Path of the Plumber/Strategy

This guide will provide some additional information to aid with a Path of the Plumber ascension.

Astral Consumables & Equipment

Only astral hot dogs can be consumed by plumbers, astral pilsners cannot be imbibed. Although astral energy drinks are now an option, the reduced spleen capacity mean you're limited to only one per day.

Regarding astral equipment, the Astral belt is likely the best choice. The path does not provide any ML modifiers at all, and while the boost in substats do not work well, the extra +20 ML can still be applied to various quests. This makes various objectives like climbing the Oil Peak and heating the unstable fulminate easier and faster.

For some Hardcore runs, the Astral pet sweater is a possible option. While familiars remain usable, the usual abilities for boosting familiar weight are unavailable, leaving them considerably weaker, especially early on. This is less of an issue for those with access to familiar weight increases such as Tall Grass equipment, Fourth of May Cosplay Saber empathy chip, brutal brogues, and others.

Moon Sign

Due to the lack of a defined mainstat, there is some additional flexibility in moon sign choices.

• Your moon sign's +10% stat gain may play a big role in helping you "choose" your mainstat.
• Knoll sign - Easy access to The Hippy Store (via the cheap meatcar) as well as the The Degrassi Knoll Bakery and Hardware Store can provide some early dietary options for hardcore plumbers without IotMs.
  • Note that The Vole does not give its usual +20 max HP bonus.
• Little Canadia - If you have enough food options, it should be sufficient to delay unlocking the desert beach & island when the 5000 meat Desert Bus pass can be easily afforded.
  • There can also be surprisingly effective daily specials at Chez Snootée for substat gains and/or adventures, although they are wholly unreliable. Check the [Noblesse Oblige Calendar]!
  • Note the logging hatchet is significantly less useful, because equipping either flower is necessary to deal enough cold damage to trigger Blech House.
  • Before the Lucky Adventures revamp, ten-leaf clovers were important and versatile enough to make the Marmot a strong option.
• The Gnomish Gnomad Camp - It is possible to obtain Torso Awaregness in-run by taking this path, mostly in order to be able to use the Jurassic Parka. The makeshift garbage shirt from January's Garbage Tote, however, is remarkably less useful because of the reduced stat gains from combats (see next section). Unrecommended if you don't own a Jurassic Parka.

Mr. Store Items

Most of the usual applications for various items from the Mr. Store exist. However, some are more important than others under these restrictions, while others have their effectiveness reduced. Key divergences while it was under standard restrictions will be listed here.

• January's Garbage Tote - Between the sharply reduced stat gains from the fight and the lack of Torso Awaregness, you should not expect to rely on the makeshift garbage shirt. The other equipment forms still work as normal, although using the broken champagne bottle may be difficult if elemental damage from either flower is required (for example, for A-boo Peak).
• Tall Grass - The lack of any base Familiar Weight modifiers makes the potential familiar equipment more useful if you do not opt to take the astral pet sweater.
• God Lobster - The substat gains from asking for a boon still work as normal, even if the fight itself provides less than usual.
• SongBoom™ BoomBox - The substat gains from Special Seasoning are also multiplied by 10, and the extra stomach capacity means you can use more of these per day. Additionally, the smaller spleen means that you will have 2 leftover spleen after Taking your Pills, which can be put to good use with Nightmare Fuel.
• The Neverending Party - Although the substat gains from the fights are less useful, the substats or buffs from the non-combat can still be useful. In addition, there are many good items for diabolic pizza cube usage, which is especially important in this path.
• Kramco Sausage-o-Matic™ - Although the substat gains from the goblins are less useful, the delay-burning free fights as well as magical sausages are more vital than ever, especially with fewer turns per day to work with.
• Fourth of May Cosplay Saber - The main difficulty lies with its inability to be used with either flower, which can pose a problem in some circumstances.
• Your Campsite Away From Your Campsite - The additional food options from Your Campfire are welcome, and the whittled owl figurine can help mitigate the lack of +ML.
• Pocket Professor - A longer ascension with fewer turns per day means more mileage out of this familiar, and delivering your thesis can potentially help make daycount.
• Eight Days a Week Pill Keeper - Having only 5 spleen instead of the usual 15 means you can only Take your Pills twice per day (3 with a mojo filter). Nightmare Fuel and mushroom tea can help make up the difference.
• Diabolic pizza cube - The combination of a larger stomach capacity and greater reliance on food for substat gains makes this considerably more important in this challenge path. Although slightly weaker due to the lack of Pizza Lover, it can single-handedly solve your dietary issues (particularly in Hardcore) by providing significant adventures, substats directed where desired and potentially valuable buffs for quest advancement (especially the NS Contest Registration Desk).
• Bird-a-Day calendar - Plumbers still have MP, even if not readily visible, so you can Seek out a Bird as normal. You do not retain access to your existing Favorite Bird, however, you can still set a new favorite day 1 bird to use on day 2 (and so on).
• Powerful Glove - Although its base bonuses are not helpful in this path, the cheat codes compensate for this. The bonus coins along with the pixels don't hurt either.
  • Prior to the 8-Bit Realm revamp, wearing this throughout your run would have likely provided everything you needed for a digital key on its own.
• Your Mushroom Garden - Allows you to fight 5 free piranha plants instead of just 1, and each fight will automatically trigger Secret Eye to yield additional coins and items, which can help in runs with low starting coins. Unfortunately, the fights still yield minimal substats, and the piranha pollen is of little use. The most important use is likely the mushroom tea, which provides a much-needed source of both increased combat frequency and monster level at the cost of 1 spleen (which works well in tandem with Taking your Pills). The mushroom filet is a passable food option as well, especially for those that do not have the Diabolic pizza cube.

Post-Standard Mr. Store items

Newer Mr. Store item information that became relevant after its period as a seasonal path (and is thus no longer subject to standard restrictions) will be listed here.

• Model train set is especially helpful in this path due to Campground access being unrestricted and the severe penalty on substat gain from combats. Getting to level 10 or 11 with only the Train Set is possible on day 1.
• June cleaver is not good for combat as weapons cannot be used in this path. However, its Non-Combats are particularly helpful with early leveling due to statgain restrictions.
• Jurassic Parka can make survival a lot easier with its 1st round block and 50% HP boost, assuming you can acquire Torso Awareness to wear this.
• Tiny stillsuit sweat cannot be drunk in this path but does provide familiar experience and familiar weight.
• Cookbookbat helps to fill diet faster if routed during the run. Many legendary foods such as Deep Dish of Legend can also make combat a lot easier. Roasted vegetable focaccia can fill in the majority of someone’s diet if they wish to use fill in any needs with familiars in-run.

General Advice

• Lucky Buckle > Secret Eye > Multi-Bounce + Ballerina Costume + fancy boots + fizzy soda = coin farming!
  • It is probably necessary to use this chain for multiple early runs in order to quickly acquire all of the other things that need coins, at least during your starting ascensions. This will likely be less necessary with enough bonus starting coins.
• The lack of a specific mainstat means that you can advance whatever stat you'd like in order to level up. It will also partially determine your overall combat strategy, since you will need to use all three:
  • Muscle - Easiest to advance (especially when feeding pies men were not meant to collectively eat into the diabolic pizza cube), but likely the least useful. More HP just means healing will cost more (which tends to be less of an issue in the later stages of a run), and scaling combats will get more HP, and thus harder to one-shot. The necessity to use a weapon limits your equipment options, and both Hammer Throw and Ultra Smash are among the least useful abilities to have, especially early on.
    • Ultra Smash does gain more importance if you have few to no other banishes available.
  • Mysticality - Hardest to advance (few good options with the diabolic pizza cube exist), but the combat skills (despite requiring a weapon slot again) are crucial for being the only sources of reliable elemental damage. Decently high mysticality is required to make full use of Blech House as well. The temporary stat boost and potential heal from Juggle Fireballs and the yellow ray from Fireball Barrage ensure that this stat deserves some attention.
    • Note that at least 70 mysticality is required to equip the island war outfit.
  • Moxie - Likely the best stat to focus on. The main benefit is that combat requires an accessory slot rather than a weapon, which allows for more flexibility using weapons like the Fourth of May Cosplay Saber and broken champagne bottle. In addition, you will likely take little to no damage, reducing healing costs down the road. Finally, a level 3 Multi-Bounce is useful for generating coins early on while dealing enough damage to likely beat most enemies with a single use. For stronger enemies, Spin Jump will help considerably.
    • Note that at least 70 moxie is required to equip the island war outfit.
• Stat gains from non-combats are unchanged. If you cannot gain enough stats from food, the second floor of Spookyraven Manor can help make up the difference.

Diet

• For players with few or no IOTMs who have trouble generating high statgain foods, look to the Daily Dungeon. Flavorless gruel, mana curds, and vampire chowder each give 1000+ of a single stat. Throw in a dieting pill with it to double their effectiveness.
• Those with access to Your Campsite Away From Your Campsite can rely on mainstat-targeting food from Your Campfire if you can afford the sticks of firewood.
• Those with access to the diabolic pizza cube can craft specialized pizzas that give high substats and/or adventures, depending on the ingredients involved.
  • deluxe layer cakes, sheet cakes, and pies men were not meant to collectively eat are extremely relevant for this, as they can each add thousands of muscle substats to a pizza while providing useful D, S, or P letters for pizza effects.
  • The aforementioned deluxe layer cakes will also give thousands to each stat, at level 10, for those without the pizza cube.
• astral hot dogs provide massive substat gains as well as adventures. As they get more effective with higher levels, consuming them is best delayed until at least level 8 or 9.
• Softcore ascensions allow for easy access to epic-quality food such as the spectral pickle and grue egg omelette (can also be cooked in-run).

Skills & Items

• While basic combat skills will suffice early on, you will quickly need to rely on at a 2 PP combat skill to win fights. Multi-Bounce is likely the best first choice, for its continuous coin generation (when maxed out) will serve you well for affording other badges and items earlier.
  • Relying on fizzy soda is a cheaper method of maintaining 2 PP than the Power Plus badge early on, allowing you to prioritize more useful badges and items.
• The Lucky Pin, Lucky Brooch and Lucky Insignia are all high-priority badges that will give a combined +90% to item drops from monsters.
• You will want to have the bony back shell and the Rainbow Shield badge for areas like The Haunted Kitchen and the A-boo Peak tests, and the cape by the time you seek to fight modern zmobies.

Quests

• If you equip your hewn moon-rune spoon over rollover, Spoon Boon + Fourth of May Cosplay Saber + the Beach Comb head buffs will provide enough elemental damage to get the free non-combats in the Tavern Cellar.
• For accessing The Haunted Library through The Haunted Billiards Room, the 10 free Pool Skill from A Shark's Chum, the pool cue and Chalky Hand together give 16 Pool Skill, which gives you a chance to beat the ghost without practicing. This will mean you can't use fire skills as your mainhand is taken up, but you can still plink (if they have less than 30 HP and you can survive their hits), use combat items or Beach Combo. The latter two options are more useful for the A-boo Peak ghosts (where you may want the broken champagne bottle) or the Hidden City spirits (where you may want the half-size scalpel for the doctor spirit). An elemental attack familiar is also an option.
• Triple-Sized Heated Up scaling fights, such as in The Neverending Party, are a quick and easy way to finish the flyer quest.
• If you save a way to make a combat free, such as a Neverending Party, an Eldritch Tentacle fight or a banish, you can Juggle Fireballs for the tower stat test.
• Consider fighting the ghost of Elizabeth Spookyraven in the Lights Out Quest for bonus elemental damage for the tower elemental damage test.

Miscellaneous

• You have some options for combat manipulation. As you'll have fewer turns available to you than in a standard path, make sure you use all options available:
  • For banishes, you have level 3 Ultra Smash which is non-free, but Reflex Hammer, Throw Latte and Use the Force are all free, with the former two burning delay. CHEAT CODE: Replace Enemy will replace the current monster. You can use the Red-Nosed Snapper to get human musk by hunting dudes, for example, 10 in The Neverending Party and one other somewhere else.
  • For monster hunting, you can use the Red-Nosed Snapper to hunt phyla you haven't yet encountered, such as constructs in The Haunted Wine Cellar and Boiler Room, dudes in the Palindome and beasts in Whitey's Grove. You can use the Pocket Professor to duplicate monsters you want more of, such as modern zombies, giant swarms of ghuol whelps, ninja snowman assassins, lobsterfrogmen, red butlers and Palindome dudes. If you lack the needed IOTMs, you can still use the Nosy Nose.
• You have relatively fewer sources of ML available to you, so you may struggle to get enough for oil cartels, drunken rat kings or the unstable fulminate. Identified sources are:
  • Citronella Armpits, from The Neverending Party (30)
  • tinsel tights (25)
  • astral belt (20)
  • Fourth of May Cosplay Saber upgrade (20)
  • Mush-Maw, from Mushroom tea (20)
  • whittled owl figurine (20)
  • Muddled, from the Boxing Day Spa (15)
  • red letter, from red box (15)
  • Monster Aggravation Device (10-11)
  • Purse Rat (variable)

Ascension Strategy
Rankings:	HC Skills - HC Familiars - HC IotMs
General:	Class selection - Familiar usage - Lucky adventures
Paths:	BHY - Fist - AoB - BI - ZS - AoJ - BIG! - KOLHS - CA2 - AoSP - SS - HR - Picky - Ed - Random - AoWoL - Source - NA - GN - LtA - L.A.R. - PF - G-Lover - DD
Additional Paths:	DG - 2CRS - KoE - PotP - LKS - GG - Y,Robot - QT - WF - GY - JM - FotD
IotMs:	Tomes - Faxing - Copying - YR - Garden - Correspondent - Workshed - Tea party - Florist