Best way to level familiars to level 99?

[Cyber Akuma]

So, I have done just about everything else there is to do, except max out my familiars, and I figured I might as well go about doing that.

So what would be the best way to go about doing that? Do familiars just simply gain EXP from kills the same way you do? Would the strongest monsters be in the Glacial Tomb and Den of Behemoths? Or even just the Glacial Tomb?

Does it help at all if they land the killing blow or not? Do any shards or that EXP-increasing ring help?

Any other suggestions on leveling up familiars?

[Burdpal]

Get max food buffs for the EXP gain, and keep grinding the "secret" bosses. I farmed the Revenant repeatedly which got my character and familiar to 99.

[Cyber Akuma]

Does the revenant drop more EXP than going through those two areas I mentioned or any of the enemies there?

I also have all the food buffs already.

[Epic_Caesura]

The secret bosses give a lot of EXP and can be killed quickly -- I found it faster than repeatedly murdering weaker enemies.

[Zaphied]

I think at familiar level 90+ it takes 10 kills of insert repeatable boss (carpenter/revenant/millionaire's bane) to level up 1 level. Not sure if exp up book or equipment affects anything though for familiars. Buer is the obnoxious one to do cause it keeps blocking my .5 second kill method.

Killing Dominque (most exp outside of OD, no idea about IGA don't have that dlc) while it may give you a level, familiar will not retain it through the end sequence save. It also takes a long while to skip all that junk.

[Sobek]

Abyssal Guardian in Den of Behemoths, right before you fight Valefar. I enter the Abyssal Guardian room and shoot at it with Chisel Barrage until it is dead and re-enter the room. Rinse and repeat. It dies fairly quickly with the right equipment.


Abyssal Guardian

HP
1,568

EXP
2,929

----------------------------

Revenant

HP
6,666

EXP
4,349


Abyssal Guardian has less total HP and gives almost as much EXP as the Revenant does. Definitely more efficient.

[Zaphied]

Revenant/Carpenter with int gear/books 8-bit fireball shard maxed out for 5 spread with Red Rememberance activated + passive (anything under 100% health).

Each individual ball should do 700-1k+ in damage easy. At full health does 654-982 in Ancient Tiara, Scarlet Dress, Gebel Glasses, Skull necklace 209 Int @character level 99 with 21 OD books.

At ~33% health was doing 1000-1500+ per fire bit ball with 339 Int. Literally walk in, spam shard cast (dead in 1-3 casts if it doesn't crit high enough), jump out. Better than dragons.

[Sobek]

Originally posted by Zaphied:

Revenant/Carpenter with int gear/books 8-bit fireball shard maxed out for 5 spread with Red Rememberance activated + passive (anything under 100% health).

Each individual ball should do 700-1k+ in damage easy. At full health does 654-982 in Ancient Tiara, Scarlet Dress, Gebel Glasses, Skull necklace 209 Int @character level 99 with 21 OD books.

At ~33% health was doing 1000-1500+ per fire bit ball with 339 Int. Literally walk in, spam shard cast (dead in 1-3 casts if it doesn't crit high enough), jump out. Better than dragons.

You may be right, I haven't played in a while. Though, I killed the Abyssal Guardian in like 2 seconds or something. Like it went super quick. With Chisel Barrage, I don't even have to get close to it. I enter the room, shoot like 2 - 4 of those chisels towards it, and it's dead.

[dustin1280]

Abyssal Guardian above Valefor is by FAR the best EXP:TIME ratio, it beats every other grind spot in the game for exp...

[Cookie]

The extremely large room just left of Valefar has several enemies in a straight path, including a dragon. Equip the Rhava Velar and the Accelerator shard, and simply run left from Valefar's room spamming left click. You'll take a bit of damage, but you can just heal yourself pretty easily. From there, either run all the way out of the room on the left and go back across, or go back to Valefar's room and start over from there. I prefer approaching the enemies from the right, but it might be slightly slower than going back and forth.

There's also a save room right from Valefar's room if you want the quick full heal instead of waiting on the Healing shard. Using Welcome Company for that extra bit of hugging damage helps speed things up and reduce your damage taken by a bit. Equipping the Weighted Rings might affect familiar XP, I haven't tested. I equip two just to be safe.

After several long minutes of wearing your finger out spamming left click/whatever controller button, you will have a level 99 familiar.

[Vladimir]

Originally posted by Cyber Akuma:

Do any shards or that EXP-increasing ring help?

So, does anybody know, wether familiars get exp-bonuses from your gear, or not?

[Aidreus]

Originally posted by Vladimir:

Originally posted by Cyber Akuma:

Do any shards or that EXP-increasing ring help?

So, does anybody know, wether familiars get exp-bonuses from your gear, or not?

For people coming here for this question specifically, I did some testing with both the books *and* the rings individually for familiars. They do work, and their effectiveness *does* stack. Book of Conquest seems to give quite a hefty buff.

[Vladimir]

Originally posted by Aidreus:

Originally posted by Vladimir:

So, does anybody know, wether familiars get exp-bonuses from your gear, or not?

For people coming here for this question specifically, I did some testing with both the books *and* the rings individually for familiars. They do work, and their effectiveness *does* stack. Book of Conquest seems to give quite a hefty buff.

Thanks.