Talk:Normal hobo

Miscellaneous

Any idea what kind of drop rates these items drop at? --Lemon-claw 20:54, 19 June 2008 (CDT)

I think these things have some fashion of scaling mechanic, but it doesn't seem to be the usual scaling mechanic. I'm a level 14 sauceror with 208 HP, and I'm taking about 38-50 damage when one of these guys hit me (not accounting for my equipment and buffs). A clanmate who is a level 40-something AT with 2088 HP is taking around 200 damage per hit (not accounting for his equipment and buffs; I believe I'm wearing better equipment than him, actually). He also gets hit every time they get a chance to attack. Both of us seem to need no more than about 400-500 damage to kill the hobo, though. They might have a mechanic like Lord Spookyraven. --Flargen 14:09, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

That's what I thought at first. What I now think is going on is that they (and hobos elsewhere) have "special moves" (for lack of a better term) that don't check or are less affected by Moxie or DA. Right now, for example, I may see the same normal hobo do 20-odd damage in one turn and 70-odd damage the next. I think I've similarly consistently seen two (or even three?) damage ranges throughout my spading, once I got serious absorption going. --Nahtmmm 16:22, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

Furthermore, they aren't affected by defensive Saucespheres when dealing high-range damage ("special moves").--Nahtmmm 18:54, 21 June 2008 (CDT)

Not every way of killing them with 500+ damage will net a hobo-part. Using Weapon of the Pastalord and doing 300 normal and 300 sleaze damage, and thus totaling 600 damage was still netting me nickels rather than parts. --Valliant 15:18, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

When I was doing 499 damage with blowouts, I didn't get skins. Once I got 1 more Moxie point and did 500 damage, they left skins.--Larryboy 11:42, 14 July 2008 (CDT)

It has to be 500 of one type. You needed to do 500+ normal, or 500+ sleaze. Try using elemental forms, instead. I don't know what happens if you do 500+ of two types of damage. Should be testable with a high-level pastalord or something like a cursed voodoo skull. --Flargen 16:15, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

Just to reiterate: The hobo parts will drop when you deal 500 damage of a single element, including physical, to the hobo. The only thing about a "final hit" that matters is the damage dealt during that hit in relation to the damage dealt during the rest of the fight. If you dealt 400 physical damage to a hobo, and then killed him with one single spell for 400 hot damage, you would not get a part. --Southwest 00:03, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

Except I have a 100% success rate of getting a part when doing about 380 damage. --Flargen 00:15, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

Oh, I see what you mean I think; must've read your comment too quickly. 500 TOTAL damage, not simply 500 on the last hit, right? Okay, then I'm doing over 500 of a single type in the above scenario. --Flargen 00:16, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

Nope, 500 on one hit. Are you sure you're dealing only 380? Killerrabbit

No, it does not have to be on one hit. I consistently earned hobo pieces by doing a two-shot of Cannelloni Cannon and Stuffed Mortar Shell, the first doing 200-something damage and the second 300-something. Never did I attack and deal 500 or more damage in one hit, yet I was consistently earning hobo pieces. It's 500 cumulative damage of a single element, and the amount of hits means nothing. At least, that's what my data indicates. --Southwest 19:25, 22 June 2008 (CDT)

I suspect altering monster level affects whether a hobo piece will drop. I'm killing hobos with one hit, causing just over 500 physical damage (504, 511, 524, 542) with LTS and hobo parts aren't dropping. My current, completely unfounded guess, is that this flexibility in the line between hobo-parts-dropping and not-dropping is related to the +50 ML I have. Has anyone else experienced this? MelonCollie 00:52, 23 June 2008 (CDT)

Yes, I've experienced this, and with a mere +10 ML (from a radio). My saucegeyer does over 500 damage all the time; just did 508 on the first round and no body part, and then 513 to another hobo also with no body part. The actual cross-over is probably some fixed amount above their base HP (and it looks like it might including HP variance). --Flargen 23:48, 27 June 2008 (CDT)

At +89 ML, 550 elemental won't do. Doing cannon then weapon will take care of it.--Circaea 00:58, 5 July 2008 (CDT)

ML definitely does affect part drops. I'm running +82 ML, and generally one-shotting the hobos for around 550 damage; however, some combats my Doppelshifter will turn into a combat familiar and attack as well as using its pumpkin bucket, and that seems to only result in a skin when both attacks are physical and when the total damage is above a certain threshold. To clarify: I just skinned a hobo with a total of about 590 damage, and then shortly thereafter failed to skin one with a total of 575 - which doesn't necessarily prove that there's a 1-to-1 correspondence between +ML and the skinning threshold, but it certainly strongly suggests it. --Id 14:35, 29 July 2008 (CDT)

I just got a hobo part doing 498 damage with Moxious Maneuver, with no ML modifiers.--Larryboy 18:53, 28 July 2008 (CDT)

I have no ML modifiers in play and I'm consistently getting no parts at 502 damage, but parts at 504 damage. I haven't been fortunate enough to do 503 damage yet, but it seems like 500 is not a hard and fast rule.--Ehsteve 23:35, 25 August 2008 (CDT)

My attacks aren't even doing 300 damage, no +/- ML modifiers either way, and I don't think I'm yet to have have picked up a scarehobo part. this threshold of 500 just isn't right :/ Monsieur 21:21, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Nickels

So, any theories on nickel drops? To me it seems like I get a nickel only if I kill the hobo with less than about 30 extra damage. Just the opposite of getting the hobo parts: minimal damage. Does this match other people's observations? --Club (#66669) (Talk) 16:35, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

Not sure about that. I'm a sauceror and my usual tactic is wave+geyser, which do about 190 and 380 each, respectively, which is more than the 30 extra. I did get some nickels, though not terribly many. I seem to be getting more nickles from hot hobos with the same tactic, but I've also fought like 4x as many hot hobos as normal hobos. --Flargen 17:07, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

I also noticed more nickels from the Hot Hobos, but that might have been because I was farming for body parts. --Raijinili 23:00, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

Could it be related to how many people are or have adventured in Hobopolis? --hornedturtle 12:51, 21 June 2008 (CDT)

• I've got four active members in my clan, and for the first three days I was in Hobopolis, the others weren't. The handy log showed me that. Whatever I was seeing last week, it was just me in there. Two other members have since finished the sewers. --Club (#66669) (Talk) 13:16, 23 June 2008 (CDT)

I almost never get nickels when I one-shoot normal hobos with fearful fettucini, consistently dealing 450-510 spooky damage (I almost never get them to drop skulls, either). However, when I started killing them in 2 shots of mortar shell, they started dropping nickels far more often. Running the same +item in both scenarios. I bet nickel drop has something to do with that.--Pepeson 23:25, 4 July 2008 (CDT)

Thinking back, the fact that I got less nickels by one-shotting the hobos is most likely pure luck. My sample size was way too small to be conclusive. Please ignore my previous comment.--Pepeson 11:29, 6 July 2008 (CDT)

Yeah, I'm getting plenty when one-shotting them; and, tellingly, I seem to be getting a lot more nickels on this run, when I'm pushing my +item% as high as possible, than I was last run, when my equipment and buffs were focused more on combat. --Id 14:30, 29 July 2008 (CDT)

I'm finding it much more likely to get nickles when overkilling by less than 10, though I'm also observing hp of closer to 400 than 380. Running no ML. Anyway, perhaps the chance of getting a nickle is inversely proportional to the amount of overkill? Just a guess to be verified. Possibly. Morgoth1145 15:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Names

Are these connected to the names is Areas of my Expertise? Killerrabbit 16:56, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

different hobo types

• Should we really have all of these hobos on the same page? If they have different drops/messages then in the past we have created multiple pages called "Normal Hobo" and then listed messages and drops accordingly.--SomeStranger ^(t|c) 13:12, 21 June 2008 (CDT)
• I just got a Cup of infinite pencils from a hobo that was only carrying a bag (nhobo18.gif) so it might be an idea to get a better idea of how their drops work before splitting them up. --Saldon 02:38, 22 June 2008 (CDT)
• I got a Panhandle panhandling hat from a hobo with no hat, stubble, a beer, and a cigar (nhobo5.gif). Since there are hobo images with pans for hats, and given Saldon's results, perhaps the drops aren't related to the images. Edited to add: I also received a cup of infinite pencils (yay!) from nhobo11.gif, who isn't carrying any pencils in the picture. Whatever the drop mechanic for these items, it's pretty clearly not related to what the hobos are holding in the pictures.--Uknowforkids 10:51, 25 June 2008 (CDT)

Pickpocketing?

Has anyone managed to pickpocket an item off a normal hobo? I had pickpocket set as my auto-attack for several dozen hobos, got nothing, decided that was just giving the hobos a free shot at me, and changed tactics to concentrate on building scarehobos. Since it seems that getting hobo bits and hobo loot are mutually exclusive, I doubt that pickpocketing would be allowed, but it isn't as if I've done exhaustive research.--Noskilz 23:04, 21 June 2008 (CDT)

I've also quit trying to Pickpocket after no successes. --Raijinili 00:33, 22 June 2008 (CDT)

On the radio, Jick confirmed they purposefully do not allow nickels to be pickpocketed. Don't know about the other items. --Prestige 06:04, 22 June 2008 (CDT)

My VMask's Revolucion message is failing (displaying the message, not giving an item drop, and then replacing with another VMask action) against stench hobos; I suspect pickpocketability is turned off in Hobopolis. --Bagatelle 21:16, 26 June 2008 (CDT)

I quit trying to pickpocket after 100 non-sucessful turns trying. I don't think you can pickpocket them for the items that are not nickels. --Dadaca 08:51, 5 July 2008 (CDT)

Messages

the primary criteria I used for separating out the special hits was a) no sound effects and b) happen regardless of moxie level. Some messages previously categorized as misses were special attacks that cause damage; others had sound effects listed as that weren't showing up.--Foggy 11:24, 3 July 2008 (CDT)

Moxie level needed?

I'm at 277 and still getting one-shotted by these things (about 200 HP) put on serum of sarcasm to bump me up to 400+ moxie and still got nailed in one shot... any ideas on what level there is, the commonness of the special hits and how to mitigate those? Seraphian 16:10, 3 July 2008 (CDT)

• I would have guessed around 400 ML. Someone in chat claimed to not be getting "hit" at 300. As far as the special attacks go, I have no idea how frequent they are but they seem to happen often. Since the central hobos are not elemental, you want some combination of more HPs and more DA. Try using a buffbot for Reptilian Fortitude and the two Shells (Astral and ..spectral?). Gear that maximises DA and HPs without sacrificing your ability to kill the Hobos will help too. Bakapyrite 19:55, 3 July 2008 (CDT)
• I'd contest that 300 figure. I'm still getting whomped with a buffed moxie of 454, granted I am running +5 ML. --Camperdave 21:19, 7 August 2008 (CDT)
• I just got 1 shot multiple fights in a row with 500 moxie, so either their attack is very very high, or their attack is somehow influenced by the player's current level (currently L15). That could account for the discrepancies that people are reporting for no-hit figures. What level were you when you were getting hit with 400 moxie? --Iniquitous 07:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • For that matter, I then tried fighting them with 1000 moxie and was still getting hit regularly. --Iniquitous 07:41, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Further observation shows that there is no damage difference between the two, and little difference in hit regularity. Thus while their attack is probably somewhere around 300 it seems as though that has no effect on how often they actually hit. Also interesting to note is that the handling of damage is different between their normal attacks and their criticals. With a noticeable but uncalculated amount of DA and DR I was getting hit normally for around 160 and crit for 24-27 or so. I assume that this implies there is a bug in the coding for their damage, but which way is correct is indeterminable. --Iniquitous 08:41, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • There are two things the hobos can do. They can attack normally, or they can invoke a special attack. The normal attacks *can* be dodged as normal by Moxie, but the special attacks cannot. The special attacks also hit much harder. DA and DR do seem to lower the amount of damage dealt by the special attacks, however. The bottom line: moxie is not the stat you want to focus on while fighting hobos. To expand upon the advice of my previous response to this section, you want to boost DA, DR, HPs, perhaps combat initiative, and use some combination of stunning techniques and as much damage as you can deal in as few turns as possible. Bakapyrite 16:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Yeah, the strategy that I was having the most luck with as a L15 mox class was making sure to have enough HP to take a hit or two, a bunch of +initiative, and as much mox as possible to get in a 1 or 2 shot moxious manuever kill. As far as DA is concerned (and possibly DR), except on the special attacks, I saw little if any difference in the amount I was hit for. For the most part you're better off not worrying about them IMHO. --Iniquitous 18:58, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Spading

Someone else is probably doing this better than me, but in 225 adv I got 96 nickels with peeled eyeballs, phat loot, heart of lavender, and a 43-lb flaming gravy. I also got 1 cup of pencils, 1 lucky bottlecap, 1 frayed rope belt, and 1 "Will Work for Booze" sign. Better numbers: 460 adv, 219 nickels, 211.33% item boosts, 15.30% observed drop rate. Other drops: 3 cup of pencils, 2 frayed rope belt, 2 lucky bottlecap, and 1 WILL WORK FOR BOOZE sign. --Killerrabbit 09:53, 14 July 2008 (CDT)

They ARE different monsters

The page should indeed be separated for different hobos with different pictures. An argument is that i've used harold's bell on hobo with nhobo1.gif and didn't encounter that picture for long since. If a lot of such tests would succeed it would mean they are different monsters --Hrag 16:48, 17 July 2008 (CDT)

• I don't know about that. I've used a divine champagne popper on a hobo once and the very next turn I got a hobo with the exact same name; I believe it had the same image, too, but I wasn't keeping close track of that. I can test with creepy grin tomorrow. --Flargen 16:54, 17 July 2008 (CDT)
  • Strangely, it seems to be a game feature that, if you scare away a hobo, the very next hobo will have the exact same name. This has happened to me many times in a row. Apparently the game stores the hobo name it generates and doesn't try to roll up another hobo name until you've killed one with the current name. Also, there are 18 possible images for hobos. A streak of 30 adventures without seeing the same one again is actually pretty likely. --Flargen 00:14, 18 July 2008 (CDT)
    • For reference, Jick stated on a radio show that the hobo name (and presumably the image as well) is randomly generated using your total turn count as the seed - if you scare away a monster or otherwise escape without using an adventure, your turn count will be unchanged so it'll generate the same name next time. --Quietust (t|c) 19:15, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Multiple drops

I just received a hobo nickel, lucky bottlecap, and corncob pipe from a single hobo. First time I've received two non-nickel drops at once; I had previously suspected that would never happen. Wrong again. --Baltar 18:04, 14 August 2008 (CDT)

Element alignment

I'm a lvl 14 pasta, and I just noticed that I've been dealing about double damage when using cold spells. (I noticed because I switched to spooky to get some skulls and dealt half what I was doing.) Anyone else notice this? I can try to spade it more tomorrow. Alphacow 17:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

• I've been hoboing for weeks and haven't noticed this. Are you wearing +absolute cold damage enchantments and a bonus% multiplier? Depending on the damage range, that would explain observed doubling. --Bagatelle 22:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I can support Alpha on this - sorry for the length of the post.

• Cold Outfit
• Voodoo Mask
• Demonskin Jacket
• Staff of Walk-In
• Hobo Code Binder
• Hippy Skirt
• Ice-cold Necklace
• Navel Ring
• Ankh

Running Spirit of Peppermint so everything is cold Doing ~430 damage with Canelloni Cannon

Hot Outfit Same as above, except staff is Greasefire, necklace is fire, and Spirit of Cayenne is on. Doing ~360 damage with Canelloni Cannon Something seems off to me.--Tzgunter 00:32, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• You might want to use the staff of the GreaseTRAP. Greasefire is simply not as good.--Tamergrue 01:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

"Special" Attacks

I've noticed that the special attacks the hobos do (the ones that deal more damage, and ignore saucespheres and Moxie) seem to do different amounts of damage depending on the equipment I'm wearing. I haven't worked out the exact mechanic yet, but my theory is that it's tied to damage absorption. For instance, I noticed the attacks did more damage when I had the Bronze Breastplate equipped (+20 absorption and 8 reduction), but I saw no noticeable difference when I equipped items with Damage reduction. The increase seemed to be directly proportional, too. In other words, Damage Absorption seems to increase damage from those attacks, and Damage Reduction doesn't seem to have any effect. Can anyone confirm or deny? --Olaf the Hungry 08:02, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I can deny, I was just down there, read this, and then de-equiped pants and shirt, decreaseing my DA by 345 (it was the Grungy flannel shirt and the Ducttape Dockers. I also took off my CyborgStompinBoot and put on tap shoes to replace the shirt's moxie bonus. The next Hobo I fought did nearly twice as much damage on his special attacks. Either the DR was having a Huge effect (bigger then normal) or the DA was decreseing damage as normal.

I have been spading the frequency of special attacks, i killed 1500 hobos recording each time they used theit special attack vs their regular, i got 5128 special vs 3381 regular. do you think its a constant rate or it is based on your moxie ( more moxie = more specials)Hoover 13:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Hobo Health?

I just used a normal attack against a normal hobo. It did 330 damage, with +60 cold damage, and it didn't die. Has anyone else encountered this?

Update: Did 343 damage to a normal hobo with the +60 cold damage and that was enough to kill it. I think it could be 400 health.

Did a quick battle with spices, health appears to be 404. --TheAmishPastafoo 16:53, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

After a few more battles, I've found that the health does not appear to be constant. That, or spices have some weird effect on health. I've gotten 404, 402, and 398 as health values.--TheAmishPastafoo 17:02, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Health is X ± 5. So, assuming you're running no +ML, this gives a range of 399-403, making 400 the most likely value. Considering hobos are definitely overkilled at 505 at the lowest to my knowledge, this would be a convenient 100 extra damage.--Ryo_Sangnoir 17:14, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

yellow ray

... revealed only a hobo nickel. so that makes all the stuff guys have... conditional? --Hrag 21:10, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• Nothing in hobopolis can be pickpocketed, so nothing will be guaranteed from a yellow ray. --Flargen 21:12, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
  • i wonder if it's an on-purpose non-pickpocketable or is there some real condition?.. --Hrag 19:52, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
    • It's all conditional because of the overkill no-drops situation, I bet. --Club (#66669) (Talk) 19:38, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
      • That's correct for the normal hobo, but not really for the elemental hobos. --Flargen 21:14, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Does +item drops help?

Anyone know if running plus item drops affects the chance of obtaining any of the normal hobo items?

it definitely helps with nickels and i don't see a reason it would not do it with other stuff... --Hrag 20:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Pieces of Hobos

I believe i know the formula! after approximating and then spading, i believe that the formula equals: BodyPartDropsIf:Damage=125% of HoboHealth. with 0 ML, parts drop when damage is >500. with +10 ML, you need ~ 515 damage. more spading is still required.--The ErosionSeeker 19:52, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Statistics

Item Bonus	Encountered	'WILL WORK FOR BOOZE' signs	corncob pipes	cups of infinite pencils	frayed rope belts	hobo nickels	lucky bottlecaps	sets of Mr. Joe's bangles	panhandle panhandling hats	rusty pieces of rebar
+350.4456% (wh 48)	399	3	1	3	3	247	3	1	3	0
+426.7361%	230	1	0	2	1	186	3	2	1	0
+345.8715% (wh 45)	316	3	1	1	1	224	1	2	2	4
+409.4404% (wh 40)	236	1	1	4	2	188	0	1	3	2
+390.1214% (wh 43)	284	3	0	2	0	197	0	3	0	4
+385.7361%	265	0	0	4	1	191	1	4	2	1
observed rates (error)		.001347 (.000405)	.000370 (.000214)	.001896 (.000472)	.000968 (.000342)	.1481 (.0023)	.000961 (.000339)	.001548 (.000428)	.001329 (.000400)	.001332 (.000400)

• The pipe data is a little anomalous, but with 8 essentially identical probabilities being observed I guess that's not terribly unlikely. Combined the non-nickels have a drop rate of about .12% with a standard error less than .014%. Except for at the first two item drop bonuses, I also have the data broken down by image. No apparent image dependency observed. --Flargen 19:57, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Uh, I didn't find this on the wiki, so I'm posting it here. I'm experimenting and finding the approximate rate at which hoboes use special attacks or normal ones. I'm GUESSING it's 50-50, but I thought I'd spade it.

Special: lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll llIII IIIII IIIII IIIII 65 Regular: lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll llllI IIIII II 42 Fumble: llllI I 6 Critical: l 1+

Yeah. So special attacks occur slightly more frequently than regular attacks. I think? Needs more research.

In total: About 57.02% of attacks will be special annoying attacks. About 36.84% of attacks will be regular attacks that will probably miss I'm not sure how fumbles and crits factor into that so I'm leaving it out.