth considering before you pick your mission how difficult the task to complete is. Small side note, slightly de-prioritize Missions with a Boons requirement when you don’t have extra beacon choices or an active buff that gives boons, as Blue beacons can get sparse at times. With that being said, here’s my thoughts on each mission:

Cleansing Greed

(After opening a Flying Chest, remove one of your Curses.)

Very mediocre mission. Requires you to grab Yellow and Purple beacons just to be functional, and the effect of removing curses, while nice, only slightly helps your run out, since it doesn’t remove any enemy scaling which can make runs overwhelming after a while. You also have no control over which curses are being removed, which can be especially annoying if resistance sticks on. Only really useful if you’re desperate to remove curses and were somehow not offered anything better.

High Roller

(Gain +2 End Reward Rerolls.)

Having extra rerolls is always good for your final loot chest, as it multiplies your effective pulls at the end of a run. The higher your pull count, the more worthwhile this reward is, so consider it more when you have a high run count as opposed to a low-pull short run. Usually worth taking if you don’t get some of the better options.

Hoarder

(After every time you are offered 20 items from Chests, get a random Boon.)

It doesn’t directly affect your end chest rewards in any way, but the buff received from this mission is a bit underrated. It effectively turns Yellow beacons into semi-Blues, it helps with your personal scaling as your challenge count increases, and it actually gives some value to having extra Loot Bonus. It’s effectively a fixed and less silly version of 2.0.4’s Equilibrium, without the need to spam curses on yourself to make it work. Don’t sleep on this mission, it’s fairly nice for not being an end chest reward!

Materialism

(All Challenges now additionally have the Yellow Beacon effect. Yellow Beacons cannot appear anymore.)

This mission is effectively a permanent Orange beacon due to it removing the rather useless Yellow beacon from the pool. While it does provide extra flying chests over the course of a run, it doesn’t directly offer extra rewards, so you really want to take this in combination with a mission that incentivizes the flying chests (Hoarder, Jester’s Trick, Chronokinesis). An alternative strategy brought up is running a Discoverer build to potentially find more chest mythics, in which case this mission could help a lot. (Personally, with 2.1 gutting a lot of builds I don’t know of any Discoverer builds that work, but that could change. Even if it did I prefer end chest pulls/rerolls/sacrifices to this strategy, so I don’t personally recommend it.)

Treasure Hunting

(Red Beacons will reward 1 Boon out of 2.)

This mission effectively turns Red beacons into Blues while also boosting your challenge count (and red debt), negating one of my earlier points about Red beacons not letting you scale. While my main strategy of Rainbow/VAqua/VWhite means Red beacons are lower priority, this mission works well as a backup in case that falls through for whatever reason. This mission turns out to be a decent choice for being a non-end-chest mission. (Side note, the reward’s wording is a little wrong, “one boon out of 2” seems to translate to “pick between 4 boons” for some reason.)

Chronokinesis

(Chests now give +1 Pull, all future Time received will be reduced by an ever-increasing -5s permanently.)

Finally, a viable alternative to getting pulls that isn’t just spamming curses, on top of a non-rare mission, to boot. The reward is just as good as it sounds and the downside is… simultaneously worse than it sounds but easier to play around than you’d think. Every chest counts as a pull towards the end chest, but there is one caveat - you have to complete a mission for the pulls to actually count. You can fail missions without losing pulls, but the Chronokinesis pulls are only added to your end chest once you complete a mission, so keep that in mind. Supposedly, you can employ a strategy of grabbing all the chests in an area, /class-ing to wait out the 30m timers, then repeat as much as you want, but I find this strategy to be a waste of time. Speaking of time, the timer penalty stacks and DOES go negative, meaning after enough time you will start to lose time rather than gain it when starting/finishing challenges. There is a way around this, though - if your timer is >15 minutes or you’re in red debt, the penalty will not apply, as it only affects the points where you actually would gain time.

In short, this is a good mission, great for runs where you want to accumulate lots of pulls and/or sacrifices. I would also recommend taking some time to get to know where the smaller chest locations are to take full advantage of this reward!

Gourmand

(When you get a Boon, get +1 Beacon Reroll.)

While boons are desirable, they can be difficult to come by, especially if you’re stuck on 2-3 beacon choices, as Blue beacons aren’t the highest on the priority list. Thus, you can run into the problem with this mission of not getting the boons necessary to start getting beacon rerolls, leading to a vicious cycle of stalling out the run waiting for a boon that never comes. (Yes, this has happened to me more than once already.) To that end, I don’t care for this mission, as the reward of a beacon reroll isn’t enticing enough to change my beacon order early/mid run. If you heavily prioritise Blue beacons or have Hoarder/Treasure Hunter then maybe you’ll find value from this.

Porphyrophobia

(Blue Beacons now give +1 Pull. Getting offered a Purple Beacon gives you +1 Curse.)

I don’t understand the point of this mission. Blue beacons are already a priority, and you do not gain any more than just one pull from them with this mission active, regardless of Vibrant/Aqua status. The downside is also immense - getting curses just for seeing Purple beacons means you get hit with one nearly every beacon choice, especially if you grabbed any Orange beacons. Supposedly you could semi-negate this with Safety Seeker, but it’s just not worth it for maybe 20 pulls over the course of a medium/long run.

Orphion’s Grace

(Boons are now 50% more effective.)

While I’ve said repeatedly that boons are the primary source of you staying ahead of enemy scaling, in an ideal scenario, you won’t need this because your boons should already be fine enough. This reward just doesn’t hold weight to something like Inner Peace, so you shouldn’t really feel compelled to take this one.

Cleansing Ritual

(After finishing a Challenge, consume 1 Curse to gain +1 Challenge.)

This mission on its own can invalidate the need for you to ever take Red/White beacons for the entire rest of a run, which is pretty valuable in and of itself, but on top of that it also consumes your Curses, which makes it a way less niche version of Cleansing Greed. I personally don’t enjoy doing longer runs since past 40+ challenges the scaling can be a bit extreme, but if you like doing longer runs this rare mission is definitely worth picking up.

Equilibrium

(After getting a Curse, get a 50% chance to gain a random Boon.)

😭

Pour one out for our boy. Gone from the best mission to the worst in one simple nerf. I was hoping they’d consider moving it to a flat 2-curses-1-boon system so we can at least still have some use out of it, but it just wasn’t meant to be. The few times I’ve tried it since 2.1, I kept getting slammed with “6 curses, 0 boons”, and that’s been consistent enough to turn me completely away from the mission entirely. In 2.1, this is probably the worst mission to take.

Complete Chaos

(After finishing a Challenge, get an 80% chance to gain an additional random Beacon reward.)

Friendship ended with Equilibrium, now Complete Chaos is my new best friend. While I’m not a fan of the tacked-on 20% chance of failure, the fact that beacons now give extra rewards at random emulates the wacky and silly fun from 2.0.4 Equilibrium. The beacon given to you takes from the list of currently-available-to-you beacons, so if you ever get this mission it’s worth considering skipping out on limited-time beacons like White or Dark Grey (or supposedly even Grey to get more than 4 missions, from what I’ve heard) to get a shot at being given their effects as a bonus. This mission was key to the only long run I’ve done since 2.1 launched, since I could easily grab extra Green, Red, and Blue beacons for free. This is definitely my second-favourite mission to date.

Jester’s Trick

(After being offered 20 Items from Flying Chests, randomly get +3 Pulls, +1 Boon, +1 Curse, or +30s.)

On paper, this looks like an interesting mission, being some sort of cross between Treasure Hunting and Chronokinesis. In practice, however, the rewards are too difficult to obtain and unreliable to be worthwhile. You have to grab flying chests, be offered enough from the flying chests to trigger the 20 item threshold, and then hope that you get the reward you want (boons or pulls, the +30s on the timer does not go above the 15m hard cap) is given to you. I want to like this one, but it just doesn’t work, even with Materialism and nonstop Rainbow beacons.

Inner Peace

(Curses are now half as effective.)

At last, they finally fixed the issue that was keeping me from recommending this mission. So now it’s gone from terrible, to… meh. The value of the reward from this depends on how many curses you have and/or are planning to take, because otherwise as a passive bonus it is just not worth the mission slot. If you are in a position where you need to slash curses, this becomes appealing. It hard-caps enemy resistance at 42%, which in and of itself can definitely be worth it for longer runs, way better than something like Orphion’s Grace at any rate.

Redemption

(Gain +1 End Reward Sacrifice.)

Sacrifices are really strong. Really, really strong. Sacrifices allow you to bank pulls from previous runs and have them carry over into your next ones, and they stack, too. Plus, you don’t have to commit to a sacrifice until after you’ve burnt all your rerolls and haven’t seen anything good, and as a tiny little extra bonus, the sacrifice number always rounds up in your favour.

Let me show you my maths: Let’s assume you average 60 pulls, 2 rerolls, and 1 sacrifice with every run. For this first run, that’s 60+60+60 = 180 effective pulls seen with, let’s assume, nothing good to see. So using that sacrifice means you bank 50% of those pulls, meaning you have banked 30 pulls. Then, let’s assume you keep getting 60/2/1. This means your chest will have 90+90+90 = 270 effective pulls, then sacrifice 50% rounding up to 38. The next 50/2/1 gets you 88+88+88 = 264 effective pulls, banking 44, then 105+105+105 = 315, and so on. And this is all with 60 pull runs which are rather short and much easier to achieve than large, long 100+ pull, 4+ reroll runs.

In short, I love sacrifices, and if you haven’t seen their banking power, I’d strongly recommend trying it. It cuts out on so much heartbreak of not getting anything good after runs.

Ultimate Sacrifice

(Gain +1 End Reward Sacrifice and +2 End Reward Rerolls. When 120s drops on the timer, lose 1 Boon. Gaining time can delay this.)

I really like Ultimate Sacrifice. Not only do you get one of those powerful, powerful sacrifices, but you also get a bonus 2 chest rerolls added on top for good measure. This mission is great for end chest rewards. Now granted, most people shy away from this mission because of the stated downside: You lose a boon every 120 seconds / 2 minutes you go without adding time to your clock. Yes, this is a significant downside. It basically prevents you from taking Red/Green beacons without getting severely punished, and you have to play decently fast to prevent losing boons mid-fights. However, the rewards are well worth the effort, as with good enough play you’ll rarely if ever see the boons slip away. (That being said, have fun if you end up taking this and Gambling Beast/Warmth Devourer.)

Gambling Beast

(After finishing a Challenge, consume 300s (+60s per additional challenge) from your timer and gain +1 End Reward Reroll.)

This is a more potent High Roller in most scenarios as there isn’t really a stated cap to how many rerolls this mission can get you. However, the setup cost to get this particular mission rolling is severe. You need a lot of time banked on your clock via Aqua/Green combos, you need enough challenges saved up to be able to grab all of the rerolls, and you need to be able to complete all of your remaining challenges quickly, as the stacking time crunch will quickly eat your clock away like nothing. It’s very worth it if you can get it going, but this needs to be the last mission you take in a run and be built towards for maximum effect. Also, if you take Ultimate Sacrifice, good luck because you’ll need it with the boons you’ll be dropping left and right.

Warmth Devourer

(Blue Beacons cannot appear anymore. After finishing a Challenge, consume 1 Boon and 1 Challenge to gain +1 End Reward Sacrifice.)

Warmth Devourer my beloved. This is my favourite new mission added in 2.1 and currently my favourite mission in lootrunning, period. I’ve already stated how much I love sacrifices, but you know what’s even better than just sacrifices? How about literal free lootruns. With this mission there is no hard cap on how many sacrifices you can have, so I can frequently get runs going with 6-8 or more sacrifices, turning the sacrifice rate to almost 100%. Now yes, you can’t take this mission without basically dooming your current lootrun, but what does it matter if you have good pulls, good rerolls, and a guaranteed turnaround rate if your end chest somehow doesn’t have anything you want? In my first week of lootrunning in 2.1 I was able to chain a ton of 400+ pull short (20 challenge) lootruns just because of this one mission. This is a great mission and I highly recommend it if you ever see it. (I have taken this over Complete Chaos multiple times now.)

As a little challenge, my current highest sacrifice count for a single run is 25 which translates to perfect 100% sacrifice efficiency. Can you do better?

Backup Beat

(Every time you add +360s to your timer, gain +1 Beacon Reroll.)

You really don’t want to be relying on beacon rerolls in the first place, and having to go through a slow process just to get a small number of them is not worth a mission slot in my opinion. Not that I think beacon rerolls are bad, they’re quite handy to have, but there are better things to spend your mission choices on. Effectively, this is a Gourmand which requires you not to be in red debt to get any value from it.

Safety Seeker

(Get -1 Beacon Choice, +1 End Reward Sacrifice and +2 End Reward Rerolls.)

Friendship ended with Ultimate Sacrifice, now Safety Seeker is my new best friend. The rewards from the two missions are identical, the downsides are the only difference. Personally, I’d much rather take an anti-Orange than the prospect of losing boons and having to craft a stressful run around going fast. That being said, grabbing both gets you a lot of end chest rewards for only two missions…

Stasis

(While picking a Beacon, your timer does not decrease. (Max 5m))

If you’re struggling with time, have a low mobility build/class, or you have an enormous amount of red debt, this is a mission reward you can use, but I don’t value it very highly. It doesn’t usually take enough time going from one place to another, even in the more extreme cases, to justify this mission. You can get away with some shenanigans between this and Gambling Beast (assuming you have no red debt), but it’s unreliable, and doesn’t actually nab you any extra rerolls anyways.

Challenges

Canyon of the Lost is a lootrun camp that rewards mobility over sheer damage/ehp, and requires a bit of time to get used to thanks to how bizarre navigating the canyon itself is. Be sure to make use of the launch pads scattered all over the place, they’re very helpful for getting up to higher locations without having to walk or spam movement spells everywhere!

Difficulty Scale

Note: This difficulty scale is very subjective and your experience will differ based on class, build, and enemy/curse/boon scaling, thus I offer two scales: One for the enemies being at the same scale as you and one for if they’re considerably overscaled to you.

My grading scale is as follows:

1: The challenge is free. You won’t really need to think or do much, and in some extreme cases you can even AFK and finish with no problem.

2: The challenge is easy. You’ll have to pay a little attention, but the chances of you dying are slim to none as long as you put in effort.

3: The challenge will put up a fight. You won’t be able to breeze through it, but there shouldn’t be many cheap shots or shenanigans.

4: Avoid the challenge if possible. It will be difficult and there’s a decent chance of you dying and/or wasting a lot of time.

5: Avoid the challenge at all costs. You are very likely to die, you won’t have fun trying to attempt it, and in general the only reason you should even touch it is if the run requires that you take this challenge.

Slay (Waves)

Ancient Armory/The Pit

Difficulty at scale: 3

Difficulty over scale: 4

The teleporter in and out of this challenge can be a little fiddly, so make sure you’re not being followed into the zone to start the challenge if you’re underscaled.

This is the one slay challenge that actually demands you to have good damage and survivability, as the mobs inside can get fairly testy. The Leytech Gargoyles in waves 2 and 3 carry the biggest threat, as their charge/melee swipe combo can chunk out a significant portion of your health even without ludicrous scaling. The pseudo-boss in wave 4 doesn’t seem to be all that damaging, but even still, don’t underestimate this challenge.

A rare random event can occur after completing this challenge, causing a wall near the exit portal to open, revealing a Tier 3 chest underneath.

Mycelial Alcove/Mountain’s Edge

Difficulty at scale: 2

Difficulty over scale: 4

The zombies lootrunners… are coming… ahhhhhh…

Sorry, I just love the PvZ references in this challenge. Don’t take this challenge on a tight timer. The death animations for the enemies are strangely long and the Scaredy Shrooms Toxic Spitters have an annoying tendency to burrow underground for a few seconds, stalling out the wave. On top of that, the larger enemies do surprising amounts of damage, and have CC abilities of their own that can force you to position yourself well. In all, a surprisingly formidable challenge.

Sorcerer’s Rave/Wizard’s Tower

Difficulty at scale: 2

Difficulty over scale: 3

Pretty sure this is the first 3-wave slay challenge without a boss. The enemies on their own aren’t too much of a threat, but a specific shout-out needs to be made to the Trinity Arcanum on waves 1 and 3, as they have a strangely cowardly AI that causes them to moonwalk away from you at high speed while throwing damage your way. If the wave is stalling out, this guy is probably why, and you should find him before he casts Heavy Teleport again. Other than that, this challenge isn’t too bad; make use of the high ground on the terrain.

Troll Den/Air Temple Cave

Difficulty at scale: 2

Difficulty over scale: 2

Definitely the easiest of the slay challenges in CotL, but still not free by any means. There’s nothing too special about the mobs in the area, just your usual spread of ranged mobs clustering in corners in the cave and melee mobs holding trees for some reason. If the waves appear to stall for any reason, check the corner of the cave with the tent, as the last mob is probably somewhere in there. Also, don’t confuse the natural spawns with the wave spawns; if they’re not holding a bow or a tree they’re probably not what you’re looking for.

Slay (Target)

Colossal Synapse/The Colossus

Difficulty at scale: 2

Difficulty over scale: 3

The boss spawns on wave 2 and the timer on wave 1 is strangely short, making this a relatively quick mission. Don’t underestimate the damage output of things here, though, between the Damaged Neurons and the naturally spawning Gargoyles in the area it can be a struggle to survive if you’re not well equipped. Otherwise, there’s not a ton standing between you and pulverising the boss as quickly as possible. The challenge area is surprisingly huge, so use the space if needed.

Side note, try not to fly too high when leaving this challenge. The eagle’s nest from “The Lost” quest has a force-teleport field around it that can shunt you back to the ground if you get too close to it, and it’s disorienting every time it happens.

Destroy

Absorbing Slime/Krolton’s Cave

Difficulty at scale: 1

Difficulty over scale: 2

There’s not a lot to this challenge; it’s a pretty straightforward Destroy objective with pushover support mobs that only really become a threat at super high overscale. I do like the flavour of the Villager NPC being “freed” when this challenge is completed.

Lithic Soma/Canyon Fortress

Difficulty at scale: 1

Difficulty over scale: 1

Probably something to be said when getting to the challenge is harder than the challenge itself. Don’t know that I’ve ever taken damage from the support mobs except for the occasional Flamethrower spell? This objective is so easy I don’t really have any advice on it.

Defend

Farmer’s Harvest

Difficulty at scale: 2

Difficulty over scale: 3

Don’t be fooled by the high ground next to the objective, most of the mobs around this challenge, including the natural spawns, are ranged, so they can retaliate if you try to set up camp there. The wave-spawned Elefolk Pillagers seem to have a fairly unique knockback property on their arrows, which is more annoying than threatening. The melee mobs are actually threatening, though, so be sure to take care of them quickly. There’s also the occasional Nii Rune mob that can spawn in the area, and he hits hard at high enemy scaling, so be careful if he shows up!

Windy Pond/Banitsu Air Temple

Difficulty at scale: 1

Difficulty over scale: 1

This challenge is free if you set up camp on the bridge next to the objective and just look in the objective’s general direction. The mobs seem to have trouble actually attacking the objective minus the Vexes, and even then a point of damage will peel them off the defence point in favour of you. This challenge is almost AFK-able.

Spelunk

Voltaic Crag

Difficulty at scale: 2

Difficulty over scale: 4

This cave would be so much easier if it weren’t for the final set of enemies being so close to the Voltaic Seal, and the lack of cover between them and it means you basically need to deal with them before you can safely attack the Seal. The Seal itself can also do a shocking (pun originally unintended) amount of damage. The one upside to this challenge is that the cave is blessedly short and straightforward otherwise.

Rocky Peril

Difficulty at scale: 1

Difficulty over scale: 1

This cave is a nice breather, as there’s nothing threatening in it whatsoever, unless you somehow struggle to get across the lava pits at the start of it. I don’t have much else to say about this cave otherwise.

Seismic Bore Hole

Difficulty at scale: 2

Difficulty over scale: 3

Like with Voltaic Crag, getting to the end of the cave is no problem, it’s dealing with the Seal over the end chest that causes all the difficulty. I wouldn’t recommend being in the same room as the Seal if you can help it, it has a strangely large melee range and does a respectable amount of damage. You can position yourself just outside the room and throw damage in, but be careful, as the mobs in that area can do more damage to you than you’d think.

Chiseler’s Cavern

Difficulty at scale: 1

Difficulty over scale: 1

If you can deal with Gargoyles en masse, this cave is free. Simply run to the end and grind away. If you get unlucky, you may have to wait for a second wave of Gargoyles to spawn to have enough to open the chest. If this happens, be sure to check the lake around the ending area; mobs sometimes like to hide in there.

Demolition Derby

Difficulty at scale: 2

Difficulty over scale: 2

Be sure to keep an inventory slot clear as you start this challenge! Navigation through the cave is simple, the only challenge is remembering which are the right mobs to kill to get the TNT (hint: They’re the ranged ones.) Don’t forget you need to kill a mob near the end chest to open it, so don’t get surprised by the few mobs around once you open the end cave.

Burning Delve

Difficulty at scale: 1

Difficulty over scale: 1

The challenge in this cave comes from remembering where the strangely-placed barrier blocks are in the cave rather than anything else. Seriously, those barriers really wreck the flow of this cave. I get that they want you to use the bridge, but all of the invisible walls are just bleh. Oh also mobs exist in this cave I guess. There’s no threat to any of them.

Runaway Fleris Cranny

Difficulty at scale: 2

Difficulty over scale: 3

Don’t take this cave if you’re unsure of your own tankiness, as the sheer volume of mobs between the entrance and exit means you’re bound to take a few hits here and there. Individually they’re low threat but this cave seems to generate threat by a “quality by quantity” standard. Speaking of quantity, make sure to lure mobs towards the end chest before killing them if you can. Occasionally not enough mobs spawn to be able to open the chest and the respawn of the mobs can be frustratingly slow.

Perceived FAQs

When should I use my rerolls?

My rule of thumb for rerolls is to either:

• Use them if the current choice of beacons is completely unusable and picking any of them would actively be a detriment, or
• Use them during a Rainbow hunt with 5+ beacon choices and an active Red/Green to maximise your chances of seeing a Rainbow. This isn’t guaranteed but if nothing else rerolling into an Orange will give you more chances of Rainbow hunting.

What build should I use?

Use a build that you feel comfortable with. If you need specific advice on what to use within your current class I’d advise browsing the Wynncraft forums or joining a discord server like Blue’s Builds.

What camp should I be running?

Depends on the current loot pool and which camps you enjoy running. I tend to chase the more valuable pulls myself, though I’m not the biggest fan of running Silent Expanse.

I rolled a mythic, do I take or reroll it?

If you’re specifically hunting for the shiny, consider whether you think you can reasonably have a shot at getting it with your current pulls/rerolls/sacrifices. The answer to this is typically a “no”, as the shiny rate is roughly 1/100,000 (My first week of 2.1 I spent 68,126 effective pulls and never saw the shiny). If it’s a low-value mythic like a Stardew or a Gaia, feel free to reroll it. Otherwise, take the sweet, hard-earned money, you can always start a new run!

Should I be going for long or short runs?

It’s a personal preference thing and depends on how much time you have and how good your run is. 2.1 nerfed the playstyle of ultra long runs, but even before that, I tended to aim for 30 challenge-ish runs to get all of the missions done. Those runs take just a bit over half an hour and with decent highrolling luck can get me a mythic in about an hour or so. I also know some people insist on the 100-challenge lootrun style, and that can work fine if you put the time into it.

I disagree about <insert literally anything from this document here>!

That’s fine! My word isn’t law here, I’m just successful at lootrunning, love the gamemode, and wanted to give some tips, is all. If you were hoping to talk feel free to @ me on discord or something, I’m usually lurking and available to chat.

Is it Tonga time?

I think it’s Tonga time.

GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN!!!