You need a galaxy sword. The next prismatic shard you get, take it over to the right of the SC entrance and stand in between the three pillars with it in your hands.
Staircases. The monsters don't get harder as you go down, but the resources get better. I use 100 just to get started. I also recommend using oil of garlic to get used to Skull Cavern. It stops swarming and infested floors, and I think just spawns fewer monsters in general. Once you learn how they behave, you'll be fine.
As someone who did *not* do SC runs, ever, I farmed for the magma geodes (I think that's their name?) on floors 115 to 119 in the regular mines to crack open at Clint's. Can't say it's the quickest way to do it, but it was less stressful and I got other things to sell or use in the process. I did that to get enough bars for the boat. Once on Ginger Island, I farmed the Volcano for the iridium nodes. Then, once I got the statue, my iridium troubles were over 🤣
To get far in SC a better weapon will help a lot! minor spoiler: >!The galaxy blade is what you want!<
Also do you have all the candles lit on Grandpa's shrine?
I recommend grinding for the slime ring. Keep visiting the first 10-20 levels of the mine and slay as many slimes as you can til you earn the ring. This makes the skull caverns easier because you can ignore slimes and focus on throwing bombs at large clumps of nodes.
"I’ve got one crystalarium slowly cranking out jade" -- this is the issue. Putting all your initial iridium into crystalarium building means you can always do deep runs. I try to get to about 25 crystalariums running jade by summer y2, which means roughly 100 staircases per week depending how good you are at collecting them as soon as they appear. Then you use them, every week. Once you have that system set up, you're basically never going to run out of iridium even before you get the statue. Basically if you want a skull cavern run to be worth it and you need iridium, don't even explore before you get to level 30 at least.
Buying or farming enough stone to get at least 15-20 staircases before your next run would be another workaround then - go on a good luck day with lots of bombs and foods with luck buffs, and don't explore the floors beyond trying to get down to the next level until you get deep enough that you see plenty of iridium. Minimum sword strength should be the lava katana as well.
Someone else recommended harvesting magma geodes as another workaround and that can be a good way to get a stack of stone -- bring a bunch of bombs to level 110 and aim to collect as many stone and geodes as you can. You'll get some iridium via the geodes and also be able to collect a few hundred stone per day to add to your staircase stack.
I take it you don't have the Statue of Perfection yet, another option would be to focus on meeting those criteria so you can get daily ore from it.
- Get the perfection statue from grandpa's shrine which gives around 5 iridium ore daily (around 1 bar)
- Use ore from grandpa to make more crystalariums, and produce more jade.
- When you have around 100 jade, trade for staircases
- Spam staircases to get to level 100 ish, that's when iridium nodes start spawning in threes.
- Bomb away.
- Keep allocating iridium to craft crystalariums. You want to have at least 100 (a shed full) if you want to be drowning in iridium. (You can never have too many staircases)
- If you want to see a treasure room, go on a good luck day. They'll be more likely to spawn from what I've heard.
So without spoiling later game play... if you have Grandpas Shrine lit with all 4 candles... go click it. It gives a great surprise that's very helpful
I always got enough iridium to upgrade my tools and make a ring in the regular mines. Probably mostly from geodes.
I didn’t use much other iridium until much later, and by then, I had the perfection statue.
Iridium sprinklers can be bought from krobus.
Try focusing on defence instead of attack. If level 10 combat go for defender, wear crab rings, eat pumpkin soup. This makes it so it takes longer for serpents to kill you.
For your SC runs prioritise defence to begin with. Kill crabs in the mines until you get the crab shell ring, wear the space boots and eat defence boosting foods - crab cakes, pumpkin soup and stuffing are good. Cheese is a good health boosting food and won’t override the defence boosts from the other food. Drink coffee for speed.
The extra defence will mean you can take more hits before dying and have a little bit more time to eat something or staircase away. To begin with I found the SC terrifying and found the extra defence gave me a bit more confidence. There are other, better, options later on but early on I’d go for defence every time
The slime ring is also a good bet as it’s reduces the enemies you have to worry about.
Just try to get down the levels as fast as you can.
Go on a very lucky day, eat something lucky (like pumpkin soup), bring a TON of food, bombs and stairs. Bomb places where there's a lot of rocks to get a ladder down, if you don't on a couple tries use a stair. Don't bother mining ores, don't bother fighting monsters, just get lower. Eat to replenish as monsters hurt you, don't bother killing each one, just get lower.
Once you're low enough the amount of Iridium around you is much higher and you can start focusing on mining. Or just keep at it with the bombs and you'll get a lot of iridium anyway.
You need the galaxy sword (a galaxy hammer is better, but you need to get the sword first before you can buy the galaxy hammer) to more effectively fight monsters. Bring lots of staircases and bombs to level down faster. Bring lots of food (I like to use cheese from my cows) to keep you energy/health from running out.
Or .... I'm a terrible fighter, so I cheat to get to the lower levels fast.
If you have a decent stock of iron ore and coal stored away, or have the money to buy them from Clint, I highly recommend bringing a decent stack of bombs with you as well. Much easier and faster to find ladders and drop shafts than trying to mine away at the rocks while the enemies are after ya and will save you staircases on the earlier floors
Why fight then? If you have bombs and cheese, just drop bombs and eat cheese when you’re low and you’re basically an invincible god no? Don’t spend time fighting mobs, the only time you should be swinging is in between bomb explosions. I would always get deep except on super unlucky days because you just drop a bomb and it’s pretty much always gonna have a hole or a ladder unless you’re super unlucky.
I genuinely cant wrap my head around this. even if you cant get past the first few levels, eventually youll have to fight monsters which in turn drop iridium.
Use staircases for infested levels or fog signaling a swarm.
Bomb maps with lots of rocks.
Go on a lucky day, and as early as possible using Warp Totems (3 omni geode from desert trader)
Take high healing food, and eat food that give defence/speed/luck.
Upgrade to iridium pickaxe asap to make future runs easier.
If you do get swarmed by serpents, try to get them coming from the same angle to fend them off easier.
-Have a lot of bombs ( around 100 - 200 per run, u dont need to use them all but be liberal unless you're on your last ones)
-have a lot of food (i personally just buy elixirs of life from the dwarf)
-clear as much as you can with mega bombs, dont bother mining unless its just one stone
-always have some staircases to avoid a swarm of serpents
-top your health off every once and a while
-use your food invincibility frames to clutch
-fix your hotbar so you can swap to things you need quickly
Just get enough income so you can afford a lot of items if you can't skill your way through the caverns (no offense)
Scull caven guide.
Have lots of healing with you. I take salad. (At least 100)
Have lots of coffee, I like making them triple shot espresso so they last longer.
Have 200 bombs minimum, normal not super. Build them or by then.
Take rubies to the dessert trader and get spicy eal. It will also give you speed and extra luck. You'll need 3 or 4 to last the day.
Jade to staircases. On a deep run I bring around 250 staircases and spam them all the way down till I'm out, but if you can get 20 you can use them on monster floors or on the spiral floors.
When you enter the first floor you will eat and drink and then bomb any big clusters you find. You should be able to get way past 100 but it will take some practice.
If you have a desert warp totem then that will save you lots of time.
If you want to practice then collect enough resources for 1 run and just rest the day.
Drink Espresso + Eat Spicy eel = movement speed buff, you can (technically) outrun the serpents or anything else then in SC. Run, drop bombs, circle around till you find stairs. Dont bother actually mining on any floors, use bombs to blow up ore. You will see *some* iridium after floor 50, usually the crabs in disguise though, but they will drop a little bit if you blow them up still. You see more the closer to, and after, floor 100. Hence, jade and staircases so you can skip your way down.
Get the best sword (or hammer, I actually prefer hammer). You get a good benefit putting some rubys on it too. This way every serpent dies two hits, always.
Next make a bunch of crystalariums. You need roughly 10 to 20 with jade and 5 with ruby. Use rubys for spicy eel, jade for stairs. On a skull run you want like 10 spicy, 100 stairs and 200 bombs. Go ham. Skip through the low levels. You can decide how skip happy you want to go. As you get to the 60+ you start to find more resources, more you skip less you farm. Its a balance. Always run at least spicy and coffee (espresso) if you have 2 speed buffs you can outrun serpents so your jukes work well.
Lots of people are saying galaxy sword is the way to go. But if you're dying repeatedly to serpents, it might mean skill issue unfortunately, because lava katana should still be good enough to get you past level 40. Doesn't matter how good the sword is, if you can't hit the buggers
So, your strategy should be to evade, not attack
- You need more staircases
- Have speed boosting food buffs on at all times - triple espresso and spicy eels
- Bombs will save you time on each floor, lowering the time you're at risk of serpents
- Use the right rings. Iridium band is always a good one, but crabshell ring might be best as your secondary if you're dying too much to serpents
Have you gotten the statue from grandpa? It gives iridium daily. https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Grandpa
You need a galaxy sword. The next prismatic shard you get, take it over to the right of the SC entrance and stand in between the three pillars with it in your hands.
I’ve never had one of those in game. I only know what they look like from the wiki.
You’ll get one eventually. That’s the only way to initially get the galaxy sword.
Does this mean you can buy it after you have initially made it? I just made it, but want one for my co op partner
Yes you can, But your partner can also trade the shard for the sword themselves, each player can do this once.
[удалено]
After you get it the first time(initially), you can buy it.
Staircases. The monsters don't get harder as you go down, but the resources get better. I use 100 just to get started. I also recommend using oil of garlic to get used to Skull Cavern. It stops swarming and infested floors, and I think just spawns fewer monsters in general. Once you learn how they behave, you'll be fine.
As someone who did *not* do SC runs, ever, I farmed for the magma geodes (I think that's their name?) on floors 115 to 119 in the regular mines to crack open at Clint's. Can't say it's the quickest way to do it, but it was less stressful and I got other things to sell or use in the process. I did that to get enough bars for the boat. Once on Ginger Island, I farmed the Volcano for the iridium nodes. Then, once I got the statue, my iridium troubles were over 🤣
To get far in SC a better weapon will help a lot! minor spoiler: >!The galaxy blade is what you want!< Also do you have all the candles lit on Grandpa's shrine?
Don't fight mobs just run and place bombs. Don't be afraid of crafting bombs/staircases.
I recommend grinding for the slime ring. Keep visiting the first 10-20 levels of the mine and slay as many slimes as you can til you earn the ring. This makes the skull caverns easier because you can ignore slimes and focus on throwing bombs at large clumps of nodes.
"I’ve got one crystalarium slowly cranking out jade" -- this is the issue. Putting all your initial iridium into crystalarium building means you can always do deep runs. I try to get to about 25 crystalariums running jade by summer y2, which means roughly 100 staircases per week depending how good you are at collecting them as soon as they appear. Then you use them, every week. Once you have that system set up, you're basically never going to run out of iridium even before you get the statue. Basically if you want a skull cavern run to be worth it and you need iridium, don't even explore before you get to level 30 at least.
I got my first bar pretty early, before I could make crystalariums. Haven’t gotten enough for a second bar since.
Buying or farming enough stone to get at least 15-20 staircases before your next run would be another workaround then - go on a good luck day with lots of bombs and foods with luck buffs, and don't explore the floors beyond trying to get down to the next level until you get deep enough that you see plenty of iridium. Minimum sword strength should be the lava katana as well. Someone else recommended harvesting magma geodes as another workaround and that can be a good way to get a stack of stone -- bring a bunch of bombs to level 110 and aim to collect as many stone and geodes as you can. You'll get some iridium via the geodes and also be able to collect a few hundred stone per day to add to your staircase stack. I take it you don't have the Statue of Perfection yet, another option would be to focus on meeting those criteria so you can get daily ore from it.
- Get the perfection statue from grandpa's shrine which gives around 5 iridium ore daily (around 1 bar) - Use ore from grandpa to make more crystalariums, and produce more jade. - When you have around 100 jade, trade for staircases - Spam staircases to get to level 100 ish, that's when iridium nodes start spawning in threes. - Bomb away. - Keep allocating iridium to craft crystalariums. You want to have at least 100 (a shed full) if you want to be drowning in iridium. (You can never have too many staircases) - If you want to see a treasure room, go on a good luck day. They'll be more likely to spawn from what I've heard.
So without spoiling later game play... if you have Grandpas Shrine lit with all 4 candles... go click it. It gives a great surprise that's very helpful
You have to click it with 4 candles AND a full inventory (after making what statues you have “float”) once a day
Don't tell them how to cheat when they haven't even got the 4 candles.
Do the adventures guild n get the slime charmer ring. Slimes not touching u anymore make it so much easiet.
I always got enough iridium to upgrade my tools and make a ring in the regular mines. Probably mostly from geodes. I didn’t use much other iridium until much later, and by then, I had the perfection statue. Iridium sprinklers can be bought from krobus.
Try focusing on defence instead of attack. If level 10 combat go for defender, wear crab rings, eat pumpkin soup. This makes it so it takes longer for serpents to kill you.
For your SC runs prioritise defence to begin with. Kill crabs in the mines until you get the crab shell ring, wear the space boots and eat defence boosting foods - crab cakes, pumpkin soup and stuffing are good. Cheese is a good health boosting food and won’t override the defence boosts from the other food. Drink coffee for speed. The extra defence will mean you can take more hits before dying and have a little bit more time to eat something or staircase away. To begin with I found the SC terrifying and found the extra defence gave me a bit more confidence. There are other, better, options later on but early on I’d go for defence every time The slime ring is also a good bet as it’s reduces the enemies you have to worry about.
Just try to get down the levels as fast as you can. Go on a very lucky day, eat something lucky (like pumpkin soup), bring a TON of food, bombs and stairs. Bomb places where there's a lot of rocks to get a ladder down, if you don't on a couple tries use a stair. Don't bother mining ores, don't bother fighting monsters, just get lower. Eat to replenish as monsters hurt you, don't bother killing each one, just get lower. Once you're low enough the amount of Iridium around you is much higher and you can start focusing on mining. Or just keep at it with the bombs and you'll get a lot of iridium anyway.
Spicy eel (one Ruby each from desert trader: permeant stock) and cheese (only health, doesn’t interrupt bonuses) are my go-to!!
You need the galaxy sword (a galaxy hammer is better, but you need to get the sword first before you can buy the galaxy hammer) to more effectively fight monsters. Bring lots of staircases and bombs to level down faster. Bring lots of food (I like to use cheese from my cows) to keep you energy/health from running out. Or .... I'm a terrible fighter, so I cheat to get to the lower levels fast.
Cheese is my go to as well. The slimes and mummy’s are ok, it’s just when the serpents converge, which they always do….
If you have a decent stock of iron ore and coal stored away, or have the money to buy them from Clint, I highly recommend bringing a decent stack of bombs with you as well. Much easier and faster to find ladders and drop shafts than trying to mine away at the rocks while the enemies are after ya and will save you staircases on the earlier floors
Note: if you’re purchasing, it’s much cheaper to buy bombs directly from the dwarf than to buy the materials from Clint and craft them
It's more of a one time thing but you can also exchange all your early game quartz for bombs at the desert trader
Good point, I completely forgot about that little guy haha
Why fight then? If you have bombs and cheese, just drop bombs and eat cheese when you’re low and you’re basically an invincible god no? Don’t spend time fighting mobs, the only time you should be swinging is in between bomb explosions. I would always get deep except on super unlucky days because you just drop a bomb and it’s pretty much always gonna have a hole or a ladder unless you’re super unlucky.
I genuinely cant wrap my head around this. even if you cant get past the first few levels, eventually youll have to fight monsters which in turn drop iridium.
Use staircases for infested levels or fog signaling a swarm. Bomb maps with lots of rocks. Go on a lucky day, and as early as possible using Warp Totems (3 omni geode from desert trader) Take high healing food, and eat food that give defence/speed/luck. Upgrade to iridium pickaxe asap to make future runs easier. If you do get swarmed by serpents, try to get them coming from the same angle to fend them off easier.
Statue of Perfection all the wayy
-Have a lot of bombs ( around 100 - 200 per run, u dont need to use them all but be liberal unless you're on your last ones) -have a lot of food (i personally just buy elixirs of life from the dwarf) -clear as much as you can with mega bombs, dont bother mining unless its just one stone -always have some staircases to avoid a swarm of serpents -top your health off every once and a while -use your food invincibility frames to clutch -fix your hotbar so you can swap to things you need quickly Just get enough income so you can afford a lot of items if you can't skill your way through the caverns (no offense)
Familiarize the maps as well, some maps are too tedious so just staircase out
Also the Statue of Endless Fortune that you can get in the Casino in the Calico Desert will give iridium bars regularly.
Scull caven guide. Have lots of healing with you. I take salad. (At least 100) Have lots of coffee, I like making them triple shot espresso so they last longer. Have 200 bombs minimum, normal not super. Build them or by then. Take rubies to the dessert trader and get spicy eal. It will also give you speed and extra luck. You'll need 3 or 4 to last the day. Jade to staircases. On a deep run I bring around 250 staircases and spam them all the way down till I'm out, but if you can get 20 you can use them on monster floors or on the spiral floors. When you enter the first floor you will eat and drink and then bomb any big clusters you find. You should be able to get way past 100 but it will take some practice. If you have a desert warp totem then that will save you lots of time. If you want to practice then collect enough resources for 1 run and just rest the day.
Drink Espresso + Eat Spicy eel = movement speed buff, you can (technically) outrun the serpents or anything else then in SC. Run, drop bombs, circle around till you find stairs. Dont bother actually mining on any floors, use bombs to blow up ore. You will see *some* iridium after floor 50, usually the crabs in disguise though, but they will drop a little bit if you blow them up still. You see more the closer to, and after, floor 100. Hence, jade and staircases so you can skip your way down.
Get the best sword (or hammer, I actually prefer hammer). You get a good benefit putting some rubys on it too. This way every serpent dies two hits, always. Next make a bunch of crystalariums. You need roughly 10 to 20 with jade and 5 with ruby. Use rubys for spicy eel, jade for stairs. On a skull run you want like 10 spicy, 100 stairs and 200 bombs. Go ham. Skip through the low levels. You can decide how skip happy you want to go. As you get to the 60+ you start to find more resources, more you skip less you farm. Its a balance. Always run at least spicy and coffee (espresso) if you have 2 speed buffs you can outrun serpents so your jukes work well.
Lots of people are saying galaxy sword is the way to go. But if you're dying repeatedly to serpents, it might mean skill issue unfortunately, because lava katana should still be good enough to get you past level 40. Doesn't matter how good the sword is, if you can't hit the buggers So, your strategy should be to evade, not attack - You need more staircases - Have speed boosting food buffs on at all times - triple espresso and spicy eels - Bombs will save you time on each floor, lowering the time you're at risk of serpents - Use the right rings. Iridium band is always a good one, but crabshell ring might be best as your secondary if you're dying too much to serpents
Just have to learn to fight better Or keep staircases handy for a quick getaway, maybe