Originally posted by GunsForBucks:

Originally posted by sarteck:

I'd say you "need" Bonemass more than Elder, to be quite honest. The Swamp Key is not necessary if you carry some Finewood and make a chair in the iron grate locking crypts. By contrast, it's a heck of a lot harder to find Silver without a wishbone; if you're using the Stagbreaker method, you're MUCH more likely to get bogged down in the Mountains where wolves will nom your face off, something you probably do not want in any permadeath run.

Wolves are no problem in full iron gear. And no Bonemass means no wolf hunt event.

Never used a stagbreaker, I do not like the two handed weapons at all. I just know what to look for in the terrain. I find more silver than someone with a wishbone probably since ones that are too close to the surface won't ping.

1. Altitude at or above stone golems.
2. A stone golem being there is 95% near a silver vein.
3. Look for "humps" and "hollows". Once you have enough experience to see the lay of the land you get a good idea where to poke around.
4. Seeing a seam as pictured above with the above conditions met and digging around is almost certain to find one.

A seam like that over humps or hollows where typically they are and with or above stone golems.

I never tried to glitch the game with the crypts like that. Don't like that kind of exploit. I work with what the game presents. That is also another reason I don't like to use the stagbreaker method... don't like it in the swamp crypts either. I don't mind cheesing a boss but killing mobs beyond blockages or doors feels too cheap to me.
To each their own, and for a no death run and learning the game mechanics it works. I just don't want to do that myself.

I also try to be very careful about things since I don't use the dev commands or console. I don't want to get stuck in geometry and start over. I have done that. So I wouldn't even try to glitch out of a crypt. Not sure how they make maps in this game but you could end up anywhere ha ha. So I would never attempt an exploit like that in the first place and don't watch youtubes or other people play at all. The person who I played with that showed me many of the game mechanics would never have done that either.

The stagbreaker ain't for use as a weapon, it's used for finding the silver. You get the "Too Hard" message by randomly pounding in places.
Silver will always ping if it has not been hit.
I have to doubt the efficacy of that "seam" method in your screenshot, because I see such seams all over the place without wishbone pings.
Stone Golems I've encountered Golems where there was no silver anywhere nearby many times.

As for "sitting through the gate," I've never once had a problem with it, but I suppose it's possible problems exist.

I'm not too sure about killing bonemass being a trigger condition for The Hunt. Typically, that's been the Elder for most other things, but it seems even that has changed. For example, without killing the Elder, you typically cannot get "The Ground is Shaking" has always been my understanding, but that seems to have changed sometime in the past few months; I just got it a few days ago on my new seed.

(This is all vanilla, btw.)

With those things in mind, I'd find having the Wishbone a greater boon than the Swamp Key, to be quite honest.

[Also, OP did specifically state about not cheesing bosses, but wanting legit strats.]