Recommended Key Quest Guide

Welcome to the Recommended Key Quest Guide, written by Billyonaire, AKA BillyBass/BillyBenis. Here I'll be going over the process of what key quests I recommend. Please read the notes below first to understand exactly the process behind this.

Disclaimer

I'm writing this guide with the idea that it is almost as difficult as possible:

• I will be playing as a Full HP Raccoon with a 2134 build for maximum agony (name drop omg?!)
• I will NOT be receiving assistance from other characters/accounts/players.
• I will NOT be utilizing AFK drilling.
• I will NOT be doing Episode Quests with the exception of Episode 0.
• I will be going in direct order of zones as guided by the key quests, for simplicity.
• I will only be using gear accrued naturally from Key Quests, Eternal Tickets, or lucky drops.
• I will be allowing the use of items from Eternal Penguins as they are a regular rotational event.
• Daily, Card, and TM-only quests will be allowed, as well as grinding for galders exclusively. Because I value my sanity.
  • Job-related quests are allowed as well, in case you're wondering.
• I will be doing extra quests outside of all Sticker quests as needed to get a town's set. Again, because I value my sanity.
• Lastly, and rather importantly, I'll be doing each key quest when possible, but only recommending the easiest ones here.

All of this is done to optimize exactly what quests to do. If this is for your first few characters, or you're not terribly experienced/patient with Trickster, for the love of god do not torture yourself by making a Full HP Raccoon or doing solely Key Quests.

Please note this guide is subjective to my experience, although I try to look at an objective approach. Your experience may vary.

I recommend the tips below as well.

Tips

But first, a word from our sponsors!

It's recommended that you do these to fill in/alongside the Episode quests. I recommend prioritizing the Episode Quests as they fill in some gaps (Lv. 110, Lv. 160-170) in the equipment sets. Plus, you get some fantastic rewards in the process, and the sets they provide are arguably better than what the Town Sets have to offer.

Secondly:

Always grab the quest when you are drilling for items.

When you have the quest active, this actually boosts the drop rate of drilled items by a significant amount. How much isn't certain, but it is definitely noticeable. I can not stress this enough, it will make your life better and make questing easier, there's no downsides to it.

Lastly, you don't need to do the quests to finish the "Sticker" quests, the Stickers themselves are tradable and if you find yourself wanting that last sticker, someone may have one for sale.

Desert Beach

Desert Beach is a rather easy Key Quest. I usually do all 7 available quests, then move onto Caballa Relics while I hit 2nd Job and start Episode 1. Honestly, do all 7 if you're patient. Otherwise, do one of the two recommended sets of 5. In this case I did all 7, did not add too much time.

If you need the Town Set: Make sure you do the quests from Al Hauri, Eliza Bath, and Skipper Min. They provide you the set in this case. This is a unique situation, the other zones will require a specific amount of quest-provided materials to create the sets providing much more flexibility.

Quests recommended for set: Eliza Bath, Al Hauri, Skipper Min, Homeless Ian, Bunny Maid

Quests recommended if not going for set: Homeless Ian, Bunny Maid, Al Hauri, Vagabond Eloy, Mirabo Watty

End result: I left at around Lv. 55/47, not bad! New set is nice and is making a difference in damage.

(add tables as needed)

Poppuri Dungeon

Honestly, I haven't run Poppuri Dungeon on many characters given how quickly you level and outpace it in the early game here. You could theoretically skip this with practically no repercussion. Typically I just jump ship and go straight to Caballa after Desert Beach. If you do decide to stick around here, there's plenty of easy quests. Town set isn't bad either as there's a bit of diversity to it so it's useful for several characters. Again, I recommended doing all of the quests again. They're not too bad, chances are when going for one you'll end up having materials or close to for another.

Regional Currency needed:

40 for full set

32 for Paula

12 for Gunner

Quests recommended (4): Indiana John (1), Vagabond Eloy, Poppuri (1), Poppuri (2)

Quests needed for sets:

Full set: all of them + sticker quest lol

Paula: 6 quests + sticker quest

Gunner: 3 quests

End result: Lv. 72/52. Feeling the impact of not having TM experience at this point. Was this really necessary? In my mind, no, unless you're collecting town sets. Even then you could skip this and not notice much of a difference.

Caballa Relics

Caballa Relics is where I start to recommend Key Quests. Honestly, I don't do the full thing typically, since things slow down a bit. However, you hit 2nd job around this time and that really either helps a ton or doesn't make much of a dent. In my case, it was a god send, and made things go from miserable to tolerable on this character. Personally this is where I started looking into my TM levels a bit. The jump to 2nd job makes things so much better. I'd recommend doing all 6 of the quests in the Gate, as there's free funding from those.

Now I'll be getting into more specifics. While I did all the quests, there's a couple ones to avoid:

Indiana John - Drop rate on the items are abysmal. Not worth it.

Fairy Feria - Again, drop rate isn't that great and you have to drill too many items. However, this can net you two Stickers. I just personally find the drop rates for other quests are quicker than getting the two here.

Regional Currency Needed:

70 for the full set

50 for Paula and Gunner

Quests Recommended (10): All 4 Dr. Cat, Genius Cochma, Officer Tera, Sissy Cello, Wise Hen, Guide Sabrina (Egg/Gold), Vagabond Eloy

Quests needed for sets: Most quests provide 6 Slates total, except Genius Cochma. Doing the recommended gets you 56 Slates. I'd recommend doing the recommended quests plus 3 of the Gate of Caballa Quests for them.

Paula/Gunner: All recommended quests (or drop one if just going for the set)

End result: 100/115. 2nd Job quest was a MASSIVE boost to my TM early on, alongside doing 4/5 Card Quests, Clerk Z Smith's TM quest and Monkey_T's TM quest. Would definitely recommend those as you'll get all of the items for them drilling for quest items anyways. Hitting such high TM made grinding so much easier with new skills.

Oops Wharf

Ah, Oops Wharf. This is a zone I've done plenty of times. The drilling slog of Caballa goes away in favor of something more mob-focused. While it still always felt slow to me, it's really not so bad if you know where to focus. The Gate quests make for some decent early levels. The real issue is that some of the quests are just objectively worse than others, and repeating NPC quests start showing up. Personally I think with some analysis and adjustment, they could be great.

For the specific quests to avoid:

Frog Shaman - While the drops are specific, it's a helluva slog. Not worth it.

Genius Cochma - The least offensive of the three I'm saying dodge. You might actually get the items for these quest while doing the (much superior) Fortune Teller quests.

Lethos - Why is this an Oops Wharf sticker? Everything comes from Path to Mermaid Palace. This one SUCKS. And so do you, Lethos.

Note: This will most likely become a repeating pattern. These quests are notorious for being very long (4 individual quests for 1 sticker after completing the 4th) and usually extremely tedious as a result.

Regional Currency Needed:

52 for the full set

42 for Paula and gunner

Quest Recommended (7): Rosemary, Sophia, Grandpa Tango, Fortune Teller (1-3), Explorer Reina

Quests needed for sets: Most quests provide 5 Shells on average. I'd do all the recommended above, plus Officer Tera 1-2 and Miguel. This should put you at exactly 52 Shells.

Paula/Gunner: Just do Fortune Teller 1-3 for the 18 Shells, then add on 5 quests of choice (probably Rosemary, Grandpa Tango, Explorer Reina and Officer Tera 1-2)

End result: 123/130. This would've taken a fraction of the time had I skipped Cochma, Shaman, and Lethos. Lethos is especially egregious here as technically that's Mermaid Palace. Why does he give an Oops Wharf sticker? I want my money back. Also distinctly noticed there isn't any TM quests here, minus Monkey_T's grass quest. Oops Wharf can be sped through very quickly if you just avoid the right quests, primarily due to the Path to Oops Wharf being buffed greatly and there being a lot of quests there. Yes, you could skip Oops Wharf but there's some decent and very fast EXP available within the gate. Just make sure you bully Cochma, it is the correct thing to do.

Mermaid Palace

And here's when the game starts to really bully you. I always remember Mermaid Palace being the place where I had to worry about my health. I also remember being here for hours in the original, just farming various items. This is also where some of the quests become so tedious that I'm debating whether or not me actually grinding them is a good idea. Please send help. Mermaid Palace is also unique in that it does not have a town, and it was designed with the next zone being Mirage Island, which is a Story-exclusive area. Which I won't have access to. Wonderful.

For the specific quests to avoid:

NOTE: I'm writing this one ahead of time. Yeah, it's that bad.

Frog Shaman - You want me to drill a rare item? HAH. Nope. Thankfully, most of the other items are dropped by monsters who have other drops so he's not too egregious.

Cochma - Cochma is the true evil here. Quest 3 and 4 are both requests for drill items, exclusive to Fields 1/2. Not worth the time or effort, easily.

Lethos - from the worst to the best. Lethos is on here solely because, surprise, he's got 4 quests with no real reason. He's the "best" of the worst, with only a brief drill grind before grinding dungeon items. He's honestly not too bad here, so long as you can kill Tanya without suffering greatly.

Strategy:

Yep, we're bustin' out strategies now! I'd recommend saving your first 25 Lip Gloss and turning it into Prince Sebastian, which allows you to grab Fairy Asrai's first quest. This will boost your drilling rate for Whale Jawbones, if you're (god forbid) doing Frog Shaman. Also, do all of your drilling in Field 1 as it has all the quest items you can need. Field 2/4 also have some items, so double-check and verify you don't need other items from the other fields first to confirm.

Regional Currency needed:

25 for full set (with accessory)

20 for Gunner/Paula (with accessory)

Quests Recommended (7/9 needed): La Vida 1 & 2, Prince Sebastian 1 & 2, Sea Spirit Rumo 1 & 2, Fairy Asrai, Guard Gilbert, Marin

Quests needed for sets: La Vida 1 & 2, Prince Sebastian 1 & 2, Fairy Asrai and Rumo 1 & 2 nets you 21 Scales. Throw in Guard Gilbert or Marin and you should hit 25. Gilbert is better if you hate drilling, otherwise do Marin.

Paula/Gunner: Simply do the first 7 quests mentioned, it'll get you all the scales you need.

End result: 143/155. Again, if it weren't for Lethos, Cochma, and Frog Shaman, this zone wouldn't have taken so long. Frog Shaman is especially bad given they want 15 Whale Jawbones which seem to be the rarest drill item here. Otherwise I think it's really not a terrible zone, if you focus the 7/8 quests you need to do the area, you can really knock this zone without too much effort. It's a bit of a grind but it definitely felt like this wasn't as bad as Oops Wharf in comparison. If you really need extra levels, go through Lethos and maybe do Guard Gilbert's extra quest. It's not too terrible.

Intermission: 3rd Job

Given that I'd hit some pretty decent levels, farmed Daily Quests regularly, and valued my sanity, I decided to go for 3rd Job before Ghost Blue. Th opportunity was there, so why not? Going in I was at 144/161 (because of all the Dailies I farmed). Farmed up my items, which was much easier than anticipated.

I did break the rules a lil and did Blacksmith Marx's Snow Mine quest. My goal here was to get a Harkon while not losing my marbles.Not too bad either.

Ghost Blue

I'm terrified of Ghost Blue. After looking into it, I've noticed that while you only need 10 Stickers there 17 different quests available. Your options really open up here. For you, probably a nice thing as you can find something that really works for you. For me? Arguably gonna be the worst zone yet. I know some of the quests are really "exploitable" in that you can really farm a whole lot less items if you know what you're doing (Cash Box quests), so it's not too bad, but it's not my favorite. Decided that maybe 3rd Job might be ideal at this point.

Strategy:

Bustin' out the ol' strategy. Grab 10 Cash Boxes, do Lisa's first quest, then Robert's quest, back to Lisa, then do Favian's first. Boom, 4 Stickers, easy. Went on to check a few spots, there's not a whole lot of drill quest surprisingly. I went on to grab Vinosh, La Vida, and Sophia and knock them out. Grabbed an extra 5 Premium Wine for another Favian quest while I was at it. There's a lot of "fluff" quests that I'm trying to avoid, such as Marinel's line and most of the Gate quests (Cochma and Paul are actual sticker quests).