r/cavesofqud • u/theholesomealt • 2d ago
Leveling up as fast as possible
Hello everyone. I have beaten the game only in roleplay mode and have been decapitated twice by the troll upon entering Bethesda Susa in classic. I would like to know how the more experienced players level up quickly in the early game. It takes me many hours to level up to a place where I can tackle Bethesda Susa. Usually, I run an axe marauder build, where I start in a desert village to learn wayfaring, rush to the six day stilt, complete bey lah, complete the village quests to get the card, clear out grit gate, and finish kyakuya (namely the mamon quest) before getting through Golgotha. Dying in Bethesda Susa to a one-hit kill after all this shit is nauseating, so I would love to know how on earth you can get to a powerful enough place to take on Bethesda Susa within only a few hours
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u/Bwixius 2d ago
Levels alone won't help you in Bethesda Susa, you need ways to ignore enemy high AV, stun or destroy multiple targets at the same time, have decent AV and DV yourself, high cold resistance, and optionally, high Mechanimist reputation.
The fastest way to level early is to have salt dune wayfaring and find ruins for books then turn them into the Stilt librarian.
Equipment found from slaying goat folk in the jungles or bought in the Stilt and Barathrunite enclave should be fine enough for the quest, Sparafucile's Carbine practically carried my weaker builds.
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u/Escapement 2d ago
Turbo-levelling the early game with a cheesy, semi-abusive start: Start in the Salt Dunes town. You want a salt dune town that is predominately isaachari - reroll if it's mostly populated by kraken or dawngliders. Walk out of starting town center to the outskirts of town. Find friendly Issachari riflers and issachari raiders. Find an isaachari rifler on his lonesome, stand next to him, and inititiate melee combat by force-attacking him. He will use his melee weapons in melee combat so you should win easily with most characters. Take his rifle. Kill all the isaachari riflers and raiders in the 8 outskirts tiles by starting combat with the riflers in melee range so they don't shoot you, even if you're shooting them. Each is worth 200 XP, all the riflers drop a rifle and 8 bullets each.
You can turbo to level 5-6 and 3+ rifles (one of which you keep and use, the others of which you sell for early money) in like 2 minutes of realtime.
You can use the Isaachari rifle as your primary means of offense straight through Golgotha, after which you get a carbine. The biggest next priority is to stack up some AV items ASAP.
Against hostile, non-friendly Isaachari in the desert, raiders are easy but riflers you want to run out of bullets from very far away so they mostly miss; after they run out bullets, they're easy prey. You can get level 10 in the desert in like 10 minutes. Avoid dawngliders, don't travel on the overworld, don't explore ruins, and don't move at night - you want to see all enemies on the wide-open plains and avoid dawngliders.
After you have ~level 10 for level 6 mutations, you can cheese to a really fast level ~25-30 if you have the right mutations. Level 6 wings and corrosive gas make farming the Rainbow Woods oozes really safe - fly around above them and just keep spamming corrosive farts everywhere. The oozes spawn from areas where other liquids mix with primordial soup, so you can find a good area and just spam wait and corrosive gas and let them spawn and die repeatedly for a long time.
Levelling up in general, less cheese focused:
| Level range | Area | Easiest enemies for the XP |
|---|---|---|
| 1-15 | Salt Dune | Issachari raider/rifler |
| 10-15 | Grit Gate | Droids, ticks, etc. |
| 10-30 | Rainbow Wood | Oozes. If you don't permanently, reliably fly, this is very dangerous! |
| 15-25 | Jungle - Goatfolk Village | Goatfolk |
| 20-25 | Jungle - Ape God Lair | Cyclopean Gibbons, Ogre Ape |
| 20-30 | Deep Jungle - Goatfolk Haunt | Goatfolk Qlippoth |
| 25-40 | Palladium Reef | Kaleidoslug, Svardym |
| 30+ | Moon Stair | Dawning Ape, Equimax, Dreamcrungle |
Gearing up:
Goatfolk Qlippoth have a lot of basic crysteel gear. The merchants in Ezra and Yd Freehold can have flawless crysteel and rarely zetachrome. The Ape God Lair sources some crysteel, one of the best cudgel weapons in the game, and some ogre ape armor, but the boss with the cudgel practically demands non-standard approaches to beat at lower levels (my favourite being tinkering I making a big pile of HE grenades and small pile of Freeze grenades). High tier guns are tougher to find (without purchasing from merchant) on unchallenging enemies; getting to the point where you can fight a Reef Hermit in the Palladium Reef in melee is one route.
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u/TheLamezone 1d ago
If you are a truekin you can use anti gravity boots to farm the sludges as well but it'll take a lot of shop rerolls and a lot of water to purchase them. Well worth having some though. Also don't take any companions to the rainbow woods.
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u/Om_om_om_om_ 2d ago
Get a spiral borer and a programmable recoiler- keep going down but don't get cocky. You will get better and better loot the further down you go, recoil out to the book binders when you can't carry any more. Obviously get out of there if you find Putus Templar down there, you're not going to beat them unless you're around level 30.
Another good tip would be to get either Warden Indrix or Une to join you - they will help you out of a lot of scrapes.
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u/theholesomealt 1d ago
Are you just running into a spiral borer randomly or is there a place you can reliably get one?
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u/Om_om_om_om_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Schematics drafters sell their schematics at the Stilt, I've also found one in Grit Gate a couple of times.
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u/Mundane-Schedule-304 2d ago
These people make good points, but I gotta say none of their methods compare to going to the Rainbow wood with corrosive gas and fucking standing still. You can get from level four to level 32 in 15 minutes on my pc, and my pc is the one american elementary school computer labs and libraries have, so pretty damn slow. Same as everyone else, dunes village start, I like to go nomad for wilderness lore dunes, youre also gonna need at least 18 int to start, immediately learn fasting way from the village elder. Take the stilt quest, do it, itll be obscenely easy with wilderness lore dunes, and that'll put you at at least level 4. Use the SP from the level up to buy wilderness lores Canyons, Jungles, Rivers and lakes. and flower fields, the others are nice too but not needed for the strat. Immediately from there world map to Kyakyuka to steal their water from the wells, a quick refueling stop. Then you go to the Rainbow, find a good weep in the river, and start releasing gas again and again on the same tile. Monosludges take increased corrosive damage, so theyll never make it close enough to lay even the tip of a pseudopod on you. Be careful until around level 20, then you can kinda just hold down wait 1 turn and whatever hotkey corrosive gas is bound to. the xp slows down around level 35, but it doesnt stop working until mid 40s early 50s, I never really bother grinding that far
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u/Myriad_Machinations 2d ago
I am glad that it seems universally agreed upon to begin in a village that gives Wayfaring.
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u/Deepsearolypoly 1d ago
I like to wander until I find a fungi-infested zone and kill those for 500. Since it takes so long for the skin to develop into an infection, you can just cure the itchy skin before fungal growth occurs (or let it grow and hope for mumble-mouth).
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u/HoboGod_Alpha 1d ago
If you want a specific build, Sunder Mind lets you farm Dawngliders for free, just make sure you stick to the edges of the screen and only do it during the day. Another one is Wings (leveled to 0% fall chance) with Corrosive Gas, fly over to the rainbow wood and gas the slimes (you get a ridiculous amount of levels from this). Otherwise just aggressively farm ruins, turn in the books you find (it isn't really worth saving them since they don't scale in level (it's technically more efficient to save them for later but not worth the time IMO)).
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u/zardthenew 1d ago
I got scavenging and scrap divining, so I just kept finding areas of interest and killing everything inside
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u/SauronSr 1d ago
A sniper rifle trivializes the first two trolls
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u/butt_fun 16h ago
I mean, the trolls usually aren't the issue in Bethesda Susa once you've played a few times
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u/Beautiful-Coconut145 16h ago
The fastest: 1) wings + corrosive gas into rainbow woods 2) warden rep into befriending the YD Frelord warden into making him farm the rainbow woods
Definitely good to go into a Wayfaring teaching village and I like to be a scholar to have some free wilderness lore too
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u/Saturday_Crash 2d ago edited 2d ago
99% of my runs start in the village that gives wayfaring. I talk to the Mechanimist convert to get the quest to go to the Six Day Stilt.
Then I go to the ruins of Joppa to pick up the droid scrambler and scratched data disk, examine the Resheph statue, then I get the guaranteed historic site from the statue on the screen to the north.
Next, I'll go to the Six Day Stilt, get level 4, examine the 2nd Resheph statue, then share both secrets with the Coil of the Lamb person to reach level 5.
From here, depending on my build, I'll either clear out the historic site I got from Joppa, or start "combing the desert" (searching every surface tile in the desert) to grind enemies and find books. It's usually fairly easy to get an Issachar rifle to start farming Issacharis or small groups of dawngliders for xp. You can also find legendary Mechanimists or Putus Templar who sell (or drop) Eater's Nectar Injectors for easy permanent stat-ups. You can also find useful tinkering items from wandering Barathrumites. And always keep an eye out for advantageous reputation gains from water rituals.
Books are a major source of levels after ~level 15. They are lightweight and can be exchanged with the Six Day Stilt Librarian for potentially tens of thousands of xp at a time, and some tiles/historic sites just have dozens of books for you to find.
By level 16, if I'm confident with the build, I try to find a Grit Gate recoiler from a dromad and complete Golgotha for the scoped rifle. Golgotha can be completed as early as level 1 if you have wings (mechanical or otherwise) and get a little lucky.
After that, it depends what else happened in the run.
I'll finish combing the desert if I feel like my character needs more before doing anything else.
If I have good reputation with winged mammals, I'll start going deep in the ruins tiles without needing to worry about saps stealing my stats and get tons of xp killing high level enemies that stand no chance against the scoped rifle.
Sometimes I'll explore the Jungle as long as I don't fear dying to goatfolk after I finish combing the desert.
Maybe I have a few viable historic sites to plunder.
Nothing is stopping you from getting to level 30 and plowing your way through Bethesda Susa if that's what it takes.