Intermediate Guide

Intermediate Shilla Guide
By AA/Jeff

General Explanation

Got all that experience spent from rescuing King Drakmor? Didn’t get you as many stats as you were hoping probably. That's ok, there’s an endless number of creatures in Drakmor Castle to train upon. We’ll get to that in a second though. First, your new reality.

Many different paths to success will start to open up to you at this point. The guilds were mentioned by Bp in the previous guide, and you might have joined one. You may or may not have gotten that 1,000 life/fatigue yet to do your next guild quest, but at this point in the game you’re not going to see much of a difference anyway. Why is that? Well, completing guild quests give a percentage increase to damage or accuracy, and a small one at that. So with the numbers your character is generating at this point, (10K damage, 20 attacks?), that's at best a +50 total damage or a +1 less miss increase. That is certainly not a difference maker.

So the basic strategy isn’t going to change for you… yet. BP says: This is true, but if you want to wear armor for protection, the game requires you to be in a guild. Thieves get their armor from Rooted Evil in the Cemetery/Crypt, Fighters get their armor from the assorted guards in the Drakmor Castle.

Drakemor Castle revisited

The beautiful thing about the Castle is the easy in and out it is for you now. Teleport locations on every floor, decent food from the Castle Guards, but most importantly piles and piles of Silverplate Armor! Welcome to your first legitimate gold farm. You’ve done some on a smaller scale by selling extra food, maybe a few weapons from the Sewers or Vast Valley, maybe even a few pieces of armor from the Crab Lord on the Beach. The Castle is so much more effective, which is a good thing because you need to stash away 1.5 million pieces of gold.

What!?! 1.5M +more!?! I know it sounds like a lot at this point considering you might be in the low hundred thousands if you didn’t have to replace lightning rings too often. Why do you need that much? It’s the magic number of gold needed for getting into the Dwarven Stronghold, getting access to Specialty Guilds, and if you joined the Fighters Guild, completing the 1,000 life promotion quest. Bp says: 1.5 million gold is the base amount to enter Dwarven Stronghold, assuming you have no spells trained. Any spells you train, you will add 10k gold to each level. So for example, a level 10 teleport is an extra 100k gold you need to save up for. Most people don't see a use for training Bind Wounds or Rejuvenate, so the number needed shouldn't be too much over 1.5 million gold.

So equip the best axe you can and start grinding. Yes, an axe, because every little percentage helps.

New to this version of Shilla is creature classes. There are links on the Weapons and area pages to class vs creatures, so I’ll just summarize here. The Castle is populated with Humanoid creatures, until you get to the top level and Drakmor Dragons, so swinging a sword against the guards actually comes with a -3% decrease in damage. On the other hand, attacking with an axe gives you a +6% increase to damage. Remember that with your numbers this won’t make much of a difference, but every little bit helps.

Here are some notes on maximizing your farming of Silver armor. As you know by now everything has a weight. Based on your strength you can only carry so much. So when you hit your experience gathering goal and are getting ready to teleport back to the fountain to train, pick up as much silver armor as you can. While grinding on the Castle Guards you should start by picking up Helms and Gloves because they are the lightest in weight vs value. Made it to Elites? Then Brigantines are your best bet. Bp Says: The guards in the castle drop all the Tier 3 weapons in the game, these are worth more than silver pieces of armor to sell. So pick up them up first. Blue Amulets are only worth 10 gold, so leave them. Cooked Meat will be your food item more than likely for training at this point.

So grind, teleport, train your experience into stats, sell the armor, teleport back to your training level of the castle, and repeat. Your goal is a Str/Dex/Con of around 330/470/290 to 1 round Elite Guards, and the 1.5 million gold mentioned above.

At 400/570/360 I was able to 1 round Drakmor Dragons, but it’s only a 15% increase in experience and you lose the gold farming. Stick with Elites, you’ll be happier.

Cookie Monster and Bored Guard quests

Another way to maximize the experience gained from grinding is to complete one of the respawning quests. I haven’t researched the Cookie Monster yet, but just don’t bother doing the Bored Guard. There will be reasons to do his quests later on in the game, a chance at Village Armor mainly, but for now the +10% gold/experience buff, a small amount of either gold or experience, and a low tier piece of armor doesn’t make up for the time lost grinding in the Castle.

The Cookie Monster is another story though. The two locations you can get to currently are on the Beach and the Sewers. If you have a high enough intelligence, there is one in Lake Gala as well. If you can’t get the requested food yourself, ask someone nicely in chat to send it to you. Then go to Trader Bob’s in Shillatown to pick it up. The reward for the first two locations can be quite the help, green pixie dust, green emerald that are used to forge the Tier 4 and 6 weapons. It also drops a green trunk, which will save you time from having to forge one yourself. You will start seeing white stuff from the Lake Gala location. Not having to spend the time fighting/healing from the battle vs slimes and golems is well worth a handful of your precious gold, and you still get a +10% buff to gold/experience drops. Just remember to store anything you get at Central Bank of Goods just in case of death.

Lake Gala

Since you’ll be doing very little grinding in Lake Gala because of the added random creature Piraracu, we’ll do other things right here. It won’t be the last creature making areas difficult. Ironically, you’ll be coming here for a few reasons though. You should be over 1,000 wall score, so head down into the lake. Go one north, one east from the entrance to read a touching tale of a boy and his precious shovel. Once you defeat the Demon Crab at the Beach, return and the boy’s mother will also appear with the quest’s reward. Next time, Mom, just use part of the 250,000 gold and buy a new shovel. Better yet, just go to the beach, there are a ton of them lying around from Stone Crab drops.

Next up are some accessories. Stock up on some Cooked Meat, if you don’t have much on you, and head to the Cemetery. Time to beat up the Emerald Golem and the Green Slime. Keep beating them down until you get three Green Pixie Dusts and three Green Emeralds. You won’t be strong enough to get Pegasus Wings on your own, or the Hydraplate Buckler that you'll need in the next set of forges, so ask nicely for someone to send you some. (Trader Bob’s in Shillatown again for the food, Trader Jack’s for the armor) Forge in any order you want at the Forge in Shillatown. Here are the combos:

• Eagle Talisman - Hard Leather Escutcheon (Armor Shop in Shillatown), Green Emerald, Spear (Weapon Shop in Shillatown) Green Pixie Dust, and Pegasus Wings.

• Queenfish Axe - Tin Plated Helm (Armor Shop in Shillatown), Green Emerald, Tower Axe (Pick up a couple extra while grinding Castle Guards), Green Pixie Dust, and Fishtails (Dogfish Princess in Lake Gala. Make sure you have 1,000 Life for the max hit)

• Fishborn Bow - Rootscale Escutcheon (from the Rooted Evil in the Cemetery), Green Emerald, Inebriated Bow, Green Pixie Dust, and Fishtails.

You won’t be using the Bow until you get to the Mountain so just put it into storage.

Once that’s accomplished head back to the Castle to beat down Elites until you get enough gold that you can purchase two Lightning Rings for the amulet shot in Shillatown and still have that goal of 1.5m gold in the bank.

Side note: If you absolutely want to train on Drakmor Dragons, forge a Dogfish Sword to 1round them a little earlier. Swords have +12% vs mystic class creatures, but suck against humanoids as I have already mentioned.

The Mountain

You should be rocking some decent stats by now. When you're at around 490/750/420, and 144, 160, or 176 intelligence (depending on your race) you can start thinking about heading to the Mountain. Stock up on some Cooked Meat, if you need to, and teleport into the Vast Valley. Walk south and east until you get to the Mountain entrance on the east side of the valley. Defeating the Park Ranger is necessary to gain entrance, but if you have the life to survive the rest of the creatures in this area you’ll survive his 1,075 max hit as well. Walk the whole area without attacking anything that can kill you. The Hydra can hit for 1,600, the Hill Giant will squish you dead. You can't accidentally go east anymore into Dwarven Stronghold without having the gold requirement, so thats one less thing to worry about. So carefully avoid these pitfalls as you explore. Make your way down through the Ogre Cave section on the mountain. Exploring this area is also required to get 100% discovery and access to the mountain top teleport location, labeled simply “Mountain (17)”. This also includes having a Shovel from the Stone Crabs on the Beach and enough life (1,650) to make it past the Ogre-Eating Spider. Finish exploring where you can, teleport back to Shillatown for the badges and to get what teleport locations you are qualified to obtain. While you’re there pull your bow out of storage and leave your axe. It’s time to go hunting. Start out in the Mountain Goat, Bear, and Masked Ranger section for a bit, but you won’t have to train long. Your bow is +9% vs Pegasus Scouts so begin checking the top of the mountain after training up your dexterity for a couple more attacks. Once you’re 1 rounding consistently load up on Pegasus Wings. Your goal is stats around 545/790/470, successfully defeating the Ogre Eating Spider and using the Shovel to walk around those last three spots (Don’t attack anything in there!), and obtaining the mountain top teleport location.

I was able to shave off a few stats as a thief using the Devilish Daggers from the Elven Village. Still weren't 1 rounding Pegasus Scouts because of the -3% damage vs air creatures, but the mountain trail opens up for grinding at around 490/690/440. No food drops makes going back to Elite Guards in the Drakmor Castle or Lake Gala necessary unless you've stocked up beforehand. At 515/770/465 I was gaining more Pegasus Wings than I was using, but the Scouts would hit me around 10% of the time. At 550/810/500 the number of times Pegasus Scouts hit me dropped to rare and I had piles of Pegasus Wings saved up.

Forging Time Revisited (and other things)

That’s right, ladies and germs, time to gather ingredients and head to the forge again. Get a giant pile of Pegasus Wings and go to the Cemetery. You’ll need four Green Emeralds and Green Pixie Dusts (five if you haven’t gotten a Green Trunk drop from the Cookie Monster yet). Here are your recipes this time.

• Dumbest Blade - Silver Plated Greaves (Elite Guard in Castle), Green Emerald, Green Pixie Dust, Gleaming Short Sword from Shillatown Weapon Shop, and an Ogre Pound Cake (Ogres in Ogre Cave, of course).

• Dumber Warrior’s Axe - Silver Plated Buckler (Castle Guard in Castle), Green Emerald, Green Pixie Dust, Warrior’s Axe (Warriors in the Sewers), and a Pegasus Wing.

• Bow of Brute Strength - Rootscale Coif (Rooted Evil in Cemetery), Green Emerald, Green Pixie Dust, Bow (Shillatown Weapon Shop), and a Troll Nogg (Trolls in Dark Forest).

• Green Bracelet - Hydraplate Buckler and Hydra Flanks (both from the Hydra at the top of the Mountain), Green Emerald, Green Pixie Dust, and a Short Hammer. (See below for how/where)

• Green Trunk - Hydraplate Neckbrace (Hydra at the top of the Mountain), Green Emerald, Green Pixie Dust, and a Pegasus Wing.

It’ll be your first time going into the Dark Forest to get the Troll Nogg for the bow, so you’ll need to walk from Druid Valley to get to it. Explore the area not killing any Elves or attacking the White Slime so you can get the badge and teleport access. Lastly is the Short Hammer. It’s a weapon sold by the dwarves in the Dwarven Stronghold so you have two options on obtaining it. You can get your 1.5m gold out of the bank, plus the cost of the hammer. To get that number divide 125 million by your charisma score. You don’t want to buy the hammer, step out of the weapon shop, and get wacked by a Dwarven Guard because you dropped below the safe amount of gold after all. As long as you can get into the stronghold you're fine after that. The gold requirement is just about getting in. Your second option is to ask nicely for someone to send one to you via Trader Jack’s. This is the safest and cheaper way of doing it.

Bp says: I've never actually bought the Short Hammer to forge the Green Bracelet. Why? Even at 400 Chr(which is sort of high at this point in the game), it costs 312,500 to buy from the Dwarven Shop. I've saved the money and kept them for Green Rings, and then a down payment on future Village armor. However, if you did a ton of Elite Guard grinding and feel okay worth spending the money on 20 Str, 20 Dex and 20 Wis… yeah there's 20 Chr but it is worthless as a boosted stat so we don't count it, go for it.

DrSatan316 suggests this sneaky tip: if you go to Dwarven Stronghold on a shopping trip, buy the item and town teleport right after buying what you need without leaving the shop. Guards won't have a shot at you then.

Once you’ve managed to do all of that, leave your new weapons in storage, and start working towards the strength needed to use them. With the Queenfish Axe you should be solidity 1 rounding all the ogres. Start trading Wings for Cake and Grind On!

Ogre Cave

While technically not a separate area from the Mountain, it has enough going on that I’ll write it up as such. This area is an axe paradise with all the creatures being Humanoids. Cleave your way through them until you’re around 575/830/500. This will get you to 1 rounding Trolls and Vampire Bats in the Dark Forest. Training there is a pain because you absolutely don’t want to kill Elves. Take a break at that point, and go defeat the Mermaid Hunter. You’ll need 160 wisdom to get the quest from the mayor in Shillatown, plus a decent amount of food for the longer battle. He’s hiding in the eastern part of the Beach. With that done, head back to Cave for some more grinding. The difference between the Ogre Cave and the Dark Forest for experience isn’t large enough to avoid killing elves.

The good news for dagger wielding thieves is that the air creature penalty disappears when you move to the Ogre Caves and its humanoid Ogres. Because of this the jump to 1 rounding here is almost parallel. Add a few fats worth of experience to your stats and the rare hits will disappear at 580/830/530

Dark Forest

With the entrances to the first few villages demystified we now know that killing elves isn't as taboo as it was once thought to be. Just avoid doing so as often as you can because each one rises the charisma requirement to Elven Village by 2. I was 1 rounding Trolls and Vampire Bats at 610/870/560 with the Devilish Daggers. If you're specialized in daggers then it might be a tad earlier. I'm using a Bard, so both the Devilish Daggers and the Elven Bow are available to me without penalty. Theoretically, this should make the jump to the air creature dominated Deep Dark Forest shorter. We'll see. As a side note, the Bard quest that opens up to you after getting 2k fatigue sends you to enter the Gnome Village with its 750 charisma entry requirement. Needless to say, don't worry about that growing pile of Elves at your feet, Bards!

Deep Dark Forest

I overtrained in the Ogre Caves, so by the time I equipped the Dumb (Tier 6) set of weapons I was 1 rounding the DDF. Those stats were 710/890/610, and by equipping the Bow of Brute Strength, you can exchange higher dex for lower grope stats. Our new goal is around 2XXX health and a full set of Hydraplate armor from the Hydra, at the top of the Mountain(fighter class) or Pirarcu in the Lake(Thieves class).

1 rounding with either the Devilish Daggers or the Elven Bow (without being specialized anyway) is a long grind in the Dark Forest for a Thief. Luckily, you can get the stats for the Bow of Brute Strength(938 Dex) a lot earlier than the 1013 Dex needed for the Subterranean Dagger and either of them are necessary to shorten that gap to 1 rounding. I'll be comparing exactly how each weapon fares vs this area, but for now the bow is the winner, and I doubt that the 4% more critical hits you may or may not have with a dagger specialty makes ups having to get 75 more dex. With the Bow I was solidity 1 rounding the DDF at 680/930/630

The Pit

The jump to 1 rounding the Basilisks in the Pit is a decent one. I was doing it at around 1030/1130/740, but the good news is you should be close to those number after competing the following section on Elite Armors.

Elite Armor

In this new version of shilla being a member of a Guild is necessary to wear armor. To wear Hydraplate you’ll need to be a member of the Fighter’s Guild. Join up, if you haven’t already, but don't do any of the quest if you plan on continuing to use your bow. Any bonuses you get from completing Fighter's Guild quests will become negative buffs if you try and use your bow vs a melee weapon.

Why did I say 2XXX health earlier, well, two factors. The first is now you’re wearing armor and the second is how brave are you anyway?

Bp says: This is a guide for the default way of attacking in Shilla, which is melee. AA is picking a side to go down at this point and he's picking Fighter. To get some of these future stat bonuses, we need to be able to wear the armor, and so we choose. You can choose Thief, just substitute Hydra for Piraracu and Hydraplate for Fishscale armor, and change some of the stat bonuses around to the thief ones you earn(Dex, Chr…. okay just Dex) The max hits stay the same. The names of the Elite armor are slightly different, but you can read all about it so far here:

Really, really, really load up on Sparkling Silvers, pull out your Dumbest Blade, and put the bow safely into storage. It’s time to meet the second new addition to Shilla… Elites

You may remember the Crab Lord from the beach? It’s the one you had to move down to find and kill. It dropped armor you couldn’t wear. Well, it’s what is known as an Elite group of creatures. The lowest end of the Ogre Cave (known as the River Cave section) has three of these types of creatures as well. The only one we’re interested in is the Noble variety of Hydras, and it hits much harder than its weaker cousin at the top of the Mountain. You are wearing a full set of brand new, shiny green Hydraplate though, and that is going to help vs its six attacks, but that’s where the bravery comes in play. I haven’t personally researched the reported 2640 max hit, at least not yet. But Bp says it's firm. So technically, while wearing your Hydraplate, that max hit would be 2136. So if you’re 1 rounding the DDF with the stats mentioned above, you should have life around 2300. That is a comfortable cushion for some, for other people not so much. When you’re ready, head back to the Ogre Cave, and defeat the Ogre-Eating Spider. To move west you’ll have to unequip your sword and equip your shovel. It's only needed to move one spot. Re-equip your sword and start looking for your foe.

Don't forget to factor the additional damage for those races that have that penalty.

The Noble Hydra, you can tell by the blue words above the picture that say “Noble” vs “Veteran” or “Elite”. IT WILL ALWAYS HIT YOU FIRST! It doesn’t automatically hit, like village guards do, but once you swing it will do its attacks first.

So I always, always, always healed to full BEFORE I picked up all the fun armor it drops. And it is fun armor. Pick up everything, replacing your regular Hydraplate with Elite (+50% defense), Impenetrable (+40 Strength and +50% defense) or Stalwart (+40 Strength, +20 Constitution, and +50% defense) as you see them. If you run out of food go back to the DDF and grab some more Sparkling Silvers, or Magic Waters if you can 1 round the Pit section. Just don’t dive too deep in the Pit because of the Quetzalcoati. How much food you'll need will depend on how lucky you get for drops. On my second time through I used over 500 sparkling silvers and still only had four pieces of stalwart.

You’ll be wearing that great set of Stalwart Hydraplate for a while, so get a size that fits comfortably. And if you ever want to play a mage or thief their versions of armor are the other two creatures.

Another diversion to the endless ups and downs in the Pit is Farming the Weakest Hydra. Mmmmmm piles and piles of Hydraplate. With your sword in hand and wearing your Stalwart Hydraplate, you shouldn’t have any trouble 1 rounding the Mountain top Hydra. Since I’ll be going beserk about the game in the next paragraph I really should lead with something positive: hotkeys. One of the new additions to Shilla is being able to set up hotkeys to perform actions like attacking, eating food, teleporting, and spell casting. The days of Tab, Enter, Tab, Enter are gone as well because the arrow keys can be used for moving. This makes grinding, and being able to grind in more parts of an area, much easier. Use the + and - keys to move up and down, making grinding in the Pit easier. Because of hotkeys you can bounce back and forth on the mountain top and just grind the Hydra. A quick left ,then right, attack hotkey, then repeat until you have used up your fatigue. At that point there should be enough hydraplate piled up to get you to 100% encumbrance. Teleport back to the fountain, rest, go sell the armor, and teleport back to the mountain top. Use the gold to go buy a pair of Green Rings from the Elven Village if you haven’t already.

The Maze (also the reason why you have to grind the Pit for way too long)

That was a couple fun diversions, but it's back to grinding for you. You’ll need 1250/1390/980 stats, having completed up to 3K Life Fighters Guild quests, and be swinging a Criminal Axe. This will get you hit occasionally in the Dungeon. You can add a few needed attacks by joining the axe specialty guild and completing some of their quests. It is located in the Dwarven Stronghold with the other three melee weapon specialty guilds. Make sure you have 1.5m gold in the bank prior to going in to join the guild. I'm still on the fence about specialty guilds at this point, because I'm pretty sure the time you use to complete them is better spent just grinding in the area you can.

Once you have a full set of Stalwart Hydraplate you should be around 3k life and can go about gathering the necessary items for forging the Criminal Axe you'll be swinging for awhile. (Queenfish Axe, Hydraplate Brigantine, Azure Diamond, White Pixie Dust, Jailbait) You should also have the 900 strength now to immediately equip it as well.

Start rant

I wasn’t around for the design phase of new Shilla. I’m coming three years late to that party, so it's really too late to change “big” things. I’ve complained though. I’ve complained about the Rooted Evil in the Cemetery. I’ve complained about the Piraracu in Lake Gala, but at least those two serve a purpose by dropping armor.

The Maze has always been a PITA, a Pain In The Ass. (Thanks, DrSatan316, for teaching me that abbreviation lol) Magic doesn’t work there, so no teleporting in and out. Mages are completely unable to train in the area. The simulated maze aspect of random directions taking you back to the entrance makes moving around in the area difficult. The Lake Gala Cookie Monster drops the Compass as a reward now, so even if the compass were still in the maze you wouldn’t have to go in anymore for that item. On top of all that nonsense, they eliminated the best looking creature in the game: The Green Nymph!!!

But the biggest deal breaker of all is the Maze Overlord.

What the living &$@%!!!

It seems to appear more than any other creature
It hits 10% more compared to the rest of the Maze creatures, other than Medusas found only at dead ends
It has over five times more life than the rest of the creatures in the Maze
Doesn’t drop anything!

The rationale of its existence escapes me…

end rant

I’ve crunched the numbers and if you avoid the Maze Overlord every single f’in time it appears you will make more experience than grinding in the Pit. The time wasted in having to hit, heal, hit heal, hit heal, for just one Maze Overlord will make training in the Pit better. So consider the Maze as an area to get four different food drops for gaining access to the Halfling Shire and you’ll sleep better at night.

The Dungeon

Wow! The end of the Intermediate Guide is in sight! The Dungeon makes up for how bad the maze is to train in. It has two great food drops in Swill and Jailbait, all of the passage section creatures are Humanoid which makes your axe more effective, the Imprisoned Unicorn that could kill you stays comfortably in the cell sections of the dungeon, and the area even has a Cookie Monster to get you that 10% grinding bonus! I chose to train here until I had enough life to complete the Death Reaper quest, but you can start checking the first and second levels of the Druid Keep anytime you have the life to survive their max hit. I don’t have exact stat numbers for you to aim for, but once you complete both the Death Reaper and Rescue the Master Druid quests you’ll be easily 1 rounding Minotaurs, especially after forging a Midsized Axe.

On my second character run I was 1 rounding Keep Druids at 1560/1710/1260 and Minotaurs at 1630/1790/1320 using a Criminal Axe and having completed 3K Fighter and Axemaster quests. Satyrs take an extra 10% damage so these stats are probably a little higher than those characters without that restriction may need.

So pick up enough food to get you to successfully completing those two quests , then work towards 1 rounding White Dragons on the third floor of the Druid Keep. Congratulation, “Advanced” Shilla player!