How Do You Get Deep In Skull Cavern?

[Mystical Junimo]

How do you get deep in Skull Cavern?
I can only get to floor 20 with no staircases
I see people get to floor 100-200
And how do you do it before 2 AM?

 

[Lew Zealand]

4 things that Super Duper help:

Desert Obelisk to get you there at 6:30am
Bombs to clear lots of rocks to expose shafts & stairs
High Luck from daily luck, Spicy Eel, Rabbits Foot to Truck outside JojaMart
Speed from Coffee/Espresso, Spicy Eel to avoid monsters. Don't waste time fighting them.

You can trade the Speed & Luck from Spicy Eel if you want more Luck from Lucky Lunch. Maybe someone has done that comparo to see which is more OP in Skull Cavern

But really, you should bring some staircases for that twirly level that takes forever to get to the center. This ain't no Tootsie Pop: Staircase and crunch down to next level.

 

[BringsTheSnow]

The advice I got when I asked the same question was really helpful. Mining advice for Skull Cavern

Basically, use cheese to heal at half health or less, spicy eel for luck and speed, espresso for extra speed, trade jade for staircases to the desert trader on Sunday, and lots and lots of bombs!!! Don't fight the monsters, just bomb and dodge around them since you will be fast.

Most importantly, travel there by warp totem or pillar so you have extra time and bring a warp totem or return scepter so you can go until almost 2 am! Every moment is precious.

 

[PoppyForPenny]

Iridium pickaxe and Galaxy sword or lava katana, space boots, level 10 mining and combat, lucky day, lucky charm in my wallet. Foods and rings that boost luck, speed, defense, attack, immunity. Desert totem, farm totem, bombs. Slingshot with explosive ammo.
All these things will help but, how you get deep in skull cavern, is stairs. I replicate jade in crystalariums to trade for stairs on Sundays at the camel stand. If I'm going for the 100 quest, collecting iridium or prismatic shards, or hunting pepper rex for the eradication goal, I might use 60-90 staircases.

 

[Bananapaws]

Q will gripe at you for using too many staircases, but he can just live with it.

 

[Konitama]

Staircases...

The old Skull Cavern you could definitely just spam bombs and make it down via holes/ladders but now it seems like the majority of levels are long winding paths with very sporadic rock placements so using bombs feels like a huge waste just to destroy 4-5 rocks at a time... and sitting there slaying every enemy is time consuming... so the only real solution to get to level 100 is staircases

 

[Salty1]

While lucky day and lucky charm help, I feel like the biggest luck boost comes from food, so that is mandatory. That's where I found my biggest difference in efficiency kicking in. I've had mixed results trying lucky lunch over spicy eel, but the speed also helps with getting as many spawn rolls as possible. If you have lots of bombs and don't mind wasting them, I'd say spicy eel+espresso every time, otherwise if you don't have bombs on demand and will be using the pick axe primarily, go with lucky lunch when opportunity allows.

Also, it hasn't been mentioned yet, but if you just want to get down to level 100 for the quest, I'd also suggest slime charm ring. While I haven't tried it much in 1.5, in older versions of the game I've found purple slimes make up the majority of enemies on many floors, and it helps a lot to be able to entirely ignore them.

 

[BringsTheSnow]

Also, it hasn't been mentioned yet, but if you just want to get down to level 100 for the quest, I'd also suggest slime charm ring. While I haven't tried it much in 1.5, in older versions of the game I've found purple slimes make up the majority of enemies on many floors, and it helps a lot to be able to entirely ignore them.

Slime charmer ring is a must! Although, if you don't have it yet it you can build up to getting it by repeatedly dipping into the first few levels of Skull Cavern to kill more slimes faster.

 

[imnvs]

I collect prismatic shards and I trade them for a few magic rock candy. I also have a silo of coffee on my new beach farm (check me, because I've done Qi's Quisine twice with triple shot espressos and a few sashimi). Then I magic rock candy + triple shot espresso, go, bomb bomb bomb, efficient pickaxe when sparse, bomb bomb bomb, staircase away from stupid levels like the spiral.

Just.

Keep.

Moving.

Down.

You have no time for anything else. You're trying to make ways down without using stairs, and if that is looking like a grim proposition, plant a staircase and go.

Just.

Go.

 

[Akemisora]

If you don't worry about money, you can just do kaboom route. Don't forget about coffee + spicy eel for the speed.

 

[Bilqy]

Pausing also helps save in-game time. Pause when you enter a new floor to give yourself a moment to process what you just saw around you and swap to the appropriate item for the situation.

Also dump random small stacks of low-value items like sap as you get them. Inventory fills fast and it would suck to realize you just left a Prismatic Shard on the previous floor.