Farming Stones

Stone Farming

Got that dream weapon upgrade in mind but not enough stones for Blacksmith Ed? Then you've come to the right place!
Within these tabs you will find in-depth guides to the best ways of obtaining upgrade ores.

As a rule of thumb, the best drop rates of rare ores are found during Pure Black World Tendency. Hence, all the methods here assume you have altered the appropriate World's Tendency to Pure Black. See here for methods of altering your World Tendency.

Additionally, make sure to check the maps of each level prior to farming. For example, there is no need to farm for a pure Suckerstone when one can be found in world 5-2.

Method 1

Obtainable ores: All grades of Bladestone (Optional: Shard of Darkmoonstone and Chunk of Darkmoonstone)
Starting Archstone: 4-2 Adjudicator's Archstone
Equipment/Spells Used:

  • Bow
  • Dragon <Weapon> +5
  • Large Sword of Searching

Method:

  1. Equip your bow of choice.
  2. Run into the 1st Reaper room and drop down.
  3. While falling, press L1 to start aiming at the Reaper. As soon as you land, shoot it until it's dead.
  4. Picking up the loot from the dead Reaper is optional (possible drops: Shard of Darkmoonstone, Chunk of Darkmoonstone and War Scythe)
  5. Run into the stairway on your left and climb the stairs.
  6. At the top of the 2nd flight of stairs, swing your weapon at the archway to reveal the secret passage.
  7. Run through the secret passage. Allow your stamina to regenerate to full before you exit.
  8. As soon as you exit, roll to your right.
  9. Kill the Black Skeleton and grab the loot.
  10. Evacuate, suicide or run back to the Archstone via the narrow path next to the doorway.

Video tutorial: 4-2 Farming souls - Reaper + Black skeleton

Note: From the start of 4-2 you can additionally run back up to the Black Skeleton that guards the Adjucator's room for a quick backstab / soulsuck kill.

Method 2

Obtainable ores: All grades of Bladestone (Optional: Shard of Darkmoonstone and Chunk of Darkmoonstone)
Starting Archstone: 4-3 Old Hero's Archstone
Equipment/Spells Used:

  • Bow
  • Graverobber's Ring
  • Soulsucker
  • Evacuate

Method:
This method is similar to this Soul farming method.

Method 3 - backstab and ranged magic

a fairly safe way to consistently kill the Black Skeleton in the 4-2 secret passage. Useful for low level characters.

Starting Archstone: 4-2 Adjudicator's Archstone

Equipment/Spells Used:

Method:

  1. equip a weapon with good backstab damage and a shield. an Estoc or Dagger for instance.
  2. with shield raised, lock on as you approach the 4-2 Black Skeleton in the secret passage, but run straight past.
  3. the Skeleton will usually attack with a lunging double swipe and completely miss. Score an easy backstab for high damage.
  4. switch to magic and blast away what is left of his health
  5. collect drop. dive off the cliff. repeat.

Video tutorial: Walkthrough

Method 4 - Firestorm

A very fast and straightforward way to sweep through the stage and kill the Black Skeleton in one attack. This is not an early-game method, as it uses Firestorm, a late-game spell with very high MP cost, however it doesn't take much magic power, as my Faith build can do this with only 18 Magic with the Talisman of Beasts. Extremely useful on NG+, as it's the only thing I've found that can consistently and safely one-shot the skeleton in PBWT on a second playthrough. This entire process can take less than a minute (around 55 seconds, including load time) if you get good enough at it.

Starting Archstone: 4-2 Adjudicator's Archstone

Equipment/Spells Used:

  • Firestorm
  • Any fast one-handed melee weapon (for the illusory wall)
  • Thief's Ring (optional, might want it if you want to ignore everything in the Reaper room)

Method:

  1. Attain Pure Black World Tendency (optional, for the increased drop rate)
  2. Mad dash through the stage to the location with the skeleton
  3. Cast Firestorm just outside of the doorway - the skeleton should jump into the attack and die (you should not get hit, as Firestorm will stun the skeleton out of its attack)
  4. Jump off the cliff to suicide and restart the level (jumping slightly to the left should kill you "instantly" rather than making you wait until you hit the bottom)
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