Yeah. I think I've about decided that I'm not going to be crafting anything until I have 3 of every essence all the way up.

The drops for Luneria cheese are both pretty rare. I've probably been through close to 200 dewthief (at least) and only had about 13-15 pieces of Luneria total.

At the moment, I've got at least one of every essence except the last one. I'm back in the Living Garden gathering dewthief. I think I'll probably stay put until the christmas event gets started.

As far as I can tell 1 trap = 9 Twisted Carmine Mice. I've caught 3 TCs so I'm a third of the way to my first trap. Woohoo.

I had 50 some pieces of Graveblossom, and that has resulted in 3 herbs! 3?!?!?!?!

I can't say for certain because I haven't seen any official stats to back this up, but this seems to be the first set of luck locations since the Tribal Isles. The GS + Luck Charms seem to be getting me more drops than my husband who doesn't use either, but again, I haven't been keeping close track so I can't say for sure. On the other hand, he got a lot more than 3 herbs with 50 pieces of cheese so I'd say you're just really unlucky at the moment.

*wishes there was a way to capitalize a number*

THREE

My current amount of essences...
68A 52B 24C 1D 1E 1F 1G 1H 0I
And I am up to 236 Dewthief Petals

Moving on to a different topic. Has anybody besides me noticed that the game is working SOOOOO much better since the patch yesterday? Oh my goodness, the typical lag that I deal with has vanished completely! I sent out my 20 daily raffle tickets with no lag (unheard of), and my husband and I can hunt in the same area with each other and with our friends with no lag (also unheard of). Can't wait to try a tournament now to see if the horn lag from having everyone on the same timer has resolved as well. Hooray for taking FB out of the mix!!!

I failed miserably, I went at the Twisted Camine with umm..4 cheese
Definitely not the best idea, back in living garden farming up some dew petals...taking some time though
Christmas is almost here, I'm guessing next week will be the event, but after Chinese New Year itd be stale until the next big event being Halloween if I remember, there will be small events in between, but they are small
I guess I'll just farm it up and wait after Christmas to do more farming

I think the Egg Hunt event around Easter is pretty big (and also my personal favorite), but yeah, the others tend to be pretty little.
I haven't looked this year to see if the Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day fall close to each other so they'd be combined into one event again. Last year they were far enough apart they were two separate small events.
I bet you're right wil that the Christmas event will start sometime next week. I really like the mouse that Jacob drew last Friday for the event. I do remember though that for every Christmas event, there was time in the middle when I got kind of bored so this year I'll probably split my time between the event and the LG to continue farming petals.
Sorry you didn't get any Carmines wil Did you even attract one?

Well I've nabbed at least 1 Twisted Carmine. . . I'm using Ultimate Power Charms, but with only 4 cheeses that's all I can do

Working on a ZT run to finally get rid of this task... I'm thinking I need a stronger Hydrotrap before I hit the LG... so another Iceberg run may be in order

I used up my Duskshade cheese and headed to the Cursed City. The cheese loot drops are few and far between here. I've got 1 Plumepearl Herb for 13 pieces of cheese used. This is going to be miserable.

Well, I finished my Zurreal stuff...and then I realized I'd already maxed out my tower amplifier, so I can cross that off my list, too. Still don't want to go back to the burg or the warpath, so I'm currently sitting in the acolyte realm and trying to get a bronze crown for my chrono and a silver for the realm ripper. At this rate, it should take me roughly a hundred days to hit a silver for the RR.

EDIT: Oh, and the price on the Oasis bead dropped further, so I pulled it off the market.

Amplifier's at 119% and I just have the queen and king to go... the question is what to arm before bed: SB+, Gouda or checkmate (*needs to catch the mystic king with check mate to finish this task)...

Maybe I'll take the safe route and disarm my bait all together *never thought there'd be a point in the game where that's seem preferable *

I'm thinking I need a stronger Hydrotrap before I hit the LG

No. . . you need the Oasis Water Node I honestly don't think that the Steam Laser Mk. 3 would be strong enough.

Only ended up with one more twisted carmine, so I'm back in the living garden farming dewthief petals again. Aiming for about 100.

That's good to know, that's what I'll be working on outside of ZT runs then... thanks Digs

No. . . you need the Oasis Water Node I honestly don't think that the Steam Laser Mk. 3 would be strong enough.

Well, the Oasis is only 400 power and 2 luck better than the Steam Laser Mk III, so I think the Laser would work fine in the Garden for catching mice. Lets face it, the new mice aren't that hard to catch. However, as you can't get one of the traps without the Oasis in the first place, I think I'd spend my time in the Warpath getting the Oasis instead of hitting the LG.
I'd also say that I think I would wait to do the Iceburg now until you have the Phantasmic Oasis. But that's just me.

It dawned on me that I should change my current LG strategy and go for just the Oasis upgrade instead of all three at the same time. I'm now aiming for 300 petals instead of 800 and hopefully if that is enough for the Phantasmic Oasis, that will make farming the rest of the petals for the other two traps go much quicker. I'm currently at 287 so I will hopefully be moving on to the new area still tonight. Might be tomorrow, we'll see.

I actually watched the recording of FBF today (the one from two weeks ago never worked for me and I couldn't find a review). They showed a lot of cool stuff for the iPhone/iPad app that's out already. (Anyone using it?)
They said they hope to have the Android version out soon, but because of the way the programming works in Android, it will only be compatible with Jelly Bean (Android 4.1). Phooey! My husband's phone is Android, but it's not the latest, most awesomest system. So much for using the app. Ah well.

They mentioned that the GWH will be about the same level of involvement and intensity as last year, though things will obviously be switched up.

They confirmed that the Living Garden is not entirely released yet. I suspected that based on Twisted Carmine's description. So it'll be interesting to see what else they have planned for that area.

They also said that there are still a few bugs left to tweak based on the change to MHG.com from last week. They're aware of them but they had to get the game out before Dec 5th so they will tweak these bugs in the future if they can (Like not being able to share catches on FB).

Speaking of FB, they showed this cool new feature that FB has allowed and MH is taking advantage of... they're going to allow a MH timeline to show up on FB. So if you click the app it will show your catches and when you traveled to new locations, etc etc. I thought that was kind of cool.

I can't think of anything else they mentioned that was news worthy so I think that's it for my rather lengthy post.

They showed a lot of cool stuff for the iPhone/iPad app that's out already. (Anyone using it?)

MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Really cool, but you can't craft anything on it or use potions. So if you run out of some cheeses, you're out of cheese.

Thanks for that FBF update, FK. I can't recall what I thought of the level of involvement in the GWH last year, but I remember enjoying it so I guess that's exciting news.

Hmm... more Living Garden to come, eh? Good grief! I'm struggling as it is. I'm going to be so elated when I get one of my upgraded traps! (I'll probably start with the Oasis upgrade, since it will also help with the Iceberg as you pointed out somewhere.)

I only thought the Cursed City was horrible for cheese loot drops! The Sand Crypts are worse. CC was about 1 Herb/6 pieces of cheese. SC is more like 1/11. o_O I only crafted 66 pieces for each area! Oh well, looks like a reboot is in order. I can't decide if it will be worth going after Twisted Carmine with only (currently) two pieces of cheese.

Got my King... barely Started another advanced Zuzwangs task... but I plan on hitting the Warpath/Market when life gets less busy