View source for User:Vernatio

NOTE: I am working on revamping the Hardcore ascension guide. Items that still need to be worked on (Unchanged from the original) are marked with a strikethrough. Feel free to shoot me a kmail in game if you have something to add or improve!


Hey, you! Are you new to ascending? Do you want to know how to ascend in hardcore, but not have it take several weeks? That's why we're here! This guide is intended for those who are starting [[Standard]] [[hardcore]] ascension, with an assumption on our part that the player lacks the copious amounts of Items of the Months and skill perms that the average speedster does. With some hard work, and studying up on the latest strategies, you, too, can ascend with the best!


===Familiars you should own===

====Stat gaining familiars====

Stats are incredibly important during an ascension. Why? It's not immediately apparent, but it's very helpful in ascension to have multiple tasks that one can work on at the same time (Like farming for items while also progressing a quest in the same area). New quests and areas are unlocked by progressing through the levels, so by having a higher level, you have a wider selection of tasks that you can mix and match. Not to mention that as you gain more experience ascending, you'll start to find that it's better to skip over some quests entirely, and leave them for later.

* [[Smiling Rat]] or [[Blood-Faced Volleyball]]-- You more than likely have one of these two familiars already, but just in case, here's a summary: These two familiars are the initial representatives of the "Volley" family, named for the Blood-Faced Volleyball, the first of this particular "genre" of familiar. Volleys are notable for giving stats every fight based on their weight. You can find the specific formula on the Blood-Faced Volleyball's page, but if you're not big on numbers, you can safely assume that the heavier the Volley-type familiar, the more stat boosts it gives every fight.
* [[Hovering Sombrero]] -- The Sombrero is the other "class" of stat-gain familiar. Whereas Volley-types give a set amount of bonus stats based on their weight, Sombreros function differently. As you may have noticed, monsters in the kingdom are of varying toughness. While this seems obvious, it's important to note that their strength is tied directly to one of two stats, which can be revealed by an Item of the Month, which will be discussed later. These two stats are Attack and Defense, and Attack is the most notable of the two. Among other things, the Attack stat determines the amount of stats given by a Sombrero-type familiar. While weight does play a part in the calculation, it's safe to say that fighting tough monsters is necessary for substantial stat gains with a Sombrero-type.

In summary, which one you should use depends on the scenario. A Volley-type is great early in the run, when monsters aren't so tough, but later on, you'll want to take your Sombrero out of the terrarium for fighting tougher monsters. This gives both a chance to shine, and a mark of a good ascender is knowing which stat-gain familiar to use in a particular part of the ascension.
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====Item drop familiars====

Many quests require that you get item drops from monsters, so you should always use a familiar that improves item drop chances when you need an item to drop. Note that item drop familiars are very powerful and will be the single largest source of item drop modifiers for players without items of the month.

* [[Baby Gravy Fairy]] is the most basic option. You may also have one of the five elemental gravy fairies from the [[Degrassi Knoll#Friendly|friendly Degrassi Knoll]] if you've previously ascended. These also attack in combat. Note that the [[Sleazy Gravy Fairy]] is the best of the bunch due to getting her familiar equipment from [[The Sleazy Back Alley]].
* [[Gelatinous Cubeling]] costs 27 tokens at the [[A Vending Machine|vending machine]] in [[The Dungeoneers' Association]], and requires a moderate effort to obtain. The cubeling is a fairy and delevels enemies at the start of combat, which helps survivability. Further, it drops items that save turns in [[The Daily Dungeon]].
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====Meat drop familiars====

Familiars that increase meat drops have a little bit less use in an ascension context, but they still are incredibly useful when needed! Unlike the others, there is only one practical meat drop familiar for a newbie, and it's the...

* [[Leprechaun]] -- Leprechauns are, just like the Baby Gravy Fairy and Blood-Faced Volleyball, the familiar that first displayed the mechanic it's known for, and as such, familiars that increase meat drops are known as Leprechauns. There are plenty of other familiars out there that increase meat drops, but they all have the same formula as the Leprechaun, which increases meat drops by a percentage derived from its weight. They have a handful of uses throughout an ascension, but there are three places where they are the most potent, and for the last two, virtually required:
The Boss Bat Chamber: Beefy Bodyguard Bats drop quite a bit of meat, and since the Leprechaun increases meat drops by a percentage, this makes the Bat Hole an amazing source of meat, early in an ascension. You'll generally fight around four or five bats before you square off against the Boss Bat and close the cavern forever, and if your Leprechaun is heavy enough, you can get upwards of 3,000 meat from them!
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====Other useful familiars====

* When you really need more MP, the [[Star Starfish]] is quite useful to adventure with for a few turns.
* The [[Exotic Parrot]] will give you elemental resistance and is bought from [[The Black Market]] for 500,000 meat. Resistance helps in a few areas, including speeding up the [[Orc Chasm Quest]] (when using an [[A-Boo clue]] or passing the stench test in [[Lost in the Great Overlook Lodge]]) and surviving [[Lord Spookyraven]]'s initial attack. It can also let you gain stats from [[The Daily Dungeon|Daily Dungeon]] tests.

===Decisions to make in Valhalla===

====Perming skills====

See [[Hardcore Skill Analysis]].

====Astral consumables====

For a measly 1 Karma you can buy a set of turn-generating astral consumables, which is totally worth it. But you can only take one, so which one? Note that the stats and adventures gained by using these scale with your level (levels 1-3 are the same and they stop improving at level 11). For the most part, you should put off using them until level 10 and above for the largest benefit.

* [[astral hotdog]]s, you get three of these and each uses 3 fullness. The hotdogs give the lowest adventure gains but give the largest stats, and eating one straight away after ascending will immediately take you almost all the way to level 3. As such, if you're going to struggle to level up quickly early on (especially true before you have [[Amphibian Sympathy]] permed) then taking these and eating a single one straight away can do a lot for reaching important early milestones. Save the other two for later though.
* [[astral pilsner]]s, you get 6 of these and each uses 1 drunkenness. The stat gain from these is minor but the adventure gains are huge. Their low drunkenness requirement makes them easy to fit around your regular drinks too.
* [[astral energy drink]]s, you get 3 of these and each uses 8 spleen. If you have no way of gaining adventures from your spleen, then these are the best choice for pure adventure gain as they don't replace anything else. You can usually only eat one per day so you may want to use your first one at level 10 if you're somewhat speedy. Note that Turtle Tamers with no healing skill permed get a lot of use out of [[Medicinal Herb's medicinal herbs]], so you can end up struggling for healing if you take these and aren't careful.

====Astral equipment====

For 10 Karma you get to start with a piece of equipment, which is also totally worth it, but again you can only take one. Some are also locked during your first ascensions.

* The [[astral belt]] is best for pure speed but only when you have enough skills to reliably handle lots of monster level, which might take a while. It's also locked until you've ascended as each class.
* The [[astral shirt]] is fantastic for an easy and quick ascension, but requires that you've permed [[Torso Awaregness]], which is not high priority.

So assuming you can't or don't want to take one of the above, what else is best? Bear in mind that the level 12 quest and the pirate's cove take up your hat and pants slot, and each class can easily get their Epic Weapon in-run, so equipment that don't use these slots have an advantage.

* For muscle classes, the [[astral shield]] is superior to the rest due to the huge survivability boost it provides (+15 damage reduction and HP regen!). The humongous muscle boost will likely let you deal extra damage too.
* For mysticality classes, the adventure gains from the [[astral bracer]] or [[astral statuette]] (initially locked) are probably the most useful enchantments for low-skill runs.
* For moxie classes, pretty much any of the +moxie equipment is very useful, but the [[astral shorts]] can't be used in the level 12 quest where the moxie boost is most useful. The item drop improvement from the [[astral mask]] is really nice but it is initially locked. The extra weapon damage from the [[astral longbow]] or [[astral pistol]] is very useful to make plinking more manageable, and despite being two-handed, the extra meat from the longbow is always handy.

====Moon sign====

There are 9 [[moon sign]]s but you can group them into 3 main groups depending on the area they unlock, which will be your main consideration, the benefits of each listed below. You will always want to choose a sign that gives you +10% to your mainstat regardless of the other enchantments as it will speed you up by a considerable amount.

* [[Degrassi Knoll#Friendly|Friendly Degrassi Knoll]] is widely regarded as the most useful area. It allows you to easily and cheaply make your meatcar and a meat maid, it lets you smith your Epic Weapon without spending a turn or buying a hammer, you can use the annoyance device straight away but have to buy it first (costs a paltry 300 meat which you can sell a pork gem to get), it lets you bypass needing a bugbear outfit to buy wads of dough and pie tins, it lets you pass one of the tests for [[Orcish Frat House blueprints]] easily, and finally you can get easy mushrooms for reagent pasta if you have meat to burn (5,000 for a mushroom plot) and the relevant skills, of course.
* [[Little Canadia]] is widely regarded as the least useful area. The annoyance device is free and instantly accessible and it has a food store that lets you eat food immediately, but basic fruit pies are slightly better. You can also smith jewelery but it's extremely expensive and not all that useful. It takes 3 turns to craft jewelery as a further kick in the balls.
* [[The Gnomish Gnomads' Camp]] requires that you gain access to the desert beach before you can access it, however it has a booze shop which makes drinking easier for those without cocktail crafting and you can buy some nice passive skills for 5,000 meat. It also sells all of the items you might need for the second gate of the Naughty Sorceress's Lair. The lack of immediate access to this area is a big blow. Still a worthwhile consideration for very low skill ascensions.

===Challenge paths===
Some [[special challenge path]]s that introduce a new class ([[Avatar of Boris]], [[Avatar of Jarlsberg]], and [[Zombie Slayer]]) can be faster and easier than hardcore no-path for players with few permed skills. By doing hardcore ascensions with one of these paths, you can build up skill points for that challenge path class while also earning karma used to perm skills from the six standard classes.

Keep in mind that some of the better astral items in [[Pet Heaven]] are unlocked by ascending with normal classes, so you should not neglect them entirely.

Note that strategy for these paths is significantly different from that of no-path; see the strategy pages linked on each challenge path page for more information.

==Turn generation==

Perhaps the primary concern in a hardcore ascension is how to best generate more turns, as you can't just pull nice consumables from storage. While a [[meat maid]] is useful, eating and drinking is where most of your turns are going to come from and you'll want to sort out some sort of regular source of food and booze as soon as possible. In order to both unlock sources and to hit consumption level requirements, leveling up very quickly early on is usually the best option. For now, lets look at where you can get adventures from:

===Food===

If you have access to [[pastamastery]], then your options are greatly simplified. A [[tomato]] from [[The Haunted Pantry]] will give you [[boring spaghetti]] on your first day, and from level 4 onwards you can get [[painful penne pasta]] really easily by buying a [[jabañero pepper]] from the hermitage, which will cost 150 meat (or a bit more early on before you can get a trinket from every piece of gum). Pastamancers can get a spice ghost from [[The Haunted Kitchen]]. This gives them easy access to [[spices]] which are used for [[lo mein]]. [[Olive lo mein]] is very easy and cheap once [[The Hippy Store]] is open and those willing to shell out for a mushroom plot can get the better lo mein. Combined with [[Advanced Saucecrafting]] for reagent pasta (another good use for the mushroom plot) you can send your adventure gains through the roof as any class.

Without access to [[pastamastery]] your options are worse and a bit harder to get.
* Basic fruit pies are the staple but require fruits from [[The Hippy Store]] and pie tins and dough from [[The Bugbear Bakery]] or [[the Degrassi Knoll Bakery and Hardware Store]] before you can make them regularly. This makes rushing to unlock the island and get a hippy outfit a high priority.
* [[White Citadel]] sells burgers which get better the more of them you eat, the counter for this does not reset on ascension either! Unfortunately you have to eat a whole bunch before the average adventure gain is better than fruit pies. You also have to complete the quest to unlock White Citadel which opens in the middle of level 6. You'll likely perm [[pastamastery]] eventually and stop using this, and you'll want early hippy store access for fruits to make booze anyway, but it can be a nice way to get adventure gains during your first few ascensions if you're willing to put in the preparation. The counter doesn't carry across to [[Bad Moon]] though, so it's not really an option there.
* [[Enchanted bean burrito]]s. This requires access to wads of dough and an [[enchanted bean]] from the [[Beanbat Chamber]] which have a 50% base drop rate making it easy to get them in a single turn. The adventure gains are similar to fruit pies but cost one adventure to get the bean. If you happen across any [[spices]] (which is unlikely except as a pastamancer), you can easily upgrade them to an [[Insanely spicy enchanted bean burrito]] for big adventure gains and a free combat skill! Note that there are other bean burritos, but it's far harder to get the respective beans.
* [[The Haunted Kitchen]], seriously. So the food is crap but it has a reasonable drop rate, making this a nice way to earn adventures and level up on day 1 if you're really struggling to get anywhere fast. Low skill myst classes want to be here anyway for the [[shiny butcherknife]].
* [[Mugcake]]s and [[fortune cookie]]s can be bought at any time for 20 or 40 meat, giving 1 adventure for 1 fullness. Only worthwhile as a last resort, as 1 adventure is better than none!
* Don't forget the [[Grue egg omelette]]! You'll need a [[spooky mushroom]] though, [[The Spooky Forest]] is probably the quickest place to get one if you aren't planning on buying a mushroom plot.

Note that at level 12 if you clear the filthworms as a hippy then the new fruits in the hippy store make better pies that give very good adventure gains.

===Booze===

Once again [[The Hippy Store]] is where it's at, this time necessary for the best booze with or without [[Advanced Cocktailcrafting]], as cocktailcrafting just improves upon the basic mixed booze. Unfortunately you can't buy the other ingredient, base bottles of booze, until you clear the filthworms as a frat during level 12, so getting good booze is always going to require adventuring for ingredients. You can find base booze in the following places:
* The pirates cove will get you a ton of rum when doing the quest, so it can be worth using an item-drop familiar during [[Barrrney's Barrr]].
* [[Booze Giant]]s in [[Menagerie Level 3]] are the best way to farm up booze bottles, but you have to get the menagerie key and spend turns farming up ingredients, which sucks.
* [[Drunk goat]]s are great as you encounter them during level 8 in an area you want item drops anyway, and you can also get milk for [[milk of magnesium]] and spare cheese for reagent pasta while you're there.
* [[The Fun House]] is a pretty poor source as there are a lot of other combats, but you might get some when getting a box.
* [[A Barroom Brawl]] is a great early source of booze, some of it even comes pre-mixed! You might want to be here for [[beer lens]]es anyway.

If you don't have any base booze, then you can use [[fermenting powder]] to make shots, but these are expensive as they cost about 140 meat per drunkenness.

Before unlocking the hippy store, you can use the aforementioned barroom brawl or [[The Barrel full of Barrels]]. Note that the barrels are very swingy, but somewhat predictable in where the booze appears so it can be an option for day 1. Finally there's [[Bart Ender]] as your last resort option.

==General strategy==

The following advice doesn't deserve its own section but is still important. Perhaps some of the most important advice.

* Use a stat gain familiar unless you really really need an item drop, such as for a quest. A meat drop familiar against [[beefy bodyguard bat]]s and in [[The Themthar Hills]] is also worthwhile.
* [[Ten-leaf clover]]s. Don't underestimate how useful these are. The Hermit will have at least one available each day so make sure you collect them. Don't forget that you are guaranteed to get items you don't have from a [[chewing gum on a string]], so don't autosell the starting equipment. Here are some of the best uses:
** 2 [[sonar-in-a-biscuit]]s or a [[baseball]] from guano junction.
** A [[disembodied brain]] from [[The Ruins of Fernswarthy's Tower]] and a [[smart skull]] from [[The Misspelled Cemetary (Pre-Cyrpt)]]. Note that once The [[Bonerdagon]] is defeated you will get both from a clover at the cemetary.
** A [[big rock]] from [[Lemon Party Slot]] to make an [[Epic Weapon]].
** Major stat gains from your appropriate [[Spookyraven Manor]] levelling zone.
** [[The Black Forest]] for a [[black picnic basket]] if you need a [[black pepper]] for the tower.
** A [[pack of chewing gum]] from [[South of the Border]] if one of the three gates needs gum.
* [[Semi-Rare Adventures]] are very powerful and are definitely worth getting. See the respective page for more information on what they are. The best semi-rares to get in a low skill run are the [[Knob Goblin Elite Guard Captain]] so you can unlock [[The Knob Dispensary]] and the good food and booze from [[The Haunted Pantry]], [[Outskirts of Cobb's Knob]] and [[The Sleazy Back Alley]].
* [[Doc Galaktik's Medicine Show]] will bleed you dry of meat. To save money, unlock [[The Knob Dispensary]] for cheaper MP restore (although [[magical mystery juice]] is cheaper for mysticality classes they should also do this). If you haven't done the Doc's quest (and it usually isn't worth it), then [[Doc Galaktik's Ailment Ointment]] is the cheapest way to buy HP from the Doc.
* [[The Market]] sells very cheap buffing items. [[Hair spray]] is by far the most useful giving +15% moxie and it should be used by all classes often. [[Ben-Gal™ Balm]] is also useful for muscle classes, giving +15% muscle. [[The Knob Dispensary]] sells eyedrops that boost item drops, pet-buffing spray that increases familiar weight and nasal spray that increases meat drops.
* You will need a lot of meat in early hardcore ascensions. Equipping the [[Knob Goblin Elite Guard Uniform]] or [[Knob Goblin Harem Girl Disguise]] and adventuring once per day at the [[Treasury]] will get you a quick boost. You can also get both and get the meat boost from each, but it's likely not worth it. Don't forget about autoselling unneeded items too, it will generate a surprisingly large amount of meat over the course of the ascension. The pork gems received at the start of your ascension are prime autosell fodder.
* If you get [[Beaten Up]], you can burn off the effect by completing low level quests you skipped early on, such as unlocking [[The Hidden Temple]]. Spending turns resting is generally a terrible idea if it can be avoided at all.
* Boosting Monster Level is a great way to earn extra stats from combat, but comes at the expense of making things a whole lot more difficult. It only takes getting Beaten Up once to undo all of the stat gains from boosting monster level, so you are best to err on the side of caution or avoid it completely if you're not sure if you can handle it.
* By setting your annoyance device to certain numbers against early bosses you can get special equipment to drop. Most of this equipment, especially the ones that give +moxie is some of the best equipment you will get during ascension, so make sure to get them! As a Pastamancer you will need some of these drops to make the [[Staff of the Soupbone]], which is a superb weapon if you're looking for an easy time.
* When going through [[The Daily Dungeon]] to get the keys, if you come across an elemental resistance test and don't have any resistance to hand, just do it anyway and eat the damage. Even if you get Beaten Up, you'll still pass it.

==Council quests==

There are some decisions you need to make about how to go about some council quests.

* Level 4 - You need stench resistance to enter guano junction and there are a few choices available.
** Your [[Exotic Parrot]]. Unfortunately you need at least 13lbs of weight to get some stench resistance, so this is likely not an option for low skill ascensions.
** You might luck into a [[bum cheek]] when doing the artist's quest or unlocking your guild as a moxie class, but is not worth farming otherwise.
** A [[Pine-Fresh air freshener]] drops in the [[Entryway]] but has a low drop chance and can take a while. This is likely the best choice for low-skill ascenders.
** The [[Knob Goblin harem veil]] also works, but you have to wait until level 5 and if you're getting the [[Knob Goblin Elite Guard Uniform]] then it's a waste of time.
** Saucerors can buy [[Elemental Saucesphere (skill)|Elemental Saucesphere]].
** The [[dungeoneer's dungarees]] are very swingy to get and a bad idea if you were wondering.
* Level 5 - The [[Knob Goblin Elite Guard Uniform]] is the best outfit path to choose as you can get it all at once via a semi-rare and it also unlocks the dispensary. Unfortunately you will also need to buy a [[Dramatic™ range]] to cook the [[knob cake]] but you'll eventually need one for a [[grue egg omelette]] anyway.
* Level 8 - There are two paths to the Icy Peak. Adventuring in [[The eXtreme Slope]] is easier for players with few permanent skills. The [[eXtreme Cold-Weather Gear]] obtained there provides all the {{element|Cold|Resistance}} needed for the Peak. Taking the shortcut through the [[Lair of the Ninja Snowmen]] is faster, but requires [[Combat Frequency|+combat]] modifiers and other sources of +5 cold resistance, assuming the player doesn't obtain the eXtreme Cold-Weather Gear.
* Level 10 - Some of the giants are very strong, and it can be better to just powerlevel to level 11 first. Many of the monsters in zones unlocked during level 11 are less powerful than the giants and you're likely to need to do some extra leveling to hit level 12 anyway.
* Level 12 - Which side of the war to fight for largely depends on what skills you have. The hippy side is the most attractive for low skill ascensions and the frat side attractive for high skill ascensions.
** [[Sonofa Beach]] should be avoided if you don't have a few +combat modifiers available.
** The arena quest can be cheesed by flyering [[The Guy Made Of Bees]] but this takes a number of turns to prepare and may not be worth it if you start on the hippy side. If you have access to [[Entangling noodles]], then you can avoid getting hit when using flyers, so saving all of the level 11 bosses, the pyramid, the hole in the sky, junkyard, orchard and sonofa beach for flyering is a great way to spend no extra turns specifically for the flyer quest. When beating this quest as a hippy, you will get a +5 to familiar weight buff, useful for the Naughty Sorceress Lair. As a frat, you will get a +meat buff for the nuns quest.
** The Junkyard, Orchard and Nuns are easily doable as all classes. Don't forget to summon the meat demon from the [[Summoning Chamber]] and [[Knob Goblin nasal spray]] when helping the nuns.
** The farm takes a while and is only really worth doing if you start as a hippy. Don't forget to use a [[chaos butterfly]] and get the shortcut!

==Optional stuff==

As a general rule, ask yourself the following question before deciding to adventure anywhere. "Does adventuring here work towards completing a council quest or get me something that generates or saves a significant number of turns?" If the answer is no, then stop. Do you really need to be there? Let's take a look at how worthwhile some of the optional things are:

===The Pretentious Artist Quest===

This is fairly quick and earns a fair amount of meat by trading in [[rat whisker]]s. Worth doing in low-skill ascensions as you'll need the early meat.

===Meat Maid===

Generates 4 turns each day at rollover. If you chose a moon sign that opens up [[Degrassi Knoll#Friendly|friendly Degrassi Knoll]], then the only roadblock is the [[disembodied brain]]. The drop rate is pretty poor so use a clover. This is always worth it for low-skill hardcore runs at it will easily generate more turns than the clover costs, and getting it with a clover from the ruins might be worthwhile if you were planning on powerlevelling at [[A Battlefield|The Cola-Wars Battlefield]]. When choosing other moon signs, it's a bit of a crap shoot as you can potentially spend a very long time in [[Degrassi Knoll]] which is a terrible zone. The odds of the correct Knoll showing up is less than 10%, never mind also needing two items with a 25% base drop rate to drop.

===Chef or Bartender-in-a-Box===

If you have [[Advanced Saucecrafting]], [[Pastamastery]] or [[Advanced Cocktailcrafting]], then getting a chef and/or bartender in a box can save you a significant number of turns. Perming [[Inigo's Incantation of Inspiration (skill)|Inigo's Incantation of Inspiration]] allows you to forgo obtaining one or possibly both, in this case it might be better to forgo the chef unless you got the [[chef's hat]] to drop as [[A Barroom Brawl]] drops lots of nice booze while you're there. Without access to any of the major crafting skills, you will only be spending at most 2 turns on cooking, one on a [[Grue egg omelette]] and possibly one on a [[knob cake]] so it's not worth getting an in-a-box helper. Don't forget you'll need to make your [[Epic Weapon]] to get boxes from [[The "Fun" House]], but it's worth it. See the above section for getting a [[disembodied brain]].

===Liver/Stomach/Spleen of Steel===

Always worth it unless your Hardcore ascensions take you 4 days or less, in which case why are you reading this guide?

===[[The Wizard of Ego]] Quest===

Doing the first part of this quest before you reach level 6 will unlock [[A Battlefield|The Cola-Wars Battlefield]] which is the best place to powerlevel early on and lets you clover the tower ruins early on for a [[disembodied brain]]. Going further and completing the tower ruins part is of questionable worth. If you don't need help leveling up fast before level 5, then the entire quest is probably not worth it.

===The Valley of Rof L'm Fao===
The [[A Quest, LOL|valley quest]] is now optional and unlocks after finishing the [[Orc Chasm Quest]]. You may need to venture here to obtain a [[lowercase N]] for your wand.

===White Citadel===

Unlocking [[The White Citadel]] gets you a [[lucky rabbit's foot]] and access to burgers, as well as Cloaca-colas for cheap MP restore. The [[business hippy]] also has a significantly higher drop rate on the pieces of the hippy outfit, so it's worthwhile to try getting them here if you don't have access to anything that guarantees all item drops (e.g. [[unbearable light]]). Unfortunately the quest takes a long time, so doing the full quest without farming hippy outfit pieces is of questionable worth unless you really need the item drop bonus from the rabbit's foot. [[The Knob Dispensary]] and fruit pies make the reasons to shop here obsolete.

===The Nemesis Questline===

If you need boxes, get your [[Epic Weapon]] to open [[The "Fun" House]], then stop unless it takes so long to get any boxes you need that you've got enough clownosity you need to fight beezlebozo. With the correct choice of astral gear, you won't need the benefits of your [[Legendary Epic Weapon]] or [[Epic Hat]], and the quest line takes a long time and is usually far easier once you've freed the king. Note that if you're only doing it to get the [[Instant Karma]] at the very end of the quest chain, then if it's going to take you an extra day, it's only worthwhile in the long run if your time between ascensions is over 18 days.

==Powerleveling==
Sometimes you need to level up fast, either because you want to unlock stuff fast in the early levels, or because you need more stats to unlock the next council quest. The following section is therefore split into two sections, low-level powerleveling and high-level powerleveling.

===Low-level powerleveling===

This section considers how to gain stats fast for getting to level 6 so you can get your steel organ ASAP.
* Just eat an [[astral hotdog]]. It really is worth eating one straight away if you think you may struggle with early leveling (and if you're not sure, the answer is yes you will).
* [[A Battlefield]] is the best place to powerlevel before level 5 but requires doing the first part of [[The Wizard of Ego]] quest. It also has the benefit of being made out of only non-combats so you don't need combat rate modifiers and also has the chance of getting an ultra rare! At best with the right choices from the non-combats, you will earn on average 10.6 mainstat per adventure. This place closes when you reach level 6. While unlocking this place you might get a [[smart skull]] for an early in-a-box helper or meat maid.
* [[Bottle of used blood]]. If you're willing to spend extra time at [[The Spooky Forest]] then going for these is a good choice. The bad news is needing to get the non-combat twice, once to get the [[wooden stakes]] and again to trade in [[vampire heart]]s. Note that [[vampire bat]]s in [[Guano Junction]] also drop vampire hearts. If you're going to go this route, you should plan on getting the stakes as the first non-combat choice, then concentrate on unlocking the temple and trade in blood at the end. If you need a triffid bounty on day 1, this plan might be a good idea.
* [[Gourd potion]]s are generally not worth it. They work best in the very early levels but you'll be skipping them with a hotdog.

===High-level powerleveling===

[[Spookyraven Manor]] is your best bet here. You want to first work on unlocking the ballroom so you can set the non-combat song. Then you will want to adventure according to your class:
* Muscle classes will need to unlock [[The Haunted Gallery]], then adventure in there.
* Mysticality classes will want to first get the [[antique hand mirror]] from [[The Haunted Bedroom]], then adventure in [[The Haunted Bathroom]].
* Moxie classes will want to use an item-drop familiar and adventure in [[The Haunted Ballroom]], hoping to get [[dance card]]s.

Note that the above three zones (gallery, bathroom, ballroom) all have a clover adventure that gives lots of the respective stat and will be the main use of clovers for the later levels.

If you struggle to survive in those zones, then [[Barrrney's Barrr]] is a great place for moxie classes. The extra base booze you'll get is a further bonus.

==Helpful links==

*[[Hardcore IOTM Analysis]]
*[http://www.noblesse-oblige.org/calendar/ Noblesse Oblige's Kingdom Calendar]
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