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Bastion Power-leveling Basics

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2021-09-09 13:16:23

How To Power-Level

The main goal of power-leveling is to select content that you can finish safely that generates a high amount of experience per unit time. That means that you want to eliminate anything that is not killing monsters that yield high amounts of experience.

Principles Long levels are better than short. The downtime at the bastion is at least 30 seconds per run.

Untimed levels are better than timed. As you do the level repeatedly, you will get faster. If the level is timed, you will not finish it more quickly.

Later levels have tougher enemies with better experience.

Keep a high margin of safety, because you don't gain experience while dead and respawning.

Use idols that increase enemy power to the point just below where it takes real effort to kill them.

Minimize the time spent per enemy - maximize your damage.You'd think there'd be no need to power-level in Bastion, as after the first time through you have New Game Plus mode. But, my clever reader, the devs unfortunately require you to redo your leveling when you go through Score Attack mode. This is to help you make that as fast and painless as possible. Ideally, you won't need this if you finish all the non-score attack achievements during your first NG+ run, then do Score Attack and quickly get up to 1M in the Stranger's dream. However, if you want to compete on the Score Attack leader boards, this guide should be useful to you.

Spirits

For power-leveling, it's good to choose the riskiest spirits. Spirits in bold are good, those in normal text are OK, and those struck through are close to useless for power-leveling.

Dreadrum - Most power-leveling time is spent at full health. Crits speed up your clear time.

Leechade - Very helpful for power-leveling. Allows you to disregard damage.

Doomshine - More crits, faster clear. Your margin of safety should be such that -10 health is not a serious risk.

Cham-pain - Don't get defeated while power-leveling. This item has no drawback if your margin of safety is reasonable.

Squirt Cider - There is no reason to ever not equip this spirit.

Bull Brandy - As with Squirt Cider, this should always be equipped.

Hearty Punch - Not bad, but you really shouldn't get defeated while power-leveling.

Bastion Bourbon - Not bad, but you shouldn't need to use health tonics while power-leveling.

Stabsinthe - You will get hit a fair amount while power leveling and this could improve your clear. But it's marginal.

Black Rye - Useful if you use secret skills to power-level.

Graver Gimlet - If it procs, great, but it almost never does.

Whale Ale - Secret skills can be of some value if they help you clear faster.

Lifewine - Don't get defeated while power-leveling.

Lunkhead Liqueur - Not completely useless. But you shouldn't be blocking during power-leveling.

Mender Mead - Same as above.

Cinderbrick Stout - Don't defend while power-leveling.

Falling Malt - Falling doesn't do any damage anyway.

Werewhiskey - If you get below 33% while powerleveling, your margin of safety is too narrow and you risk dying and wasting a bunch of time.

Fetching Fizz - Useless for power-leveling. You will have plenty of money to max your chosen weapons by level 10, even if you don't go out of your way to get it.

Locations


Other threads on this site have suggested that the Melting Pot is the best place to level, but this is not actually the case. See the video below for a time comparison between leveling in the second-to-last level versus the melting pot (with five idols). TL;DR: Melting pot nets you (generously) 4000 exp/4 minutes = 1000 exp/minute. Zulten's hollow gives about 7000 exp/3 minutes = 2333 exp/minute. (Sorry for the bad volume balance in the video. I just made it off the spur of the moment.)

Items

You should take at least one fast ranged weapon. I won't go so far as to recommend a melee weapon, but that is my typical second choice. Bold is good, normal text is OK, strike through is bad.

Ranged Weapons Scrap Musket - Instant fire, AOE, decent damage. What more do you want.

Army Carbine - Can be OK at close range, but unreliable.

Dueling Pistols - Good single-target damage.

Fang Repeater - Only problem is you can't move while shooting.

Breaker's Bow - You will spent too much time drawing this weapon.

Calamity Cannon - Windup is too long.

Galleon Mortar - Too unreliable, long windup.

Melee Weapons Cael Hammer - Solid damage, fast swing.

Brusher's Pike - This weapon is god, bow down before it. Especially useful on levels with armored enemies (all the later ones).

Flame Billows - I haven't tried it, but I imagine time-to-kill would be unacceptably long. And yes, given the short range, I count this as a melee weapon.

War Machete - Not bad, but the short range probably means you'll have to reposition a lot, which is wasted time. Many of the later levels have enemies that this can't reach as well.

For all weapons, select upgrades such that damage is maximized. As a rule, crit damage multipliers will help less than raw damage multipliers. When you crit with a fully built weapon, it will one-shot most enemies anyway. You want to make the remainder of cases go as fast as possible.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=204439199

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