FilthyGorilla
Local Legend
I thought I'd try skull caverns without anything, I'm already quite good and have made it past 1000s of levels in single runs without too much effort.
I'm not really into getting the most iridium or prismatic shards anymore as I'd rather not spend 3 hours staircasing while pause buffering each attempt.
Therefore I have picked up the most minimal mining gear that isn't pure masochism.
I enter the skull cavern with only a pickaxe and a mid-game moderate weapon. Of course, this is on a very late game save so I do have level 10 perks but they don't matter too much.
I am wearing a random assortment of combined rings I thought would be ok without putting too much thought into it.
Mostly I just want to get better at early-mid game skull cavern and I personally like the mid game skull cavern a bunch, thought I'd ditch food so that I would be more careful as it can somewhat emulate the risk of early game, not having much health nor food and needing to plan more actions ahead of time.
This is everything I bring:
Galaxy hammer/Slammer (thought this was pretty mid game, has no forges but does have acrobat/slammer has acro and some forges though the damage is still only 44-60 for more fun)
Iridium Pickaxe (I only have an iridium and regular so went with iridium, it's powerful and I don't care to re-enchant. the only thing this really helps with is gold ore as most stuff in skull cavern requires impossible pickaxe power to break in fewer hits)
Burglar/hot java ring (since I have no food nor buffs it's nice to get coffee easier/burglar makes getting food in the second half of the run not so much of a priority and helps ensure early eel)
Iridium/Luck ring (Iridium is nice just for the magnetism as the damage increase is disregarded when doing a special attack and those are all I'm doing usually to minimize the chance of damage/Luck is just a better chance for ladders, etc. which are always helpful)
My influential professions are miner, botanist/gatherer (Purple mushrooms and fiddle heads) and acrobat.
Something cool as well is just the amount of food there is to get in the caverns, much more than you would expect, if I had infinite time in the cavern and this kit I would be able to go on pretty much indefinitely.
Some food sources I took advantage of are listed here in order of how useful they were and how often I ate them.
1. Spicy eel, probably the most important item in the runs, easy to get with burglar and the luck is essential, most annoying thing is the fact that the buffs get overwritten by other foods with buffs.
2. TSE/Coffee, speed is great, the drop chance is enough that I got it on level 1 on every run but 1 which I got an immediate ladder and got it on level two.
3. Crab cakes, you get a lot of these, often I ended runs with 3-4 of them, they give speed but no luck and are good for quick energy if you have no current buff. they overwrite spicy eel but their 101 health and spicy eels 51 are enough to eat both and fully heal from basically nothing.
4. Forage food, Purple mushroom and fiddle heads, with botanist and gatherer all are iridium and sometimes I get a double, two purple mushrooms with buff foods is enough to last half a good run.
5. White algae, super easy to get though only 9 health per, it's pretty good as you can kill big slimes quite fast and get a lot from the baby slimes too.
6. Cave Carrots, I could only get them in any useful way from crates, they usually drop as 2-3 and give enough health to survive a hit which is really useful. I couldn't get them nearly enough to be a reliable food source though they are common enough that focusing on breaking barrels and crates can save you from super low health.
7. Energy tonic/Life Elixer, enough to fully heal you, pretty useful but you can only get them reliably after level 50 which is usually crossed at 2-3 and by then food isn't of the utmost priority. You can get a bunch from the mass amount of bats though bats are hard to kill and require a dedicated slam or two from the hammer to kill.
8. Pink Cake, Pink cake is rare from slimes though with burglar you always get two, quite good though doesn't show up too commonly, happened only 3 times during the runs.
9. Treasure chest foods, anything from treasure rooms, elixer, tonic, random cooked dishes. Not horrid though with only 1-3 luck I only encounter a treasure room every 40 floors on average and most of the cooked foods have useless buffs.
I've only done 8 runs but so far the runs do ok, I don't ever check luck and the impact is pretty noticeable as I only have 1-2 luck during the entire run.
My worst runs ended at about level 80 and with only 120-150 iridium ore 80-90 of each of the other ores, and 40 coal with 1-2 shards.
Most of my runs got to about 120-140 though and they average about 250 iridium ore and 4 shards though my best got 350 ore.
I didn't die during any of the runs which I expected though I was running around on <20 health for about 40% of the time in each run.
Those are some results, feel free to do it yourself, I felt it gives a new and different feel to the cavern as you aren't in the early game but you don't have much and you need to prioritize different things than regularly. It's surprising how much food there is in there and how little you really need if you plan things in your head. I thought that the runs would be harder but as an experienced player, it really wasn't that different than a regular early-game run.
Good luck to any who attempt it, I encourage you to write your results here if you wish, it's cool so see progress and maybe tips from me or others to help anyone who needs them and wants to do this little challenge or something similar.
I'm not really into getting the most iridium or prismatic shards anymore as I'd rather not spend 3 hours staircasing while pause buffering each attempt.
Therefore I have picked up the most minimal mining gear that isn't pure masochism.
I enter the skull cavern with only a pickaxe and a mid-game moderate weapon. Of course, this is on a very late game save so I do have level 10 perks but they don't matter too much.
I am wearing a random assortment of combined rings I thought would be ok without putting too much thought into it.
Mostly I just want to get better at early-mid game skull cavern and I personally like the mid game skull cavern a bunch, thought I'd ditch food so that I would be more careful as it can somewhat emulate the risk of early game, not having much health nor food and needing to plan more actions ahead of time.
This is everything I bring:
Galaxy hammer/Slammer (thought this was pretty mid game, has no forges but does have acrobat/slammer has acro and some forges though the damage is still only 44-60 for more fun)
Iridium Pickaxe (I only have an iridium and regular so went with iridium, it's powerful and I don't care to re-enchant. the only thing this really helps with is gold ore as most stuff in skull cavern requires impossible pickaxe power to break in fewer hits)
Burglar/hot java ring (since I have no food nor buffs it's nice to get coffee easier/burglar makes getting food in the second half of the run not so much of a priority and helps ensure early eel)
Iridium/Luck ring (Iridium is nice just for the magnetism as the damage increase is disregarded when doing a special attack and those are all I'm doing usually to minimize the chance of damage/Luck is just a better chance for ladders, etc. which are always helpful)
My influential professions are miner, botanist/gatherer (Purple mushrooms and fiddle heads) and acrobat.
Something cool as well is just the amount of food there is to get in the caverns, much more than you would expect, if I had infinite time in the cavern and this kit I would be able to go on pretty much indefinitely.
Some food sources I took advantage of are listed here in order of how useful they were and how often I ate them.
1. Spicy eel, probably the most important item in the runs, easy to get with burglar and the luck is essential, most annoying thing is the fact that the buffs get overwritten by other foods with buffs.
2. TSE/Coffee, speed is great, the drop chance is enough that I got it on level 1 on every run but 1 which I got an immediate ladder and got it on level two.
3. Crab cakes, you get a lot of these, often I ended runs with 3-4 of them, they give speed but no luck and are good for quick energy if you have no current buff. they overwrite spicy eel but their 101 health and spicy eels 51 are enough to eat both and fully heal from basically nothing.
4. Forage food, Purple mushroom and fiddle heads, with botanist and gatherer all are iridium and sometimes I get a double, two purple mushrooms with buff foods is enough to last half a good run.
5. White algae, super easy to get though only 9 health per, it's pretty good as you can kill big slimes quite fast and get a lot from the baby slimes too.
6. Cave Carrots, I could only get them in any useful way from crates, they usually drop as 2-3 and give enough health to survive a hit which is really useful. I couldn't get them nearly enough to be a reliable food source though they are common enough that focusing on breaking barrels and crates can save you from super low health.
7. Energy tonic/Life Elixer, enough to fully heal you, pretty useful but you can only get them reliably after level 50 which is usually crossed at 2-3 and by then food isn't of the utmost priority. You can get a bunch from the mass amount of bats though bats are hard to kill and require a dedicated slam or two from the hammer to kill.
8. Pink Cake, Pink cake is rare from slimes though with burglar you always get two, quite good though doesn't show up too commonly, happened only 3 times during the runs.
9. Treasure chest foods, anything from treasure rooms, elixer, tonic, random cooked dishes. Not horrid though with only 1-3 luck I only encounter a treasure room every 40 floors on average and most of the cooked foods have useless buffs.
I've only done 8 runs but so far the runs do ok, I don't ever check luck and the impact is pretty noticeable as I only have 1-2 luck during the entire run.
My worst runs ended at about level 80 and with only 120-150 iridium ore 80-90 of each of the other ores, and 40 coal with 1-2 shards.
Most of my runs got to about 120-140 though and they average about 250 iridium ore and 4 shards though my best got 350 ore.
I didn't die during any of the runs which I expected though I was running around on <20 health for about 40% of the time in each run.
Those are some results, feel free to do it yourself, I felt it gives a new and different feel to the cavern as you aren't in the early game but you don't have much and you need to prioritize different things than regularly. It's surprising how much food there is in there and how little you really need if you plan things in your head. I thought that the runs would be harder but as an experienced player, it really wasn't that different than a regular early-game run.
Good luck to any who attempt it, I encourage you to write your results here if you wish, it's cool so see progress and maybe tips from me or others to help anyone who needs them and wants to do this little challenge or something similar.
