This is a guest submissions sent in by Millros Broadbelt of the Bounders of the Shire kin on Landroval on getting through Winterhome daily grind as quickly as possible.
With new yule cosmetics available with update 5.1, thoughts have turned back to Winterhome quests before the festival ends. The problem is it can be a bit of a grind and you don’t want to spend precious gaming time when you could be doing other things. If you plan your route carefully through Winterhome though you can be in and out in an easy 15 minutes, leaving plenty of time to do other things in your spiffy new clothes on your spiffy new horse! This is the route I’ve found to be the fastest through the Winterhome quests, getting through everything in 2 “laps” and with the absolute minimum of doubling back.
When you land at Winterhome head straight into the upper gate and speak to guard Kember. Pick up the Abominable Snowbeasts quest (you aren’t so mean as to want to tell the beggars to move off for money are you? No, didn’t think so, good!) then head down the main street, past Ona Kay, to the workers area.
Pick up the quests from Daley Utteridge (both, if you’re trying to get the “Openhanded” title by repeating the charitable spirit quest 10 times) and then the quest from Gareth Rust. Turn left out of the workers area and (give the coins to Regina Judson, if you’re doing Charitable Spirit) then turn down the alley to the right towards the theatre. Pick up the theatre quest from the hobbit outside and head straight in. If there’s a performance happening or about to happen (i.e. there are at least 3 people without AFK tags) then stick around until it finishes. Otherwise head straight out, its tricky getting a full theatre this late in the festival.
After the play head out, cash in the reward (and give coins to Jack Judson if you’re doing Charitable Spirit) then turn right to set off the fireworks. Go down the stairs, places yourself in the middle of the group of 8 patrons and you’ll be able to pick all their pockets without having to move from where you are. When you’ve looted all 8 turn around and pick up all the quests from Basil Wyndham and Mabel Mitford. Head North, then left down to Ian Prudholm’s food station and clean up everything.
Turn hard right (giving 2 coins to Bill Hyde on your way if you’re doing Charitable Spirit) and head out of the lower gate to the left, down towards the snowmen. Collect the quest from Virgil Greenfield, then select the snowman you want to build. If you’re working towards the “gather of cool company” title then pick accordingly, but if you’ve already got it or don’t care then the fastest option is to pick the broken snowman, furthest to the left of Virgil.
Head North east to collect the sticks for the snowman then directly north down to cluckland to collect eggs. Once collected head north west up the hill into the grumpwood to collect the unwilling firewood, then straight back down the hill once you’ve finished to the edge of the frozen lake.
Here you’ll collect the first berries from the winterberry bushes, before showing those wintery weathers who is boss. Head east towards the house and tower, around which you’ll be able to collect the rest of the winterberries then head south east over the stone bridge and up into the woods to find the snowbeasts.
Cheer at the snowbeasts then head west up to the mushroom tent to collect 5 mushrooms. Follow the path back into Winterhome at the main upper gate.
Cash in your quest with Guard Kember (and give Barret Nowell 2 coins if you’re doing charitable spirit) then turn left and do some clear up at Ona Kay’s station. Head back to the workers area (pausing to give Ted Ives 2 coins on your left if you’re doing charitable spirit) then cash in with Daley Utteridge and Gareth Rust.
Head left out of the workers area to do some clean up at Nora Lewison’s station, then keep heading in the same direction to the kitchens. Collect the coal for the snowman then bake bread – don’t forget to do it 3 times, easily done if you’re rushing.
When done collect a keg and head back towards Nora Lewison and turn left (keeping an eye out for the very easy to avoid watchers) then jump over the wall at Jack Mitford’s station to land right by the dwarf on the keg to complete (easiest quest ever).
Head left and then out of the lower gate again to the snowman field. Build your snowman, cash in with Virgil Greenfield and then return via the lower gate.
Turn hard left back to the main festival area and finish cleaning up at Freddie Symonds station. Go to your right and cash the quests in with Mabel and Basil, go south up the stairs towards the main entrance and talk to Albert Yule to convert your coins to tokens.
That’s it, your visit to Winterhome is finished for the day in the fastest possible way, unless you want to have a go at the eating contest for extra coin credit. Good luck if you do!
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January 23, 2012 at 10:35 am
I did the math and found that the most efficient activity to grind tokens is doing the IL/AA deliveries. It’s quite possible, even for non-hunter/non-warden classes, to do all deliveries within the time limit. Once you are acquaintance with AA and friend to IL you can trade each rep token for 3 festival tokens. That’s a total of 66 Tokens (not frostbluff coins, but winter fest tokens) for 1 hour-or-less of investment.
January 23, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Really? Thanks for the info, I’ll keep that in mind. I’ve been avoiding those guys in favor of the other stuff going on.
January 23, 2012 at 11:16 am
the two festival ground quest each rewards 2 tokens (8x total), the horse race 3 (2x total), doing all of them nets you 22 festival tokens. my fav route is thorin, duillond, shire race, party tree, port to bree, bree race & bree festival. then back down to west bree to get to winterhome.
my winterhome route is pickup all the quests first (getting rid of the beggars along the way D=), guardsman -> beggaralley -> theater(pickup only or skip) -> the 2 questgivers at bottom of stairs -> jump out of winterhome from the swans -> snowman (broken one) -> cluckland(eggs) -> branches -> winterberry & frostgrims -> snowbeast(cheer from horse) -> mushrooms -> winterhome to the ovens (clean up tables and turn in done ones along the way) -> bread & coal -> grab the keg -> firework & pickpocket -> swan jump -> sticks & build snowman. all this gets you 32 frostbluff tokens or 8 fest tokens if i remember right. finally the theater and the repeatable eating contest and snowball fight at your leisure.
if u just want 20 for horse do the 8 festival grounds quest for 16 token, 1 race for 3 fest token, 1 for 1 race token and do the winterhome keg for 4fbt / 1 fest token.
January 23, 2012 at 11:22 am
for the 20 token horse route go thorin -> winterhome(keg) -> duillond -> shire race -> partytree -> port to bree -> bree fest ground & race -> hengstacer
January 23, 2012 at 1:12 pm
I do the route through Winterhome the other way around.
Guardsman — the two person at the bottom of the stairs (and taking on the way Ona’s quest, if its available… always pick Ona’s quest if its available) — way up to pick the theater and the beggarsalley’s (collecting on the way some dirty dishes and garbage) — finish the cleaning quest and go to the kitchen to make the bread and pick up the cask — fireworks/robbery quest — and out to collect the other stuff — when im back i gather the things for the snow man while deliver the quests. And then I stuck between the theater and Ona stand to do as many eating contests and plays (for the petals and tomatoes deeds) I can.
January 23, 2012 at 6:10 pm
start a new alt and take them to winterhome after leaving the new area. Park em at the eating contest and run that solely, or in betw run the other quests. In one day you earn the feast beast title, lvl to 17 and get the final beggar or rich man goodies. Plus around 80 tokens. Piece of cake.
with the tokens you can buy stuff for the mains and end up with a decent lvl’d alt with all their inventory bags to store the stuff in.
done it 4 times now, plus brought the rest of my alts up to 17-18 that way.
January 24, 2012 at 4:37 am
I was going to post this same thing. If you ever plan on starting a new alt, definitely consider parking them at the festival grounds, but especially in this case: the feast awards the same amount of experience any other quest does in the place (minus the running back and forth) and awards it 5 times…once after each stop! I usually do all the quests first, then just repeatedly pick up the feast quest when available. Each feast circuit is 13 coins, which turns into 3.25 tokens (4 every four feasts, 3 every other time) you can even mix in a theater performance at times while waiting for the feasting to start, since there is no first table timer. If you have a horse, don’t forget to mount up between tables (but before turning in the quest at the table minder to save time on the next timer). Also, be careful not to pick up the Tidying Up quest on the way up the stairs between the second and third stop if you are gathering quests up while feasting…it is possible to have both at the same time in that case, which makes eating more difficult. Get the Tidying Up quest completely finished before making runs and you shouldn’t ever have to worry about it.
January 23, 2012 at 7:09 pm
The easiest (and thing that requires the least amount of brain activity) is the feast. It is the easiest by far, and it can easily be set to ‘farm mode’ if you do it right. 1. Use your mount – mount up near the announcers after you ate the food at their station so you can go to the next one fast, 2. Eat light – Berries > Mushrooms > Eggs > PIE!!!! > Bread 3. Wait to start the feast – wait two minutes before starting the feast so you get choice of the food you want to eat, 4. ALWAYS get the Mystery Drink when it is up – The Mystery Drink has a chance to either clear slows or give you a major slow, nevertheless, always drink it because for one, if you get the slow, it only lasts 20 seconds and it does not stack up like regular food, and it is consistant – even when you have 4 rows of debuffs, it takes the same amount of time to drink as if you had no debuffs.
January 23, 2012 at 7:11 pm
One more note, DO NOT pick up the Tidying Up quest if you want to farm this over and over, if you have it, you cannot pick up the feast quest. Also, you get 13 Frostbluff Coins for completion of the whole feast.
January 24, 2012 at 8:41 am
I for one would just like to finally finish my alt Mule’s Rotten Fruit deed. For a week now I have tried time and time again to go to the theatre and finish it. Either everyone is too good and only throwing petals or its dead and no players for the play.
SO when does the Spring Festival usually start? Time to get ready for that one.
I live for festivals!