Guide:Blue Ice Sickle/Igno's Blue Ice Sickle Grinding Guide

Introduction

The foraging tool Blue Ice Sickle is probably one of the most sought after items. Boasting powerful stats this legendary sickle is only toppled by an eternal quality Hydrilium Sickle in terms of power. The grind for one, however, can be a long and tedious road, with some users having spent upwards of 2 million steps before getting one.

The purpose of this guide is to prepare you in the best possible way, before heading up to keep the penguins company.

Requirements and Practical Info

Before you can access the Winter Waves Glacier you need to purchase the Mysterious Northern Map, at the Adventurers' Guild Outpost down at the Horn of Respite. The map has a cost of 100 Adventurers' Guild Tokens, the exact amount you receive as a reward from unlocking the guild at 20 Achievement points. If you are both without tokens and the map, fear not - you can grind some more doing the activity Rescue Team.

Next up is the skill requirements. In order to do the Glacier Foraging activity, you need both Agility and Foraging to be level 30. Now once these requirements are out of the way, you will be able to start the actual grind, there is one small caveat though, the W.E.A.R. of 892,308 steps.

But wait, there is more! Glacier Foraging also has a chance of dropping the collectible Expedition Journal which gives you a passive bonus to foraging Work Efficiency of 1%, the Journal has a WEAR of 232,000 steps. Last but not least, there is also an achievement tied to the place, Are You Sickle Of It Yet?, which requires you to complete the activity 2500 times.

It's time to gear up!

Summary

• Level 30 Agility and Foraging
• Mysterious Northern Map
• Blue Ice Sickle WEAR is 892,308 steps.
• Expedition Journal WEAR is 232,000 steps.
• Are You Sickle Of It Yet? requires 2500 completions of the activity.

Gearing Up

The most effective way to reduce our WEAR is to increase our Double Action and Double Rewards stats. Foraging gear almost exclusively come from the Foraging Chest, which means we are off to treasure hunt. When trying to grind skill chests, the most effective method is to load up on global and skill relevant Chest Finding. There is a few items that you can specifically grind, in order to increase your global and foraging Chest Finding, these are:

• Omni-Tool - One of the most versatile tools in the game.
• Golden Frisbee - Global Chest Finding makes this an excellent tool to slot in any empty tool slots. Note that it does require you to have completed the Frisbee Golfing (Beginner) activity 20 times, before you can equip it.
• Clay Frisbee - Same as the above, except it has no requirements. The two Frisbee's do stack .
• Smelly Socks - A drop from Litter Looting which double serves as a requirement for the normal achievement Master Has Given Dobby A Sock, which is worth 3 ap. It has a WEAR of 12,065 steps.
• Fireflies in a Jar - A very strong tool, giving 15% CF to both Foraging and Agility. Drops from the activity Butterfly Catching which require Foraging level 40 and Agility level 30. It has a WEAR of 62,746 steps.
• The three rings: Old Copper Ring, Old Gold Ring and Ring of the Eel. These have a wear of respectively: 30,000, 45,000 and 60,000 steps though. If you do decide to grab some rings, I recommend doing Gold Panning, as it can drop both the Old Copper and Gold Ring.

The only tool of the above I wouldn't advice getting beforehand is the Fireflies in a Jar. With a max efficiency cap of 80%, it requires good gear to reach the already high WEAR, and it will only serve as a major detour.

The Smelly Socks is a maybe, depending on your current gear. You will already have 25% WE from levels over requirement. If your current gear has a total of 30% Work Efficiency it will bring the WEAR down to a reasonable ~15,000 steps.

The tool which will improve your chances of getting the BIS the most, is of course the craftable sickles. Ideally you wont start the grind without at least a Steel Sickle of excellent quality, but preferably a Hydrilium Sickle of excellent or better quality. This should be your number 1 priority.

Last but not lately there is also the Jellyfishing Net which is a great tool for both foraging and fishing. Crafting one of at least excellent quality should also be a priority.

Summary

• Number 1 priority is crafting a Hydrilium Sickle of at least excellent quality. If you don't have the required levels to do this, craft a Steel Sickle of at least excellent quality instead.
• Craft a Jellyfishing Net of at least excellent quality.
• Buy both Frisbees, and make sure to do 20 completions of Frisbee Golfing (Beginner).
• Decide whether you want to spend a smaller detour grinding the Smelly Socks.
• Consider doing Gold Panning for rings.

Choosing What Activity To Do For Chests

Now that you have assembled a chest finding gearset, it's time to choose which activity to head to. We are looking for activities with a low step amount, which might also yield some useful loot. This leaves us with only 2 choices:

• Forest Foraging
• Plains Foraging

Let's take a look at what differentiates these from each other.

Forest Foraging

With a base step amount of 75, it is only beaten by Cave Foraging, sitting at 74. The amount of steps required can be brought as low as 38, although that requires 100% Work Efficiency bonus. The loot table is a big hodgepodge of low level ingredients and sticks and stones, and it doesn't offer much except for Wheat, which has a droprate of 13.158%. Another benefit of Forest Foraging is that you can do it in Horn of Respite which has a deposit through the Adventurers Guild, or Disenchanted Forest which is close to Kallaheim.

Plains Foraging

Starting out a bit higher than it's Plains counterpart, Plains Foraging has a base step amount of 90 steps, and can be brought as low as 57 steps per action with only a 60% Work Efficiency bonus. The drops from the activity is significantly better as well, with Flax and Hemp being teased as ingredients needed for the upcoming two new skills. It has a Wheat droprate which is slightly higher when starting out, but eventually dropping to 12.676%. The activity is found in both Norsack Plains and Casbrant Fields, the latter being the closest to Kallaheim, if you bring your skis!.

Both Plains and Forest foraging has a small chance of dropping Honeycomb which is used for the Winnie The Pooh achievement.

A Word About Porridge

One item which helps the grind a lot, is the consumable Porridge, using it increases our foraging droprate by 2%, and even in a late game build, that shaves off 6000+ steps of the average rate. Now fortunately we should be having a large supply of Wheat from grinding chests, make sure to turn these into porridge.

Summary

• Forest Foraging is the best way to start out, but pivoting to Plains foraging once you gain some more Work Efficiency is a valid strategy.
• Forest Foraging is most efficient when it comes to chest grinding, but offers less useful drops.
• Saving all Wheat and converting it to Porridge can potentially save you a lot of time.

Gear Sets

All that is left now is to decide how many steps you want to spend grinding chests and gear, and when you want to head for the glacier. Below is linked som sample gear sets with their average steps per Blue Ice Sickle.

• Early Game - 581,838 Steps
• Mid Game - 470,250 Steps
  • or 447,227 steps with a perfect net and sickle.

Conclusion

Before heading to the glacier, there is a few things you need to take care of first:

1. Make sure you meet the requirements.
2. Spend some time grinding chest find gear if you haven't got a set.
3. Grind foraging chests and craft porridge, until you are happy with your gearset.
4. Profit?

Happy grinding, and remember the droprate is always 50/50, either it drops, or it don't ;) Good luck!