Efficiently reaching Shrine Goals
I've helped a couple of people make a plan to reach Silver or Gold Shrine in the most effective way. I was going to try and post a formula to help people make their own plan, but it seems to be too complicated to lay it out that simply. So instead here's the plan of attack (which is possibly just as complicated):
1. Count how many dragons you need to reach your goals.
This is obvious, but having the numbers for all your dragons will tell you where you are. Until you know where you are you can't work out how to get where you're going. You will be left with a list that looks like this:
Fire - 27
Plant - 32
Earth - 36
Air - 41
Water - 39
Lightning - 35
Cold - 37
247 Total elements.
Generally speaking you will need the least amount of Fire Elements, because it's in Love, Panlong and Blue/Frostfires which you have probably already have a head start on.
2. Make up the most of your dragons in Panlong.
You will be knocking off 4 elements at once (then 3 when you've knocked off the Fire Elements). You want to keep breeding Panlongs until each new one is only advancing 2 Shrines. In the above example, you want to breed
36 Panlongs
If you breed 37 of them you will be breeding a 36 hour panlong just to service Air & Water, as Earth will have reached it's goal. A Fog will do the Air & Water shrine with an 8 hour breeding time.
After you've made your Panlongs your required elements will look something like this:
Plant - 32
Air - 5
Water - 3
Lightning - 35
Cold - 37
Your plan of attack from this point is dependent on what dragons you have available to you.
3a. If you have Reindeer and Love
then life is gravy, because you have 3 dragons made up the elements you need most of. You have a Plant/Cold, a Plant/Lightning and a Cold/Lightning and can make the dragons in the easiest ways possible. You just need to tidy up the few air and water elements you need and you need to even up the Plant, Cold & Lightning elements remaining. By making
3 Sonic
2 Snow
3 Ice/Iceberg Dragons
you have knocked off the Air/Water and are left with exactly 32 Plant, Lightning and Cold elements to get. Making exactly half that number of Reindeer, Love and Storm dragons will get you your 32 elements.
16 Reindeer
16 Love
16 Storm
So the total is
36 Panlongs
3 Sonic
2 Snow
3 Ice/Iceberg Dragons
16 Reindeer
16 Love
16 Storm
These 92 dragons give you the 247 elements required. This is the most efficient way it can be done.
3b. If you don't have both Reindeer and Love ...
This is where it gets messy. If you don't have both, then having one or the other doesn't help. If you have 3 elements remaining with a lot to get, you need either one dragon with all those elements (which doesn't exist yet) or you need 3 dragons made up of the 3 possible pairs. Without those options we might as well stick with making Storms.
Plant - 32
Air - 5
Water - 3
Lightning - 35
Cold - 37
Making 35 Storms and 2 Snow Dragons will get rid of Cold and Lightning and leave you with
Plant - 32
Air - 3
Water - 3
3 Willow and 3 Seaweed/Swamp will leave you with
26 Plant.
Now, you can make 26 Plant dragons, to give you a total of:
36 Panlongs
35 Storms
2 Snow
3 Willow
3 Seaweed
26 Plant
105 Dragons for the 247 elements required, a very respectable number, but we have another option.
Breeding a 3 Element Dragon and 3 x 1 Element Dragons versus breeding 3 x 2 Element Dragons
If you look at the bolded sentence directly above this one you will see that in the first instance (1 x 3 Element dragon + 3 x 1 Element dragons) we have 6 elements covered in 4 dragons. In the second instance we have covered 6 elements in 3 dragons. Same number of elements but 1 less dragon. So ...
You need at least 27 of the Panlongs to knock off all 4 elements, but once the Fire Shrine is taken care of, you have an option. You have 9 remaining Panlongs which you are breeding for 3 elements (Earth, Air & Water) for a total of 27 elements. We also have 26 Plant dragons that are just looking after the Plant Element. We have 53 elements covered in 35 dragons. If those 53 elements were all in 2 element hybrids we could cover them with 27 dragons. 8 less. So ...
Lets combine the 27 elements from the last 9 Panlongs with your 26 Plant elements to make 2 element Hybrids. 9 Seaweeds (Plant+Water), 9 Clovers (Plant+Earth) & 8 Willows (Plant+Air) with 1 Air element left over (I went with an Air Dragon instead of Earth or Water because it's quick to breed and worth 500K). Your totals will then be:
27 Panlongs
11 Willows
12 Seaweeds
9 Clovers
35 Storms
2 Snow
1 Air
So 97 Dragons for the 247 elements. 5 dragons more than the ideal, but 8 dragons less than the alternative above, and as anyone who's reached Gold will tell you, those 8 dragons will be gratefully skipped. You've also saved a lot of breeding time and your stable of dragons is actually worth more if you have to sell them as the 8 Willows and 9 Seaweeds you have bred are worth 12.5 million as opposed to the 9 million that the 9 Panlongs were worth.
I hope this guide has been helpful and not too hard to read through. I do apologise for the lack of interesting pictures. I hope it has given you an insight into how to make a plan to reach your shrine goal. And my door (PM box) is always open if you have any questions, or want help with your specific situation.