Fighting outfit (Spoilers)

[hexnessie]

Hi again from the lousy fighter :(

I have just found the Forge in the Volcano, and it looks like I'm going to need a lot of Prismatic Shards. All jokes about trout ponds aside, it seems this means Skull Cave again (insert many sad faces).

Now, I can do some fighting. I completed the Mines and the Volcano dungeon comfortably. But the Skull Cave is too difficult for comfort.

Please help me assemble a fighting outfit to protect my character better and help him do some damage.

I currently have a Lava Katana, Dwarven Hammer and Dragontooth dagger. I like the Katana best. Rings: Slime Charmer and Iridium Band. I have access to Burglar Ring, Crabshell Ring, Vampire Ring, Lucky Ring and all other equipment from Gill that come from completing Mines/Volcano monster eradication targets.

I want to find enough Prismatic Shards to solve the desert pillars puzzle, combine some rings, and enchant some tools (hoe and sword, probably).

Questions:
- which rings to combine for best defense/offense?
- what to eat other than Eggplant Parm for best defense/offense?
- which shoes? (currently Cinderclown)
- I was thinking I should combine the Lucky ring with Iridium band and Crabshell with Slime Charmer, does that make sense?

- ALSO: Mining profession. Should I switch out from the "more ore" path to the "more geodes" path?

 

[Ereo]

I found the monsters in the Lava dungeon more difficult than skull cavern, so if you can do that, I'm sure you'll figure out the cavern as well!

The Lava Katana is good, but there is a better sword. That would be the first thing to get with the prismatic shard.

I prefer the sword over the hammer, and I never use a dagger.

Use the best boots for defense that you have.

For the food buffs, prefer speed over defense. While on espresso and spicy eel, there are few things that can outrun you.

The monsters in the skull cavern hit pretty hard, I don't find that defense makes a lot of difference.

For the rings, I use iridium band. Slime charmer isn't really necessary because slimes are slow. Burglar is nice for the double drops. Napalm is cool because things explode while you kill an enemy, but that is only useful if you stop and fight, which you might want to avoid.

The trick is to enter a floor, drop bombs near rock clusters and keep moving away from the enemies. Just try to find ladders (or even better, chutes) as fast as possible. I don't stop to mine until I see big clusters of iridium placed together, usually not before floor 50.

I always carry
- 30+ cheese to refill health in one bite
- 30+ staircases
- 100 bombs
- 3 triple shot espresso
- 2 spicy eel or lucky lunch

In general, use the totem to get there at 6:30. For best results, clear your inventory the night before. Place the TV close to your bed, and when the spirits are very happy, down a cup of coffee and teleport.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

First off, your first Prismatic should go to making the sword, and immediately go pick up the Galaxy Hammer from the Adventurer's Guild. The damage output will be so much more massive compared to the Lava Katana you are currently using. Trust me, it's an investment which will continue to pay dividends for the rest of your playthrough.

Next, let's talk about what you are bringing with you. As the previous individual mentioned, what you carry with you is going to be important. Cheese, especially gold-star cheese from putting Large Milk in a cheese press, is an amazing HP/Endurance recovery food. Staircases and bombs... sure, go ahead, but I'll put in a caveat on that later. You'll want to bring Coffee or Triple Shot Espresso specifically for the speed boost. If you can't get spicy eels or lucky lunches, just go make some Pepper Poppers for more speed.

Now that you have access to the Forge, you get the ability to double-up on rings. Here's some ideas:

* Iridium Band is a natural, it has everything you want. You don't always need multiples, but at least one of them is pretty mandatory since it is effectively three rings built into one already.
* Burglar's Ring is also a given. You're grinding for loot drops, this is mandatory for that. Don't bother with more than one, the effects don't stack.
* Ruby Ring... may as well just get an Iridium Band instead since it also gives bonus damage with a side benefit of light and magnet
* Crabshell Ring. Let's face it, you're going to get hit. And getting hit hurts. This ring makes it hurt less, mitigating damage on every impact. Get one.
* Immunity Band. This actually isn't a bad idea, now that it affects all debuffs. That plus the cinderclown boots should pretty much make you immune to debuffs entirely.
* Vampire Ring. Because what's not to like about healing while slaying your enemies?
* Napalm Ring. Kind of a controversial pick. On the one hand, all those explosions are useful in the skull caves, but it CAN destroy things you don't want destroyed if it goes off elsewhere.
* Slime Charmer. Are you really hurting from slimes?

My suggestion is Iridium Band + Burglar's / Crabshell + Immunity. It's simple, clean, and shores up your defenses.

As far as staircases... keep in mind that these are not to be spammed, they're there to bail on a level you just want no part of. Bombs need to be handled with care because you CAN blow yourself up.

 

[Boo1972]

If you don’t think you’ll be getting a better sword anytime soon, I would forge 3 rubies onto your katana- assuming you have plenty of cindershards. Weapons are a very personal choice. I have an infinity hammer but generally reach for my dark sword (it’s really the galaxy sword in disguise). I just do better with swords.

Definitely go with cinder clown boots, unless you have the dragonscale boots.

There have been a few good discussions on rings on the forums. You might want look them up. I personally go with an iridium+luck then a combination depending on my goals. My three top rings are soul sapper+vampire, burglar+slime charmer, and immunity+crab shell. I think there is a bug involving the immunity band. I’ll look it it up.

I am a firm believer in bombs and staircases. The further you descend in SC, the better the loot. I use stair cases to descend quickly then explore after floor 100 or so. Who am I kidding, I get way too excited by all the goodies and end up wasting time on higher floors. Try to get to floor 70 or 80 before you explore.

Are you good with a slingshot? Explosive ammo in a slingshot may not kill enemies but it can push them back and expose ladders quickly. If you choose this method, I’d wear rings that provide immunity and defense.

I have generally used spicy eel and triple shot espresso as my food buffs. I need speed. But I’ve recently tried ginger ale and pumpkin soup. It really increased the number of treasure rooms I found.

Good luck! I have 40 prismatic shards on hand. I’m sure you’ll have plenty soon!

 

[Worblehat]

Regarding rings, see this thread and this thread. I used iridium/burglar and iridium/vampire.

Your boots are already best in slot (mermaid and dragonscale are both side-grades at best, in my opinion).

Weird that you did all that without finding a Prismatic Shard. Isn't there one in that chest in the Forge, or is that chest randomized?

Food: spicy eel and espresso is the standard approach. Boo1972's suggestion is an interesting idea, I hadn't seen that one before. For health regen, that's what life elixir is for (you have the mushroom cave, right?). For smaller heals, anything works; you've heard from the cheese faction, but the rest of us use iridium salmonberries or blackberries.

Mining profession: doesn't really matter. Do you care about either geodes or ore at this stage in the game? Neither one matters for getting prismatic shards. Technically they can come from omni-geodes, but in my current save the first would come from a geode more than a thousand into the sequence, so unless you're insanely lucky - and not in the sense that can be modified by the game stat Luck - you're not going to get one this way.

As one lousy fighter to another, I'll also ask whether you really need to do this hunt. What are your goals for the rest of the game? Do you really need prismatic shards to achieve them? Perfection requires shipping one and giving one to the Museum, but you don't have to go for Perfection. Catching Legendary fish is slightly less difficult with a Master enchanted rod. Not sure what you're doing with your hoe that you care about enchanting it (I only enchanted my sword, fishing rod, and pick - crusader, master, swift respectively).

Anyway, my point is that you shouldn't do something you don't enjoy, unless there's a very compelling reason. I despise Skull Cavern in this game, and don't intend to ever set foot in there again in this or any other save. Granted I did do enough to enable Perfection - this is one of those "learn from my mistakes" type of suggestions...

 

[Giant Octopodes]

First things first, Boo1972 and Shneekey and Worblehat have fantastic advice, for those who want to fight. If you're looking what I would call a standard adventuring kit, their advice is sound and thorough. I'm going to take things in a different direction, keep in mind that this is Wildly experimental and barely tested. It's just the stuff I was thinking about when I was thinking about you specifically and your quest, and my hope is it helps.

Now, that being said, let's break it down:

Monster damage caps out at around 30 (Iridium Bats, otherwise the max is 23, setting aside the "dangerous" mines where best I can tell it caps out at 32, but haven't fully verified that yet). From what I can tell, you're not interested in killing them per se, just in not dying, which is fair. You don't need to kill them to do the things you want to do, and if you do want or need to kill them, you just need a higher damage than their defense and you'll get them eventually. Now, in Stardew Valley, defense is simple, and additive. For each point of defense you have, the enemy deals one less damage, to a floor of 1.

However, being additive, the more you have of it, the more valuable it is. Let's take a common enemy in the Volcano Dungeon, the Magma Sprite. It deals 15 damage. If you have 5 defense, they deal 10 damage instead of 15, 66% of normal damage. Getting another 5 defense reduces them to 5, 50% of the damage they dealt at 5 defense. Another 5 defense puts them to the floor of 1 damage, 20% of the damage they dealt at 10 defense. So the greater your defense value, the greater the expected reduction in damage you have from getting more, up to the floor of course, at which point more is wasted.

The other thing to look at is debuffs. If they deal practically no damage to you then you can safely ignore them, other than the debuffs. Slimes slime you, giving you a huge negative to speed, which is annoying if nothing else. Magma creatures can burn you, slowing you down And reducing your defense, which is bad. You prevent them with the Immunity statistic, which reduces the chance of them by 10% per point, to an effective max of -100% at 10, at which point you're immune to them entirely.

Now, how can you raise defense and immunity?

Rings: Crabshell Rings should be your #1 priority. Getting 2 of them gives you 10 defense, which is massive. They do indeed stack.

Boots: The highest defense boots are, in order, Dragonscale Boots, Cinderclown Boots, Mermaid Boots, and Space Boots. Wearing Cinderclown Boots as you are would give you, with the 2 Crabshell Rings, a defense of 16. That will make it so that you only take 1 damage from magma sprites, assuming you're not burned, though you still take 7 damage from Tiger Slimes. We can close that gap with the weapon, and food.

Weapon: You're already wielding the Lava Katana, which has 3 defense. I'd not swap it out, if I were you, until and unless you find the Dwarf Sword or Dwarf Dagger, which can take that to 4 or 6 (I would still use the sword, even with 2 lower defense, unless you're sure you'll never need to kill anything, just because daggers are a pain).

Food: Growing some Eggplants and Tomatoes (say 24 of each tops?) on the island should give you enough Eggplant Parmesan to keep the buff active at all times, which is +3 defense as well. You can and likely will want to still pair that with coffee or espresso.

With those rings and food you're looking at 1 damage from the Tiger Slimes, assuming you don't get burned, down from the likely 14 they're currently dealing (so less than 1/10th of the damage). Until you get burned, at which point that quadruples to 4, of course. Pretty good, if I do say so myself, but it still can be improved, if you are so inclined. Once you are a regular visitor to the forge, you can meld in some other rings. I'd recommend the Iridium Band, of course, for utility, and the Immunity Band, which with Cinderclown boots will make you close to immune to status effects, or with the Mermaids Boots will make you fully immune. You can also forge in 3 Topaz into a weapon to raise the defense by another 3, and using a certain something to make the Eggplant Parmesan can raise it by another 1.

The max defense then you can get is: 2x Crabshell Rings (optionally with other rings forged in); Dragonscale Boots, Dwarf Dagger with 3x Topaz, Eggplant Parmesan with that special something, for a total of 30 defense, at which point even the most dangerous enemies in the game are only dealing maybe 2 points of damage to you, and you can literally just ignore everything and go about your business, occasionally eating salad or cheese or whatever to top your health back off.

For practicality and best overall experience, I'd go with Mermaid Boots and Dwarven Sword instead, which would still cap out at 27, enough to reduce everything in the Volcano Dungeon to 1 damage, as well as everything in the Skull Cavern other than Iridium Bats (reducing them to 3), while providing total immunity to status effects and letting you kill enemies without it being a total nightmare when inclined.

I hope that helps, and at least offers a different perspective! Best of luck and I hope you have fun!

 

[Elenna101]

My thoughts:

Weapons

Lava Katana is not bad, as weapons go, you should be able to survive fine with that. As others have mentioned, once you get a prismatic shard you should upgrade to the Galaxy Sword, which will also work fine to get you reasonably far down.

That being said, I personally prefer hammers. There's a cool thing you can do where if you right click (or whatever the special attack button is on console) and then immediately mash left click (or the regular attack button), you get a bunch of extra hits with the smash attack of the hammer. Unfortunately these extra hits all have knockback, so you have to mash fast to get hits in before they get knocked away from you (or trap them between you and a wall/rock, if they're on the ground). Still, even if you only get in one or two hits, it's quite a powerful attack and will knock enemies pretty far away. Maybe experiment with that, and if you like it, remember that the Acrobat perk and the Artful enchantment both decrease the cooldown time. Plus, even with the regular attack hammers do more damage than the equivalent swords, although they're slower so you have to time it better to hit the enemy and knock them away from you.

All that being said, if you can't kill an enemy quickly (i.e. in a second or two), unless you really want something they drop you're almost certainly better off ignoring them, dodging, and eating food to recover if necessary, rather than wasting time killing them. Your goal is to blow up rocks and go further down, not to kill things. In particular, for flying enemies, try to be doing stuff (moving, dropping bombs, etc) rather than just sitting there waiting for them to get back to you.

Food

Speed is really good in Skull Caverns. With +2 move speed, you can outrun most enemies, which makes the dodging part mentioned above a lot easier. Luck is also a good buff. I find that these are a lot more useful in SC than offense/defense, since, as mentioned, you don't want to be spending too much time killing stuff anyways, and most of the enemies do a fairly large amount of damage regardless of your level of defense. Plus, you should have plenty of food to heal the damage.
As such, for buffs I always go with spicy eel and coffee/espresso, for +2 speed and +1 luck. Conveniently, these can both be easily gotten by trading a few rubies or diamonds to the trader in the desert. Magic rock candy is obviously also great but I assume you don't have prismatic shards to trade for it.

Also, bring plenty of non-buff food to replenish your health. When you're getting used to SC, try to eat whenever your health goes below half. People say they die all the time in SC, but remember that (assuming you're in single-player), time pauses when you eat, so as long as you're able to eat quickly, you should be able to immediately pause and regain health at any time, which should prevent death.
Of course this requires you to be able to quickly switch from whatever you're holding (usually weapons or bombs) to food. Personally I like to pause (by pressing e), and then use the number key hotkeys to switch what I'm holding to my food, and then I can quickly unpause and eat immediately to pause again. Other options people use are putting food next to your weapons/bombs so the scroll wheel gets you there quickly, or putting it underneath weapons/bombs and then switching with the tab key.
(If you're in multiplayer, where time doesn't pause when eating, then sorry, that's a lot harder. Just try to keep a careful eye on your health, I guess.)

In terms of what non-buff foods are good, it's not a huge deal what you bring, standard options are (as others have said) berries or cheese, and life elixirs for full heals. If you have money but not food, buying salads from Gus is a good cost-effective option.

Rings

A brief list of helpful rings:
- Iridium band: Obviously. Magnetism is really good, especially if you're using mega bombs or explosive ammo, and the +10% attack certainly can't hurt.
- Luck rings: Hard to get, but added luck is obviously helpful for finding more ladders.
- Burglar's ring: Quite nice although I guess it depends on whether you're actually killing enemies or not.
- Crabshell ring: Less damage is obviously good
- Savage ring: Pretty fun to use, also extra speed is nice
- Immunity band: Pretty good to decrease the chance of being slowed if a slime does hit you, although they're pretty dodgeable
- Napalm ring: TBH I find this one more fun than consistently useful, but it is fun. Probably not a great idea if you're on the wilderness farm or have the "monsters on your farm" option on.

I'd suggest going with two iridium bands plus whichever two you like of the other ones (remember you can forge rings together now to wear four of them). Throw in a luck ring if you happen to find one.

A note: I don't use the slime charmer ring: I don't use this anymore since the slimes are quite easy to run away from with +2 move speed, but if you don't feel comfortable you can use it.

Bombs
Go in with bombs. Either take some time to grind out ore/coal/essences in the mines to make them, or buy them from the dwarf. You want to blow up rocks as fast as possible, try to always be placing a bomb. I basically don't use my pick in SC unless it's just, like, one lone iridium node or something.

Don't necessarily try too hard to be out of range of the bombs when they explode, they really don't do all that much damage, and you'll have food on hand for healing anyways. There are better uses of your time than running away from bombs and running back to pick up the results.

Also, explosive ammo can be really great because it blows stuff up immediately, which means time saved looking for ladders. The problem is it can be pretty hard to use, especially if you use the "pull back to fire" option which can shoot a lot faster than the default "click and hold to shoot" option, but is harder to learn. Also it only explodes when it hits enemies, walls, and ladders, so if you have a clump of rock in the middle of the floor with nothing nearby, that'll have to be bombed.

Staircases
Bringing in a few ladders is definitely useful to skip monster floors. More ladders is always better (if you have enough, say 100+, you can just ignore all the above advice and just go down deep with those). It's not necessary, though. The best way to get them is to trade jades to the desert merchant. If you get enough iridium, you can use some of that to make crystalariums to get more jades.

Mining profession
Neither will particularly help you get shards. However, to get shards you want to be breaking iridium nodes (4% chance per node, it's the best way to get several of them), so you'll be getting a fair amount of iridium. How much iridium do you need for crafting? If you think you'll end up with significant amounts of extra iridium, maybe go with Miner -> Blacksmith and sell the extra for 1500 per bar instead of 1000.

Side note that didn't fit into any category: Don't get too distracted picking up stuff on earlier floors (unless it's iridium, maybe, and even then don't go too far out of your way). You'll see more of it later, since the chances go up significantly as you go down the first 100 floors. Focus on getting down. The best place to start getting ore and not just going down really depends how far down you can get in a day.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

As a note as well, though my advice was somewhat written with the Volcano Dungeon in mind, I'd stand by it for the Skull Caverns, just use a bunch of stairs to drop to 100, bring a bunch of bombs, and blow up iridium nodes, ignoring enemies. You'll get more prismatic shards than you can shake a fist at, since they have a 4% chance of dropping from each iridium node, and that far down the nodes get to be pretty common. But the Skull Caverns you need a lot of staircases, a lot of bombs, and a lot of time to get to where iridium nodes can be found in sizeable quantities, while the volcano has nodes available which are less resource intensive to obtain, so it's a tradeoff.

 

[Salty1]

The clown shoes are good, but if you get the mermaid boots later, might I suggest giving those a whirl? They're not quite as handy if you prefer to stack tonnes of defence, but the high immunity they give makes them quite excellent if you still want to be fairly tough while shrugging extra affs. Might depend on what is giving you the most trouble in skull cavern.

 

[imnvs]

I want to find enough Prismatic Shards to solve the desert pillars puzzle, combine some rings, and enchant some tools (hoe and sword, probably).

I need to clarify something here...

You do not need prismatic shards for fusing rings. You just need the cinder shards.

Prismatic shards are for the enchantments on your weapon/tools only.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

@Giant Octopodes has some good points he's made regarding defense. Here's an idea:

First ring is Iridium Band/Crabshell, second is Crabshell/Immunity. You do lose the bonus looting from Burglar's Ring, but stacking defense like that is going to dramatically reduce damage taken, as he pointed out. The monster to really look out for in the Skull Cave is the Serpent doing 23 damage. The rest either aren't doing as much, or have much more predictable and easier to deal with behavior patterns. With 10 damage from the two instances of Crabshell plus 6 defense from the Cinderclown Shoes, that's 7 damage by base they're doing.

Honestly, I would still get a Galaxy Hammer as rapidly as possible, as killing enemies faster leads to less chances for damage overall. The extra killing power it provides over the Katana is not to be underestimated. And I'd honestly prefer the easier to produce Pepper Poppers that give a speed boost to the Eggplant, especially in combination with the Coffee/Espresso, letting you dodge and outrun enemies much easier. Taking 7 damage is a lot less than taking 17 damage that you'd be eating without the rings, and far more manageable, especially when you bring cheese with you.

 

[imnvs]

Honestly, I would still get a Galaxy Hammer as rapidly as possible, as killing enemies faster leads to less chances for damage overall.

Or at the least, the Galaxy Sword. (Some just prefer sword weapons, and some can't afford to ALSO get the Galaxy Hammer as soon as they get the Sword.) It doesn't do quite as much damage as the Galaxy Hammer, but its wider swing and the fact that you also swing it quicker can sometimes make the difference between you getting hit or not.

 

[Sigrah]

Here's something you should consider doing: Go to Skull Cavern and just practice fighting monsters there, regardless of the luck that day. Learn how they move, how they attack, how much damage they are capable of doing to you, how to position them to do the most damage you can to them in the shortest amount of time, how much damage you have to do to kill them with your current gear, and how to evade them if / when you're trying to maximize iridium gain or reach level 100 for the quest.

Keep in mind that you're doing this for practice, and that if anything goes wrong or if you feel like you don't have time to do this for whatever reason, you can just exit the game to the title screen before 2am so you can start that day over and do whatever it is you want / need to do that day. I know some would argue that this is an exploit, and I can understand that if your motive was to keep killing mobs until you get a prismatic shard to drop. But to me, if you're doing it to train your ability to fight, it's just a form of drill practice. It's not like you get to keep anything you mine or loot from monsters on that day, it's basically target practice and learning what you're capable of with the gear you have.

As for an "adventurer kit", this is what I'd recommend:

Weapons: I would suggest the Galaxy Sword as soon as you can get it. The Galaxy Hammer is powerful, but the rapid swing rate of the Galaxy Sword and special ability to block hits is better defensively. When you get better at combat, then consider the Galaxy Hammer and see which one works better for you.

Rings: Since you're not that good at fighting, you should probably go with an Iridium Band / Crabshell Ring on one finger, and a Immunity Band / Crabshell Ring on the other finger. This will give you a good damage mitigation while still giving you a decent damage increase and more resistance to special monster debuffs. As for your idea of combing a Lucky Ring with one of your other rings, I'd recommend against that for now. All the luck in the world isn't going to help you if you're getting hit a lot and end up getting knocked out. Besides, you can make up the loss of luck by eating Spicy Eels instead.

Shoes: I'd recommend sticking with the Cinderclown shoes you have currently. They give you solid increases to both defense and immunity, both of which are important to someone who's not a very good fighter.

Food: If you're doing Skull Rock, you should go with Spicy Eel and Espresso both. Speed is everything in that dungeon, especially if you're using bombs, and the extra luck is beneficial for getting deeper down in the dungeon where all the iridium is (the primary source of prismatic shards). As for healing foods, go with cheese or iridium quality salmon berries / blackberries. I personally prefer the berries because I use my cellar for turning gold quality goat cheese into iridium quality goat cheese to sell every Sunday, but cheese is a good single use healing food if you're not selling goat cheese like I am.

Mining Specialty: Go with Miner / Blacksmith unless you're in dire need of coal, in which case, take Prospector over Blacksmith instead. You can always change later, but the +1 ore is significantly better for harvesting iridium and other ores. Besides, the Excavator skill in the Geologist tree doesn't apply to finding prismatic shards, only actual geodes.

 

[Elenna101]

Here's something you should consider doing: Go to Skull Cavern and just practice fighting monsters there, regardless of the luck that day. Learn how they move, how they attack, how much damage they are capable of doing to you, how to position them to do the most damage you can to them in the shortest amount of time, how much damage you have to do to kill them with your current gear, and how to evade them if / when you're trying to maximize iridium gain or reach level 100 for the quest.

I like this idea - especially for the serpents, I found when I was starting to go into Skull Caverns I had to swing at them before I thought I should have to, to avoid taking damage.

 

[Sigrah]

I like this idea - especially for the serpents, I found when I was starting to go into Skull Caverns I had to swing at them before I thought I should have to, to avoid taking damage.

Me too. I just wish Marlon or Kent would run a basic training / combat training school where you could pay to practice your combat skills against the different monsters you could face in a given dungeon without it causing your character "real" damage. Of course, you wouldn't gain actual experience towards your Combat leveling or gain any loot from the monsters you kill, it'd just be a place for players who have a tough time with fighting learn the actual mechanics of combat and what different monsters are capable of.

 

[hexnessie]

WOW, GUYS! Thank you! This is massive information that will really help me. Now I can see some roadplan before me.

I currently have 3 shards and wanted to get maybe 3 more. I'll use 1 for the sword (I'm assuming that's what the pillars in the desert will give me), and other to enchant (and I wanted to give 1 to the Junimos just as a thank you for being sweet little helpers).

Mostly I really need to start to feel comfortable in the Skull Cavern if I'm going to try to do Qi Challenges. I recently unlocked the Walnut Room and lots of the challenges are for the SC.

As for slimes, yep, I was taking A LOT of damage from them before the Charmer ring. They had the highest HP and the most unpredictable movement of all monsters in Mines/SC, so the ring helped a lot. But if I can get my defense up, I guess 1 damage per slime is OK and I can forgo the Charmer.

Last question. For swords that give +defense, when does the boost kick in? Is it when I'm actually holding the sword in my hand, or when I'm using it (swinging), or is it passive and works even when I'm using a pickaxe? (Can I get a pickaxe with + to defense?)

 

[Worblehat]

Mostly I really need to start to feel comfortable in the Skull Cavern if I'm going to try to do Qi Challenges.

Not at all. None of my Qi gems came from Skull Cavern, and I have everything I want. I mostly did Qi's Cuisine (1667 bread, or 223 espresso, whichever you prefer) and Qi's Kindness. The latter was quite helpful as a way to use up most of the food from cooking every single recipe.

I did do Danger in the Deep, since that or Skull Cavern Invasion is needed for Perfection. If you can handle the Volcano (and you clearly can) you can handle the Dangerous Mines.

 

[Elenna101]

Not at all. None of my Qi gems came from Skull Cavern, and I have everything I want. I mostly did Qi's Cuisine (1667 bread, or 223 espresso, whichever you prefer) and Qi's Kindness. The latter was quite helpful as a way to use up most of the food from cooking every single recipe.

I did do Danger in the Deep, since that or Skull Cavern Invasion is needed for Perfection. If you can handle the Volcano (and you clearly can) you can handle the Dangerous Mines.

Yeah, I personally enjoy SC and I do think you can learn it, and it will take less time to get the Qi gems that you need if you can do the SC quests, but you definitely don't have to. For that matter, you don't even need to complete Danger in the Deep for Pprfection, as far as I know - if I'm counting correctly you only need 18 radioactive ore for perfection, you can just pick a lucky day or two while the Danger in the Deep or Skull Cavern Invasion quest is active and reset floor 1 over and over till you get them.

 

[Worblehat]

For that matter, you don't even need to complete Danger in the Deep for Perfection

Good point. And I think you can get Perfection with just seven radioactive ore, by using the Deconstructor (make a bar, use it to make the hopper, deconstruct, heavy tapper, deconstruct, sell the bar; make Hyper Speed-Gro, deconstruct, make magic bait which I believe you can't deconstruct; one more ore to sell for shipping completion).

 

[Maw]

Hm, I like being able to just ignore Slimes, but seeing all this scorn for the Slime Charmer ring, I guess I'll try something else for a bit.