Combat Experience Megathread

[pale scaffold]

Purpose of this thread
In this thread I want to ask and answer all relevant questions about combat experience and leveling up combat mastery. It's notoriously one of if not the hardest mastery to reach level 10 in. At the same time it's also one of the most wanted masteries to level up given the rewards it offers at higer levels (for the people who care: spoilers about mastery rewards, mining, monsters and combat will be ahead and will not be hidden for the sake of legibility)
To aid this endeavour I aim to comprehensively compile all relevant information about the combat and combat mastery mechanics here.

Questions and answers
The following list of questions will be all questions I consider to be relevant to this topic. Once an answer has been provided, I'll edit the post or post it below. Feel free to suggest any questions you might have in the comments. Also all help with answering (specifically with testing exp gain) would be super appreciated (video proof for exp gain would be helpful for clarity and reliability of data).

1. What are the combat mastery rewards?
A: The rewards (all recipes) are: lv 1: ball of goop + slime trap - lv 2: decoy - lv 3: nothing 🙂 - lv 4: spring trap + monster scent 1 (decrease aggro) - lv 5: glue trap - lv 6: shock trap + monster lure scent 1 (increase aggro) - lv 6: spikes + monster scent 2 (decrease spawn) - lv 8: slime of transmutation - lv 9: monster lure scent 2 (increase spawn) - lv 10: slime of replication.
(source: wiki - 9 dec 2023)
[Note: the monster scents are also sold in the BoS store after reaching certain mining milestones (see wiki), regardless of wether the recipe has been unlocked or not. This can be used to your advantage]
[See Q7]

2. How much combat exp is needed to reach max mastery?
A: The amount of exp necessary for each level (ascending) is:
120 + 290 + 490 + 740 + 1140 + 1540 + 2140 + 2740 + 3640 + 4640 = 17480 total exp.
(source: wiki - 9 dec 2023)

3. How is combat exp gained?
Specifically, which actions do and do not yield combat exp?

A: The following actions yield combat exp:

1. Killing monsters
2. Activating traps on monsters [Q: Do decoys count too?]

The following actions do not yield combat exp:

1. Hitting monsters (source: I tested killing 1 base slime in 3 sword hits in the earth mine without doing anything else combat or mining related that day, which gave me +4 combat exp upon progressing to the next day. Assuming combat exp works in whole numbers [Q: does it? Can we confirm or deny this somehow?], that seems to indicate that exp is gained from killing monsters, not hitting them, since 4 cannot be divided by 3. (Though it could technically still be 3*1 per hit + 1 per kill))

4. How much combat exp do you gain from different actions?
Specifically, how much exp do different actions performed on different monsters yield?

A: Exp per monster type (on kill) [this is the most important thing I want to figure out exactly, any help with testing would be greatly appreciated. (NB: please provide the exact name and type for clarity, findable on the 'Monster'-page on the wiki)]

Slime - base = 4 exp
Slime - fire = 4 exp

Tuku b = 4 exp
Tuku f = 6 exp

Pickling b = 6 exp

Ombuto (troll) = 12 exp

Advanced slime = 12 exp
AS goop = 0 exp (!)
AS slime = 4 exp

Trap activation
Every trap activation yields 1 exp. This holds true for all types (traps and monsters). Multiple activations continue giving exp.

5. What is the fastest method to level up?
[Preliminary answer: it seems to Advanced Slime farming - see Sal's post down below for detailed instructions]

6. What is the best weapon at any point?
A: The highest dmg sword available to you (best = Keeper's Greatsword). Swords have the lowest time to kill and decent swing range.

7. How and how much exactly do scents alter monster behaviour and spawn rates?

[steep void]

- best weapon ⚔️

keeper weapon so far has the highest damage (sword, hammer, and spear)

• keeper's greatsword = 110 dmg
• keeper's hammer = 130 dmg
• keeper's spear = 100 dmg
  and for me personally, sword is better because it can stagger the enemy faster. and yes. sword has the fastest attack speed out of all types of weapon

Bonus

for some reason, your weapon attack speed increase with ring of speed (increase tool speed) instead of raj's coffe rings (increase weapon attack speed). this might be a bug for now.

• you can stack the ring effect ! meaning you can equip double ring of speed to get even faster attack speed

(?) where you got them ?

from B.O.S, hideout shops, they would be avaiable after ||you heal the coral tree||

The slime farming & Traps methods

so the advanced slime (big slime) will spawn normal slime while attacking you. the amount of how many normal slimescan be spawned are unlimited. however, the more slimes presents the laggier the game would be

before you begin

if the slime gathered in one place and too clumped. you might get send flying into the void, so be careful to not spawn too much slimes in one spot
the game has very high chance of crash if a lot of monster hitting your traps all at once. so limit the slimes to certain amount
Turn the game graphic to low to reduce game lag, thats a lot of slimes, dude

so yeah basically you just spawn more normal slimes from the advanced slimes, and let them hit your traps. you would get combat exp if monster hit your traps
All traps would do, Spring traps and decoys are the most effective one, and spring trap is the easiest to craft

a tips while using this method :

• set your graphic settings to low
• go to the setting and set the combat mode to "hit to agro", therefore only the advanced slime would attack you, and the normal slimes wont

#📸coral-screenshots message no slimes were harmed in the making of that video
the image below migh explain the gist of it

[steep void]

And regarding this,

What is the best ring set for combat?

well, heres the set that i think is a good combos for combat. Ps. : ring effect can be stacked

• double ring of speed, it gives you lot of attack speed increase and you can stagger the enemy way faster (this could be a bug, because ring of speed should have only increased tools speed, but its increase weapon attack speed to. meanwhile raj's coffe rings which gives weapon attack speed buff dont increase any)
• double warrior rings, it gives you a lot of defence. while quipping double youd be immune to almost every damage, (except poison iirc)

[pale scaffold]

Note when doing this slime farming method: traps don't last forever! They break after a certain number of hits. For example, spring traps break after dealing 7 hits consecutively (not sure if all traps are the same). However, picking it up with your pickaxe resets this completely. So you can get a lot more mileage out of your traps if you place a couple of them down, lead the slimes over it, then pick them up again and repeat. This way you'll also have to craft way less which will cost you less ore.

[pale scaffold]

Advanced Slime farming method without traps/decoys - for when you want/need to farm them manually (bc you can't buy traps and decoys at the BoS unfortunately) without going braindead

Slay all other enemies and try to lead the Advanced Slime to the center of the room to minimize the average distance you have to walk back and forth. Slay the slimes it spawns every now and then to prevent them from piling up since there's no added benefit to having the max amount alive with this method anyways.

This will give you something to do and help you get a bunch of resources while still farming combat exp and can be done any time you happen to come across one during mining (assuming you have the time)

General Combat tip 1:
Get the Combat Medic perk as soon as possible, as it basically trivializes all monster dmg and the hp mechanic completely.

General Combat tip 2:
It's *generally *not worth it buying swords or weapons, since the basic sword can easily last you until you find the Flameguard Greatsword in the fire mine floor 20. If you do want to buy one inbetween, I recommend the Feros Sword.

**General Mining tip 1: **
Stamina should stop being a limiting factor for how much you can mine around summer year 1. Make sure to get a kitchen and catch all bugs you can from the start of the game and you should have enough bug jerky to do whatever you want, especially once you start placing bug traps.

[solid stone]

1. I'm sorry perhaps I don't scan thoroughly enough, I saw the Q but I didn't see the A.. do decoys give you xp?

cz I turn off the aggro in the setting and I use decoy to trigger baby slimes out of the advanced slimes.
so I don't attack the advanced slime at all, and generally they don't attack me, but they continuouly giving birth.

2. say that you start combating at 6-7am in 50% game time speed, do you attack 1 advanced slime til 23.00 or you keep going down below to attack different monsters and face 2-3 advanced slime per day?

thanks for the thread tho!