Best food to enter the skull caves?

[SailorSucre]

title speaks for itself. also any other tips to get down faster would be supa helpful thank you!

[The Y'All Of Us]

Spicy Eel gives you a speed boost, luck boost, and mining boost, and can be farmed from the dark serpents in the skull caverns. Otherwise I'd say bean hotpot, or pepper poppers (or both).

Miners Treat if you just want to break rocks faster with your pick and have a healing item, since you can buy those from the Dwarf.

[ulia]

I haven't found skull cavern to be worth it unless you spam stairs and bombs and make it to at the very least like 80+. If it's your first playthrough and you just want to explore then do whatever, anything to restore a lot of health and/or boost luck/speed. Otherwise grab any cheap high quantity food like some berries to glitch the bombs and make your trips worthwhile.

[kevinshow]

I agree on the sashimi, pepper poppers, or bean hotpot. They are easy to make from the plenty of materials you can farm.

So even if you need to eat one more sashimi compared to some other dish that gives more, you'll have plenty of sashimi, too.

[Wigwam_21]

(i know i'm late to this) but I've found that spicy eel or any stat-boosting food, plus one that's easy to make (sashimi, berries etc) work well - The boosts don't stack between food items so I like to have one that boosts luck, speed or mining and one without boosts to regen health (eg. so they don't make my speed disappear) :) Also if you have the recipe from level 10 mining, making explosive ammo for the master slingshot makes it a lot easier to spam bombs :)

[dinonuggets]

Obviously spicy eel is great, but if you're quantity over quality or just want some fast and easy food to have on hand, I highly recommend cheese:)

[NBOX21]

If you have the money, buy as many Crab Cakes[stardewvalleywiki.com] as you possibly can when Gus starts selling an infinite amount of them at his saloon for about four days after Willy's 6 heart cutscene. Not only do they provide a temporary speed boost much like spicy eel, but also a defence boost.

[supersand]

Spicy Eel, Pumpkin Soup, Crab Cakes, Coffee, Espresso

You can save up Rubies to trade for spicy eels at the desert trader so this is the best and most available option

[tikiman572]

Spicy Eel is one of the safer bets and is easily obtained through fighting the Flying Serpents in the Skull Caverns or trading in Rubies at the Desert Trader. Although if you're looking to get maximum Luck going to find ladders and shafts faster, the Lucky Lunch is your ideal route.

I'd also recommend, if you've got Mastery unlocked, to try and get Mining Mastery achieved ASAP and to craft up a Statue of the Dwarf King. The buffs you have a chance at getting can REALLY help you out such as being able to find ladders and shafts easier, increased ore yields or, one of my personal favorites, complete and total immunity from bomb damage.

Also, Coffee and Espresso acts as a separate buff from food so it CAN be stacked alongside the likes of Spicy Eel and such.

[tikiman572]

As for health recovery items to use so as to not overwrite food buffs constantly? Life Elixir and Energy Tonic are good and can drop from the enemies in there. Likewise, if you see Purple Mushrooms, they'll also save you. If you have any of the mushrooms from the Volcano Cave, they're ALSO great recovery items to have.

Lastly, if you have Foraging Mastery unlocked and can get the Mystic Trees planted? Getting a grove of them going to farm Mystic Syrup will net you ample health recovery items.

Though, if you are lucky enough to find the Fairy Box Trinket (provided you have Combat Mastery unlocked) that can also aid in health recovery too.

[supersand]

Originally posted by tikiman572:

As for health recovery items to use so as to not overwrite food buffs constantly? Life Elixir and Energy Tonic are good and can drop from the enemies in there. Likewise, if you see Purple Mushrooms, they'll also save you. If you have any of the mushrooms from the Volcano Cave, they're ALSO great recovery items to have.

Lastly, if you have Foraging Mastery unlocked and can get the Mystic Trees planted? Getting a grove of them going to farm Mystic Syrup will net you ample health recovery items.

Though, if you are lucky enough to find the Fairy Box Trinket (provided you have Combat Mastery unlocked) that can also aid in health recovery too.

Hops are underrated as a good energy + hp source, its really easy to get tons of gold star hops and they heal like 80hp and 60 energy, and the non-gold stars make good profit in kegs.

[tikiman572]

Huh. I never actually considered that. Thanks for teaching me something new.

[Queen Droxxanna]

I got totally frustrated with Skull cavern , only did well when playing co-op thru it.

UNTIL I discovered mods and installed the elevator mod AND the tractor mod, with the tractor you can zip thru the skull cavern with ease., in a previous file I went as far down as level 1700.
Note the deeper you get the more iridium ore you get each level, and I got rich selling the bars.

[IDiivil]

I bought a desert totem so I could warp there first thing in the morning, then spammed bombs to avoid any actual mining/digging. When I hit an "infested" area, I used stairs to skip it. Got to 100 that way.

[tikiman572]

Aye, bombs are the way to go to get as deep as possible in the Skull Caverns. And unless you're specifically going for easy monster kills to try and get Trinkets/Mystery Boxes (Being able to farm the Giant Slimes that then split into Small Slimes without worrying about damage thanks to the Slime Ring has netted me a LOT of Trinkets and Mystery Boxes. That, and obliterating Mummies and Ghosts with my Crusader Sword.) have Stone on hand to quickly craft up a staircase to skip Infested floors.

That said, if it's your first time trying to reach Floor 100? Try not to go overboard on the staircases unless you don't care about disappointing Mr. Qi.

[Mega Man X]

--Buffs--
Lucky Lunch 100% (Luck +3 for 11m 11s)
Cups of Coffee for zoom

--Energy & Health--
Anything (I prefer stuff I forage or life elixir made from mushies)