List of recommended levels for attempting a quest

[Ryan Dorkoski]

So the Screaming Man's Guide is helping me a lot, but one thing it is lacking is recommended levels to attempt each quest. Coud you guys help me with advice with that part?

Intro Quest: What's Eating the Watervine?
Argyve's Quests
Weirdwire Circuit... Eureka!
Canticle for Barathrum
More Than a Willing Spirit
Raising Indrix
Decoding the Signal Pt1
Decoding the Signal Pt 2
Ripe For the Conflaguration
A Call To Arms

You can cut and copy the list above. I really appreciate it.
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The reason I'm doing this is because while I've really come a long way, my most common death is taking on a quest that is wayyy above my level.

For instance, I played one character literally all weekend, leveling him to 11 and then way massacred in two seconds on More than a Willing Spirit. Its fine, and yeah thats roguelikes, but I'd like to eliminate dying from not being prepared.

Thanks again to you veterans.

[THANKS OBAMA]

I try to ignore every quest except for more than a willing spirit to make sure I can have a character that will wreck everything because I purposely avoided deathtraps.

Only More than a Willing Spirit rewards you for being low level. The rest don't care how overleveled you might be. I always try and finish More than a Willing Spirit at sub 18 to get my hands on the masterwork carbine, because the rest of the rewards suck.

[THANKS OBAMA]

It's like a kalashnikov delivered from heaven. It's the best it can be and I don't know the underlying mechanics of it, but it is sometimes my choice weapon over the scoped sniper rifle or scoped eigen rifle depending on how many enemies are on screen.

[dbennett88]

for me, usually:

red rock 3-6
rustwells 6-9
grit gate 9-12
stilt 12-15
golgotha 15-17
mamon 17-19
bethesda susa 19-21
omonporch 21-24

more or less.

[dbennett88]

note that golgotha (more than a willing spirit) is far more dangerous than most because you receive it at a low-level, and new players will jump right in. it's best to wait a bit and buy a corpus choliys and possibly prepare your glottrot cure, and make sure to bring honey, yuckwheat, blaze and rubbergum and salve injectors, and possibly poison resistance into golgotha.

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Seriously you guys are the best. I really appreciate it. I'm going to start sending friend requests - I see there are only a few core players but you guys are serious.

[Aquillion]

Note that your rewards for Golgotha are slightly better if you do it before level 12, and much worse if you do it at level 18 or above. (You can cheat on that if you have Dominate by dominating something low-level to turn in the quest for you.)

Specifically, at level < 12 you get a Hologram Bracelet in addition to the Masterwork Carbine. If you do it at level 18+, you don't get the Carbine at all.

[dbennett88]

Originally posted by loubre:

It's like a kalashnikov delivered from heaven. It's the best it can be and I don't know the underlying mechanics of it, but it is sometimes my choice weapon over the scoped sniper rifle or scoped eigen rifle depending on how many enemies are on screen.

I went Rifles for once this run and have been really enjoying the carbine. it turned Mamon into goat bits most recently.

also found a sniper rifle but have yet to try it out. might wait a bit and mod it first. do you know if counterweighted (+2 to-hit) works for missile weapons? it seems like a melee spec.

[wehttam449]

In my experience melee mods (including counterweighted) do not affect ranged weapons

[FuzzyJuzzy]

I'm finding that the Call to Arms quest which happens right after Earl of Omonporch to be impossible at level 22. There's zero warning given and no chance to prepare for enemies that are ridiculously tough.

[wehttam449]

Originally posted by Justinian:

I'm finding that the Call to Arms quest which happens right after Earl of Omonporch to be impossible at level 22. There's zero warning given and no chance to prepare for enemies that are ridiculously tough.

Call to arms is probably the most brutal difficulty spike in the game if you aren't spec'd for dealing with high-AV melee enemies. But, it's far from impossible.

Long blades and/or pistols is the way to go, in this case. The knights templar all attack with folded carbide long swords, which they can be disarmed of using skills from the long blades and pistols trees. Once disarmed, all they can do is throw punches, and occasionally shield slam you. after that, it's a matter of countering their AV. by this time you've beaten bethesda susa, and hopefully picked up a cerimonial vibrokophesh along the way- it's the best option. Vibro weapons with nuclear or antimatter cells are a decent substitute.

Personally, I like to corral maefo into the door that leads to where Q girl is (a force bubble/bracelet is really the only way to pull that off) so that he doesn't get murdered, it also allows you to engage the knights from a chokepoint.

[Avloren]

RE: Call to Arms. I use a portable wall to block off most of the Grit Gate entrance, and create a 1-tile wide corridor leading inside. Imagine a reversed L-shape sorta like this[i.imgur.com] (forgive my crappy paint skills, can't log into the game at the moment).

This gives you a choke point where you can face the templars one at a time, while blocking friendlies from getting to them and getting themselves killed. It also cuts off line of sight between the templars and Grit Gate NPCs, so they won't immediately attack until you get there and are ready to face them.

It helps so much I'd advise not doing the quest until you've found a portable wall (I get them pretty reliably underground, either just laying around on a corpse or on a high tier dromad merchant).

Anyway - to answer the OP:

Level 1: Rustwells. If my build isn't so strong, I'll kill things along the way, be level 3-4 by the time I reach the actual dungeon. By then it's easy.

Level 5-ish (immediately after rust well completion): Red Rock.

Level 8-ish (immediately after red rock): travel to Stilt and Grit Gate, for easy xp and merchants.

[intermission: do some exploring, maybe historic sites or lairs]

Level 17: More than a Willing Spirit. I put this off as much as I can while still getting the carbine. You can be level 18 when you complete and get the carbine, you just can't be 19. However you get a bunch of xp during the quest which may level you, so it's safest to start at 17 at the latest.

Whenever: all the other quests. There's no rush on them, so I wait until my character can complete them with little risk.

[Aquillion]

I honestly feel that unless you're an Esper and are holding out to get a key mutation, trying to level up a bunch to make More than a Willing Spirit easier is unnecessary. The big dangers there are often not things your level will help you with - it's the vent, the boss, and the glotrot. As long as you have a lot of salve injectors and mainline them at the first sign of trouble while timing your movement through the vents to avoid getting hit and generally dashing past everything else, you'll be fine.

It feels a lot more dangerous than it is, partially because it requires a different playstyle. You need to go through it as quickly as possible to keep chute crabs from building up and traps from wearing you down, as well as to minimize the risk of getting infected. As long as you do that and avoid the boss at any costs, it's not as dangerous as it seems. The new phase-shift grenades help even more, since you can phase straight to the exit on the final floor.

(Knowing that the elevator is always at the center-top of the final level is also vital.)

[Fenix-Venix]

Wht boss you should avoid?

[Aquillion]

Slog of the Cloaca. He's somewhere on the bottom floor of Golgotha. Phase-Shift, Stasis, or Freeze grenades are all useful for this. So is Clairvoyance, Teleportation, Force Wall, etc.

[Fenix-Venix]

Well, I used Sunder Mind and well, Lase?
Nothing so scary.