Power Leveling Your Skills (A16 Update)

Powerlevel your character. Unlock perks Fast. You win, Zeds lose!

If you'd like to see it expanded further or found it useful, leave a rating, a like, a comment, or all three! This guide is highly ranked (9th all time as of Apr 2017), but you can help me get it to even more eyeballs! Rate up, my friend!

Introduction'n'Stuff

A work-in-progress set of guides on how to power level various skills. Some of these might be more obvious to some players, but there's surprisingly little of this type of guide all in one place right now. I figured I could make the guide I wish I had when I was starting.

Some of the included skills to date are Weapon Crafting, Tool Crafting, Armor Smithing, Tailoring, Leather Working, and Athletics (synergistically). Don't forget that many things you craft can be scrapped to reclaim some of the materials. If materials are the limiting factor, do scrap what you can. If time is the limiting factor (for example, creative mode), then don't scrap them, just drop them since crafting time is the key component.

If you've not seen these methods before, happy power leveling! If you've got some that I've not added in here, please let me know! I may be able to make supplemental and advanced versions of these videos with your feedback implemented!

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If you found this to be of use, and would like to see it expanded further, leave a rating, a like, a comment, or all three!

Have fun ^_^

Guns - Or Any Other Weapon(!)

Reddit users /u/CharityDiary and /u/68Cadillac turned my on to how very powerful this method is. For those that prefer to watch rather than read:

UPDATE From my friend, 68Cadillac: "As of Sept 9, 2016 on A14.7 the fastest way to level weapons is to Mine stone with a level 458-440 pickaxe, knocking the stone down to 1 hp, then shooting or meleeing the stone's last hp. For some reason 7 Days caps the amount of XP you can get from a single action (this is a guess). Never-the-less, you will level a skill faster knocking the last hps from 500hp natural stone than you can from 6000hp concrete."

* As mentioned in the section title, this is the fastest way I'm aware of to level up gun skills (shotguns, pistols, rifles, snipers, rocket launcher XD), but you can also use this very effectively to level up archery, athletics (via punching), blunt weapons, bladed weapons, construction tools, or mining tools.

* Upgrade a number of blocks as high as you're capable of, whether that be to cobblestone, concrete, or forged steel. (alternately, you can do this same method to a slightly lesser effect using a prefab and simply demolishing it from the top down).

* Use the best pickax you have to bring the block's health low, but DO NOT YET DESTROY IT. This is crucial. Get the health of the block low, but not destroyed.

* Switch to whatever you'd like to level up (e.g. shotgun, rifle, pistol, fists, club, knife, etc)

* Perform the finishing blow with the weapon to be powerleveled, and you'll get a big chunk of experience at once. This occurs because the game rewards finishing mining something, not just attacking it a little bit. You're basically exploiting the same mechanic that gives you a bunch of wood at once when you finish cutting down a tree.

* Repair the block back up and repeat as needed! Note that repairing a concrete or forged steel block only costs 10 of that resource, so it's relatively cheap :)

* Forged steel give 10,000 points of damage for the killing blow, reinforced concrete gives 6,000, concrete give 3,000, and cobblestone gives 1,500.

*For exact hit counts to lower blocks to proper HP, see SCIENCE done by /u/CharityDaily and /u/68Cadillac here: https://www.reddit.com/r/7daystodie/comments/4v2efy/powerleveling_guides/d5v1iin

Weapon Crafting

For those who prefer to watch rather than read:

* At the very start, simply harvest a bunch of wood and make as many clubs as you can stand to. Remember that the "q" key drops the selected hotbar item, so if you leave a slot open, you can easily drop them as they're crafted.

* As you start getting better, and have more resources to burn, you can move on to higher level clubs (iron-reinforced, etc.). You can work on bows, but I prefer to save my plant fiber for tool crafting power leveling.

* As an advanced technique, begin crafting the desired weapons in your inventory, and then go into a forge dialogue. begin crafting arrowheads in the forge. if you stay in the forge menu and drop weapons as they're crafted, you will get experience for both the weapons crafted and the arrowheads simultaneously!

* With some weapons, you can scrap them to get some materials back. For low level items, I don't think this is worth it (clubs and bows) because it's time you could have spend crafting. Remember: you don't get any XP for scrapping. For higher level items, it may make more sense to try and scrap the weapons back to reclaim some materials. use your best (and formidable, I might add) judgement!

Tailoring, Leather Working, Armor Smithing

For those who prefer to watch rather than read:

* The big trick here is to scrap the armor after you've made it to get some of the materials back! you get more back when you make bigger items like chest armor, but if time is the limiting factor, and not resources (e.g. creative mode), then make the smaller items like gloves.

* Early on, you can get some easy levels in tailoring by crafting plant fiber clothes.

* Once you get a bit more established, you can switch from plant fiber to cotton cloth armor. I prefer this long-term over plant fiber because (1) you can grow your own cotton, and therefore have it all in one place, renewably, and (2) I'd rather be using plant fibers to level up my tool crafting or weapon crafting. I'm all for synergy here, so I like to move to cotton.

* As you begin slaying more animals for their succulent meats and developing a stash of animal hide, take the leather working perk, and begin doing the same as with tailoring.

* Late game, you can begin doing the same process with metal armor and scrap armor. Be careful! this is expensive! I usually only get to this stage when either (1) I'm playing in creative mode, or (2) I have nothing better to spend it on (I usually do not reach this point).

Athletics, Synergistically

For those who prefer to watch rather than read:

* I say synergistically because the fastest way is probably to run in a straight line and punch things as you go. I prefer this method because it feeds into your other powerleveling endeavors (tailoring, weapon crafting, tool crafting).

* Hang around your base and be a lawn mower, punching/axing/clubing/cutting the grass in ever larger circles. I like to use my fists since athletics takes a while to level, but if you're trying to level your bladed weapons, blunt weapons, or construction tools, swap that out instead. This synergizes with your other power leveling approaches, since you'll be accumulating plant fibers as you go, and clearing space for a potential fighting platform: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=727524985

* An alternate method is to place your bed at your base, and simply begin running in any direction, preferably while punching grass/the ground as you go. This is BORING, but effective. Don't worry about making it back to your base. Just run and punch in one direction until your are killed, starve or die of exposure, then repeat!

Construction Tools

For those that prefer to watch rather than read:

* This one is kind of a no-brainer, but it's one of the fastest ones to level up towards the start of your game, when you're in most need of your first few perks. Simple and straightforward, but crucial!

* Use your stone ax to hit everything evar. don't repair them; instead, craft a new one when its durability gets low.

* Find a large prefab like a barn and upgrade the whole thing as much as you can afford to. Alternately, simply go about building your dream base, and you may find your construction levels rather quick (if your bases are on the scale that mine are :)

* When upgrading, be careful not to over extend your resources. This gets very expensive quickly, so only use as much as you can afford to.

* If you end up running with a fight platform type base defense (https://youtu.be/Uzk9hVn0KSI), you can get many, many construction tool levels from repairing stick spikes, and especially so if you've decided to start summoning your own hordes for more items and XP: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=727524983

Science & Medicine Simultaneously

For those that prefer to watch rather than read:

This one is a perfect companion to the blood bag glitch I've made a video on previously. Bear in mind that this is a mid- to late-game technique, just because of the time it takes to set it all up. Big idea is that you will be using a blood draw kit to remove 25 life twice, for a total of 50 life lost, making a medkit with the blood, and healing back 50 HP per medkit. Here's your grocery list:

• First Aid Kit recipe
  
• Blood draw kit
  
• Corn for cornmeal for grain alcohol
  
• Cotton field for cloth to make bandages
  
• Cotton field for cloth to make duct tape
  
• Corpses for bone to mix with bottled water using a beaker, to make glue which makes duct tape
  
• Forge with glass to make empty bottles
  
• Water source

Thanks to Mixairian for turning me on to this one!

600 Quality in 6 Minutes or Less - Fun with Workbenches

For those that prefer to watch rather than read:

This is a fairly simple method to get some high quality items, so long as you have a workbench and the proper materials to make whatever you're grinding. You can build a workbench, or find one at a trader's or pass'n'gas gas station.

For stone axes and bows tested, making a quality 600 item from 0 skill took approximately 150 items. Combining these took just over 6 minutes (less if your skill isn't starting at zero), gained my about 13 skill in that crafting discipline, and at the end I was creating quality ~150 items.

It sounds like this workbench glitch may be patched out in Alpha 17, so get in your kicks while you can!

Bonus: First Horde Base Defense Tips (and Looking for Trouble >8)

If you're looking to set up a base of your own, especially early game, consider this construction:

Since I made this video, wood spikes have been nerfed to cost a great deal more than they used to, but the principle still stands strongly, whether with stick spikes, log spikes, or some combination. Log spikes have also received a buff in that you can now upgrade them to steel spikes, so it's a pretty viable option!

Please share with me what your favorite first horde defense tips are so we can make this even better!

Once you're set up and you want to go looking for trouble (zeds can be a good source of odd loot, and are another way to improve your scavenging), you can use this method to summon screamers, who in turn summon hordes to wherever you like!

This is great for getting more kills in with a particular weapon type, or even just to force a trial of your base design!

Changelog/Version History

I'll keep loose track of some changes I've made. As I said in the intro, this is a living guide so I'm currently adding to it and consider it under construction. Who knows? By the time I finish all these powerleving guides, my Guide Construction Tools skill may be maxxed out!

Remember! If you found this guide useful, please consider leaving a rating, thumbs up or comment! If you'd like to see some of my let's plays, I release daily videos at http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=mookiemorjax

Thanks! ^_^
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2016 Jul 29: Original post including weapon crafting, athletics, construction tools and armor crafting guides.

2016 Aug 2: Added Gun leveling guide, polished some words, and fixed incorrect video link. Science & Medicine guide coming next week!

2016 Sept 12: I've got a couple more ideas that are in the queue to be made into videos, so check back (especially leading up to Alpha 15). Added in the Science & Medicine power leveling guide.

2016 Sept 22: Added introduction, updated gun leveling guide.

2017 Jan 24: Not dead yet! Please continue submitting your own powerleveling tips, and don't forget to rate to get more traction! older guides have a hard time competing with newer ones, so please vote to keep this relevant :) Added bonus section on base defense and horde summoning. Made /r/7daystodie post asking for powerleveling tips, so we can keep this party rolling into Alpha 16!

2017 Apr 14: Added workbench cheesing guide :) More ideas on additional tips coming...

[morjax]

Thanks for the heads up, Chief! Be well!

[Chief322]

@Morjax. Hey buddy, I fell off of watching you on youtube but I just wanted to let you know you should either update this or let people know (via edit) that it's out of date. Always love your content btw. stay safe and healthy

[Mario Paizuri]

@Lich King Big oof

[Lich King]

@ER as long as the person with the guide updates it everything should be fine

[ErDroid]

Till Release it's quite useless to follow these guides, since they change it all for every update.

[Underrated Character]

I like the guide and all, but this is kinda just you advertising your channel....

[Sophia Snuggles]

Wait, didn't Alpha 16 break almost everything here by changing them to perks rather than skills?

[Zvarri]

Repairing every armor you find (t-shirt, leather boots and so on) during scaveging before scraping it can be good to level up armor crafting as well.

[morjax]

@jetcf: It has indeed changed since I made this video, biut if you don't mind bottoming out your wellness as a one-time event, this method should still work :)

[jetcf]

for every 2 blood draw kits