Is there a better way to level up in Dragon Quest IX?
Matthew Harrington
An update: I've since traded in the game. It just irritated the hell out of me towards the end. Thanks to those with suggestions! I was hoping there would be a non grindy solution -_-
Currently playing Dragon Quest IX and I want to level up some characters quickly as I'm at the Gittish castle (just beat Hootingham). My main is 35, the others are 31. I looked up the Priest class and they get multi heal at 38 which made me groan that I would have to grind 7 levels :(
I know that I can go hunt metal slimes etc but they are so freaking rare (or they run away) it is making for an overly grindy experience which is becoming frustrating :(
Would appreciate any pointers on other ways to level up (if there are).
Thanks :)
An update: I've since traded in the game. It just irritated the hell out of me towards the end. Thanks to those with suggestions! I was hoping there would be a non grindy solution -_-
6 Answers
Unfortunately, killing metal slimes is your best bet. They're fairly rare, but they're also worth big, big XP. The Quarantomb has a fair number of them, and that's where I farmed in the early part of the game. You'll want to go prepared with attacks that are strong against Metal enemies, plus high speed and speed boosting spells. There's a good strategy here that may help save you some trouble.
This GameFAQs thread lists some locations where you can find other metal slime variants later in the game. The consensus seems to be that Bad Cave is the best place to farm Liquid Metal slimes.
It may feel grindy, and that's because it is :( All the DQ games I've played have been this way - "it's a feature, not a bug." :)
1Since you've already made it to Gittingham Palace, don't waste your time with metal slimes at the Quarantomb. You'd be better off fighting regular monsters. What you should be hunting are Liquid Metal Slimes. They give 40,000 xp or 10,000 xp per character if you have a team of 4. You can find them on the 3rd floor in the Bowhole. Make sure you have someone who knows Hatchet Man or Lightning Thrust(axe or spear)... those moves have a 50% chance of hitting, and if they hit, it's an automatic critical.
1what you need to do is go to the gittingham palace and hunt around for lethel armours untill thay send for back up which are cure slimes and keep defeating them but make sure you have at least 2 cure slimes and the lethal amours send them up and if you go from 1 - 16 cure slime and do it 4 time u will gat about 90.000 exp
I've found that the Shivery Shrubbery at Swinedimple's Academy work extremely well. To test this, I spent 5 minutes battling there, and received 17k xp. It probably works best at lower levels, up until level 40, in my opinion..
I say you should just grind any monster in Gittinham Palace. I was doing that yesterday and I've already passed the game, so it works.
facepalm Use slime hill of course! Using the Starflight Express, fly to the Plateau by Angel falls with the cave on it. Don't enter the cave. There will be a higher spawn rate off metal slimes, and only members of the Slime family can spawn there.
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